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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 054. Some of the Results
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Some of the Results
Then I want you to notice, please, a fourth item in Satan's coming, some of the results. The first was this, voluntary separation by man from God. If you will mark again, please, the separation between God and man did not begin with God. It began with man. God did not go away; man went away. He hid himself behind a tree. That is a very bad use of trees. Trees were never meant for any such use as that of hiding away from God. And ever since man has been hiding from God. God does not go away; man does, The second thing was this, and I wish you might mark this keenly if you will, a second result, moral cowardice. Notice what our splendid first man of the race said. "The woman Thou gavest me! I am not to blame; she is. What did You give me that woman for?" Blaming somebody else. Contemptible cowardice; but he does not stop there, "The woman Thou gavest; Thou art to blame after all; it is all Thy fault."
Moody tells about going to a prison in New York City and having a service, and then going down afterwards to talk with the prisoners one by one, and he said, "I never found such an innocent lot of men in my whole life as in that place. Each man explained that somebody else was to blame." Adam seems to have given birth to a great race of moral cowards. "I am all right. It is her fault! It is his fault. Watch him! Look back here! Keep an eye on that man, I am all right!" Moral Cowards. They are extremely common.
And then a third result I wish you might mark yet more keenly was this—fear. Sin always produces fear, and I wish I had time this evening to talk about this, the fears that affect body and mind. If I could remove from your minds all sense of fear to-night you would go out of this hall made over new in your bodies as we'll as in your mental power. Fear is one of the most slavish results of sin. Adam said, "I was afraid, I was afraid." And he repeated the sentence that is used more times on human lips than any other, I think. "I am afraid! I am afraid! I am afraid." It is so common that we use it when we are not afraid. But the sense of fear is woven into the whole life of the race. And fear always affects the body, intensely and potently and subtly. If I am swayed by a spirit of love and a perfect confidence my body is freer; its functions are discharged more freely; I am stronger physically; and I am clearer mentally. But fear locks up the body. It deprives it of its strength; it affects the mind; it affects the whole nature, body, mind, and spirit. The whole thing began that Eden day.
Now that is the Eden trail. Have you ever seen it down your way? Is it a strange trail to you? If you have seen it, or any part of it, you may know it is by that old Satan serpent. You don't see him; he is under cover; but you see his trail. It is very plain in the Bible. If you will run through the whole Book of God, you see the serpent trail. Satan himself is mentioned only a very few times. I can almost repeat the times, they are so few. But his trail is everywhere.
What about the trail in the book of life? Any trail down your way? Shall I repeat these things? Doubt, with its offspring of misunderstanding, criticism, and violence; lying, unholy ambition, disobedience, impurity, moral cowardice, fear, bodily disorder, mental disorder, the lack of a clear, quiet, sane mind! How about the trail? Because wherever that trail is, in small degree or large, there is evidence of the serpent's presence.
And coming to the close of our quiet talk together, and I wish you might listen very quietly here, if there be any of this sort of thing, any doubt of God, any failure to obey, any moral cowardice, lies of any colour or any size or degree, any sense of fear which means a lack of a quiet faith, any using of a pure holy bodily function in a way not intended, if there be any of these, then you may know that there, hidden away, maybe half out of sight, but allowed his corner, is Satan.
I wonder how many of us are giving the enemy covert and comfort. I suggest that we go into some quiet corner, and breathe the prayer of the Psalmist, "Search me, oh God, and know my heart, and help me know what Thou dost know; try me, and know my thoughts, motives, purposes, loves, innermost, undermost; and help me know what Thou dost know. And lead me to see if there be any way in me that grieves Thee and gives Satan a hold against Thee." And then, if you will, add this bit to your prayer,—"Lead me out of that way, into Thy way, the way everlasting."
And if perchance you are thinking, "Ah! you don't know how tight on my life some of these things are; you don't know how fear can grip, and disobedience grip, and cowardice grip, and other unnamed things, how they can grip." And you say, "How can I put them out?" Well, the last word just now is this, the last word is from the last book of the Bible. Our message was from the beginning of the first book. The last word is near the last of the last book, (Rev_12:11.) "They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb." That is the common reading. But I like the other reading of it: "They overcame him on the ground of the Blood of the Lamb."
I want to tell you this—there is only liberty to-night from every bit of the Eden trail through the Blood of the Lamb; only so; but so. Bodily disorder, bodily weakness, mental disturbance, fear, impurity, doubt, disobedience, moral cowardice, lies, all the rest of it; there is victory over all through the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And while we have been thinking of that precious blood as the entrance into the Christian life, let us remember this, that day by day there is victory for us, and there is freedom for us from every bit of the whole Eden trail, on the ground of the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Shall we go out to-night and see to it that Satan is undercut so far as we are concerned, and that the Lord Jesus Christ may have the use of us as He will in His great outreaching plan for His world?