The Calvary Road Part 1

The Calvary Road.

by Roy Hession and Revel Hession.

INTRODUCTION

By NORMAN P. GRUBB, Hon. Secretary of the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, London

I am sure from my own experience, as well as from what we have seen in the ranks of our Mission these last three years, that what the authors tell us about in these pages is one of G.o.d's vital words to His worldwide church today. For long I had regarded revival only from the angle of some longed for, but very rare, sudden outpouring of the Spirit on a company of people. I felt that there was a missing link somewhere. Knowing of the continuing revival on a certain mission field, and because it was continuing and not merely sudden and pa.s.sing, I long felt that they had a further secret we needed to learn. Then the chance came for heart-to-heart fellows.h.i.+p with them, first through one of our own missionary leaders whose life and ministry had been transformed by a visit to that field, and then through conferences with some of their missionaries on furlough and finally through the privilege of having two of the native brethren living for six months at our headquarters.

From them I learned and saw that revival is first personal and immediate. It is the constant experience of any simplest Christian who "walks in the light," but I saw that walking in the light means an altogether new sensitiveness to sin, a calling things by their proper name of sin, such as pride, hardness, doubt, fear, self-pity, which are often pa.s.sed over as merely human reaction. It means a readiness to "break" and confess at the feet of Him who was broken for us, for the Blood does not cleanse excuses, but always cleanses sin, confessed as sin; then revival is just the daily experience of a soul full of Jesus and running over.

Further, we are beginning to learn, as a company of Christ's witnesses, that the rivers of life to the world do not flow out in their fulness through one man, but through the body, the team. Our brokenness and openness must be two-way, horizontal as well as vertical, with one another as with G.o.d. We are just beginning to experience in our own ranks that team work in the Spirit is one of the keys to revival, and that we have to learn and practice the laws of a living fellows.h.i.+p.

I need not say more, as Roy Hession and his wife expound the whole matter. But we have seen G.o.d at work in our midst. I could name half-a-dozen of our workers, several of them leaders, in whose lives there has been a new spiritual revolution. Then rivulets of blessing in some of our individual lives have been merging in a larger stream.

G.o.d has been giving us times as a company when "as they prayed, the place was shaken where they were a.s.sembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Here and there on our battle fields, distant and near, the sound of abundance of rain is being heard; and we believe among many companies of G.o.d's people He is preparing afresh for these last days a "sharp thres.h.i.+ng instrument having teeth," and that what G.o.d is saying to us through this Revival, and through the interpretation of that message in this pamphlet, is a word of the Lord for our day. May it be greatly used to produce revived lives, revived fellows.h.i.+ps and revived churches.

PREFACE

In April, 1947, several missionaries came at my invitation to an Easter Conference which I was organising. I invited them to come as speakers, because I had heard that they had been experiencing Revival in their field for a number of years, and I was interested in Revival. What they had to say was very different from much of what I had a.s.sociated with Revival. It was very simple and very quiet. As they unfolded their message and gave their testimonies, I discovered that I was the neediest person in the conference and was far more in need of being revived than I had ever realised. That discovery, however, only came slowly to me. Being myself one of the speakers, I suppose I was more concerned about others' needs than my own. As my wife and others humbled themselves before G.o.d and experienced the cleansing of the precious Blood of Jesus, I found myself left somewhat high and dry--dry just because I was high. I was stumbled by the simplicity of the message, or rather the simplicity of what I had to do to be revived and filled with the Spirit. When others at the end of the conference testified of how Jesus had broken them at His Cross and filled their hearts to overflowing with His Holy Spirit, I had no such testimony. It was only afterwards that I was enabled to give up trying to fit things into my doctrinal scheme, and come humbly to the Cross for cleansing from my own personal sins. It was like beginning my Christian life all over again. My flesh "came again like that of a little child," as did Naaman's when he was willing to humble himself and dip himself in Jordan. And it has been an altogether new chapter in life since then. It has meant, however, that I have had to choose constantly to die to the big "I," that Jesus might be all, and constantly to come to Him for cleansing in His precious Blood. But that is just why it is a new chapter.

At that time my wife and I had been issuing a little paper which we called "Challenge," in which we were seeking to lead young Christians into a deeper experience of the Lord Jesus. It was natural, then, that in the following issue we should put down what G.o.d had shown us.

We simply put down in print the Message of Revival as it had come to us. There was a sudden and surprising demand for the little paper, because it carried this simple message. As we continued to write further of the Message of Revival in subsequent issues, the demand continued to increase surprisingly. Letters came in almost every day telling of the way G.o.d was blessing His people through it, and asking for further supplies. Requests began to come from far away countries, to which the little paper was finding its way, and news began to come of the beginnings of revival in the lives of G.o.d's people in various parts. Translations too were made into French and German. We had been caught up in the current of G.o.d's working beyond anything we expected or deserved. Indeed we had nothing to glory in, for it became evident that revival blessing was not so much the result of "Challenge," as that "Challenge" was the result of revival blessing. G.o.d was at work in many hearts and in many parts. The testimony of those who had been revived made others hungry, who in turn found their way to the Cross, and so the blessing spread from life to life. And wherever the blessing spread, the little paper seemed to go, for it sought to put in clear and Scriptural language what so many were beginning to experience.

The connection of all this with the present little book is that this book is simply a collection of some of those numbers of "Challenge."

Circ.u.mstances make it difficult at the moment for us to continue to send out further issues of "Challenge," and yet the requests for back numbers have continued to come in. There is obviously a need for this simple Message of Revival to be made available to a wider circle of readers, for there is a growing thirst in G.o.d's people for the Rivers of Living Water. And so, encouraged by G.o.d's blessing on what has gone before, we have put together some of the more helpful numbers of "Challenge," together with two extra chapters, and send them on their way, looking to G.o.d to use them as He will. We cannot boast that this contains an orderly treatment of our subject chapter by chapter. Each article was designed to be complete in itself, and therefore now that they are put together in one pamphlet, there cannot but be a good deal of overlapping, and certain things will be seen to be repeated again and again. It cannot, therefore, be regarded as an ordinary book, and the chapters might best be read each one on its own, rather than the whole of them at one sitting.

It must not be thought that this pamphlet represents a purely personal contribution on our part. The things recorded in this book have been learnt in fellows.h.i.+p with others in various parts, who have begun, like ourselves, to walk the Way of the Cross in a new way. Any others in that fellows.h.i.+p might have written these chapters. It is a fellows.h.i.+p, too, which is continually growing, for an ever-increasing number of lives are being quietly influenced and blessed by the movement of Revival in this country now. This fact, we think, adds to the strength and significance of what is here written.

Now a word about Revival itself. The conception of Revival contained in the following pages may come as a surprise to many. The common conception of Revival is usually that of a spectacular religious awakening, in which large numbers of the unconverted are convicted of sin and brought to Christ amid a good deal of excitement. Such a visitation of G.o.d's Spirit, while greatly to be desired, is thought to be largely unaccountable. It is something for which one can only pray and we must wait for it in G.o.d's good time. Meantime we must go on being defeated and the Church must somehow contrive to continue her witness without New Life. Some of us are finding in actual fact that true revival is often the very reverse of all this. Revival need not be spectacular at all (it is certainly no spectacle to the one who is facing up to his sins in the light of the Cross!). Indeed where there is evidence of the spectacular, it is often the least important part of revival. Our missionary friends seemed studiously to avoid reference to the spectacular side of what they had been through, lest it might obscure the real challenge of what G.o.d was saying to us. Then, too, revival is not something that G.o.d does firstly among the unconverted, but among His people. Revival simply means New Life, and that implies that there is already Life there, but that the Life has ebbed. The unconverted do not need revival, for there is not any life there to revive. They need vival. It is the Christians who need revival. But that presupposes that there has been a declension. You only revive that which has grown weak. And they only are candidates for revival who are prepared to confess that there has been a declension in their lives. And the more specific the confession, the more definitely will G.o.d revive. And when that happens among us Christians, G.o.d will be able to work among the lost in new power and we shall see a new work of grace there. One of Evan Roberts' mottoes in the days of the Welsh Revival was "Bend the Church and save the people." And the two are always linked. The world has lost its faith, because the Church has lost its fire.

One last thing needs to be said about the necessary att.i.tude of heart of the reader. If G.o.d is to bless him at all through these pages, he must come to them with a deep hunger of heart. He must be possessed with a dissatisfaction of the state of the Church in general, and of himself in particular--especially of himself. He must be willing for G.o.d to begin His work in himself first, rather than in the other man.

He must, moreover, be possessed with the holy expectancy that G.o.d can and will meet his need. If he is in any sense a Christian leader, the urgency of the matter is intensified many times over. His willingness to admit his need and be blessed will determine the degree to which G.o.d can bless the people to whom he ministers. Above all he must realise that he must be the first to humble himself at the Cross. If a new honesty with regard to sin is needed among his people, he must realise it must begin with himself. It was when the King of Nineveh arose from his throne and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes as a sign of his repentance, that his people repented.

Let not, however, those readers who are not leaders be tempted to look at those who are and wait for them. G.o.d wants to begin with each one of us. He wants to begin with YOU.

May G.o.d bless us all.

Roy HESSION.

January, 1950.

CHAPTER I BROKENNESS

We want to be very simple in this matter of Revival. Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts. Jesus is always victorious. In heaven they are praising Him all the time for His victory. Whatever may be our experience of failure and barrenness, He is never defeated. His power is boundless. And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relations.h.i.+p with Him, and we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life will fill us and overflow through us to others. And that is Revival in its essence.

If, however, we are to come into this right relations.h.i.+p with Him, the first thing we must learn is that our wills must be broken to His will. To be broken is the beginning of Revival. It is painful, it is humiliating, but it is the only way. It is being "Not I, but Christ,"[footnote1:Gal. 2: 20.] and a "C" is a bent "I." The Lord Jesus cannot live in us fully and reveal Himself through us until the proud self within us is broken. This simply means that the hard unyielding self, which justifies itself, wants its own way, stands up for its rights, and seeks its own glory, at last bows its head to G.o.d's will, admits its wrong, gives up its own way to Jesus, surrenders its rights and discards its own glory--that the Lord Jesus might have all and be all. In other words it is dying to self and self-att.i.tudes.

And as we look honestly at our Christian lives, we can see how much of this self there is in each of us. It is so often self who tries to live the Christian life (the mere fact that we use the word "try"

indicates that it is self who has the responsibility). It is self, too, who is often doing Christian work. It is always self who gets irritable and envious and resentful and critical and worried. It is self who is hard and unyielding in its att.i.tudes to others. It is self who is shy and self-conscious and reserved. No wonder we need breaking. As long as self is in control, G.o.d can do little with us, for all the fruits of the Spirit (they are enumerated in Galatians 5), with which G.o.d longs to fill us, are the complete ant.i.thesis of the hard, unbroken spirit within us and presupposes that it has been crucified.

Being broken is both G.o.d's work and ours. He brings His pressure to bear, but we have to make the choice. If we are really open to conviction as we seek fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d (and willingness for the light is the prime condition of fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d), G.o.d will show us the expressions of this proud, hard self that cause Him pain. Then it is, we can stiffen our necks and refuse to repent or we can bow the head and say, "Yes, Lord." Brokenness in daily experience is simply the response of humility to the conviction of G.o.d. And inasmuch as this conviction is continuous, we shall need to be broken continually. And this can be very costly, when we see all the yielding of rights and selfish interests that this will involve, and the confessions and rest.i.tutions that may be sometimes necessary.

For this reason, we are not likely to be broken except at the Cross of Jesus. The willingness of Jesus to be broken for us is the all-compelling motive in our being broken too. We see Him, Who is in the form of G.o.d, counting not equality with G.o.d a prize to be grasped at and hung on to, but letting it go for us and taking upon Him the form of a Servant--G.o.d's Servant, man's Servant. We see Him willing to have no rights of His own, no home of His own, no possessions of His own, willing to let men revile Him and not revile again, willing to let men tread on Him and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above all, we see Him broken as He meekly goes to Calvary to become men's scapegoat by bearing their sins in His own body on the Tree. In a pathetic pa.s.sage in a prophetic Psalm, He says, "I am a worm and no man."[footnote2:Psalm 22: 6.] Those who have been in tropical lands tell us that there is a big difference between a snake and a worm, when you attempt to strike at them. The snake rears itself up and hisses and tries to strike back--a true picture of self. But a worm offers no resistance, it allows you to do what you like with it, kick it or squash it under your heel--a picture of true brokenness. And Jesus was willing to become just that for us--a worm and no man. And He did so, because that is what He saw us to be, worms having forfeited all rights by our sin, except to deserve h.e.l.l. And He now calls us to take our rightful place as worms for Him and with Him.

The whole Sermon on the Mount with its teaching of non-retaliation, love for enemies and selfless giving, a.s.sumes that that is our position. But only the vision of the Love that was willing to be broken for us can constrain us to be willing for that.

"Lord, bend that proud and stiff necked I, Help me to bow the head and die; Beholding Him on Calvary, Who bowed His head for me."

But dying to self is not a thing we do once for all. There may be an initial dying when G.o.d first shows these things, but ever after it will be a constant dying, for only so can the Lord Jesus be revealed constantly through us.[footnote3: 2 Cor. 4: 10.] All day long the choice will be before us in a thousand ways. It will mean no plans, no time, no money, no pleasure of our own. It will mean a constant yielding to those around us, for our yieldedness to G.o.d is measured by our yieldedness to man. Every humiliation, everyone who tries and vexes us, is G.o.d's way of breaking us, so that there is a yet deeper channel in us for the Life of Christ.

You see, the only life that pleases G.o.d and that can be victorious is His life--never our life, no matter how hard we try. But inasmuch as our self-centred life is the exact opposite of His, we can never be filled with His life unless we are prepared for G.o.d to bring our life constantly to death. And in that we must co-operate by our moral choice.

CHAPTER 2 CUPS RUNNING OVER

Brokenness, however, is but the beginning of Revival. Revival itself is being absolutely filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, and that is victorious living. If we were asked this moment if we were filled with the Holy Spirit, how many of us would dare to answer "yes"? Revival is when we can say "yes" at any moment of the day. It is not egoistic to say so, for filling to overflowing is utterly and completely G.o.d's work--it is all of grace. All we have to do is to present our empty, broken self and let Him fill and keep filled.

Andrew Murray says, "Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment G.o.d finds you abased and empty, His glory and power flow in." The picture that has made things simple and clear to so many of us is that of the human heart as a cup, which we hold out to Jesus, longing that He might fill it with the Water of Life. Jesus is pictured as bearing the golden water pot with the Water of Life.

As He pa.s.ses by, He looks into our cup and if it is clean, He fills to overflowing with the Water of Life. And as Jesus is always pa.s.sing by, the cup can be always running over. That is something of what David meant, when he said, "My cup runneth over." This is Revival--you and I--full to overflowing with blessing ourselves and to others--with a constant peace in our hearts. People imagine that dying to self makes one miserable. But it just the opposite. It is the refusal to die to self that makes one miserable. The more we know of death with Him, the more we shall know of His life in us, and so the more of real peace and joy. His life, too, will overflow through us to lost souls in a real concern for their salvation, and to our fellow Christians in a deep desire for their blessing.

Under the Blood.

Only one thing prevents Jesus filling our cups as He pa.s.ses by, and that is sin in one of its thousand forms. The Lord Jesus does not fill dirty cups. Anything that springs from self, however small it may be, is sin. Self-energy or self-complacency in service is sin.

Self-pity in trials or difficulties, self-seeking in business or Christian work, self-indulgence in one's spare time, sensitiveness, touchiness, resentment and self-defence when we are hurt or injured by others, self-consciousness, reserve, worry, fear, all spring from self and all are sin and make our cups unclean.[*] But all of them were put into that other cup, which the Lord Jesus shrank from momentarily in Gethsemane, but which He drank to the dregs at Calvary--the cup of our sin. And if we will allow Him to show us what is in our cups and then give it to Him, He will cleanse them in the precious Blood that still flows for sin. That does not mean mere cleansing from the guilt of sin, nor even from the stain of sin--though thank G.o.d both of these are true--but from the sin itself, whatever it may be. And as He cleanses our cups, so He fills them to overflowing with His Holy Spirit.

And we are able daily to avail ourselves of that precious Blood.

Suppose you have let the Lord Jesus cleanse your cup and have trusted Him to fill it to overflowing, then something comes along--a touch of envy or temper. What happens? Your cup becomes dirty and it ceases to overflow. And if we are constantly being defeated in this way, then our cup is never overflowing.

If we are to know continuous Revival, we must learn the way to keep our cups clean. It is never G.o.d's will that a Revival should cease, and be known in history as the Revival of this or that year. When that happens it is due to only one thing--sin, just those little sins that the devil drops into our cup. But if we will go back to Calvary and learn afresh the power of the Blood of Jesus to cleanse moment by moment from the beginnings of sin, then we have learnt the secret of cups constantly cleansed and constantly overflowing. The moment you are conscious of that touch of envy, criticism, irritability, whatever it is--ask Jesus to cover it with His precious Blood and cleanse it away and you will find the reaction gone, your joy and peace restored and your cup running over. And the more you trust the Blood of Jesus in this way, the less will you even have these reactions. But cleansing is only possible when we have first been broken before G.o.d on the point concerned. Suppose we are irritated by certain traits in someone. It is not enough just to take our reactions of irritation to Calvary. We must first be broken, that is, we must yield to G.o.d over the whole question and accept that person and his ways as His will for us. Then we are able to take our wrong reaction to Jesus, knowing that His Blood will cleanse away our sin; and when we have been cleansed from sin, let us not keep mourning over it, let us not be occupied with ourselves. But let us look up to our victorious Lord, and praise Him that He is still victorious.

There is one simple but all-inclusive guide the Word of G.o.d gives to regulate our walk with Jesus and to make us to know when sin has come in. Colossians 3:15 says, "Let the peace of G.o.d rule in your hearts."

Everything that disturbs the peace of G.o.d in our hearts is sin, no matter how small it is, and no matter how little like sin it may at first appear to be. This peace is to "rule" our hearts, or (a more literal translation) "be the referee" in our hearts. When the referee blows his whistle at a football match, the game has to stop, a foul has been committed. When we lose our peace, G.o.d's referee in our hearts has blown his whistle! Let us stop immediately, ask G.o.d to show us what is wrong, put by faith the sin He shows us under the Blood of Jesus, and then peace will be restored and we shall go on our way with our cups running over. If, however, G.o.d does not give us His peace, it will be because we are not really broken. Perhaps we have yet to say "sorry" to somebody else as well as to G.o.d. Or perhaps we still feel it is the other person's fault. But if we have lost our peace, it is obvious whose fault it is. We do not lose peace with G.o.d over another person's sin, but only over our own. G.o.d wants to show us our reactions, and only when we are willing to be cleansed there, will we have His peace. Oh, what a simple but searching thing it is to be ruled by the peace of G.o.d, none other than the Holy Spirit Himself! Former selfish ways, which we never bothered about, are now shown to us and we cannot walk in them without the referee blowing his whistle. Grumbling, bossiness, carelessness, down to the smallest thing are all revealed as sins, when we are prepared to let our days be ruled by the peace of G.o.d. Many times a day and over the smallest things we shall have to avail ourselves of the cleansing Blood of Jesus, and we shall find ourselves walking the way of brokenness as never before. But Jesus will be manifested in all His loveliness and grace in that brokenness.

Many of us, however, have neglected the referee's whistle so often and for so long that we have ceased to hear it. Days follow days and we feel we have little need of cleansing and no occasion of being broken. In that condition we are usually in a worse state than we ever imagine. It will need a great hunger for restored fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d to possess our hearts before we will be willing to cry to G.o.d to show us where the Blood of Jesus must be applied. He will show us, to begin with, just one thing, and it will be our obedience and brokenness on that one thing that will be the first step into Revival for us.

[footnote*:Some may be inclined to question whether it is right to call such things as self-consciousness, reserve and fear, sins. "Call them infirmities, disabilities, temperamental weaknesses, if you will," some have said, "but not sins. To do so would be to get us into bondage."

The reverse, however, is true. If these things are not sins, then we must put up with them for the rest of our lives, there is no deliverance.

But if these and other things like them are indeed sins, then there is a Fountain for sin, and we may experience cleansing and deliverance from them, if we put them immediately under His precious Blood, the moment we are conscious of them. And they are sins. Their source is unbelief and an inverted form of pride, and they have hindered and hidden Him times without number.]

CHAPTER 3 THE WAY OF FELLOWs.h.i.+P