August 10, 2011

• Hewitson ~ How do we follow Him? by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts - this indispensable element

  
  In my last post, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" ... , I asked: "How are we to follow Jesus?" I was emphasizing that apart from our following and walking in Christ's example of full reliance on the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing at all, much less desire to do anything at all for the cause of Christ.
  
  I read John Baillie's "Memoir of the Rev. W.H. Hewitson, Late Minister of the Free Church of Scotland, at Direlton [1852]"  last year and have been continuing to dabble in it on and off. Along with reading of Scripture, I cannot commend to you enough the reading of good Christian biography so we might begin to see the "glorious possibilities" of the Christian life, as Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it. (Please see my other posts on Hewitson here, here, here, here, and here.) Reading Christian history and Christian biography is one of God's blessed means to put into our hearts a desire to see His church reformed and revived ~ though not equivalent to Scripture, we must agree this great cloud of witnesses is indeed set forth as warnings and examples to us for our instruction and strengthening and encouragement to run the race set before us.

  I recently came across this excerpt in Chapter VII (pp. 105-106) in Hewitson's Memoir. In it we find testimony to the vital necessity of the power of the Holy Ghost.

  "I Have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied." "I sent them not nor commanded them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord."

  Mr Hewitson did not venture to run unsent. "My studies at college," we find him writing on 9th February 1842, "are all vain and unprofitable, unless the Spirit of Jesus purify my heart, and make me zealous to promote God's glory, and to gather fruit—the fruit of immortal souls—unto life eternal." And a month afterwards:—"I am sensible that all I have acquired of earthly learning, cannot, by itself, qualify me in the slightest degree for the work of an evangelist} unless Christ say to me what He said to the unlettered fishermen—'Follow me, and I will make thee a fisher of men.' It is not by might nor by strength, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, that any man can preach the word of the heavenly kingdom; for the kingdom of God is not in word but in power—the power of the Holy Ghost." And again: "I wish you would all pray that, in the grace of God, I may be fitted to be a minister of reconciliation, and be called inwardly by the Holy Spirit to the sacred office. Without that spiritual call I could not, durst not, accept a presentation to any parish. It would be trifling with my own soul and the souls of hundreds."

  What ministry can prosper which is without this indispensable element?

  "The blind at an easel, the palsied with a graver, the halt making
  for the goal,
  The deaf ear tuning psaltery, the stammerer discoursing eloquence,—
  What wonder if all fail?"

  If at times, in His mysterious sovereignty, the Master have [sic] used in His work those who ran unsent, Mr Hewitson was not the man to covet the sad distinction.

  "Blessed be God," said Henry Martyn on one occasion, "I feel myself to be His minister." To go forth as "His minister"—to beseech men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God—was the one object for which Mr Hewitson cared to live.

  "If ministers only saw," observed Payson, on his deathbed, to a brother who had come to visit him, "the inconceivable glory that is before them, and the preciousness of Christ, they would not be able to refrain from going about, leaping and clapping their hands for joy, and exclaiming, 'I'm a minister of Christ! I'm a minister of Christ.' "Mr Hewitson had been taught to long after the blessed work with a chastened enthusiasm not unlike Payson's. "O that I were a minister of the gospel!" he writes: "I do not mean ordained of men—for it is a little thing to be judged of men, or of man's judgment, as fit for the pastoral office; but I mean, ordained by the Spirit of Christ."

  Though not all Christians are called by God to the pastoral office, we are all new creations who are all called to be ministers of reconciliation and ambassadors for Christ (II Corinthians 5). The Church in the book of Acts "went about every where preaching the word" (Acts 8:4, KJV). Let us pray our Lord might open our eyes to see that it is NOT by might, NOR by power, by but His Spirit – for it is only then that we will seek in earnest to be baptized afresh (or for the first time) with the Holy Spirit of God and ordained by the Spirit of Christ, so we might not trifle with our own souls and the souls of hundreds.

  "It is not by might nor by strength, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, that any man can preach the word of the heavenly kingdom; for the kingdom of God is not in word but in power—the power of the Holy Ghost."
  
  What ministry can prosper which is without this indispensable element?

  
  O, Lord God, forgive us our sinfulness as we have turned away from You, we have taken our eyes off You, we have dispensed of Your blessed Holy Spirit and have turned our eyes on self and have tried to rely on ourselves, and now we are in a sad state, as we are reaping what we have sown!

  Show us the depth of our poverty, open our eyes to see our vital need of Your blessed Holy Spirit, this indispensable element which we have so tragically dispensed of! Our lands are dry. Our churches are a ruin and a reproach. Our people are lukewarm. Have mercy upon us. Hear our cries. Give us a thirst for You alone, and pour our Your Spirit upon Your seed once again, ordain us by the Holy Spirit of Christ, so we might be zealous once again for You and Your Kingdom and be sent out to preach Your glorious Gospel and bless the nations to Your glory.

  ~ Please add your PRAYERS as God's Holy Spirit leads you. ~

  • 3:37 PM
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