experience is not the main thing, does not mean that it is nothing. There is such a thing as experi ence and our Saviour promised to manifest Him self (John 14:21). A lot of fundamental, conserva tive saints have grown awfully dry trying to escape the other extreme. There is great need for some souls who have seen as well as heard, who have met God one way or another in vivid, vital, glow ing, heartwarming personal experience. We readily grant that experiences vary, that background, temperament, and a dozen other fac tors influence them. There is no stereotyped ex perience. Each man who met God in the Bible met Him in a different way. It might have been at his conversion or when called to a life work or when filled with the Spirit. It might have been in an hour of suffering, in a great revival, a personal touch in body or mind, something too intimate to relate. It might have been tempestuous as a hurri cane or quiet as an autumn sunset. What we are saying is that the men and women who have glorified God and blessed others have been those who passed beyond the realm of hearing into see ing. One day they came into something that sparked all their latent faith and knowledge and set fire to their orthodoxy and made it burn. It is Abraham giving up Ishmael and Isaac to find in God his great reward. It is Jacob limping from an encounter with a heavenly visitor but afterward having power with God and men. It is Moses on the backside of the desert coming to the mountain of God, watching a bush that would not burn up, going back to Egypt no longer to “ look this way and that way” but to endure as seeing Him who is invisible. It is Joshua meet ing the captain of the Lord of hosts and having his commission renewed. It is Isaiah unclean and undone before a holy God. It is Daniel with all his comeliness turned to corruption. It is Habak- kuk with rottenness in his bones moving from pouting to praising. It is Peter in a secret ren dezvous with Jesus made ready for the new “ Fol low me.” It is John alone and lonely on Patmos falling at the feet of the glorified Christ as one dead. It is timid Timothy stirring up the gift of God within him. It is John Wesley up to that moment a failure for all his godly upbringing, his Oxford education, his praying, his rigid discipline, his missionary zeal — a failure for all that, I say, then suddenly getting his heart warmed in a little meeting, going out from Aldersgate Street to warm a world. It is Moody so conscious o f God’s pres ence that he is overwhelmed one day with the power of heaven. It is Finney set on fire to blaze through his generation in almost terrifying re vivals. It is Hudson Taylor, worn out trying to
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TO Hm/t/tu/ - S e e in g by Vance Havner
“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." —Job 42:5, 6 yHE B ook of J ob is not an explanation of the • problem o f suffering. God did not give Job explanation; He gave him revelation. In the pres ence of God, Job escape^ from the swamps of fear and doubt and bewilderment into the higher re gions of unclouded trust. He learned that one may safely trust though he may not fully understand. Job reproached himself for his pride and self- righteousness and repented in dust and ashes. It was the beginning of a new day for Job. For years he had been a believer, a good man who feared God and eschewed evil, of whom God said, "My servant Job . . . there is none like him in the earth.” When adversity struck from all sides, stripping him of children, possessions and health, he bore a better testimony than any of his pious visitors. But there remained for Job a deeper experi ence. He summed it up thus: “ I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; BUT NOW MINE EYE SEETH THEE.” He had heard of God, and hear ing, he had believed. That is good enough to start with; it is where we all start. “ Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Job had gone a long way on that faith and so have many others but there came a blessed day when what he had long heard was now seen. He saw God, not in a vision nor in a manifestation to the senses but in a personal, inward, consciousness of the very presence of God. Perhaps you can recall some matter that perhaps you revolved in your mind for a long time. Then one day it became real to you and you said, “ I see it!” You could not put into words what you saw, but you saw. Right here is the weak spot in our Christian faith and life today. Thousands o f dear souls have heard and have believed and some o f them have developed strong characters, lived righteously and suffered nobly as did Job. But they have never met God like Job met Him. They have heard o f Him but have not seen Him. There has never been that shattering, melting, humbling awareness of God that brings us out of ourselves and into Himself. For years a lot of us have majored on walking by “ dry faith.” We have insisted that one must stand on the bare Word, regardless of sign or feeling or manifestation. That is true, but because
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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