October, 1941
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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step had come when "they agreed to gether.” Satan got place and then he got possession, which means control. The devil just asks for standing room. He never will ask you and me first of all for control. Never! He knows we would not give that to him. He just asks -for place! When once he gains entrance, he will bring a whole family of demons with him and will get control. Yes, just one thought, one look,' one desire, one imagination, one ulterior motive, one" bit of compromise—such a little thing! And everybody does it, we say, so it must be all right. Yet the fact that everybody does it may be exactly the reason that it is wrong. Only one little indulgence of the flesh —such a little thing that one hopes it cannot make any difference. It may seem just one step downward and one step backward. The devil never asks you and me to take a landslide—just a little lowering of the standard, just a little reservation, keeping back a tiny part of the price. W here thé Enemy Finds Entrance Last summer I was in a conference in the Berkshires. There' was a girl there about sixteen years of age who at the conference the year before had received the Lord Jesus Christ as her Saviour. I was giving a message simi lar to this one, and she came up after wards and said, ‘‘Miss Paxson,.I know where the devil got in in my life. I
do not want you to think I’m a jitter bug or anything like that, but I know that the devil got in with me through swing music,” Yes, she knew exactly where the devil got place in her life, and then he got control, and she had lived a year of absolute defeat as a Christian. Where did he get “in” with you? In what thing did you give him place, and has he now got control? My friend, if we give him even the slightest bit of standing room, there is no telling where his diabolical work will end. Beware also of dabbling in religious cults that omit the Saviour’s atonement for sin. I want to say to any person dabbling in Unity, Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or in any other of the cults that deny the blood of the Saviour and give teaching regarding the Holy Spirit contrary to God’s Word, you aré giving the devil place. If you so continue, he will get control. All over these United States I am finding people that call themselves^Christians that have Unity books on top of their Bible and Christian Science books alongside the old Book, and they say, “Why can we not have both and study them together?” It is giving place to the devil, and there is no telling where he will take you if you allow him even standing room. He knows all of your susceptible, and weak points, and he will use any method to gain access to your life. One thing that impresses me in creasingly these days is how cruel thie devil is. He is cruel! Oh! the things that are told m e .in interviews of his diabolical cruelty! Satan disguises his approach. He will come through the most sacred things of life. A young woman came to me one day greatly troubled. She was working in a mission where God had been using' her in winning souls. She was very zealous for the Lord. So was the man who was head of the mission, but his wife had no interest in his work. The devil came through the holi est of things and the most sacred and made those two people feel that they were mated and made to be together because of their love of the Lord and their love of winning souls. One evening the. young woman came to me in the ut-.- termost despair because she found her self in love with that married man. And the devil was trying to persuade her that they were made for each other and that the relationship was all right. God never puts love into a heart of a married man for a woman other than his wife. It is lust, not love. It is the devil getting place, even though he comes by a sacred approach. Satan tempts through the world out side, and you know it is sometimes very difficult to detect when it is the devil’s temptation because there are no stand ards in this world today. Then the devil comes through the flesh. He bores from within. He knows all the weak
spots in our disposition and the lusts o f our heart and the old habits of our, life; and he will come along those old grooves. And unless you and I are filled with the Holy Spirit, there is nothing to hold us safe against the attacks of the devil, as. he comes both from without and from within. Are you really willing to ask God the Holy Spirit to search you through and through to see whether in any possible way in any place in your life ypu have given place to the devil T There is a place for real self-examina tion, not introspection, but true, Scrip tural self-examination and self-judg? ment. Will you be willing to do it now, and if God shows you any place where you .have given place to the devil, by a definite act of your will are you willing to take that place back and give it to the Lord Jesus Christ? Th e H oly Spirit Ungrieved Ephesians 4:30 gives us the second command: “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” “Grieve”-—there is no word in t the Bible used in connection with the Holy Spirit that more clearly and beautifully reveals the tenderness and love of His heart. We cannot grieve any one unless that one loves us. There is living within you that loving, tender, sensitive Person, God the Holy Spirit, and because He loves us, you and I can cause sorrow to Him. I took the names of the Holy Spirit to study them in this light: that I might know when ever and however-1 might be grieving God the Holy Spirit. Here are some of the things I gleaned concerning the Holy Spirit: He is the Spirit of Truth. Anything of error or unsoundness in what you and I believe grieves this wonderful Spirit of Truth. Friends, I believe we may know exactly what the Bible teaches. Bible study can follow a very simple method. First, what does the Bible say? Secondly, what is the mean ing of what it says? Thirdly, what is the meaning of what it says to me? Too often, not knowing exactly what the Word of God says, we begin to think of something it means to us in our experience, and this may be quite contrary to the teaching of the Bible. Then we make the Bible coincide with our experience—and there too error and confusion creep in. Friend, will you trust this One who is the Spirit of Truth to teach you and guide you into all truth, to keep you from . error and unsoundness in what you believe? But further than that, He is grieVed by hypocrisy and deceit and lying and falsehood. Are we testifying to more than we really know in experience in our lives? Do we profess more than we possess in order to keep, up our reputation as a ■Christian ? We are tempted to lie in giving church sta tistics, for example. We are tempted to lie in so many phases in our Christian
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