SOUL HISTORY WITH GOD
E. M. Walkinshaw
Genesis 32: 24–32; Matthew 14: 22–32; 26: 6–13
There is an expression that at one time was used a good deal among the brethren; personally I have not heard it used very much in these days although that may not be so up here; the expression is ‘soul history with God’. Our fathers and forefathers were very fond of it as bringing before us the need for personal soul history with God. I have no doubt that studying the Scriptures and the ministry all enters into this soul history because the Scriptures are the word of God. The good teaching is the ministry of the Spirit to help us in the understanding of Scripture, to help us to grow in the knowledge of God. But I think soul history with God means more than that, valuable as that is. It would mean among other things that you turn every experience in life into a spiritual one because you take it up with God and thereby you learn to know God and to trust Him. How often I find I am deficient; something happens and I find that I do not trust God as I ought to trust Him; my confidence is lacking. Nevertheless God goes on with us as He did with Jacob so that in all the experiences of life, the ups and downs, as we say, of life, we should as turning them into spiritual experiences grow in and by the true knowledge of God. I wonder if we are doing so.
Now there is not in one sense such a call for dependence today as there was in early days, because in God’s mercy (and we receive it from Him) we have plenty to eat and drink, we have a good many things to help us and occupy us, and the many things which are mercies can make us independent of God; that is a tendency. If you receive a mercy from God, Satan will immediately use that, if he can, to turn you away from God. God would have us to take all these things up with Him, so that whatever our circumstances in life, whether we are well off or poor (and our Lord said you will have the poor always with you) we should be using all those circumstances and turning them all, in God’s ways, into spiritual experiences.
I would like to ask, is each of us here developing soul history with God? Some of us are a little older, some are young, some very young, but this is a personal matter. I could have referred to others who suddenly appear on the page of Scripture; Elijah suddenly appears; you say, ‘That was very sudden that God took him up’. I do not think so. I would say that behind his sudden appearing was a wealth of spiritual experience with God. He says, “the God ...
before whom I stand” (1 Kings 17: 1), as though it was characteristic of him to stand before God. He appears abruptly and has an abrupt message, he suffers with the people, but I believe behind that there was soul experience. Now I would like to encourage every one of us to develop this. It is not outdated, it is something that each of us needs if we are in God’s testimony. It is very easy to become acquainted with the terms of spiritual things, especially when you are continually listening to them, but you might well be acquainted with the terms of spiritual things without having the experience of the things themselves. So I would exhort each of us to go to God; if
ministry does anything it sends us to the Lord for ourselves, that is the intention. If not, it could be what men call just brain-washing.
I was speaking to a man at the office the other day about the Lord and he said, ‘Well, yes, but what I am afraid of is being brain-washed. I do not think like you think, and I do not belong to the people you belong to; I do not keep their company, and I do not want you to brain-wash me, that is what I am afraid of. I am not saying that what you are saying is wrong’. I could only reply, ‘Well, it is simple enough for you to go to the Lord for yourself. You have a Bible, read it and go to the Lord for yourself, do not just listen to what I say. See if you can experience in your history something of what I have experienced in the knowledge of the Lord’. Most here will know that when I say that if ministry does anything it sends us to the Lord for ourselves, I am just quoting Mr. Raven. It cannot do anything else; it takes you to the Lord for yourself so that you have your history and your knowledge, and you develop in fibre and strength in your knowledge of God, so that you are standing on your own feet with God and not leaning on props. Even if they are good props, eventually they will be taken away, and what then? Thank God for father and mother and their influence, thank God for the environment into which they have introduced you. Thank God for the brothers in the meeting that help you the most, and thank God for the brothers that give the lead in the meeting, those that pray for you; but to give efficacy to all that it needs to be made good in your own soul and in your own personal links with God, otherwise eventually you will fall away.
Now the Lord would encourage us about this and I selected Jacob because he had a very chequered history. He started as a young man. He went out from his father’s house and did many things that in these days we would think quite wrong; but what was before him was God, and God’s purpose. We should have said about Jacob, Well, he twisted his brother out of what belonged to him; he was a cheater and a twister. I do not know what you think, but Esau would be a far more attractive man to me than Jacob. Out in the field, well, I like that, with bows and arrows, hunting, and so on; much better than the homely man who sits there making carpets and things like that; I do not think much of that.
Esau, speaking naturally, is a much more attractive man; but he had not before him the purpose of God. Jacob had, and, despite his chequered history, as he went through he was developing in his knowledge of God. That is what I would like you to do. He was developing in his knowledge of God as an individual. He spent a lot of time alone, you know. When he set up that pillar as a pillow, you remember, he was alone. He had a wonderful vision of the angels of God ascending and descending on the ladder. He learned that God was interested in him.
I would like to tell you young people that God is interested in you, anxious, if I can apply such a word to God, that you should know Him and grow in the knowledge of Him, and day by day in your experiences learn Him in them. You may be just starting school; it may be you are just starting business; it may be some other turn in life, just starting married life maybe; in all these things God wants you to grow in the knowledge of Himself, and I will tell you this—in any of these turns in life, the knowledge of God, and bringing God into those circumstances, will never weaken your enjoyment of them, but it will rather strengthen your confidence in Him and strengthen your enjoyment of what He has given you, without those things turning you away from Himself. I think Jacob learned that as he went on.
Well, here we find him in Genesis 32 and he is going to meet his brother and for him that was not a very pleasant anticipation. He was going to meet his brother who had vowed to kill him.
Well, that was not a very pleasant outlook was it? but he takes it up with God. It says he was left alone. Have you ever been alone with God? I am sure there are many here who have been alone with God. It says, “And Jacob remained alone”. I would love to be more alone with God. I have not much capacity to sustain the presence of God; I would love to develop in it, and it develops with practice. Men say, and there is a lot in it, you know, that practice makes perfect. You practise prayer, practise meditation, practise reading the Scriptures, practise approaching God. If you feel your weakness and the enemy’s power, persevere. One often says you never tell a child to persevere in something he finds easy, you tell him to persevere in a lesson he finds difficult; so persevere.
I think Jacob here is an example of a man who is persevering with God. It says, “and a man wrestled with him”; no doubt that was God. I will not touch too much on the fact that the other man took the initiative; what I would desire to emphasize is that Jacob held on; he persevered in this wrestling; “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”. He persevered. We must take things up individually with God. Of course, the time comes when we pray for others, but here he is persevering in prayer in regard of his own blessing, and the man says to him, “What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob”. He gets a spiritual name. Have you a spiritual name? I think God would have us be conscious of a spiritual name in the sense that the Spirit gives you a distinctive impression of Christ. This has often been likened to Romans 7 and 8, so that when he comes out of the experience the sun was shining on him—“there is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”, no condemnation; not merely that they are not condemned, but such a thing as condemnation just does not exist, so that they could not be condemned today and not tomorrow, or not today and then tomorrow; it just does not exist. The sun was shining; that is what Jacob comes to, and he gets a spiritual name, Israel, “for thou hast wrestled with God, and with men, and hast prevailed”.
You know, dear brethren, it is a great thing to persevere in prayer until you are conscious that God is listening to you; not that He is going to say ‘yes’ necessarily, but you are conscious that He is listening to you. Oh, you say, He hears everything, the faintest, feeblest cry. You know that objectively, but I think it is a great thing to be conscious that God is listening to you in your exercises, not only in relation to your own personal matters but also in relation to His matters, His testimony, His rights, His glory in our several localities. Well, Jacob had to come to that; this is a step in that direction; but the flesh was crippled. There is no doubt about it, there is nothing like the presence of God to cripple the flesh in its activities. So it says, “he limped upon his hip”. He would have limped for the rest of his life, ever conscious of that experience, but ever conscious that every step from that day forward would be a step in dependence upon God. Now we all have to learn that, so that we have no confidence in the flesh. We “worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh”, Philippians 3: 3. So you can think of Jacob throughout his life of 147 years, a long time after this, and in every step in every day he would be conscious that
God had affected him, that the flesh was crippled, and that he must henceforth walk in simple dependence upon God. What history the man had! I could refer to the latter part of his life in which he speaks of the God who had shepherded him all his life long till that day, so though he has to say “few and evil have been the days of the years of my life”, he speaks also of the God that had shepherded him and he desires that that God should bless the lads, the sons of Joseph (see Genesis 48: 15, 16).
Now I speak of Peter, another man who had what we call a somewhat chequered history.
Those of us who are getting a little older have been very thankful for these men. I am sure they would never have objected to our learning from their experiences. It has often been said that it is a wise man who learns from his experience, and it is a wiser man who learns from other people’s too. So we can learn from the experience of Jacob and Peter. Here we find the disciples in the ship and it says “the ship was already in the middle of the sea tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary”. Do we not find in our localities that the wind is contrary?
Satan attacks what is precious to Christ always. I do not think he is much interested in that which is not precious to Christ, but he attacks and seeks to unsettle—if I might use the simple illustration—the local ‘boat’ where there are those who are devoted to Christ. What the measure of their devotion is we will leave, but they are devoted to Christ; and these disciples were, and Satan tries to unsettle the boat. I think it makes history in their souls in their knowledge of the Lord. I think in particular it makes history in Peter’s soul, so that this became a landmark in his history. But as Jacob was with the Lord so is Peter. It has been recorded for you and me. What history am I making? You say, we have difficulties in our locality; well we all
have difficulties and exercises in our localities. Mr. Jethro Jay once said to me, ‘You show me the meeting without exercise and I will very quickly show you the meeting without any life’. If you have life in your meeting you will have exercises; you will have the boat, so to speak, rocking at times. It is all to test the moral fibre of the occupants of the boat, I think. It is what God does in our localities so that He tests us and His work in us. He tests our confidence in Himself and in the Lord.
Well, Peter says to the Lord, “If it be thou, command me to come to thee upon the waters”.
Jesus just says, “Come”. “But seeing the wind strong he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, Lord, save me”. I think one simple lesson from this is one that has often been referred to, that you keep your eye on Christ. I remind you of that; to me it is not irksome to say that you must keep your eye on Christ, not on the wind that is strong, or on the waves, which are the enemy’s tactics; do not be over-occupied with what he is doing although, of course, we are not ignorant of his thoughts. Keep your eye on Christ and what He is doing; see what the Lord is doing. He told them to go in the boat; He told them to go to the other side, and you can be sure that if He tells you to go to the other side you will get there. I have every confidence at this moment that the Lord will see His testimony through.
The only doubt that exists as far as I am concerned is whether I shall be in it or not. I would be exercised to be in it until He comes, but I am persuaded He will see it through. I think that would be one lesson that Peter would have learned from this incident in his soul history, that he should keep his eye on the Lord, who is really the Master of the ship. Peter was not that.
The wind fell and the Lord showed
that He was in supreme command. I think Mr. McBride once said that it would be time enough for him to be afraid when the Man on the throne was afraid. When will that be? Well, never! The Man on the throne is not disturbed; time enough for me to be disturbed when the Man on the throne is disturbed! He is in complete control and He shows it, but, dear brethren, although we say that, and know it as an objective truth, we have to learn it, personally and in our localities, experimentally. So, as another has said, ‘all is lost to those who say all is lost’.
Now this dear woman in Matthew 26 also had soul history with God. I think the alabaster flask of very precious ointment which she poured out on His head as He lay at table would be the result of her history with God. It may have been in very mundane circumstances. I do not know what she did day by day. It may be she was learning God in the household chores, as we say. It must be very testing to sisters day after day to be at the sink washing up and doing the washing and the housework. But if you bring God into it, if you refer each matter to God, however mundane it may be, I think you will gain some of this precious ointment. It will bring a savour into the meeting. I believe that our dear sisters give substance and character to our occasions; I am sure of it. You often find if you go to a meeting where there are a number of elderly and devoted sisters that the way is made easy because of their influence, their link with the Lord, their appreciation of Him, what they have learned in those long years of work, mundane work, day after day. It may have been very boring, but they have learned the Lord in it; they have learned to love Him; they do things as serving the Lord Christ however simple they may be (see Colossians 3: 23, 24). In it they are growing in the knowledge of God.
Can you take things up like that? I find it difficult, I admit. You get up and go to work; you come home and go to the meeting, and then go home and go to bed, and so on; it all seems very mundane and routine. If you can seek grace to bring God into it I think you grow in the knowledge of Him because He enters into the details of our lives far more than we think. He has in mind all the time our development in the knowledge of Himself; and, after all, that is the most precious possession we have, the knowledge of God. May the Lord encourage us all to be exercised to grow in that knowledge and to develop in it by growing in soul history, personal history, day by day with Himself. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Address at Cullen
8 July 1978