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False Profession With Bitterness A. B. Earle

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TOPIC AND SUBTOPIC: Bitter Spirit, False Profession With Bitterness

TITLE: The Bitter Spirit

Does the loud-spoken, quick-retorting, angry-browed, razor-tongued Joab-stabbing, Doeg-reporting, and Judas-plotting individual claiming salvation, remind any one of the patient, gentle, long-suffering, unresentful and loving Christ?

Who is likely to get under conviction through such a misrepresentation of the Saviour; whose heart will melt and break over the snapping and snarlings of this wolf who has pulled a sheeps skin over his brown hide, and would try to make an outward profession take the place of an inward condition and nature?

If the thirteenth chapter of I. Corinthians could be likened to a coat or dress, what a time some avowed Christians would have in getting it on and making it fit! How it would hitch up on the fourth verse; how it would pucker on the fifth, and what a tearing and rending on the 7th!

Suppose that I Peter, chapter 2, verses 19-23 was a garment: "For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully; If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps; who did no Sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."

What a time some of Gods professed people would have getting this character garment on. It would never fit them in the world. And if they do not wear it in this life, they cannot do so in the life to come. There is no alteration of doctrine at death. There is no cutting out of new patterns at the grave. A loveless, pitiless soul on earth is a loveless, pitiless soul in eternity. There is nothing in a bunch of death rattles to take the scold and hate and revenge out of a human soul. It takes away the power to indulge this spirit in this world any more, but in no wise changes the man himself who enters Eternity as he left Time. The tree lies as it falls. He is unjust still. He is filthy still. He is bitter and hating and hateful forever.

We have read letters written by one professed Christian to another that reminded us of cupping glasses and mustard plasters. We have seen paragraphs and editorials in church journals, and full salvation papers where the sentences looked like uplifted swords and pointed bayonets, and where the periods created the impression of bullets.

And these same articles were as pitiless as weapons of war. And they were oftentimes directed upon men and women who not only loved God, but were serving him faithfully years and years before the writer of the onslaught had gotten out of bibs and tuckers and long before they had ever tasted for themselves the grace of God. -- A. B. Earle, From: Incidents Used In His Meetings, published in 1888.

A.B. Earle, American evangelist - Copied biographical notes, author unknown. --- Absalom Backus Earle, 1812-1895, American evangelist. A.B. Earle was born in Charlton, New York. He was converted at the age of 16 and began to preach two years later. The next three years were spent in study and preaching, until, at the age of 21, he was ordained at Amsterdam, New York. After pastoring there for five years, Earle felt led of the Lord to enter the evangelistic ministry. Fifty-eight years of his life were spent in holding meetings in the United States, every state, and Canada.

He compiled the following statistics: Number of series of meetings: 960. Number of services: 39,330. Miles traveled: 370,000. Total amount received for 64 years of ministry: $65,520.00. Conversions to Christ: 160,000. Men entering the ministry: 400. Earle authored the following books: Bringing in the Sheaves, Abiding Peace, Rest of Faith, The Human Will, The Work of An Evangelist, Evidences of Conversion, and Winning Souls. He died at his home in Newton, Massachusetts, on March 30, 1895, at the age of 83.

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