The Gospel-24/7

HOLDING ON TO A STRAW! Adapted From A. B. Earle

Follow Book & Flag

TOPIC: Will Perfectly Surrendered, Brings Long-Delayed Salvation.

Title: HOLDING ON TO A STRAW!!

I found a business man in Albany, who said he had been earnestly seeking Christ for fifteen years, yet to no avail.

He was holding to a straw. It was this. He had said he would never go to an anxious seat to become a Christian. He believed one seat was as good as another. And so he prayed earnestly, and sought for fifteen long years to become a Christian, but had not succeeded.

The difficulty was not in a particular seat, but in his will.

There was one thing he would not do, yet it would not have been sinful for him to have done that thing. He found that the will held as firmly upon a straw as it could upon a mountain; that he could not have his way about the least thing, and become a Christian.

There must be an unconditional surrender of the will to God, before God will take full possession of the dead affections of the heart, to quicken them into life.

This man would go into an inquiry meeting; he would rise in a large meeting, and ask Christians to pray for him. He knew of no sin in his life that he had not given up, and wondered why he could not find peace.

At last I asked him to leave the seat he then occupied in a large meeting, and come and kneel with me near the pulpit. This was the very thing he had said he would never do. His pride and will rose in a desperate struggle. Should he do, at the invitation of a stranger, what he had said he would never do? Could there be any virtue in a particular seat? (The result showed him the seat had nothing to do with his conversion.) The difficulty was in his will.

At last he said: "I will give up, and do what I have refused to do for fifteen years."

He started to come to a front seat, and before he had gone half way to that seat, he felt in his heart that his sins were gone, and that he was a new creature in Christ Jesus. It was not the measure, but the will in the way.

He might have sought Christ fifteen years longer, and died without becoming a Christian, if he had not given up that one condition. The will was holding to a mere straw.

When I was leaving he called to urge me to tell every one about him, and entreat them not to lose their souls by doing as he had done for fifteen years. --- A. B. Earle, From: Incidents Used… In His Meetings, published in 1888