Friday November 1st, 2013 “1st Voice” My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) “Ye are not your own” “Know ye not that. . . ye are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19. ________________________________________ My determination is to be my utmost for His Highest. ________________________________________ To be an Uncommon Believer….Let the “First Voice” You Hear in the Morning….Be the Voice of the LORD. ________________________________________ ISAIAH 50: 4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. 5 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. ________________________________________ Run Today’s Race: “If there is to be another revival, it will be through the readjustment of those of us on the inside who call ourselves Christians.”… Oswald Chambers ________________________________________ My Utmost for His Highest: by Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) ________________________________________ “Ye are not your own” “Know ye not that. . . ye are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19. There is no such thing as a private life—‘a world within the world’—for a man or woman who is brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ’s sufferings. God breaks up the private life of His saints, and makes it a thoroughfare for the world on the one hand and for Himself on the other. No human being can stand that unless he is identified with Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified for ourselves, we are called into the fellowship of the Gospel, and things happen which have nothing to do with us, God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have his way, if you do not, instead of being of the slightest use to God in His Redemptive work in the world, you will be a hindrance and a clog. The first thing God does with us is to get us based on rugged Reality until we do not care what becomes of us individually as long as He gets His way for the purpose of His Redemption. Why shouldn’t we go through heartbreaks? Through these doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us fall and collapse at the first grip of pain; we sit down on the threshold of God’s purpose and die away of self-pity, and all so-called Christian sympathy will aid us to our death-bed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, and says—“Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.” If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart. [3] ________________________________________ Prayer is not just an exercise routine God has us on; It’s our business, Our only business. Prayer is our holy occupation. Plain and simple: ________________________________________ OUR HOLY OCCUPATION REQUIRES WONDER: ________________________________________ “THE PRAYERS of the saints either enable or disable God in the performance of His wonders. The majority of us in praying for the will of God to be done say, In Gods good time, meaning in my bad time; consequently there is no silence in heaven produced by our prayers, no results, no performance.” “In what ways might my prayers be disabling God in the performance of His wonders?” “O LORD, I do praise You that in Christ Jesus it is all of You, it is mercy and loving kindness, graciousness and wonders all along the way. I would be sensitive to You and Your doings, and Christ-like in my gratitude. Be in and out among us this day in power; touch everyone of us.” ________________________________________ Chronological Reading- Thru the Bible in One Year: Today’s Scriptures: Matthew 20-21. biblegateway/passage/?version=NKJV&search=matt+20-21 ________________________________________ Prayers That Avail Much: November 1 “Heavenly Father, there is a new song in my heart today. I will praise You to the ends of the earth and make known Your goodness and faithfulness. Up until this moment in time, everything concerning me that took place is classed as former things. You said the former things are passed, and You will now do a new thing, Lord. Thank You for revealing to me the new thing that You have planned for my life. I will step into it and bring the glory and honor of it unto You, in Jesus Name. Amen.” Isaiah 42: 8-10. Daily Confession: “I am walking in the fullness of Gods new plans for me!” ________________________________________ “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much!”…James 5:16. ________________________________________ 2Timothy 2: 1-8; 2 Chronicles 7:14 ________________________________________ To submit prayer requests: E-Prayer’ (NHCC office: [email protected]) ________________________________________ Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God The Life Story of the Author of My Utmost For His Highest David McCasland 16 LAUNCHING ALL ON HIM (1914–1915) The war caught most Britons by surprise. Ominous clouds had gathered quickly over Europe after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 28, but the trouble seemed far away. “If Austria-Hungary and Serbia have a scrap over it,” Britons said, “that doesn’t concern us.” After all, the political weather in Europe was always stormy, and the next-door threat of civil war and secession in Ireland seemed a greater danger than the international jousting taking place across the English Channel. Few people were aware of the complex alliances and secret diplomacy that finally drew Britain into the war. Suddenly, Oswald, Biddy, and the Bible Training College students were citizens of a country mobilizing for all-out war. Recruiting posters appeared everywhere, street meetings inspired patriotic response, and a month after Britain’s declaration of war, men were joining the armed forces at the rate of thirty thousand a day. Many thought the war would end quickly and they would be home victorious by Christmas. “Join now or miss out,” many young men told themselves and their friends. Older veterans had seen war fever before and many of them sensed the prolonged agony to come. Without knowing it, the people of Britain were swept into the first modern military conflict to involve an entire civilian population. In a matter of weeks, life in Britain began to turn upside down. People were called upon to sell their farm horses and civilian automobiles to the government. Even the bright red double decker buses from the streets of London were shipped across the Channel where they carried British troops to the front lines of battle. In addition, paper scrip replaced gold coinage, women entered the work force in munitions factories, transportation, and other jobs previously restricted to men, and houses along every street proudly displayed posters bearing a large red circle and the words, “Not At Home, A Man From This House Now Serving In His Majesty’s Forces.” Underneath the excitement and patriotic fervor, however, lay a pervading sense of uncertainty and fear. In the September 1914 issue of Tongues of Fire, Chambers addressed the perplexities felt by many: “This question is on the lips of people today: Is war of the devil or of God? It is of neither. It is of man, though God and the devil are both behind it. War is a conflict of wills either in individuals or in nations, and just now there is a terrific conflict of wills in nations. “Our Lord insists on the inevitability of peril. Right through His talks with His disciples, without panic and without passion and without fear He says, You must lay your account with this sort of thing, with war, with spite, with hatred, with jealousy, with despisings, with banishment and with death. Now remember I have told you these things that when they happen you may not be scared. “We are not only hearing of wars and commotions, they are here right enough. It is not imagination, it is not newspaper reports, the thing is here at our doors, there is no getting away from it. War, such as the history of the world has never known, has now begun. “Jesus Christ did not say: You will understand why the war has come—but: Do not be scared, do not be put in a panic. “There is one thing worse than war, and that is sin. We get tremendously scared when our social order is broken up, and well we may. We get terrorized by hundreds of men being killed, but we forget there is something worse—sinful dastardly lives being lived day by day, year in and year out in our villages and towns ... these are the things that produce pain in the heart of God, not the wars and the devastation that so upset us. “Are the terrors that are abroad producing panic? You never saw anybody in a panic who did not grab for themselves whether it was sugar or butter or nations. Jesus would never allow His disciples to be in a panic. The one great crime on the part of a disciple, according to Jesus Christ, is worry. Whenever we begin to calculate without God we commit sin.” Daily life at the College continued to be bathed in prayer, but with new concerns. A half hour of intercession for the needs of the nation and men in battle now preceded the usual daily morning prayers together before breakfast. Oswald, always the first one there, played a favorite hymn of praise on the small organ as all the resident students gathered in the Lecture Hall to pray. Every Tuesday afternoon, the College met as a whole to praise God for His goodness and bring their needs before Him. During this time, the name of every resident student, past and present, was read aloud. On Friday evenings, the students now in missionary service were especially remembered in prayer. Oswald’s college report for 1914 noted with thanksgiving that among the former students, nine were serving as missionaries and two were in military service at the Front; six were definitely accepted missionary candidates and four had volunteered for the foreign field. He emphasized, however, that these opportunities for service were God’s appointments, not his. “We undertake to find no sphere of labour for our students,” he said. “Our duty is to see that this house maintains the honour of God and that each student is put into a right spiritual atmosphere. His clearly discerned will always follows.” Chambers believed this, but he was no stranger to the struggle of trying to gain a clear understanding of God’s leading. It was not a matter of worry, but of sifting through competing calls to duty and discerning which one truly had come from God. On December 31, 1914, Oswald and Biddy observed their usual custom of seeking God together for the New Year. They wrestled with the many possibilities. Should they stay at the college to continue the work of which he had dreamed for so long? If Oswald left, who would carry it on? What was his responsibility to the League of Prayer? What responsibility did he have to his country? Should he volunteer for military service? The call was out for men from nineteen to forty. In a few months he would be forty-one. And what about Biddy and Kathleen? Would it be right to go away and leave them in God’s keeping? How could he best love and care for them? From his prayer journal: “Lord, I praise Thee for this place I am in; but the wonder has begun to stir in me—is this Thy place for me? Hold me steady doing Thy will. It may be only restlessness; if so, calm me to strength that I sin not against Thee by doubting.” The new year crept into a somber Britain. Too many men were dying in France for the holidays to ring with laughter and toasts for a happy 1915. As the church bells rang at midnight, Oswald and Biddy rose from their knees. God would lead them on His path, whatever it was, and it would be right. More than right, it would be filled with His joy and blessing. In the meantime, their task was to trust God and do the next thing. At the college, Kathleen continued along her carefree way, wondering why so many grownups seemed to be sad. She provided regular comic relief so needed as students read grim newspaper headlines and pondered an uncertain future. When a meeting dragged on too long to suit her, she often gave her father’s characteristic call to stand and be dismissed: From the back of the lecture hall, her tiny voice could be heard, saying “Shall we ‘wise’?” During the 1915 term, Chambers brought several guest lecturers to his Friday evening class on “Missionary Matters.” Among them was the already legendary C. T. Studd, one of England’s finest cricketers at Cambridge University and a noted pioneer missionary. Chambers had been a boy of ten when Studd first sailed for China to serve with Hudson Taylor. When Studd inherited a fortune from his father’s estate, he gave it all away, choosing to trust God for his own needs. After years in China and India, Studd had gone to Africa in 1911. He was back in England, temporarily, until he could return to the Dark Continent. Two students, Jimmy Hanson and Philip Hancock, hoped to leave in a few months to serve with Studd’s Heart of Africa Mission. C. T. Studd sounded the call for Christians to enter the spiritual battle for the souls of men and women with the same courage being displayed on the battlefields of the Great War. “This can only be accomplished,” he said, “by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered Holy Ghost religion, where neither Church nor State, neither man nor traditions are worshipped or preached, but only Christ and Him crucified.” The war caused many Christians to focus on Bible prophecy and a preoccupation with the end times. Many felt that God’s judgment had finally fallen on the godless nations of the world, and Britain was included. Chambers, like Studd, viewed the grim realities of 1915 in a different way than the fearful or the doomsayers. Oswald’s articles in Tongues of Fire show his growing concern to live aggressively for Christ during difficult days: January 1915: “This war, while for a time it has made men in pain say petulant and unbelieving things about the creeds that are right in theory but utterly futile in practice, has at the same time prepared their hearts for the universality of the exclusive way of Christ. If He is the only way to the Father, it is a way that is open to any and every man, the way that knows neither Jew nor Greek, neither barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, knows neither male nor female, nationality nor civilization. It is this glorious revelation which it is the duty and the privilege and the honour of us who are Christ’s to proclaim with lip and life in impassioned zeal and earnestness in the closing phases of the dispensation in which we live.” March 1915: “A parenthesis is a sentence inserted into an otherwise grammatically complete sentence, and if you want to understand the author, pay particular attention to the parenthesis. God puts a parenthesis in the middle flow of our life, the life goes on before and after, but if you want to understand the life, read the parenthesis, if you can.” April 1915: “To the saints who know the end of things, it is not a time of separate aloneness, but of sanctified abandonment to God for intercession. Let us beware then of excessive brooding on our own personal whiteness, or as special coteries [cliques] regarding the Second Coming. Let us fling ourselves into abandonment on Him and intercede on behalf of the country we belong to that she may prove God’s servant as well as God’s instrument. Let us pray lest men look merely for peace instead of to and for God.” Oswald’s own intercession led him to a momentous choice: “Lord, I have decided before Thee to offer for work with the Forces; undertake and guide me in each particular. I know Thou wilt, but I am fearful of my own precipitate judgment.” Even after the decision, his prayer journal chronicled an inner struggle filled with an uncharacteristic anxiety: “How unrelieved my mind has been about the future, I praise Thee that this is not always so, or scarcely ever so. How there is nothing to hold to but just Thyself! Keep me from flagging and slacking. “My mind is still vague regarding the way I am to take, Lord; so much has gone beyond my own discernment in this decision. It is not that I doubt Thee, but all is so completely shrouded. “Lord, a vague desolation seems around my life, it is nebulous, I cannot define it. I have no misgiving over my decision for I have done what Thou didst indicate I should do, but still the sense of uncertainty remains. Touch this nebulous nimbus and turn it into a firmament of ordered beauty and form.” In a letter to his parents, he presented a more confident exterior: B.T.C., May 24, 1915 My dear Mother and Father, Florence will have told you of my decision to offer for the front as a chaplain, for ‘first aid’ spiritually. I wanted you to know as soon as I did myself. Nothing is arranged or even clear by any means yet, nothing but my decision before the Lord. I shall do my human best naturally, but as in many times in the past, I shall find God opening up the way. My mind is clear regarding God’s call, the rest will ‘fall out’ or ‘in’ as He ordains. Since the war began it has been a pressure on me all but unendurable to be here, but I know God well enough not to confound my own natural desires and impulses for His will or ordering. At New Year time as Biddy and I waited before God, I said to her, ‘Just look at my verse—‘I am ready to be offered,’ 2 Tim. 4:6, and we agreed before God that it was all right as He ordained. Since then the growing sense of God’s pressure has been added until I became certain that it was time to decide, so I did, and told all whose business it was to know, and now I leave it. You see, in this way the idea sinks into people’s minds like a seed thought, and they slowly grow used to it, so that there is no farewell meeting or anything like that, but just a simple slipping into the next thing almost unobservedly. Biddy is just keen on the thing, and will never do anything but back me up, no matter what it costs her. Kathleen, what about her? Is it likely we would forget her or that He would? I am not several kinds of fools in one, I am only one kind of fool—the kind that believes and obeys God. I got a grand word to my own soul on Sunday morning, Luke 10:1, ‘Sent ... before His face into every city and place, whither He Himself would come,’ and again this morning with a quiet intimation unsought for by me, these words came to my remembrance: ‘Nothing shall by any means hurt you,’ Luke 10:19. Now, Mother, just you take up your abode in John 14:1, and see Him work. These four years at the B.T.C. have been unique and blessed, and they terminate in a quiet, unobtrusive, splendid and final way. You will pray I know. I have a strong impression that the Y.M.C.A. Hut will be the plan adopted, but I do not know. However, He knows and I know He knows, and I know that I’ll never think of anything He will forget, so I just go steadily on as I have always done, and He will engineer the circumstances. Ever your loving son, Oswald A few days later, his answer came and was recorded in his prayer journal: “Lord, yesterday the Y.M.C.A. accepted me for their work in the Desert Camps in Egypt, and Thy word came this morning with great emphasis—‘Sent before His face into every city and place whither He himself was about to come.’ “Lord, how I praise Thee for this College, it has been four years of unique loveliness, and now I give it up because I believe I do so in answer to Thy call.” The war had brought sweeping changes to every phase of life in Britain, and there was no end in sight. The Bible Training College would close its doors at the end of the term on July 14, 1915. For each one present it marked the end of an era, not just for themselves but for the League of Prayer, and for the nation. Everywhere people prepared for the inevitable disruptions ahead. During the first week of June, the death of Duncan MacGregor took Chambers to Dunoon for the funeral of his long-time friend and mentor. The college at Kirn looked exceptionally beautiful with the flowering shrubs and trees in full blossom. As Chambers took his place in the lecture room for the service, a wave of emotion swept over him. It didn’t seem possible that eighteen years had gone by since he first shook hands with MacGregor and knew he had found a unique man of God. On this morning in 1915, with his heart full of praise to God as well as the pain of loss, Oswald felt like his father had died. He left quickly after the burial, promising Mrs. MacGregor he would return for a longer visit soon. Four weeks remained in the spring term at the B.T.C. in London, and he wanted to spend as much time with the students as he could. Crossing the Firth of Clyde as he had done hundreds of times before, he watched the familiar outline of the pier fade away and recalled a favorite line of poetry: “Our own are our own forever; God taketh not back His gift.” He owed so much to “grand old Mac.” He would miss him. How glad he would be to see him again in heaven. A month later, with the emotions of life and death still close to the surface, Chambers gave a final talk to the B.T.C. students, concluding with these words of hope: “The saint who enters into the rest of God the Father and God the Son is, in the actual crisis of present conditions, under the control and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So the words of Our Lord come to us with all the power of God—‘Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me.’” Then he offered a final prayer: “We thank Thee that there is no Good-bye. We ask Thee that Thy Crown and Seal may be upon us every one until we meet Thee face to face. Amen.” Each person cherished a special memory of the days in the College. For some, it was the teaching of Oswald Chambers, but for most, it was the man. Howgate Greenwood remembered the time Chambers approached him and said, “I believe you are rather hard up these days. I have just received a gift from a friend for God’s work, and it is for you.” With that, he handed the astonished Greenwood two pounds. How had he known? Another student recalled walking with Chambers through a little country village when “he just very naturally stopped and prayed, asking for God’s blessing on the village ... so like what our Lord would have done when He was on earth.” The work of the B. T. C., although a small entity in London, could now be seen in its broader sphere of influence. During its four years of existence, 106 resident students studied, prayed, and lived under the powerful influence of Oswald and Biddy’s example. By July 1915, forty of them were serving as missionaries, sixteen at home and twenty-four abroad. From 1911 to 1915, the day students who attended lectures, wrote essays, and benefited from Oswald’s instruction numbered more than 3,000. Hundreds of others had come to hear a single talk or a series without being enrolled. The Bible Correspondence Course, begun a year before the College opened its doors, still provided systematic study for a far-flung and diverse student body of teachers, ministers, mothers, and working people. Oswald’s sister Gertrude served as secretary, registrar, and one-woman post office for the 1,909 people enrolled. Every three weeks, she sent hundreds of lessons to students and received their papers, which Oswald personally read and marked. His comments usually consisted of two or three typed sentences of evaluation and a word of encouragement signed by his stamped signature in red ink. An article in the August Tongues of Fire informed League members that the present phase of the Bible Training College was closed, and that a new expeditionary force phase was beginning. “The great war and the desperate spiritual need of our soldiers have been keenly present with us night and day since the war began,” Oswald wrote. “Also, the pressure of God’s hand became so unmistakable as expressed by Isaiah, ‘The Lord talked to me with a strong hand,’ that after much prayer and waiting on God we made not only our requests, but our desires known with the result that Mrs. Chambers and myself, with little Kathleen, have been accepted for Egypt and the Dardanelles in the army camps, and we go out in October. “We all realise at the College that this is the call of God, but we also realise that it is but an important episode, and ‘if the Lord tarry’ till the present war is over we expect to be again in this country for yet another phase of the Bible Training College. “The B.T.C. in its present phase concludes as the College began, under the inspiration of God. We sincerely hope and pray that all friends will rally to the assistance of the president of the college, Mrs. Reader Harris, in keeping this place at least as a Bible Training Home during the war. Such places will be greatly needed as centres of real spiritual staying power.” A few months before, Chambers had struggled with how to fulfill his responsibilities to family, college, and country. Now God had answered his prayers in a way that blended all three in a new venture. Since much of Egypt was not technically a combat zone like the Western Front in France, the Y.M.C.A. agreed to his request that Biddy and Kathleen accompany him. Jimmy Hanson and Philip Hancock had put their missionary service on hold and had also been accepted for service with the Y.M.C.A. in Egypt. Katherine Ashe believed the military authorities would soon yield to her insistent demands that she be allowed to go, too. Chambers, as always, led by example, and these members of what he called “the B.T.C. Expeditionary Force” enlisted enthusiastically, hearing his call from God as their own. Before the flurry of activity that would surround their departure, Oswald took his family and a contingent of friends to his beloved Yorkshire Dales. August brought much-needed days of rest in the picturesque village of Askrigg for the Chambers family and the many students who joined them. From their room above Jim Skidmore’s antique shop, Biddy looked across the road at the historic parish church, built in the fifteenth century and roofed with lead from local mines. Its five-hundred-year-old name, St. Oswald’s, was always a point of humor with their friends. Beyond the church the quiet road wound down a hill and a footpath led to the River Ure. Chambers treasured the lush green hills of Wensleydale, where summer haying was done with hand scythes and pitchforks. Horse drawn sledges carried the rich crop from fields to barns. The prevailing silence of the dales ebbed and flowed with the noise of the wind and the bleating of sheep. He loved to walk the high moors where he could tramp for hours without seeing another person. Five miles above the gray stone buildings of Askrigg, he felt a million miles away from everything. With Kathleen in a homemade canvas backpack, Oswald led daily hikes, picnics, and fishing expeditions into the countryside he called “my Heavenly Father’s Dining Room.” After building a fire and boiling the potatoes, without which no picnic was considered complete, Chambers led a prayer of thanksgiving for all God’s gifts, especially “the leagues of pure air.” Sometimes, after the meal, he would still the conversation with a wave of his hand and point out the haunting songs of the summer birds—the “go-back, go-back” of the grouse, the cry of the curlew, and the single plaintive note of the golden plover. While others napped or searched for violets and wild orchids, Oswald donned his favorite wool hat and fished the clear, rushing waters for trout. Each evening, the Chambers’ cottage was open for Bible study and a time of prayer, while Sundays took him to the small churches of neighboring villages to preach. From his prayer journal: “O, Lord, for the days of this holiday I praise and thank Thee—for the majesty of this crowded isolation, the leagues of moor, the radiant air, the tonic of naturalness, and the sweet tonic of spiritual instruction as I lie fallow to thy grace.” By September the holiday was over, the students were gone, and he was at work among the soldiers in the camps around Wensleydale. Too soon, the time of final preparations arrived. Late in the month, he took a last long walk in the hills he loved so well, and savored the fragrance of new mown hay. In a few weeks, he would exchange these green fields for a land of burning sand. Ashrigg, Yorks, Sept 25, 1915 My dear Mother, I have my sailing orders for October 9th. I go first to prepare the way for Biddy and the students, this seems to me to be best anyway. It has been quite wonderful to me lately to recall the various texts of Scripture that have come to me peculiarly and in an intimate spiritual sense. The very first of all the prominent ones was the one given me by Mrs. John Skidmore many years ago before I first went abroad. Isaiah 45:13, ‘I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts.’ When the word came, ‘Go ye into all the world,’ I went, and truly He made ‘all my ways’ for they seemed certainly not mine or common sense. I had thought to settle in Dunoon College, in Japan, in America, and in the B.T.C., but His way for me is ‘the world.’ Surely He hath made ‘all my ways’ and it has not been for ‘price or reward,’ saving that of building His city and setting His exiles free. And God has united Biddy with me in all these ‘ways.’ Ever your loving son, Oswald Finally, the day came for him to sail. He and Biddy said all their good-byes, shed all their tears, and prayed that God would have His way in their lives. He left her at the college and boarded a tram for the station. A few hours later, Biddy answered a knock at the door and found Oswald, smiling broadly. The sailing had been delayed for twenty-four hours. The next day, with the pain of parting behind them, they bid each other a hopeful farewell, and this time, he was gone. They hoped to be reunited in a few weeks in Egypt, but it was war-time and circumstances often changed overnight. In typical fashion, he left behind a letter for Biddy: You are bearing these days well. When you married me, I had no prospects, but just Him, and you had just me, and you loved me with a love that has been a shield and joy and a rampart of strength to me. Now God has given us our darling Kathleen and we go forth again. You have loved this place. It has been Bethel to you, a great joyous place and God’s benediction ... I praise God that His comforts delight your soul. I go forth without College and without students and without a calling, just to speak and be for Him, and you will go with me. Our years together have been radiantly blessed and now the few weeks apart will be radiant with His perfections. We will not sin against the disposition of the Holy Ghost by being even sad. God made the human heart and he knows it. How immensely glad I am that we are all so humanly His. I am actually hilarious now as I think of going. This is all by God’s good and mighty grace. God has been unutterably good to me. Once again, Chambers was where he loved to be, on the sea, but this time it was different. German submarines lurked everywhere along the route from England to Egypt, and everything in their periscopes, including passenger liners, was a target. During the first half of 1915, the U-boats had sent thousands of tons of Allied shipping to the bottom of the ocean. The SS City of Paris, normally a comfortable steamer, was so crowded with a wartime mixture of humanity that Chambers could scarcely find a place to be alone and pray. After a few frustrating days, he found the solution by crawling into a lifeboat. There he could spend an early morning hour with God, alone and uninterrupted. Like many people of the time, he recorded each day in diary-letters and sent them to Biddy. These writings, combined with extracts of letters to friends, paint a picture of his days at sea: October 12: Do you know I have scarcely missed you, so completely and entirely have you been with me. The sense of God’s presence is real and beautiful. The sense also is so entire that my going is of Him and His ways that although I cannot begin to discern what I am to do out in Egypt, I am not even concerned. It was something of the nature of an earthquake to root up from London and the B. T C., but where He leads we follow, and a joy it is, too. It is a great thing to be detached enough from possessions so as not to be held by them, because when called to uproot it is done with little real trouble, and one realizes how gloriously possible it is, without being heartless, to obey His injunction, ‘See that you be not troubled.’ In any untoward or new circumstances, the thing to do is to just trust in Him with all the heart, and not lean to one’s own understanding, and ‘hang in’ until one gets actually used to the new surroundings. October 13: The sense is strong in me today of the unutterable goodness and wisdom of God, and to me who possesses neither goodness or wisdom, He simply gives His own. Truly His will is the gladdest, finest thing conceivable. I am to speak at the Sunday evening service. My two cabin friends have promised to ‘back me up’ in my preaching; that means they will be there in the true spirit as comrades, God bless them. From a letter to Gladys Ingram (Gladiolus), a B.T.C. student to whom he and Biddy were very close. October 17—near Gibraltar: Thank you for your letters and telegram. I love you to love me. I should be scared if you ‘liked’ met Love is of God—like is of human dangerous-nature full of possibilities but full of pitfalls. I am glad you love Biddy: when I think of her I can but look into the face of God and say in my soul God is Good. These days I do not miss her, she is never away from me. I am glad God let you know us because there is so much of unfortunate marriage that such an one as ours must be a good thing for you to know. Be as much as you can with Biddy. Help her on her coming. Now I am going to write no more. God bless you Gladiolus! What we are is of much more use to God and our fellows than what we do. ‘Consider the lilies’ said Jesus our Lord. That is, do not get the ‘actuality’ fever; I mean this satanic idea of doing something. Be something ever as you are. I send you again John 14! On the same day he wrote to Biddy: Take the sea and the air and the sun and the stars and moon, all these are and what a ministration they exert! So often we mar God’s designed influence by our self-conscious efforts at being consistent and useful. Diary, October 18: My service last evening was well attended, I spoke on Matthew 11:3, ‘Am I mistaken after all?’ I had His liberty, thank God; my table turned out loyally. My Scandinavian room-mate impressed me by his remarks in broken English when he came into the cabin last night. ‘Ah, I see, your jokes and light-heartedness plough the land, then you put in the seed. I feel in my insides that that is right.’ October 19: It is wonderful that I am not homesick for the B.T.C. This is of God, for the B.T.C. was the Gate of Heaven to us, yet He so profoundly called us out, and has so profoundly undertaken that it is just the most natural thing not to be there. October 21: It is of peculiar interest to find men discover me to be agreeable, men of the tough and worldly sort, too, rough old sinners and sporting youths, they all unbosom without varnish their tales of woe and happiness and sin and sorrow and larks. Ever since I learned not to teach any consciously as an aim, men seem to come in many ways to me. Lying looking over the magnificent moonlit pathway across the sea, my mind settled in to gratitude to God that I am going out under no denominational call at all, but with free scope to follow Him undeterred. This may sound loose, but it does not mean looseness, but rather the most delightful and strenuous concentration on Him. They are beginning to call the life on board dull. My word! dull! with books and sea and mind and prayer, dull! It is teeming with endless and joyous interest. The vast expanse of sea is just great. October 24: I do thank God for this voyage. It has been most delightful, and this lifeboat has been a real Bethel to me. It has come to be known now as my lifeboat. It has been a wonderful rest and tonic in every way, and now I go to behold His wonderful undertakings in landing, and in Egypt, and in the camps. It is a great charm not to know, but just to see Him unfold His purposes. October 25: Glorious words in Daily Light today. Praise God for a safe good voyage and abundant peace and blessing every hour on board. On an October day, eight years before, he had steamed through the Suez Canal and out of Port Said bound for home on the last leg of his journey around the world. Now, in the providence of God and the chaos of war, he was back. With great anticipation, he left the ship in Alexandria and boarded a train for Cairo.[4] Tomorrow: PART 5 “We are not called to be successful in accordance with ordinary standards, but in accordance with a corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying, becoming in that way what it never could be if it were to abide alone.” —He Shall Glorify Me 17 THE Y.M.C.A. IN EGYPT (1915) ________________________________________ -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Isaiah 40: 28: Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” James 4: 8 -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ En Agape, Pastor Jim Menke [email protected] New Hope Christian Center 2240 Baty Road Lima, Ohio 45807 [1]Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. October 22 To be ADDED to the “1st VOICE” mailing list… please e-mail: [email protected] and type SUBSCRIBE in the Subject Line. You will be ADDED A.S.A.P.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 13:51:09 +0000
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