Chapter 5: THE DOVE AND THE LAMB: ROY HESSION

CHAPTER 5

THE DOVE AND THE LAMB

VICTORIOUS living and effective soul-winning service are not the product of our better selves and hard endeavors, but are simply the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We are not called upon to produce the fruit, but simply to bear it. It is all the time to be His fruit. Nothing is more important, then, than that we should be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit, or to keep to the metaphor, that the "trees of the Lord should be continuously full of sap" - His sap. How this may be so for us is graphically illustrated by the record, in the first chapter of John, of how the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus at His baptism. John the Baptist had seen Jesus coming to him and had said of Him, "Behold, the Lamb of God that beareth the sin of the world." Then as he baptised him, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descending like a Dove and lighting upon Him.

THE HUMILITY OF GOD

What a suggestive picture we have here - the Dove descending upon the Lamb and resting herself upon Him! The Lamb and the Dove are surely the gentlest of all God's creatures. The Lamb speaks of meekness and submissiveness and the Dove speaks of peace (what more peaceful sound than the cooing of a dove on a summer day). Surely this shows us that the heart of Deity is humility. When the eternal God chose to reveal Himself in His Son, He gave Him the name of the Lamb; and when it was necessary for the Holy Spirit to come into the world, He was revealed under the emblem of the Dove. Is it not obvious, then, that the reason why we have to be humble in order to walk with God is not merely because God is so big and we so little, that humility befits such little creatures - but because God is so humble? The main lesson of this incident is that the Holy Spirit, as the Dove, could only come upon and remain upon the Lord Jesus because He was the Lamb. Had the Lord Jesus had any other disposition than that of the Lamb - humility, submissiveness and self-surrender - the Dove could never have rested on Him. Being herself so gentle, she would have been frightened away had not Jesus been meek and lowly in heart. Here, then, we have pictured for us the condition upon which the same Holy Spirit can come upon us and abide upon us. The Dove can only abide upon us as we are willing to be as the Lamb. How impossible that He should rest upon us while self is unbroken! The manifestations of the unbroken self are the direct opposite of the gentleness of the Dove. Read again in Galatians 5 the nine fold fruit of the Spirit ("love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self control") with which the Dove longs to fill us! Then contrast it with the ugly works of the flesh (the N.T. name for the unbroken self) in the same chapter. It is the contrast of the snarling wolf with the gentle dove!

THE DISPOSITION OF THE LAMB

 How clear, then, that the Holy Spirit will only come upon us and remain upon us as we are willing to be as the Lamb on each point on which He will convict us. And nothing is so searching and humbling as to look at the Lamb on His way to Calvary for us and to be shown in how many points we have been unwilling to take the position of the lamb for Him. Look at Him for a moment as the Lamb. He was the simple Lamb. A lamb is the simplest of God's creatures. It has no schemes or plans for helping itself - it exists in helplessness and simplicity. Jesus made Himself as nothing for us, and became the simple Lamb. He had no strength of His own or wisdom of His own, no schemes to get Himself out of difficulties, just simple dependence on the Father all the time. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do." But we - how complicated we are! What schemes we have had of helping ourselves and of getting ourselves out of difficulties. What efforts of our own we have resorted to, to live the Christian life and to do God's works, as if we were something and could do something. The Dove had to take His flight (at least as far as the conscious blessing of His Presence was concerned) because we were not willing to be simple lambs.

WILLING TO BE SHORN

Then He was the shorn Lamb, willing to be shorn of His rights, His reputation, and every human liberty that was due to Him, just as a lamb is shorn of its wool. He never resisted: A lamb never does. When He was reviled for our sakes, He reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not. He never said, "You cannot treat Me like that. Don't you know that I am the Son of God?" But we - ah we, on how many occasions have we been unwilling to be shorn of that which was our right. We were not willing for His sake to lose what was our own. We insisted, too, that we should be treated with the respect due to our position. We resisted, and we fought. The Dove had to take His flight from us for we were not willing to be shorn lambs, and we were left without peace, hard and unloving.

HE ANSWERED NOTHING

Then further, He was the silent Lamb. "As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." Facing the calumnies of men, we read, "He answered nothing." He never defended Himself, nor explained Himself. But we have been anything but silent when others have said unkind or untrue things about us. Our voices have been loud in self-defense and self-vindication, and there has been anger in our voices. We have excused ourselves, when we should have admitted frankly our wrong. On every such occasion the Dove had to take His flight, and withdraw His peace and blessing from our hearts, because we were not willing to be the silent lamb.

NO GRUDGES

He was also the spotless Lamb. Not only did nothing escape His lips, but there was nothing in His heart but love for those who had sent Him to the Cross. There was no resentment towards them, no grudges, no bitterness. Even as they were putting the nails through His hands, He was murmuring, "I forgive you," and He asked His Father to forgive them too. He was willing to suffer it in meekness for us. But what resentment and bitterness have not we had in our hearts - toward this one and that one, and over so much less than what they did to Jesus. Each reaction left a stain on our hearts, and the Dove had to fly away because we were not willing to bear it and forgive it for Jesus' sake.

RETURN, OH DOVE!

These, then, are the acts and attitudes which drive the Holy Spirit from our lives, as far as present blessing is concerned, and they are all sin. Sin is the only thing that hinders the revival of His Church. The question of all questions for us just now is, "How can the Dove return to our lives with His peace and power?" The answer is again just simply, "The Lamb of God," for He is not only the simple Lamb and the shorn Lamb and the silent Lamb and the spotless Lamb, but above everything else He is the substitute Lamb. To the Jew the lamb that was offered to God was always a substitute lamb. Its meekness and submissiveness was only incidental to its main work, that of being slain for his sin and of its blood being sprinkled on the altar to atone for it. The humility of the Lord Jesus in becoming our Lamb was necessary only that He might become on the Cross our Substitute, our scapegoat, carrying our sins in His own Body on the Tree, so that there might be forgiveness for our sins and cleansing from all their stains, when we repent of them. But inasmuch as there is no past or future with God, but all is present and timeless, there is a sense in which the suffering of the Lord Jesus for the sins of which we have not repented is present too. What a vision it is when we see these sins wounding and hurting Him now! May this solemn thought break our proud hearts in repentance! For it is only when we have seen these sins of ours in the heart of Jesus, so that we are broken and willing to repent of them and put them right, that the Blood of the Lamb cleanses us from them and the Dove returns with peace and blessing to our hearts.

He humbled Himself to the manger,

And even to Calvary's tree;

But I am so proud and unwilling,

His humble disciple to be.

He yielded His will to the Father,

And chose to abide in the Light;

But I prefer wrestling to resting,

And try by myself to do right.

Lord break me, then cleanse me and fill me

And keep me abiding in Thee;

That fellowship may be unbroken,

And Thy Name be hallowed in me.

A saintly African Christian told a congregation once that, as he was climbing the hill to the meeting, he heard steps behind him. He turned and saw a man carrying a very heavy load up the hill on his back. He was full of sympathy for him and spoke to him. Then he noticed that His hands were scarred, and he realized that it was Jesus. He said to Him, "Lord, are you carrying the world's sins up the hill?" "No," said the Lord Jesus, "not the world's sin, just yours!" As that African simply told the vision God had just given him, the people's hearts and his heart were broken as they saw their sins at the Cross. Our hearts need to be broken too, and only when they are shall we be willing for the confessions, the apologies, the reconciliations and the restitutions, that are involved in a true repentance of sin. Then, when we have been willing to humble ourselves, as the Lord humbled Himself, the Dove will return to us. Return, 0 heavenly Dove, return, Sweet messenger of rest! I hate the sins that made Thee mourn, And drove Thee from my breast.

RULED BY THE DOVE

One last word. The Dove is the emblem of peace, which suggests that if the Blood of Jesus has cleansed us and we are walking with the Lamb in humility, the sign of the Spirit's presence and fullness will be peace. This is indeed to be the test of our walk all the way along. "Let the peace of God rule (or arbitrate) in your hearts" (Col 3:15). If the Dove ceases to sing in our hearts at any time, if our peace is broken, then it can only be because of sin. In some matter we have departed from the humility of the Lamb. We must ask God to show us what it is, and be quick to repent of it and bring the sin to the Cross. Then the Dove will be once again in His rightful place in our hearts and peace with God will be ours. In this way we shall know that continuous abiding of the Spirit's presence, which is open even to fallen men through the immediate and constant application of the precious Blood of Jesus. Shall we not begin from today to allow our lives to he ruled by the Heavenly Dove, the peace of God, and allow Him to be the arbiter all the day through? We shall find ourselves walking in a path of constant conviction and much humbling, but in this way we shall come into real conformity with the Lamb of God, and we shall know the only victory that is worth anything, the conquest of self.

Personal Testimony: November 16th, 1994

Personal Testimony  November 16^th, 1994

I was raised Roman Catholic and Mormon (Dad & Mom), and really never was interested in religious things growing up. When I was in fifth grade, I experimented with pot for the first time, when my baby-sitter let me smoke a joint, but around thirteen, I began to experiment more heavily with marijuana and other party drugs and rebelled there in Boise Id. My parents divorced when I was two, so I was the odd guy out in public school at that time. Boy things have changed nowadays, regarding divorce. I overdosed on some natural drugs (mushrooms), and went into cardiac arrest when I was eighteen. I saw a bright white light appear in the sky behind the sun, (that was much brighter and filled the sky). I began to cry because I was no longer able to breathe and there was a weight on my chest much like a heavy stone had been thrust on it. My body and spirit began to separate, and I called out and said “if there is a god, help me now!”  The bright white light filled my room and then something touched me, and the pain went away, I was able to take a breath and I heard a voice tell me to do several things (go to church, get a Bible, stop using drugs)…. Several months later I encountered a demon in my dreams which was a result of a family member on my mother’s side who was married to a witch and was involved in Satanism. After this encounter, I called on God again and the evil presence fled, and I put the Bible on my breast and slept through the night better than I had slept in many years. I still was not born again yet, but I knew there was a devil and a God. Several months earlier someone I smoked with gave me a gospel tract from Chick Publications, which I threw on my desk at home for several months (I guess around five months). After these two experiences, The Lord Jesus Christ began speaking to me in very subtle ways and impressed me to watch a film on Jesus. During the film I fell under Holy Ghost conviction and repented of my sins, and wept bitterly over my transgressions. The Lord spoke to me by his Spirit and he said, “I welcome you with open arms,” and he appeared in the corner of the room with the nail prints in his hands and feet in a white robe (probably a vision)! He embraced me and I wept much, but not for my sins anymore, but that he had forgiven me, and loved me! I went to work the next day not knowing the terminology that Christians use to describe their experiences of regeneration. I was asked, “Damian what are you on? You have perm-a-grin!” I responded, “I have been reborn,” not knowing the Bible describes this experience as being "born-again!" 

Not long after this experience, I was arriving at my job after high school in my jeep and the Lord Jesus spoke to me by a still small voice while I was getting ready to lite up right before work, “son, I do not want you to smoke anymore.” Of course I immediately put out the cigarette, and crushed the Marlboro Reds in the box that remained, that was nearly full! I promised I would not smoke anymore, which God has been faithful to keep me these many years, but I struggled with the nipping desire of the nicotine biting at my ankles for the next month. I would do so good until the man who gave me the gospel tract, now tempted me at my breaktimes to come and smoke with him, I had never noticed his yellow stained fingers before due to chain smoking (most likely from his service in Vietnam), but I would at times succumb and feel ashamed of myself for yielding to this temptation. I can remember going back into the restaurant I worked in and falling on my knees in the walk-in-cooler and praying to Jesus to forgive me and hoping he would remove the guilt I felt in doing something he told me not to do any longer. Of course he did and the peace of God returned to my heart and mind and I slowly became stronger, but still struggled with this temptation until the first of the next year. Moreover, my friends asked me to go to a party and so I bought some beer at eighteen, and as the pot pipe went around the car we were driving in I declined for the first time in my life since I was in fifth grade. I opened the case of beer I had purchased and again the Lord spoke to me in a still small voice, “son, am I in that bottle?” I was surprised again because my priests always smoked, and drank in my dad’s restaurant. I slowly answered, “well no LORD,” and he quickly responded back to me, “then why would you drink that?” Of course I did not have a good reason to drink it, but later God showed me (1 Cor 3:16-17, I Cor 6:19-20, Prov 23:23-29). For those who would argue against this, let me remind you that priests in the Old Testament where never allowed to bring alcohol in the temple, nor to do God’s service drunk! We are to be sober, and vigilant, and are called priests and the very temple or sanctuary now in the New Testament! The same evening I was about to say a profane word (cuss word) and the same sweet voice spoke to me again, “son, would Jesus speak like that?” The answer was of course, “well no LORD!” God gently responded to me, “son, should you then speak like you were going to?”  I needed help for these were things that just had been apart of my life for many, many years. I asked the LORD to help me and the next evening while at work I decided to turn off the Classic Rock that I normally worked to and put on the Moody Broadcasting Network. That evening they were playing rather slow and operatic music. This of course aroused my customers curiosity, many of which said, “well it sounds like a church in here tonight.” They would awkwardly laugh and make their orders. That evening was rather a strange evening of many temptations, but I was attempting to not smoke, and listen to Christian music, and asking God to help me with the twinges to go out with one of my friends who stopped by at slow times to take a drag off their cigarettes. Strangely, I had a girlfriend who I had not seen in years call me and ask me directly if I wanted to come over after work and stay the night, which I quickly declined and shared how I had become a Christian. My best friend from school stopped by and said that LSD was in town and he dropped off four hits in aluminum foil for free, he said he just wanted to share the trip. I believe that would have been my last trip if I had yielded to that temptation, and I quickly poured water over the hits in the foil and threw them in the trash. Maybe, an hour later another friend brought me an eighth of mushrooms for free, the very drug that almost killed me a month and half before. Again, I threw them away and soiled them so that I would not be tempted to use them. When I finished my shift I went home, read my Bible had my nightly prayers, and suddenly the presence of God entered the room, my eyes filled with tears and I cried out, “LORD I want more of you,” God’s presence flowed over my body like warm oil, almost like a tingle through my whole body, from the top of my head to my feet! I began to experience joy unspeakable, and I laughed with such freedom, that there is no way to explain! When using LSD or mushrooms there is a moment where the drug hits what users call a peak and most of the time they will laugh uncontrollably and see tracers. The issue is that once the experience is done and the user comes down, like riding a roller coaster, most of the users felt the filthiness of the impact on the body like an alcoholic does the next day referred to as the hangover. This experience I had was the opposite I laughed freely, and purely, and felt clean and refreshed within, and mind was fresh and clear! Most importantly, I was completely delivered from these temptations that I had felt nagging me for the past month or so and was filled with great joy and I wanted to be in church as much as possible so I could praise Jesus for delivering me, and giving me his Victory he won on the cross by his blood. It has been over 25 years and I still have victory over these alluring temptations. Christ Jesus’ blood is sufficient for any need!  I later learned from my Bible that I had been sanctified by the blood of Jesus.

    Shortly, after this experience  I went to a church and they asked for young people to commit to leadership, I felt compelled to respond and was overwhelmed by God’s love in the service. That evening I experienced my first trial after being sanctified, and Satan came to me in temptation telling me, “God had forsaken me,” I at first was startled and was not sure what to do, it was then I heard the voice that welcomed me into his kingdom speak again through a verse in Hebrews, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” I spoke that verse outloud and I had a vision of a sword swinging, the evil presence fled, and I saw myself in a foreign country with dark children all around me and I was sharing the gospel and God was healing them in this arid land, possibly Kenya or Ethiopia? I saw grass huts, cracked earth from many dry summers, and children of African or Indian descent. It was here that Jesus called me to preach his wonderful gospel. I have preached now for almost 26 years, pastored almost 20 years and evangelized here in the United States, Canada, Israel, Turkey, and Greece. My wife at the age of sixteen also had a night vision of her and I in the same location and she was walking in front of me carrying several books in her arms. When she had this dream, we did not know one another. She has been saved since she was about fourteen. 

About eight days later from this experience of being holy sanctified in my room, I went to a home prayer meeting and the song leader had the small congregation singing right out of their Bibles, I was struck with how awesome this was and again I felt the presence of Jesus, and fell upon my knees and lifted up my hands to the ceiling, I fell under the power of the Holy Ghost and for about an hour and a half I cried, wept, and laughed as the presence of God touched me in that place between earth and heaven! He healed wounds that no one could see and filled my mouth with laughter, right before I arose from the floor of this meeting, I saw in a vision the three crosses of Calvary and I was kneeling under the middle cross, the sky behind the cross was black, which frightened me, but I later understood this meant I was under the cross of Christ. I heard someone speaking another language and felt fire in my bosom and around my heart, that bubbled over in love that is hard to express with words for God and my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and for a lost and dying world. I then realized that the person speaking in a foreign tongue was myself and I felt such a flame of love or fire, and I felt as the Bible expresses tongues of fire, and a drunkenness though completely sober, joy unspeakable and I was full of glory!  This experience caused my prayer life to increase and gave me a hunger to read, study, and share the Bible with whosoever will! This experience is what the Bible calls the Baptism of the Holy Ghost! It was, and is real, powerful, and life changing!  God is so good!  Not one person who knew me before would have ever thought I would become a preacher, or a pastor, let alone a Christian! No not even the Devil! Praise God, He does things beyond all our comprehension!

He can and will, friend do it for you! If you have never had these things occur before! What you read about in Acts is for you, and I today, if we can believe and take God at his Word, he will allow us to partake of his good Word even TODAY!

Desiring to Give Christ his Inheritance (Eph. 1:17-19, Psa. 2:8),

Yours in Christ,

 Bro Damian

If you have never accepted or if you have fallen away from Jesus Christ here are three steps you need to take to be saved:

You must admit you are a sinner, confess your sin to Jesus, repent (turn from all you know is wrong), ask Jesus to come in your heart, and begin to follow Jesus by reading and obeying his word and go to a bible believing church that teaches his word. And tell someone what Christ Jesus Has Done For You (Rev 12:10)  

May God through Christ bless you!

If you enjoyed this blogpost and believe some else can be helped and may be blessed pass it along:

If you have a prayer request or have questions that need clarification please contact me at: neverstoppraying8@gmail.com

Don't Lose Your Mind! Change is only good If you know where you are going!

Safety is the main responsibility of any government or level of government. Horns are a symbol of authority or government in the Bible, those horns are used to protect the body. If those horns do not protect the body they were intended to, the body will become a corpse. The problem is we are seeing the death of America by socialist ideology. What is most remarkable is that a little history lesson from China, Russia-USSR, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, South American counties such as Venezuela, and Germany before World War 2 currently taught objectively and holistically would scare most of these people who are rioting to stop this insanity. The very things being tore down have been instituted for peoples protection and prosperity! The Bible warns about the destruction and removal of the ancient landmarks, (borders, monuments, holidays, etc). Evolution and change is only good when you know the direction you are going, and by understanding where you came from.

Chapter 4: The Highway of Holiness: by Roy Hession

CHAPTER 4 THE HIGHWAY OF HOLINESS

 ONE of the things that we must learn if we are to live the victorious Christian life is its utter simplicity. How complicated we have made it! Great volumes are written, all sorts of technical phrases are used, we are told the secret lies in this, or that and so on. But to most of us, it is all so complicated that, although we know it in theory, we are unable to relate what we know to our practical daily living. In order to make the simple truths we have been considering even clearer, we want in this chapter to cast them all in picture form. THE HIGHWAY An "over-all" picture of the life of victory which has come to many of us is that of the Highway in Isaiah 35: "And an highway shall be there and a way and it shall be called the way of holiness." The picture is that of a Highway built up from the surrounding morass, the world. Though the Highway is narrow and uphill, it is not beyond any of us to walk it, for "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." Though there are many dangers if we get off the road, while we keep to the Highway there is safety, for "no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon." Only one kind of person is barred from walking there and that is the unclean one. "The unclean shall not pass over it." This includes not only the sinner who does not know Christ as his Saviour, but the Christian who does and yet is walking in un-confessed and un-cleansed sin. The only way on to the Highway is up a small dark, forbidding hill - the Hill of Calvary. It is the sort of hill we have to climb on our hands and knees - especially our knees. If we are content with our present Christian life, if we do not desire with a desperate hunger to get on to the Highway, we shall never get to our knees and thus never climb the hill. But if we are dissatisfied, if we are hungry, then we will find ourselves ascending. Don't hurry. Let God make you really hungry for the Highway; let Him really drive you to your knees in longing prayer. Mere sightseers won't get very far. "Ye shall find Me when ye shall search for Me with all your heart" (Jer 29:13).

A LOW DOOR
At the top of the hill, guarding the way to the...Highway, stands so gaunt and grim...the Cross. There it stands, the Divider of time and the Divider of men. At the foot of the Cross is a low door, so low that to get through it one has to stoop and crawl through. It is the only entrance to the Highway. We must go through it if we would go any further on our way. This door is called the Door of the Broken Ones. Only the broken can enter the Highway. To be broken means to be "not I, but Christ." There is in every one of us a proud, stiff-necked "I." The stiff neck began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve, who had always bowed their heads in surrender to God's will, stiffened their necks, struck out for independence and tried to be "as gods." All the way through the Bible, God charges His people with the same stiff neck; and it manifests itself in us, too. We are hard and unyielding. We are sensitive and easily hurt. We get irritable, envious and critical. We are resentful and unforgiving. We are self-indulgent - and how often that can lead to impurity! Every one of these things, and many more, spring from this proud self within. If it were not there and Christ were in its place, we would not have these reactions. Before we can enter the Highway, God must bend and break that stiff-necked self, so that Christ reigns in its stead. To be broken means to have no rights before God and man. It does not mean merely surrendering my rights to Him but rather recognising that I haven't any, except to deserve hell. It means just being nothing and having nothing that I call my own, neither time, money, possessions nor position. In order to break our wills to His, God brings us to the foot of the Cross and there shows us what real brokenness is. We see those wounded Hands and Feet, that Face of Love crowned with thorns and we see the complete brokenness of the One who said, "Not my will, but Thine be done," as He drank the bitter cup of our sin to its dregs. So the way to be broken is to look on Him and to realise it was our sin which nailed Him there. Then as we see the love and brokenness of the God who died in our place, our hearts will become strangely melted and we will want to be broken for Him and we shall pray,

Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord, Oh, to be lost in Thee, Oh, that it might be no more I, But Christ that lives in me. Some of us have found that there is no prayer that God is so swift to answer as the prayer that He might break us.

A CONSTANT CHOICE

Do not let us imagine that we have to be broken only once as we go through the door. Ever after it will be a constant choice before us. God brings His pressure to bear on us, but we have to make the choice. If someone hurts and slights us, we immediately have the choice of accepting the slight as a means of grace to humble us lower or we can resist it and stiffen our necks again with all the disturbance of spirit that that is bound to bring. Right the way through the day our brokenness will be tested, and it is no use our pretending we are broken before God if we are not broken in our attitude to those around us. God nearly always tests us through other people. There are no second causes for the Christian. God's will is made known in His providence, and His providences are so often others with their many demands on us. If you find yourself in a patch of unbrokenness, the only way is to go afresh to Calvary and see Christ broken for you and you will come away willing to be broken for Him. Over the Door of the Broken Ones is sprinkled the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus. As we bend to crawl through, the Blood cleanses from all sin. For not only have we to bend to get through, but only the clean can walk the Highway. Maybe you have never known Jesus as your Saviour, maybe you have known Him for years, but in either case you are defiled by sin, the sins of pride, envy, resentment, impurity, etc. If you will give them all to Him who bore them on the Cross, He will whisper to you again what He once said on the Cross, "It is finished," and your heart will be cleansed whiter than snow.

THE GIFT OF HIS FULLNESS

So we get on to the Highway. There it stretches before us, a narrow uphill road, bathed in light, leading towards the Heavenly Jerusalem. The embankment on either side slopes away into thick darkness. In fact, the darkness creeps right to the very edges of the Highway, but on the Highway itself all is light. Behind us is the Cross, no longer dark and forbidding but radiant and glowing, and we no longer see Jesus stretched across its arms, but walking the Highway overflowing with resurrection life. In His Hands He carries a pitcher with the Water of Life. He comes right up to us and asks us to hold out our hearts, and just as if we were handing Him a cup, we present to Him our empty hearts. He looks inside - a painful scrutiny - and where He sees we have allowed His Blood to cleanse them, He fills them with the Water of Life. So we go on our way rejoicing and praising God and overflowing with His new life. This is revival. You and I full of the Holy Spirit all the time, loving others and concerned for their salvation. No struggling, no tarrying. Just simply giving Him each sin to cleanse in His precious Blood and accepting from His hands the free gift of His Fullness, and then allowing Him to do the work through us. As we walk along with Him, He is always there continually filling so that our cups continually overflow. So the rest of our Christian life simply consists now of walking along the Highway, with hearts overflowing, bowing the neck to His will all the time, constantly trusting the Blood to cleanse us and living in complete oneness with Jesus. There is nothing spectacular about this life, no emotional experiences to sigh after and wait for. It is just plain day to day living the life the Lord intended us to live. This is real holiness.

OFF THE HIGHWAY

But we may, and sometimes do, slip off the Highway, for it is narrow. One little step aside and we are off the path and in darkness. It is always because of a failure in obedience somewhere or a failure to be weak enough to let God do all. Satan is always beside the road, shouting at us, but he cannot touch us. But we can yield to his voice by an act of will. This is the beginning of sin and slipping away from Jesus. Sometimes we find ourselves stiffening our necks to someone, sometimes to God Himself. Sometimes jealousy or resentment assails us. Immediately we are over the side, for nothing unclean can walk the Highway. Our cup is dirtied and ceases to overflow and we lose our peace with God. If we do not come back to the Highway at once, we shall go further down the side. We must get back. How? The first thing to do is to ask God to show what caused us to slip off; and He will, though it often takes Him time to make us see. Perhaps someone annoyed me, and I was irritated. God wants me to see that it was not the thing that the person did that matters, but my reaction to it. If I had been broken, I would not have been irritated. So, as I look longingly back to the Highway, I see the Lord Jesus again and I see what an ugly thing it is to get irritable and that Jesus died to save me from being irritable. As I crawl up again to the Highway on hands and knees, I come again to Him and His Blood for cleansing. Jesus is waiting there to fill my cup to overflowing once again. Hallelujah! No matter where you leave the Highway, you will always find Him calling you to come back and be broken again, and always the Blood will be there to cleanse and make you clean. This is the great secret of the Highway - knowing what to do with sin, when sin has come in. The secret is always to take sin to the Cross, see there its sinfulness, and then put it under the Blood and reckon it gone. So the real test all along the Highway will be - are our cups running over? Have we the peace of God in our hearts? Have we love and concern for others? These things are the barometer of the Highway. If they are disturbed, then sin has crept in somewhere - self-pity, self-seeking, self-indulgence in thought or deed, sensitiveness, touchiness, self-defence, self-consciousness, shyness, reserve, worry, fear and so on.

OUR WALK WITH OTHERS
An important thing about the Highway which has not been mentioned yet is that we do not walk this Highway alone. Others walk it with us. There is, of course, the Lord Jesus. But there are other wayfarers, too, and the rule of the road is that fellowship with them is as important as fellowship with Jesus. Indeed, the two are intimately connected. Our relationship with our fellows and our relationship with God are so linked that we cannot disturb one without disturbing the other. Everything that comes between us and another, such as impatience, resentment or envy, comes between us and God. These barriers are sometimes no more than veils - veils through which we can still, to some extent, see. But if not removed immediately, they thicken into blankets and then into brick walls, and we are shut off from both God and our fellows, shut in to ourselves. It is clear why these two relationships should be so linked. "God is love," that is, love for others, and the moment we fail in love towards another, we put ourselves out of fellowship with God - for God loves him, even if we don't. But more than that, the effect of such sins is always to make us "walk in darkness" - that is, to cover it up and hide what we really are or what we are really feeling. That is always the meaning of "darkness" in Scripture, for while the light reveals, the darkness hides. The first effect of sin in us is always to make us hide; with the result that we are pretending, we are wearing a mask, we are not real with either God or man. And, of course, neither God nor man can fellowship with an unreal person. The way back into fellowship with the Lord Jesus will bring us again into fellowship with our brother, too. All unlove must be recognised as sin and given to the Lord Jesus for His Blood to cover - and then it can be put right with our brother also. As we come back to the Lord Jesus like this, we shall find His love for our brother filling our hearts and wanting to express itself in our actions toward him and we shall walk in fellowship together again. So this is the Highway life. It is no new astounding doctrine. It is not something new for us to preach. It is quite unspectacular. It is just a life to live day by day in whatever circumstances the Lord has put us. It does not contradict what we may have read or heard about the Christian life. It just puts into simple pictorial language the great truths of sanctification. To start to live this life now will mean revival in our lives. To continue to live it will be revival continued. Revival is just you and I walking along the Highway in complete oneness with the Lord Jesus and with one another, with cups continually cleansed and overflowing with the life and love of God.

Chapter 3: The Way of Fellowship Roy Hession

CHAPTER 3 THE WAY OF FELLOWSHIP

WHEN man fell and chose to make himself, rather than God, the centre of his life, the effect was not only to put man out of fellowship with God, but also out of fellowship with his fellow man. The story of man's first quarrel with God in the third chapter of Genesis is closely followed, in the fourth chapter, by the story of man's first quarrel with his fellow, Cain's murder of Abel. The Fall is simply, "we have turned every one to his own way" (Isa 53:6). If I want my own way rather than God's, it is quite obvious that I shall want my own way rather than the other man's. A man does not assert his independence of God to surrender it to a fellow man, if he can help it. But a world in which each man wants his own way cannot but be a world full of tensions, barriers, suspicions, misunderstandings, clashes and conflicts. Now the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross was not only to bring men back into fellowship with God, but also into fellowship with their fellow men. Indeed it cannot do one without the other. As the spokes get nearer the centre of the wheel, they get nearer to one another. But if we have not been brought into vital fellowship with our brother, it is a proof that to that extent we have not been brought into vital fellowship with God. The first epistle of John (what a new light Revival sheds on this Scripture!) insists on testing the depth and reality of a man's fellowship with God by the depth and reality of his fellowship with his brethren (1 John 2:9,3:14-15,4:20). Some of us have come to see how utterly connected a man's relationship to his fellows is with his relationship to God. Everything that comes as a barrier between us and another, be it never so small, comes as a barrier between us and God. We have found that where these barriers are not put right immediately, they get thicker and thicker until we find ourselves shut off from God and our brother by what seem to be veritable brick walls. Quite obviously, if we allow New Life to come to us, it will have to manifest itself by a walk of oneness with God and our brother, with nothing between. 

LIGHT AND DARKNESS? 

On what basis can we have real fellowship with God and our brother? Here 1 John 1:7 has come afresh to us. "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." What is meant by light and darkness is that light reveals, darkness hides. When anything reproves us, shows us up as we really are - that is light. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light" (Eph 5:13). But whenever we do anything or say anything (or don't say anything) to hide what we are or what we've done - that is darkness. Now the first effect of sin in our lives is always to make us try and hide what we are. Sin made our first parents hide behind the trees of the garden and it has had the same effect on us ever since. Sin always involves us in being unreal, pretending, duplicity, window dressing, excusing ourselves and blaming others - and we can do all that as much by our silence as by saying or doing something. This is what the previous verse calls "walking in darkness." With some of us, the sin in question may be nothing more than self-consciousness (anything with "I" in it is sin) and the hiding, nothing more than an assumed heartiness to cover that self-consciousness; but it is walking in darkness none the less. In contrast to all this in us, verse 5 of this chapter tells us that "God is light," that is, God is the All-revealing One, who shows up every man as he really is. And it goes on to say, "In Him is no darkness at all," that is, there is absolutely nothing in God which can be one with the tiniest bit of darkness or hiding in us. Quite obviously, then, it is utterly impossible for us to be walking in any degree of darkness and have fellowship with God. While we are in that condition of darkness, we cannot have true fellowship with our brother either - for we are not real with him, and no one can have fellowship with an unreal person. A wall of reserve separates him and us.

THE ONLY BASIS FOR FELLOWSHIP 

The only basis for real fellowship with God and man is to live out in the open with both. "But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." To walk in the light is the opposite of walking in darkness. Spurgeon defines it in one of his sermons as "the willingness to know and be known." As far as God is concerned, this means that we are willing to know the whole truth about ourselves, we are open to conviction. We will bend the neck to the first twinges of conscience. Everything He shows us to be sin, we will deal with as sin - we will hide or excuse nothing. Such a walk in the light cannot but disclose sin increasingly in our lives, and we shall see things to be sin which we never thought to be such before. For that reason we might shrink from this walk, and be tempted to make for cover. But the verse goes on with the precious words, "and the Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." Everything that the light of God shows up as sin, we can confess and carry to the Fountain of Blood and it is gone, gone from God's sight and gone from our hearts. By the power of the precious Blood we can be made more stainless than the driven snow; and thus continually abiding in the light and cleansed by the Blood, we have fellowship with God. The fellowship promised us here is not only with God, but "one with another"; and that involves us in walking in the light with our brother too. In any case, we cannot be "in the open" with God and "in the dark" with him. This means that we must be as willing to know the truth about ourselves from our brother as to know it from God. We must be prepared for him to hold the light to us (and we must be willing to do the same service for him) and challenge us in love about anything he sees in our lives which is not the highest. We must be willing not only to know, but to be known by him for what we really are. That means we are not going to hide our inner selves from those with whom we ought to be in fellowship; we are not going to window dress and put on appearances; nor are we going to whitewash and excuse ourselves. We are going to be honest about ourselves with them. We are willing to give up our spiritual privacy, pocket our pride and risk our reputations for the sake of being open and transparent with our brethren in Christ. It means, too, that we are not going to cherish any wrong feeling in our hearts about another, but we are first going to claim deliverance from it from God and put it right with the one concerned. As we walk this way, we shall find that we shall have fellowship with one another at an altogether new level, and we shall not love one another less, but infinitely more. 

NO BONDAGE 

Walking in the light is simply walking with Jesus. Therefore there need be no bondage about it. We have not necessarily got to tell everybody everything about ourselves. The fundamental thing is our attitude of walking in the light, rather than the act. Are we willing to be in the open with our brother - and be so in word when God tells us to? That is the "armour of light" - true transparency. This may sometimes be humbling, but it will help us to a new reality with Christ, and to a new self-knowledge. We have become so used to the fact that God knows all about us that it does not seem to register with us, and we inevitably end by not knowing the truth about ourselves. But let a man begin to be absolutely honest about himself with but one other, as God guides him, and he will come to a knowledge of himself and his sins that he never had before, and he will begin to see more clearly than ever before where the redemption of Christ has got to be applied progressively to his life. This is the reason why James tells us to put ourselves under the discipline of "confessing our faults one to another." In 1 John 1:7, of course, the purpose of "walking in the light" is that we might "have fellowship one with another." And what fellowship it is when we walk this way together! Obviously, love will flow from one to another, when each is prepared to be known as the repentant sinner he is at the Cross of Jesus. When the barriers are down and the masks are off, God has a chance of making us really one. But there is also the added joy of knowing that in such a fellowship we are "safe." No fear now that others may be thinking thoughts about us or having reactions toward us which they are hiding from us. In a fellowship which is committed to walk in the light beneath the Cross, we know that if there is any thought about us it will quickly be brought into the light, either in brokenness and confession (where there has been wrong and unlove), or else as a loving challenge, as something that we ought to know about ourselves.

It must not, however, be forgotten that our walk in the light is first and foremost with the Lord Jesus. It is with Him first that we must get things settled and it is His cleansing and victory that must first be obtained. Then when God guides us to open our hearts with others, we come to them with far more of a testimony than a confession (except where that is specifically due) and we praise God together. 

TEAMS OF TWO FOR REVIVAL 

Jesus wants you to begin walking in the light with Him in a new way today. Join with one other - your Christian friend, the person you live with, your wife, your husband. Drop the mask. God has doubtless convicted you of one thing more than another that you have got to be honest with them about. Start there. Be a team of two to work for revival amongst your circle. As others are broken at the Cross they will be added to your fellowship, as God leads. Get together from time to time for fellowship and to share your spiritual experience with real openness. In complete oneness pray together for others, and go out as a team with fresh testimony. God through such a fellowship will begin to work wondrously. As He saves and blesses others in this vital way, they can start to live and work as a fellowship too. As one billiard ball will move another billiard ball, so one group will set off another group, until the whole of our land is covered with New Life from the risen Lord Jesus.

chapter 2: Cups Running Over by Roy Hession

CHAPTER 2 CUPS RUNNING OVER 

Brokenness, however, is but the beginning of Revival. Revival itself is being absolutely filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, and that is victorious living. If we were asked this moment if we were filled with the Holy Spirit, how many of us would dare to answer "yes"? Revival is when we can say "yes" at any moment of the day. It is not egoistic to say so, for filling to overflowing is utterly and completely God's work - it is all of grace. All we have to do is to present our empty, broken self and let Him fill and keep filled. Andrew Murray says, "Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds you abased and empty, His glory and power flow in." The picture that has made things simple and clear to so many of us is that of the human heart as a cup, which we hold out to Jesus, longing that He might fill it with the Water of Life. Jesus is pictured as bearing the golden water pot with the Water of Life. As He passes by, He looks into our cup and if it is clean, He fills to overflowing with the Water of Life. And as Jesus is always passing by, the cup can be always running over. That is something of what David meant, when he said, “My cup runneth over." This is Revival - you and I full to overflowing with blessing ourselves and to others - with a constant peace in our hearts. People imagine that dying to self makes one miserable. But it just the opposite. It is the refusal to die to self that makes one miserable. The more we know of death with Him, the more we shall know of His life in us, and so the more of real peace and joy. His life, too, will overflow through us to lost souls in a real concern for their salvation, and to our fellow Christians in a deep desire for their blessing. UNDER THE BLOOD Only one thing prevents Jesus filling our cups as He passes by, and that is sin in one of its thousand forms. The Lord Jesus does not fill dirty cups. Anything that springs from self, however small it may be, is sin. Self-energy or self-complacency in service is sin. Self-pity in trials or difficulties, self-seeking in business or Christian work, self-indulgence in one's spare time, sensitiveness, touchiness, resentment and self-defence when we are hurt or injured by others, self-consciousness, reserve, worry, fear, all spring from self and all are sin and make our cups unclean.* But all of them were put into that other cup, which the Lord Jesus shrank from momentarily in Gethsemane, but which He drank to the dregs at Calvary - the cup of our sin. And if we will allow Him to show us what is in our cups and then give it to Him, He will cleanse them in the precious Blood that still flows for sin. That does not mean mere cleansing from the guilt of sin, nor even from the stain of sin - though thank God both of these are true - but from the sin itself, whatever it may be. And as He cleanses our cups, so He fills them to overflowing with His Holy Spirit. And we are able daily to avail ourselves of that precious Blood. Suppose you have let the Lord Jesus cleanse your cup and have trusted Him to fill it to overflowing, then something comes along - a touch of envy or temper. What happens? Your cup becomes dirty and it ceases to overflow. And if we are constantly being defeated in this way, then our cup is never overflowing. If we are to know continuous Revival, we must learn the way to keep our cups clean. It is never God's will that a Revival should cease, and be known in history as the Revival of this or that year. When that happens it is due to only one thing - sin, just those little sins that the devil drops into our cup. But if we will go back to Calvary and learn afresh the power of the Blood of Jesus to cleanse moment by moment from the beginnings of sin, then we have learnt the secret of cups constantly cleansed and constantly overflowing. The moment you are conscious of that touch of envy, criticism, irritability, whatever it is - ask Jesus to cover it with His precious Blood and cleanse it away and you will find the reaction gone, your joy and peace restored and your cup running over. And the more you trust the Blood of Jesus in this way, the less will you even have these reactions. But cleansing is only possible when we have first been broken before God on the point concerned. Suppose we are irritated by certain traits in someone. It is not enough just to take our reactions of irritation to Calvary. We must first be broken, that is, we must yield to God over the whole question and accept that person and his ways as His will for us. Then we are able to take our wrong reaction to Jesus, knowing that His Blood will cleanse away our sin; and when we havebeen cleansed from sin, let us not keep mourning over it, let us not be occupied with ourselves. But let us look up to our victorious Lord, and praise Him that He is still victorious. There is one simple but all-inclusive guide the Word of God gives to regulate our walk with Jesus and to make us to know when sin has come in. Colossians 3:15 says, "Let the peace of God rule in your hearts." Everything that disturbs the peace of God in our hearts is sin, no matter how small it is, and no matter how little like sin it may at first appear to be. This peace is to "rule" our hearts, or (a more literal translation) "be the referee" in our hearts. When the referee blows his whistle at a football match, the game has to stop, a foul has been committed. When we lose our peace, God's referee in our hearts has blown his whistle! Let us stop immediately, ask God to show us what is wrong, put by faith the sin He shows us under the Blood of Jesus, and then peace will be restored and we shall go on our way with our cups running over. If, however, God does not give us His peace, it will be because we are not really broken. Perhaps we have yet to say "sorry" to somebody else as well as to God. Or perhaps we still feel it is the other person's fault. But if we have lost our peace, it is obvious whose fault it is. We do not lose peace with God over another person's sin, but only over our own. God wants to show us our reactions, and only when we are willing to be cleansed there, will we have His peace. Oh, what a simple but searching thing it is to be ruled by the peace of God, none other than the Holy Spirit Himself! Former selfish ways, which we never bothered about, are now shown to us and we cannot walk in them without the referee blowing his whistle. Grumbling, bossiness, carelessness, down to the smallest thing are all revealed as sins, when we are prepared to let our days be ruled by the peace of God. Many times a day and over the smallest things we shall have to avail ourselves of the cleansing Blood of Jesus, and we shall find ourselves walking the way of brokenness as never before. But Jesus will be manifested in all His loveliness and grace in that brokenness. Many of us, however, have neglected the referee's whistle so often and for so long that we have ceased to hear it. Days follow days and we feel we have little need of cleansing and no occasion of being broken. In that condition we are usually in a worse state than we ever imagine. It will need a great hunger for restored fellowship with God to possess our hearts before we will be willing to cry to God to show us where the Blood of Jesus must be applied. He will show us, to begin with, just one thing, and it will be our obedience and brokenness on that one thing that will be the first step into Revival for us. * Some may be inclined to question whether it is right to call such things as self-consciousness, reserve and fear, sins. "Call them infirmities, disabilities, temperamental weaknesses, if you will," some have said, "but not sins. To do so would be to get us into bondage." The reverse, however, is true. If these things are not sins, then we must put up with them for the rest of our lives; there is no deliverance. But if these and other things like them are indeed sins, then there is a Fountain for sin, and we may experience cleansing and deliverance from them, if we put them immediately under His precious Blood, the moment we are conscious of them. And they are sins. Their source is unbelief and an inverted form of pride, and they have hindered and hidden Him times without number.