We look to self, as though we had power to save ourselves; but
Jesus died for us because we are helpless to do this. In Him is our
hope, our justification, our righteousness. We should not despond
and fear that we have no Saviour or that He has no thoughts of mercy
toward us. At this very time He is carrying on His work in our
behalf, inviting us to come to Him in our helplessness and be saved.
We dishonor Him by our unbelief. It is astonishing how we treat
our very best Friend, how little confidence we repose in Him who is
able to save to the uttermost and who has given us every evidence of
His great love.
My brethren, are you expecting that your merit will recommend
you to the favor of God, thinking that you must be free from sin
before you trust His power to save? If this is the struggle going on in
your mind, I fear you will gain no strength and will finally become
discouraged.

In the wilderness, when the Lord permitted poisonous serpents
to sting the rebellious Israelites, Moses was directed to lift up a
brazen serpent and bid all the wounded look to it and live. But many
saw no help in this Heaven-appointed remedy. The dead and dying
were all around them, and they knew without divine help their fate
was certain; but they would lament their wounds, their pains, their
sure death, until their strength was gone, and their eyes were glazed,
when they might have had instant healing.
?As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,? even so
was ?the Son of man ...lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life? (John 3:14, 15). If you are
conscious of your sins, do not devote all your powers to mourning
over them, but look and live. Jesus is our only Saviour; and although
millions who need to be healed will reject His offered mercy, not
one who trusts in His merits will be left to perish. While we realize
our helpless condition without Christ, we must not be discouraged;
we must rely upon a crucified and risen Saviour. Poor, sin-sick,
discouraged soul, look and live. Jesus has pledged His word; He
will save all who come unto Him.
Come to Jesus, and receive rest and peace. You may have the
blessing even now. Satan suggests that you are helpless and cannot
bless yourself. It is true; you are helpless. But lift up Jesus before
him: ?I have a risen Saviour. In Him I trust, and He will never suffer
me to be confounded. In His name I triumph. He is my righteousness
and my crown of rejoicing.? Let no one here feel that his case is
hopeless, for it is not. You may see that you are sinful and undone,
but it is just on this account that you need a Saviour. If you have sins
to confess, lose no time. These moments are golden. ?If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness? (1 John 1:9). Those who hunger and
thirst after righteousness will be filled, for Jesus has promised it.
Precious Saviour! His arms are open to receive us, and His great
heart of love is waiting to bless us.

Come to Jesus, and receive rest and peace. You may have the
blessing even now. Satan suggests that you are helpless and cannot
bless yourself. It is true; you are helpless. But lift up Jesus before
him: ?I have a risen Saviour. In Him I trust, and He will never suffer
me to be confounded. In His name I triumph. He is my righteousness
and my crown of rejoicing.? Let no one here feel that his case is
hopeless, for it is not. You may see that you are sinful and undone,
but it is just on this account that you need a Saviour. If you have sins
to confess, lose no time. These moments are golden. ?If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse
us from all unrighteousness? (1 John 1:9). Those who hunger and
thirst after righteousness will be filled, for Jesus has promised it.
Precious Saviour! His arms are open to receive us, and His great
heart of love is waiting to bless us.
Some seem to feel that they must be on probation and must
prove to the Lord that they are reformed, before they can claim
His blessing. But these dear souls may claim the blessing even
now. They must have His grace, the Spirit of Christ, to help their
infirmities, or they cannot form a Christian character. Jesus loves to
have us come to Him, just as we are?sinful, helpless, dependent.

Some who come to God by repentance and confession, and even
believe that their sins are forgiven, still fail of claiming, as they
should, the promises of God. They do not see that Jesus is an ever-
present Saviour; and they are not ready to commit the keeping of
their souls to Him, relying upon Him to perfect the work of grace
begun in their hearts. While they think they are committing them-
selves to God, there is a great deal of self-dependence. There are
conscientious souls that trust partly to God and partly to themselves.
They do not look to God, to be kept by His power, but depend upon
watchfulness against temptation and the performance of certain du-
ties for acceptance with Him. There are no victories in this kind of
faith. Such persons toil to no purpose; their souls are in continual
bondage, and they find no rest until their burdens are laid at the feet
of Jesus.

There is need of constant watchfulness and of earnest, loving
devotion, but these will come naturally when the soul is kept by the
power of God through faith. We can do nothing, absolutely nothing,
to commend ourselves to divine favor. We must not trust at all to
ourselves or to our good works; but when as erring, sinful beings we
come to Christ, we may find rest in His love. God will accept every
one that comes to Him trusting wholly in the merits of a crucified
Saviour. Love springs up in the heart. There may be no ecstasy of
feeling, but there is an abiding, peaceful trust. Every burden is light;
for the yoke which Christ imposes is easy. Duty becomes a delight,
and sacrifice a pleasure. The path that before seemed shrouded in
darkness becomes bright with beams from the Sun of Righteousness.
This is walking in the light as Christ is in the light.

If ever there was a time when we needed faith and spiritual
enlightenment, it is now. Those who are watching unto prayer and
are searching the Scriptures daily with an earnest desire to know and
do the will of God will not be led astray by any of the deceptions of
Satan. They alone will discern the pretext which cunning men adopt
to beguile and ensnare. So much time and attention are bestowed
upon the world, upon dress and eating and drinking, that no time is
left for prayer and the study of the Scriptures.
We want the truth on every point, and we must search for it
as for hid treasures. Dishes of fables are presented to us on every
hand, and men choose to believe error rather than truth, because the
acceptance of the truth involves a cross. Self must be denied; self
must be crucified. Therefore Satan presents to them an easier way
by making void the law of God. When God lets man have his own
way, it is the darkest hour of his life. For a willful, disobedient child
to be left to have his own way, to follow the bent of his own mind
and gather the dark clouds of God?s judgment about him, is a terrible
thing.

We are to do all that we can do on our part to fight the good fight
of faith. We are to wrestle, to labor, to strive, to agonize to enter in
at the strait gate. We are to set the Lord ever before us. With clean
hands, with pure hearts, we are to seek to honor God in all our ways.
Help has been provided for us in Him who is mighty to save. The
spirit of truth and light will quicken and renew us by its mysterious
workings; for all our spiritual improvement comes from God, not
from ourselves. The true worker will have divine power to aid him,
but the idler will not be sustained by the Spirit of God.
In one way we are thrown upon our own energies; we are to
strive earnestly to be zealous and to repent, to cleanse our hands
and purify our hearts from every defilement; we are to reach the
highest standard, believing that God will help us in our efforts. We
must seek if we would find, and seek in faith; we must knock, that
the door may be opened unto us. The Bible teaches that everything
regarding our salvation depends upon our own course of action. If
we perish, the responsibility will rest wholly upon ourselves. If
provision has been made, and if we accept God?s terms, we may lay
hold on eternal life. We must come to Christ in faith, we must be
diligent to make our calling and election sure.

We are just so. We do not realize the thousand dangers that
our heavenly Father has kept us from. We do not realize the great
blessing that He has bestowed upon us in giving us food and raiment,
in preserving our lives by sending the guardian angels to watch over
us. Every day we should be thankful for this. We ought to have
gratitude stirring in our hearts and come to God with a gratitude
offering every day. We ought to gather around the family altar every
day and praise Him for His watchcare over us. The children of Israel
had lost sight that God was protecting them from the venomous
beasts. But when He withdrew His hand their sting was upon them.
What then? Why, Christ Himself told Moses to set up a pole and
make a brazen serpent and put it upon that pole and to raise it in the
sight of the Israelites, that everyone who looked upon it might live.
They had no great work to do. They were to look because God said
it should be.
Now, suppose that they had stopped to reason it out and said,
?Why, it cannot be that by looking at that brazen serpent we will be
healed! There is no life in it!? But the look of faith did heal them
just as God had told them it would. Those who looked lived. Those
who stopped to argue and explain it, died.
What are we to do? Look and live. ?And as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up?
(John 3:14). The reason? That those who behold Him ?should not
perish, but have everlasting life? (John 3:16).

Now you may cling to your righteousness, and you may think
that you have tried to do about right, and that, after all, you will be
saved in doing this. You cannot see that Christ does it all. ?I must
repent first,? some say. ?I must go so far on my own without Christ,
and then Christ meets me and accepts me.?
You cannot have a thought without Christ. You cannot have an
inclination to come to Him unless He sets in motion influences and
impresses His Spirit upon the human mind. And if there is a man
on the face of the earth who has any inclination toward God, it is
because of the many influences that are set to work to bear upon his
mind and heart. Those influences call for the allegiance to God and
an appreciation of the great work that God has done for him.
Then don?t let us ever say that we can repent of ourselves, and
then Christ will pardon. No, indeed. It is the favor of God that
pardons. It is the favor of God that leads us by His power to repen-
tance. Therefore, it is all of Jesus Christ, everything of Him, and
you want to just give back glory to God. Why don?t you respond
more when you meet together in your meetings? Why don?t you
have the quickening influence of the Spirit of God when the love of
Jesus and His salvation are presented to you? It is because you do
not see that Christ is first and last and best, and the Alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the end, the very Author and Finisher of
our faith. You don?t realize this, and therefore you remain in your
sins. Why is this? It is because Satan is here wrestling and battling
for the souls of men. He casts his hellish shadow right athwart our
pathway, and all that you can see is the enemy and his power.
Look away from his power to the One that is mighty to save
to the utmost. Why doesn?t your faith plow through the shadow to
where Christ is? He has led captivity captive and given gifts unto
men. He will teach you that Satan claims every soul that does not
join with Him as his property.

Brethren and sisters in the faith, does the question arise in your
hearts, ?Am I my brother?s keeper?? If you claim to be children
of God, you are your brother?s keeper. The Lord holds the church
responsible for the souls of those whom they might be the means of
saving.?Historical Sketches, 291.
The Saviour has given His precious life in order to establish a
church capable of ministering to the suffering, the sorrowful, and
the tempted. A company of believers may be poor, uneducated, and
unknown; yet in Christ they may do a work in the home, in the
community, and even in the ?regions beyond,? whose results shall
be as far-reaching as eternity.?The Ministry of Healing, 106.
Enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the one
object upon which God bestows in a special sense His supreme
regard. It is the theater of His grace, in which He delights to reveal [14]
His power to transform hearts.?The Acts of the Apostles, 12.