The Masters Indwelling | Page 6

the faith of what Christ can do, then one step can bring him from carnal to spiritual.
One simple act of faith in the power of Christ's death, one act of surrender to the
fellowship of Christ's death as the Holy Spirit can make it ours, will make it ours, will
bring deliverance from the power of your efforts.
What brought deliverance to that poor condemned sinner who was most dark and
wretched in his unconverted state? He felt he could do nothing good of himself. What did
he do? He saw set before him the almighty Saviour and he cast himself into His arms; he
trusted himself to that omnipotent love and cried, "Lord, have mercy upon me." That was
salvation. It was not for what he did that Christ accepted him. Oh, believers, if any of us

who are conscious that the carnal state predominates have to say: "It marks me; I am a
religious man, an earnest man, a friend of missions; I work for Christ in my church, but,
alas! temper and sin and worldliness have still the mastery over my soul," hear the word
of God. If any will come and say: "I have struggled, I have prayed, I have wept, and it has
not helped me," then you must do one other thing. You must see that the living Christ is
God's provision for your holy, spiritual life. You must believe that that Christ who
accepted you once, at conversion, in His wonderful love is now waiting to say to you that
you may become a spiritual man, entirely given up to God. If you will believe that, your
fear will vanish and you will say: "It can be done; if Christ will accept and take charge, it
shall be done."
Then, my last mark. A man must take that step, a solemn but blessed step. It cost some of
you five or ten years before you took the step of conversion. You wept and prayed for
years, and could not find peace until you took that step. So, in the spiritual life, you may
go to teacher after teacher, and say, "Tell me about the spiritual life, the baptism of the
Spirit, and holiness," and yet you may remain just where you were. Many of us would
love to have sin taken away. Who loves to have a hasty temper? Who loves to have a
proud disposition? Who loves to have a worldly heart? No one. We go to Christ to take it
away, and he does not do it; and we ask, "Why will he not do it? I have prayed very
earnestly." It is because you wanted Him to take away the ugly fruits while the poisonous
root was to stay in you. You did not ask Him that the flesh should be nailed to His cross,
and that you should henceforth give up self entirely to the power of His Spirit.
There is deliverance, but not in the way we seek it. Suppose a painter had a piece of
canvas, on which he desired to work out some beautiful picture. Suppose that piece of
canvas does not belong to him, and any one has a right to take it and to use it for any
other purpose; do you think the painter would bestow much work on that? No. Yet people
want Jesus Christ to bestow His trouble upon them in taking away this temper, or that
other sin, though in their hearts they have not yielded themselves utterly to His command
and His keeping. It can not be. But if you will come and give your whole life into His
charge, Christ Jesus is mighty to save; Christ Jesus waits to be gracious; Christ Jesus
waits to fill you with His Spirit.
Will you not take the step? God grant that we may be led by His Spirit to a yielding up of
ourselves to Him as never before. Will you not come in humble confession that, alas! the
carnal life has predominated too much, has altogether marked you, and that you have a
bitter consciousness that with all the blessing God has bestowed, He has not made you
what you want to be--a spiritual man? _It is the Holy Spirit alone who by His indwelling
can make a spiritual man_. Come then and cast yourself at God's feet, with this one
thought, "Lord, I give myself an empty vessel to be filled with Thy Spirit." Each one of
you sees every day at the tea table an empty cup set there, waiting to be filled with tea
when the proper time comes. So with every dish, every plate. They are cleansed and
empty, ready to be filled. Emptied and cleansed. Oh, come! and just as a vessel is set