The Masters Indwelling | Page 8

the cross and the death he could not
understand, and he ventured in his self-confidence to say, "Lord, that shall never be;
Thou canst not be crucified and die." And Christ had to rebuke him: "Get thee behind me,
Satan. Thou savorest not the things that be of God." You are talking like a mere carnal
man, and not as the Spirit of God would teach you. Then Christ went on to say,
"Remember, it is not only I who am to be crucified, but you; it is not only I who am to die,
but you also. If a man would be my disciple, he must deny self, and he must take up his
cross and follow me." Let us dwell upon this one word, "self." It is only as we learn to
know what self is that we really know what is at the root of all our failure, and are
prepared to go to Christ for deliverance.
Let us consider, first of all, the nature of this self life, then denote some of its works and
then ask the question: "How may we be delivered from it?"
Self is the power with which God has created and endowed every intelligent creature.
Self is the very center of a created being. And why did God give the angels or man a self?
The object of this self was that we might bring it as an empty vessel unto God; that He
might put into it His life. God gave me the power of self-determination, that I might bring
this self every day and say: "Oh, God, work in it; I offer it to thee." God wanted a vessel
into which He might pour out His divine fullness of beauty, wisdom and power; and so
He created the world, the sun, and the moon, and the stars, the trees, and the flowers, and
the grass, which all show forth the riches of His wisdom, and beauty, and goodness. But
they do it without knowing what they do. Then God created the angels with a self and a
will, to see whether they would come and voluntarily yield themselves to Him as vessels
for Him to fill. But alas! they did not all do that. There was one at the head of a great
company, and he began to look upon himself, and to think of the wonderful powers with
which God had endowed him, and to delight in himself. He began to think: "Must such a
being as I always remain dependent on God?" He exalted himself, pride asserted itself in
separation from God, and that very moment he became, instead of an angel in Heaven, a
devil in hell. Self turned to God is the glory of allowing the Creator to reveal Himself in
us. Self turned away from God is the very darkness and fire of hell.
We all know the terrible story of what took place further; God created man, and Satan
came in the form of a serpent and tempted Eve with the thought of becoming as God,
having an independent self, knowing good and evil. And while he spoke with her, he
breathed into her, in those words, the very poison and the very pride of hell. His own evil
spirit, the very poison of hell, entered humanity, and it is this cursed self that we have
inherited from our first parents. It was that self that ruined and brought destruction upon
this world, and all that there has been of sin, and of darkness, and of wretchedness, and of
misery; and all that there will be throughout the countless ages of eternity in hell, will be

nothing but the reign of self, the curse of self, separating man and turning him away from
his God. And if we are to understand fully what Christ is to do for us, and are to become
partakers of a full salvation, we must learn to know, and to hate, and to give up entirely
this cursed self.
Now what are the works of self? I might mention many, but let us take the simplest words
that we are continually using,--self-will, self-confidence, self-exaltation. Self-will,
pleasing self, is the great sin of man, and it is at the root of all that compromising with the
world which is the ruin of so many. Men can not understand why they should not please
themselves and do their own will. Numbers of Christians have never gotten hold of the
idea that a Christian is a man who is never to seek his own will, but is always to seek the
will of God, as a man in whom the very spirit of Christ lives. "Lo, I come to do Thy will,
oh, my God!" We find Christians pleasing themselves in a