HOW TO ABIDE IN FULLNESS.

• The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace. Ex. 14:14.

• Avoid foolish questions, genealogies and strivings about the law, for they are vain. Titus 3:9.

• With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Rom. 10:10.

• Whoso eateth my body and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. St. John 6:54.

• Yield yourselves unto the Lord as those alive from the dead. Rom. 6:13.

1. In order to be able to abide in the fullness of the blessing we must first get a clear, full experience. Don't try to settle in a fog. If you do you will easily fall. It is a common thing to hear people say, “I profess this grace, but I am not satisfied, I have not the witness." Don't rest until you can say, “I believe all is on the altar. I believe the blood cleanseth. The Holy Spirit is abiding in me, and I am letting Him have his way with me."

2. Do not fight for yourself. The Egyptians were about to capture the Israelites at the Red Sea, when Moses said, ‘Tear not, for the Egyptians that you have seen to-day you shall see them no more forever” “The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace.” Now, if God is going to fight for me I need not fight for myself. If I do, I will hinder Him and prevent victory. “The servant of the Lord must not strive.” The Lord shall fight for you. Jesus never discourages a man. When the devil tempts, you turn him over to God, tell him what God says. Turn his imps over to God. Daniel didn’t fight. The Hebrew children didn’t fight. Don’t fight for yourself.

3. Don’t argue if you want to keep with Jesus. “Avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and striving about the law for they are unprofitable and vain.” I am certain that this is so. I believe the Methodist Church would have had the world to-day if we had not argued and split hairs over doctrine and striving about the law, but had gone in for saving souls.

Jesus did not argue. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. You will be sheared too. That is the time to be dumb. Did you ever do anything and have all your work given to another?

I went to help a young minister in O —. He did not seem to have any spiritual life at all. He only came to our afternoon meetings once and then just at the close. He never came to the front of the church at the night meetings, but sat back in the congregation. I had all who had been converted at the meeting stand up and seventy people stood up. Then I called them, to the front and asked him to take them on probation, and he took in sixty-five and announced a lecture on “Abe Lincoln” that he had written during the meetings. The admission was ten cents. Then in two weeks there was a notice in the “Advocate” that eighty persons had joined that church since conference, that they were all hand picked fruit, and the pastor was doing a vast amount of personal work, signing with his name. That made me tired. Sheared.

4. Humbly testify. “Ye shall be witnesses unto me.” It is high treason to Him to restrain testimony. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Keep up the testimony but do this in the right spirit. This loud metallic confession is generally a substitution of noise for the Holy Spirit. Remember that we are not to tell everybody all that we know. Jesus says, “I have many things to tell you, but ye can not bear them now.” Amanda Smith used to say that she did not blab to everybody all the secrets that the Lord told her. We are the bride and the Lord is the bridegroom. The secrets of the bridegroom are with the bride. Mary hid all these things in her heart. It is sweet to have some secrets with Jesus. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. The infillling of the Spirit is the real qualification for testimony. “They were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak.” Then their testimony was fresh and delightful.

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” People fail to confess because they want to avoid offense. You will offend God if you do not confess. Don’t fail to testify.

5. Feed on the Word and keep drinking. “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I in him.” Note the tenses, eateth and drinketh, not just take a meal now and then or take a drink once in a while. Feed on the word, keep drinking. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Read the head lines of the daily papers rapidly, but feed on the Word. Read church papers more carefully, but feed on the Word.

Some think that if they are converted that is enough. “I am born again, what more do you want?” they say. To think of keeping up a Christian life on first experiences is as absurd as for me to try to live on the food given to me sixty-four years ago. Keep eating and drinking.

There are three things necessary for a healthy life. Pure air, plenty of good food and plenty of exercise. So it is with the soul. Keep thyself pure and in a good atmosphere — eat good food and don't feed on the trashy news of the day, and get a move on you to help save the world.

Nine-tenths of all the doubts and clouds and fears are given us because we are spiritually lazy.

6. Keep yielded unto the Lord. Yield yourselves unto the Lord as those alive from the dead. Be not stiff-necked, but yield yourselves. Rest in the Lord. The Spirit filled heart is a yielded restful heart. The Spirit gives a restful life. You will often be lying limp in His hands, as this handkerchief is limp, lying in my hands at this moment. He giveth his Beloved sleep. The critics tell me that this verse, “He giveth his beloved sleep," is more properly translated. He giveth ‘His Beloved in sleep.'” While resting in Him He renews our strength just as the body is renewed in sleep, and I do not see why that One who neither slumbers nor sleeps, should not give to us the life of His Beloved in sleep. Hear what He says of His little vineyard in Isaiah, 27:3, “I, the Lord, do keep it, I will watch it every moment lest any should hurt it. I will keep it night and day.” In Isaiah 58:11 He says, “The Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a well watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.” Keep yielded.

7. Practice the Presence of Jesus. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, which ye have of God and ye are not your own?” Therefore glorify God in your body. To glorify is to manifest, to bring out so it can be seen. Now that He is in you, recognize His presence. Give Him His right place. Don’t neglect Him. Introduce Him to your friends. Say often to yourself, The Lord is in His holy temple. Blessed be His name. Say it when you go to rest, say it when you wake up in the morning. Say it in the parlor, or in the kitchen, on the streets, any where, “God, the Spirit, has come into my soul.” John says, “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Let Him have His way with you, and He will never, never, leave you nor yet forsake you here “while you walk by faith and do his blessed will. A wall of fire about me, I have nothing to fear. With His Manna He my hungry soul doth fill.”