The Word of Truth

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Deceptive Influences

How can the devil have an advantage over a child of God?

In Sis. Mary Cole’s writings, she wrote, “At first Brother Warner was somewhat puzzled, as he could see that although some of us were affected by this false spirit, we still had the spirit of God…. I was still sitting in the congregation, knowing that I had some of the devil’s chattels on me.” How much can one have of the “devil’s chattels” and the Spirit of God at the same time? I understand about being in error and not knowing it, and that as long as one’s intentions are pure and for the glory of God, the Holy Ghost never leaves the person. Is this what is meant in the statements of Sis. Mary Cole? This is important where I see so much confusion and mixtures that are so difficult to sort out.

Reply:

I think that Sister Mary meant “collaterals,” but used the word “chattels.” That is, Satan had some advantage of her in believing something to be right when it wasn’t (the false gift of tongues). A picture of another sister under the same influence is pictured in Around Old Bethany. Note how the author describes the deceived sister as being under a terrific strain:

The scenes enacted at the meeting were well-nigh indescribable. Robert Davis attended one night, two weeks after the meeting had begun. He said to Mary when he got home, “Mary, I never saw such demonstrations in all my life before. Would you believe it if I should tell you that I stood in front of the front row of seats, about ten feet from the platform, and that I could not hear a word that those on the platform were singing? It is a fact. The altar extended between the seats and platform, and the seekers and those talking to them were making such a noise that the singing could no longer be heard.”

“Why did they make so much noise?” asked Mary.

“I do not know,” replied Robert, “They seemed very much in earnest. Let me tell you something more. I saw young women jiggle and jerk all over until their hair was all thrown down, and their clothing disarranged. Two or three men were running about on the platform as if they were mad; others danced more gracefully. One or two were bellowing. There were noises that were indescribable—screeches, howls, yells, and several gibbering syllables that no one understood. Some were shaking all over, some were lying prone and stiff, some were falling down into various attitudes. Why, Mary, it was simply awful! You would never dream of sane people doing such things.”

Next morning Kate Newby came over. She came in dancing and talking in the “unknown tongue.”

“Oh, I have got it, I have got it,” she exclaimed.

“You have got what?” asked Robert.

“I have got the Holy Ghost, I have the ‘tongues,’ hallelujah!” shouted Kate.

“What has it done for you?” asked Mary.

“Oh, I have got it, I’ve got it!” was all the reply Kate would make.

“Did you make a complete consecration to God? Did you seek Him for the cleansing power? Were you brought near to Him? Was your heart brought very humble and yielding to God? Tell me how you prayed, and what your faith took in,” said Robert.

“I have got it, I have got it,” was all Kate could say about her new experience. She seemed to be very happy, yet she looked as if she were in a tremendous strain, and lines were drawn in her face which denoted care and anxiety.

“My dear, did you come to the Lord for more of His grace?” asked Mary. “If so, we have a sure promise, but what is this ‘tongues’ that you have received?”

“That is proof that I have the Holy Ghost,” said Kate. “Don’t you know that the apostles spoke in tongues?” But Kate did not know the theology of the new religion very well.

[Robert L. Berry; Around Old Bethany]

Whenever Satan has an advantage over us, it produces some manifestation that is detrimental. The false thing overshadows our entire experience. Sometimes, a falsedoctrine can be very subtle in its harmful effect, but there is always something, for that poisonous effect is the whole point from Satan’s viewpoint. From God’s standpoint, it is a matter of free will choice. He knows whatever is there that mars the image of His Son. He knows that if I’m praying the prayer, “Cleanse Thou me from secret faults,”* (Ps. 19:12) and really mean it, then I want help. But He also knows that I must see it to some extent, then voluntarily ask for help, in order that my right to choose be respected. This is one of the functions of our trials—the exposure of specific needs to take to God. They must be exposed to our eyes. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”* (Ps. 139:23-24) The searching and revealing is for my benefit, and we should not be discouraged, but trusting in our Perfecter. It all comes down to walking in the light that God sheds on our pathway.

Now to your question: “How much can one have of the ‘devil’s chattels’ and the Spirit of God at the same time?” It is rebellion on our part that breaks fellowship with God. Any knowing sin will break fellowship. That said, consider the degrees of fellowship a soul can have with its Creator. Perfect fellowship. Fellowship free from transgression. Choked fellowship (cares of this life). And finally, hindered fellowship, where a foreign influence strains the fellowship. Then there is broken fellowship, where fellowship has ended.

There is little question that Sister Mary Cole was hindered in her fellowship with God by the deception to which she had given place. I expect that her acceptance of the light on that particular subject was a great relief to her.

When I read Brother John Bunyan’s writings, I am mindful that there was an influence in his life that was not right (he was under the influence of a predestination doctrine that taught that God arbitrarily selected some men for salvation and some for damnation), and this influence had an effect on his vision. However, he loved God so truly and was so genuinely converted in his heart, that there is much of great value that he grasped and taught in his writings. The same is true of Jonathan Edwards. Sister Katherine Helm believed that the devil was in heaven and that there will be a thousand-year reign on earth with a literal kingdom. She mixed faith in God with faith in medical science, yet she dearly loved God and was filled with the Holy Ghost.

We might say that the marring effect of false teaching and less-than-sound doctrine varies, depending on how much the individual in question has imbibed, the virulence of the false things, and the strength of what is sound and true and present in the person. God goes by the motives and purposes of the heart, and the Spirit of God patiently works with each of us to lead us into all truth. We have fellowship with others as they walk in heaven’s light and vice-versa.

Holy Ghost Unity

How can we achieve Holy Ghost unity and destroy the sectarian walls?

While it is our duty to repove all outward sin, we must keep the fact prominent that all reform must begin at the heart, which God only can change; inward transformation is only upon the condition of faith, and, therefore, must be definitely presented in the Scriptural order of pardon and adoption to the sinner, and entire sanctification to the believer. We regret that some attempt to beat down the ice mountain of sect by the hammer of the Word, without the melting fire of the Holy Spirit. Getting people out of the sects any other way than by leading them to Christ for heart purity and the reception of the Comforter, which leads the soul from all sects and into all truth, is but enlisting men into carnal crusades against Babylon, and can result in little good, and has, in some instances, hedged up the way and turned back the tide of God’s truth more than it will be to advance it…. [T]he Bible experience of entire sanctification is the true objective of Christ’s atonement and shed blood, and… thorough holiness destroys sects and denominations, as frost would disappear under the beams of the June sun…. [T]he promotion of true holiness is the only remedy for schisms and every other form of sin in the body of professed Christians.

[Daniel S. Warner—quoted in Andrew L. Byers; Birth of a Reformation, “The Crisis”]

So many “Church of God(s)” and individuals claim to be carrying on the work along Bro. Warner’s vision. Yet, their dividing norms, catechism, and traditions contradict these statements of Bro. Warner. I feel that we should drop anything that we cannot directly read from the Bible and make efforts to come together along the principles of the statements above, leaving each individual to go on with their personal convictions without having to bind them upon others. Perhaps this will make room for the Holy Ghost unity and destroy the sectarian walls in the church of God as exists now. What do you say?

Reply:

I am thinking of Brother Orr’s statements in The Rule of a Saintly Life:

There is not enough living from the heart among the saints. There is too much coldness, formality, and dullness among us. This is a plain statement, but it is the fact. The reason why there is such formality and dullness is because there is not enough heart-living. There is too much doing and not doing because it is taught that we should do certain things and not do certain things. The things we do and do not do should be done from the power of a living “truth in the inward parts.”* (Psalm 51:6) This only will save us from cold formality. If you were only able to receive it, I would say that too many are doing things merely because the Bible says so. Wait a moment, and let me explain. The Bible teaches (in principle) and preachers teach that it is distrusting God to take medicine. Now you can say, “I will not take any medicine because the Bible says God will heal all my diseases” [Psalm 103:3; Matthew 4:23])—and yet you may not be healed. Why is it? It is because you have not made that word you see on the printed page a living power in your heart. Jesus says, “If ye abide in me andmy words abide in you, ye shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.”* (John 15:7) Multitudes are claiming that promise and getting no results. What is the trouble? It is because the word is not abiding in their heart in its power. Peter said, “Such as I have.”* (Acts 3:6) He had something. He had healing truth as a power in his heart, and he gave it from himself to the man and he was instantly healed.

[Charles E. Orr; The Rule of a Saintly Life]

Brother Warner’s statements have validity only as they are taught in the scriptures; we might say that none of us are exempt from the Word of God. Wherever Brother Warner deviated from the Word of God, his teaching is not safe to follow or believe, and this is true of any of us, including me. “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”* (1 Corinthians 11:1) A brother in Russia advocates that we should believe that the devil was once an angel in heaven; among other things, he produces written evidence that Brother Warner and other brethren once believed and taught this. However, the Word ofGod does not (although this man contends that it does). I must stay with the Word of God.

Nor do personal convictions prevail over the Word of God. This is the scriptural meaning of liberty of conscience—it applies only to things that the Word does not teach are right or wrong, such as eating of meat offered to idols. Even though a man may not have light on a certain Bible subject and actually be short of what the Bible teaches, his lack of light does not justify the thing. As soon as light comes to the man, he must change to obey or he will be in condemnation. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin… If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”* (Jn. 15:22,24) It is not just respect for personal convictions without binding things on others that makes room for Holy Ghost unity and destroys sectarian walls; it is that respect coupled with God dealing with men and them measuring up to His light that produces real Holy Ghost unity. The attempts of men to straighten out men to some rule or creed simply polarize us and produce “I am of Paul” and “I am of Apollos”; and this simply reveals that more is needed from God, namely the removal of carnality (1 Corinthians 3:4). If we just say, “Well, I’ll try to put my arms around everything as long as I trust that the motives are pure,” then we will have a conglomeration, an aggregate association, that is a far cry from the unity we find in the New Testament. We must give others room to find Bible light through the dealings of the Holy Ghost, but true Bible unity is only found when the fundamentals (salvation from sin, entire sanctification through the coming of the Holy Ghost) are present and working in the heart of each believer and each believer is up-to-date in walking in the light from God. We must have the experience and the right attitude toward others, but there is no substitution for the work of God done in us. Two men filled with the Holy Ghost may differ about whether water baptism is necessary or how it should be done (immersion), but one or both are not led by the Holy Ghost and in God’s unity until they see and receive light and speak the same thing and have the same judgment. If they find themselves in disagreement, then there is nothing to do that will avail but take this to God and confess the reality of their need and ask that He make this plain to them. The overriding question is, “What is right?” This is our rallying cry, our humbling cry. “What does Jesus think?” “What would Jesus do?” As you told me many letters ago, “I just want to know.” I do, too. And we are both aware that when we “get it” from God, it will be the same. Now this process will make Holy Ghost unity and destroy sectarian walls utterly! Praise God! We must flow upwards, melted before Him by His fire (Micah 4:1).

I do not desire to “pull rank” on anybody, and I happily confess that I have no “rank” to pull. I will not conclude that I am “holier than thou” or superior in understanding, therefore I ought to prevail. I will, by the grace of God, stay in the light revealed to me and stay open to all other light. “Lord, I am open to everything that is of Thee, and closed to everything that is not.” And if I make mistakes in this, God is able to perfect and correct me, and I put my trust in Him that He will do just that. Nor do I need to compromise my light to accept others—I just leave it in the hands of Him who knows allthings. If something suddenly manifests itself in someone else or myself, I trust in God to deal with it and let me know what I should do or not do. Those who are too loose in this respect think I do not have enough love for others, and those who are strict beyond what the Spirit of God would teach, feel that I am a compromiser, but by the grace of God, dear brother, I will walk in the light as God shines it on my pathway. That is my privilege and my safety. In this matter, completely, I will let go and let God in all facets.

This is my privilege in confidence or lack thereof with respect to how people live, and this is my privilege with regard to what is taught. Here again, I must walk in the light and be faithful to what I have been taught by the Holy Ghost. I am looking for soundness in what is taught—the soundness that comes from the Holy Ghost. Not mere intellectual parallels with truth, but inspired, right-sound-of-the-trumpet truth, that proves itself by the fruit that it engenders, both that in opposition to it and in those who accept it. In short, the fingerprints of the Almighty in human beings. That is what I have to offer to others, too. My Lord said, “and that I do nothing of myself,”* (John 8:28) and again, “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father thatdwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”* (John 14:10) And the testimony of Brother Paul, “yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.”* (2 Corinthians 12:5) All I have to offer to you, my dear brother, that is of any lasting merit, is the part that God has worked in me. All the rest is flesh and unworthy of our confidence.