“That’s Not True!”

He had reached the age of forty-eight years, and God had blessed him with a wife who loved him, two sons, and a daughter. He had secured a job that paid relatively well for the amount of education he had been able to acquire beyond high school. His oldest boy had been taking more and more interest in religion, and he was glad. He had heard pure religion taught all his life, and he had seen a few who actually lived it and “really had something.” However, he had also seen quite a number who did not, and he had experienced painful collisions with some of these.

He was dedicated to his family. He wanted them to have all the advantages he could secure for them, and he felt he would not have lived in vain if they could do better than he had done. Especially spiritually.

His residence was a huge and elaborate home, normally far beyond the means of a man of his station in life; but he had scraped together, taken risks, and custom-designed and custom-built the place.

On that summer morning, he was going down the long hall in the new house, and he met his oldest son. The boy was only fourteen, but he was a good boy and really loved God. God had really changed him nearly six years prior. Before that, he had been a really selfish boy and tormented his younger brother all the time. But a great change had come over him. He had been with his child when the boy went to the public altar bench, crying as if his heart would break; and he had been there, crying too, when forgiveness from the Almighty had touched the boy’s heart. The child’s face was beaming, and the celestial light had radiated from his face. The difference in his life after that had furnished abundant proof of the profoundness and the reality of the change that had taken place. Within a week, his younger brother had interrupted the church service to request that he would get saved, too.

Now in the hall, the boy’s face was beaming just as when he had gotten saved! “What has happened to you?” the fond father inquired.

“Dad!” the beaming young man said. “I’ve found the most wonderful scripture! It’s here in Romans 8:28: ‘And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.’ Do you realize what this means, Dad? There is nothing—nothing—that can come to us in our lives, but that it will work together for our good.”

The father looked at his son—his idealistic, sheltered son—with his whole life ahead of him, and a bitter disillusionment spurted in the father’s heart. He could not help it. Never would he ever have desired to discourage his boy, but a force stronger than him—stronger than his strongest desires and highest aspirations—a force that is “not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be”* (Romans 8:7)—wrenched the words out of his heart and from his mouth. His countenance fell and wretched unbelief showed in every muscle of his features as he said in the flattest most despairing tone imaginable: “That’s not true!” He repeated it—he could not help saying it again—“That’s not true!”

He was aghast at what had fallen from his lips, but his very heart he did not believe, and he was constrained to speak what was in his heart. He had not found Romans 8:28 to be true in his own life.

His son looked at him with an amazement (and a believing confidence in the scripture quoted) that was nearly intolerable to his heart of unbelief. He had heard the full gospel preached, and some of the ministers who had expounded the Word of God to him had truly been used of the Holy Ghost. Fragments of gospel truths tugged at his consciousness and were confronted (as usual—alas!) by his unbelief. His testimony was: “I have heard entire sanctification taught all my life, but I could never get a hold of it!” And with this confession would always appear a desolate hopelessness, a bitter conclusion that this was beyond him; others could have it… perhaps… but he could not….

He had loved this son—his firstborn—oh, how he had loved him! This son was their miracle child. He and his wife had been uncertain that they would ever bear any children. He had longed to have a child. He had prayed God would allow him a child. She had prayed, too. He had prayed that God would give him a blue-eyed, white-haired boy; and… to his awestruck gaze, his firstborn was blue-eyed with hair as white as an aged man. He had told the Lord that he would give him back to God—as did Hannah of old with her firstborn, and he had meant it, too. He wanted better things for his boy than he had found for himself. He wanted him to do well in life. Abraham’s son, Isaac, was not any more treasured or cherished than this firstborn son of his. He would lay down his life for this boy. He would die for him.

But now this boy was going where he had never been able to go. He was going out of reach. He was taking this scripture in such a way that would dash him to pieces when the inevitable, the ugly, the malicious, the cruelty of the envious would lacerate his idealism. No! NO! IT WASN’T TRUE! All things DID NOT work together for good!

The boy was speaking. “But, Dad!” he exclaimed, “it’s in the Bible!” His son was looking at him, and there was real pain and abject astonishment in his eyes. It was unbearably hard for the father to face and deny the wondrous purity and innocence of that belief. But the bitterness of his soul stiffened him, and again he uttered those words, “That’s not true!”

Deep within the subconscious of the unbelieving man, the voice of truth-rejecting doubt chanted its mantra: “He’ll find out. They will treat him the same way. He, too, will grapple with despair, as you have done. He, too, will doubt this optimistic, utopian outlook—bitter experience will strip the fancifulness from him.” And with this hopeless conclusion, a great sorrow laid hold on him—a sorrow that life was like this—a great grief that there was nothing better than this. Oh, if it were only true! And he saw that he and his boy would be separated by this desolate idealism. A new bitterness rocked the inward thought of his soul. We love our young. We would do anything to shelter them and protect them. But they are down here in this awful world, just as their parents are. We cannot really shelter them from life.

He moved on down the hall, only dimly aware that the last echo of his words to his boy were: “That’s not true.” And, yes, without the grace of God working unfrustrated, unhindered in a purified heart—without that: then it is not true in such a case. But the boy was cleansed by a work of marvelous grace. In him was a divine work, and the result was, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”* (Matthew 5:8) His eyes had been opened, and as he encountered the same things that stirred the unbelief and bitterness in his Dad, his eyes saw God. And yes, it was true. All things did work together for good to them that love God, and he knew this. Yea, “For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”* (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

I was attending a prayer meeting held for the promotion of scriptural holiness, when a strange lady rose to speak. I looked at her, wondering who she could be, little thinking she was to bring a message to my soul which would teach me such a grand lesson. She said she had had great difficulty in living the life of faith, on account of the second causes that seemed to her to control nearly everything that concerned her. Her perplexity became so great, that at last she began to ask God to teach her the truth about it, whether He really was in everything or not. After praying this for a few days, she had what she described as a vision. She thought she was in a perfectly dark place, and that there advanced towards her from a distance a body of light, which gradually surrounded and enveloped her and everything around her. As it approached, a voice seemed to say, “This is the presence of God; this is the presence of God.” While surrounded with this presence, all the great and awful things in life seemed to pass before her—fighting armies, wicked men, raging beasts, storms and pestilences, sin and suffering of every kind.

She shrank back at first in terror, but she soon saw that the presence of God so surrounded and enveloped each one of these, that not a lion could reach out its paw, nor a bullet fly through the air, except as His presence moved out of the way to permit it. And she saw that, let there be ever so thin a sheet, as it were, of this glorious presence between herself and the most terrible violence, not a hair of her head could be ruffled, nor anything touch her, unless the presence divided to let the evil through. Then all the small and annoying things of life passed before her, and equally she saw that these all were so enveloped in this presence of God that not a cross look, not a harsh word, nor petty trial of any kind, could reach her unless His presence moved out of the way to let them through.

Her difficulty vanished. Her question was answered forever. God was in everything; and to her henceforth there were no second causes. She saw that her life came to her day by day and hour by hour directly from His hand, let the agencies which should seem to control it be what they might. And never again had she found any difficulty in an abiding consent to His will and an unwavering trust in His care.

If we look at the seen things, we shall not be able to understand the secret of this. But the children of God are called to look, “not at the things which are seen… for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”* (2 Corinthians 4:18) Could we but see with our bodily eyes His unseen forces surrounding us on every side, we would walk through this world in an impregnable fortress, which nothing could ever overthrow or penetrate, for “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.”* (Psalm 34:7)

[Hannah W. Smith; The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, “Is God in Everything?”]

Has there not come to you, dear reader, a whisper of hope—a pointing to a higher path—a way of life, the way of the consecrated, purified heart—the way of steadfast, unmoving faith in God? Do you not feel the Spirit of God tugging at your defiled heart, encouraging you to the blood for cleansing from a heart of unbelief? Will you not respond to the Comforter’s promptings? Will you let Him lead you to and on the path of complete faith in God?

“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God…. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest…. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”* (Hebrews 3:12, 4:1-3,9-11)