The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-03-20

AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ENTITLED
GOODS PLAN FOR Us"

]
/ is one Of a series preached by tire famous
/ evangelist, the Rev. Dr. ]. Wilbur Chap
man IL is entitled Gods Plan Dor Us"
/ and was founded on the text ~Not as
4 though / had already attained, either were
/ already perfect but I follow after. If that
/ | may apprehend chat for which also / am
apprehended Of Christ Jesus" Philip
/ plans iii: II.
God has a plan for every life, and when
/ this plan is realized there is always i'm the
/ experience of the believer both iov and
/ peace, blessing and power If any one is
/ having an up-aud-down Christian expe-
, rience, hot to-day and cold tomorrow,
near enough to Christ to-day so that he
may almost touch Him, and so far away
tomorrow that he questions If he has ever
been saved, this is a certain evidence that
he has not allowed God to work out His
| plan for him, and there IS vet much work
/ to be &C 'omplished by the Holy Spirit of
/ Tod. An experience of unrest dishonorss
God, and when you find heart in which.
there Is this unrest and dissatisfaction you
| always find a life in which God has not
/ yet finished His work. peace / leave
| with you; My peace / give unto YOU" was
written for such an one, and is his inherit
ance. While it would be a most difficult
thing to define peace, yet possibly the best
/ definition would be to take its opposite
and so it would read like this. Peace is
the opposite of unrest, Of confusion. of
strife This blessing is for every one of
Gods children, if they will but claim it,
1t IS no more disastrous for ones arm TO
be out of its socket than for ones life to
run contrary TO the plan of God. Paul
evidently had this in mind when he said:
If may apprehend that for which | am
also apprehended of Christ Jesus" 1t
would be no more disastrous for a planet
to go swinging out Of its orbit than for a
life to run contrary to the plan of God.
The fact Is our crosses in this world al
ways come to us when orr wills run con-
trary to the will Of God. One piece of
wood placed over another and running in
the contrary direction always makes a
cross. Our peace and JOY come to us in
this life when our wills run parallel to that
OF God Though We may be obliged to
live IN poverty and meet with what this
world calls disaster and failure, if we are
perfectly sure we are doing according to
Gods will we may say with the apostle
"All things work together for good"
God has a high ideal for every life, and
we have but to read the Scriptures to
find this 10 be true. We find in Romans
i: Z that we are called Saints" this is
our name. We learn in ] Corinthians iii:
9, that we are "laborers together with
God" We are told in l Corinthians j:
8, that it is our privilege to be in fellow
ship with Gods Son, and this word eel
lowship" is literally partnership" In
Revelation ii: IL, God promises to give to
us His own hidden mamma to eat. OF this
the world knows nothing-it can neither
give it nor take 1t away. In the 25th
Psalm l4th verse, we have a pledge that
God will tell to us His secrets. but it is not
to be forgotten that we only tell secrets
to those who are near to us. God never
gives His secrets to those who are out of
fellowship with Him, and every man is out
of fellowship who has in his heart any I'M
confessed or unforgiven sin. In Philip
plans iii: % the conversation of the child
of God is described 1t is to be in heav-
en-, from whence also we look for the Sa-
vour, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ephe-
slams ii: 10 the whole of the Christian
character is described. We are told that
we are His Workmanship" and the word
workmanship is literally poem, so that in
Gods plan we are all that is complete and
beautiful.
We are very sure that we have not at.
tanned unto this pan.
We are likewise confident that falling
short Of it we are not satisfied and our
cry is that of the apostle (Romans z: 24)
"Oh, wretcned man that | am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death ?"
We may have Gods power. Cor xii: Q
My grace is sufficient for thee; for my
strength is made perfect in weakness
Most gladly therefore will / rather glory
in my inirmities, that the power of Christ
may rest upon me-" Let us therefore
cease to speak of the presence of the Holy
Ghost as an experience and talk about the
better Christian life as an "it;" let us re.
member ever after this that Christ is the
power of God To exalt Him, to follow
\ Him, to live His life, and to enthrone Him
n in our lives, is power always, and never
y can be anything else,
We may have Gods rest Hebrews iv:
/ to 3-"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 gospe
preached, as we'll 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. as he said, As I have sworn ii
my wrath, if they shall enter into, m!
rest although the works were finished
from the foundation of the world"
1t is most significant that in the tentl
verse Of this fourth chapter of Hebrew
: we read "For he that has entered int
: his rest, he also hath ceased from his owl
works. as God did from His" Oh, that W
might all of us learn that it is when W
] cease to be self-centred aud become Christ
centred, it is when we live lives of unsel
, hshness and therefore Tor the glory o
Christ, it is when we look up and not in
in word, it is when We cease from on
s own works that we enter into Gods rest.
J. We may have Gods no ness. Hebrew
xii: l0-"For they verify for a few day
e chastened us after their own pleasure, bu
t He for our profit, that we might be pan
!, takers of His holiness" Not infrequenti
. we find Christian people who are afraid q
the word holiness, and yet the Bible la
distinctly declared that without holmes
no man shall see God. If we are shuttin
It Him out of our lives then we are deprivin
It ourselves Of our birthright as His children
!, We might sum up Gods pan for on
= lives under three heads;
L l. 1t Is Gods will that we should be n