Then, again, people say thy don't believe in _revivals_. There's not a denomination in the world that didn't spring from a revival. There are the Catholic and Episcopal churches claiming to be the apostolic churches and to have sprung from Pentecost; the Lutheran from Martin Luther, and so on. They all sprung out of revivals, and yet people talk against revivals! I'd as soon talk against my mother as against a revival. Wasn't the country revived under John the Baptist? Wasn't it under Christ's teachings? People think that because a number of superficial cases of conversion occur at revivals that therefore revivals ought to be avoided. They forget the parable of the sower, where Jesus himself warns us of emotional hearers, who receive the word with joy, but soon fall away. If only one out of every four hearers is truly converted, as in the parable, the revival has done good.
Suppose you spend a month on _Regeneration_, or _The Kingdom of God_, or _The Church_ in the New Testament, or the _divinity of Christ_ or the _attributes of God_. It will help you in your own spiritual life, and you will become a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Make a study of the _Holy Spirit_. There are probably five hundred passages on the Holy Spirit, and what you want is to study this subject for yourself. Take the _Return of our Lord_. I know it is a controverted subject. Some say He is to come at the end of the Millennium, others say this side of the Millennium. What we want is to know what the Bible says. Why not go to the Bible and study it up for yourself; it will be worth more to you than anything you get from anyone else. Then _Separation_. I believe that a Christian man should lead a separated life. The line between the church and the world is almost obliterated to-day. I have no sympathy with the idea that you must hunt up an old musty church record in order to find out whether a man is a member of the church or not. A man ought to live so that everybody will know he is a Christian. The Bible tells us to lead a separate life. You may lose influence, but you will gain it at the same time. I suppose Daniel was the most unpopular man in Babylon at a certain time, but, thank God, he has outlived all the other men of his time. Who were the chief men of Babylon? When God wanted any work done in Babylon, He knew where to find some one to do it. You can be in the world, but not of it. Christ didn't take His disciples out of the world, but He prayed that they might be kept from evil. A ship in the water is all right, but when the water gets into the ship, then look out. A worldly Christian is just like a wrecked vessel at sea.
I remember once I took up the _grace of God_. I didn't know the difference between law and grace. When that truth dawned upon me and I saw the difference, I studied the whole week on grace and I got so filled that I couldn't stay in the house. I said to the first man I met, "Do you know anything about the grace of God?" He thought I was a lunatic. And I just poured out for about an hour on the grace of God.
Study the subject of _Prayer_. "For real business at the mercy seat," says Spurgeon, "give me a homemade prayer, a prayer that comes out of the depths of your heart, not because you invented it, but because the Holy Spirit put it there. Though your words are broken and your sentences disconnected, God will hear you. Perhaps you can pray better without words than with them. There are prayers that break the backs of words; they are too heavy for any human language to carry."
Some people say, "I do not believe in _Assurance_." I never knew anybody who read their Bibles who did not believe in Assurance. This Book teaches nothing else. Paul says, "I know in whom I have believed." Job says, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." It is not "I hope," "I trust."
The best book on Assurance was written by one called "John," at the back part of the Bible. He wrote an epistle on this subject. Sometimes you just get a word that will be a sort of key to the epistle, and which unfolds it. Now if you turn to John 20:31, you will find it says, "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have life through His name." Then if you turn to 1 John 5:13, you will read thus: "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may _know_ that ye have eternal life; and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." That whole epistle is written on assurance. I have no doubt John had found some people who questioned about assurance and doubted whether they were saved or not, and he took up his pen and said, "I will settle that question;" and he wrote that last verse in the twentieth chapter of his gospel.