by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
January, 1933
Letter to a Deeply Exercised Soul
Dear A.—You doubtless will be surprised that so humble and unworthy an individual as myself should attempt to address you. It is however by no means uncongenial, with my feelings, though under a deep sense of my utter inability to do so, suitable, but “Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the Heavens;” for Thou seest every secret and hidden thing, and Thou knowest Thy handmaid altogether, and searchest all the hearts of the children of men. O minister to her present necessities, though the unworthiest of Thy creatures whom Thou hast brought up from the pit of corruption, and saved from the lowest hell, and raised from the gates of the grave, to tell her fellow-sinners that Thou hast saved to the uttermost. However low they my be sunk in the mire, Thine arm can reach them, and Thy salvation set them on high. Breathe, Holy Comforter! instruct Holy Teacher! or we shall read and write in vain.
Dear A., you lately desired to know of yourself. But O you little thought what the horrifying sight and awful realization of evil which the granting of such a desire would bring. Perhaps you hoped for more solid assurances that you were right by having your heart turned inside out. But verily such a laying open of ourselves to ourselves makes all appear wrong. Perhaps you thought the painful sight would soften you into tears of penitence, and the humbling view lay you gently down in the dust of self-abasement, and that thus, as a polluted sinner, you should weep and love at the dear Redeemer's feet. But ah! these blessed feelings are more from the joys of salvation than the dark discoveries of guilt; more in being found than feeling we are lost. To know yourself and what your sin is, methinks you could not bear to the full extent. The corruption of fallen humanity is so offensive, its deceptiveness so deep, its outrage against Omnipotence so daring, and its callousness under all so impenetrable, that surely the fullest sense of it must crush finite worms into despair, and drive them out of existence. But mark, it would never bring them to the Mercy-seat; it would not fill them with prayer, and hope, and humble cries for pardon. The terrible majesty and holiness of the Being sinned against, and the feeling of His fearful and dreadful power, and justice, would strike the soul to a farther and farther distance from Him; not in the softness of contrition, but in the hardening of hopelessness. I do humbly believe, that would be the effect of discovering the whole depth of our depravity in the full light of Jehovah's strict holiness, such will be the effect, in a lesser degree, as we discover some of that depravity by some rays of that searching light; for it is “light that makest manifest.” As Adam when he discovered his nakedness, did not run to God, but from Him; so it is with every soul of man; and so it seems with you; for you say that under insensibility, hardness, and carelessness, you are not driven to the Throne of Grace, but to the contrary. Sin does not bring forth life; but sin, when it is finished, “bringeth forth death,” and as it works, produces deathliness of feeling.
All do not learn the mystery of iniquity to the same extent, but it is decreed every soul that is saved shall feel something of its painful experience, something of what they are saved from and out of, as well as what they are saved unto. In learning this they find a strange work; in this lesson many hard sayings which they can hardly bear. They have read that the “heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”; and “that he who trusts in his own heart, is a fool.” But they find it a very different thing to feel the deceivableness of unrighteousness at work within, and to be brought off from trusting the heart, because they feel its treachery and vileness. They have confessed they were sinners, and believed it; but to feel sin working distance, darkness, coldness, and hardness, is experimental proof of sinnership, which feels more like destruction than salvation, and seems very far from drawing them to God. Should this present year of your life be spent chiefly under this dark discipline, you will often feel that if the blessing is coming, it is indeed “cross-handed”; and that if prayer is being answered, it is truly by most unexpected contrarieties. Nevertheless, as the Stone cut out of the mountain without hands must destroy all kingdoms, that it may fill the whole earth, so must this wondrous Stone break in pieces in our souls the iron, brass, clay, the silver and the gold (Dan. 2:34)—things that we have counted refuse, and things that we have held in estimation; all that is ours must come forth to destruction that we may be saved, and Christ to us “all in all.” He cannot fill us while we are filled, or half filled, with anything else, seem it badness or goodness; whatever form it may assume, be it not Christ it is nought, and is a work of the flesh or the devil. But for this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). He comes to the renewed soul as a “refiner's fire and as fuller's soap,” but who may “abide the day of His coming?” (Mal. 3:2). None but those whom He has created anew in Himself. All that is of our flesh shall be as stubble before Him, and we need not fear its destruction, for it will ever do wickedly. And bless His holy name, He will take care of the jewel, the precious life which He has implanted in the soul, while He deals thus roughly with our deeds of darkness. He is only bringing us to what we often talk about,—to be nothing, that He may be all in all, and that we may glory in Him alone.
You say, how much of self you see working in your past life. You see truly, but you see not half of the abominations of this image that “provoketh to jealousy.” I have been here before you, and I speak from experience, and though turned again and again to see greater abominations of self, which were to issue in the lifting up of “Jesus on High” in my soul, into which He came like the ark into Dagon's temple (1 Sam. 5:4), when His powerful presence caused the hateful self which I had set up to fall prostrate and lose its head and feet, so that now it is good for nothing, and can neither work nor walk, though it would often pretend. As said Delilah to Samson, “The Philistines be upon thee”; so would I say to this marring, proud, hateful, self, “The power of Christ's death be ever upon thee” (2 Cor. 4:10). Nothing else will ever bring it down; and as the Holy Spirit first leads us through the “chambers of imagery” and reveals the hidden things of our own darkness, so does He afterwards reveal Christ and gives us victory through Him. The Holy Spirit breathes upon our fancied godliness (Isa. 40:6, 7) to make it wither; so is it that the beauty of the Lord our God (Psa. 90:17) may be upon us, that we may understand those sweet words, “Ye are complete in Him,” and that “he that glorieth may glory in the Lord.”
You complain that the Bible which you once enjoyed is now to you a sealed book. May not this be another answer to know, or to your desire to know, more of yourself? For you find that yourself may read the Word, quote the Word, and have some judgment and light in the Word, yet you cannot find the Word, and eat it, and make it the joy and rejoicing of your soul. Yourself cannot unlock the secrets contained therein, cannot “receive the sincere milk of the Word, so that ye may grow thereby,” or eat the strong meats when you please. May you not hereby be learning that you are not ignorant in Divine things, and that Christ must be your wisdom? that you are powerless, and that He must be the power of God unto you for salvation and instruction in righteousness? May not the Holy Spirit be going forth in your soul like the voice of John in the wilderness, to “prepare the way of the Lord” before Him, and to make straight in your seemingly desert heart a highway for our God? And may He not, ere long, say to you with almighty power, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world?” When by faith you behold Jesus as your Surety and Savior standing in your law-place, bearing your sin and guilt, and delivering your soul from punishment, by being Himself, your ransom, then will your heart dissolve, and tears of thankfulness flow. Having sweet forgiveness you will love Him much, and desire “to know no will but His.” “Old things will pass away, and all things become new,” and you will become a new creature in a new world, whilst His gracious presence remains with you.
May it please the Lord that your painful exercise may end in this glorious issue. There are those now triumphing in Christ who have traveled mournfully through this wilderness of self before you and found it a land of darkness and drought and shadow of death, and thought while in it that it was a land which none of the Lord's living ones ever passed through. But He turned for them the shadows of death into mourning. May He also do a sure work in your soul, and give you feelingly to say, “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, for Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back” (Isa. 38:17).
Your letter made me weep well, knowing the bitterness of the “wormwood and gall.” “My soul hast thou still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.” I had hoped that the Lord was going to bring you forth to the light, that you might behold His righteousness. I have not come unto you with smooth things, but having spread yours before the Lord, who “knoweth the end from the beginning” (Isa. 46:10). Such as I have, give I unto thee. If He said it, may He bless it to your soul's benefit, and He shall have the glory; if not, may my unworthy self be pardoned.
I remain, yours ever affectionately, ONE WHO HAS BEEN IN THE FURNACE, 1856.
Philologos | Bible Prophecy Research | The BPR Reference Guide | About Us