A Simple Mind.

In 1859, certain parts of the world became marked scenes in the long war that had been taking place in the heavenly realms. For the Evil One, the occasion was publication in England of "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" by Charles Darwin. For the Lord our God, it was the Awakening of souls to salvation in America and parts of Britain.

The Evil One's work continues to have its effect through that book today while the work of the Lord our God continues on a different scale to the intensity experienced in 1859 (and a couple of years prior) in certain places. The Province of Ulster in Ireland was the scene of great blessing in that earlier time and at least one striking incident, to my mind, deserves mention here. The township of Broughshane had come under deep impression of the Holy Spirit. A public prayer meeting was the scene for many testimonies of lately converted people - many of whom ordinarily could not put more than a few articulate words together - and yet they spoke on this occasion with words, though brief, which cut to the heart of hearers. One such speaker had, until the week before been a drunkard. He stood up and trembled as he spoke:

"Gentlemen, I appear before you this day as a vile sinner, many of you know me, you have but to look at me and recognize the profligate of Broughshane, you know I was an old man hardened in sin; you know I was a servant of the devil, and he led me by that instrument of his, the spirit of the barley. I brought my wife and family to beggary more than fifty years ago; in short, I defy the townland of Broughshane to produce my equal in profligacy, or any sin whatever; but ah, gentlemen, I have seen Jesus, I was born again on last night week, I am therefore a week old today, or about; my heavy and enormous sin is all gone, the Lord Jesus took it away, and I stand before you this day, not only a pattern of profligacy, but a monument of the perfect grace of God! I stand here to tell you that God's work on Calvary is perfect - yes, I have proved it - his work is perfect. He is not like an architect who makes a drawing of a building, and then he looks at it, and he takes out this line and that, or makes some other alteration, and frequently alters all his plan, and even when the building is going on he makes some other change, - but God drew out the plan of salvation, and it was complete, and he carried it out with his blessed Son Jesus; and it is all perfect, for had it not been so, it would have been incapable of reaching the depth of iniquity of - the profligate nailer of Broughshane."

That testimony of a simple man some 150 years ago in the back blocks of Ireland, for much of his life dead in his sin but in delivery of the testimony new and alive in Jesus Christ, is most instructive. He rightly acknowledges the perfecting manner in the way Jesus Christ completed His salvific work and its immediacy in a receptive heart of man.

Upon receiving Jesus Christ we are fully justified and sufficiently sanctified to eternal life. Though there be degrees of sanctification and a work of Holy Spirit to lift us to higher holiness, that is not to deny the sanctification sufficient to eternal life received upon new birth.

The manner in which our Lord works in salvation is no different to the way he worked in Creation and will be no different in our Resurrection. In none of those works is our Lord like some architect, even a great architect, who would do so much of a work only to step back, review, alter, move on only to stop, review and alter his plan again and again. Sin in regenerate man necessitates a work after sufficient sanctification to help us all the more enjoy the way of new creation but this was not the way in pre-rebellious Adam who was made without sin in the first place.

To inflict upon our Lord the notion of him creating - through means of evolution - a manner so far removed from the revelation of Himself in Being and history is a grievous hurt to His nature, works and glory.

Sam Drucker