W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

anti-Christ. Therefore he does his best by his preaching to convince the sinner that he cannot get to Christ, meet
Him and receive his salvation. This is an undeniable fact, since he actually tells him he has no right to pray,
whereas prayer is the only possible method of access to the Savior. Hence you see this poor, mistaken man
actually heads the sinner off and paralyzes all of his efforts to get to Christ, by telling him that he has no right to
pray, and if he does God will not hear him. At the same time he pleads with him with all his might to come and
join the church and let him immerse him in water for the remission of his sins, which is farcical and
blasphemous. Jesus alone has the power to save a soul (Acts 4:12). Our work is nothing but to tell the poor lost
sinners about Him, and to do our utmost by our prayers and instructions to encourage them in their seeking after
Him. This has always been the only way of salvation. God says through His own prophet: “Let the wicked man
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him, return unto the Lord, who will have mercy on
him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” There never from the beginning has been any other way of
salvation but for a man to seek and find the Lord for himself and get truly, knowingly, and intelligently saved,
which God always attests by His Holy Spirit so that we know it is better than anything else. God is the greatest
of all teachers. When men teach us an important truth, we know it but when God teaches us, we know infinitely
better than anything that man can possibly teach us.
When they get people utterly alienated from the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is no longer any probability
of their finding Jesus their Savior, as the Holy Ghost alone can reveal Him.
Consequently in every protracted meeting they would begin by preaching against the work of the Holy Spirit,
tantalizing and mocking frequently in order to stir up the risibles of the people and expedite their utter alienation
from the Holy Spirit. After they thought they had convinced them that there was no such thing as Holy Ghost
religion, that it was all wild-fire and fanaticism, then, changing their tactics, they would preach on sin and Hell,
not holding up Jesus and His precious blood as the remedy, but obedience and especially church joining,
confession and immersion. They would often speak very pathetically of the Savior's dying love, which was
much to our edification, but all of that dying love is of no avail to the sinner unless he can find Him and get Him
to save him.
This he can never do unless the Holy Ghost has revealed Him; on this the Word is clear and explicit.
“No one can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost.” Therefore when they ridicule, and with sarcasm,
witticism, burlesque and vociferous speeches have convinced the people that there is no Holy Ghost nor
experimental religion, do you not see that they have already effectually headed them off from Jesus, whom none
but the Holy Ghost can reveal? Oh, that those preachers could only be converted to God, so they would fly from
the office of anti-Christ, as from the mouth of Hell, and take their places where they are so much needed as the
preachers of our glorious Savior who is mighty to save.
The human heart spontaneously bows in reverential awe to everything in all the universe on which its salvation
from sin, death and Hell depends. I have conversed with many heathen bowing before their idols. They all
denied that they were worshipping them; but said that they had them because they reminded them of God. As
the holiness people are from all churches, sects and nationalities, therefore we have a constant fight to keep
them out of the different initial phases of idolatry, always more or less prevalent in Christian nations. See where
Catholicism has gone so deep into idolatry that it is hard to tell whether their condition is any more hopeful than
that of the heathen. They actually seem to have lost a personal knowledge of God.
Sanctification gloriously delivers every soul from idolatry in all of its forms and phases. Hezekiah was a great
leader of the most prevalent Holiness Movement which had been known in the Jewish Church. He traveled all
over the country destroying idols everywhere and doing his best to exterminate idol worship out of the land. Yet
his only son, Manasseh, who succeeded him on the throne and reigned fifty-three years, went into idolatry and
even had idols put into the holy temple and worshipped there. God permitted the king of Babylon to take him
away captive. There he suffered awful horrors, as they made a specialty of punishing him in a most unmerciful
manner. But these terrible sufferings brought him to repentance, so that he got down low, humbling himself
before God and crying for His mercy till He heard him and delivered him out of his captivity, sent him back to
Jerusalem and restored to him his kingdom. After this Manasseh did his best to reform the nation from idolatry,
but could not.