W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

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sin and Satan, occupying all of our time, so that we have no ammunition to waste on the air. Satan is always maneuvering to get the children of God into a fight with one another simply in order to keep them from fighting him. It is wonderfully sweet to be perfectly free from all ecclesiastical shackles. That does not mean that we become church fighters, we have no time for that. Souls are too valuable, time too short and eternity too long for us to waste an ounce of ammunition shooting to and fro at one another. In this book, as elsewhere, I have not spared Heaven's artillery where life and salvation are involved; but on this problem of the mere manner in which water baptism is administered, it is only question of revelation in which we desire to know the facts revealed in this blessed and infallible volume of truth, so edifying and precious to me, as a matter of erudition and edification. Therefore we enjoy these explorations through the precious oracles with which God has favored us, that we may have an abundant supply of intellectual and spiritual pabulum. Let me, in fatherly kindness, make an earnest appeal to all who, in the providence of God, may read these pages that you beware of a critical, fault-finding spirit, which is grievous to God and calculated to alienate His Holy Spirit, without whose guidance, illuminations and revelations in the understanding of His precious Word and providence we cannot successfully fight this probationary battle and run the heavenly race which is set before us. If you have a conviction for immersion, avail yourself of the kind service of one of God's called and sent preachers and fully satisfy your conscience, but do not criticize your brothers and sisters who have not received those convictions, as in so doing you will certainly grieve the Holy Spirit. Never fail to warn them of anything even savoring of evil and to exhort them to the greatest possible diligence and heroism in pursuit of everything which is to the honor and glory of God. Paul said, “Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. But he shall stand; for God is able to make him stand.” Be sure you do not discount the godly Quaker who has no convictions for water baptism in any way. You see he is living the life of an humble, devout saint of God. Therefore leave him in the hands of God; neither criticize nor grieve him. Nor dare to burlesque your brother who, under conscientious conviction, has received triune immersion at the hands of some Dowieite. Thousands and millions who have received the same during the long roll of the Middle Ages are now in glory. Do not discount him because of his peculiarities. These little non-essentials, which differentiate the people of God, are to wield no influence whatever in the loving appreciation in which you are to hold one another. If you have a chance to attend an immersion, though you may never have received it, nor now have a conviction for it, ask God to make it a blessing to you, so that you may rejoice with your brothers and sisters. God is so anxious to bless us that He avails Himself of all occasions to reveal His unutterable love and mercy in pouring out His Spirit in showers of blessing on His dear people whom He has redeemed by the blood of His precious and only Son. Do not argue with one another on baptism or anything else. Freely investigate the precious Word together and help one another; “always esteeming others better than yourselves.” Make no effort to dissuade any of your brothers and sisters from receiving the baptism by immersion. Tell them to walk in the light and govern themselves accordingly; then you pray for them. It is very dangerous to make much of non-essentials. We are to make everything of Jesus, taking Him for everything, and wearing everything else as a loose garment. When you get to criticizing your brothers and sisters, remember you need a shower of fire on you to burn up the critic's cap. As a matter of truth and fidelity in writing my biography, I have freely delivered to you an epitome of what God by His Word, Spirit and providence has delivered to me. If you love me the less for so doing, I can only say I love you the more. If I have administered heavy blows with the sledge hammer of revealed truth, please remember that they are all love-licks. I have given you thus briefly the benefit of my life of hard work and large opportunities in the way of education and traveling. If you can only sink out of self into Christ and continue to sink deeper and deeper into God's glorious Divinity, keep humble, meek and lowly and, like Jesus, go about doing good, you will find platoons of guardian angels from Heaven descended, who will accompany you along the perilous journey of this stormy pilgrimage. They will fortify you against all of Satan's pitfalls and ambushments, and meanwhile, with the splendor of their pinions, will light up your way till you will realize that you are truly walking in Beulah Land where the sun and the moon both shine night and day. If anybody invites you to preach baptism do as I did the last time they invited me. I was far away in India and preaching in the largest leper asylum in the world, having seven hundred of those unfortunate sufferers who are
shut out from the world lest they might transmit that awful plague, before me. The native pastor with sable face and foreign speech through an interpreter asked me to preach on baptism, as he expected to follow my sermon by administering that ordinance to about one hundred of his people. I had no time to preach to them on water baptism, as I knew that had nothing to do with their salvation, but I gladly accepted his invitation, and preached to them about the baptism which Jesus gives with the Holy Ghost and fire, and exhorted them to make their full and eternal consecration and trust Jesus to give it to them. Then their pastor poured the limpid rill on their heads, thus beautifully symbolizing the baptism Jesus gives when He pours His Spirit on us. Baptism means a purification. The Holy Ghost is the omnipotent Purifier whom Jesus pours on you when He baptizes you. “Our God is a consuming fire.” Heb. 12:1. The Holy Ghost is none other than the eternal God. When Jesus pours the Spirit on you, the living fire goes through you, and how appropriately we sing with the old Methodists, “Refining fire go through my heart, Illuminate my soul; Scatter Thy life through every part, And sanctify the whole. “Oh, that He now from Heaven might fall, And all my sins consume; Come, Holy Ghost, on Thee I call, Spirit of burning, come'.” So when they call on you and ask you to preach on baptism, always preach on the baptism which Jesus gives and Paul says is the only one in all the world; the ordinance with water merely being the outward sign. In all these things note that the great salient point is to walk in the foot-prints of Jesus, meek, humble and lowly, and like Him, to go about doing good. Again I entreat you, do not argue. Paul says, “the man of God shall not strive.” Let your zeal culminate in perfect love for God and His people and all mankind. During the little remnant of my earthly life I will certainly pray that what I have written, pursuant to candor and veracity in the faithful submission of my biography, and responsive to the importunate appeals of my thousands of friends, shall not stir up strife. However, I know that the enemy is always manipulating to clothe the angel, perfect love, with the bear skin so that his Hell-hounds will chase it. 8. THE SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST CONTROVERSY All my eighteen debates were not with the Campbellites. I had one with a Seventh Day Adventist who twentyfive or thirty years ago came from New York and began to preach at a rural village near where I now live. That was before I settled there subsequently to my episcopal appointment to the evangelistic work, which took me out of the Conference and permitted me to settle in a permanent home. His doctrine was perfectly new, having never been heard of in the country. The novelty of the man and his doctrine produced a popular sensation and gave him a splendid hearing by the people. He proved very pugnacious and belligerent; not only heroically preaching his new doctrine, but challenging all of the preachers to meet him in debate. As they had no acquaintance with the teaching of his Church, and were not accustomed to public disputation, they all declined. Meanwhile he began to invite people to join his Church. He was a persuasive, winning, argumentative and hortatory speaker. There was but one church in the village, and that was the union of Methodists and Campbellites, both organizations using the same house and alternating with each other. The people began to join him and quite a revival broke out under his preaching, the fruits of which were only marked by church-joining, and really made no effort to get people spiritually changed, blessed and saved, but made church-joining a great salient point. As he was constantly challenging all the Methodist and Baptist preachers and Campbellites, too, since I had notoriety as a debater, they wrote to me, at that time in a distant part of the Conference, asking me to come and debate with him, and stating that he was producing a great sensation there and getting a heap of members; they could not see that it was for the glory of God. I responded by acceptance. Then we corresponded and appointed the time. The Seventh Day Adventists, as said above, had hitherto been unknown in all of that country. As I had been born
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY of WILLIAM BAXTER (W.
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So he did. What was the result? He
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Jerusalem, A. D. 1099. You will fin
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1. CHILDHOOD I was born June 3, 183
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in all ages and nations have alread
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the catacombs of Egypt four thousan
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a great mistake in living a life so
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There were no factories then and ha
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een for this perpetual series of in
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profitable pastime and erudition. I
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When love Divine first found me; Wh
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This is a dangerous attitude. The D
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ut in the Hebrew and Greek, which a
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came and, to my unutterable surpris
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Page 31 and 32: ut I thought I had to do something
Page 33 and 34: among the tribes assembled at Shilo
Page 35 and 36: on, the Lord has continued to broad
Page 37 and 38: moderators when they differed in an
Page 39 and 40: In my case, it was simply a matter
Page 41 and 42: the soul which our Savior gives, an
Page 43 and 44: calculated to derail and sidetrack
Page 45 and 46: fortifying Jerusalem by impregnable
Page 47 and 48: our Lord. There are four justificat
Page 49 and 50: The retention of pure spirituality
Page 51 and 52: you are entangled in the dismal swa
Page 53 and 54: We have holiness churches now in co
Page 55 and 56: what he does not know. The Gospel i
Page 57 and 58: the Campbellite preachers a place i
Page 59 and 60: The last great Holiness Movement in
Page 61 and 62: Of my Savior possessed, I was perfe
Page 63 and 64: constantly increasing potency, illu
Page 65 and 66: A presiding elder, making a speech
Page 67 and 68: plains once hardened by the tread o
Page 69 and 70: gladly, pursuant to their desire, i
Page 71 and 72: Solomon; if they had they would not
Page 73 and 74: souls. It is bad enough for the poo
Page 75 and 76: dictionary, which only gives the pa
Page 77 and 78: up the “new man” to walk in new
Page 79: unkindly and misrepresent me. God h
Page 83 and 84: your houses, and do not bid him God
Page 85 and 86: 9. THE WHISKEY WAR When a little la
Page 87 and 88: he would better follow my advice, s
Page 89 and 90: Greenland, before the meeting was o
Page 91 and 92: and give them a dead man, such as t
Page 93 and 94: who are utterly inaccessible to the
Page 95 and 96: contrast in that respect between th
Page 97 and 98: used for four days with all my migh
Page 99 and 100: them. It means that we should preac
Page 101 and 102: of spirits, I Cor. 12:8-10, in whos
Page 103 and 104: country, and the people came from a
Page 105 and 106: awful contagious disease which they
Page 107 and 108: one felt exceedingly fortunate if h
Page 109 and 110: Then as I pass along, I'll sing a C
Page 111 and 112: own game; because the counterfeit o
Page 113 and 114: stopped at a hotel, the Methodist p
Page 115 and 116: The second Saturday and Sunday of o
Page 117 and 118: who they were. “Oh, that man with
Page 119 and 120: heard of his death so soon afterwar
Page 121 and 122: he did not well understand English.
Page 123 and 124: And dwell where Jesus is. “Thou a
Page 125 and 126: so clearly that he can explain it t
Page 127 and 128: minds the mastery of the situation
Page 129 and 130: lucre alone can relax. Having paid
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earing the image of Caesar. When th
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omnipotent Spirit, conferring on us
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streets by the feet till the angels
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people, which would soon vitiate th
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holy. Entire sanctification, I. e.,
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about fifty to one hundred pages ea
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and upright. Among these twenty-sev
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prophetic data which you will find
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face and govern themselves accordin
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(22.) ”CARNALITY” This word is
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heroically that they even got the e
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pride, vanity, egotism and my own w
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These books and booklets, all told,
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that we may prevail with the Great
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took the meeting out of my hand, el
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ecause they do not get well, they s
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elucidation of His mighty works sho
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trump, will give one tremendous hea
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throughout the Movement, which now
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scattered throughout the country, h
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After he had gotten clearly away fr
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W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

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