W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

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endered me so conspicuous when a child. While I suppose they are correct in reference to the stunt thus received, I have never felt any of the effects of it since I can remember. While perhaps in this way my growth was impeded, I am satisfied it never had any effect on my activity. I have often heard my mother say that when I was eight months old and she was expecting me to begin to crawl over the floor, to her surprise I got up and walked and never did crawl. I was always pronounced the fleetest runner in the entire community, and the most adroit wrestler. Such became my notoriety that they were constantly after me to wrestle, and I was so fond of it that I never refused, unless my competitor was too small. Unless he was considerably larger than myself, I refused to take him. The secret of my success was the quickness of my nerves. When arrangements were made, holds taken, and our eyes fixed on the hat which a boy was holding and whose drop was the signal for us to begin, I was so quick that I always threw my competitor before he made his effort; consequently it did not make much difference how large he was, as his weight, when I had tripped him, would only expedite the velocity and augment the certainty of his fall to the ground. I have an exceedingly early recollection, and, for the glory of God, I feel it my duty to say it, an extraordinary memory. I could always read a book and tell substantially everything in it by memory. When I was quite a little fellow, I doubt seriously whether I was three years old, my mother took me on her lap and told me wonderful things which electrified me with astonishment and thrilled me with interest, as they were utterly new and I had never heard them before. She told me that the time would come when the dead would all rise from their graves, and the world take fire and burn up. Oh, how this stirred and excited my infantile mind and moved my childish heart. I said: “O mother, where will I be when the world is on fire?” Then she said: “O my child, you will be shouting with the angels in the air.” Then I said: “Mother, how do you know?” She responded: “I have given you to the Lord for a preacher; your father is a preacher, and I want all of my sons to preach.” If it were now, she would have said all of her daughters, too, for my sisters were all intellectually bright and spiritual, and would have made good preachers. She proceeded to tell me not only that she had given us to the Lord for preachers, but she had the evidence that we would preach. She also told me about my baptism, in which I was dedicated to God forever and became a member of His Church. Consequently I was to be good, preach the Gospel, and go to Heaven when I left the world. Though I do not think I was more than three years old, then and there I received the call to preach, and it rested on me ever afterward. So profound and thrilling was my impression, that I could not wait for the rolling years to bring me into manhood, but told my playfellows that I was a preacher. Then we began to hold meetings, all the children ever afterward recognizing me as a preacher. Those impressions never left me, but strengthened their grip with the lapse of years. Though I am now seventy-three years old, I would rather preach the Gospel to the poor and starve to death, than to be a millionaire and not preach. I know I received the call to preach through the instrumentality of my dear sainted mother at that time, and I verily believe that I was then converted to God. Of course I had never lost my infantile justification, with which I was born into the world. This brings us to the consideration of a most important Bible truth, I. e., infantile justification and regeneration. When does it take place? We answer: “The moment soul and body constitute personality, which is in the pre-natal state, by the normal economy of grace every human being is born from above” John 3:7. When I was a circuit rider, I made that statement in the presence of my presiding elder, who was a good old man, but not a classical scholar. He at once contradicted me upon the allegation that I had people born again before they were born the first time. The answer to his argument is in the simple fact that “again” in those Scriptures is a wrong translation. Our Savior said “anoothen,” whose first meaning is “from above,” and this is the true translation. The Bible clearly reveals that every human being is born from above, thus becoming a child of God, justified and regenerated, before the natural birth. If this were not so, all infants dying unborn would be sure of Hell; since, without the supernatural birth, no soul can go to Heaven. Our Savior's treatment of the babies abundantly confirms this conclusion. He everywhere takes them in His arms and certifies “of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” Therefore, you see in all His ministry that He fully recognizes the infantile membership of His kingdom, positively certifying not only their membership, but holding them up as bona fide paragon members, assuring His disciples that they must be converted and become like them. Now if we take these facts and harmonize them with His positive affirmation (John 3:7), “Ye must be born from above,” in order to enter the kingdom, the conclusion follows as an irresistible and logical sequence, that all of the infants
in all ages and nations have already been born from above, as otherwise they could not be members of His kingdom, as He positively certifies they are. In connection with these Scriptures, let us take Heb. 2:9, “By the grace of God Christ tasted death for EVERY ONE,” which includes every human being in all ages, whether born or unborn. Now when do you become a human being? We answer: the very moment soul and body are united and constitute a personality you become a human being, and the great and glorious vicarious atonement which our Lord made for the whole human race comes into availability. The Greek word in this passage is hyper, which always mean “instead of,” and is the very word constantly used revelatory of the vicarious atonement. Therefore there is no possible evasion of the conclusion that, by the wonderful redemption of Jesus Christ, we are all justified and regenerated in the pre-natal state, at the moment of the transition out of the fetal into the personal existence. Unless you accept this conclusion, you consign to the bottomless pit every infant dying before the physical birth. The truth of it is, that the physical birth is not the beginning of the personal existence, by any means. Our Savior's work is perfect, absolutely leaving out none; it is normal economy, but including every son and daughter of Adam's race, so that Satan gets none but those who, having reached responsibility, take the bit in their own teeth and, pursuant to their own free agency, which grace never contravenes, absolutely reject the redemption of Christ. Verily, God's time for every soul to be justified and regenerated is the very moment it enters personal existence, and this actually does take place without a solitary exception. There are three things which God never made: a devil, a sinner, and a snake. He created angels, with perfect moral freedom to obey or disobey. Some of them unfortunately “kept not their first estate,” (Jude 6th verse), fell, and became devils and demons. Isaiah 14:12: “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, the son of the morning!” God created Adam and Eve upright and holy and perfectly free to obey or disobey. Unfortunately they followed in the track of Satan and lost their first estate, becoming sinners. He created the Nahash, the intermediate link between man and brute, the most intelligent of all the animal kingdom and having the power of speech. Unfortunately for him, Satan subsidized him in the abduction of mother Eve, and, through her, father Adam, thus ruining the human race. In consequence of this Satanic manipulation, God pronounced that awful anathema on him, which resulted in his transformation into the loathsome, venomous, hissing serpent. God is the very essence of everything good, therefore from Him nothing bad can possibly emanate. A dogma is extensively preached throughout Christendom which certifies, “Once in grace, always in grace,” involving the conclusion that if you have ever had salvation you will never go to Hell. When Satan goes into the lying business, he knows how to “do the thing up brown.” If you will investigate the facts of the case, you will find the very reverse of the above dogma to be true. Instead of there being no backsliders in Hell, there are none but backsliders in the dismal regions of endless woe. Oh, how the awful reminiscence of their quondam [former – DVM] happiness in the kingdom of God will haunt them through all eternity, as they wail their hopeless doom. Let us take a momentary invoice of Hell's inmates. We begin with Satan, the fallen archangel, and find him none other than an old backslider. Then we take all of the devils and demons and find them fallen angels, without a single exception, having once been in Heaven, but having failed to keep their probation. Finally we come to the millions of sinners and find, by the positive testimony of Jesus, that, in their innocent babyhood, they were citizens of God's kingdom. Therefore Hell was made for none but backsliders, and never will have any other occupants. Then you say: “Brother Godbey, since we are all, by the nominal grace of God in Christ, justified and regenerated in the pre-natal state, why do little children need the conversion which you say you received when only three years old?” The Bible is the most beautiful and glorious book in the world. It is its own expositor. If you will give it a chance, it will always explain itself. Psalm 51:5, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” This is not condemnatory sin, but the inbred depravity which we all inherit from Adam. A man is poisoned and must die, if that poison is not removed by a stomach pump, or in some other way. You do not blame him because it was in the water he drank, but did not know it till it was too late. An enemy had put it there. Adam is the fountain whence emanated the stream of humanity which has broadened and covered the whole earth. Satan poisoned the fountain, and we all imbibed it. Christ brought us
Page 1 and 2: AUTOBIOGRAPHY of WILLIAM BAXTER (W.
Page 3 and 4: So he did. What was the result? He
Page 5 and 6: Jerusalem, A. D. 1099. You will fin
Page 7: 1. CHILDHOOD I was born June 3, 183
Page 11 and 12: the catacombs of Egypt four thousan
Page 13 and 14: a great mistake in living a life so
Page 15 and 16: There were no factories then and ha
Page 17 and 18: een for this perpetual series of in
Page 19 and 20: profitable pastime and erudition. I
Page 21 and 22: When love Divine first found me; Wh
Page 23 and 24: This is a dangerous attitude. The D
Page 25 and 26: ut in the Hebrew and Greek, which a
Page 27 and 28: came and, to my unutterable surpris
Page 29 and 30: saving the heathen of your home cit
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
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Of my Savior possessed, I was perfe
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constantly increasing potency, illu
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A presiding elder, making a speech
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plains once hardened by the tread o
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gladly, pursuant to their desire, i
Page 71 and 72:
Solomon; if they had they would not
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souls. It is bad enough for the poo
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dictionary, which only gives the pa
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up the “new man” to walk in new
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unkindly and misrepresent me. God h
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shut out from the world lest they m
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your houses, and do not bid him God
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9. THE WHISKEY WAR When a little la
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he would better follow my advice, s
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Greenland, before the meeting was o
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and give them a dead man, such as t
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who are utterly inaccessible to the
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contrast in that respect between th
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used for four days with all my migh
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them. It means that we should preac
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of spirits, I Cor. 12:8-10, in whos
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country, and the people came from a
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awful contagious disease which they
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one felt exceedingly fortunate if h
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Then as I pass along, I'll sing a C
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own game; because the counterfeit o
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stopped at a hotel, the Methodist p
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The second Saturday and Sunday of o
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who they were. “Oh, that man with
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heard of his death so soon afterwar
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he did not well understand English.
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And dwell where Jesus is. “Thou a
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so clearly that he can explain it t
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minds the mastery of the situation
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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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