W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
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used for four days with all my might. God wonderfully helping m The arrival of the presiding elder and his<br />
presence in the meetings seemed to help the congregation, and seemed to augment the conviction which had<br />
already settled upon the people like a nightmare. Still I made no altar calls, but conducted the meeting with<br />
preaching, much prayer for conviction on the people, and free testimony for everybody who had grace enough<br />
to give it.<br />
At the expiration of four days, and eleven days from the beginning, God, in <strong>His</strong> mercy, descended, raining fire<br />
from Heaven on the whole congregation till there was a general break-down; many people actually falling from<br />
their seats. Then for the first time I opened the altar, and it took half of that large auditorium to accommodate the<br />
seekers for pardon, reclamation and sanctification. Then I changed my tactics altogether; vacating Sinai I went<br />
at once to Calvary. Hitherto I had said almost nothing about love and mercy, so utterly engrossed was I in –<br />
preaching the terrors of violated law; holding all transgressors with a strong hand over the burning pit, and<br />
warning the wicked to flee from the wrath to come. Now it seemed that the conviction had actually come and<br />
taken possession of the whole congregation, till everybody was crying to God for mercy. Therefore it was an<br />
auspicious time to preach the Calvary Gospel, the dying love of Jesus, pointing all the brokenhearted penitents<br />
to the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” “I saw One hanging on the tree<br />
In agonies and blood.<br />
Who fixed <strong>His</strong> languid eyes on me,<br />
As near the cross I stood.<br />
Sure, never to my latest breath<br />
Can I forget that look;<br />
He seemed to charge me with <strong>His</strong> death,<br />
Though not a word He spoke.<br />
“My conscience felt and owned the guilt,<br />
And plunged me in despair;<br />
I saw my sins <strong>His</strong> blood had spilt,<br />
And helped to nail Him there.<br />
A second look He gave which said,<br />
I freely all forgive,<br />
My blood Is for thy ransom paid;<br />
I died that you might live.”<br />
I preached no more on Hell and damnation, as I felt so sorry for the people writhing under conviction, which<br />
had settled down on them like a nightmare from the eternal world. -- They looked pale as corpses and in spirit<br />
were as blue as indigo. Despair was hovering over them on raven pinions and claiming them for her victims.<br />
Now my theme became the wonderful and glorious vicarious atonement wrought on Calvary by the dying<br />
agonies of God's humiliated Son, who vacated the throne of <strong>His</strong> glory, and descended to this dark, lost world,<br />
spontaneously to die for the Hell-deserving millions of this Satan-dominated earth; and all because He loved us<br />
so.<br />
“Oh, for this love let rocks and hills,<br />
Their lasting silence break<br />
And all harmonious human tongues<br />
Their Savior's praises speak.<br />
Angels, assist our mighty joys,<br />
Strike all your harps of gold.<br />
But when you reach your highest notes,<br />
Him love can ne'er be told.”<br />
The people could hardly believe that I was the same man who had so ferociously exposed all their sins, sparing<br />
nobody and nothing, but so ferreting out their black iniquity, which they thought nobody knew, that many were<br />
puzzled and bewildered to know who had told me all about their black and crooked lives. Soon their faith began<br />
to apprehend and appropriate the omnipotent grace of redeeming mercy, and the light of the bright upper world<br />
began to fall on them like the effulgent gleams of the rosy-fingered Aurora, the daughter of the dawn, peering