Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray

To be an "information desk" in the church is very damaging. Because I have been learning the lesson of the cross and the Spirit for many years, no one receives any loose reports from me. Although I speak frankly, my speaking is by the cross and in the spirit. We must learn the lessons and consider whether or not it is merely we who are speaking. Hymns, #279 says, "First the blood, and then the ointment." The blood comes from the cross, and the ointment is the Spirit. We must first have the experience of the cross, and then we can have the anointing of the Spirit. Many brothers are gentlemen, being careful to behave themselves and keep the "constitution," the teachings of the Bible, in the way of keeping the law. However, they do this mostly in their natural life. In their relationship with the brothers, the co-workers, and the churches, they are still natural. We must all learn the lesson of the cross and the Spirit.

We know that the Holy Spirit is the reality of resurrection. When you are in the Holy Spirit, you are in resurrection. Although resurrection and the Holy Spirit are closely related, in our subjective experience resurrection is even more closely tied to death. Our natural being with its natural strength and natural views must pass through death before we can enter into resurrection. Hymns #279 says, "First the blood, and then the ointment, cleansing, then anointing comes; if we pass not thru Golgotha, ne'er to Pentecost we'll come." If we do not pass through the death on the cross, we can never receive the Spirit at Pentecost because the Spirit at Pentecost is the reality of resurrection. In order to have the reality of resurrection, we need to pass through Golgotha.

A stanza of a hymn in our hymnal says:

When we see the ripened harvest
Of the golden countryside,
We may know that many seeds have
Fallen to the earth and died.

Before there can be a harvest, many grains need to fall into the earth and die. But who is willing to die? Instead of dying, nearly everyone wants to receive glory. Thus, no life is imparted into others. It is easy to have a crowd, but difficult to impart life into others. To do this, we need to die. This is my burden in this message. In the Lord's recovery we do not need a crowd; we need the death that releases life. We need to experience this aspect of Christ's death.

The objective cross must become our subjective experience. We need to get into the cross and the cross must get into us. In this way we and the cross become one. Our oneness with the cross is our salvation. To be delivered from the self means to be saved from the self through becoming one with the cross. Every day we should be conformed to Christ's death by the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10). Without the oneness with the cross, we cannot be delivered from the self. I appreciate the chorus of the hymn which says, "Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray,/Put my soul-life all away;/Make me any price to pay,/Full anointing to receive" (Hymns, #279). We need to be willing to pay the price to enter into the subjective experience of the cross.

In our hymnal there is an excellent hymn with deep spiritual significance on the relationship between the cross and the Spirit (Hymns, #279). Stanza four of this hymn says that we must go through the Jordan before we can be anointed from above, that we must be baptized in death before we can experience the Dove. Here Jordan signifies death, and the Dove signifies the Spirit. If we pass through the river of death, we will receive the living Dove.