Encouragement or Warning

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT

G.D. Watson

If God has called you to be truly like Jesus in all your spirit, He will

draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such

demands of obedience that you will not be allowed to follow other

Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other good people do

things which He will not let you do.

Others who seem to be very religious and useful may push

themselves, pull wires, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you

cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke

from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, their

writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If

you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that

will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or

having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may

supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to

have something far better than gold, a helpless dependence on Him

and His unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward while keeping

you hidden in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice,

fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the

shade.

God may let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others

do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and

toil without knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your

work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work

which you have done; this to teach you the message of the Cross,

humility, and something of the value of being cloaked with His

nature. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a

jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for

wasting your time which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a

right to do as He pleases with His own, and that He may not explain

to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His

dealings with you. God will take you at your word; if you absolutely

sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love

and let other people say and do many things that you cannot. Settle

it forever; you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, He is to have

the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing

your eyes in ways which others are not dealt with. However, know

this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely

possessed with the Living God that you are, in your secret heart,

pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous

guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you

will have found the vestibule of heaven, the high calling of God.

G.D.Watson (1845-1924) was a Wesleyan Methodist minister and evangelist based

in Los Angeles. His evangelistic campaigns took him to England, the West Indies,

New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Korea. He also wrote several books. Good

News Publishers gave permission for the article to be published in a magazine in

1992.

Who is among you that fears the LORD, That obeys the voice of His

servant, That walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name

of the LORD and rely on his God.

Behold, all you who kindle a fire, Who encircle yourselves with

firebrands, Walk in the light of your fire And among the brands you have set

ablaze. This you will have from My hand; And you will lie down in torment.

(Isaiah 50:10-11, NASB).