p. 775 | YIELDING TO GOD by Francis M. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 16, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 49.

YIELDING TO GOD.

By Francis M. Wilcox

BY ELDER F. M. WILCOX.

The apostle to the Gentiles exhorts us (Phil. 2:12), "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." How many of us have read no further in this chapter, but have jumped at the conclusion that by our power and might and wisdom, agonizing and striving, we were to accomplish the work in and of ourselves! And how often have we failed, and in our strivings against sin cried out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But if we could have realized that, while we were to work, it was God who was to furnish the power, God in us and his life as our life, truly would it have saved us many failures and many discouragements. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." God in us, then, wills and does. "I am crucified [or dead] with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. 2:20. Christ, then, is to do the work. But what are we to do?—Yield ourselves into his hands, to be used and guided by him. And yielding does not imply a state of ease and indifference. Submission and yielding to God sometimes mean the fiercest conflict. With Moses it meant a passage through the Red Sea. With Paul, enduring scourging and imprisonment. With Daniel, to be cast into the lions' den. But whether in the sea or in the den, under the lash or suffering shipwreck, the God of all comfort furnished the support and the consolation for his trusting children. Daniel was happier in the den than he could have been in any other position at that particular time, because in the den was where God wanted Daniel to be, and God could come nearer to Daniel there than he could in Daniel's own house.

When Paul and Silas were cast into the Philippian prison, they were there because God in his providence wanted them there. Then they could experience during that confinement more of God's peace and joy, and more real happiness, than they possibly could have experienced anywhere else, even though it were in the palace of the king. If we will take God as our portion, we shall find him near in every experience to uphold and comfort. Then will every experience of life work out in us God's plan and purpose, and, all unconsciously, perhaps, but nevertheless assuredly, will we be moulded and fitted, scored and hewed and polished, for a place in his heavenly building.