The Overflowing Life

(An address to Bible students, July 3, 1914, not corrected by the author).

What is the best thing I could say to you supposing it were the only time I had in my life of addressing you? I think that probably I can help you that way best, although I am not quite sure you are all in that condition of mind to receive it, because naturally you are exercising the intellectual side of your nature, and it is rather difficult therefore to turn from the use of the intellect to the use of that subconscious—that subliminal self that the psalmist in the Bible constantly speaks of as “the heart.”

You know quite well that we are dual in that respect,—that the intellect, which is the Greek side of our nature, is side by side with the heart, which is the Hebrew side of our nature, and it is this which is the center of our religious character and of our devotion and of our consciousness of God. Therefore I say again that a number of you who are living on that side of your nature cannot easily come into that other atmosphere in which probably, like myself, you will live in the maturer time of your life. Let me say here that in my judgment, our religious impressions come to us through the heart, and are then logically articulated in the mind. That at least has been my own leading, that God’s impressions have come to my heart through the Spirit to my spirit, and then, I have thought them out so far as I could, and have articulated them in intellectual forms of thought and expression.

Infinite Resources

The regret of my life is that I have made so little use of God; that I have availed myself to so small an extent of the infinite resources which were laid up by the Father in the divine human nature of Jesus. We all know that our Saviour was, in eternity, the Son of God; but we all know that He took upon Himself our human nature that He might bring the resources of God within an easier reach of our human faculties and that “therefore” (the apostle says in Colossians), “it pleased God that in Him should all fulness dwell bodily.” Whereas in the first chapter it says, generally speaking of Christ as the Creator,—the medium of creation, and of prophecies, and of the church, and redemption, saying then generally that in Him all fullness should dwell; in the second chapter when He deals with our personal experiences He says that it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness of the aroma of deity, should dwell physically, bodily, so that it might come in contact with us men and women in our human life.

I repeat again that it is the deepest regret of my life that I have not made more use of Christ; and if there was one thing I would say to you, it is that you cannot possibly come within an infinitude of distance of the infinite resources which are at your disposal. I cannot say,—as I come to my subject a little more specifically—how remarkable it seems to me that God is fulfilling this same thought in regard to the name of D.L. Moody. I knew him in 1872, forty years ago. He had just come out of that wonderful experience of which you have read, when he was walking in the gardens of Marion Hall in Dublin (Henry Varley told me himself and Moody told me himself), when he heard Mr. Varley say to another godly man who was walking with them, “The world has yet to learn what God can do through a man who is wholly devoted to him.” Moody went straight from those two, up to his bedroom in the hotel, knelt down before God and said, “My God, let the world learn through my life what thou canst do through a man who is wholly devoted to Thee.” Out of that came the Moody Bible Institute, The Moody Church, and the place at Northfield. God goes on fulfilling that word to his soul and there are yet generations that shall come and crowd these places when, probably, other premises than these shall have been erected to receive the people. God is going to go on all down through the generations until Jesus comes, more and more and more, showing the world what He can do if He has enough channel.

A Channel

Years ago, in 1872, when I received D.L. Moody to my church in New York when he was almost unknown and I was unknown, he and Sanky and I used to kneel in prayer in my little vestry in the Baptist chapel, none of those three knowing what God was going to do; and the only regret of my life is that I did not give God channel enough. Moody did, he gave him a big wide channel; and I say to you men and women, the only thing in life is to give God as big a channel as you can with your short life. Give God room! Give God a channel. He only wants to get out. He is limited by being a Spirit. He must come to men through men and women, and the more capacity you have to place at God’s disposal, the gladder He is.

I like to think of what you people in this country are doing with irrigation. We have wonderful things in the Upper Nile. You know there are vast tracts up in the Upper Nile way beyond Khartoum which have been smitten with drought since the memory of man. They have been at work constructing great reservoirs, vast lakes, and the Nile has gone pouring on. About two years ago, they opened the sluicegates and the mighty current of the Nile poured over vast tracts of land which had not been watered for centuries, from the time of the pharaohs. Don’t you think the old Nile laughed to itself and said, “Aha, Aha! I have a bigger chance than ever before in my existence to make a desert rejoice and blossom as the rose”? Every time a man comes that gives God a sluicegate, all God’s nature laughs in itself and says, “Now I have a bigger chance than ever before of pouring myself upon the souls of men.” Young fellow, it is worth cutting off your right hand! Young girl, it is worth plucking out your right eye! I say the dearest thing in this world is to be God’s channel.

I have just written a letter to a girl in Africa who wrote to me to ask if she should leave her work in Africa where she is a useful missionary, and accept an offer of marriage to a young fellow who would take her to be a queen in his home, which would necessitate her giving up her work in Africa. I reverence human love, but when it comes to a choice between saving a vast number of men and women whose language she perfectly knows, it seems to me that I cannot be an authority, but if I were to choose, I would rather choose God’s way of service than even the most blessed human married life. I think it comes to that with a good many of you. I do not know at all how God may lead you, but to give God a chance in your life, that is the biggest thing you can do.

Life Abundant

This morning my heart has been so full of one word. You Greek students will know the word “perisseuo,”—to pour over—, and I want to talk to you about that word “pouring over,” “the outpouring,” the “overpouring” of the nature of God into human life. I can only pass this on to you because it is the best thing I can say to you. I could deal with doctrine, Bible readings, etc., but I want to say something to you that you shall never forget. I want you to escape what would be irksome or needless, but I want you to take your Greet Testament and look at this word “perisseuo.”

In your own wonderful Rocky district you may have seen beautiful falls, but in Switzerland in the Upper Grundervelt [sic] valley, there is just what I mean, a steady perpendicular downfall of water. Underneath there is a rocky basin, and that old rock has been hollowed out atom by atom, grit by grit, through untold centuries until it has become a wide basin, deep and capacious, and the water that drops perpendicularly, as cold as ice, from the glacier into this basin, brims up and overflows, and the water pours down the glen and makes it verdant.

There is a wonderful verse here which I want to fix in your mind in 2 Corinthians 9:8, where this word “overflowing” occurs twice. “God is able to make all grace overflow to you, that you have all sufficiency (i.e., bringing to the rim of your life) in all things, may overflow.” God overflows into you and you overflow into the cup of every good work. All about you are little cups. Do you see them? It is a beautiful thought. First, God overflows into the human soul, and then the soul overflows again into little cups or receptacles which stand beneath its brim. It is like three overflows. God overflows into you, and you overflow into others, and others overflow again. So God pours Himself through human lives all down the generations, child after child. “In thee and in thy seed shall all families of the earth be blessed.” The life and love He poured into Abraham’s soul is still pouring into the world.

There are five words in that verse. It is as if the apostle could not find words enough; and the interesting thing is that, in this chapter, the apostle uses the same word “overflow” in the eighth and ninth chapters nine times. In the 14th verse of this ninth chapter, as if he had used the word until he had worn it out, he used another word, which is translated in our Bible [as] “exceeding,” “the exceeding grace,” but the Greek word is “beyond a throwing distance,” the word “ballo,” your word “ball,” as though the apostle says, “I have used that word “overflow” until everybody is tired of it.” You throw a ball as far as human muscle can, and then God goes farther. It is out of throwing distance. That is it. “Out of throwing distance”; the same word as “hyperbole.” That is what God is prepared to do.

Rivers

I am very egotistical today. Listen to what I say, but do not imitate me. It is a bad thing to talk about yourself unless you make yourself out a bad man or woman, for the sake of other people. It doesn’t matter how much evil you say about yourself unless you are proud of it, but I will be egotistical because we are friends and you will take it as I mean it. When I was fifty (that was seventeen years ago now), I thought I had done the work of my life, and began to think that life must be downhill from that moment with always decreasing energy. I was very depressed about it because I had lived an active life and I did not want to lie on the shelf. That day, as I was walking and thinking, the Lord said to me, “He that dwelleth in me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water.” That was a great help, because it was quite anomalous. It did not say it would stop at twenty or fifty. “He that dwelleth in me out of him shall overflow,”—the “he that dwelleth in me” might be seventy or ninety. “He that dwelleth,”—absolutely without limit. The only thing that troubled me was about this river. “Out of him shall flow rivers.” I noticed as I looked at it, it also said, “As the Scripture hath said,” so I turned to that story of Ezekiel, the river that got deeper all along until it got to the ocean, and I said, “Lord, I am going to claim that river.”

The Lord’s rivers never end in a swamp. I have half an idea the Mississippi has a good deal of silt out near the mouth. I know the Amazon has, and all those big rivers, but through God, the mouth of a man’s life where he ends, eternity, may be broader and deeper like the great Congo that sends its fresh water one hundred miles from shore. My brothers, I ask for every one of you that you may take that text, and that at the end of your life, every decade, the river of your influence and of the good you are doing may perceptibly widen and deepen, so that when you come to the end of things, you may meet God like a big river without silt or sand, clear and strong, with only a ripple where the sea and the water of the river come together and blend.

It is overflowing God within. The only thing then is to give God the first place. “Perisseuo” occurs in John 10:10, “I have come that they might have life and that they might have it ‘overflowingly’;” Romans 5:20, “Where sin overflows grace overflows,” Romans 15:13, “The God of hope fill you with hope that ye may ‘overflow’ in hope;” 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Always overflowing in the work of the Lord.” That is at the end of the great resurrection chapter: “Oh death where is thy sting, oh grave, where is thy victory?” Wherefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, “be ye steadfast, unmovable.” Ye are conquerors over death, and therefore go on overflowing in the work of the Lord. Philippians 4:12, “I have learned to be abased and I have learned to overflow.” I do not know which text is harder to learn. I think the lesson of overflowing is harder than to be abased. I have learned how to be abased and how to overflow.

This is a big lesson how to overflow. Sometimes a man gets so full he goes on too long. Half an hour is quite long enough for you to overflow. You must have a gauge or the holder might burst, and so Ephesians 3:20 gives you the gauge. This is a great verse, as you all know, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think (here is the gauge); according to the power that worketh in us.” You may be almost sure therefore, when God is pouring into your soul, because the power seems to rise in you, the power of faith, the power of not agonizing, I do not like that word agonizing with God. I do not think it is right to agonize to God and dare God. Some people pray and pray and pray as though they would force God to give them what they want. Now always let the power rise in your first and you have power with God in prayer according to his power that works in you.

The Gauge

For instance, I think the greatest time I had in my life was at Los Angeles. I shall never forget being there for two or three weeks. I was staying in a hotel that overlooked the city, and was in the meetings late at night. I was kept in a perfect agony of prayer. I was not praying to an unwilling God, but it seemed as if God were taking me into the secret place and laying on my heart the burden of Los Angeles a little wee bit as He felt it. When God lays upon you the burden of one soul or a city full, the power rises in you. It is as though God pours into your heart the power, that power that rises back from your heart to Him; and mind you, when God burdens you with a power like that, and you have the power of God leading you to plead for a city, as Abraham did for Sodom, you will know that the power is high and you can count on God for anything.

If my grandchildren come fighting me for breakfast and say, “Give us breakfast. Hurry up,” I say, “My dear children, go and get quiet, and when you are calm come back and sit down and start on it.” There is a great difference. When God has put your breakfast on the table, eat it and don’t make a fuss. When you and God are close in touch with one another, God puts the burden on you, and you can agonize as much as you like, and you cannot help it. You get in a sweat then, but it isn’t forcing God, it is letting God take you into fellowship with Himself. Ask God to put the power into you and the gauge.

The Limit

Well then, the limit. There are two or three instances of limitation placed on God. There is the verse in 2 Kings 4:6 where those boys did not bring enough vessels. They went all around the village and got as many as they could carry, and perhaps the eldest said to the other, “I am not going to bother about all these pots. You can depend on it, mother isn’t going to get more than this of God.” She kept on filling, and said, “Give us some more pots.” The boys answered, “There are no more,” and the oil was stayed. As long as you can bring receptacles to God, He will be glad to fill them; and as soon as you say, “I have brought pots enough, I cannot expect God to go on any more,” you will stop him right off. The only limitation there is to God is your capacity.

I like that American boy who had ice cream paid for by some gentleman. His mother said to him, “What do you say to him?” expecting that according to all the ordinary rules of politeness he would thank the gentleman. Instead of saying “Thank you,” he said, “more.” That is the way to do with God. Always, when God has given you as much as you can carry, say “more.” There is no limit.

The other passage is something like that in 2 Kings 13:18. You fellows who are fighting the devil in your own heart, take this in. The old prophet called the king into his dying chamber, and the king came, and the old man said, “Take your arrows and strike.” He took his arrows and struck once, twice, thrice, and stayed. The old prophet said, “What a fool you are! If you had gone on striking you would have had victories until you had driven the Syrians out of your country, but as you have only stricken thrice you shall only have three victories.” There is no limit to the victory if you will only not leave off striking.

In Mark 6:5, the Lord could only lay His hand on a few sick folk and heal them. Think of the Lord coming to your church and only being able to do a little bit, because you, His servant, do not expect Him to do much. What is the condition? I must indicate in the most rapid way that most wonderful epistle to James. I can never understand why Luther called it “the epistle of straw,” but it set forth the side he did not desire to emphasize,—works against faith. Both the two are quite consistent. The epistle of James demands your most loving study. Look at it for a moment. Take the first chapter and fifth verse, “God giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not.” Isn’t that wonderful? That is, God does not choke you off and say, “You ask too much.” He does not say, “You have squandered what I have given you, and I will give you no more.” He does not say, “You have been such a bad child I cannot teach you,”—“Upbraideth not.” Isn’t that beautiful? Some of you men and women who have gone far into sin, who have been inconsistent and unworthy,—God doesn’t upbraid you and nag at you. He upbraideth not. Oh, I am so thankful for that. I have wasted so many chances in my life; but when I go to God, He is as good as when I started as a young minister, “He upbraideth not.”

A little lower down in the 17th verse, I want you to note the Weymouth’s Revised version. “The Father of lights, with whom there can be no (parallage) no going back.” If you are walking in a wind, it seems as if the trees behind one go backwards way. That is “parallage.” God never goes backwards. “Neither shadow,” Dr. Weymouth says, “not the slightest suggestion of change,” “neither shadow of turning,” “not the slightest suggestion of change.” Your river has been pouring for centuries, but there is no suggestion of it getting choked up or stopping.

Grace

Turn to the fourth chapter and fifth verse and look at the margin there. The marginal rendering is wonderful. Do you think the Scriptures said in vain that the Holy Spirit, which He made to dwell in us, yearneth for us with jealous envy? That is, the Holy Spirit is in you, but He is longing to get more of you. He wants more and more and more. “Ye yearneth for you even to jealous envy.” He cannot bear to see the rooms of your life taken up with rubbish, with all the waste things on which you spend yourself. It hurts Him, as he yearneth. He is in you yearning for more and more, and more of you. In the next verse, “He giveth more grace.” That is, as you make room, God fills it.

As you remove the barriers, the grace of God flows in to fill, and if you want to know what grace is, always remember that grace is the love of God in its reparative process. When you cut your finger you bleed, blood pours out, but what does the blood do? It builds up new flesh so that the cut part of your finger becomes whole like the rest, and “the grace of God giveth glory.” The “Lord given grace and glory,”—Both aspects of love. The glory is the love of God in contact with a fallen world, and the grace of God is the love of God in contact with a fallen world which He needs to repair. The life-blood of God pours out to repair wherever there is sin and sorrow and need. So He giveth more grace, and always you make room. If you make room the grace comes.

Subject To God

You say, “Mr. Meyer, how can I get all you are talking about?” You have it here in the seventh verse, “Be subject to God,” in the eight verse, “Draw nigh to God,” in the tenth verse, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.” If you do these three things there is no limit. First, “be subject to God.” That is, yield to God your will, and if you cannot do that, say what I said when I started, “I am willing to be made willing.” That will do to start on, and if your will is very obdurate, ask God to take it like a bit of tough iron, put it into the hot furnace of His love and soften it and mould it. You must be subject to God. You must be subject,—your life-plan, your reputation, everything must be subject to God.

“Draw nigh to Him.” That is, in the chamber of your heart, give God time, an hour a day, you surely want that. You want to give God time to get intimate with you. You cannot live with God in a hurry. No true friendship is made in a hurry. “Draw nigh to God.” It doesn’t mean you must keep on your knees for an hour,—I never can. Mr. Moody said to me once about being up all night praying: “I never could stop [sic] up all night, I would go to sleep.” He was asleep at night as a good man ought to be. And he said, “You know I cannot stay up all night and pray like those fellows do, but I tell you what I like to do, I like to walk up and down in that field with my Bible in my hand and let the thing soak into me.” It is that soaking in that you want. Do not do all the talking; let God do some. Some of you talk and talk, and God cannot get in a word edgewise, and then off you go. When you talk to God, have a place to stop. If you are in a hurry in the morning, it is more important to read your Bible than to pray. Let God talk to you. This is the most important thing. Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you. Whether you feel Him there or not, He is there.

A woman came to me worrying because she did not feel. It doesn’t matter what you feel. “Draw nigh to God” in your will and reckon He is there even if you do not feel. If He comes in through your mind let Him in, and if He does not come in through your mind, what is that? He will come in through the windows if you have the capacity.

“Humble yourself in the sight of God.” Get right down on your knees with the light in your heart, keep a low place and see that Jesus Christ gets all the glory out of your life.

I call your attention to Isaiah 45:11. “Concerning the work of my hands command ye me.” There does come a time when you can command God. When a man is absolutely a unit with God, he can absolutely command.

I am going to finish with Matthew 15:28, where the Lord spoke to the woman of Syrophoenicia, who had been at His feet a good bit. She said, “I am a dog and I am prepared to take a dog’s place.” That is humbling yourself in the sight of God. You will get under the table where nobody can see you, and take the crumbs. When she got down to that, the Lord said to her, “Woman, I tell you, great is thy faith. Be it to thee even as thou wilt.” It is a mighty thing in the history of a soul when Jesus says, “There is the key. Go to the cupboard and take just what you will, because your will and mine are identical.”

May God give you all this overflowing life for His name’s sake.—Amen.