The Undefiled In The Way

“Blessed are the undefiled in the way.”—Psalm 119:1

This 119th Psalm starts out with the word “blessed.” This word in the Word of God is worthy of our study. In a worldly sense, we associate it with the thought of a man whom we describe as “A lucky fellow,” “A fortunate man.” Some men seem to succeed in whatever they undertake, they have the ability to do things better than other men and the world calls them lucky. The Scripture, however, never speaks of a lucky man or a fortunate one, but it says much about a blessed man.

Taking this view of the word “blessed” Christians are a lucky crowd. They do not deserve anything but hell, and yet have been made the sons of God, and have become “more than conquerors through him that loved us.” They do not have to fight their own battles and are the most peculiarly blessed people on Earth. All that the world can give to men cannot compare for a moment with what has been given to any child of god, who has been a sinner, and can now truthfully say, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”

If you were as rich as Croesus, in a few years you would have to give up every dollar, turn your face to the wall and leave it as every other wealthy man has had to do; but, thank God, the riches that believers have in Christ Jesus grow better day by day and are eternal. No matter what trials come to a child of God, they cannot diminish his salvation in Christ Jesus. A man inheriting a million dollars is liable to go into nervous prostration the next week on account of the folks trying to get it away from him, and he is really more to be pitied than the week before receiving his legacy, when he was stoking on a ship, living on lowly fare and enjoying himself. Since the papers announced his good fortune, he has not known where to go to get rid of people and to get out of the way of that million dollars that is threatening to crush him.

Perhaps you think you could stand the weight of a lot of success, but you could not. You may be thinking just now, “If I had a better opportunity, I could achieve success in my department, and your success would only become a burden to you and might be the worst thing that ever happened; thank God, however, we can stand salvation because it is in the hands of Jesus.”

Reserved And Preserved

You remember that suggestive dream of John Newton. He thought he was on a ship, holding the jewel of his salvation in his hand, and he carelessly dropped it into the ocean. The Lord Jesus Christ stood beside him and looked at him reproachfully, then dove into the water, and after a terrific struggle with the elements, came up with the jewel in His hand. Newton reached for his jewel, but the Lord said, “Oh no. You lost it the first time, but you will never lose it again, for I will keep it for you.” Adam lost his salvation overboard, but, thank God, the salvation that Jesus gives us He keeps for us Himself, “reserved in Heaven for you.”

Are we not a blessed people? Perhaps you think you deserve salvation, but I never did a thing for mine, and if you are really saved you never did a thing for yours, it was an unmerited gift. We are blessed above the average man. I am not saying to anyone, “I am holier than thou,” but I can look the whole world in the face and say, “I am more blessed than the men of all the ages. All the honors that can be heaped upon men by men are as nothing compared to the wonders of the salvation of Jesus Christ.”

This eternal life which God gives us as a gift, fadeth not away, but is reserved for us in heaven. You may have the talents of a Caruso, or the riches of a Rockefeller, or the pen of a great writer, but the world’s most talented men have all passed away, many of them without eternal life. In contrast to them notice the blessedness of Paul, as he says, “For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” If you are a trifle discouraged you had better count up your riches and see how wealthy you are. You may be “dead broke” today as far as money is concerned, but, thank the Lord, there is one thing that cannot be stolen from you if you have it, and that is your salvation, and you can sing:

“A tent or cottage, why should I care?
They’re building a palace for me over there!
Though exiled from home, yet still I may sing:
All glory to God, I’m the child of a King!
I’m the child of a King! The child of a King!
With Jesus my Saviour, I’m the child of a King!”

We are a blessed crowd, and the world does not understand how we can shout when we are in trouble, or look into the grave and still be happy; for they cannot see what we have to make us blessed. A poor bum may be going along in his wretched clothing, his face pinched and wan. People wonder why he is smiling, and say, “Why do you stand there smiling when you are reduced to those dirty old clothes?" Opening his hand, he exclaims, "See what I have!" Someone has come along and slipped a whole handful of twenty dollar gold pieces into his hand. Believers seem like fools to the world, and this is no surprise to them, for the Lord Jesus said, “In the world we shall have tribulation,” but the world cannot see the eternal salvation safeguarded for them by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do You Stand God’s Test?

We are a blessed crowd, way up above, where the things of the earth ought not in any way to drag down the spirit that is within us, although trials and temptations will come. Why should they come? Because God has a right and the devil has a right to test you, to find out whether you are more delighted with your salvation than you are with your state in this world, more delighted with your heavenly standing than you are with your earthly position. God has a right at any time to test your faith in what He has done for you.

Job was greatly rewarded of God because he loved God and kept God’s statutes. He was a perfect man before God, doing the work God asked him to do. Looking at Job, the devil had a right to say, “Isn’t he serving you for what he is getting out of it, for the rewards you are giving him?” The devil is our accuser, and he said to God, “You take something away from that fellow, and he will quit you tomorrow.” Lots of men do that. How many times have you heard them say, “Take that brother’s salary away from him, and he would quit immediately. If you did this thing or that to that man, he would never do any more personal work as long as he lived. Some men whom you thought were fervent have had something nasty like that said about them, and they became discouraged and said, “I’m going to quit,” but we must remember that we are to undergo testing to find out whether we will go through with God or quit as other folks do.

God has a right to test you, and the devil has a right to find out whether you really believe in the eternal life you profess to have and the fit that is in your heart, or whether your heart is clinging to the things of this world. Some folks are Christians, but not tried Christians; for they came up to a casket, looked God in the face and said, “How could you do it?” They have never been reconciled to that sorrow, and there is no joy in their hearts. The Lord has a right to find out whether our salvation is based upon our wives, our mothers, our sisters, our husbands, and whether their life or death will alter our joy in Him.

With a good many people, let someone fall alongside, and down they will go, saying, “I guess I’ll go.” The devil has a right to know what kind of a faith you have. The Lord is keeping your salvation, but if you are to have a crown, you must undergo the test to prove that His gift to you is cherished. Your crown is awarded to you for meeting the test as to whether you consider yourself wealthy in possessing the blessed life which is the gift of God.

Everyone loves to see love tested. Every woman loves to see her lover tested, and there is no joy to her heart like seeing his love prove true when she is not there to watch, of proving to her own heart that he loves her best. Many a man has thought his wife loved diamonds, jewelry, clothing, ease, the things he was able to give her, more than she really cared for him. A wealthy friend in the East had lived with his wife seventeen years, and through she was in love with her mansion, her automobiles, her servants, her jewels, the live she could live with his money. Things went wrong. He lost money, lost his health trying to bridge over the crisis. He went to a sanitarium four weeks, came back and said, “My dear, I have thought it all out. You are accustomed to these things of wealth and I cannot bear to look you in the face. I cannot give you these things now, and do not feel that I have a right to even hold you as my wife. I am up against it and I am willing for you to do as you wish.”

“Do you know what she did?” he asked me. “She laughed in my face and said, ‘Why, my darling, do you think I give that for diamonds? If you will only get well, I will live with you in a dugout!’” Say, that would be enough to add four inches to a fellow’s chest expansion, to have a woman live with him seventeen years in luxury and then love him enough to go with him to a dugout. That is a great revelation. Oh how the angels of God rejoice, when you lose things and are at the end of your resources, and still look Him in the face and say, “Lord Jesus, I will go through the fire with you.” Oh how it must gladden the heart of God when you stand true; how His heart must ache when you fail Him! He abideth faithful, however, He will never quit you. I turned my back on Him, but He followed me, bless His precious name, until He got me close up to His bosom. Oh what a wonderful, wonderful Jesus! All His gifts are free, but He has a right to test our love, to test our appreciation of the gifts He has purchased for us.

Faith Is The Victory

The devil came to God and said, “There is Job. You have built a gold fence around that fellow and I cannot get at him; but let me have the gold fence and Job will take to the woods and turn his back on you.”

The Lord said, “Go ahead, but do not touch his life.” Away went Job’s camels and the rest of the stuff, but Satan came back and said, “I did not quite succeed, but I know I can get him.”

“How?” asked Jehovah.

“Eye for eye, skin for skin,” replied Satan. “Of you let me put some boils on him and make him sick in body, and he does not feel the old time ‘pep’ he had when making his money, and he cannot go to the stock exchange, but has to sit around and scratch his boils, he will curse you to your face.”

“Go ahead,” the Lord accepted his challenge, “but do not take his life.”

“Oh, I believe it was a great day in heaven when Job in reply to his wife’s taunt, “Now, Job, curse God and die,” raised his old boil-covered arm to heaven and said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!” God is a lover of men and women, and when men and women love God, Oh how the heart of God is pleased!

Your whole heart, your whole sensitive soul was marvelously made by the hand of God. This new born creation that is within you, that vibrates with the life, the sunshine of heaven, when you have once trusted Jesus and given over all to Him, to trust Him alone,—is all of God. That is what He longs for today, your love, your trust. Are you going to walk in the flesh, that thing which He died to put out of the way, are you going to choose that garbage, are you going to turn to the things of man and of Earth and of the flesh, or are you going to turn to Him and walk in the new life and seek those things which are above, saying, “I am going to specialize on that life, laying everything else aside and giving myself to Him”? “Delight thyself in the Lord,” He says—not “endure Him.” Many folks endure the Lord, put up with Him, and that is far different from delighting ourselves in Him. Some folks have married and got along all right and never fuss, but they have had no more love around their homes than if they were a pair of mummies. If you were looking for a love match, a delightful love bouquet to put before somebody, you would not walk into their garden to pick it. Some folks are married to the Lord, joined to the Lord, but as the world looks at them it says, “They are kind of a sour proposition, not very well preserved—they look more as if they were pickled.”

Where Your Heart Is

The world is a little suspicious of folks who are always talking about their love for each other when they are out; but there are little things that lovers do that are a great testimony; just the way they act shows what they are thinking. I have heard fellows talk about being gentlemen, and others who never mentioned the word, but could not help noticing the deference they showed to others, the way they lifted their hats. The way you act in the presence of Jesus tells something of your regard for Him. When His name is mentioned, if you are all attention, they know that the sound of His name has a charm to you, and no matter what doctrine you may promulgate, they can tell whether or not you love Him, and they say to themselves, “I do not know exactly who this Jesus is, but I know that man gives all his time and thought and attention and heart interest to him. The world knows where the interest of people lies. Pass a man on the street, and say, “Who is that man you spoke to?” “O, that is a fellow who works over there,” your companion will answer. Talk to him a moment and you will find out he is a golf friend—that is his chief interest. Pass another, and your friend will say, “He is one of these church guys.” They have them all spotted. That which we love stands out in our lives, and the world knows us by that. Others know us for the love we bear the Lord, for, “Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also.” Men know when your heart is in Christ Jesus.

Our text speaks of the place where your heart is—not of what you say, not of what you profess, but of what you love, and it calls you “blessed.” There is something supernatural about this “blessed,” marvelous in its fortune toward God,—”Blessed are the undefiled in the way.” What a marvelous compliment Jesus paid Nathaniel when he walked into His presence, and the Lord (figuratively speaking) tore his shirt open, pushed his ribs aside, and laid his soul bare before those men, saying, “Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.”

If He had been choosing athletes He would have looked the man over from the physical standpoint. If He had been in educational work, He would have said, “Here is a man who is a scientific thinker.” But a new kind of man is walking the earth, and He opens him up and says, “I am not looking at his head or his muscle, but I realize that here is one in whom is no camouflage. He is not one thing and painting himself to be something else, there is no guile in him, but he is as straight and open as a child.” Jesus knew what his real character was as truly as an athlete would have recognized an athlete. That is a sign of God’s working, when you see yourself as you are. Men tell you what they think you are, and sometimes you believe they are telling the truth, when, in your inmost heart, you know your foremost characteristic.

The glory of the Holy Spirit to me was, that while He was dealing with me, He brought out information about me and held it in the light until I had to admit the truth about myself. There are characteristics which we do not want to admit before God. It is easy for us to admit some sins, but there are things about ourselves that we do not want to admit. Some people will confess they do not tell the truth, and other people would rather die than admit such a thing, and yet in their hearts they know they do camouflage things; but the Holy Spirit holds His finger to it and says, “That is exactly what you are.”

No Camouflage!

If you are going to walk this victory life, this blessed life, the way must be undefiled by camouflage. I believe there isn’t anything God so desires in the heart of a man as a willingness to come before God and face His judgment. God does not ask men to be good, does not ask them to act as if they had loving hearts when they have not, but God loves to deal with a man who will come clean with Him and admit, “Lord, that’s what I am.” All cleansing for the Christian is based upon confession. When God is dealing with a man, He wants him to be open and straightforward before Him, that is all. It is not because you must be honest, or because you are honest, but because God is honest and because it is an awful insult to God to think you can deceive Him. You will never get anywhere with God by hiding sin. As long as you treat God as if He were a man who cannot look behind your thoughts and read the deep things of your heart and show you things about yourself that you never even knew about yourself, you will not progress spiritually, for you will always be defending yourself, and when a man is defending himself, he cannot possibly grow spiritually. He is defending that which Christ died to put out of the way. God wants you to hate the flesh and yourself worse every day and to fall in love with His matchless character.

The business of the Holy Spirit is to reveal sin, to reveal the righteousness of God, the cleansing power of Jesus, to magnify Jesus Christ and what He has done for you, and to horribly darken your own self. How is He going to do it if you do not come clean before him? If I come to prayer without a deep heart-searching and do not allow God to search my heart, I will find little blessing. If you ever had a deep spiritual experience, it came at the hour when a deep heart searching was going on. Perhaps during the first few moments of prayer you thought you were all right; but someone else began to pray and God broke them up and they cried, “O God, I confess my unbelief, my unbelief, my unbelief. Lord, I do not believe you, and this rotten heart of mine will not believe you. Oh, I do believe for my salvation, I know I am saved, but I just walk along like a common man, with common things in my life, when your Word says: ‘They that know their God shall be strong and do exploits.’ You have said: ‘Call unto me and I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knewest not,’ and I have not believed you enough to call. You have said: ‘Ye have not because ye ask not,’ and I have believed enough to ask. You have said: ‘If a man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.’ Lord, I have believed so much in my own wisdom that I have not even asked you for yours, and not fasted and prayed and asked for your best gifts, when you have said, ‘Covet the best gifts.’ Lord, I have been acting a lie.”

When you hear someone pray like that a while, and the Holy Spirit comes in and breaks up the fountains of your heart, and you cry out, “Lord, I am undone,” you have broken the catch. You had confidence in yourself when you started to pray, and now you have no confidence in yourself.

Obstructed Vision

Take Isaiah, the great prophet, for instance. He had his eyes on Uzziah, who was as mighty a king as ever lived, a great inventor, a marvelous genius as a builder and organizer of government. Isaiah got his eyes on this king. He was the prophet of God, the chosen of God and he knew it, but he himself records that “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the lord, high and lifted up.” I think I am right in thinking that it was because of Uzziah that Isaiah did not see the Lord sooner. Uzziah invented great catapults and battering rams with which walls could be crushed, catapults made of giant green trees, pulled down by fifty men, and then allowed to hurl great stones in their rebound, which plowed great holes in stone walls. Israel’s enemies only had old-fashioned battering rams made of stiff wood pounded against city walls. Isaiah began to think as the world did, “Uzziah is a wonder,” and in his heart, he was hurrahing for Uzziah.

Perhaps you, today, in the spirit of our century, cannot help saying, “Hurrah for man. We are modern and we are doing great things.” This sentiment is in the air. “I am getting along pretty well,” you say, and brag a little bit on yourself. Nothing goes wrong for two or three days and you puff up a little at a time. You do not know you have the “bighead,” but think you are in a good spiritual condition. All of a sudden, the Lord allows a test to come, you make a choice, and your choice runs to the flesh and to thinking about yourself; but Oh, when you see there is nothing in yourself and God begins to get underneath your motives, something happens.

All of you mentally comprehend what I am saying, and you protest, “I know it is not right for a person to think anything of himself. I don’t.” No, you do not do it willfully, but your subconscious heart does, and in five minutes, if someone says something you do not like, you will give him a hasty answer. “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.” The head has nothing to do with it, the Holy Spirit has to get into that heart and put it through the process of humiliation and chastening to get it to the place where it sees itself as God sees it. Your old head is not what bothers. We say, “I understand what full consecration is, what giving up things to God is,” but if the fire were to come, there would be no chance for it to burn in our midst, for you would not be in any position where God could burn you out to trust Him alone. The Holy Spirit has to work underneath to find out whether He can five you this wonderful blessed life, this life in the spirit of victory because you walk in an undefiled way, a pure way, a sincere way without camouflage or bluff, you walk in a contrite way. “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”

“Broken,”—do you know what that is? Nothing but the Holy Spirit showing you what you are could ever break it,—the awful mortification of sin and of you own failure in allowing Jesus Christ to be to you all He wants to be, of not taking from Him what He wants to give.

I went into a home one day to try to settle a quarrel between a man and a woman, very close to a split-up. The man had asked me to come and I expected to see him there with her, but when I got there, she said he had telephoned that he would see me at his office, that each would see me alone first, and then they would meet each other. I talked to her, and she was all broken up. “Mr. Rader,” she said, “I am not a pretty woman, and I do not blame him if he does not love me. I haven’t a good disposition and am not easy to live with, and I do not know much about finances and probably have not handled his money right.” She went over things with a broken and contrite heart. I listened a while and prayed, and then went to see him.

I walked into his office after he had thrown open the door, inviting me to sit down. “I tell you, Rader,” he began, “I have been getting the rough end of this business.” I thought to myself, “Uh-huh, you ought to have gotten it rougher, old boy, than you have.” “You see,” he continued, “I have talents that she does not appreciate.”

“That’s what she said,” I assented, and he looked rather taken back.

“I make money and she is not a business woman,” he complained.

“That’s just what she said,” I continued.

“She said that?”

“Yes, that’s what she said. She said you deserved better.”

Now, you wouldn’t think that would break a fellow’s harshness, and yet that is just the thing that broke him up. It wasn’t two minutes before he looked at me and said, “Say, I’m an awful devil. Whatever got me into this frame of mind?”

“Boy,” I advised, “That’s the devil’s trick.”

“That girl is so good,” he exclaimed, “I haven’t any right to walk into the house where she is. I’m a dirty rotten untrue thing.”

“I thought so all the time,” I smiled.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

“If I had told you, you would have called me a liar, but it is fine to hear you say it, and I believe it is true.”

Before he got through, he shook the chair and the desk with his sobs, and protested, “I’m ashamed to even go and ask her to have anything to do with me, but if you will go down to the house, I will crawl in at the door and ask her forgiveness.”

When you see a holy God hanging on a cross with His beard plucked out, the spit drying on His face, taking your place as a sinner, as a no-good thing of sin, if that does not break your heart and make it contrite before God, I do not know what will. How can He break a fellow’s heart like Peter’s? Only one way, and that is to wash his feet, and Jesus did it. God, GOD, washing Peter’s feet! And that put Peter down where he belonged. That balloon head of his was pricked, and Peter exclaimed, “Not my feet only, but my hands and my head!” No wonder Peter went out and wept bitterly after that. No wonder he followed Jesus through the days and counted himself as simply the SERVANT of Jesus Christ.

Me—A Sinner

The man who walks in sincerity and who will let the Holy Spirit show him his heart day after day, who will, in a humble, contrite way, allow the Holy Spirit to break him up, will get the blessing. You cannot do it, for your disposition is to defend yourself as that husband did, but the Holy Spirit can show you what a defiled heart is,—your hardness of heart, your stubbornness of disposition. He will lead you out into the life that is in Christ Jesus. But while you are defending yourself against the light that He throws on sin. There is no chance for blessing. Do you not see that the crisis hour in the Christian life is the hour when the Holy Spirit reveals to you the inability of your own heart to live this life, and the awful sense of your unworthiness because a holy God has offered to come and live in your heart; when that awful feeling comes like that of a woman when her best friend comes into her house and finds it dirty? She is unhappy and mortified in the presence of her visitor.

There is only one thing that will ever bring you into the fulness of the Spirit of God, into victory as you walk along with Him, and that is for you to stay with Him until He shows you the awful condition of your unclean house until you cry out, “Lord, I am all unworthiness, but Thou hast come to his old house, and therefore Thou canst have it the way Thou dost want it, and I want it kept clean and undefiled, so that you will not be grieved at having to live with me.”

“Blessed are the undefiled in the way,” sincere before God. When you cry out like that to God, it is not long before something is done.

A committee asked me to recommend a young man to them, and I told them I did not know of one just then, but would be glad to remember their request. Later I met a young man I knew and whom I had seen ordained. He spoke of another young man, and I told him of the request that had been made and asked, “Do you suppose this man would do?” My friend, a very spiritual man, looked at me and said, “That fellow will make good in any job that God gives him, in any door that is open.”

“Why are you so sure about it?” I inquired.

“He is the best confessor I ever knew in my life.”

That satisfied me, and I wrote the pulpit committee that this man was all right. They sent for him, and he preached on Sunday night, and came before them on Tuesday, saying, “Now, gentlemen, I want you to get me right.” He went back and told them what his life had been, and said, “That is what I am, and you cannot expect anything of me, but if we can trust Jesus together we will get somewhere here.”

One of the men of that committee, who is connected with a big store, said to me. “I have heard great men preach, but, when that young fellow got through talking, I turned around and most of our church members started to pray and we had the greatest prayer been that church fifteen years and had never met God and here came a young man to take the pastorate and began by telling the folds what he was not.”

A Broken Heart not Despised By Him

God can do something with a good confessor who admits that he is no good and who can praise Jesus. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way.” Oh keep down in your place where you belong, an old sinner saved by the grace of God, and when God puts something before you and asks you to do it, do not bluff, but break. Perhaps today He is calling on you to break. We will never have the revival God looks for until we break and go down, saying. “Not I, but Christ be exalted in my life.”

With many people, when the Spirit of God asks them to do personal work, their first consideration is what somebody will think and they are not ready to mind,—not “ready to go, ready to stay, ready to do His will.” Oh, I covet nothing on Earth today like a broken and contrite heart, so that as I look up to God, I know I am broken by the Holy Spirit—not by my own breaking, but by His breaking.

Friends, if God is calling on you to break, go down before Him, saying, “Lord you are talking to me.” If you are not careful to respond when God talks to you, you will get a hardened heart and the spirit of bitterness and backsliding. When God calls you, do not camouflage, but go down before him. If the light within you be darkness, and you will not take what Jesus tells you, how are you ever going to get into the light? If you are struggling in a dark place, and God is speaking to you, break, for “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” mind the Holy Spirit and He will lead you.

If God had His way hundreds of sinners would be saved, but we get into a callous path, a careless path, and our Lord cannot get through us to get to someone else because we will not give up to the tender pleading of Jesus and go down before Him so He can bless us.

It is awful to live without His compassion for the lost around us, without feeling a pull in our hearts toward this one or that one who does not know the Lord. How is He going to get out unless He gets out through you? You are the temple of the Holy Spirit, He is within you, and wants to read out through you to others who are on His heart, and who are unsaved. Have you really got a heart of compassion? Can you say:

“Have Thy way, Lord, have Thy way!
This, with all my heart, I say.
“I’ll obey Thee, come what may.
Dear Lord, have Thy way.”