Herbert Stewart

One frequently comes across those who believe that the Gospel is only for that type of sinner who has become the slave of some of the grosser forms of sin, such as drunkenness, sensualism, murder, etc., but that the cultured, moral, and intellectually refined do not need to be saved through repentance and faith in Him who “became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” They do not seem to remember that the worst type of sinner with whom our Lord had to deal, was the intellectual and religious sinner. They overlook the fact that the worst form of leprosy - typical of sin - was the leprosy in the head. Of all sinners, it is the intellectually depraved that are the most difficult to reach. Yet, such is the power of God that even these can be brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel. The Spirit of God, brooding over these dark souls, even as He did over a world that was “without form and void,” can give life and light, and set the captives free. We give the following confession of one whose “light was darkness,” but who through the Grace of God was delivered from the bondage and darkness of Modernism: I see it now. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. And I believed it to be anything but foolish. I could stumble over the Burning Bush, and forget the blazing sun. Blazing for ages yet not consumed. Only I was used to this miracle, but not the other.  

So I questioned the Burning Bush, a mere spark of the power of God compared with the sun and the burning stars that dot the heavens. My “wisdom” was foolishness indeed. And I took long to see it. In fact, I came to question the wisdom and even honesty of those who did not share my folly. I see it now. Of course, I questioned the story of Jonah. How could it be? I forgot, or did not think, that God could so arrange that quite large animals could go into a dormant state for months. Lie motionless, eat nothing. Yet in time get up and go abut. It was not natural. It was not understandable - but it was true. And God could not keep a man for three days in an unnatural state What folly! I see it now. Man can make hundredweights of iron to float in air by electric application, but God could not hold up one axe in water. God! I did not know God. I thought I knew something of Him, but I did not know Him. The enemy of souls edged me on. It was Christ he was after. Did He rise from the dead? Was it likely? A God who could only do the likely! I needed someone who knew God to say, “why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?” Paul, you were a first-class doubter, too. But God broke in upon you on the way to Damascus . And the same living God has broken in upon my soul. My blindness is gone. Gone for ever.  

But I have not stopped wondering at the kind of mind I had. It was the mechanical mind that never in a thousand years would grasp the powers of God. Its realm is in itself. The Word is right – “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” Foolish means bereft of heavenly wisdom. It may be wide awake to many things, but dead asleep to God. I was a Pantheist and never noticed it. The god I was getting to believe in was “nature.” Nature did everything - and a speck of senseless protoplasm somewhere far back (capable of developing into anything) took the place of the Creator. Any wonder He says, “Thou fool?” I see it now. I am not hard on those who are yet as I was. I understand them. I’m only wondering at myself. “Professing myself to be wise, I became a fool.”  

Thank God it is over. Something happened. I hardly know how the Living God managed it. Like the rest of His works, conversion is a miracle. Once I was blind, now I see. That is all I know. But I know it. To return now to doubting - well, it simply can’t be done. I know Him and I can’t un-know Him. Presumption or not, it’s true, and I can’t tell you how happy I am. I did not set out to mention this - rather meant just to ruminate over a strange past. Strange. Strange isn’t the word. I knew the world - the heavy world, swung round the sun. But could God hold up the water and let the people across the sea? The children of Israel did not stop to find out whether science approved of what God had done. They simply sang their song of deliverance. Let me sing mine! It was a poor withered heart I had in those days of cold logic. I wonder at the very word now. Logic.  

The Lord used to say to me, “Produce a fairer gospel.” I wondered why that used to come - and come. But logic said it couldn’t be the voice of God. Wireless came, and we could hear the voice of man far enough, logic or not. Anything’s admitted once it is here. Well, God is here. He has gotten into my heart. That used to be a sentiment, a thing of pious use. God in the heart. God in the life. Where was I before, in the days of my eternal questioning? “Some have not the knowledge of God.” That is where I was. And I was afraid that if I professed belief in all His works, my knowledge would be doubted. There would be loss of reputation. Reputation for what? Did I win souls to Christ by dwelling on the unreliability of the Bible? Of course not. Neither does anyone. We may have them converted to our views. But there’s a thousand miles of difference between that and being converted to God. Then something happens. Scales fall off. The eye salve comes and somehow we see. We leave the how to God, and revel in the new view. The Bible comes back. The whole of it. When we read, “Except a man be born again he cannot see,” we perfectly understand. For it is a New Birth that has happened. And it makes all things new. We certainly did not transform ourselves. That is for ever impossible. The transforming power belongs alone to God. It has to be sought for, “Ask, Seek, Knock, Strive,” is the language He uses. He will not respond one inch to unbelief. Why should He? The creature telling the Creator calmly what His limits are! What He can and what He cannot do! It was a shock to me to find that I was a fool.  

No, the word is stronger than that – “The fool.” The one utterly bereft of what God calls wisdom. That is the issue. There’s an earthly and there is a heavenly wisdom. It is the heavenly that will judge us at the last day. Neither the “Kenosis” nor any other theory will avail us on that day when He fulfils His solemn assurance, “My word shall not pass away. The word that I have spoken, it shall judge you in that day.” Jam glad I have stopped judging His word. It judged me - in time. Showed up the shallows of my poor mechanical mind, and gave me a better one. “Old things have passed away.” I believe God. I cannot help it. I know Him now. Oh, that I had never tried to satisfy myself with the wisdom that was foolishness. For I tried. It seemed the only thing to try. So many were trying it, too. Trying the blind unbelief that is sure to err and scan His works in vain. And the most pitiful thing - I see it now - I thought I did believe. But the God I believed in was one of my own imagination - the measure of my little mind. I see it now.

After reading this testimony, we recall those words in Jeremiah 9. 23, 24, “Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but, let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me. . .“ When we compare this triumphant testimony of a Modernist, translated out of spiritual and intellectual darkness, with that pathetic finish of one well known throughout the English speaking world, as a scholarly religious leader, but who strayed into the darkness of the so- called Higher Criticism, we cannot fail to be struck with the contrast. On the one hand we have the note of joy and victory, and on the other, the wail of defeat and despair.

Here are the words to which we refer: “I am a backslider. I used to enjoy prayer, but for many years I have found myself dumb. Of course, one can always make a prayer, as I do every morning for my class; but prayer in the sense of asking for things has not been, in my case, a proved force. I wish I could live as a spectator through the next generation to see what they are going to make of things. There will be a grand turn-up in matter theological, and the Churches won’t know themselves in fifty years hence. It is to be hoped some little rag of faith may be left when all is done. I am sometimes entirely under water, and see no sky at all.” What a sad confession! This internationally known theological professor had his faith wrecked, as so many others have, on the rocks of Modernistic infidelity. He predicted that “the Churches won’t know themselves in fifty years hence,” and his prediction has been largely fulfilled. That Modernism has its origin in Satan is amply confirmed by the number of souls it has wrecked. Who ever heard of Christians being spiritually ruined through belief in the fundamental doctrines of Biblical Christianity?

[Chapter XII, 'Three Men in a Tub' by Herbert Stewart, published around 1930]