But If Not . . .

J. Stuart Holden spoke the following magnificent and encouraging message at a Keswick convention reminding us that disappointments are God's appointments. This is taken from Keswick's Authentic Voice selected and edited by Herbert F. Stevenson:

"I suppose it is safe to say that the majority of us have been led by the proclamation of God’s truth, and in all the illumination of His Spirit in these gatherings, to expect large changes in our experience, large renewals of strength and grace, large openings of fruitful service: and with these expectations we are leaving this place of vision, to return to the valley of duty.

"I want to speak as simply—and God knows I want to speak as tenderly—as may be to those who, in the days to come, may not realize these expectations; to those who in days to come, and not many days hence, are going to be sadly disappointed because their experience does not reach out to their expectation. I want that each one of us shall see that God has larger meanings in life than we are now able to read, that God has larger answers to our prayers than we are able to anticipate, that God has a thousand ways of fulfilling His promise in human lives that trust Him; that so, forewarned by this knowledge of God’s wondrous greatness and transcendence, we may be forearmed against the perils of disappointment, forearmed against that disheartening of soul which makes our hearts the ground, the fruitful ground, for the most noxious seed the devil can ever sow there.

"Therefore I want to speak to you on three simple words, as you find them in Daniel 3:18. Let me read with you from Daniel 3:16, which will recall the incident, of which this is part, to your minds. 'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.'

"You remember the story well. Challenged not to worship God at all, challenged to bow down to the popular idol, challenged to join the fickle multitude in acclaiming an earthly king, to the degradation of the King of their hearts, with a burning fiery furnace in front of them as an alternative to obedience, this is the answer of the three Hebrew children—'Our God is able to deliver us. More than that, our God will deliver us. More than that, if He does not deliver us, we are still not going to worship your idol. If He does not deliver us, our faith is not at an end. If He does not deliver us, our resolution is entirely unshaken: we still believe God.'

"Now, beloved, it may be for you and me that the experiences we have sought here, that the prayers we have offered here, the hopes that have been aroused here, are none of them going to be realized just in the way we have imagined. It may be that you who have claimed a deliverance which you have seen as part of God’s plan in your life, are going to find that God works by human cooperation with His divine Spirit, and that your way of deliverance is a Via Dolorosa. It may be that you, my brother, who have claimed a Pentecost from God, are going to find that it leads you not to a revival, but to tremendous Satanic opposition. It may be that in your church or mission you are not going to see a great ingathering of souls at all, but a great revolt of worldly Christians and church officers. It may be that from Keswick you are going into a pathway which is dark with the mysteries of God’s dealings with you. And let me say to you here, that if your faith has not got an alternative, you are going to be worsted. If you are going to be bowled over because of the things which, in some shape or form you are bound to meet, then the world which is looking on, and which is taking its measure of Jesus Christ from the loyalty and fidelity of your witness to Him, is going to be staggered. Oh, blessed be God, our gracious God, who teaches our hands to war and our fingers to fight, who is our Hope and our Fortress, our Battleaxe and our Deliverer. Blessed be God who speaks to us before we go from this place into the unknown life of peril and danger and opposition. Let us see to it that our faith has an alternative to our present expectation. Blessed is the man who goes down from Keswick saying something akin to that which these three Hebrews said to the great king who vaunted himself against God: 'We will not serve thee; we will not bow down to thine image, even if God does not do for us as we have trusted Him to do.' O God, give us a faith like this!

"Do not think that this is faithlessness on the part of these men. Read their protestant words: 'Our God is able and He will; but if He does not, we still recognize His will as entirely supreme. If He does not, we still reckon God as greater than our hearts and all their imaginings. If He does not do just what we thought He was going to do, we still believe, though we have no evidence of sense to support our faith.' This is the faith which accepts God’s will not merely with equanimity but with positive enthusiasm. This is the faith which relates itself not only to the commands of God, but to His contradictions; and if you and I go on with Him we shall find that pathway to be one of constant contradiction: Christ contradicting my conceptions; Christ my Teacher contradicting my impulse and my aims; Christ my Master bringing all things within me into conformity with His holy purpose. Oh, this is not faithlessness; it is faith, which says, 'But if not, my course is already clear; if not, my determination has already been made; if not, my resolve is entirely unaltered, for it has been made in the conscious presence of God, and on the warrant of His own sure Word.'

"Beloved, it is by these contradictions oftentimes that God teaches us in ways which otherwise were impossible either to Him or to us. There are words which I often read to my own enlightening and comfort, and you will allow me to repeat them to you now—

If all my years were summer, could I know
What my Lord means by His 'made white as snow'?
If all my days were sunny, could I say,
'In His fair land He wipes all tears away'?
If I were never weary, could I keep
Close to my heart, 'He gives His loved ones sleep'?
Were no griefs mine, might I not come to deem
The life eternal but a baseless dream?

My winter and my tears and weariness,
Even my griefs may be His way to bless;
I call them ills, yet that can surely be
Nothing but love that shows my Lord to me.

"In these days which lie ahead of each one of us, with their perplexing experiences, remember that His meanings of life are essentially larger than ours; and it will fill our hearts with peace and put stability into our lives to be able to say, 'But if not, Lord, I still trust Thee; and if not, I am here as truly Thine as ever I was; as truly Thine in the darkness of London, of the slums, of the mission field, of the unsympathetic home, as truly Thine, my God, in the darkness as I was Thine in the light at Keswick. But if not . . .!'

"This alternative to disappointed faith tests the entire quality of the man who professes the faith of God. I know the man—I have him in mind tonight—who, being disappointed in his experience, nervously begins to pity himself; the man to whom self-consequence is everything. When God contradicts his expectation and longing, his faith is staggered and his backsliding begins. I know the man who is willing to accept the shallow answer to a great question, the man to whom disappointment becomes disbelief, the man who measures God in the tiny scales of his own self-consciousness. Many a one such has gone from Keswick to be utterly disheartened, utterly despondent, and ultimately a deserter. He had never learned to say, 'But if not, my God; but if not!'

"There is a subtle interaction in the life of everyone of us of courage and conscience; and the man who does not stand firm with God and for Him, who loses his integrity, loses also his power of vision, because one experience of his faith staggers him. On the other hand, I know the man who has learned to say courageously with these three Hebrews, 'But if not . . . there shall be no deviation from my duty; its dominance shall be entirely unaffected in my life. But if not—if no ecstatic joy fills me, if no revival fruits appear in my work, I mean to go on and do the next thing. If I do not get the sunshine in all its full-orbed light upon my life, I mean to follow the gleam which I have already seen. If I cannot see the distant scene, I can see at least one step. God has given me enough light to walk by, and therefore, if not, I am going on with my work. If not, there shall be no cessation of hostility to evil, no begging out of the conflict with all the forces of the devil in the world. There shall be no lowering of my aim, even if I am conscious of repeated failure.' The crime of our lives is not failure, but low aim; and by the grace of God, forgetting the things that are behind, I press on toward the mark for the prize. Even if the battle seems to be going against me, there shall be no desertion of the colors.

"My friend there, the business man, has come to a determination to seek first the Kingdom of God in his business, that all things else may be added to him; and he finds not additions, but subtraction; he finds that his profits are not greater, but less each year. He finds that the pathway of the cross is no sentimental, emotional thing to sing about, but that the cross is heavy and the way is narrow and the positions innumerably difficult for the man who says, 'But if not, I do not intend to pull the flag down; if not, I do not intend for a moment to desert my Lord, for I can never unsee what I have seen in Him, and I can never unlearn what I have learned from Him, and I can never lose that which He has begun to work in me. Therefore, be the consequences of my fidelity what they may, I am going on with God.'

"After all, beloved, if you have the real faith of a child as you leave Keswick, and in consequence of God’s drawing near to you here, it is founded not upon a subjective experience, but upon God Himself. My faith does not stand in the wisdom of men; my faith does not stand in the memory of an emotional thrill which came through me, lifting me on to a higher life in this place; my faith does not rest upon anything that is visible, but upon that which is within the veil, where Jesus is. Therefore in the calm confidence of a child I may say with these three young Hebrews, 'I am expecting God to do wonderful things for me; I am expecting God to break down iron gates before me, and to beat down my foes all around me. I am expecting God to give me great and wonderful power in His work, manifested by souls gathered in and wondrous revival all round. But if He does not, I am still going on with Him, persuaded that He doeth all things well, and that His wisdom is my sheet-anchor.'

"Now, beloved, let me point out to you that God’s response to this spirit is to do a bigger thing than we trust Him for, not a smaller. These men said, 'Our God is able to deliver us from your fire. What do we care about your old furnace, heated seven times? It does not affect us; it does not even make us perspire with fright: we are absolutely calm in front of it.' But, mind you, God did a far bigger thing for them than they thought He would do. He did not deliver them from the peril at all, but He delivered them in it: and that is an infinitely greater thing. He did not effect their escape from the furnace, but He gave them an experience of fellowship in the furnace that they had never dreamed of, for Jesus Himself came to walk with them in that furnace. I wonder what they talked about! They did talk, and they heard words there which it is not lawful for men to utter or to imagine; and they learned more in that furnace with Jesus than they had ever dreamed it possible for men to know of God. That is the kind of thing God does to the men who have this spirit. They said, 'He is going to check your hand, O king'—but He did not do it at all—He did something greater: He changed the king’s heart; He brought the king to a knowledge of His almighty power and grace. And, beloved, great though your expectations are, they are not great enough; great though the promises are to your conception tonight, that conception is not nearly great enough. God is going to do an infinitely larger and more influential thing in our lives, if we will stand with Him.

"Very briefly, let me point out to you that this is not an isolated instance. I find this principle running right through the Word of God. Let me give you an illustration or two. God said to Abraham, 'Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac' (Genesis 22:2), and he took him, and together they mounted the hill. I hear the boy saying to the father, 'Father, here is the wood for the sacrifice, but where is the lamb?' And I hear Abraham say to him, 'My son, God will provide Himself a lamb; but if not, the programme is going to be carried out. But if not, there is going to be a sacrifice. My purpose is entirely undeterred; my obedience to God is entirely unaltered; my devotion to God is entirely unmoved, even if He does not provide a lamb, and if I have to put my son to the knife and to the fire.' That is the secret of Abraham’s fruitfulness—his faithfulness; that is the secret of God’s blessing to the nations through that man.

"I see it again in a man who has lost everything. His home is gone, his friends are against him, and his health is gone. He sits there mourning, and under the mourning there is a note of triumph. 'God shall bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold Him.' Then he says, in effect, 'But if not—though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even if He does not bring me out to the place where I behold His face in righteousness, I shall still trust Him. I know that my Redeemer liveth.'

"I remember another man. He is in prison—a man persuaded of Christ’s identity and mission, a man who stands for the most wondrous self-effacement this world has ever seen, a man who cried to others, 'Behold the Lamb of God,' and rejoiced when his own disciples left him to go with Jesus; a man who knew the power of God in his life, for he was filled with the Holy Ghost from his birth; a man who saw in Jesus the great Baptizer with the Holy Ghost and with fire; and a man whose faithfulness was put to such severe test as you and I have never known, in the prison house on the shores of the Dead Sea. He sent his disciples to Jesus—the Jesus who said He had come to liberate the prisoners, and here is one of His loyal friends whom He does not liberate. Here is the One whom he has proclaimed as the mighty Messiah of God, but He seems so slow at coming to the victorious side of His work. John sends his disciples to Jesus and he says, 'Master, have I, after all, been mistaken? Art Thou He that should come? I thought you were; but if you are not, I am still going on to look for another, for the promises of God cannot be broken.'

"I think of Paul, too. Oh, those wonderful, those magnificent declarations of Paul’s faith. Listen to them above the howling of the tempest. 'I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord' (Romans 8:38-39). 'In all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us' (Romans 8:37). 'Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ . . .' (II Corinthians 2:14). And he ended—where? In a prison; not in a great burst of praise and victory, but in a prison, chained to two Roman soldiers. But Paul had this 'if not' spirit in him; and if you want to read its expression, turn to his prison Epistles; turn to the words that came from his heart in that prison house in Rome, and you will see the indomitable spirit of the man who was filled with the Spirit of God.

"But before I close there is Someone higher, greater than Abraham, and Job, and John, and Paul; there is the Blessed One Himself. Oh, beloved, listen for a moment. Away there yonder in the Garden He cries, 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; but if not, Thy will be done.' That is the spirit that made the world’s redemption an accomplished fact; and that is the spirit in you and me which will invest our lives with redemptive value, as we go out from the throne of God down to the gutter of sin to do the work of the Redeemer. This is the spirit, and the only spirit, which means victory beyond anything we can conceive.

"So as we turn from Keswick in these few closing moments, may God make this your spirit and mine, in view of all the future may hold, in view of all the mystery that may becloud your pathway, in view of all that may stagger you for a moment as God’s greater thoughts are brought into conflict with your own inferior and unworthier thoughts concerning His purpose. When your prayers, instead of being speedily answered, are delayed of answer; when those things you thought God must do for you He still keeps you waiting for, O God help each one of us to say in some such words as these, 'But if not'—

I’ll follow Thee, of life the Giver;
I’ll follow Thee, loving Redeemer;
I’ll follow Thee, deny Thee never;
By Thy grace, I’ll follow Thee.

"I will say just one thing more, and it is this: that the world is perfectly helpless before that kind of Christian; the world is perfectly helpless before the man who positively laughs at its shams, because he knows what they are worth. The world is perfectly helpless before the man who goes into the fire for God with a song in his heart. It cannot light a fire, however vehement its flame, that can do more than burn up a man’s bonds and bring him into greater liberty.

Across the path of night leads on the path of God;
Not where the flesh delighteth, the feet of Jesus trod:
What though the path be lonely, and dark, and bleak, and lone,
Though crags and tangles cross it—Praise God, we will go on!

"That is the spirit in which to leave Keswick. And as the world is helpless before a man of that kind of faith, God cannot be otherwise than truly faithful to such a one. Therefore, as in a few minutes we shall go out into the night, and will never all meet again until Jesus comes back again, beloved, would it not be a blessing to us to bring our Keswick week to a close by solemnly, gladly reaffirming this same glad note in the presence of God tonight: 'O God, I am expecting so much from Thee. Correct all my misconceptions. I am expecting Thee to do such wonderful things. My God, I am expecting Thee to make all things new with one word of Thy power. But if not: if Thou keepest me waiting, if Thou dost discipline me into patience, I here and now covenant with Thee, my Lord, that I will stand by Thee. I here and now covenant, my Lord, in all the nakedness and sincerity of my soul, that I am Thine utterly, absolutely, to the last crust and candle flicker of life. I am Thine, Lord Jesus, for time and eternity.' O God, bring us there to-night!"

We are reminded of the same attitude by the unknown author (but possibly Oswald Chambers' daughter, Kathleen) of the following poem:

Disappointment - HIS appointment,
Change one letter, then I see
That the thwarting of my purpose
Is God's better choice for me.

His appointment must be blessing
Though it may come in disguise
For the end from the beginning,
Open to His wisdom lies.

Disappointment - HIS appointment
Whose? The Lord's who loves me best.
Understands and knows me fully,
Who my faith and love would test.

For like loving, earthy parent
He rejoices when He knows
That His child accepts unquestioned
All that from His wisdom flows.

Disappointment - HIS appointment
No good thing will he withhold
From denials oft we gather
Treasures of His love untold.

Well He knows each broken purpose
Leads to fuller deeper trust
And the end of all His dealings
Proves our God is wise and just.

Disappointment - HIS appointment
Lord I take it then as such,
Like the clay in hands of potter
Yielding wholly to Thy touch

All my life's plan is Thy molding
Not one single choice be mine
Let me answer unrepining,
Father not my will but THINE.