The experience of God within the believer ought to result from the text, but it is possible to have the text and not have the experience!<\/p>\n
This can be simply but plainly illustrated. Suppose a very rich man dies and leaves a will, the text of which passes on all of his millions to his only son. So the son and heir borrows the text of his father\u2019s will from the attorney and carries it around with him. He becomes ragged and hungry, begging on the street for a crust of bread.<\/p>\n
But when someone says, \u201cPoor fellow, you are in bad shape, weak and pale and sickly,\u201d the heir to the fortune reacts strongly.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t talk to me like that,\u201d he says. \u201cI have much more than I will ever be able to use!\u201d<\/p>\n
To prove it, he opens the will and reads: \u201cUnto my dear son, Charles, I bequeath my property, my stocks and bonds, my bank accounts, my entire estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
You see, Charles is completely satisfied with the text of the will. He has it and he holds it\u2014but he has never had it executed, never had it filed for probate, never presented his legitimate claims to the inheritance. In actual experience, he has received nothing. He simply holds the text of the will.<\/p>\n
In the same sense, a Christian may go around clutching the book of Ephesians and not realize that he is spiritually lean and hungry, pallid and weak, and ragged as well.\u2026<\/p>\n
It is one thing to have the text of the will\u2014it is another thing to come into possession of the riches.<\/p>\n
Ephesians 1:3; Ephesians 3:8<\/p>\n
I Talk Back to the Devil,<\/i> 103, 104.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The experience of God within the believer ought to result from the text, but it is possible to have the text and not have the experience! This can be simply but plainly illustrated. Suppose a very rich man dies and leaves a will, the text of which passes on all of his millions to his … Continue reading “RICHES
\nIN CHRIST; EXPERIENCING GOD”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}