Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work

He exhorts to three things:

1. To lay aside every weight, and especially every besetting sin that might have especial attraction and special power. And it is impossible to serve God and have peace of conscience and to overcome sin while the mind is divided and undecided. A man can not expect to win a race if he ties heavy weights upon his person; be must be unencumbered and free. So, in running the Christian race, we must free ourselves from everything we find to be a hindrance, no matter how desirable or how dear it may be to the flesh. So Jesus Himself says: "If anything so dear as a right arm or a right eye becomes a hindrance to to us, it must be given up." There are men who say they want to serve God, and expect to do so, but then they enjoy certain things they know to be wrong and hurtful, and they will indulge in them just a little, not enough to cause them to get clear away from God. I know and you know men who think they can enjoy sin just a little, or once in awhile. In the first place, this is ungrateful and mean. It is the same as to say: "I want to be just religious enough to escape hell, and yet I want to enjoy all the pleasure I can from sin, too." Such a feeling dishonors God. And, in the second place, it is exceedingly dangerous. It shows that the heart is not right. While you are trifling thus with sin, you may become so fascinated by it and led away as to be enslaved before you know it, and lose all your taste for heavenly things. Besides, God will not long bear with a man who has no better heart and no more self-sacrificing spirit than that. For myself, I should tremble and shudder if I were so far gone as to feel that I could go and deliberately indulge in some pleasant sin for awhile and then come back to resume the service of God when I had satiated my evil desires. Be assured, you can not serve God and sin. They are as opposite as light and darkness; you must give up one or the other. "But," you say, "how can I give up sin?" If you are willing to do so, God will see that you have the power to do it. Give it up if it gives you pain – yes, if it breaks your heart! God Himself will pour in the oil of comfort and joy, and heal all your wounds.

2. The Apostle exhorts to run with patience the race set before us. It is easy to do well for awhile; to abstain from sin while the excitement of novelty in the religious life is upon us; and how many there are who began well and did well for awhile, but when the novelty wore away, and the excitement of the change was gone, they grew weary and sought the old pleasures of sin again. Some have thus done in connection with our work here in this mission. Make up your mind before hand that when the time of temptation and loneliness comes, you will endure it and go through with it patiently, waiting for the removal of the temptation and the return of joy. And when temptation does come, pray, oh pray. Go alone and ask God to restore to you the joy of His salvation and trust Him until he does it. Go work for others; go mingle with Christian people, whether you feel like it or not, and you will soon find how to meet the enemy, and how to defeat his plans and purposes.

3. But his last exhortation is to look to Jesus. He bore our sins on the cross, and therefore we are released from them, if we trust Him and accept Him as our sin-bearer. He is alive forevermore; and when earnestly asked, He gives spiritual life and joy and strength by sending the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Then again, His life is the pattern of patience in loneliness and trials, which you and I are to follow; and can we desire or aspire to be or to do any better than did He?

 
"Would you lose your load of sin?
Fix your eyes upon Jesus.
Would you have God's peace within?
Fix your eyes upon Jesus."
 

ACTS II: 38

"Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."

We may not be able to understand how it is, but these inspired Scriptures represent the work of salvation as applied to human hearts by the Holy Spirit. We do not hear enough of the Holy Spirit. We do not know Him and speak of Him and pray for His help and guidance and power, as the Scriptures teach us to do. These Scriptures are our guide; what they say we do not question, nor can we subtract from them or add to them. Let us see, then, what they teach us as to the Holy Spirit. In the 14th, 15th and 16th chapters of St. John's Gospel Jesus distinctly promises His disciples that upon His departure He would send to them and to the world a divine agent whom He calls the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, etc., and He tells them what that divine agent would do. Let us, then, fix our minds now intently on what He says, and be prepared to believe it.

He said that this Spirit of Truth should "convince men of sin." Well, the fact is, we do see men convinced of sin as sin, and not merely because it is damaging and ruinous. But we see this only in connection with the Christian religion. So it must be by means of some power that belongs to the Christian religion. And if any of you here to-night see your sins and feel them to be, not only damaging and destructive, but mean and hateful and crimes against the good Father who has borne with you and blessed you through all these years of sin, then you may know that it is God's Holy Spirit that has produced that feeling in you; and especially so if you feel that your ingratitude to God, who has provided for you a way of salvation at such great cost, and your cold and heartless neglect of Jesus Christ through all these years of sin are the most aggravated part of your guilt. And you may be sure if God is willing to begin a good work in you He is willing to carry it on to completion, and will do so if you do not hinder Him. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you." And since it is He who has begun this work, beware that you do not hinder it or stop it by your coldness, carelessness or sin.

But, in the second place, Jesus says the Holy Spirit should reveal Him to sinners as their sin-bearer and life-giver. So the promise is to you. Hold on in prayer and patient expectation. You can not be disappointed, for God can not lie. I was ignorant of Christ to an astonishing and shameful degree; but I was told to pray and I did so. I shut myself up in my back room one evening and told God I was going to stay there until He blessed me, and I was blessed, and the only three words I uttered were "Jesus of Nazareth." By some power I was so illuminated and changed that I saw Jesus as the dearest and loveliest being I ever thought of. Was not this a fulfillment to me of the promise made in John xvi.: 14? And having received grace from my God, I continue to this day witnessing to small and to great the things I have experienced since becoming a Christian. Now, let us inquire what else this gracious divine agent working in man is to do.

He it is who produces that change in men which we call conversion or regeneration or new birth. You remember in John (3d chapter) the expression, "Born of the Spirit," and again in Titus iii.: 5, it is said we are saved by the "renewing of the Holy Ghost." When we know, then, that these changes are the immediate effect of the inworking of this divine agent, we need not be surprised that they are so sudden and so thorough as we see them to be in some cases that we know of. Let me say to those who have not yet experienced this wonderful deliverance from the power and love of sin and this inner revolution, that many of us have tested this matter who were in the deepest depths of sin and darkness, and God will do to depend on. Go ahead, go ahead; keep on praying and keep on hoping and trust yourself to Jesus, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

But, after we have experienced this change which we call conversion, God's spirit abides with us and keeps on doing great things for us when we are converted. We are not made angels or gods, but are still human, and, though delivered from the guilt and power of sin, we are hampered by ignorance and depressed by sorrow and encompassed with temptations. But just anticipating these needs of ours, the Holy Spirit is to be our teacher and to guide us into the truth. So we need not fear if we are only humble and honest and teachable; we shall not go dangerously astray, for God Himself will thus open to our minds the wonderful things of Scripture, and cause us to understand as much of it as we need.

But He, the Holy Spirit, is to be the comforter of God's people in their loneliness and trials and conflicts in this world of exile. I have been sustained by unseen power in my trials as a Christian. But He enables them to overcome, and be more than conquerors, when they are assailed by temptation to sin. "He strengthens with might in the inner man" (Ephesians iii.: 16), and gives joy and peace; so that the soul, being content with these, does not need or desire the poor pleasures of sin. This has been my experience.

He sanctifies God's people; He makes them holier and holier; He produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, faith; and He gives power to reach, by our poor words, the hearts and consciences of others, though they be dead in sin. Jesus says, "Ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon you." (Acts 1.: 8.) There are some men who have this power to reach and awaken and interest sinners in the salvation of their souls. And they do have power to bring sinners into this new life of peace and purity and joy. And you and I might have this power, and far more of it than we do, if, like the Apostle, we would wait before God in patient, believing prayer till the Holy Spirit should come in fullness and power. Pentecost was a display of this power, and we may have another Pentecost when we are willing to wait for it and pray for it as did the little company in the upper room at Jerusalem.

LUKE V: 32

"I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

These words of Jesus were spoken to the Scribes and Pharisees, and combine in themselves a defense of His own course in mingling with sinners, and a keen rebuke of the spirit of those who brought against him an accusation of associating with sinners, as well as the declaration of the object of His mission into this poor darkened world. And does it not seem strange that a man should be required to defend himself for going to spend and be spent for the good of those who are most sorely in need of help and relief? But it has always been so. Men are so selfish, so utterly without concern for the interests of others that they want to monopolize and swallow up everything that is good. So when Jesus of Nazareth was revealed to the Jewish people, and made Himself conspicuous and famous by the daily performance of astonishing miracles, the Scribes and Pharisees, who thought that everything ought to be subservient to their own personal interests and aggrandizement, fell out with Jesus because He did not fall in with notions of what He ought to be and do. They did not care a baubee for the people, the rabble, the mob, the human cattle. Indeed they utterly despised them, and would have nothing to do with them. They might perish and rot so far as the Scribes and Pharisees were concerned, provided these latter could hold the places of honor and gain. And so utterly possessed were they by this feeling of all-consuming selfishness, that when they saw this Jesus of Nazareth going with sinners, talking with sinners and eating with sinners, they set it down as a conclusion they would never give up that He was not, and could not be, and should not be, their Messiah. So that Jesus was thus forced to reason with them, and to make His defense before these self-constituted judges of His, and tell them why it was that He pursued the course He did. So it was in the time of John Wesley in England. He went among sinners, talked with them, taught them, and drew them by the magic force of his great love to follow him wherever he went to preach; and they so crowded the churches to hear the words of grace and tenderness that fell from his lips, that the doors were shut upon him, and he had to go out on the commons and into the fields beneath the sky of that God and Father whose words he was preaching, and whose lost children he was trying to save. This has been the experience of other zealous and earnest ministers of Christ. And they, too, have had to defend themselves for such a course. Our dear Brother Morris felt himself pressed to say why he went to the courthouse steps to try to lift up the fallen and save the wretched and the lost. But the words of Jesus contain also a scathing rebuke of the self-righteous spirit of those hard-headed, hard-hearted Scribes and Pharisees. It was the same as saying, "you claim that you are the righteous of the world. You are not willing to be classed with sinners, or to be called sinners, or to believe yourselves sinners. Therefore you have no need of me, and I have nothing for you; for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Let us beware then, my dear friends and brethren, of thinking or feeling that we are better than others, or that we are not sinners. Now, need I stop here to prove that any of you are sinners? Does any one here need to have arguments worked out and laid before him to prove to him that he is a poor, miserable, blind sinner? If there is any one here who thinks and feels that he is not, then he has no business here, he has no business with Christ, and we have nothing to tell him or give him here. We bid him farewell, and turn away from him, to work for and to talk to others. If I were to go to see a sick man concerned about his soul, and he were to begin to tell about his good deeds and his freedom from sins and vices, I would get my hat and tell him good-bye; that I knew nothing about salvation for anybody but sinners. But for sinners I have and hold up a Saviour, a divine Saviour, who, blessed be God, is able to save to the uttermost all who come to him, and to save them here and now. If you want to see a specimen of Christ's interest in sinners and feeling for sinners, look at His life. In the beginning of His ministry He chooses Matthew, one of the despised class of publicans, to be one of His disciples – nay, one of His Apostles. Then He went to Matthew's house to dinner. It was as if some leading minister of the Gospel here to-day would be seen walking down the street with some leading gambler, on his way to take dinner and spend the afternoon with him. It was as if Mr. Moody should come to Louisville to conduct one of his great meetings, and, instead of stopping with Mr. Carley or Mr. Carter or Judge Bullock, should stop with John Young or Harry Johnson, and be his willing guest. So Jesus went to the house of another big gambler, so to speak, in his day. It was the publican Zaccheus (Luke xix., 1-10), and Jesus not only went there to dinner, but took salvation with Him to Zaccheus' house. So by His tenderness and grace, Jesus drew to Him the poor outcast women of His day. One wretched sinner of this class was so won by His concern for sinners, that she pressed her way into a rich man's house where Jesus was dining, and going to Him washed His feet with her tears, and anointed them with costly perfume, Jesus not only not forbidding her, but defending her for it (Luke 7). And Jesus spoke the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Piece of Silver, the Lost Prodigal Son, and said – oh, hear it – "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth."

JAMES I: 25, 26

"25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

"26. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain."

James, the writer of this language, is that inspired servant of God, who gets impatient with mere professions of piety, and who wants to see action, action! not mere words, not dead faith, but also action. He speaks, in the text, of "forgetful hearers of the Word." Now, do you not know all about what that means? Have you not, many a time, read the Bible, or heard a sermon from it that, like a mirror, held up to your heart, showed you yourself even better than you knew yourself? And have you not said: "Well, I will change; that picture is true, and it is too dark to be endured any longer?" But, instead of carrying out your purpose and doing what you say, you went away and forgot all about it, and soon you were as dead as ever. And, instead of continuing to read the Bible and see yourself there; and instead of continuing to go where faithful ministers would uncover your poor, wicked heart and life to your eyes, you went on your accustomed ways of business or pleasure, and became a "forgetful hearer of the Word," and it did you no good. How, then, in the name of God, can a man keep himself from forgetting the things he reads or hears from the Bible? Why, it is very simple – to go to doing at once, without waiting even till to-morrow. "Do what?" you say. Why, go to praying. Cut yourself off from retreat by coming out on the side of Christ and taking your place among those who are seeking His mercy and salvation, till you can take your place among those who have that salvation. But I want to say a very solemn word to those who profess to have already obtained salvation. Are you doing, as well as hearing the Word of God? Does your life exemplify "holiness to the Lord," and does it abound in good works and good words? Do you abstain from evil and keep yourself from evil associations? Do you turn away from dangerous and suspicious places and people? Do you obey readily and heartily what you find to be commanded in God's Word? If you do not do the things you hear, then you, too, will soon become "forgetful hearers," and little by little the world will re-assert its power over you, and the flesh will get the upper hand, and at the last you may wind up as our poor friend Eicheler did. Doing is as important a part of the Gospel as hearing. Read the last part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew vii., 24-27). Notice that Jesus says the man who does His sayings is like one who buildeth on a solid and enduring foundation that can stand storms and temptations. Now, do you not find that if you do what you find in the Bible, then the Bible becomes sweeter and sweeter to you? You do not shut it up then and shove it aside for fear of finding yourself condemned, for when you do its biddings it will not condemn you, but commend you, and that makes you love it and keeps you from forgetting it. And thus you grow stronger and stronger, and sin will grow weaker and weaker, and you will surely find that you have built on a strong foundation. But, in the last part of the text is a subject I want to talk about. Read verse 26. It is the tongue. If any man seems to be religious, and fails to control his tongue, then he is mistaken. Oh, have you not found your tongue to be one of the most troublesome things you have to contend with? If you want to see James' idea of the tongue, read chapter iii., 1-10. Do you watch your conversation? Do you guard the door of your lips? Do you? I am in earnest.

Do you ever indulge in the least obscenity? Some so-called Christians do, and it is sickening and disgusting to others; and while it shows what their thoughts dwell on, it does themselves great harm, for it keeps temptation before their minds, and makes it a great deal more difficult to resist temptations when they come in their lives. Do you mean it only as innocent fun? It is not innocent. For if you are so hardened as to unclean thoughts, that they don't hurt you, they, will hurt others.

What about swearing? If the devil can get you to swear a few times, then he will say: "Oh, you might as well confess that you are no Christian, and give up this hypocritical business." There is one of the Ten Commandments forbidding to take God's name in vain; the Sermon on the Mount forbids it still more strongly, and James, in chapter v., 12, condemns it in the strongest language. And yet there are some church members who practice it, especially when they get mad. That man's heart is not right, and he is treading on very dangerous ground who is not changed enough to avoid swearing. And if a man, by God's grace, will turn away from it and from the thought of it, he will soon become so that it will make him shudder to hear others swear. I know this from my own experience.

If you do not watch yourself in conversation, you will tell things that are not true; and so, in trying to be polite, you will have to watch or your tongue will tell a falsehood, and you will recollect it with shame and lose strength of faith in God.

And then that tongue often indulges in gossip about your acquaintances that does them great harm. And have you not, in moments of temper and passion, said cruel and, perhaps, false things to your dear ones; to those who have worked for you, and maybe would die for you? It cut them to the heart, and you have not made acknowledgment of your sin to them.

JAMES I: 8

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."

One of the commonest and greatest faults and weaknesses of men is this that I am going to speak about to you to-night, and that is indecision. It is not only a weakness and a fault and a great hindrance in regard to religion, but in any and all the affairs of life. Do you not know men of competent ability and of good advantages and education who amount to very little in the world? And when you ask yourself why it is, is it not because they have not enough decision of character to keep at any one thing long enough to master the difficulties with which it is beset and to win success in spite of obstacles? Some of them are confused by the great number of ways that seem to open before them and are not decided as to which one they will pursue. And after embarking in one pursuit and continuing in it for awhile, they conclude they could do better at something else; and before they have studied and labored long enough to obtain success in this second enterprise, they conclude they could do better by changing for a third or going back to the first. And so, because study and time and labor are necessary to success in any occupation or profession and they do not bestow these, they do not succeed, and, in the nature of the case, can not succeed. Or, if they are not embarrassed by the number of openings before them, they are divided in their minds between a life of ease, indulgence and pleasure and a life of labor and self-denial, and, though they would be something and are not without ambition, yet a life of indolence and rest offers so many inducements that they prefer it to a life of hard work and of discouragements and battles and anxieties, or, at least, if they do not positively prefer such a life, yet they hanker after it; and in their effort to have ease and pleasure and, at the same time, to pursue some honorable and profitable calling, they miss both, and have no satisfaction, but only a consciousness of their own weakness and uselessness and a contempt for themselves. But maybe I need not ask you if you know persons of this sort. You who listen to me to-night may be of just that kind. Possibly – nay, probably – there are men here to-night whose lives have been failures just because of the miserable weakness I have been trying to describe. But if this weakness of character is the cause of many failures and the utter disappointment that many lives have ended in, in worldly matters, how much more so is it in religious concerns and interests. If concentration of thought and fixedness of purpose and firmness of will are necessary to overcome obstacles and to master success in business or in the learned professions, they are more so in the matter of religion. If indecision and dividedness of mind and wavering of purpose cause men to fail in worldly matters, much more so will they cause men to fail in religion. Some men are forever wavering between accepting and rejecting Christianity. To-day they are satisfied that Christianity is true, and to-morrow they say they have found proof that Christianity is false. Then, again, they get into trouble and find that nothing can help them but Christianity, and they believe it until some man comes along and argues against it, and away they go off after him. So they never believe in Christianity long enough at any time to get any good from it, and they will not utterly and finally reject it so as to be no longer troubled by it. But the trouble with most of the people who are in this wretched state of indecision is that they believe in Christianity, and are persuaded that it is far better to be a Christian and safer, but they love the world and the ways of the world and the honors of the world and the pleasures of the world; and it is impossible to love the world and partake of the pleasures of the world and at the same time to serve God with your whole heart. "Ye can not serve two masters," and yet you see people who are trying to do it. So they do not make good Christians, for their hearts are in the world, and their lives and influence are not for Christianity, but for the world. Nor do they get the good and pleasure of a worldly life, for they are restrained and harassed by their fear of conscience, God and hell. And Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, says, "Ye can not serve two masters." Many have tried it. Some whose histories are given in the Bible tried it. Saul, the first king of Israel, tried it. When God sent him to destroy the Amalekites, he obeyed the command in part, but not altogether. (I. Samuel xv., 13-25.) But God is not mocked, and because Saul trifled with Him He rejected Saul, and Saul went from bad to worse, until at last, in his abandonment to the power of evil, he committed murder after murder and finally died a suicide. The rich young man in the New Testament was another case of divided mind. He saw the desirableness of being good, and the safety of being at peace with God, and showed a zeal in trying to be good; but when Jesus told him to sell all he had and give it to the poor, he refused. He wanted to do both, obey God and inherit the kingdom of heaven and have a fortune for selfish enjoyment or for miserable greed at the same time. But he could not do both. King Agrippa said "he was almost persuaded" to be a Christian. His mind was divided; he could not do both. He chose to keep his worldly possessions, and, of course, could not be a Christian (Acts xxvi., 28). But, on the other hand, those men who were decided and positive in their rejection of the pleasures of the world found no great trouble in serving God. Moses was a man of this sort (Hebrews xi., 25-27). He deliberately chose to suffer afflictions with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Paul was another man of this positive character. When Jesus revealed Himself to Paul his surrender was immediate and complete. He said, "What wilt thou have me do?" And to the end of a long and laborious life, amid persecutions and sufferings and disgraces and loneliness and bonds, he continually cried, "None of these things move me." And his Christian life was victorious and glorious.

II. TIMOTHY III: 5

"Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away."

This text is a description of certain false teachers who had arisen in the midst of the church, or who would arise and assume the name of disciples of Christ, as well as authority to teach. They would assume the outward form of Christianity and adopt its expressions and conform to its usage in outward respects, but would deny that there was any supernatural power or divine unction in it. And there are such men to-day. But if Christianity be not attended by any supernatural agency and energy present in it and with it, then it is no better than any other of the so-called religions of the world. If it has only form and body, without a living and life-giving soul and divinity in it, it is on a level with the heathen religions, for they all have these. And, indeed, all men have a form of religion, and many of them are so devoted to it that they will suffer and some of them die before they will give it up. The ancient Jews held to the forms of their religion, and fought for it in bloody and bitter wars. And the Pharisees at the time of Christ were the most careful and scrupulous observers of all the forms of their religion, and yet Jesus denounced them as the wickedest sinners of His time. There are men of this kind in the Christian churches of to-day, men who go through the forms of religion, who perform the outward duties of religion, and who would not give these up for any consideration; and yet they not only do not experience anything of the power of inward religion, but they go so far as to deny that there is any such inward power, and call those who claim to have it fanatical.

But read the following passages, and see if we have not Scripture warrant for this power of religion: I. Corinthians ii., 4; I. Thessalonians i., 5; II. Timothy i., 7; Ephesians iii., 16; and our text, II. Timothy iii., 5.

1. The power of Christianity is shown in the conviction for sin.

It is impossible to get men to see and realize the sinfulness and hatefulness of sin. It is impossible for any power of men's eloquence to pierce through the deep native depravity of the heart – through the selfish motives, desires, ambitions and interests, and get men to see and feel the nature and danger of sin. Oh, the impossibility of making men feel guilt and danger by any human means while they are dead in sin! But under the power of this force, or, rather, this agent, who works in and through Christianity, the poor sinner sees and feels all this. He sees that, of all bitter and perilous things, sin is the most bitter and perilous and dreadful. He feels smitten with remorse. He feels that there is no beauty in the world, or in anything, because of the blackness and ugliness and foulness of his own evil heart and life. And he feels that, above all things, he must get rid of sin, and at whatever cost, and speedily at that, for the agony is unendurable. Everything seems as nothing compared with salvation from sin. "He will go and sell all he has to buy it," as Jesus says. This sense of sin and danger produces an earthquake in the spiritual nature that upheaves the hidden depths of the soul. Like the pilgrim in Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, he puts his fingers in his ears and flees from the City of Destruction. Like the murderers of Jesus when convicted by this power, he cries out, "What must I do to be saved?"