Steps to Christ                        TOUCHED BY GOD
 
        I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.  Gen. 32:30.
 
    After Jacob's final effort to secure his own safety, he had gone alone to the brook Jabbok.  He had done everything he could do to save himself.  It hadn't worked.  He probably didn't think praying would work, either, if all his strategy and planning hadn't, but he wasn't going to take any chances.  Then God came near to answer Jacob's prayer.  He placed a hand on his shoulder.  The night was dark, and Jacob was afraid.  When he felt the touch of God, he thought it was the hand of an enemy. And so he fought Him.  It took him all night, until the dawning of the day, to discover that God had come near to impart rich blessing.
 
    This was a parable of his entire lifetime.  For twenty years, whenever God placed His hand on his shoulder, he fought Him.  He thought it was an enemy.  God wanted to be in charge of his life, and Jacob wouldn't let Him.  He wanted to be in charge of himself.  That's the crisis of surrender.  And it took pain for the day to dawn.  But when the day finally dawned, then Jacob, instead of fighting God, clung to Him.
 
    Our greatest strength is realized when we feel and acknowledge our weakness.  Christ connects fallen men and women, in their weakness and helplessness, with the source of infinite power.  What was it that dawned on Jacob's mind that night?  He had been doing that which God did not expect or ask him to do.  For twenty years Jacob had been trying to live up to the promises he had made to God at Bethel.  Then he discovered that what he needed was to accept the promises God had made to him.  He discovered that the effort God promises is not the fight to change one's life, not the fight to do what God has promised to do for us, but only the fight to maintain connection with Heaven, with God.  There is something for us to do to secure salvation.  We must come to Jesus.  "Him that cometh to me," says Jesus, "I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).
 
    It was by self-surrender and faith that Jacob gained the victory he had failed to gain in his own strength.  It will be by surrender of self and by trust in God that we can gain the victory in our lives.  When God places His hand on our shoulder, wouldn't it be wonderful to recognize Him as a friend rather than as an enemy?

Steps to Christ                        WINNING BY LOSING
 
        And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh.  And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.  Gen. 32:26.
 
    It is interesting to learn that salvation by faith is taught just as strongly in the Old Testament as in the New.  This is not just a New Testament teaching.  We have noticed that one of the stories that teaches some of he deepest lessons is the story of Jacob found in Genesis 32.  In the previous chapter we find that Jacob has stolen away from his uncle, in the dark of night, taking his two wives and his flocks and herds, and is headed for home.
 
    The closer he gets to home, the more nervous he gets.  He hears that there are four hundred soldiers coming.  The enemy is coming.  Esau is on the warpath.  And Jacob gets scared.  So he comes up with some clever strategy.  He divides his company into two groups, thinking that if one group gets attacked, the other group can escape.  He does everything he can think of to secure his own safety, to do his own thing.  He thinks God helps those who help themselves.  Finally, in desperation, he goes by himself in the darkness of night by the brook Jabbok, to pray.  Genesis 32:24-28: "Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.  And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him.  And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh.  And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."
 
    From this story we learn two major things.  First, conversion and absolute or constant surrender do not necessarily come at the same time in one's experience.  In fact, they seldom do.  The second point is that the end of self-effort requires a struggle that none of us are going to get by without recognizing we've been through it.  Jacob came forth from his experience crippled.  And we understand that he was crippled the rest of his life.  We will know when such an experience happens.  You may not know when you were converted.  But you are going to know when you go through the kind on crisis that Jacob did at Jabbok.

Steps to Christ                        MAKING DEALS WITH GOD
 
        Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.  Gen. 28:16.
 
    When Jacob slept with the rock for a pillow and saw the ladder reaching to heaven, the plan of salvation was presented to him; not fully, but in parts as were essential to him at that time.  Although his mind at once grasped a part of the revelation, its great and mysterious truths were the study of his lifetime and were unfolded to his understanding more and more.
 
    Let's look at the story in Genesis 28:13, 14.  God is telling Jacob that the promises made to Abraham were just as good for him.  Verse 15 says, "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places..., and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of."  Doesn't that sound like good news?  And Jacob awakened and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not."  He was afraid.  He set up a stone marker and called the place Bethel.
 
    Verse 20 records how he slipped into something that was characteristic of his philosophy of religion at that time.  "And Jacob vowed a vow."  Look carefully at his vow.  "If God will be with me, if He will keep me in the way I'm going and will give me food and clothing, if God will bring me back to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God."  He's trying to make a deal with God.  "You scratch my back and I'll scratch Yours."  Is the plan of salvation based on that?  It's obvious that there was some misunderstanding on Jacob's part of how God works.  He makes a vow.  Salvation is not based on our making vows to God, it is our accepting the vows that God has already made to us.  Genuine faith continues to love and trust God regardless of what happens to us.  God has promised only strength for the day, not skies always blue.  If Jacob had gone hungry, genuine faith would have said, "I still love You and trust You regardless."
 
    Jacob continued making deals with God all the way to the brook Jabbok.  Finally, he was found alone.  It was there that he gave up on doing it himself and surrendered totally to the control of God.

Steps to Christ                        JACOB COMES TO JESUS
 
        This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.  Gen. 28:17.
 
    Jacob was a religious man.  His family were church members.  At the time he lived at home, his spiritual experience was not all bad.  He was interested in the birthright for more than material reasons.  He wanted to be able to commune with God as Abraham did.  We'll have to give him good marks for that.  "But while he thus esteemed eternal above temporal blessings, Jacob had not an experimental knowledge of the God whom he revered.  His heart had not been renewed by divine grace."--Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 178.
 
    Jacob had some misunderstandings of how God worked.  He had been promised the birthright, but God has this persistent habit of waiting until the last possible minute.  (I used to get mad at Him for that.  But don't forget that God is the safest one in the universe to get mad at.  If you're mad at Him, you might as well tell Him so, because He knows it anyway.  But He never gets mad in return.)  So God waited until the last minute, and Jacob decided that He was asleep at the switch and that he needed to do something to help God fulfill His promises.  He and Rebekah got their heads together and came up with a master plan.
 
    You know the rest of the story.  Jacob got the birthright by fraud.  The result was that Jacob never did see his mother again.  You see him taking off through the desert sands, alone and guilty and in trouble.  The whole thing had backfired.  "God had declared Jacob should receive the birthright, and His word would have been fulfilled in His own time had they waited in faith for Him to work for them."--Ibid., p. 180.  But they decided to do something themselves.  So you see Jacob fleeing in despair.  Night comes on, and he lies down after finding a rock for a pillow, and he hardly dares to pray.
 
    He thought that all was hopeless, but he had a dream.  In his dream he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven.  Angels were ascending and descending the ladder.  The ladder represented Jesus.  Jesus was the connection between heaven and earth.  Jesus was still there.  Jesus still loved him.  Jesus had come to him in his time of need, as Jesus always does when one is ready to accept the grace He has to offer.  That night Jacob was converted.

Steps to Christ                        NOW IS SALVATION COME
 
        And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.  Luke 19:9.
 
    "Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold" (Luke 19:8).  What was Zacchaeus doing here?  Well, some people will say he had been saved by giving to the poor or by restoring four hundred percent.  But Jesus' reply to his apparent beating of his own moral drums in very interesting.  "And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house."  Don't miss that!  Today this man receives salvation.  Can't he receive salvation when he begins to mend his ways and to cover his tracks and to restore?  No, there's no salvation in giving to the poor; even if you give 50 percent of your income, that is not what saves you.  There is no salvation in restitution.  If I have taken form any man by false accusation, to restore him 400 percent sounds like a pretty good restitution, doesn't it?  But there is no salvation in that.
 
    "It is true that men sometimes become ashamed of their sinful ways, and give up some of their evil habits, before they are conscious that they are being drawn to Christ.--"Steps to Christ, p. 27.  What's really happening?  They are being drawn to Christ.  "But whenever they make an effort to reform, from a sincere desire to do right, it is the power of Christ that is drawing them."--Ibid.  So let's allow that it was the power of Christ that had drawn Zacchaeus to give 400 percent and 50 percent.  But that wasn't salvation.  "An influence of which they are unconscious works upon the soul, and the conscience is quickened, and the outward life is amended.  And as Christ draws them to look upon the cross, to behold Him whom their sins have pierced, the commandment come home to the conscience.  The wickedness of their life, the deep-seated sin of the soul, is revealed to them."--Ibid.  Not just the acts, but their real condition.  "They begin to comprehend something of the righteousness of Christ, and exclaim, 'What is sin, that it should require such a sacrifice...?  Was all this love, all this suffering, all this humiliation, demanded, that we might not perish?' "--Ibid.  "It is when Christ is received as a personal Saviour that salvation comes to the soul."--The Desire of Ages, p. 556.

Steps to Christ                        ZACCHAEUS COMES OUT OF HIS TREE
 
        I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.  Isa. 57:15.
 
    When Jesus came to Jericho, Zacchaeus had reached the point of giving up on a life centered on himself.  He was tired of his life of fraud and cunning, tired of running away from the Holy Spirit, and ready to accept the rest that Jesus had to offer.  When he heard that Jesus was to pass that way, he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed into the branches of a sycamore three in order to see Jesus.
 
    When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him--Zacchaeus, the one who thought he was going to be hidden from view.  Jesus saw him and said unto him, "Zacchaeus."  He knew his name.  We understand He'd never met him.  But He knew his name.
 
    Jesus never passes anyone by.  He is no respecter of persons.  He has an equal regard for everyone.  No one should feel that he has been left out or passed by.  Jesus has passed your way.  He passes everybody's was.
 
    And Jesus said, "Make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house" (Luke 19:5).  Zacchaeus was up a tree in more ways than one.  He was out on the limbs of the tree not only physically but spiritually.  We often try to compensate for our smallness of stature spiritually by making up for it with some external maneuver.
 
    It is a law of the spiritual life that you have to come down in order to go up.  Zacchaeus received Jesus joyfully.  And, of course, whenever that happens, there are always some in the crowd who begin to complain and gripe.  When they saw it, they all murmured that Jesus was gone to be a guest with a man that was a sinner.  Why did Jesus have to choose to go and eat lunch with this wretch?  Why didn't He choose someone in high esteem in the town of Jericho?  But there's the gospel again, in one phrase: Jesus went to be the guest of someone who was a sinner.  Jesus receives sinners.  If it weren't for the fact that he does, there'd be no hope for you and me.  Aren't you glad He is willing to be a guest with people who are sinners?  That's good news.  The goods news of the gospel of Christ.

Steps to Christ                        ZACCHAEUS COMES TO JESUS
 
        Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house.  Luke 19:5.
 
    Jericho is a familiar name to many Christians, who have memories of stories connected with that place way back to childhood.  There was the battle of Jericho, and the curse upon the city at the time of Joshua, in the Old Testament, which resulted in the old city of Jericho never being rebuilt.  Then there is the newer city, which is still there today.  It was the city toward which the good Samaritan was headed, as was the man he helped.  It was the city outside of which blind Bartimaeus sat begging.  And it was the city of Zacchaeus, who was a wee little man.  "A wee little man was he!"
 
    The story of Zacchaeus is an intriguing one.  It has all the drama of real life.  It has a comical side and it has deeply spiritual implications as an account of a true seeker after God.
 
    Zacchaeus was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.  If you analyze the regard that we have for the income-tax people today, perhaps you can understand somewhat how the people of Jericho felt about Zacchaeus.  He was not only a publican, he was the chief of publicans.  The publicans had become experts in fraud.  The riches they amassed were gotten at the expense of other people.  Zacchaeus was a thief.  You can see him lying awake at night, lonely, staring at his tapestries that should have been in someone else's house, and wondering whether his emptiness would ever end.  Then Zacchaeus somehow heard of Jesus, who accepted everyone who came to Him, who befriended publicans and sinners.  A hope began to grow in his heart that perhaps he too could find peace.  Then Jesus came to his town.
 
    It sort of strikes your funny bone to see Zacchaeus, the director of the internal revenue service, running to climb up into a tree with the street urchins.  But he did.  This demonstrates one big thing.  When there's a life-and-death matter at stake, you forget your inhibitions, your false dignity, and everything else.  It proves that Zacchaeus was really at the end of his own resources, recognizing his need of the help that only Jesus could give.  When we realize our need of Christ, nothing else will seem important enough to prevent us from coming to Him.

Steps to Christ                        WHAT IS NEW IN THE NEW BIRTH?
 
        Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  John 3:3.
 
    A great many people who in the past have come to Christ think they must not have really come, because the surrender didn't last.  That's one of the big dilemmas in the Christian world today.  There are hundreds of people who have sincerely come to Jesus with a great sense of need and have later become disenchanted when the "conversion" seemed to fade away.  It is possible to have genuinely accepted Christ and given up on self during the Week of Prayer last school year or on the sawdust trail forty years ago, but to have the commitment die from doing nothing about it ever since.  In order to grow in the Christian life we must learn how to be converted every day.
 
    Conversion is more than saying Yes to God one time.  When someone wakes up the week after the week before and discovers that he still has some of the same problems, weaknesses, and fears, he is tempted to think it must not have really "happened" after all.  And he waits for the next revival or camp meeting or altar call to run it by again.  He does not realize that often the devil works harder when he sees someone come to Christ than he ever did before.  Things may go worse for a period of time after conversions than they did before.  There may by more trials, more temptations, and more defeats than before the decision was made.  Have you seen it happen?  The devil tries everything he knows to get us to give up and forget about God.
 
    If conversion is not immediate victory, peace, and freedom from temptation and trial, what is it?  Here is a definition of conversion, based on two chapters in The Desire of Ages, "Nicodemus" and "At Jacob's Well": Conversion is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit upon the human heart, producing a change of attitude toward God and creating a new capacity for knowing God that we didn't even have before.
 
    Conversion is God's work, never ours.  When we are born again, instead of being against God, we're now on His side.  And we then have a relish for spiritual things that were foolishness to us while we were at enmity with God.  It is not the end, any more than physical birth is the end of physical life.  It is only the equipment to get started.  It is only the beginning.

Steps to Christ                        WHERE THE EFFORT COUNTS
 
        Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.  1 Tim. 6:12.
 
    There are two ways to fight God.  One way is to say, "I don't believe in God.  I have no use for Him, no time for Him."  So I don't go to Him.  There is a more subtle way that is just as effective.  That is to go to God with the thought that God helps those who help themselves.  I take my problems to Him, but I don’t leave them with Him.  Instead I get myself mixed up in the whole situation.
 
    I can have trouble with my car, and I can keep the auto mechanic from fixing my car by not going to him.  But there's a much more subtle way of fighting the mechanic.  I can take my car to him, and after he gets it in the garage and lifts up the hood, I can put my head in the other side and I can say, "Now just a minute.  Don't touch the spark plugs.  I just put those in two years ago.  And don't touch the carburetor.  The carburetor is very delicate and you might knock it out of kilter.  And whatever you do, don't touch the power steering."  Finally, he throws down his tools and says, "Here, take your care and fix it yourself."  I come to God and I say, "Now, God I'd like to have You do this for me."  But then I get myself all mixed up in the operation.  I'm trying to do part of it and trying to let God do part of it, and in this confusion, the mixing of my own efforts with God's power, comes defeat.
 
    The reason that so many people are frustrated in the Christian life is that they are working on the results instead of the cause.  Even boys and girls know the answer to the question "If you had to choose between working on eating and working on growing, which would you choose?"  It doesn't take them long to say, "Well, if you choose to work on eating, you'll do both, but if you choose to work on growing, you'll do neither."  The cause of our Christian growth has to do with knowing Jesus as our personal Friend.  The result comes in His living His life within us.

Steps to Christ                        STRENGTH IN ADMITTING WEAKNESS
 
        When I am weak, then am I strong.  2 Cor. 12:10.
 
    The term surrender is grossly misunderstood by thousands of Christians.  If a person's idea of Christianity is based upon behavior, then his primary focus will be on the Ten Commandments and trying hard to obey them.  If he is strong, he will "succeed"; if he is weak, he will fail.  The behaviorist philosophy never gets the person to the point of helplessness to take him on to surrender.  The behaviorist who is strong and apparently succeeds doesn't realize he is helpless.  The behaviorist who is weak says, "I can't do it; I give up," quits trying, and goes away from God at the very point, if he only knew it, at which he is the closest to God that he may ever be.
 
    The behaviorist thinks that surrender is giving up certain things in his life--giving up his sins, giving up his problems and his weaknesses.  So the behaviorist says, "I stand before God and this audience, and I promise that from now on I won't smoke, drink, or dance anymore."  If he is strong, he never does them again, and he becomes a so-called "good" church member.  If surrender has primarily to do with giving up things, the strong succeed and the weak fail.
 
    I've heard a lot of different gimmicks for giving up sins, giving up things.  I've even hear of people writing their sins on a piece of paper and passing them to the aisle, where they are all collected and brought down to the front of the church.  There is a little altar there, and someone lights a match and burns the "sins" all up.  Wonderful!  The sins are gone now.  The sins are all burned up.  Psychological and mass-psychology gimmicks.  The problem is that the weak person who wrote his sins down on a piece of paper in order to burn them up gets home and discovers he still has them.  There are people who have tried every gimmick in the book until finally they say, "I guess some people were born to be fuel for the fires of hell, and I must be one of them."  And they begin to believe in predestination.
 
    I'd like to point out what surrender really is.  Surrender is not giving up things.  Surrender is giving up the idea that I can do anything at all about things, except one: to come to Christ just a I am.  We must surrender ourselves to Him.