VBtV - Chapter 12

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

September 30,2010


   *(From: “Visions Beyond the Veil” by H.A. Baker)*


 *Chapter 12 - THE WAY*


 There is only one way. Christ is the way. *“No one comes unto the Father
but by me.”*


 Man is not the way; man can never make a way; nor does man ever know the
way to the golden city. The city and the way to the city are altogether
revelations from above. Man's self constructed bridge of good works and so
called good living will prove worthless and break beneath him *“in the day
when God shall judge the secrets of men.” *This is the end of the self made
moral man.


 Christ, who is the way, is not from below. He is from above. It is *“He
that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven,” who is
“the Great God, our Savior Jesus Christ.” John 3:13, Titus 2:13.*


 Man does not travel toward the happy city of pure delight. He travels away
from it. The longer he walks the farther he gets away from the heavenly
city. Children belong to the Kingdom of God. They play and frolic at the
gates of the city. When they begin to walk alone they always walk away from
the city, away from this happy Eden home. The farther they wander and the
more they reason - whether they walk alone or follow the crowd - the farther
they get from the city, until its light is but dimly seen or lost forever.
The only way to reach the city is to *turn back*. *“Except you **turn**, and
become as little children, you shall in no wise enter the Kingdom of
Heaven!” Matthew 18:3.* But the farther man walks alone, the older he gets,
the richer he becomes; the more he studies with his natural mind, the more
he passes turnstiles in his self-conceited course until, at last, the
farther turnstiles refuse to move, that should turn him back to a simple
faith. He finds no way of returning to a heart like *“a little child.”*


 “*The world through its wisdom did not know God.” 1 Corinthians 1:21. *Man
by study will never find God. The man who trusts the workings of his own
mind or the minds of other men will never see the city of God.


 Man on the merits of his character will never walk the golden streets. What
a man is, what a man does, or how a man lives has nothing to do with his
salvation. On the basis of how *“good” *he is, the best man on earth has no
more hope of heaven than the worst man on earth. Man who trusts in his own
character, his own moral goodness, is only a modern Pharisee with eyes
blinded to the truth. The publican, the drunkard, the harlot will enter the
city of God, while that *“good”* man will be cast into outer darkness where
is weeping and gnashing of teeth.


 “*By grace” *we are saved, *“apart from works.” * Salvation is something
God gives. It is not something man is or is not. Salvation is from above. It
is not from below, or from within, or from among men.


 That which is born from below is flesh and born by the will of man. Those
born from below, no matter how wise or good or bad they may become, must be
born again from above. They become the children of God *“who were born not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
John 1:18. “Except one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John
3:3.* This birth, that every accountable man must have who will ever see God
or sing the songs of the redeemed in the city beyond the sky, is a *
supernatural* birth. It is altogether from above. Joining Church, singing
hymns, reading or saying prayers, working in or for the church, preaching
from the pulpit, or giving all one's body to be burned has nothing whatever
to do with the new birth. The new birth is something that God gives
regardless of works.


 The finest pulpit orator, the most formal churchman, the most protesting
protestant has no more hope of heaven than the most reckless sinner, unless
he be *born again.*


 *How to Find the Way Back Home*


 The Lord was so anxious to have me return that He made the way simple and
plain. I was a sinner living selfishly and not alone for the glory of God. I
had turned to *my own* way. *“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God.” Romans 3:23. “There is none righteous - no not one.” “They have all
turned aside.” Romans 3:11, 12. *I was among that number.


 Jesus came from heaven to save “sinners,” not “righteous people” with good
characters. Thus I had my chance. I should have suffered the penalty of my
sin, but Christ loved me and died in my stead. He bore my *“sins in his body
upon the tree.” 1 Peter 2:24.* Christ died on the Cross the Sinless One
instead of the sinner. He *“who knew no sin”* died in my place on the cross
where I should have died. I, the sinning Barabbas, the punishment deserving
sinner, was set absolutely and unconditionally free.* “He who knew no sin
was made sin in our behalf.” 2 Corinthians 5:21. *God punished Jesus, so He
will not punish me. Because He forsook Jesus He will not forsake me. All I
had to *be* was to *be* a sinner. All I had to *do* was to *do nothing.*


 I simply *believed* that Jesus did it all. *“He that believes has eternal
life.” John 6:47. “He that believes has passed out of death into life.” John
5:24. *To them that believe he gives *“the right to become sons of God.”
John 1:12.* Having believed that Jesus did what He said He did, and having
accepted Him as my substitute and as my sin-bearer, He accepted me as His
child. He sent His Holy Spirit into my heart, so that I was *born from
above.* The Holy Spirit in my heart bore witness, crying, *“Abba Father.”
Romans 8:15-16.*


 Before that, I had worked. Now God worked in me to will and do His good
will. The things I once loved I now hated, and the things I once hated I now
loved. Now the more I try to be good the worse it goes. The more I believe
God works in me and for me the better it goes.


 The Lord has shown me the light of the city ahead. *“I know Him whom I have
believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him against that day.” 2 Timothy 1:12. *I shall surely enter
by the gates into the city to share the joys of those who overcome by simple
faith because of the blood of the Lamb.


 The way to come back to the Father's house is the humble way the prodigal
son returned after his wanderings in the iniquity of his own proud
self-willed way. Every man who has *“come to himself” *so that he really
knows his own selfish heart, can honestly come as the prodigal came saying,
*“Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight: I am no more
worthy to called your son.”*


 Christ finished salvation. He died for the sins of the whole world. Eternal
life is a *“gift”.* *“The free gift of God is eternal life.” Romans 6:23. *This
gift is free. All we have to do is accept it or reject it, take it or ignore
it. We must be like one or other of the thieves on the cross: either believe
that Jesus is God and can save a sinner who acknowledges his condition, and
spend eternity with Christ in Paradise, or be like the other thief and
disbelieve that Jesus is God, and die in our unrepented and unforgiven sins
away from God.


 Christ saves any and all who are saved *because of their belief*. *“Whoever
believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16. *Those
who believe and are thus saved, Christ keeps. They hold not the Rock, but
the Rock holds them. They do not hold Christ; Christ holds them. They are *
saved* by grace through faith apart from works. They will be *kept* by grace
through faith apart from works. *“This is the victory that overcomes the
world **even our faith**. Who is he that overcomes the world but he that **
believes** that Jesus is the Son of God.” 1 John 5:4-5. *


 The saved by grace and the kept by grace live lives of repentance, do the
works of righteousness, and perform religious duties because they are saved
already, but not in order to get saved. The work of value they do is because
of what God has put *in* them from *above*. The saved have become *“partakers
of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1:4. “If any man has not the Spirit of
Christ, he is none of his.” Romans 8:9. *All of Christ's children have the
Holy Spirit in their bodies and hearts and have been *born again*. *“I no
longer live but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 2:20. *Christ within causes
all my works that please him, *“For it is God who works in you both to will
and to work for his good pleasure.” Philippians 2:13. *


 The saved are heavenly citizens who love not the world nor the things of
the world. They have as much of the “heaven life” now as they have of the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the heaven life, the life of God, the
eternal life. We have the *“earnest,” *or down payment, of heaven.


 Through the deeper experiences of the Holy Spirit, heaven may become more
real than earth, so that the child of God may, at times, almost walk by
sight as well as by faith on his pilgrim journey to the city whose builder
and maker is God.


 Our Adullam message is now complete. This testimony is sent forth, not
because of any natural superior knowledge, but because of these things that
have happened among us as *“God revealed them through the Spirit.” 1
Corinthians 2:10.*


 The best we know we cannot write. The best to be known can only be known
directly through the revelations of the Holy Spirit to one's own self.. More
we would write, but more we cannot now write. But what has been written, we
have written that you may believe and that *“believing you have have life in
His name” * Or, having life, that you may be encouraged to press onward
until you receive more and more of the abundant life, the life through the
baptism and fullness of the Holy Spirit, the life the Lord has planned for
each of His children, the foretaste and fore-life of the Great City of the
King, the city of God where all things are made new.



 *NOTE**:* This book was placed in my hands in 1944, shortly after the Lord
revealed Himself to me as a sailor during World War II. It has had a
profound influence upon my life, and the Lord *has* used it, and is still
using it. May this final chapter - “The Way” - be used by each one of us to
win many souls to Christ.


 Harold Baker won some 200 souls to Christ in Buffalo NY shortly after
graduating from a College to prepare ministers. It was his first pastorate.
In China he saw numbers come into God's Kingdom while he was yet learning
the language. In Tibet for 7 years, he saw a remarkable number come to
Christ in a very difficult field.''


 After a brief interlude back in the US, he and Mrs. Baker returned to
China, and the Adullam Family of orphan and beggar children - and God's
visitation upon them - is the basis for this book and its final chapter.


 From there God led him among poor mountain tribal people of SW China in Ka
Do land, and again over 6000 from many tribes came to the Lord. When the
communists took over he was forced back to the US, and with Mrs. Baker had a
fruitful ministry among the Navajos of our South West for 2 years. Then
again as a Pioneer, on to Formosa among the Hakkas - and again a fruitful
soul-winning and soul-building ministry until their Heavenly Home-call.


 This Chapter - The Way - constantly undergirded him in personal
soul-winning and evangelistic meetings. We cannot go astray to follow in his
steps. J.A.W.



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