Let Go And Let God

“And Peter answered Him and said, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water. And He said come” (Matthew 14:28–29). We have in this text most surely a picture of letting go and letting God.

God’s Word in dealing with a world covered with darkness and water—a world without form and void—was just one word, “Let.”

Think of all this word “Let” means for the old Earth on which we live. The Earth produces its fruits, its flowers, its fish, its flesh of animals and upon it live this human race because God said, “Let.”

Let Go And Let God

Unto the darkness, that covered the deep,
God said, “Let there be light.”
Let Him now win your dark struggle within,
Let Him shine in on your night.

Chorus:
God said “Let.” Let Him undertake.
He will keep His promise, for His own name’s sake.
Reckon now the flesh life to be dead.
Trust the Spirit’s victory.
Let go and let God.

Unto the water that covered the earth
God said, “Let them subside.”
Let go the flesh life, its foam and its spray.
Live on the land that He dried.

He cried to Lazarus, “Come from the tomb!”
“Loose him,” He said. “Let him go.”
Why will you stay in the grave clothes today?
Victory now you may know.

The hardest task of the Christian’s life is to really come to such a place of surrender that we let go, and let God. In the natural it is hard for the teacher to bring the pupil to the place where it will let itself be taught. Even with a baby some of you have found that, helpless though it seems, it is hard to dress it. You have tried, have you not, to put a mitten on that little fist? Or put that little arm into a sleeve? Oh, how hard a time God has dressing us up in our heavenly clothes! He hungers to bring us to the place where we will allow Christ to be our very life. “Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:30–31).

Oh, how we struggle, and strive and strain to live a life that we see in Christ when we have but to yield wholly to Him and without the struggle, the striving or the straining. He does the living of that life by the Holy Ghost in our heart. Oh, let go your struggling, striving, straining, and let God.

It Seems Foolish

You say to me, Oh, give us a going over, then give us some enthusiastic commands and let us arise in our places with our jaws set in resolution that we will go forth from this place to copy Christ more closely. Ah, dear heart, I cannot. It would be like beating a stalled horse. You cannot live this life by copy. He must live it in you.

I know that to the rationally-minded my statements are but foolishness. Your preaching would be, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” “Get busy.” “Make good.” “Put your shoulder to the wheel.” All this preachment stresses the flesh. But, oh! all flesh effort is utter failure before God. It is only the propping up of a thing that is cursed and an absolute failure before God. It is as awful as to pick up a dead man’s hands and wave them to imitate the actions of a live man. The old Adam of us cannot please God, and God is only pleased when we reckon the old Adam dead through the death Jesus died to sin on Calvary. The new Adam, who is Jesus, is to be our all. And we are to reckon ourselves alive with Him from the dead, and to give Him and His blessed Holy Spirit full right of way. He has provided life for us, not to copy, but to receive. Let go and let God’s life have its way. The life of the Spirit is to be your life.

Yes, it seems foolish to the world to let go. But to those who have let go God has revealed Himself as the God all sufficient.

No Footing

You notice when Peter stepped out to walk with God that there was no natural footing, no place in the natural to stand. Yet Peter stood when he stepped out and walked on the water, until he began to look for a natural footing.

There is never a natural, but a supernatural, footing when souls step out freely to walk with the Lord. You say it is not practical. Oh, you are mistaken; it is very practical. It held Peter up and he walked on it, but it vanished when his hands tried to grasp after it and his brain tried to figure it out, and his reason ran around for something to rest on. Walking with God has a very practical footing, but it does not depend upon reason, but upon faith in Him, for He is the footing.

Call Out

Abraham was called out of his own land to walk in a land he knew nothing of. He became a stranger in a land which God gave him. He was willing thus to step out where there was no natural way out. This was faith. Abraham was called the father of the faithful. He let go of the things seen for the things in God still unseen. God promised him children in multitudes and allowed him to go on believing God for these promised children until he was an old man, stricken in years, and his wife an old woman. There was no natural hope for a son in that home of Abraham’s, but he believed God, and in Sarah’s old age she brought forth Isaac. God had promised that through Isaac the nations of the Earth would be blessed. We know that God has brought forth Jesus, born of a woman in the line of Isaac, and that God has kept His promise about the seed of Abraham, which is Christ. He will yet come to the earth as King of the children of Israel and be the blessing of the nations of the earth. All the promises which God made to Abraham, although Abraham saw no natural footing for them, will come to pass. Some of the promises have been fulfilled, and the time is rapidly approaching for the fulfillment of the rest of them. 

Sent Forth

Moses was called out into service for God. He was to be sent forth to deliver the children of Israel, according to God’s promise, but when God called him to this great task He did not take him to Sinai and show him His power and might, nor did He turn loose the whirlwind or the thunders and lightnings to show His power to Moses. He did not take him to a river and prove to him that He could make its waters divide, nor explain how He could do it. He did not let him into the secret of manna making. He showed Moses some things that, even though he saw them, they were still a great mystery. How could the bush burning be explained? Yet God showed him this. Where was a natural footing in the rod that became a serpent? Where was any basis for reason in the hand that became the hand of a leper? He stood in the presence of the supernatural with the shows off his feet and consented to walk on the supernatural and in the supernatural. To walk in the presence of the “I Am” God was Moses’ decision. What is yours? He went up against the enemy and enslaver of his people in the supernatural. Well, you let go, and go that way also. Dare you trust all to the One who gave all for you? Oh, glorious walk! Oh, walk of rest with Thee, Blessed Lord Jesus! Enter now this life in the Spirit beloved. He woos you gently to this hallowed walk in Himself. Say yes to His pleading. Interpret your very failure, and hunger for victory in your life as His blessed calling to you to step wholly apart from all else and rest wholly in Him.

Filling Up

The widow’s need led to the filled vessels. She did not tell the world her need, her tight place of want, but took it to God’s prophet. Have you complained, and murmured, and broken over until the home folks, and maybe the town folks, realize your great lack of victory? Why not take it to Him alone now? Why longer disgrace the One whose name you own and yet whose sway you will not yield to? Why not let go your own way and let Him have His way? He is all you need, and just what you need.

He met the widow’s need with every vessel filled. He will meet yours. Will you bring Him empty vessels, out of which you have emptied your own methods of meeting needs, and all the natural footings removed, and come fully to the great Supernatural Gift of God through Jesus, who will fill you, none other than the blessed Holy Ghost? You do not have to struggle to receive Him. Your only struggle will be in self-fighting, because you are going to receive Him in place of yourself. You cannot conquer self. You can only by your yielding turn the whole struggle over to the Spirit. Your work is reckoning the flesh dead with Jesus on the cross. This faith reckoning empties the vessels, and faith reckoning on the all-conquering life of the Holy Ghost within fills the vessels. No, there was no natural footing for the widow. She turned it all over to the supernatural. Shut herself in with God and He worked until every vessel was filled. The debt was paid, and enough was left for her and her children to live on. Oh, take enough. He is enough.

What Is The Attraction?

Now, with Peter, what was the attraction?

Why would Abraham step out?

Why would Moses consent?

Why dare a person let go and let God?

First—Because of what He has worked out for us on the Cross. Since He has worked it out for us, the Spirit works with us until we allow Him to work it out in us. When we see that the blood from that cross pays, we love Him, and His love that took Him to death for us breaks these stubborn wills. Oh, the wonders of the work of Calvary! A wealthy judge in the South argued often with an old Methodist preacher about the atonement. His argument was that he did not need Jesus to pay anything. He thought, since he was of a good family and had lived a good life before his neighbors, and paid his debts and told the truth and was noted for his mercy and justice, that he was already saved. The faithful preacher talked very faithfully with him, but to no avail. He also talked to his son, but the father had trained the son as his father had trained him, and he did not care to have the minister get the notion into the boy’s head that his soul was in any danger. The boy had a high temper, like his father, and high spirits. One night in a secret den of the city the son was drinking and in a fit of jealousy planned a ride for his rival. At the edge of the city a shot was fired and the body of his rival was thrown from the carriage. The girl in the case loved the rival and turned her hatred on the judge’s son, and in his anger he shot her. They caught him in another town. Down came the famous family name, down came the judge’s head, down came the judge’s proud heart in grief. In his agony and anguish of soul he called for the old minister. “Only blood, pure, spotless blood, the blood of the Son of God, will pay,” said the broken judge. “Go tell my son of Jesus’ blood.” The minister went. Oh, this is the attraction. “While we were yet sinners, in the time Christ died for the ungodly.” “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Surely we can let go and let Him when He calls. He’s calling now. Will you let go?

Second—Because of the place He occupies right now. He is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is in the place of power. “Far above all principalities and power and every name that is named.” Can you not let Him take control? Yes, you can. His is “the power and the glory forever.” It is only another amazing attraction to those who step out to walk in the Spirit.

Third—Because He has so much to give. Dr. Marsh, in going over the Word, finds My before all these things that I will name, and they are all His and yet all for us:

“My body,” “My blood,” “My life,” “My flesh,” “My hands and My feet,” “My Word,” “My Father,” “My rest,” “My Spirit,” “My commandments,” “My voice,” My joy,” “My name,” “My grace,” “My power,” “My love,” “My peace,” “My glory.”

Oh, beloved, is this not attraction enough to leave the struggle of your “my” and take all that He gives in His “My”?

Fourth—Because this is to all be in us. It is not only in glory. But here and now in our breasts He wants to fill His temple with all these heavenly furnishings. Oh, wait before Him until the fire falls within! Your given up self is but a wick dropped into Himself, the oil. You are in Him and He is in you and He will let the fire fall on the Earth side to make you a fire for Himself. He will let you (the wick) be lighted, but it is the burning oil of His holy presence which gives the light. Learn to stay quietly in Him and He will tend the flame.

Fifth—The great attraction is His saying to us, as He said to Peter, “Come.”

“He drew me and I followed on
Charmed to confess that voice Divine,
For I am His and He is mine.
Lord, I am Thine forever.”

Oh, hear Him telling you now that you dare leave your little boat and step out where He is standing. The waves may roll, the flesh may howl, but here is your security. He is standing on them. They are under His feet. You are not holding them down or suppressing them, neither is He hushing them yet, but, oh, bless God! He is riding them. They are under His feet and I am walking with Him. It is not my victory; it is His. I see Him the great attraction. I can let go and let Him hold me up a victor in Him.

Sixth—I am sure that He will not go down, and that He will get me through. Peter stepped out and walked and then started to sin, but Jesus reached forth His hand and held him. Oh, He’ll pull us through. We can afford to let go. Abraham got tangled up in Egypt, but God finally got him to Mt. Moriah and to a place where he withheld nothing from God, not even Isaac, his only son. Moses was a murderer, then he was backward, then in the day when God was greatly using him he failed to give God the glory and was not allowed to go into Canaan land, and God took him off alone and no man knew where his body was put. Yes, God wonderfully pulled him through, for at the transfiguring of Jesus on the mount who should be there as the honor guest but this same Moses. Oh, beloved, it is grace. Let Him take you just as you are and He’ll take you through. Isn’t it a great enough attraction to step out on, to know that He will do the fighting and the winning and land you at last with a crown of victory on your brow? Yes, He will. Will you let go and let Him?

Seventh—What greater attraction on top of all these should we have to let go everything and let God than the glad attraction of His coming? Oh, that glorious event! It stirs my soul like martial music. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. What if He were to come tomorrow and you knew He was coming? Would you let go? Well, He is coming perhaps this second or the next, and He wants His bride to be ready. Yes, ready and waiting. 

Oh let go and let God!