Brothers and sisters, what happens when we see the Lord’s death for us on the cross, and what happens when we believe? We immediately stop trying to do good. As soon as we believe, we are saved. Similarly, when we see that the Lord has brought us to the cross and crucified us there, we will cease fighting and stop improving ourselves. Once we believe that the Lord is living within us and overcoming for us, we will stop our own work and allow God to rescue us. We will say, “Lord, I will never improve, and I do not intend to improve. From now on, I will not do anything, I will not manage anything, and I will not be concerned about anything. From now on, I will let go, and problems will no longer be my problems.” Brothers and sisters, this is surrendering. This is letting go.
Some have said that it is very difficult to let go. When temptation comes, they have to put up a fight, and when their temper rises up, they have to wrestle with it. When they resolve to stop doing something and fail, it only means that they make a stronger resolution next time. However, one more resolution only means one more failure, and one more promise only means one more broken promise. The more resolutions one makes, the more he fails. If the first resolution is not strong enough, the second resolution will not work even when it is stronger. Romans 7 describes this well: To will is present with us, but to work out the good is not (v. 18)! No promise that is made is appropriate, because we have not let go. We are still managing our own affairs, and we cannot say that we are crucified with Christ and that it is no longer we who live. Dying is letting go, resigning. It is giving up our efforts to take control and ignoring them. When we are no longer able, God will become able. Hence, the first thing is letting go.
There was a brother by the name of Lee in Tientsin who once asked me how he could resign and let go. He said that he could not resign or let go. What should he do? I asked what he did in his company, and he told me that he was the manager of the textile department. I asked, “If the general manager of the company told you that you were no longer needed by the company the following month and that you were fired, what would you do?” He said that the only thing he could do would be to resign. Then I asked, “Suppose the next month came, the new manager arrived, and you transferred everything to him. What would you do if a buyer came to you and asked, ‘Manager, what kind of new fabric do you have? What is its price? How much do you think this price will go up in two days?’” The brother answered, “If it happened a few days before the new manager arrived, I would make some calculations and find out what the company had in stock and how much it needed to stock up. But if I had already transferred everything to the new manager, I would have nothing more to do. All I could do would be to watch others work.” This is letting go and surrendering. This is what it means to be crucified with Christ. We have to say to the Lord, “I am not resigning because I am capable. I am resigning because I cannot stand it any longer. I am not capable of doing anything. I cannot manage anything any longer. This is why I have to resign. My temper is still present. My pride is still present. My stubbornness and jealousy are all still present. I can do nothing about them. I can only make a transfer and resign. I can only say that everything is in Your hands from now on.” However, when “the buyers from the street” show up, we must not be alarmed. There are many “buyers” who come every day to solicit business. All we have to do is commit everything to the Lord’s hands. We do not have to care for or manage anything. This is the meaning of overcoming. This is the meaning of surrendering.
Do you know what temptation is? One brother said that he was always tempted to lose his temper. Another brother said that he was always tempted to be stubborn. One brother complained that he was always tempted by unclean thoughts. Another brother complained that he was always tempted by a quick tongue. It seems that there are a thousand different kinds of temptations to a thousand different kinds of people. But brothers and sisters, there is actually only one temptation in the world. We think that temptations lead us to temper, pride, greed, or adultery. But with Satan, there is only one temptation—the temptation to move. Satan does not induce us to lose our temper or to be proud, greedy, or adulterous. His temptation is to make us move. As long as we move, Satan prevails over us. It does not matter how we move. As long as Satan becomes successful in initiating a move, we have failed. In our prayer and reading of the Bible, he has won the victory the minute we move. I only wish I could speak with many tears in my eyes. We should not move. The minute we move, we are defeated. We can struggle with Satan. We can fight with him or withstand him. But the minute we move, Satan has gained the complete victory. We have to realize that the secret to our victory lies in our standing by; it does not lie in our taking control. Once we try to manage the situation, we will fail. Brothers and sisters, this is a most amazing thing! God wants to set us aside and allow His Son to overcome for us.
Galatians 5:17 says, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these oppose each other that you would not do the things that you desire.” This verse does not say that we oppose our lusts or that our lusts oppose us. It says that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. We do not play any part. These two parties are opposing each other. What does this mean? A brother once lamented that his only desires were sin and uncleanness. He could not help himself. But it is the flesh who is fighting against the Spirit, and the Spirit who is opposing the flesh. We play no part in this fighting. This is God’s way of deliverance. If we can stand back and allow the Spirit to fight against the lusts and the lusts to fight against the Spirit, we will experience deliverance.
When I was first saved, I heard a story about a young girl who knew the meaning of victory very well. During the Keswick Convention, a man asked the little girl how she overcame when the devil came to her. She answered, “In the past, if the devil came to knock at my front door, as soon as he knocked, I would say, ‘Don’t come in. Don’t come in.’ But the result was always a failure. Now when the devil knocks at my door, I say, ‘Lord, You open the door for me.’ If the Lord opens the door, and the devil sees the Lord, he will say, ‘Sorry, I came to the wrong door,’ and he will run away.”
When we are tempted and say, “Lord, save me because temptation is coming my way again,” the devil will come in even before the door is open. We have to allow the Lord to handle the matter completely. The more we pray, the more desperate we become, and the more we repeat our prayer, the harder it is to let go. A brother once said that when Peter was sinking, he said only, “Lord, save me.” Praying with a short sentence is letting go. But if one continues to pray, “Lord, save me...,” five or six times, he is already defeated. I call this kind of prayer a hangman’s prayer. This is like a person who tries to hang himself a second and third time after having been unsuccessful the first time. When a person repeatedly prays this way, it shows that he has not let go. He is trying to grasp victory with his prayer. He is trying to overcome with his own strength. Invariably, the result is defeat. If he did not pray so much, he still might have overcome. Brothers and sisters, please remember that Satan is trying to make us move. As long as we move, even if it is by praying, he will have his way.
Suppose you lose your temper every time you are agitated by others. What will you do today? What are you going to do when someone continues to agitate you with his words, and the agitation grows increasingly worse? “Lord, I do not take control of this matter; my temper is not my business; victory is Your business. I cannot control my temper. Lord, You must be responsible for this.” If you can say this, you are indeed letting go. The Lord will take over, and you will live out His patience. You will even be able to thank and praise Him, saying, “Lord, I do not take responsibility for this anymore.” However, if you feel that you cannot bear the agitation, and you pray, “Lord, deliver me, for I am about to lose my temper,” fifteen minutes will seem like fifteen hours to you. You may not lose your temper outwardly, but inwardly you will be burning. This is not victory. Satan does not need to make you lose your temper in a big way. All you need to do is move a little, and he will have the victory.
Overcoming is refusing to move. Overcoming is disregarding the situation and turning away. If you do not move, and if you disregard the situation and turn away, you are letting go. Victory has nothing to do with you. You are dead already; it is Christ who overcomes for you. Victory is for you to die and for Christ to live.
Recently in Chefoo, many brothers and sisters discovered the overcoming experience. One sister had a difficult past. Her husband was very unkind to her, and she was ill-treated by her mother-in-law. She endured, but she did not overcome. After she heard my preaching on the overcoming life, she received the word. But after two days, she came to me and asked how she could let go and how she could put herself in the hands of the Lord. I tried to explain it to her, but she could not understand. Finally, I asked the Lord to give me a suitable illustration. I said to her, “Mrs. So-and-so, have you ever taken a rickshaw ride to a friend’s house?” She said yes. I said, “Suppose you arrived at your friend’s house, and while you were paying the rickshaw man, your friend stepped in and tried to pay for you. Even though you wanted to pay the money, your friend insisted on paying it. Then when you returned the money to her, she tried to return the money to you. Have you ever encountered something like this?” She said yes. I continued, “Suppose she paid the twenty cents, and the rickshaw man took the money and left. Since you did not want your friend to pay, you pressed your money into her palm. However, when you were about to leave, she stuffed the money back into your palm. After this back-and-forth exchange had been repeated several times, you decided to put the money on the ground and say good-bye to your friend. But then you wondered whether your friend would take the money and what would happen if she did not take it and someone walking along the road took it. You wondered what would happen if the rickshaw man took it or a little child saw it and took it. You therefore turned and looked to see whether your friend took it. When you saw that your friend had not taken it, you turned and peeped again. But as long as you turn and peep, your friend will never take it. However, if you put the money on the ground and said to your friend, ‘The money is here; take it,’ and you ran away without looking back anymore, your friend would probably take it.” After I told her this illustration, she understood and entered into the experience of the overcoming life.
This is the way many people commit their affairs to God. On the one hand, they say that they have committed everything to God. But on the other hand, their hearts are not at ease, and all the time they glance back. If you want to take control, He will not take control; instead, He will allow you to take control of yourself. If you will not take control anymore, He will take control and will bear the full responsibility. If you want to take control, it will be up to you to suppress your temper and you will have to pick up everything yourself. What does it mean to surrender? It means to leave the money on the ground and turn around and walk away. It means to ignore. It does not matter whether the children take the money away or the rickshaw man or a pedestrian takes it away. You do not worry about it anymore, and you do not take responsibility for it anymore. You need only to say to the Lord, “Lord, I give everything to You. From now on, I do not care whether I am good or bad.” Once you commit yourself to God this way, God will surely receive what you have committed to Him. All that we need to do is to hand over what we have to the Lord.
We have to let go first before God will pick up what we have let go. However, we want to wait for God to pick it up first before we let it go. But God wants us to let go first before He will pick it up. I told the brother whom I mentioned earlier that if his boss decided to lay him off on the first day of the following month, and if a new person were hired, he would have to transfer everything over to the new man. During the interim period, he would be responsible for half of everything, and the new person would be responsible for the other half. This transition between the old and the new is an overlapping exchange. But for God, He either takes up everything or He takes up nothing at all. He will never take up half and leave it up to us to take up the other half. We have to quit on the thirty-first, and then God will move in on the first. If we try to quit gradually, God will not take over.
Brothers and sisters, one of our greatest sins is an evil heart of unbelief. We try to control ourselves and suppress ourselves every day. We are the ones who are controlling and suppressing ourselves. We wonder what would happen if we did not control or suppress ourselves. When we preach the gospel to an unbeliever, we tell him that he should not worry about anything, because Christ has died for him; he needs only to believe and he will receive everything. In the same way, we have been crucified with Christ, and Christ is living within us. Thank and praise God that Christ is our Head and we are His members. Christ is the vine and we are the branches. He is our life and our everything. When we are removed, when we give up, resign, and turn away, Christ will begin to take over.
If an unbeliever tries to get rid of himself, the devil will move in. “Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came out. And it comes and finds it unoccupied, swept, and decorated. Then it goes and takes along with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter in and settle down there” (Matt. 12:44-45). For believers, it is a case of two households under the same roof. When one moves out, the other will still remain. If a man is not saved, he will not be victorious even if he ceases all his work. But if he is saved, the Lord will give him the full victory as soon as he stops his work. Once the self moves out, victory comes. Once we move out, we overcome. Letting go and resigning means doing away with ourselves and moving out. This is the meaning of full surrender.
In the book The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, there is a story of a Christian climbing down a dry well. There was a rope at the edge of the well, and the man lowered himself down the well by climbing down the rope. Suddenly, he came to the end of the rope. He wanted to get to the bottom, but he did not know how deep the well was. He thought about climbing back to the top of the well, but he did not have enough strength. The only thing he could do was tightly hold the rope and cry out for help. However, the well was in a wilderness, and the man was inside the well. No one responded to his shouts. Soon his voice was gone, his strength was exhausted, and he could no longer hold on. He prayed, “God, may I fall into eternity.” After he prayed, he let go with his hands and fell, but it was only a three-inch fall! Whoever thinks that they will fall into the abyss when they let go will find that they have fallen onto the eternal Rock rather than into eternity. Brothers and sisters, let go! Let go! The first condition for the overcoming life is to let go. From now on, you do not need to take control. This means that from now on, you will overcome. Resignation brings in victory.
In Chefoo recently, a sister heard of the two conditions for the overcoming life—surrendering and believing. I asked whether she had gotten through. She used to go to the mountain to pray all the time, and she answered, saying, “I went to the mountain today and dug another grave for myself and made another burial.” I asked her a few times, and she always answered this way. I knew that she had dealt with many difficult sins already, but she was still not happy. I prayed for her, but there did not seem to be much result. One day I prayed that God would give me the utterance to help her to get through. She was playing a hymn that day. I asked how she was doing. That very question caused her to begin to cry. She told me that she had dealt with many things, but that she could not deal with the small sin of eating snacks. This might not mean anything to others, but to her it was a small sin. When she mentioned this, I laughed and said, “This is wonderful. Nothing can be better.” She said, “You said that the condition for receiving the overcoming life is first to surrender and second to believe. I cannot surrender, and I cannot believe.” I said, “Then why don’t you just continue to not surrender and not believe?” She answered, “But didn’t you say that the condition for overcoming is first to surrender and second to believe? Now I cannot surrender and I cannot believe. What should I do?” I said, “Just continue to not surrender and not believe. What is the meaning of surrender? To surrender is to let go. To let go is not a work, but you have made it a work. To believe is also not a work, but you have made it a work. If you cannot surrender or believe, just stay the way you are. There is no need to improve yourself, and there is no need to even let go. It is true that the condition for overcoming is to surrender and believe. But you have made surrendering and believing a formula for victory. This will not work. Just let go completely. There is no need for you to do anything. There is no need to even try to let go or believe. If you can utter a praise, then utter a praise. If you cannot, there is no need to try. If you can come before the Lord, come before Him. Come before Him no matter whether you are living or dead. That is all you need to do. This is the meaning of letting go.” Friends, we are too complicated. God says that there is no need to do anything, but we still want to do many things. Many brothers and sisters say that they are letting go, but they still make letting go a kind of work. They struggle back and forth between letting go and not letting go. They are still exercising their own strength in this matter. Brothers and sisters, letting go means that you are through. This is victory. After the sister heard my word, she was confused for three days. The light was too much for her, and she was confused. But after three days, she made it through! Brothers and sisters, is there anything that you cannot get through? That sister had only one thing which she could not let go of, and the Lord brought her through.