Random Excerpts From Jim Elliot's Journal

March 24, 1951There are men whom God admits to have power with Him above others. Jeremiah found an inexorable spirit in Jehovah when He declared, "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not be toward this people..."(Jer. 15:1). Moses had pleaded for Israel when the nation rebelled in the wilderness, and prevailed both at Sinai, when the golden calf roused God to threaten them with destruction, and at Kadesh Barnea, where they despised His good land (Pss. 106:23, 24; Num. 14:13-20; Exod. 32:11). Samuel, too, when Israel was in defeat before the Phillistines because of their idolatry (1Sam. 7) and when they rebelled by asking for a king (1Sam. 12), stood in the breach to intercede and prevailed for the people.In Ezekiel the Spirit selects three men who, if any could prevail, would be God's choice. Noah, the preacher of righteousness to a scoffing world, Daniel, a contemporary figure of powerful effect in the Babylonian court, and Job, the man who could be trusted in the hands of Satan to vindicate God's name (14:14). So bad had become the state of the Israelites that the combined righteousness of these three giants of God would serve only to deliver themsleves and would have no effect on the nation. Thus God finds no remedy for the national evil but its full punishment. Ezekiel's visions and Jeremiah's tears reach no further than to warn the people, not to turn them.I wonder how God feels about my own day. Would a Noah bring this generation to repentance? Could Moses plead thier guilt? Might not Daniel deliver them? Something is there which says no. My generation is doomed to condemnation--would that I could was their guilt with tears! Lord, remember mercy.~Jim Elliot~

November 10, 1949Romans 7 It has puzzled me quite often that Paul could say in Romans 7:9 that he "was alive without the law once." What did he mean? Certainly not that he possessed eternal life before the Law brought him to death and thence to Christ. May not Pillipians 3:6 have some meaning here? He regarded himself, blameless according to that form of outward righteousness which is of the Law. He was alive so long as the commandment was external. But when the "commandment came" (that is, the spiritual force of the Law gripped him), "sin revived and I died." I am coming to believe that Romans 7 is the normal experience of the believer in grace. Herb Butt and God's Way of Holiness by Horatius Bonar are the chief factors in the shift.Why does Paul mention that he is of the tribe of Benjamen? I wonder if this could not refer to Genesis 49:27 in which Benjamin "is as a wolf that raveneth: In the morning he shall devour teh prey, And at even he shall divide the spoil." Paul in his natural state in his ferocity toward the Church is well pictured in this.The gaining of Christ is both an inward reckoning of loss and an outward suffering of it. I have known myself to lose something for Him; yet cherish it in my thoughts. Paul says I not only reckon them scraps fit for the heap, but I have actually undergone the loss of them.I gain Him--sensing my losses, not losing my senses.I am found in Him--lost to myself.I know Him--forgetting Him as One I know after the flesh.I experience the power of His Resurrection--positive force.I experience the fellowship of HIs sufferings--natural outcome.I am conformed to His death--ultimate on earth.I attain resurrection--ultimate in glory.

Nov. 20, 19501 Kings 13 Jeroboam's understanding of the drawing and gathering power of the house of God in Jerusalem was clear. If he had failed to provide orthodox blood altars in Dan and Beth-el, the return of the ten tribes to Jerusalem would soon have knit the nation again. But foolishly his own pride and position blinded him to the good of a united people, and the golden calves were erected. Not unlike today, I sense, where the power of one gatering center is evident, Christ Himself being the magnetic force capable of uniting a divided Church.Yet, men will, to defend their place in the religious society existing, gather men to other altars, of other names, and teach God's people adherence to human "communions." And there are "old prophets" defending these eccentric altars today, as there were then (v.11). Woe be to the young man who, sent of God to reprove the altars of division, harks to the voice of venerable ancients in opposition to the voice of God. His bones shall testify to his God's intensity. "Whosoever will" is all right for the Gospel. It certainly does not apply to those who will be ministering priests at God's public altars (v.33). "Whosoever would" were annointed by Jeroboam, but God's ministers must be called, gifted, ordained by God to be fit ministers. "No man taketh this office to himself" (Num. 18:6,7).

March 14, 1949Eze 44:5,8 And the LORD said unto me, Son of man, mark well, and behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of the LORD, and all the laws thereof; and mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary. (8) And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves.Every egress of the sanctuary was to be noted and "marked well"; God is most jealous for details when it comes to His holy things. How like Israel is Nicolaitine Protestantism whose individuals do not each on care for the santuary's details (Rev. 2:6). "Ye have not kept my charge, but ye have set keepers of my charge in my santuary for yourselves" (v. 8). I have heard Christians say, "I want to hear someone preach who is trained and authoritative; I cannot be, so I set the preacher in my place to minister holy things." Woe to you, slothful keepers of the sanctuary of thy God.