Subtilty and Simplicity

By Vance Havner

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. II Corinthians 11:3.

Strictly speaking, what is in mind here is the simplicity of our faith in Christ rather than the simplicity of the Gospel, but we need not stop there. What stands out most is the contrast between subtilty and simplicity. Satan deals in subtilties. Our Lord deals in simplicities. There is sublimity aplenty but the sublimity is revealed to the simple, kept from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. We have let our minds be corrupted by Satan’s subtilties away from the Saviour’s simplicities. Beware of any teaching, any movement that is sneaking and insidious. The truth is frank and honest and above-board. Satan’s subtilties bear the mark of the serpent—“the snake in the grass.” Our Lord stood in the public place and invited men to Him. The Early Church came out in the open. Paul said, “This thing was not done in a corner.”

It is part of Satan’s program to make our faith and practice complicated and involved. Now and then we need a rediscovery of the simplicity that is both in and toward Christ, in Him and in our faith in Him.

 

The Secret Ingredient

By Vance Havner

The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. Psalm 25:14

Everything has that mysterious “something” nowadays, whether washing powder or gasoline or vitamin pills or shaving cream or tooth paste – everything has that new added element that no other brand has. This magic X has a wonderful unpronounceable name not yet in any dictionary. We smile, but thousands of gullible mortals will buy truckloads of the hokum and find it no better than something else they fell for months ago.

But there is a secret ingredient that makes one brand of people different from all others. It is not some new religious fad or ism, although these too shout their magic formulas today. There are among us here and there those who have a deep inner peace and joy, “who ply their daily task with busier feet because their secret souls a holier strain repeat.”

No double-jointed theological jawbreaker is needed to name that secret ingredient. It is simply the grace of God, peace with God, and the peace of God in the trustful and obedient heart. “His secret is with the righteous” (Proverbs 3:32).