성령 충만한 삶의 향기

성령 충만한 삶의 향기

그리스도와 함께 사는 삶의 향기를 말한 내용. 중국 석자직(席子直) 목사 역시 이와 같은 생애의 주인공 . 성령 충만하여 귀신을 잘 쫓아내므로 "석승마(席勝魔)"란 별명도 얻었다. 역시 그 번역문은 다른 데에 올려두었으므로 여기서는 생략. Helen처럼 석목사도 모든 일 전에 반드시 주님께 기도로 여쭈었다. 그의 유명한 간증 중에, 그가 "성령을 근심하게"(엡 4:30) 해드리자 귀신이 이를 먼저 알고 소리 지르기를, "아까 네가 하늘처럼 높아보이더니 지금은 내 앞에 발톱의 때만도 못하다!" 했다는 것은 우리가 마땅히 마음에 새겨 들을 일이라 생각된다. 즉 마지막 아담이신 주님과 나는 주님 따로 나 따로가 아닌 즉 "둘이 아닌 하나"로 나타난다는 명백한 사실이다. 

필자가 과거 한 10년간 번역 겸 편집인으로 있었던 월간 "승리의 생활"지의 영문판 "Herald of His Coming"에 실렸던 영문 기사. 번역문은 다른 데에 올렸으므로 여기서는 생략.

Herald of His Coming 주소:

http://www.heraldofhiscoming.com/other/home.htm

네이버 영어 사전 안내

At the same time that I was saved during a mighty movement of God in my city of Glasgow, a girl about the same age was also saved. Her name was Helen Ewan (U-an). She was just a slip of a girl, but at the very threshold of her new life in Christ, she crowned Him as absolute Lord and was thus filled with the Holy Spirit. She had accepted the invitation of her Lord to “drink abundantly”

In the day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive.) (John 7:32-39a).

The torrents of living water simply began to flow from Helen’s life.

Helen Ewan was born around 1910 into an ordinary working-class family. She was the only child. Both of her parents loved Christ supremely. The blessed Son of God was the center around which the whole household revolved. They lived for only one thing and that was to please God in every detail of their lives. Three well-marked Bibles were always conspicuous in their living room when I visited them.

After her conversion at the age of fourteen, Helen’s whole personality was radiant with the glory of the Lord. God, in His sovereign grace, had shone into her darkened soul in order that through this ordinary “earthenware container” might be manifested the surpassing majesty of the power of the gospel.

This manifestation of His glory astonished us all. Hers was only a common life, but it was lit up with the glory of God. I often wondered how she could stand so much glory in her fragile earthenware container.

Being full of the Holy Spirit, she was full of Christ. As she studied the Word of God, under the illuminating guidance of the Holy Spirit, He took of the treasures of the Lord Jesus and revealed them unto her (John 16:14-15). This made her heart dance for joy. Many times she would stop Christians on the street and, with radiant face, tell of some choice portion of Scripture where she had found some new picture of her blessed Redeemer. These friends often left her presence weeping. They said, “We have seen Jesus; we have looked into His glorious face.” The awe of God remained upon their souls throughout the remainder of the day. Like Spurgeon, she was at her very best when she told us of her Lord. It was at such times she stood out as a solitary figure, so far removed from the rest of us. She knew the Lord in such a deep intimate way.

Many testified that just her passing smile, or her cheery, “Good day. God bless you,” was an uplifting tonic to them the rest of the day.

In her prayer life, Helen was such an example to us all. She arose each morning around five o’clock to commune with her Lord. She would not put on the heat in her cold little room or seek to make herself comfortable in any way, feeling she could be more alert in the cold. And besides, those for whom she would be praying in foreign lands were not sitting in comfort.

She would begin her communion with praise and worship. She then read the Word to warm her heart. She remembered the words of her fellow-Scot, R. Murray McCheyne, “It is the look that saves, but it is the gaze that sanctifies.” Helen gazed with rapture into the face of her Lord. I could not mention to you the ｅxpressions of adoration which she wrote in her dairy after such times with her Lord. They are too sacred for publication.

After fellowship and communion, followed her ministry of intercession for her friends, family, for her assembly, for hundreds of missionaries on the foreign fields. Then came her prayer ministry for the unsaved. She had a list of unsaved persons to whom she had testified and for whom she prayed daily until they were born again. Her yearnings after the salvation of the lost were awful to behold. The reason God gave her so many souls among rich and poor, young and old, illiterate and intelligent, was that she agonized for them in earnest intercession inside the veil. There was nothing vague or general about her pleas. After her “translation,” her mother kindly allowed me to go over her diaries and there I saw that the petitions expressed in them were strong and definite. She gave the date when she began to pray for a person and then the date when the prayer was answered. These diaries revealed a prayer life that moved God and man. No wonder that when God promoted her to Glory at the age of twenty-two, many wept throughout Scotland, and missionaries in far-off lands felt they had lost their greatest prayer warrior.

Not only at the early morning hour did Helen commit to her Lord the whole of the new day with all that it entailed, but all through the day she sought His guidance in matters small and great. It was no small thing for her to shop for some personal piece of clothing and she might seen to pause in front of a store to seek His guidance before going in for a piece of ribbon! She must please Him in all things and she would not be led by the traditions of men. That no doubt explains the remark of her friends that “Helen was always dressed right.”

Helen’s seeking after lost souls also put us all to shame. Here again she seemed to rise head and shoulders above us all, even among tens of thousands of believers in our great city at that time. I have been out on the streets of Glasgow near midnight with my tracts and gospel text boards on many occasions when I would see Helen busy in her own method of personal soul-winning. I have seen her on a cold Scottish winter’s evening with her arms around a poor drunken prostitute, telling her of Jesus and His love. on other occasions she would be dealing with drunken men, seeking to lead them to her Savior.

In the evangelistic meetings she was always on the alert for lost souls. Sitting near the rear of the building, she would see a women sitting alone, sorrow written on her face and weariness in her eyes. Under the guidance of the Spirit, Helen would slip over and sit beside her, praying inwardly during the whole of the service. When the lady arose to leave, Helen would leave with her, talking about the message and encouraging the lady to unburden her heart. In this way, more than one soul who was burdened with the cares of this life and bowed down with the weight of sin and despair was led to know the Savior as Helen pointed her to the Lamb of God under the lamp post or while waiting at the street-car stop.

When finally she entered the University of Glasgow, she used to walk several miles from her home to the university each day so that she could distribute tracts along the way. At the same time, she could save street-car fare and give it to the missionary cause. Needless to say, she had the joy of leading many students to Christ on Campus.

Robert Murray McCheyne used to seal his letters with a sketch of the sun going down behind the mountains and with a motto over it, “THE NIGHT COMETH.” It was this same feeling of urgency that drew Helen on.

Like Robert Murray McCheyne and Samuel Rutherford, Helen carried the fragrance of Christ with her, and like William C. Burns she manifested the power of the Spirit. Her body was a walking temple of the Holy Spirit. Thus, wherever she went the power of God was manifested. When she entered into any service, immediately the atmosphere was charged with His power. I have known her to slip quietly into a prayer meeting which had already begun and sit on the back seat; yet, every one of us knew that she had arrived because of the mighty sense of the presence of God manifested in our midst.

Evangelists often sought after her service. It was not that she could sing or speak in public. I do not think she ever sang a solo or gave a public testimony in any of their campaigns. All she did was sit quietly in the meetings and pray. Yet, these evangelists knew that if they could only have Helen attend their services, there was sure to be a mighty anointing upon the meeting! Some leading evangelists have told me that she was the most remarkable person they ever knew in this way. one outstanding English evangelist, when he was an aged warrior, testified that possibly the greatest campaign he ever conducted was one in which Helen was able to attend every service for two weeks while she was on her vacation.

I was talking one day with two professors from the University of London. They were believers. We were talking about dynamic Christianity when one of them suddenly said, “Brother Stewart, I want to tell you a story.” Then he went on to tell of a remarkable young lady on the campus of the Glasgow University when he was lecturing there. Wherever she went on the campus, he said, the fragrance of Christ followed her. For example, a group of unconverted students would be jesting and telling dirty stories when someone would suddenly say, “Shhhhh! Shhh! Here she comes! Quiet!” and this young lady would walk by, unconsciously leaving the power and the awe of the presence of God behind her. He said that in the University prayer meeting they could always tell if this young student was present whether she prayed aloud or not, or they could tell when she entered the room without hearing or seeing her; they sensed the presence of God in their midst.

I said, “Sir, that could only be one person; that was Helen Ewan!”

“Yes,” he answered, “that was her name. She was a remarkable soul-winner.”

Another feature of Helen’s life was her deep appetite for the Word of God and a deep spiritual penetration into Divine truth. She did not just leaf through her Bible for palatable portions which suited the whole Book from Genesis to Revelation. Thus she became a deeply intelligent child of God, even at the age of sixteen and seventeen. Her feet were firmly placed on the solid rock of the Holy Scriptures. Even when she was a hard-working student in her secular studies at the University, seeking to make good grades for His glory, she still gave time for Bible study and meditation. This made her a well-balanced Christian, though there was no time or place in her life for idle gossip or foolish talk. She bubbled over with clean humor and a zest for life and yet, because Christ filled the whole of her horizon, she sought to magnify Him through a holy life and sacrificial service.

Every growing girl has her own heroes and heroines. Helen was no different. Her favorite character was one of the Wigtown martyrs of the Covenanting days in Scotland, Margaret Wilson. Margaret was seventeen when she laid down her life for Christ on the 11th of May, 1685, in Wigtown, not very far from the little town of Anwoth where Samuel Rutherford spent the early years of his ministry. She was the daughter of Gilbert Wilson, a farmer. The Wilson family unitedly carried on a guerrilla warfare constantly against the enemies of the Gospel of their time. They hid and cared for the Covenanting preachers and sought every opportunity to magnify the Lord.

In February of 1685, Margaret ventured to creep forth from her hiding place and steal down to her home because of hunger and cold. She was soon discovered by the enemy and locked up in prison – in the “Thieves’ Hole” where the worst malefactors were her associates. For six or seven weeks she lay in this dismal place. Then she was taken out and placed in another prison where constantly, day and night, she was asked to deny her faith. She steadfastly refused.

An other prisoner, an elderly widow named Margaret Lachlison, and she, along with Margaret’s young sister Agnes, aged thirteen, were sentenced to be “flogged through the streets of Wigtown by the public hangman, and thereafter be put for three days in the jougs,” Gilbert Wilson paid the sum of one hundred pounds sterling for the release of Agnes, who was then absolved of her dreadful sentence. But Margaret was old enough to know her own mind and would stand or fall according to her own decision.

The town folk were all afoot on that fateful day of May 11th , 1685. Until now, the enemies of the Gospel in Scotland had been put to death by burning at the stake. Now, for the first time, they planned to use water. This was to frighten the prisoners and deter the people from taking like stands for the hated truth.

There was near the town Wigtown a little stream called Bladnoch. At low water, the Solway recedes for miles, and it is over the naked sands that the Bladnoth trickles to its goal. But when the tide returns, it rushes rapidly up the river’s path and by and by overflows the banks on both sides.

That dreadful morning, two stakes had been driven in the sands within the channel of the stream while the tide was out; one farther up than the other, but both comparatively near the town. To the stake farther out they fastened Margaret Lachlison, the widow, seeking to intimidate the younger girl who was tied to the stake near the shore. The tide was as yet far out. The people stood waiting, prepared to rescue the two women at the first sign of their relenting.

Then the tide came rushing in. The people retreated up the banks for safety. The water was already lapping about the face of Margaret Lachlison, who was struggling silently.

“What think ye of your companion now?” cried some brutal official to Margaret Wilson, who felt the cold waves about her waist.

“What do I see but Christ wrestling out yonder” Think ye that we are the sufferers” No! It is Christ in us.”

Then the girl sang part of the twenty-fifth Psalm and, opening her Bible, read the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. We can imagine with that pathos she read the closing words of the chapter:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Finally, she prayed. The water began to lap over her face. Her tormentors began to plead for her to recant. The following dialogue took place:
“Margaret, ye are young. If ye’ll pray for the king, we will give you your life.”

“I’ll pray for salvation to all, but damnation to none,” she replied.

They dashed her under the water and pulled her up again. People looked on and said, “Oh, Margaret, will ye say it?”

“Lord, give him repentance and forgiveness in salvation,” she prayed.
“We do not want your prayers,” cried the enemy cursing her bitterly. “Just take the oath.”

“No sinful oath for me,” she answered.

When Margaret was released for that moment to swear the oath, the heartbroken people cried out to Major Wiram, “She has said it! She has said it!”

But to Major Wiram the brave girl gave a flat refusal.

“I will not. I am one of Christ’s children.”

They placed her on the stake again and the waters of the Solway rolled over her head. Margaret was instantly in the presence of her Lord.

It was of such rugged stock as this that Helen Ewan came. She might not be asked to die for her Redeemer as was Margaret Wilson, but by His grace she would live for Him each moment of every day.

At the university Helen was preparing herself for the missionary service among the Russian people of Eastern Europe where I, myself, was later to labor. Already she was learning the Russian language in preparation for her life’s ministry. But God, in His wisdom and love, called her Home at the age of twenty-two.

She had been spending her vacation with an aunt in the kingdom of Fife and while there was continually about her Master’s business. She was taken ill suddenly and as suddenly was called Home. It was so unexpected that it shocked us all. I was laboring at the time in an evangelistic campaign in a city in northern England. When the news reached me of Helen’s Home-going, I was stunned. I could neither eat nor sleep. So great was my grief that the people were amazed to learn that this young lady from my city was no more to me than a spiritual friend and companion; not my fiance. “How is it possible,” they asked, “that a young man could be so broken down over the loss of anyone, especially only a friend?”

I was not alone in my sorrow. Thousands wept throughout Scotland and Great Britain. Many sought to express something of the blessing this life had meant to them. For instance, at one memorial service, a Christian leader stood and told the audience of how Helen’s spirituality had so deeply affected him. “I was old enough to be her father,” he said. “I had known the Lord many years longer than she had known Him, but still she seemed so far ahead of me spiritually.”

On far-off mission stations, Britain missionaries grieved at the news. Alas, who would bear them up so faithfully at the Throne of Grace now? Who would step into this gap and take her place?

Even many years later when I would be again in Glasgow, one of the most thrilling experiences was to be with a group of Christian friends who would be sharing with each other something of what this dedicated, radiant life had meant to us personally. The very mention of her name had a charm; an irresistible force that drove one to his knees to cry out, “Oh, God, raise up others like Helen Ewan. Oh, God, make even me a better man for Thy glory!”

Some time later, when I had a few days free from my evangelistic meetings, I visited the cemetery where Helen had been laid to rest, in order to once again give God thanks for such a life. There I knelt before God and laid myself anew upon His altar, pleading that the fire of God would fall on even me.

One of the grave diggers to whom I spoke could not at first recall anyone having been buried there such as I described to him.

“You must remember that we are burying large numbers of people here; this is a public cemetery,” he explained.

As I went on speaking, however, this strong, sturdy laborer became deeply moved. “Yes, I remember now,” she said, “When we were burying that body, I felt the presence of God all over that place!”

Now, dear readers, what is the explanation of such a life? How could a young lady, still pursuing her studies, never having preached a sermon or sung a solo, never having traveled more than two hundred miles away from her home; how could her life so affect people in all parts of the world that they felt a mighty general had fallen? The Word of God says, “One of you shall chase a thousand; two shall put ten-thousand to flight.” Helen Ewan’s life had been worth more than a thousand ordinary Christians to the Church. And the story of her life, translated into many different languages, has continued to bless many today. What, I say, is the explanation? There is only one explanation: SHE WAS FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Helen, who was an ordinary young women, became extraordinary simply because she surrendered all to Christ and appropriated for herself all that was hers in Him. She, with unveiled face, took time to receive, and thus reflected, the glory of the Lord as she passed from one degree of glory to another.

We all mirror the glory of the Lord in some degree, but if we are to perfectly mirror His glory, there are three things that must be true of us:

1.The mirror must be clean. A dirty mirror does not give a true reflection.

2.The mirror must be kept clean. In Bible days, when mirrors were made of polished metal, they had to be kept polished to be of any use. And the mirror of your life must be kept clean and polished if it is to perfectly and consistently reflect the glory of the Lord.

3.The mirror must be in place; it must face the object to be reflected. You must have both eyes on Christ, the whole life looking unto Him, if you would reflect His glory.

May you, dear reader, be so fully surrendered to your Lord that you will, like Helen Ewan, fully reflect the glory of the Lord. Let this be your prayer, with Francis Ridley Havergal:

In full and glad surrender
I give myself to Thee,
Thine utterly and only,
And evermore to be.
O Son of God who lov’st me
I will be Thine alone;
And all I have, and all I can,
Shall henceforth to Thine own.
Reign over me, Lord Jesus!
O make my heart Thy throne
It shall be Thine, dear Saviour,
It shall be Thine alone.
Oh! come and reign, Lord Jesus;
Rule over everything
And keep me always loyal,
And true to Thee, my King!

출처:

http://www.deeperlifehaven.com/helen-ewan-she-was-only-22/

구글에서 Helen Ewan, Pastor Hsi(석자직 목사의 영문 별명) 등을 검색하면 자료를 얻을 수 있음.