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About the Book
"The Kingdom of the Occult" by Dr. Walter Martin is a comprehensive guide to understanding and combating occult practices and beliefs. The book explores various forms of occultism, including witchcraft, astrology, and spiritualism, and discusses their impact on individuals and society. It provides valuable insights into the history, teachings, and dangers of the occult, as well as practical advice for Christians on how to recognize and resist occult influences. Overall, the book aims to equip readers with knowledge and resources to effectively confront and counter occult practices in today's world.
Mary Winslow
Godly people speak long after their deaths. This is no exception with Mary Winslow. The biography of this godly woman is heart-warming to read. It is filled with lessons for Christians today on how to walk with Christ even when things are hard in your life.
Sitting at Jesusâ Feet with Mary Winslow
At the heart of godliness is a living bond with the Lord Jesus. That bond evidences itself in âsitting at Jesusâ feet,â as Mary did (Luke 10:39). But what does that involve? A beautiful example of that is another Mary â Mary Winslow, a woman whose devotional writings continue to be printed today. Her writings breathe of tender, humble, and delightful communion with Christ.
The Emptiness of Entertainment
Mary was born on February 28, 1774 in Bermuda, a beautiful island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. As an only child of well-to-do parents, she received a good education, but little religious instruction. When she was ânearly eighteen ... (merry), thoughtless, (and) full of life,â she married an army Lieutenant stationed in Bermuda, Thomas Winslow. A little later, when she attended a ball where she basked in the light of popularity, she afterwards sensed the emptiness of it all.
One question began to weigh on her: How can I be righteous before God? Her attempts to obey Godâs law could not satisfy her conscience. Her spiritual distress led her to turn to the Scriptures and plead with God for mercy. She was also brought under an evangelical and experimental ministry, which pointed her to the Saviour of sinners.
As she bowed before Him in her need, the Lord spoke to her soul: âI am thy salvation.â This grace led to a fundamental change in her life. Her husband and others around her only had a formal religion and did not understand her heart experience. This even led her to question whether what she experienced was true, saving grace. But in her distress, the Lord reassured her of His grace.
Having been saved, she became concerned for the spiritual welfare of those around her. She sought to support an evangelical ministry in Bermuda, which had not been present earlier. She instituted family worship in her home, in spite of the initial resistance of her husband.
Great Trials In Life
Other changes also entered her home. Through bad investments, her husband lost much of his fortune. Since they had ten children, including many sons, they decided to move to America. She left ahead with her children. Shortly after she arrived in New York, her infant daughter became sick and died. Before she could even bury her daughter, the message came that her husband had died in England. She wrote that it was âthe heaviest affliction I have ever met with.â
This period was not only marked by the grief of bereavement, but also âspiritual darkness and despondency.â Yet, she confessed, âthe Lord, even in this, has not chastened me according to my backslidings.â Greater yet, the Lord returned with His comfort.
Life continued. As a poor widow, she had to raise her large family. She wrote, âI thought, âHow can I, a helpless woman, care for, and train up, these children to manhood?â I felt I should sink beneath the overwhelming conviction of my weakness and insufficiency.â In this distress, the Lord came with His comforting promise: âI will be a Father to thy fatherless children.â This promise was her pleading ground in the ensuing years, as she wrestled in prayer for her childrenâs salvation.
Some years later, she witnessed a time of revival, first personally, and then in her family and surrounding churches. After a time of darkness, she wrote, God âfilled my heart with unspeakable joy.â God also converted the three sons who were still at home. She continued to pray for the salvation of her older children until they also came to a saving knowledge of Christ. Several sons became ministers.
Mary often struggled with poor health. Towards the end of her life, her health declined to the point where she was confined to her bed. She remained mentally clear and longed to be with her Lord. On October 3, 1854, her desire was fulfilled. Her faint, yet distinct last words were: âI see thee! I see thee! I see thee!â
Great Comfort At Jesusâ Feet
While her afflictions were greater than those of many others, her joys were also deeper than those of many of Godâs people. She was often at the feet of the Lord Jesus. She described her conversion this way: âI was brought to the feet of Jesus.â She did not mean that she simply began a routine of devotional activities, but that God led her to Christ Himself, to bow before Him, receive of His grace, and experience communion with Him.
What that communion involved is best said in her own words. âI have just been favoured with a most precious interview with the King of kings,â she wrote. âHe admitted me, even me, into His royal presence-chamber, and encouraged me to open my mouth wide, telling Him all that was in my heart; and you may be sure I did presume to make large demands upon his goodness ... My heart was dissolved into love and my eyes into tears. I wept that ever I could sin against such a God, grieve that blessed Spirit by whom I am sealed unto glory.â
From a sickbed, she wrote: âI have to deal most clearly with God in Jesus now. He is all in all to me ... My soul holds converse with him, and sweet I find it to lie as a helpless infant at his Feet; yea, passive in his loving hands, knowing no will but His. Holy and distinguished is the privilege of talking with Him as a man talketh with his friend, without restraint or concealment. What a mercy, thus to unburden the whole heart â the tried and weary, the tempted and sorrowful heart â tried by sin, tried by Satan, tried by those you love. What a mercy to have a loving bosom to flee to, one truly loving heart to confide in, which responds to the faintest breathing of the Spirit! Precious Jesus, how inexpressibly dear art Thou to me at this moment! Keep sensibly near to me.â
She did not always experience the same richness of communion, but she knew, âMy choicest seat is at the foot of the Cross ... When I can but view His bleeding wounds, and obtain one glance by faith of His gracious countenance, it is worth a thousand worlds to me.â Is that your confession? You may not always sit at the foot of the Cross and sensibly experience His love and your unworthiness, but if you have ever sat at His feet, you will agree that there is no better place in the world.
What Can We Learn?
Mary Winslowâs life evidences the lessons learned at Jesusâ feet. The most basic lessons involve a deepening knowledge of her sin and Christâs love. Often she wrote things like:
I feel my vileness, my unprofitableness, my woeful shortcomings, and am thankful if I can but only creep to the foot of the Cross, and there repose my weary soul, refreshed by one look at Jesus, who, I do trust, died for my sins.â âNever, never did sin appear so hateful, and my own nothingness so great, as yesterday at the table of the Lord ... but still my hope was in the Lord.â âI have never wept so much for sin as I have done lately ... But while I have thus been led of late to mourn so much for sin, I have never felt pardon so abundantly manifested. God be praised for a free-grace gospel!
As her life drew to a close, she said: âI shall enter heaven a poor sinner saved by grace. I seem to have done nothing for the Lord, who has done so much for me.â Her life shows that greater views of Christ and greater views of sin go together and lead to humility, love, and dependence on the Lord.
Another grace received at Jesusâ feet is the desire for holiness. Often she would write things like: âHow beautiful does holiness appear to me! To be holy is to be happy. May the Lord sanctify us!â âMy heart longs for full sanctification. I am wearied with sin; my soul loathes it, and I abhor myself in dust and in ashes.â âOh, I want to be more conformable to his lovely image, to be sanctified, body, soul, and spirit, and to have every power of my mind under the constant influence of the Holy Spirit.â A view of Christâs holiness and beauty fuelled the desire to be like Him.
A desire for holiness shows itself in her heavenly-mindedness. Often she exhorted to meditate on the glory of heaven, expressed longings to walk as a pilgrim, and one day âto see Jesus, to bask in the full sunshine of His glory, and to sit forever at His feet.â Her son, Octavius, wrote: âher religion was eminently practical ... her life was singularly useful, because her mind was transcendently heavenly.â She exhorted, âMy dear children, live for eternity; this world is not worth living for.â
While she longed to be with Christ, she also had Paulâs desire to be of use on earth. She showed compassion to the poor, sick, lonely, and needy. She visited, helped, and spoke to them. Her main burden was the salvation of loved ones and acquaintances. She exhorted others: âLet us who believe, pray, and exhort, and employ every opportunity to arouse, to instruct, and win all to Christ, who has life, yea, eternal life, to give to all who seek it sincerely and earnestly.â Even in her dying days she wrote: âmy time now is short; I would fain be useful in encouraging others to come to Thee, thou Fountain.â
Mary Winslowâs God Lives
Mary Winslowâs words and example give us beautiful instruction. To learn more from her, read her book of letters, entitled Heaven Opened: The Correspondence of Mary Winslow, published by Reformation Heritage Books. You can read it as a daily devotional. Another excellent source is Octavius Winslowâs Life in Jesus: A Memoir of Mrs. Mary Winslow, Arranged from Her Correspondence, Diary, and Thoughts (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1995). Now that Reformation Heritage Books has acquired Soli Deo Gloria Publications we hope they will soon republish this classic work.
There is one warning: her life may expose the poverty of your own spiritual life or the complete absence of communion with Christ. Christian biography has a way of doing that. Or is that warning actually a blessing? Godâs purpose is not to put Mary Winslow on a pedestal and make us sink down in discouragement before her. Instead, it is to deliver us from spiritual complacency and dead presumption and stir up a longing to receive the same grace that enables us to sit at Jesusâ feet. Mary Winslowâs confession that she was a sinner was true. Everything worth learning from her is Godâs grace in her. Her God still lives to give the same grace.
When we see someone with something beautiful, we might ask, âHow did you get that?â When you see godliness in another, do you ask similar questions? If Mary Winslow had been asked how she came to sit at the Lord Jesusâ feet, one word would have sounded: âgrace.â By sovereign grace she was âbrought as a poor sinner to His feet.â At the same time, she knew the Lord uses means to lead into communion with Him and restore it again, she exclaimed, âHow needful are the means of grace, if we wish to thrive.â
Godâs Word
Godâs Word is so important. When the Lord first uncovered Mary Winslowâs need of Him, she turned to His Word for relief. That Word then became increasingly precious to her. Though she complained of times of coldness, her private journal records how God blessed her searching of scripture. She also once wrote âwhile reading in the family my heart was drawn out by faith to Christ, and could not but speak of Him to my children.â That is why she counseled, âBe much searching scriptures.â
Though she occasionally wrote that what others called an excellent sermon was no blessing to her, her delight was to hear sermons. She could write, ânext to communion with God, it is my greatest comfort and joy to wait upon the preaching of the word.â Preaching filled with the richness of Christ and the indispensability of the Holy spiritâs work fed her soul.
She also loved to read books expounding the truths of scripture. Some of her favourite authors are still in print today: Thomas Boston, John Newton, Samuel Rutherford, and others. Her advice is timely: âKeep to the old divines. Modern divinity is very shallow â has very little of Christ and experience. May God give you a spiritual appetite!â
Mary Winslow points us to the Word as the means God uses to work and feed godliness. Her counsel is so basic, but do we practice it? Do we not simply read, but search the scriptures, as one searching for treasure? Do we come to church with the prayer to hear His voice? Do we read edifying books? Do we meditate on what we read? Through His Word, Christ leads to His feet to teach in a way that changes hearts and lives.
Prayer
Prayer is the other essential activity at the Lord Jesusâ feet. Begin your day with prayer. Mary Winslow confessed, âMy first prayer in the morning when I awake is addressed to the Holy spirit, that He would take possession of my thoughts, my imagination, my heart, my words, throughout the day, directing, controlling, and sanctifying them all.â she warns, âNever, never omit secret prayer ... Remember, the first departures from Christ begin at the closet, or rather in the heart; and then private prayer is either hurried over, becomes a mere form, or is entirely neglected.â Times in which we set everything aside to be alone in private prayer are essential. The devil always tries to keep us from our knees with work or entertainment only because he knows the importance of prayer. She also knew its importance. She exclaimed, âOh, the mighty power of prayer! Even the best of Christians know but little what it really is.â
She exhorts, âYou cannot come too often. Bring to Him your little cares as well as your great ones. If anything is a trouble to you, however small it may be, you are warranted, nay, commanded, to take it to Him.â Prayer is such a privilege: âTo have Him to go to â to lay before Him all our wants, to express our fears, to plead His promises, and to expect that because He has promised He will fulfil â is worth more than all the world can give.â
Sitting at Jesusâ feet is not only for devotional times, but is a way of life. She writes that believers are to press forward in life, âlooking continually to Jesus, trusting not to our own strength, but waiting in humble dependence upon Him for all our sufficiency to carry us on, and to enable us to hold out unto the end ... Oh that we may be found like his beloved handmaiden of old, sitting at His feet!â She counsels, âYou need not wait until you can retire (for the night) and fall upon your knees; you can do it in a moment. The heart lifted up in silent prayer is sufficient.â Isnât this the echo of Scriptureâs call to âpray without ceasingâ?
Conversation
God is also pleased to bless spiritual conversation. Often she would warn: âBeware of trifling conversation; it grieves the Spirit,â and âAvoid light, trifling professors of religion; their influence will be as poison to your souls.â More than once, after an evening filled with wearying levity and trifling conversation, she would be humbled before God.
Conversation on religious topics is not enough. âWhen Christians meet together, do they not too much talk about religion, preachers, and sermons? I cannot but think, that if they communed less about religion, and more of Jesus, it would give a higher tone of spirituality to their conversation, and prove more refreshing to the soul. He would then oftener draw near, and make Himself one in their midst, and talk with them by the way.â Speaking of the triune God, the Saviour, His Word, promises, discipline, and leadings may stir up desire, trust and love in those who speak and listen. What fills our conversations? That which fills the heart spills out of the mouth. Conversely, a word about Christ may be such a blessing for an empty heart. The Lord exhorts, âWherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye doâ (1 Thess. 5:11).
Grace
Her practical counsels about the means of grace is not a newly invented, five-step plan to godliness. They are as old as Scripture itself. That gives them value. The main means of thriving which God is pleased to bless are the continual seeking of Him and the ongoing and prayerful hearing of His Word.
The encouragement is that Christ Himself uses these means to bring us to His feet by His Spirit. Her letters always traced sitting at Jesusâ feet to Godâs grace. That is why she wrote to an unconverted friend: âMay God open your eyes to see your need of a Savior, and lead you to the feet of Jesus, the sinnerâs Friend.â To a fellow-believer, she wrote: âOh that we might both be led to sit more constantly at the feet of Jesus, looking up, like little children, into His face to catch His smile and watch His eye â to see what He would have us to do, seeking nowhere else for comfort and guidance but in Him!â
Knowing God lives to draw sinners to Christâs feet gives hope. Knowing He uses His means of grace to do so encourages to be diligent in their use. Knowing He delights to bless those who use His means of grace enables us to plead with Him to bless them in spite of all the sin that stains our use of them.
Such a life of dependence is truly blessed. Listen to her words:
What a poor wretched exchange professors make when they barter the blessings of a close walk with God for the beggarly enjoyments of an empty, disappointing world! Ten minutes at the feet of Jesus, in a full view of His love, while confessing sins and shortcomings â sins we know already pardoned â yet sorrowing that we should ever grieve One who so tenderly loves us, is a happiness I would not exchange for millions of worlds.
Can I Follow My New Heart
âWhy shouldnât I follow my heart? If I am a Christian â if God has caused me to be âborn againâ and has given me âa new heartâ â isnât my new heart trustworthy?â Readers have raised some version of this objection when Iâve exhorted Christians, âDonât follow your heart.â And the objection is warranted. After all, the Bible clearly teaches that in this era of the new covenant, God writes his law on our new hearts so that we willingly follow him (Jeremiah 31:31â34; Hebrews 8:8â12). This would seem to not merely imply, but even mandate, that Christians should follow their hearts. But the Bibleâs description of what a regenerated person actually experiences in this age reveals a more spiritually and psychologically complex picture â one that I believe gives Christians biblical warrant to cultivate a healthy suspicion of what they recognize as their heartsâ desires. So, while we may, and hopefully will, reach a point in our lives as Christians where itâs right, at times, to follow our hearts, allow me to make a brief case that the phrase actually undermines Christians as they labor and struggle to discern their various desires, and that Scripture itself discourages us from thinking this way. War Within How might we summarize the complex picture the Bible paints of the born-again experience in this already-not-yet age? The New Testament explains that when the Spirit brings us from spiritual death to spiritual life (John 5:24; Romans 6:13), we enter a strange new reality. Our regenerated new self emerges, âcreated after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.â And yet our âold self, which belongs to [our] former manner of life,â is still âcorrupt through deceitful desiresâ (Ephesians 4:22â24). We are âborn of the Spiritâ (John 3:6) while still inhabiting the âflesh,â our âbody of deathâ in which ânothing good dwellsâ (Romans 7:18, 24). âThe hearts of regenerated people are not yet fully free from the influence of their flesh.â When Christians are born again, we enter into a lifelong internal war where âthe desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to doâ (Galatians 5:17). Stepping back and viewing these desires objectively, âthe works of the fleshâ that result from fleshly desires âare evident,â and so is âthe fruit of the Spiritâ (Galatians 5:19â23). But Christians often struggle â on the ground, in real time â to discern the desires of the Spirit from the desires of the flesh. This is why the New Testament Epistles are full of exhortations and corrections addressed to Christians. James tells his readers (and us at relevant times) that their âpassions are at war withinâ them (James 4:1). Peter warns his readers (and us), âDo not be conformed to the passions of your former ignoranceâ (1 Peter 1:14). Paul describes this internal experience of warring passions as âwretchedâ (Romans 7:24). And he admonishes the Colossian Christians (and us) with strong language: âPut to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatryâ (Colossians 3:5). Why did these apostles feel the need to speak this way to regenerated people? Because the hearts of these regenerated people were not yet fully free from the influence of their flesh, their old selves. Follow the Spirit Much of the Christian life is a war to die to remaining sin and live by the Spirit. John Piper calls it âthe main battle of the Christian lifeâ: The main battle is to see our hearts renovated, recalibrated, so that we donât want to do those sinful external behaviors, and donât just need willpower not to do them, but the root has been severed and we have different desires. In other words, the goal of change â of sanctification, of the Christian life â is to be so changed that we can and ought to follow our desires. Thatâs exactly right. And when we have been so changed through progressive sanctification, so renovated that our hearts (and therefore our desires, dispositions, motives, emotions, and passions) are, as Piper says, âcalibrated to Christ,â then we should follow our hearts. However, at any given time within our churches, small groups, friendships, and families, different Christians are at different places for different reasons in this heart-renovation process. Some hearts are more sanctified, and therefore more reliable to follow, than others. I think thatâs why we donât hear the apostles generally counsel us to follow our hearts in our fight of faith against remaining sin, but rather to follow the Holy Spirit. Let Not Sin Reign Paul is the one who delves most deeply into this issue: âI say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the fleshâ (Galatians 5:16). He devotes most of Romans 6â8 to explaining the nature of the strange new-self/old-self, Spirit/flesh reality of the Christian life, including Romans 8:13: âIf you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.â Paul lays the theological foundation of our understanding by explaining âthat our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that [our] body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sinâ (Romans 6:6). Our new selves were âraised with Christâ (Colossians 3:1) so that âwe too might walk in newness of lifeâ (Romans 6:4). Therefore, we âmust consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesusâ (Romans 6:11). In light of this, Paul admonishes us, Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12â14) And how do we do this? By learning to âset [our] minds on the things of the Spiritâ and not on âthe things of the fleshâ (Romans 8:5) â by learning to follow the Spirit, to âwalk by the Spiritâ (Galatians 5:16), because âall who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of Godâ (Romans 8:14). Follow the Treasure One of the reasons I find âfollow your heartâ generally unhelpful as counsel for Christians is that many of us, from the time we were young, have absorbed this as a pop-cultural creed that says if we just look deep into our hearts, weâll be shown our deepest truth, and discover the way we should go. Given the significant amount our sinful flesh still influences our hearts, itâs not hard to see how this phrase can easily increase confusion when applying it to the Christian life. âSome hearts are more sanctified, and therefore more reliable to follow, than others.â I also donât believe the Bible encourages that idea since, when it comes to engaging our hearts, far and away what we hear in it is counsel to âdirect our hearts,â not to follow them. We see that clearly in Paulâs instructions above. God made our hearts to follow, not to lead. And what do our hearts follow? Jesus gives the clearest answer: âWhere your treasure is, there your heart will be alsoâ (Matthew 6:21). In time, our heart always pursues (follows) our treasure. When we are born again, the eyes of our hearts are enlightened (Ephesians 1:18) and, through faith, we begin to see the Treasure: God himself in Christ. And since our heart learns to pursue the object that stirs its greatest affections, its treasure, I suggest we not counsel each other to âfollow your heart,â but instead to âfollow the Treasure.â Looking into our hearts for direction can be spiritually hazardous. It is usually more helpful for us to direct our hearts to what is most valuable and delightful. Which is why I believe David counsels us, âDelight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heartâ (Psalm 37:4). Article by Jon Bloom