LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON,
OKLAHOMA
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HOMILY 20
1.
If anyone is naked and lacks the divine and heavenly garment which is the power
of the Spirit, as it is said: “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,
he does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9), let him weep and beg the Lord that he
may receive from Heaven the spiritual garment. Let him beg that now stripped of
any divine energies, he may be clothed, since the man who is not clothed with
the garment of the Spirit is covered with great shame of “evil affections”
(Romans 1:26). Just as in the material world, if anyone is naked, he is overcome
with great shame and disgrace. Also friends turn away from naked friends,
relatives from their own family members, and children turn away from the father
whom they see naked so as not to look upon his naked body (Genesis 3:7). Such
children turned their backs and covered him and only then turned their faces to
him. In the same way also God turns away from those who are not clothed with the
garment of the Spirit with certainty, from those who have not “put on the Lord
Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14) in power and in truth. 2.
The very first man, seeing himself naked, was filled with shame. So great a
disgrace accompanies nakedness. If, therefore, in physical matters nakedness
carries with itself so great a shame, how much more shame for the person that is
naked of divine power, who does not wear nor is clothed with the ineffable and
imperishable and spiritual garment, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ himself? Is he
not really covered with a greater shame and the disgrace of evil passions? Everyone
who is naked of that divine glory ought to be as much overcome by shame and
ought to be aware of his disgrace as Adam was when he was naked. He then made
for himself a covering of fig leaves. Nevertheless, he bore shame and
acknowledged his poverty. Let such a person, therefore, beg of Christ, who gives
and adorns with glory in ineffable light. Let him not sew for himself a garment
of vain thoughts, deceiving himself with the impression of his own righteousness
or thinking himself in possession of the garment of salvation. 3.
If anyone stands solely on his own righteousness and redemption, he labors in
vain and to no purpose. For every fancy of one’s own justification will appear
on the last day as a filthy rag, as the Prophet Isaiah says: “All our
justification has been as a filthy rag” (Isaiah 64:6). Let us, then, beg and
implore God to clothe us with “the garment of salvation” (Isaiah 61:10),
namely, our Lord Jesus Christ, the ineffable Light, which those who have borne
it will never put off for all eternity. But in the resurrection their bodies
also will be glorified by the glory of the Light with which the faithful and
noble persons are even now clothed, as the Apostle says: “He that raised up
Christ from the dead will also raise up our mortal bodies by his Spirit that
dwells in us” (Romans 8:11). Glory to his ineffable compassion and his
ineffable mercy. 4.
And again, just as the woman afflicted with an issue of blood believed truly and
touched the hem of the garment of the Lord and immediately received a healing
and the flow of the unclean fountain of blood dried up, so everyone afflicted by
the incurable wound of sin, the fountain of unclean and evil thoughts, if he
only approaches Christ and begs prayerfully and truly believes in him, receives
a salvific healing from the incurable fountain of passions. That fountain, which
has been sending up unclean thoughts, now fails and dries up through the power
of Jesus alone. For nothing else can cure this wound. For the enemy, when Adam
fell, used such cunning and diligence that he wounded and darkened the interior
man, the mind that directs man, since it looks upon the face of God. Thereafter,
man’s eyes looked with favor on vices and passions, but away from the good
things of Heaven. 5.
Man was, therefore, so wounded that no one else could cure him except only the
Lord. To him alone it is possible. He came and “took away the sin of the
world” (John 1:29), that is, he dried up the unclean fountain of the evil
thoughts of the soul. That woman with the blood hemorrhage spent all her money
on those who were supposed to be able to cure her, but she was not healed by any
of them until she approached the Lord with genuine faith and touched the hem of
his garment. And at once she experienced a healing and the issue of blood was
stopped. So also no one, whether he was of the just ones or of the fathers or of
the prophets or of the patriarchs, could cure mankind wounded from the beginning
with an incurable wound of evil passions. 6.
Indeed, Moses came, but he was unable to bring a perfect healing. Priests,
gifts, titles, sabbaths, new-moons, purifications, sacrifices, holocausts, and
all other kind of justification were performed under the law and yet the soul
could not be healed and purified from its unclean issue of evil thoughts. No
self-justification had power to heal man until the Savior came, the true
Physician, who cures without costs. He gave himself as a ransom on behalf of the
human race. He liberated him from slavery and led him out of darkness by
shedding his light upon him. He dried up in him the fountain of unclean
thoughts. It says: “Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the
world” (John 1:29). 7.
For no earthly medicines, that is, mankind’s own justifying actions, had any
power to cure the human race of so great an interior plague. But this could be
done only by the heavenly and divine nature of the so great gift of the Holy
Spirit. Man could be healed only by the help of this medicine and thus could
attain life by a cleansing of his heart by the Holy Spirit. However,
just as that woman, although afflicted, could not yet be cured, she still had
feet by which she could hasten to the Lord, and, approaching him, she obtained a
cure. Likewise, as that blind man, even though he could not approach and come to
the Lord because he had no sight, yet he let out a cry, swifter than the angels,
saying, “Son of David, have mercy on me” (Mark 10:47), and so believing he
received his healing by the Lord’s coming to him and restoring his sight, so
too a person, even though he is heavily afflicted by evil passions and is
blinded by the darkness of sin, nevertheless still possesses the ability to will
to cry out and beg Jesus that he come and bring eternal salvation to his soul. 8.
Just as that blind man, unless he had cried out, and that woman who had suffered
from the issue of blood, unless she had approached the Lord, would not have
received a cure, so in a like manner, unless a person comes to the Lord of his
own movement and with firm desire and begs him with fullness of faith, in no way
can he receive a cure. Why were they cured as soon as they believed, but we have
not yet truly received our sight, nor have we been cured of our hidden passions?
Indeed, the Lord has greater concern for the immortal soul than the body. For
the soul, when it has been restored to sight, according to the Psalmist who says
“Open my eyes” (Psalm 118:18), will never for all eternity again be blinded,
and, once cured, will never again be afflicted. For
if the Lord had such concern for the perishable bodies when he came into this
world, how much more does he concern himself with the immortal soul, made
according to his own image? It is on account of our lack of belief and our
fickleness of mind, because we do not love him with our whole heart. Nor do we
really believe him. These are the reasons that we have not yet obtained
spiritual health and salvation. Let us, therefore, believe in him and approach
him in truth, so that he may speedily bring us to full and authentic health. For
he promised that he would give to those who asked him the Holy Spirit and that
he would open to those that knocked and by those seeking he himself would be
found (Luke 11:9-13; Matthew 7:7). And “he cannot lie who promised” (Titus
1:2). To him be glory and power forever. Amen.
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