LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON,
OKLAHOMA
Home About Us Holiness Library History of the Holiness Movement Early English Bibles Bible Studies View Sermons Links
|
Home About Us Holiness Library History of the Holiness Movement Early English Bibles Bible Studies View Sermons Links
|
|
19
SANCTIFICATION AND HOLY LIVING A holy heart is the condition for and secret of
living a holy life. To undertake to live a holy life with an unholy heart is to
undertake the impossible! An impure fountain can only send forth an impure
stream. To deny the privilege and possibility of having a pure heart and yet
demand a holy life is unreasonable, unscriptural and tyrannical. No man is
better than his heart, no matter what his profession or pretenses may be.
“Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the
fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no
fountain both yield salt water and fresh.” Human religions begin on the outside and take
for their slogan, “Do right and you will be right.” In this the Pharisees
were adepts, so much so that Jesus said of them, “Ye make clean the outside of
the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.”
According to this a man may have a clean outward life and yet be like a
Pharisee. “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the The enemy keeps many people out of the blessing
of sanctification by telling them that because of their peculiar temperament and
their environments, they could never live a holy life. This is all a delusion and device of Satan to
deceive and defeat a hungry soul. Sanctification will correct your peculiar
temperament and lift you above conditions and environments and enable you to
reign in life.” There can be nothing more easy or more natural than for a man
to live out what is in him. Be right and you will do right. Entire sanctification
is religion made easy and brings a life of glad victory. Many seem to think that God has laid down two
standards of living—one for the justified and another for the sanctified, and
so may be heard to excuse themselves for some unholy indulgence of temper or
appetite, by saying they never professed sanctification, as though the refusal
to walk in the light and be cleansed from all sin gave one license to live
beneath the standard of holiness. This, too, is a delusion. God requires holiness of all men regardless of
what they profess or do not profess. God does not wait for a man to sign his
name to the ten commandments before he requires obedience to the same. A
sanctified man has a right to do anything anyone else has a right to do. No man
has right or liberty to do anything that is wrong. A justified man should walk
just as straight and live just as consistent and obedient before God as a
sanctified man. God says to all men: “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” The beauty of entire sanctification is that it
removes from the heart everything that is antagonistic to a holy life, and puts
His Spirit within you, which will “cause” you to walk in his statutes and
keep His judgments and do them.”
Another thrust of the enemy is to say to those
professing the blessing of sanctification: “You need not say anything about
it, just live it.” This is like saying to a white man, “Now be a white
man.” If you have the blessing, of course you will live it. If you do not live
it, you cannot long testify to the blessing, and if you do not testify to the
blessing, you will soon cease to live it, for you will not long possess the
blessing when you cease to testify to the same. Life and testimony must go
together. God says, “Ye are my witnesses.” “They overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”
|
