LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON, OKLAHOMA

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21 SANCTIFICATION AND POWER

There are many persons who are ready to seek for a “baptism of power,” or “power for service,” who are remain averse and antagonistic to sanctification, and stoutly deny the teaching of a second experience. We insist that the secret of such a reliable power is this experience; and the experience is an experience given to believers, and not to sinners, and, therefore, necessarily is a second experience, marking a second crisis, or epoch in the life of those who receive it.

This was so with the disciples in connection with the historic Pentecost, as recorded in the second chapter of the Acts. They had been “born of God” and had received “power to become the sons of God,” (John 1:12, 13), and had heard Jesus say unto them, “Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, (Luke 10:19) and had walked with Jesus three years in closest fellowship, themselves healing the sick, casting out devils, and had the testimony of Jesus, saying, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world;” “they have kept thy word;” “those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost,” excepting Judas; “they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them;” and when He ascended to the Father, He “blessed them,” “and they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God:” and yet they still had the commandment of Jesus, spoken just before He ascended, saving, “But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49.) This promise had its literal fulfillment on the Day of Pentecost. Nowhere in the Bible do we read of a “baptism of power,” or of “power for service,” but we do read, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification.” Sanctification negatively stated is the entire devotement and setting apart of our all to God, and the eradication and destruction of inbred sin—the sin-nature which we inherited—thus purifying the heart; but the positive side of sanctification is the infilling with the Holy Ghost, accompanied by the enduement of power. It is impossible for a man to be filled with the Holy Ghost in the scriptural sense without having the power of the Holy Ghost, and it is impossible to be filled with the Holy Ghost, in the way they were in the Upper Room, without being cleansed and purified from inbred sin; and it is impossible to be thus cleansed and purified from inbred sin and filled with the Holy Ghost until after the soul has been pardoned and regenerated. For, in giving the promise of the Holy Ghost, Jesus said of Him, “Whom the world cannot receive.” (John 14:17.) A man is of the world until he is born again and adopted into God’s family; then and not until then is he eligible to the gift of the Holy Ghost.

To state the case more plainly: The secret of power is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in fullness; the Holy Ghost himself is the power; this gift of the Holy Ghost cannot be received by “the world” or a sinner, and therefore must be a second experience; and this infilling with the Holy Ghost and enduement with power, which is clearly the positive side of sanctification, cannot be received without the negative work of entire devotement of our all to God, and entire purification from inbred sin. Hence to get sanctified wholly is to get the promise given before the Day of Pentecost. The negative and the positive side of sanctification are designed to occur simultaneously.

Seeking power for service is almost the equivalent to asking for the Holy Ghost, in order that we might use Him; instead, we should be so utterly and completely abandoned to Him that He might use us. Amen.