LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON, OKLAHOMA

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33 FIRST PURE, THEN PEACEABLE

Holiness is not only freedom from sin, but means a God-given antagonism to sin. God not only saves men from sin, who will repent and walk in the light, but is unalterably opposed to sin, and will punish (oppose or forsake) all who resist and continue to sin. To be at peace with sin is to be at enmity with God, and to cry “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 8:11.) Hence we read “That the friendship of the world is enmity with God; whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4.) The attitude of silent acquiescence is the spirit of compromise. While Jesus says to his blood-washed disciple, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” John 14:27 ; He so says, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34.)

The purified soul is at peace and in harmony with everything that is pure, but must wage an unrelenting warfare against everything that is evil. The same passage containing the injunction to “Preach the Word,” says, “Reprove, rebuke.” (2 Timothy 4:2.) “Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.” (1 Timothy 5:20.) “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isaiah 58:1 . Whosoever does this will incur the displeasure of those who are unwilling to forsake sin, and will be regarded as a disturber of the peace, creating dissension and strife. “They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.” Amos 5:10 .

It is frequently argued that the preaching of holiness causes division in the church—and so it does—and rightly so. Men who do not want purity and holiness want sin. There is nothing else to want. And “he that committeth sin is of the devil.” 1 John 3:8 . However, the preaching of holiness does not create the division; it simply reveals the division that already exists—and must forever exist—between the lovers of purity and the lovers of impurity. Such a division is scriptural, and essential to the real progress of the work of God. The Apostle Paul encouraged this division, when, referring to the “lovers of pleasure having a form of godliness but denying the power,” he said “from such turn away,” 2 Timothy 3:4 –5. “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed; for he that biddeth him Godspeed is a partaker of his evil deeds,” 2 John 10:11 . It is just as much a religious duty to frown at evil as to rejoice in the truth. Because Eli “frowned not” (margin, 1 Samuel 3:13 ) upon his sons when they did evil, the wrath of God came upon him. Before there can be scriptural peace there must be purity.

The preaching of sanctification does not divide pure people, it unites them. Jesus prayed “sanctify them that they all may be one,” John 17:17 –21. Not holiness, but the lack of holiness, is the source of division.