LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON,
OKLAHOMA
Home About Us Holiness Library History of the Holiness Movement Early English Bibles Bible Studies View Sermons Links
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Home About Us Holiness Library History of the Holiness Movement Early English Bibles Bible Studies View Sermons Links
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WHY THE PREACHING OF HOLINESS IS ESSENTIAL TO REVIVALS Answer:
The preaching of holiness is essential because holiness is the divine
standard which God would have us lift up. He who does not believe in
holiness has no choice but to believe in sin. To deny the possibility of
holiness in this life is equivalent to saying Jesus can not save from all sin.
Men must understand that in order to be saved at all they must abandon and
forsake all sin. Even sinners recognize that a “sinning religion” does not
recommend itself, and admit that holiness is the true standard. They naturally
and most truthfully reason concerning those professing religion who insist they
cannot live without sinning, and that they are just as good as those, since they
are both living the same way. SECOND. The definite preaching of holiness is always
strengthening and stimulating to those who are Christians, as it edifies them,
and brings them to see their need and privileges, and so stirs them up to more
diligent heart-searchings and consequent calling upon God. Thus the revival
begins where a true revival must always begin. Whenever the children of God get
out into the tides of full salvation (His Rest), and hence have the full joys of
salvation, and are free and impelled to service by the fullness of the Spirit,
sinners invariably come under conviction; and begin to seek God. Jesus said, in
speaking of His disciples, concerning the Holy Spirit, “And when He is come
(to you who are Christians) He will reprove the world of sin and of
righteousness.” Generally speaking, Christians lack the fullness of the Spirit
and consequently there is no conviction. The Holy Spirit does the work of
conviction most generally through the overflow of Christian hearts. THIRD. The preaching of holiness is essential that by
contrast sinners may see their distance from God. A man may never realize his
poverty until he stands by the side of some multi-millionaire; or how ignorant
he is, until he comes in contact with those who are far advanced along
intellectual lines, and are greatly his superiors; just so a man may never
realize how sinful he is until he has a glimpse of God’s holiness. It was when
Isaiah had a vision of the holiness of God that he began to cry out, “I am
undone.” So in magnifying the holiness of God men will come to more fully
realize the necessity of being holy if they would dwell with a holy God. If God
is holy, I must be holy. FOURTH. Then, again, the definite preaching of holiness
clearly draws the lines of battle, for there is nothing that the devil so much
hates, and God so much delights to bless, as the definite preaching of holiness.
The preaching of holiness causes agitation, and when men become aroused and
agitated they will give attention and begin to think, and when they begin to
think, the Holy Spirit has special opportunity. Where there is no agitation
there is invariably stagnation. As suggested, God will always bless the
uncompromising preaching of holiness. But some one will inquire, would you
preach holiness to sinners? I would answer, “yes;” and then teach them that
in order to reach holiness they must first repent and be born again. When God
sent Moses into Egypt He did not tell him to preach to them about, or start them
for the wilderness of Zin, but started them at once for Canaan, though it
required two crossings to reach The
objective point of all the provisions of the atonement, and of every commandment
and promise in the Bible, is holiness. He “hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly things (marginal reference)
in
Christ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”
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