A. W.
Tozer wrote
Were some watcher or holy one from the bright world above to come
among us for a time with the power to diagnose the spiritual ills of church
people, there is one entry which I am quite sure would appear on the vast
majority of his reports: Definite evidence of chronic spiritual lassitude;
level of moral enthusiasm extremely low.
Dwight L. Moody (See Why
God Used Dwight L. Moody by R. A. Torrey) once said that...
A holy life will make
the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns, they just shine.
Hudson Taylor, famed missionary to China
wrote:
"We are not
only to renounce evil, but to manifest the truth. We tell people the world is
vain; let our lives manifest that it is so. We tell them that our home is above
and that all these things are transitory. Does our dwelling look like it? O to
live consistent lives!"
John Brown,
19th-century Scottish theologian:
"Holiness does not consist in mystic
speculations, enthusiastic fervors, or uncommanded austerities; it consists in
thinking as God thinks, and willing as God wills.”
C. H. Spurgeon had much to say
about holiness...
Though you have
struggled in vain against your evil habits, though you have wrestled with them
sternly, and resolved, and re-resolved, only to be defeated by your giant sins
and your terrible passions, there is One who can conquer all your sins for you.
There is One who is stronger than Hercules, who can strangle the hydra of your
lust, kill the lion of your passions, and cleanse the Augean stable of your evil
nature by turning the great rivers of blood and water of his atoning sacrifice
right through your soul. He can make and keep you pure within. Oh, look to him!
Holy desires are
grace in the blade, and the heavenly Husbandman will cultivate them till they
come to the full corn in the ear. God-fearing men desire to be holy, to be
useful, to be a blessing to others, and so to honor their Lord. - Faith's
Checkbook
If we divide
ourselves between God and mammon, or Christ and self, we shall make no progress.
We must give ourselves wholly to holy things, or else we shall be poor traders
in heavenly business; and at our stock-taking, no profit will be shown.
Faith's Checkbook
You will not gain
holiness by standing still. Nobody ever grew holy without consenting, desiring,
and agonizing to be holy. Sin will grow without sowing, but holiness needs
cultivation. Follow it; it will not run after you. You must pursue it with
determination, with eagerness, with perseverance, as a hunter pursues his prey.
The bloom of the hawthorn or White May looks like
snow out in the country, but near the vast city or along the roadside its virgin
whiteness is sadly stained. Too often contact with the world has just such an
effect on our piety. We must make our way to the far-off garden of Paradise to
see holiness in its unsullied purity, and meanwhile we must be much alone with
God if we would maintain a gracious life below
There can be no such thing as perfect happiness till there is perfect holiness.
I would sooner be
holy than happy if the two things could be divorced. Were it possible for a man
always to sorrow and yet to be pure, I would choose the sorrow if I might win
the purity, for to be free from the power of sin, to be made to love holiness,
is true happiness.
A faith which works not for purification will work for putrefaction. Unless our
faith makes us pine after holiness, it is no better than the faith of devils,
and perhaps it is not even so good as that. A holy man is the workmanship of the
Holy Spirit.
We say of a river that it runs to the south, although there may be eddies along
the banks which run in an opposite direction to the main stream. Still, these
are inconsiderable matters. The main stream of the Thames is running constantly
toward the sea, and we speak not untruthfully when we say that it is so. And the
main stream and set of the current of the life of a child of God runs toward
that which is right and true and holy, both toward God and man. If it is not so
with you, you do not know the Lord. You need to be born again...
Of all the griefs the
church ever feels, the keenest is when those who once stood in her midst
dishonor the name of Christ by unholy living.
Did you ever see a
bush burn, and yet not be consumed? Did you ever see a spark float in the sea,
and yet not be quenched? Many persons here are, to themselves, just such
wonders. They are living godly lives in the midst of temptation, holy in the
midst of impurity, serving God in spite of all opposition. They are strange
things!.
If your religion does
not make you holy, it will damn you. It is simply painted pageantry to go to
hell in.
Holiness is better
than morality. It goes beyond it. Holiness affects the heart. Holiness
respects the motive. Holiness regards the whole nature of man. A moral man
does not do wrong in act; a holy man hates the thought of doing wrong. A moral
man does not swear, but a holy man adores. A moral man would not commit outward
sin; a holy man would not commit inward sin. And if committed, he would pour
forth floods of tears.
"While the Austrian
general was staying at the Hotel de Ville, upon the Grand Canal at Venice, I
lodged at the same house, and as often as I passed his rooms, whether during the
day or at night, I encountered two sentries on guard at the door. My heart said
to itself, whenever the King of kings deigns to make a chamber of my spirit, let
me set holiness and devotion to be sentries at the entrance. When our Beloved
visits us He must not be disturbed. Ill thoughts must be repulsed, and carnal
desires kept at a distance. With drawn swords let watchfulness preserve the
sanctity of Immanuel's rest. "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the
roes and by the hinds of the field that ye stir not up nor awake my love, till
he please." "For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one
died for all, therefore all died;" (2 Cor 5:14)
“In that day shall
there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD”—Zechariah
14:20 HAPPY day when all things shall be consecrated, and the horses’ bells
shall ring out holiness to the Lord! That day has come to me. Do I not make all
things holy to God? These garments, when I put them on or take them off, shall
they not remind me of the righteousness of Christ Jesus, my Lord? Shall not my
work be done as unto the Lord? Oh, that today my clothes may be vestments, my
meals sacraments, my house a temple, my table an altar, my speech incense, and
myself a priest! Lord, fulfill thy promise, and let nothing be to me common or
unclean.
Let me in faith expect this. Believing it to be so, I shall be helped to make it
so. As I myself am the property of Jesus, my Lord may take an inventory of all I
have for it is altogether His own; and I resolve to prove it to be so by the use
to which I put it this day. From morning till evening, I would order all things
by a happy and holy rule. My bells shall ring: why should they not? Even my
horses shall have bells: who has such a right to music as the saints have? But
all my bells, my music, my mirth shall be turned to holiness and shall ring out
the name of “The Happy God.” - Faith's Checkbook
Spurgeon
commenting on the truth that God "saved us and called us with a holy calling"
(2 Timothy 1:9) wrote that...
The apostle uses the
perfect tense
(completed action at a point in time in the past with continuing effect/result)
and says, "Who hath saved us." Believers in Christ Jesus are saved. They are not
looked upon as persons who are in a hopeful state, and may ultimately be saved,
but they are already saved. Salvation is not a blessing to be enjoyed upon the
dying bed, and to be sung of in a future state above, but a matter to be
obtained, received, promised, and enjoyed now. The Christian is perfectly saved
in God's purpose; God has ordained him unto salvation, and that purpose is
complete. He is saved also as to the price which has been paid for him: "It is
finished" was the cry of the Saviour ere he died. The believer is also perfectly
saved in his covenant head, for as he fell in Adam, so he lives in Christ. This
complete salvation is accompanied by a holy calling. Those whom the Saviour
saved upon the cross are in due time effectually called by the power of God the
Holy Spirit unto holiness: they leave their sins; they endeavor to be like
Christ; they choose holiness, not out of any compulsion, but from the stress of
a new nature, which leads them to rejoice in holiness just as naturally as
aforetime they delighted in sin. God neither chose them nor called them because
they were holy, but he called them that they might be holy, and holiness is the
beauty produced by his workmanship in them. The excellencies which we see in a
believer are as much the work of God as the atonement itself. Thus is brought
out very sweetly the fulness of the grace of God. Salvation must be of grace,
because the Lord is the author of it: and what motive but grace could move him
to save the guilty? Salvation must be of grace, because the Lord works in such a
manner that our righteousness is for ever excluded. Such is the believer's
privilege-a present salvation; such is the evidence that he is called to it-a
holy life. (Morning and Evening)
Spurgeon
commenting on Jesus' command to "sanctify them through Thy truth" (John
17:17) reasoned that...
Sanctification begins
in regeneration. The Spirit of God infuses into man that new living principle by
which he becomes "a new creature" in Christ Jesus (Ed note: He is "positionally"
holy in Christ at this point in time). This work, which begins in the new birth,
is carried on in two ways-mortification, whereby the lusts of the flesh are
subdued and kept under; and vivification, by which the life which God has put
within us is made to be a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. This
is carried on every day in what is called "perseverance," by which the Christian
is preserved and continued in a gracious state, and is made to abound in good
works unto the praise and glory of God; and it culminates or comes to
perfection, in "glory," when the soul, being thoroughly purged, is caught up to
dwell with holy beings at the right hand of the Majesty on high. But while the
Spirit of God is thus the author of sanctification, yet there is a visible
agency employed which must not be forgotten. "Sanctify them," said Jesus,
"through thy truth: thy word is truth." The passages of Scripture which prove
that the instrument of our sanctification is the Word of God are very many. The
Spirit of God brings to our minds the precepts and doctrines of truth, and
applies them with power. These are heard in the ear, and being received in the
heart, they work in us to will and to do of God's good pleasure. The truth is
the sanctifier, and if we do not hear or read the truth, we shall not grow in
sanctification. We only progress in sound living as we progress in sound
understanding. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Do
not say of any error, "It is a mere matter of opinion." No man indulges an error
of judgment, without sooner or later tolerating an error in practice. Hold fast
the truth, for by so holding the truth shall you be sanctified by the Spirit of
God. (Morning and Evening)
J. C. Ryle has some pithy comments on the need for saints to "pursue
holiness"
"I do not know what others may think, but to me it does seem clear
that heaven would be a miserable place to an unholy man. It cannot be otherwise.
People may say in a vague way they “hope to go to heaven,” but they do not
consider what they say. There must be a certain “meetness for the inheritance of
the saints in light.” Our hearts must be somewhat in tune. To reach the holiday
of glory, we must pass through the training school of grace. We must be
heavenly–minded and have heavenly tastes in the life that now is, or else we
will never find ourselves in heaven in the life to come." (read entire sermon "Holiness")
Pastor
Ray Stedman writes
"When I was younger, most people thought of holiness
as grimness. I did not like "holy" people....Holy people never smiled and never
enjoyed anything. In fact, if they did enjoy anything, they felt guilty about
it!...They looked like they had been soaked in embalming fluid. They were grim
and dull; they frowned on anything that was fun or pleasurable. But that is not
holiness. I like the good English word wholeness, which also
derives from the same root [Ed. note: New Unger's Bible Dictionary" says it is
"from Saxon, 'halig,' 'whole,' 'sound'"...it is moral wholeness...with reference
to persons, places & things") Everybody wants to be a whole person....to
have together all the parts which were intended to be there, and to have them
functioning as they were intended to function....The Old Testament speaks about
"the beauty of holiness" {1Chr 16:29, 2Chr 20:21, Ps 29:2, 96:9},
the inner attractiveness that is apparent when someone begins to function
inwardly as he or she was intended. What this says is that God is designing
beautiful people! That is what he wants. And not merely outwardly beautiful
people like those we see on television, but inwardly beautiful people. He is
more interested in inward beauty, in making admirable, trustworthy, strong,
loving, compassionate people -- having all the qualities which make for inner
beauty. That is what God calls wholeness, and that is his will for you."
In the Radio Bible Class Booklet
Why Would Anyone Want To Be Holy?
we read that...
The key to living a
holy, Christ-like life is not simply to attend church, try harder, read the
Bible, or take a stand against Satan and his lies--as important as all those
actions are. The key is this: We are to live the Christian life the way we began
it--depend on God's grace and place all our hope and trust in Him. [Ed Note:
Jehovah MeKeddeshem, the LORD Who Sanctifies] The apostle Paul put it this way,
"Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him" (Col
2:6-note)....In
a footnote in The Discipline of Grace (NavPress, 1994), author Jerry Bridges
writes, "I am aware that a vast number of professing Christians display little
or no commitment to spiritual growth or discipleship, and for them the Christian
life is no more than the mere formalities of attending church and avoiding
scandalous behavior" (p.233)...What do you think? Do you agree with him? Are you
assessing your own degree of passion for spiritual growth and discipleship? Are
we coasting through life without examining our attitudes and actions in the
light of God's Word? Do we view ourselves as pretty decent individuals who don't
do any of the "big" sins that get people tossed into jail or out of churches?
It's easy to begin to coast spiritually. After all, growth requires hard work.
It means sacrificing some short-range "want to's" for some long-range "need to's"
that will honor the Lord. There are no quick fixes. Mountaintop spiritual
thrills are followed by valleys of spiritual battles and even crushing failures.
Becoming holy and Christ-like takes a lifetime. Summarize in your own words the
key ways that holiness is to be evidenced in your daily life. What is your
greatest struggle right now in your pursuit of holiness? What is God telling you
to do as you rely on Him? Take a few moments to pray and respond to what God has
said in His Word.
R. C. Sproul (from his book
The Holiness of God)
reminds us that
"Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute
of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God
mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy,
holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy.
The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or
wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy,
holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory." [Ed note: Hebrew
repeats words for emphasis or to show degrees of comparison. E.g., if you said a
stone was big it would mean one thing but if in Hebrew you said the stone was
''big big'', you would mean it was a really big stone. And if it was big, big,
big, it would mean that it was really big, a veritable gigantic boulder. And so
the triplicate "Holy" signifies God is "really holy". A familiar verse is
Isaiah 26:3
"The
steadfast of
mind Thou will
keep in
perfect
peace,
because he
trusts in Thee."
where "perfect peace" is literally "shalom, shalom" or "peace,
peace".]
John Calvin reminds of the obvious truth that
"No one leads a holy life
except he is united to God." [Ed note: specifically to Jehovah
Mekeddeshem Who makes His people holy!]
Chuck Colson in his book
Loving God observed that
"Holiness is
the everyday business of every Christian. It evidences itself in the decisions
we make and the things we do, hour by hour, day by day."
Jerry Bridges in his book
The Pursuit of Holiness makes the
following
observations:
"Our first problem is that our attitude towards sin is more
self-centered than God-centered. We are more concerned about our own "Victory"
over sin than we are about the fact that our sin grieves the heart of God. We
cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success
oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God...the pursuit of holiness
is a joint venture between God (Ed note: Jehovah MeKeddeshem) and the Christian. No one can attain any degree
of holiness without God working in his life, but just as surely no one will
attain it without effort on his own part. God has made it possible for us to
walk in holiness. But He has given to us the responsibility of doing the
walking; He does not do that for us...holiness is a process, something we never
completely attain in this life. Rather, as we begin to conform to the will of
God in one area of life, He reveals to us our need in another area. That is why
we will always be pursuing - as opposed to attaining - holiness in this
life...The idea of exactly how to be holy has suffered from many false concepts.
In some circles, holiness is equated with a series of prohibitions - usually in
such areas as smoking, drinking & dancing. The list of prohibitions varies
depending on the group. When we follow this approach to holiness, we are in
danger of becoming like the Pharisees with their endless lists of trivial do's
and don'ts, and their self-righteous attitude. For others, it means a particular
style of dress and mannerisms. And for still others, it means unattainable
perfection, an idea that fosters either delusion or discouragement about one's
sin. All of these ideas, while accurate to some degree, miss the true concept.
To be holy is to be morally blameless. It is to be separated from sin and,
therefore, consecrated to God. The word signifies " separation to God, and the
conduct befitting those so separated." (Jerry Bridges excellent and
practical book
The Pursuit of Holiness
is highly recommended). (Or listen to his audios - see
list of multiple Mp3's related to pursuit of
holiness)
Pastor Bruce Goettsche gives a semi-humorous (but sadly true) description
of how most Evangelicals often envision "Holiness"
"Have you ever gone fishing
in a polluted river & hauled out an old shoe, a tea kettle, or a rusty can? I
get a similar sort of catch if I cast as a bait the word holiness into
the murky depths of my mind. To my dismay I come up with such associations as:
thinness, hollow-eyed gauntness, beards, sandals, long robes, stone cells, no
sex, no jokes, hair shirts, frequent cold baths, fasting, hours of prayer, wild
rocky deserts, getting up at 4 A.M., clean fingernails, stained glass,
self-humiliation. But that is not what God is calling us to. He is calling us to
a Christ-like living. We are to be set aside for the service of the Lord. The
person who is living the life of holiness will be humbly aware of their
forgiveness and yet diligent in seeking to eliminate any trace of sin from their
lives. They will be people who are constantly saying, "Here am I Lord," use me
and lead me as you deem best....The person who has begun to understand God’s
holiness is a person who is changed. The idea of an unchanged Christian is a
contradiction in terms. If you are not pursuing holiness, (Heb12:14-note)
there is a good chance you are not a child of God...no matter how long you have
been in the church.
(ponder
Eph 5:1-7)"(see
Wayne Barber's sermon on Eph5:1ff)
Walter Kaiser in his book "Quest for Renewal" writes that in all Old Testament
revivals:
There was a deep
sense of sin and an overpowering desire to separate themselves from it and from
all its sponsoring causes. Such divinely induced anxiety and agonizing
conviction of sin needs no prompting or psychological maneuvering. The work is
uniquely that of the Holy Spirit. The failures of the past, even those that have
been forgotten, suddenly become so real and so painfully present that no amount
of comfort or personal rationalization will assuage the terrible pressure of
individual guilt and heartbreak. Accordingly, so spontaneous and thorough should
be the conviction and simultaneous hatred of sin that there will be no need to
plead with men and women to make any decisions.
Some one has characterized the average
professing Christian's pursuit of holiness as follows:
"Some professing
Christians spend the first six days of each week sowing their wild oats, then
they go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure."
There is a myth that exists that says we
can live comfortably in our world of faith and then flirt with the world. God
calls us to another standard."
Whatever else the
professing Christian church may be known for today—great crowds, expensive
buildings, big budgets, political clout—it’s not distinguished for its holiness.
Bible-believing evangelical Christians make up a sizable minority in the United
States, but our presence isn’t making much of an impact on society. The salt
seems to have lost its saltiness, and the light is so well hidden that the
marketplace is quite dark. Eight times in Scripture, God said to His people, “Be
holy, for I am holy!” This is one of the major themes of Leviticus, a book that
teaches us how to avoid sin and how to grow in holiness.
A W Tozer commenting
on 1Peter 1:15,16 ("be holy as I am holy") wrote that...
The Holy Spirit is first of all a moral
flame. It is not an accident of language that He is called the Holy Spirit, for
whatever else the word holy may mean it does undoubtedly carry with it the idea
of moral purity. And the Spirit, being God, must be absolutely and infinitely
pure. With Him there are not (as with men) grades and degrees of holiness. He is
holiness itself, the sum and essence of all that is unspeakably pure.
No one whose senses have been exercised to know good and evil but must grieve
over the sight of zealous souls seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit while
they are yet living in a state of moral carelessness or borderline sin. Such a
thing is a moral contradiction. Whoever would be filled and indwelt by the
Spirit should first judge his life for any hidden iniquities; he should
courageously expel from his heart everything which is out of accord with the
character of God as revealed by the Holy Scriptures.
At the base of all true Christian experience must he a sound and sane morality.
No joys are valid, no delights legitimate where sin is allowed to live in life
or conduct. No transgression of pure righteousness dare excuse itself on the
ground of superior religious experience. To seek high emotional states while
living in sin is to throw our whole life open to self deception and the judgment
of God. "Be ye holy" is not a mere motto to be framed and hung on the wall. It
is a serious commandment from the Lord of the whole earth. "Cleanse your hands,
ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn,
and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into
heaviness" (James 4:8, 9). The true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be
holy. The holy heart alone can be the habitation of the Holy Ghost.
Warren Wiersbe recounted the following
experience as an example of the trivialization of holiness...
"We
will stand and sing hymn 325,” announced the worship leader, “ ‘Take Time to Be
Holy.’ We will sing verses one and four.” If I had been sitting with the
congregation instead of on the platform, I might have laughed out loud. Imagine
a Christian congregation singing “Take Time to Be Holy” and not even taking
time to sing the entire song! If we can’t take the time (less than four
minutes) to sing a song about holiness, we’re not likely to take time to devote
ourselves to “perfecting
holiness in the
fear of God.” (2Co 7:1-
See notes).
Happiness, not holiness, is the chief pursuit of most people today, including
many professed Christians.
Holiness in
the Biblical sense means to be untouched by the normal, the routine, or the
ordinary, which is marred by imperfection, corrosion and decay. Holiness means
to be set aside for God’s special purposes. We’re to be set apart and different,
not blending in with the crowd, yet not being different for the sake of being
different.
John Newton (Amazing Grace) admitted:
I am not what I might be, I am not what I
ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be. But I thank
God I am not what I once was, and I can say with the great apostle, “By the
grace of God I am what I am.
Quietists downplay or totally disregard the believer’s effort necessary
in the pursuing of holiness (just "let go & let God") and thereby risk
promoting spiritual irresponsibility and apathy. On the other hand, Pietists can tend to
overemphasize human effort and thereby inflame people’s pride or lapse into
legalism
Sanctification does not primarily mean perfection (although some would disagree
with this statement) but instead refers to separation. Separation from sin is
now the direction of our lives, and someday separation from sin's pull & sin's
pleasure. Sanctification is both an event and a lifelong process as discussed in
the Three
Tenses of Salvation. Sanctification should not be
confused with false standards of holiness, adopted by those who, like the
Pharisees, attempt to be holy through external means, or who, like the Stoics,
have a passionless devotion to duty, or who, like monks, isolate themselves from
the world, or who, like quasi-Christian psychologists, replace sanctification
with introspection, self-analysis, and improvement of one’s self-image. True holiness begins with a love for Christ Himself.
That’s what compels you toward greater sanctification.
