Part 3
Chapter 3. Sanctification, its way. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 23.
We are now to consider together the way that God takes in purifying the heart. Hitherto we have thought of the necessity and nature of this great experience. May his spirit direct our hearts into another of its blessed secrets.
I remember hearing our brother, Mr. George Grubb, once say that God answers man's query, how, with a gift. And so most assuredly he does. How can a man be born again, said Nicodemus? How can you get the living water seeing the well is deep? How can we eat thy flesh and drink thy blood? How wilt thou manifest thyself to us and not unto the world? How are the dead raised up? To each and all of these queries, the Lord replies, it is the gift of God.
He so loved that he gave. I will give you living water. I will give my flesh and blood for the life of the world.
I will give you another comforter. Thou fool, God giveth it a body. And so it is with the experience that we are considering.
It is a gift and a gift is a gift. Oh, let us get hold of this blessed fact. Repentance, faith and consecration are all man's part.
But sanctification is a gift, something that God does in and for us. Every time he says it, God giveth. May he pour some of this blessed balm into some tired, defeated hearts.
How then are we made pure within? How can the imagination, the mind, the memory, the desires and affections, conscience and will be made perfectly whole so that all that is within me shall bless his holy name? This is what we are to consider. First of all, God himself does it by love. The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly.
Faithful is he that calleth thee. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24. This is our first declaration.
It is God that does the work, the God of peace. Not, be it incidentally noted, the God of power or love, but of rest. The God who giveth rest himself sanctifies us.
It is nothing that we do or struggle into. It is not a mental position which we adopt and then hold on to. It is a real thing, a practical emancipation from inward evil which God gives to the soul.
Will you notice with me the three words in verse 24? Faithful, calleth and do. Faithful is he who calleth thee who will do it. God's faithfulness, God's love and God's power are all taxed to the utmost in accomplishing this great work.
Here, for the moment, I want to emphasize the second of these words, calleth, the indication of his love. God commandeth men everywhere to repent, but here he calls. When John Wesley was asked when one should preach the doctrine of entire sanctification, he replied, never until men are hungry and seeking for it.
And when we do, let it always be by drawing rather than by driving. Yes, he calls us, woos us, allures us, invites us to enter the land of rest from inbred sin. I am always suspicious of the modern method of trying to screw people up into a state of consecration.
The Lord Jesus in dealing with men and women always approached them in such a way that of their own accord they confess their sin and need. His treatment of the woman of Samaria is a beautiful instance of this gracious method. He gave her an opportunity to run away from him.
It was so, too, as he dealt with the woman taken in adultery, John VIII, how easy it would have been for her to slink away when all eyes were directed to the runaway Pharisees. But faith in his tenderness and grace held her fast till his pardoning, sanctifying grace had done its work. He draws you now, he calls you, poor, defeated, discouraged soul.
He tells you that it is he himself who does the work, the very God of peace himself. One of the most wonderful themes in the word of God is his message through the prophet Jeremiah. Turn, will you, to the opening chapter of that prophecy.
It is conceivable, he says, that a man who has put away his wife for unfaithfulness and sin will ever take her back again. Why, the very land would be polluted. But yet he cries, I will receive you, if only you will return.
That's verse 13 of chapter 3. Only acknowledge your iniquity. That is the sole condition. His plaint was, they have forgotten me days without number.
The reason why we can't get deliverance and victory is that we will not return with all our hearts, just as we are, sin and all to him. Like the prodigal of old, with our rags upon us, he bids us come and then he himself will sanctify us wholly. This is the first secret of inheriting the blessing.
How hard it is to believe this wonderful thing. So poisoned have been our hearts that we find it almost impossible appropriately to believe that God blesses so. May all the poison of distrust, suspicion and unbelief be extracted from us and heavenly holy faith infused within our wounded, weakened souls.
Sanctification its way, number two, by chastening. He chasteneth us for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. Hebrews 12 verse 10.
In this 12th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, we get another secret. If you will read it carefully, you will notice the word endurance translated in verse 1 as patience, but in verses 2, 3 and 7 as endurance. The Lord Jesus, we are there told, endured two things, the cross and the contradiction of sinners.
The writer uses this as a warning and a model for us. His argument is this. If Christ, the sinless one, could endure the gainsaying and rebuke of sinners, how much more should we, the sinful, endure patiently the chastening and rebuke of a loving heavenly Father? There can be no sanctifying grace without this.
Are we prepared for his convicting, chastening word? Can we take rebuke and reproof through his people, other Christians, without getting offended? Without conviction for holiness, we can get nowhere. Not only is it necessary for our own holiness, but it is a priceless asset in our service. Unless we ourselves have been convicted of sin, we can never produce conviction in others.
We may preach like angels, but it will only be tinkling cymbals and sounding brass. God must chasten us if we would be partakers of his holiness. The word here is aionis.
That, in verse 14, is a little different. The former speaks of a state, the latter of a process bringing us into that state. How extraordinarily exact is the word of God! I cannot imagine how a deep student of Scripture can be other than a believer in verbal inspiration.
The very words, nouns, verbs and adjectives are all used with such precision and exactitude of meaning. When the Spirit of Truth first visits our hearts, he reproves and rebukes and makes us miserable. No one ever got miserable over his sins apart from the Holy Ghost.
Praise God for all the misery and conviction. Remember it is his chastening hand, and there can be no living faith apart from conviction. It can only operate in a heart broken up and convicted of the Holy Ghost.
Has he been putting the plough through the fallow ground, breaking up the hardness and self-righteousness in your heart? Have you had a vision of your lovelessness and joylessness? It is the chastening hand of the loving God who has called you. Don't be afraid of it. Don't run away from it.
Welcome it. Bow down before his presence. He wants you to be a partaker of his holiness.
Remember Jesus Christ enduring the rebuke and gainsaying of sinners. He invites you, draws you, allures you, and in tenderness chastens you, that you may be sanctified in truth. You will never get the blessing by understanding the doctrine, or by study, or by knowing all about its philosophy.
You can't get in head first. Bow, oh bow before his chastening, convicting hand. So shall you enter in.
Hallelujah. Number 3. By the Promises 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1. Having therefore these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And 2 Peter 1.4. That by his exceeding great and precious promises you might be partakers of the divine nature.
The divine nature, what is it? God is a spirit. God is light. God is love.
God is a consuming fire. That is the fourfold definition of God's nature, as given us in the New Testament. God is a spirit.
His nature is spiritual. When we partake of it, we too shall become spiritual. Understanding spiritual, eternal, and heavenly things, it will take the carnality out of us.
God is light. That is to say, bringing sweet and clear assurance to our souls. It will take the darkness out of us.
God is love. We shall be partakers of this also. It will take the malice from us.
God is a consuming fire. It will destroy all the dross of selfishness and sin. And all this is for us through the promises.
These are what convey to us the blessing. I have never heard of any soul entering the blessed state of sanctification other than through the promises of God. We need to get alone and read and re-read, affirm and reaffirm, plead and plead again the great and precious promises before the Lord.
Last night, wrote a young man to William Carvozo, as I was pleading the promises of God for entire sanctification, I suddenly found faith springing up in my heart and I was enabled to believe the work was done. This is the only way to wrest the devil's weapons from us. The written word alone avails.
The Lord Jesus in the wilderness used it thus. The words he quoted from the book of Deuteronomy were all selected from the story of his people in the wilderness. He himself in the desert puts himself back with his people in that same position and meets the enemy with words of victory where they had met defeat.
Study the context of the words he quoted and compare them with the temptations of the Lord Jesus if you wish to get out of the wilderness into the promised land of Canaan's rest. God sanctifies through his promises. Through them he draws, encourages and sets his seal.
God lovingly calls, he lovingly chastens and convicts and now he lovingly offers to us his exceeding great and precious promises. To the call and to the conviction he adds the encouragement of a promised blessing. Lay hold, lay hold with all your might that the thing is promised.
Number four, by the blood of Jesus. Jesus that he might sanctify the people with his own blood. Hebrews 13 verse 12.
We now come to the heart of the whole matter, the meritorious cause of the great transaction. In Romans 5 verse 9 we read that we are justified by his blood. But here we are told of deeper things, sanctified by blood.
So many miss the blessing because they never see the cross of Christ as the means of their sanctification. That he died for their sins they know well enough but that he died to put away sin is hidden from their eyes. They have seen him as the Lamb of God who died in their stead on behalf of their transgressions but they have never beheld him lifted up as a serpent, made a curse on their behalf to take away their sin and cleanse all the old serpent virus from their nature.
St. Paul speaks of the cross, St. John tells of the blood, St. Peter seeks to show us of the stripes and sufferings of the Saviour to make us free and clean and whole. The mystery we may never understand that faith believes and appropriates all that his death has secured for our sanctification. Never have I felt my need of the blood of Jesus, said that great man John Smith of the early Methodists, more than I do today and never have I made such use of it.
What use are we really making of it at this very hour? Ten years ago perhaps we were saved through the merits of the blood of Jesus but today at this moment what is it to us in its practical working? In St. John chapter 6 we read of four blessings secured for those that eat his flesh and drink his blood, the gift of eternal life, here is feeding on him as the Passover lamb, an indwelling Christ, here is a partaking of his sacrifice as the peace offering, the power to serve, here is feeding upon the sin offering on others behalf and a future and everlasting salvation, eating of Christ as the trespass offering. Oh let us learn this lesson well, the Holy Ghost can never enter to abide with us except on one ground, the sacrifice of the slain lamb. No tears or prayers, no repentance or vows of consecration, no works of obedience will ever avail to ensure his indwelling.
He can only enter our hearts as an abiding guest in response to faith in the blood of Jesus. We are sanctified and made clean by his blood not by our tears. We are crucified with him through his cross and not by our own suffering or mortification.
Our poor diseased nature is made whole by his stripes not by any efforts or vows of consecration on our own. Let us look again upon his cross where he the spotless one was made sin. If all the imaginations of all men were rolled into one could they ever fathom the mystery or understand what it meant for the spotless son of God who had never experienced a sinful thought, an angry temper, a jealous feeling, a lustful desire, who no more knew from experience what sinfulness was than you or I know what the angelic state may be.
Could they ever imagine I say what it meant for him to have the unfathomable ocean of the world's sin turgid with all the unthinkable unprintable filthiness of hell surge over his spotless soul. No we cannot understand but we can believe that he is able to sanctify us with his blood. When this lays hold of us and we do believe and venture on the atoning sanctifying blood of Jesus what confidence is ours.
Faith rests no more upon feeling, no more upon silogism, no more upon mere truths or even the promises of God alone. It finds a rock beneath its feet the great historic fact of his sacrificial atoning death and can cry the cleansing stream I see I see I plunge and oh it cleanseth me oh praise the Lord it cleanseth me it cleanseth me yes cleanseth me. When you know and feel that you are made holy by his blood there will be an end of pride.
The theory that the Holy Spirit enters our hearts and keeps us from yielding to sin is wholly inadequate. Before this takes place there has to be a definite instantaneous and radical adjustment of our soul a purifying of the secret springs of our being from that tendency of evil inherited from Adam. Then can he enter to keep us from falling moment by moment and from yielding to temptations of the tempter now increased and intensified a hundredfold though thank God they are from without instead of from within.
This sin-destroying sanctifying experience is affected by his death the blood shedding of the Son of God upon the cross and apprehended by the living faith of a humbled soul and its blessed effects maintained moment by moment as we walk in the light. Number five sanctification by the Spirit. 1 Peter 1 2 by the Spirit all that we have said is true God the Father by his calling chastening promising love does the work.
The Lord Jesus by his death and blood shedding procured provided and forever secured the boon divine and yet without the agency of the Holy Ghost may we say it in all reverence all this would have been in vain. It is expedient said the Saviour that I go away for if I go not away the comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you. John 16 verse 7 blessed indeed for us that it should be so if the Saviour had remained on earth how few of us would have seen him every train and ship and caravan would have been crowded with pilgrims the world over to see Jesus how few comparatively of the poor would ever have got a glimpse of his face but the comforter has come that all may see the Lord it is he that takes the things of Christ and shows them to us.
Do you say you cannot understand you cannot grasp the meaning how can the blood of Jesus shed two thousand years ago cleanse my heart how can my selfish nature be crucified with a Christ nailed to the cross so long ago how can my diseased memory mind and will be made whole by the lacerated body of Christ at Calvary to your how dear soul the Lord replies I will send the comforter and he shall teach you all these things it is he who applies the blood listen to these exquisite lines of Charles Wesley written over 150 years ago come thou everlasting spirit bring to every thankful mind all the Saviour's dying merit all his sufferings for mankind true recorder of his passion now the living faith in part now reveal his great salvation unto every faithful heart come thou witness of his dying come remembrance our divine let us feel thy power applying Christ to every soul and mine what exquisite designation of his office true recorder of his passion witness of his dying remembrance our divine yes we are all dependent on him what need there is to wait upon him alone in our rooms beware of the greatest of all dangers seeking to enter through the operation of our own understandings or the struggles of our own wills or by both some try one way some the other and some both they are all equally futile only the Holy Ghost can show us the way and only the Holy Ghost can bring us in if the Lord Jesus had to offer himself through the eternal spirit how much more are we dependent upon his constraining compelling enlightening enabling power as we wait then upon God pleading the promises knowing our own impotence idolatry and infidelity let us remember he is there to help us to believe and bring every thought unto captivity to the obedience of Christ number six sanctification by the word mark 1 42 as soon as he had spoken immediately the leprosy departed from him and john 15 verse 3 now you are clean through the word which i have spoken our meditation is drawing to a close but there is one very important consideration in the subject before us we have seen that God gives us and uses his promises to affect the sanctification of our hearts we can only really believe God the finished work of Christ and the operating presence of the Holy Ghost through the written word there is always the intermediary of blessing by hiding a definite promise of God in our hearts appropriating it using it against the attack of the devil and through it believing God by this means and this alone we are able to reach our desired end the sanctification of our soul and yet after we have done this stepped out on the promise burned our bridges behind us God has still a further work to do through his word by it he seals his own work the scriptures provide us with repeated instances of his working thus take the cleansing of Isaiah the prophet there we see that after the live coal had touched his lips and he had felt the burning cleansing flame the seraphim spake again lo this has touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged in the story of the afflicted woman described in mark 5 we read that she felt in her body that she was healed of all that plague the lord stayed her steps and lest in the coming days by trusting to mere experience she should cast away her confidence he gives her a word of sealing to her soul thy faith he says has made the whole not by prayer decision consecration earnestness or zeal but by simply believing thou art restored oh how she must have hid that word in her heart just one other example the story from which i have selected my text told us in mark 1 40 and 41 the poor leper had sought the lord in despair and yet in faith self-desperate he had believed the savior was moved with compassion stretched forth his hand and touched him neither the touch nor the compassion affected the cure but as soon as he had spoken the work was done so believe the promises just as you are you need no special one for yourself they are all yea and amen in christ jesus come boldly wait humbly believe simply take freely but when you have and are resting in the faithfulness of him who has called chastened promised and led you by the holy ghost to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanliness then wait still upon him in quietness and expectancy till he seals what he has done with a word from his lips but wait believing that he has done it just five little sentences that have been made a blessing to many and may help you also what i give god takes what he takes he cleanses what he cleanses he fills what he fills he seals and what he seals he uses may your faith not your understanding lead you up these easy steps slowly surely may you go test each one as you take it they will bear all your weight lean hard walk firmly say excelsior as you rise keep praising only believe so shall the work be done the god of peace himself he calls you today he gives you promises today his loving hand has been chastening you giving you a bad time today well look up and thank him when you do you will find the sun coming out and with the tears and the sunshine you will get the rainbow the way god blesses you is in just the simple steps i have tried to indicate may every one of us enter into the land of promise the land that flows with milk and honey the land that is the gift of god the land of plenty and a land that you enter into without effort of your own it is all yours that wonderful land of promise in christ jesus