01.16. A Perfect Consecration
Chapter 16 A PERFECT CONSECRATION.
We are confident that the explanation of much of the offence ostensibly aroused over the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification, springs really from the announcement of the price necessary to be paid for its obtainment. A consecration that is confessedly defective, that allows certain mental reservations, is not fought by devils nor opposed or objected to by the church. It is the devotement of the whole man for all time that seems to arouse hell and earth. The adversary well knows that a partial or imperfect consecration will never bring the Baptism with the Holy Ghost upon the soul. So there are many revival meetings, so called, and consecration services so named that he has not the slightest uneasiness about. He knows what it costs to secure the goods, and that the price is not being paid at these popular gatherings, and so is not alarmed about the results of such meetings, smiles at the reports, and does not inaugurate an agency or movement to injure, retard or stop the largely attended, newspaper puffed, popular affair. The meeting that makes clear the price and way of obtaining holiness is one that disturbs, alarms and infuriates the devil. This is the service or series of services that he causes his servants and instruments to belittle, abuse, misrepresent, oppose, and if possible to break up. He knows that where a perfect consecration is made, the fire will fall, men and women will be sanctified wholly and a body of divinely empowered people literally hurled upon him, will put him on the run, keep him on the run, and shake his old rotten kingdom to pieces about his ears.
It strikes the writer that no man is justified in denying the fact of such a blessing as holiness who has not met the conditions required for its obtainment. He is really in no place even to criticize. How can he say there are no such goods in the spiritual market, when he will not put the price on the counter. He is not only not allowed to handle the pearl of great price, but it is questionable whether a man sees the full beauty of the blessing until the whole cost has left his hands. It is the individual who is walking in the light, not standing, or worse still, backing out of the light, who gets the cleansing from "all sin" that John writes about. A perfect consecration is unspeakably ahead of the Epworth League, Christian Endeavor consecration, which is made with heart and life reservations, rendered at every monthly and annual gathering, and leaves the soul at last hurt, hardened and deadened in some kind of way as to put it beyond the call and reach of Full Salvation. A perfect consecration puts its hand on every moment of our time. It will not allow us to be devoted on the Sabbath and then careless, prayerless, unspiritual and even worldly on the week days. This commitment will not permit us after going to the prayer meeting Wednesday night, to fraternize in a lodge with all sorts of unbelievers on Thursday night.
There are men who seem to be completely the Lord’s as Sunday school superintendents, but are just as plainly, worldly or business absorbed beings, all the other days of the week. Some persons belong to the Lord while in the church building, but in another tenement they are not his. That strange little creature called the Chameleon, which takes the color and hue of everything that it is resting upon, was made to give us a picture in a concrete shape of this variable brother.
We heard the judgment once passed upon a preacher that when he was in the pulpit he should never come out of it, and when he was out of it, he never should go back into it. Here was Bro. Chameleon again, the imperfectly or partially consecrated Christian. The perfectly consecrated man is God’s man everywhere and anywhere; any time and all the time.
Secondly, a perfect consecration lays its hand upon the purse.
We do not believe it is possible to obtain and retain the blessing of holiness without having an understanding with God in regard to our income and property.
Very many regenerated people, and even church members, give one-tenth of their income to God. But a perfect consecration goes deeper and farther than that and lays all material substance on the altar just as all time was given to God. This does not mean that a man literally sells out everything he has, or gives away all he owns, or turns his property over to a Dowie or one of Dowie’s little imitators. This last proceeding would destroy the individual stewardship which the Lord declares exists between each individual soul and himself. Every one must give an account for himself; not this man or that man for another; but each one must render an account of himself and his stewardship to God.
Perfect Consecration lays every dollar on the altar with the full recognition that all belongs to God. That it is impossible to give the Lord one-tenth and then use the other nine-tenths in a way that Heaven cannot approve. In a high, holy sense all belongs to Christ and so must be used in a manner that He can smile upon and bless. Further still, that as everything belongs to God, if he should call for it, then all would be given up to him.
Third, a perfect consecration brings the entire body to the Lord. His own Word bids us to present it to himself a living sacrifice. The impossibility of the holy fire falling, and the Spirit of God filling one who kept back a single member, hand, foot, eye or tongue, is evident to any thinker. Not only is a part of the price withheld, but it is manifest that any faculty or power which we refuse to devote to God is certain to be the cause of our moral undoing. On the principle that the gate in Jerusalem which was not closed on the Sabbath brought a world of trouble to that city and finally captivity in Babylon; so the member we refuse to give to God will inevitably bring us into spiritual calamity. Job said he "made a covenant with his eye" -- David did not. Willis Cooper failed to include his eyes and feet in his Epworth League consecration and was burned up in a theater in the city of Chicago.
Perfect Consecration evidently presents the entire body a living sacrifice unto God, not only to spend and be spent in his service, but no matter what may be our walk, position and occupation in life, to live to his glory.
Fourth, a perfect consecration means the yielding up to God, of the soul with its will, intellect, sensibilities and every one of its marvellous forces and powers. The fully dedicated body, indeed proves that the spirit is all right, for the soul goes along with its shrine or temple. But in the Bible we find the specific language, "My son, give me thy heart." The heart here stands for the soul, and God never calls a sinner a son. He is not a son by nature and can only become so by being born of the Spirit. The popular platform talk about the universal Fatherhood of God is simple rot. Christ himself said of a certain body of people, "Ye are of your father the devil." So it is the child of God who is asked to present his body a living sacrifice, and to give his heart in all its fullness and completeness to God.
Finally a perfect consecration means the giving up of every tie and interest for the obtainment of Christ in the purifying, abiding, satisfying sense taught in the Bible. The Saviour said unless we left father, mother, lands, brethren and all for his sake, we were not worthy of him.
He said "worthy of me." He did not say worthy of pardon, for pardon is not secured that way. The condition of salvation is repentance and faith, with not a word about consecration, for a sinner cannot consecrate. When the Saviour was speaking of one’s leaving all for his sake he was using the language of consecration, and laying down the price or condition of obtaining him as the perpetual indweller, a privilege which comes only with the blessing of entire sanctification.
Let the reader review these five points of a perfect consecration, and he will be convinced of several things: First, that with such a complete devotement of self and life, there is no room or ground left for a "third blessing," so called.
Second, that such a consecration cannot possibly be improved upon, and does not need to be repeated, but simply continued. This of course breaks up that view of consecration held by Epworth Leagues, Christian Endeavor Societies, Y. M. C. A.’s, and the whole Keswickian following.
Third, when such consecrations are made, the church is deeply offended, is outspokenly indignant, and all hell itself is infuriated, and well it may be, for now something is going to happen!
Fourth, when Christians do thus wholly and forever give themselves up to God in perfect consecration, something does happen! The holy fire falls from heaven; men and women are wholly sanctified; the Holy Ghost witnesses to the distinct work; a revival begins; and salvation free and full begins to roll like a tidal wave through the church and over the community.
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