01.07. The Freedom of the Holiness Movement
Chapter 7 THE FREEDOM OF THE HOLINESS MOVEMENT. In saving this world, God has not only to supply truth and salvation, but is under the necessity of providing the best methods for the preservation of this truth and the enforcement or carrying out of the Redemption he has furnished.
Among the factors on the earthly side that was necessary was the priest. An under shepherd was called by the Chief Shepherd; a human priest was needed to stand forth not only as a type but a representative of the great High Priest in heaven. The priest called of God to minister to the people officiated in the Tabernacle Temple and Synagogue, as well as moved about among the homes and walks of his fellow beings in the work of doing good. Very naturally these appointees of heaven would in time be affected by social ties, domestic affections and personal obligations, as well as by the strong influence proceeding from the councils and sanhedrins of the very ecclesiasticism which they were called to serve.
Consciously or unconsciously in such a position and situation, the truth they stood for originally, would in time and in some measure be affected. The complete messages from heaven would not be delivered; and so the cause of God as well as the best spiritual interests of man would be hurt.
Because of this fact, all foreseen by the Almighty, the prophet was brought forth as a most conspicuous figure in the economy of grace. He seems always to have been the special messenger of heaven, a man prepared, provided for and protected in remarkable ways by the King of Kings.
Sometimes this servant of the Lord was fed and delivered by miraculous methods; and always was made to feel that God was for him and back of him and would see him through every trial, duty, difficulty and danger in which he found himself. Dependent alone on his Maker for his commission and provision, he was the peculiar servant of the Lord, and was felt to be his mouthpiece as he came to nations and cities, stood before kings, generals and the people, and delivered the messages of God without the fear or favor of men before his eyes. This peculiar position, this distinct dependent relation of the prophet upon God alone, secured the courage and boldness that the ambassador of the skies ought to have, and also the delivery of warning rebuke or commandments in their integrity and completeness to the people as the Lord desired. In the present day we see the pastor taking the place of the priest of olden times. Like his predecessor, the office is essential, and so in the pastoral charge and in the councils of the different denominations the preacher in his appointment is found as a fixture of grace and intended by the Lord to be a blessing to his kingdom and the world itself. But as in the former case, we observe that the social, domestic and certain ecclesiastical relations affect the servant of God to a greater or less extent in his proclamation of the truth, and in his dealings with the souls committed to his care.
It is very difficult indeed for men in the pastorate to remain unaffected and uninfluenced by the oppositions, hates, intrigues, friendships, affections, flatteries, and, one may add, the briberies which surround and assail the office. The Bible speaks of a gift perverting the judgment, and we need no argument to prove the difficulty in the way of a pastor preaching a close Gospel and delivering the awful warnings of the Bible and presenting the conditions and the way of obtaining a full salvation to a congregation who have been personally kind, and fairly loaded the preacher down with benefits. The temptation is to avoid subjects and to pass in silence over sins, that these very people ought to hear about because of their ignorance of the one, and their guilt in regard to the other. This is a mere hint in reference to the difficulty and danger of the pastoral relation. It is not an easy one. So that the whole messages of God are not heard by many of the large audiences gathered every Sabbath in the spacious sanctuaries and imposing cathedrals of the land. This alarming fact necessitates another order of the ministry, clearly recognized in the New Testament and used by the Holy Ghost to this day, called the Evangelist. The apostle Paul not only shows the difference between the Evangelist and the Pastor, but teaches that the former outranks the latter in the mind of God as a gift to the kingdom of Grace. The Evangelist in some respects takes the place of the prophet. He cannot foresee and foretell as did the Seer of God, but supported in a different way from the pastor, freed from many limitations and restrictions that are seen in the life of the preacher in charge, burdened with special messages from God, and swung providentially all over the country, he can deliver warnings, rebuke sin, cry against the evils of the day, strike at formality, unmask hypocrisy and declare a full salvation from sin, as other pulpit servants of heaven either can not or will not do.
It is no more intended of God that the Evangelist should abuse this freedom and powers than did the prophets. Like them, it is true, he being human, can go off on money lines as did Balaam, or suppress or let down the truth, and thereby swell the ranks of the false prophets who continue to sell themselves out to the Ahabs and Jezebels of this world. But many of them, thank God! are faithful, and sound a Full Salvation and complete messages from the skies in the ears of the people. Fed, clothed, protected, upheld, delivered and blessed by the Lord who calls them to the work, they go where he wants them to go, and says what he wants them to say, though men and devils rage, and the universe itself should go to pieces. In this same line of thought we would observe that the church is a spiritual necessity. As a divine institution it not only is intended to spread, but to preserve the truth. Its teachings, sacraments, ceremonies, Sabbaths, worship, regular and special meetings find their existence and exercise in the double fact of the will of God and the need of man. But like the priest and the pastor, the church can settle down, lose its aggressiveness, part with its purity and forfeit its holy power. It may in different places and ages become in a measure spiritually blinded, deafened and even deadened. Unsaved people may swell its membership and rule in its councils. Its saved membership may become disheartened, discouraged and even overpowered by unspiritual elements and forces in the congregation. It may fall into ceremonial ruts, be satisfied with a routine of work, substitute Chautauquas and conventions for real revivals, and become not only ignorant but even offended at the preaching of a pure and full Gospel, and denounce, resent and withstand the actual presence and power of the Holy Ghost in their midst.
Because of this, God raises up great religious movements distinct from what is seen going on in the regular ecclesiastical world. Repeatedly these mighty awakenings and spiritual uprisings have stirred different nations and the world itself. They were made of God to do what the church was failing to do. They deliver messages the church is either afraid or disinclined to utter. They call the people to complete renunciation of sin, to perfect, obedience to God, and to holiness of heart and life. They, as movements, are distinct and free from the church, but are really the true friends to the church proper, and to the neglected world outside. The movement seems to occupy as a body of people holding the truth, the same relation to God and the human race, as did the Prophet and the Evangelist as individuals. It gives the whole truth and nothing but the truth to men, depends constantly upon God, and is peculiarly guided, upheld, delivered, honored and blessed by the Lord. The instant that such s movement takes upon itself the form of a church, it gradually loses its power, and settles down into the condition already described, and becomes respectable, moral and orthodox but also comparatively unctionless and powerless.
Equally fatal to the movement is it, when it places itself under the wing of ecclesiastical authority, getting its life from its recognition, and obtaining its orders from human instead of divine lips.
If the movement is of God it is bound to be a true friend to his kingdom and church; but to be that best friend it has to live, move and have its being through the touch, breath, hand and power of God.
If it takes its directions and commands from man other than from God in its revival and salvation work, then it has exchanged divine for human wisdom, leaning on the natural and physical, instead of the spiritual and supernatural, and has nothing to expect but defeat, failure and disaster. Such a course followed by Prophet, Evangelist and Holiness Movement of any age would instantly end the distinctiveness and peculiar glory of their offices and mission, and leave as one of the lamentable results an emasculated, attenuated and vitiated gospel on the hands of men. The present day holiness movement is one of the great, divine quickenings and uprisings we have been describing. It has been raised up of God not to hurt the world, but to save it; not to be an enemy to the church, but its true friend. Its best service to the church, however, can only be rendered by a free, independent relation as a religious movement. All holiness people should be members of some evangelical church of Christ. But the holiness movement itself is of God. It has been like another John the Baptist sent of God. It has come to arouse, rebuke, encourage, teach, fire and fill all in the churches who will hear its wonderful messages.
If it takes the form of an ecclesiasticism, it is but a question of time when it will become like the other churches, and will soon need to be awakened, recovered and saved as it once did other similar bodies.
If it places itself under the wing of any church, it will then become a mere department of that denomination; it will get its orders second-handed instead of from headquarters; the intimate divine relation and vital union will be broken up; and spiritual weakness and death will again be seen as the result. Receiving its pay and its commands from men, it will of necessity cease to be the supernatural thing, the flaming Evangel of Truth, the God-called, fire-filled and heaven-led movement of grace and glory. And while respectability and orthodoxy are left, salvation and holy power falling from the skies on the people will be memories of the past. The holiness movement to be a blessing to the world and to the church cannot afford to get under any but the divine wing. It must receive its orders from God. It must speak for God, no matter what may be the message, what the surrounding, and what the consequence. The holiness movement cannot afford to become popular. The instant it tries to please men, it will cease to please God, and he will set it aside as he has done Prophets and Evangelists who made the same fatal mistake. The holiness movement cannot afford to sell out to Leagues, Fraternities, Communities, Railway Companies, Rich men, or to anybody or anything. Any gift of land, houses, or money; any extension of favor, influence, patronage of a private or public character, which throttles the truth, cuts down the warnings, rebukes and proclamations that God would have the people hear, are so many chains and fetters to the cause, so many bandages and gags upon the mouths of her preachers, and so much Judas blood money for the sale of the beautiful divine truth of holiness or full salvation. The holiness movement, to be what the Lord wants it, must declare the whole counsel of God, keep back nothing of his truth as to sin and salvation, and sing, pray, preach, shout and live for him without the fear or favor of any man or of all men before its eyes. It must be peculiarly his messenger of truth; his mouthpiece; his evangel; his prophet as of old.
If we as holiness people become faithless; if we trim off and let down in our teaching and living; if we make affinity with Ahab and his crowd; get allies from Egypt and Syria; take up with prophets who say smooth things to please various bodies of people, if we use trumpets that give an uncertain sound, and fight with swords in the scabbard; if we aim for popularity instead of salvation, and for the applause of men rather than the smile, presence, favor and power of God in our midst; then are we already undone! The Shekinah will have gone from the mercy seat! Ichabod will be written on the walls of the temple! Our Glory will be departed! Nothing will be left then but another spiritual carcass or skeleton bleaching on the highway of the past: while God will proceed again to raise up another body of people who will be truer servants to him, and better friends to the human family than the faithless band who through money, red pottage, man-fear and public favor fell by the wayside.
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