Holiness and the New Life

Religion a Personal Matter

Some men say that they will test the holiness of Christ's religion by the holiness of Christ's people. You have no right, I reply, to put the question to any such test as that. The proper test that you ought to use is to try it yourselves—to "taste and see that the Lord is good." By tasting and seeing you will prove His goodness, and by the same process you must prove the holiness of His Gospel. Your business is to seek Christ crucified for yourselves, not to take the representation of another man concerning the power of grace to subdue corruption and to sanctify the heart. Inasmuch as God has given you a Bible, He intended you to read it, and not to be content with reading men. You are not to be content with feelings that rise through the conversation of others; your only power to know true religion is, by having His Holy Spirit operating upon your own heart, that you may yourself experience what is the power of religion. You have no right to judge religion from anything extra or external from itself. And if you despise it before you have tried it yourself, you must stand confessed in this world as a fool, and in the next world as a criminal. And yet this is so with most men. If you hear a man rail at the Bible, you may usually conclude that he never reads it. And you may be quite certain if you hear a man speak against religion, that he never knew what religion was. True religion, when once it takes possession of the heart, never allows a man to quarrel with it. That man will call Christ his best friend who knows Christ at all. We have found many who have despised the enjoyments of this world, but we never found one who turned from religion with disgust or with satiety, after having once enjoyed it. No! no! you chose your own delusions, and you chose them at your own risk; you foster them at your own peril. For if you take your religion from other people, and are led by the example of professors to discard religion, you are nevertheless guilty of your own blood. God has not left you to the uncertain chart of men's characters: He has given you His own Word; the more sure word of testimony, whereunto you do well that ye take heed.

Holiness

Holiness is the architectural plan upon which God buildeth up His living temple.

The New Heart

God does not promise that He will improve our nature, or that He will mend our broken hearts. No; the promise is, that He will give us new hearts and right spirits. Human nature is too far gone ever to be mended. It is not a house which is a little out of repair, with here and there a slate blown from the roof, and here and there a piece of plaster broken down from the ceiling. No; it is rotten throughout; the very foundations have been sapped; there is not a single timber in it which is sound; it is all rottenness from its uppermost roof to its lowest foundation, and ready to fall. God doth not attempt to mend; He does not shore up the walls, and re-paint the door; He does not garnish and beautify, but He determines that the old house shall be entirely swept away, and that He will build a new one. It is too far gone to be mended. If it were only a little out of repair, it might be restored. If only a wheel or two of that great thing called "Manhood" were out of repair, then He who made man might put the whole to rights; He might put a new cog where it had been broken off, and another wheel where it had gone to ruin, and the machine might work anew. But no; the whole of it is out of repair; there is not one lever which is not broken; not one axle which is not disturbed. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, it is wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." The Lord, therefore, does not attempt the repairing of this thing, but He says, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you."

Christ in You

What is it to have "Christ in you?" The Romanist hangs the cross on his bosom; the true Christian carries the cross in his heart; and a cross inside the heart is one of the sweetest cures for a cross on the back. If you have a cross in your heart—Christ crucified in you, the hope of glory—the cross of this world's troubles will seem to you light enough, and you will easily be able to sustain it. Christ in the heart, means Christ believed in, Christ beloved, Christ trusted, Christ espoused, Christ communed with, Christ as our daily food, and ourselves as the temple and palace wherein Jesus Christ daily walks. Ah! there are many who are total strangers to the meaning of this phrase. They do not know what it is to have Jesus Christ in them. Though they know a little about Christ on Calvary, they know nothing about Christ in the heart. Now, remember, that Christ on Calvary will save no man, unless Christ be in the heart. The Son of Mary, born in the manger, will not save you, unless He be also born in your heart, and live there—your joy, your strength, and your consolation.

Life's Great Object

As Christians, we ought ever to be distinguished from the world in the great object of our life. As for worldly men, some of them are seeking wealth, others of them fame; some seek after comfort, others after pleasure. Subordinately you may seek after any of these, but your main and principal motive as a Christian should always be to live for Christ. To live for glory? Yes, but for His glory. To live for comfort? Yes, but be all your consolation in Him. To live for pleasure? Yes, but when you are merry, sing psalms, and make melody in your hearts to the Lord. To live for wealth? Yes, but to be rich in faith. You may lay up treasure, but lay it up in heaven, "where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." You can make the most common calling become really sacred by dedicating your daily life wholly to the service of Jesus, taking as your motto, "For me to live is Christ." There is such a thing as living thus a consecrated life; and if any deny its possibility let them stand self-convicted, because they obey not that precept: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

Religion a Present Concern

Religion must be a thing of the present, because the present has such intimate connections with the future. We are told in Scripture that this life is a seed-time, and the future is the harvest, "he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; he that soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." As the seed generates the plant, even so doth this present life generate the eternal future. Heaven and hell are, after all, but the developments of our present character, for is it not written, "he that is holy, let him be holy still; he that is unjust, let him be unjust still?" Do we not know that in the heart of every sin condemnation slumbers? Is it not a fearful truth that the germ of everlasting torment sleeps in every vile wish, every unholy thought, every unclean act, so that hell is but a great breaking out of slumbering lava, which had been so quiet, that while the mountain was covered with fair verdure, even to its summit, death comes and bids that lava rise; and down the steeps of manhood's eternal existence, the fiery lava of eternal misery doth pour itself? Yet it was there before, for sin is hell, and rebellion against God is the prelude of misery. So is it with heaven; I know that heaven is a reward, not of debt but of grace; but still the Christian has that within him which forestalls for him a heaven. What did Christ say? "I give unto my sheep eternal life." He did not say, "I will give," but "I do give." As soon as they believe in Me, I give them eternal life. "He that believeth on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation." The Christian hath within him the seed-beds of a paradise; in due time the light which is sown for the righteous, and the gladness which is sown for the upright in heart, shall spring up, and they shall reap the harvest. Is it not plain, then, that religion is a thing which we must have here? Is it not prominently revealed that religion is important for the present? For if this life be the seed-time of the future, how can I expect to reap in another world other harvests than I have been sowing here? How can I trust that I shall be saved then, unless I am saved now? How can I have hope that heaven shall be my eternal inheritance, unless the earnest be begun in my own soul on earth?

Ye are Not Your Own

If you are a child of God, you belong wholly and entirely to Christ. Yet are there not many who seem to imagine that if they save a corner in their souls for their religion, all will be well? Satan may stalk across the broad acres of their judgment and their understanding, and he may reign over their thoughts and their imaginations; but if in some quiet nook there be preserved the appearance of religion, all will be right. Oh! be not deceived in this; Christ never went halves in a man yet. He will have the whole of you, or He will have none of you. He will be Lord paramount, Master supreme, absolute Monarch, or else He will have nothing to do with you. You may serve Satan, if you will, but when you serve Him, you shall not serve Christ too. If you are not wholly given up to God—if, in the intent and purpose of your souls, every thought, and wish, and power, and talent, and possession be not devoted and consecrated to Christ, you have no reason to believe that you have been redeemed by His precious blood. In His people, whom He has purchased for His own, He will reign without a rival. Christ will not be part-proprietor of any man.

Nature and Grace

You will never perceive God in nature, until you have learned to see God in grace. We have heard a great deal about going up from nature to nature's God. Impossible! A man might as well attempt to go from the top of the Alps to heaven. There is still a great gulf between nature and God to the natural mind. You must first of all perceive God incarnate in the person of Christ, before you will perceive God omnipotent in the creation which He has made. You have heard a great deal about men delighting to worship in the forest glades, who disdain to frequent the sanctuary of the saints. Ay; but there was little truth in it. There is often great sound where there is much emptiness; and you will frequently find that those men who talk most of this natural worship, are those who do not worship God at all. God's works are too gross a medium to allow the light. Rugged is the path and dark the atmosphere, if we go by way of the creatures to find out the Creator to perfection. But when I see Christ, I see God's new and living way between my soul and my God, most clear and pleasant. I come to my God at once, and finding Him in Christ, I find Him everywhere else besides.

Evidence of the New Life

"If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious," it is certain evidence of a divine change; for men by nature find no delight in Jesus. I do not inquire what your experience may have been, or may not have been; if Christ be precious to you, there has been a work of grace in your heart; if you love Him, if His presence be your joy, if His blood be your hope, if His glory be your object and aim, and if His person be the constant love of your soul, you could not have had this taste by nature, for you were dead; you could not have acquired this taste by learning, for this is a miracle which none but the God who is supreme over nature could have wrought in you. Let every tried and troubled Christian, who, nevertheless, does taste that the Lord is good, take consolation from this. "The upright love thee."