Free Subscription

The very God of peace sanctify you Wholly!
By Ed Johnson, Chicago
Vol 2/ No.7/Oct 2001

Just came home from Sunday worship and my soul was touched by our heavenly Father. God is good! Hallelujah! I was in prayer and was lead to write to you to bring to remembrance of God's truth and His faithfulness; and to encourage us all to strive through that narrow gate on that narrow path that leads to our heavenly Father.

From the time one is born again to their departure, can be long period of time, only God knows each of our length of sojourning here. Though the battles, temptations, sufferings, and persecutions are many we have God's Word to encourage us through our journey homeward. Listen to the Psalmist- "Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivereth him out of them All." Psalm 34:19. Also "know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments. ..Deut 7:9. Brethren do not become weary in doing good, fight the good fight of faith and lay hold on eternal life. God help us to live wholly unto Him. With what just has been said, I ask this question, "Is the victorious life possible here and now?"

Do we believe that God's people may be delivered from all sin and enable to do God's will continually in this life? Most people believe that they must go on sinning and repenting until death. That is the Christian's narrow way. However, all admit that they must be made holy before they can see God and enter heaven; His eternal rest. For those of you who are weary of falling to sin please read on. Listen to what Wesley Rich wrote; it is not only truthful; but reviving to out souls.

"Ask your own heart if holy living is possible, and it will mock you in answering that there is no purity within - that even your highest ideals, your greatest thoughts, your finest virtues, your best morality and standards of behavior are "filthy" compared to His creation, to the "whiteness" of His holiness. Your pain and suffering all mock the question, and throw it out. In other words, it has no place in human language.

Ask any philosopher, any of the founders of the great religious, and all will admit that the standard of holy living is impossible so long as humanity is subject to evil forces over which they have no control. The musician, the poet, the artist all climb mountains of "other world-liness" of which the ordinary man is not capable will answer that, in the glory and wonder of divine moment, they see God (Handel must have seen Him in composing the "Messiah"), yet each realizes the impossibility of remaining at the summit of exaltation because of the weakness and futility of human achievement in the realm of the soul.

Rarely are there "Mounts of Transfiguration." Most of our lives are spent with devils within and without; much of our time is spent with people and things that are far from God. "Let's be realistic!" you say. "Let us not prate of the beautiful, the lovely, the pure and the holy when we have to live in the unbelief and filth all around us." Yet, like stars in a night of spiritual despair, like music in a nature that has never known real harmony, we see the "trailing glory of His clouds" on the horizons of our lives.

To many, the thought of holiness brings despair--the futility of ever acquiring any degree of victory, and they cry out as did the fine young prophet centuries ago, "Woe is me for I am undone (insecure), for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." The Bible account continues: "Then flew one of the seraphim's unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar, and he laid it upon my mouth, and said. Lo, this hath touched thy lips and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purge. (Isn't that what Christ Jesus did on Calvary?) Also, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I; send me!" Isaiah had found the answer to the question "Is holiness possible?"

We listen to the unutterable sadness and pessimism of David. "For I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is every before me. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." But then, even he sees the glory of creation in the human heart...."Create in me a clean heart, O God, and a renew a right spirit within me!" That was in David's here and now, not in glory.

To whom must we address our question? The final and only answer to the impossible situation in the human heart, to the deep, radical nature of sin, is to look into a face "marred more than any man's" and strangely enough to a face4 of which it was said: "There is no beauty that we should desire him" - to the face crowed with thorns, to the pain racked body of an idealist, hanging on an ugly, barren tree, under threatening skies on a day accompanied by earthquakes; to a life that seems to be ending in failure. We hear words that seem quite out of place from the same idealist, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God!" Our complete identification with the Cross-, can mean the answer to all our hopelessness, despair, frustration and sin.

The Word says: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is free from sin!" (Romans 6:6-7).

Is holiness possible? Who replies? He does! In the words of our Lord, "It is finished!" He, Jesus, finished the work of redemption and complete deliverance from the guilt and power of sin. His creation is always finished and perfect. But remember, we must believe and allow Christ's purging process to destroy the old nature and create the new one by His representative, the Holy Spirit.

Three glorious truths come to us we hear the answer to our question:

For the sin I was born with and am not responsible for, God has provided a complete deliverance through our identification with Christ on Calvary.... "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 6:11).

For my body that still remains with me in all its imperfections, the house of my essential personality, Paul says; " I keep under my body and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" (1 Cor 9:27).

For myself, that personal entity which is me, God offers to perform a work of complete cleansing..... "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).
May 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. God bless and be a good soldier of our Lord Jesus Christ.