Part 92 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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Part 93 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
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(8.) Eighthly, To provoke you to labor after higher degrees of holiness, consider that the more holy a man is—the more singular delight and pleasure God will take in all his pious duties and services. [Generally it was the custom of the Eastern countries to wash before worship. The very heathen gods would be served in white—the very emblem of purity.] Holiness puts a divine savor upon all a man's services. There are no duties so sweet as those who have most holiness in them
Mal. 3:3-4, "He will sit and judge like a refiner of silver, watching closely as the dross is burned away. He will purify the Levites, refining them like gold or silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord. Then once more the Lord will accept the offerings brought to him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, as he did in former times." After the Lord Jesus Christ has been to his people as a refiner's fire, and as fuller's soap, that is, after he has refined, scoured, and purged his people from their drossiness, filthiness, earthliness, selfishness, and sensualness, etc., then "they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to the Lord."
Look! as light makes all things pleasant and delightful to man—just so, holiness makes all a man's duties and services pleasant and delightful to the Lord: Zech. 13:9, "This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is our God.'" When God has refined his people as silver is refined, then he will bow his ear, and open his hand, and grant them the desires of their hearts. Oh the pleasure and delight which God takes in the prayers, tears, hearings, readings, meltings, mournings, and repentings—of such who are eminently purged and sanctified!
The more holiness any man has, the less of the flesh, pollution, and corruption there is in all his duties and services; and the less there is of the old man in all our holy offerings—the more they are the delight of God. The more holiness anyone has, the less there will be of man, and the more there will be of Christ and the Spirit in all his duties and services; and doubtless, the less there is of man, and the more there is of Christ in duties—the more pleasant and delightful they will be unto the Lord.
The more holy any man is, the more there will be of his heart in his duties, and the more a man's heart is in his duties, the more pleasant and delightful they will be to God. God is a Spirit, John 4:23-24, and he is only delighted with those duties wherein the spirit of a man is. The heart is the presence-chamber of the King of heaven! It is his bed of spices; it is his royal throne—on which he delights to sit and rule. A sanctified heart in duties shall prevail with God for crowns; when a silver tongue shall not prevail with God for crumbs.
The more holy any man is, the more delight and pleasure he will take in pious duties and services. The more a man's natural strength is, the more easily he walks, and the more delightfully he works. The fuller the wings are of feathers, with the more ease and pleasure the bird flies—just so, the fuller the soul is of holiness, the more easily, the more pleasantly, and the more delightfully will it walk, yes, run, yes, fly in all the ways of God's commands! Every yoke of Christ is easy, and every command of Christ is joyous to a man who is eminent in holiness. [Psalm 40:8, and 119:32; Mat. 11:29; 1 John 5:3.]
Now the more any man delights and takes pleasure in pious duties and services—the more God delights and takes pleasure in his pious duties and services. The more a Christian's heart is affected with the duties of piety, the more the heart of God will be affected with those duties. Look! as there is no duty which affects the heart of God, which does not first affect our own—just so, all those duties and services which are divinely pleasing and delightful to our noble part, they are also pleasing and delightful to God himself. The very heathen, as several authors report, had their pots of water set at the doors of their temples, where they washed before they went to sacrifice, having this notion and opinion among them—that their gods did best accept and most delight in those sacrifices that were offered by those who had washed themselves pure and clean. Sure I am—that the great God, who is the God of gods, is most pleased and delighted with those sacrifices of prayers and praises which are offered up with the purest hands, and with the cleanest heart; and therefore, as ever you would have God to take singular pleasure and delight in all your duties and services—labor after an eminency in holiness. But,
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