Part 96 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
Back to Part 95 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
Part 97 HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
Back to HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness
(14.) Fourteenthly, To provoke you to labor after higher degrees of holiness, consider that the times wherein you live, calls for this at your hand. Jer. 51:5, "The land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel." Ah, how is this land filled with sin, yes, with the worst of sins, against the Holy One of Israel! Hell seems to be broken loose, and men strive to exceed and excel one another in all kinds of wickedness. Oh the scarlet sins which are now to be found under many scarlet robes! Oh the black transgressions which are now to be found under many black robes of ministers! Oh the new-found oaths, the hellish blasphemies, the horrid filthiness, and the abominable debaucheries which are committed daily in the face of the sun! Ah how shameless, how senseless are sinners grown in these days! Jer. 3:3, "You have a whore's forehead, and refuse to be ashamed." Sin everywhere now appears with a whore's forehead.
Ah, what open opposition does Christ meet with in his gospel offices, members, ways, worship, and works! Mat. 24:12; ah how does all iniquity abound, and how bold and resolute are multitudes now in dishonoring of God, in polluting his ordinances, in destroying their own souls, and in treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath! etc., Romans 2:5.
Now the worser the times are—the better every Christian must labor to be; the more profane the age is wherein we live—the more holy we must endeavor to be. O sirs, how else will you recompense the great God, if I may so speak, for all the dishonors which are cast upon him by the matchless looseness and wickedness of the present times? how else will you shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation? "You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people. Let your lives shine brightly before them." Philippians 2:15. How else will you convince the consciences, and stop or button up the mouths of wicked and unreasonable men? 1 Pet. 2:15. How else will you be the Lord's witnesses against this sinful and adulterous generation? Isaiah 43:10, 12, and 44:8. How else will you manifest your great love to Christ, and your exceeding tenderness of the honor and glory of Christ? How else will you give an undeniable testimony of the glorious operations of the Spirit in you? Psalm 18:20-25. How else will you satisfy your own consciences that your hearts are upright with God? And how else will you with Noah condemn a wicked world? Heb. 11:7.
Well, Christians, remember this, it is more than time for you to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, when so many thousands labor day and night to perfect wickedness in despite of the Lord; it is time for you to be angels in holiness, when multitudes strive to exceed the very devil in wickedness. Since Christ was on earth, there has been no times that have called louder for the perfecting of holiness than the present times wherein we live. But,