Attributes of Holiness – Love to God.

Attributes of Holiness – Love to God.

“And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [Matthew 22:37 – 39]

“There can be no such thing as Christian holiness without supreme love to God.” [B.T. Roberts]

“Failure here involves failure everywhere.” [B.T. Roberts]

***** Loving God (and others) is often replace by self-righteousness [DJW] *****

I.          Self-righteousness from God’s view.

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” [Isaiah 64:6 KJV]

“We are unfit to worship you; each of our good deeds is merely a filthy rag. We dry up like leaves; our sins are storm winds sweeping us away.” [CEV]

            A.         “Unclean”

                        1.         Legally unclean… like a leper. (Unable to be part of the community, excluded from temple worship, exiled to outside the camp.)

                        2.         “Filthy rags” is literally a “menstruous rag.”

            B.         “Lukewarm”

“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” [Revelation 3:16]

                        1.         The lukewarm is considered to be resistant… it neither heats up or cools down.

                        2.         The spiritually “cold” can be reached.  The spiritually “hot” are in right relationship… The spiritually “lukewarm” have one foot in each world without deciding. 

                                    a.         It is the classic “playing it safe” mode.

                                    b.         The energy is gone (heat is energy).  The excitement is gone (heat comes from the molecules energetic movement).  The eternal is given way to the here and now.

                                    c.         They “were for self.” [Dante in the “Inferno”]

II.         What does “love to God” mean?

            A.         We will seek to please God.

                        1.         Actively look for things to do to please God.

                        2.         Even if it involves painstaking self-denial.

2 Samuel 23:14 – 17 David was thirsty for water from a well at Bethlehem.  Three of his men broke through enemy lines and got him a pitcher…

            B.         We will “honestly and carefully endeavor to ascertain [God’s] will.”

                        1.         Study the Bible to know the will of God.

                        2.         The love of God and the love of the Bible are closely linked.

            C.         “The holy person has his ear open to the voice of God in the soul.” [B.T. Roberts]

                        1.         The Holy Spirit guides.

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” [Romans 8:14]

“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” [Isaiah 30:21]

                        2.         The Holy Spirit also teaches.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” [John 14:26]

            D.         “A lover of God is likely to be a lover of nature.” [B.T. Roberts]

            E.         “IF we love God… we shall hear and support preachers… because they speak the word of God faithfully.” [B.T. Roberts]

                        1.         Often there is a false belief that “polished” or “skilled” means it is not faithful to God.  [Baldwinism]

                        2.         Test the spirits… (search the Scriptures).

            F.         “If we love God we shall manifest it by unquestioning obedience to all His commands.” [B.T. Roberts]

                        1.         Obedience is the test of love… [John Wesley’s idea in “Christian Perfection”]

“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” [John 14:21]

“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. [4] Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, [5] but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: [6] whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” [1 John 2:3 – 6]

                        2.         “Slaves of fashion” or servants of God?

                                    a.         The “everyone” test is not valid…  [“Majority” had become an idol in American society… what “everyone” is doing, thinking, or believing has NOTHING to do with truth.]

                                    b.         The “results” test is not valid… [We often give in to what we consider “proof.”  American are “pragmatic” and believe if it works it’s right.]

            G.         “He who loves God has a spirit of devotion.” [B.T. Roberts]

                        1.         Worship… “secret, social, and public.”

                        2.         Prayer.  “[Saints] talk a great deal to God.” [B.T. Roberts]

“Elijah was just as human as we are, and for three and a half years his prayers kept the rain from falling.” [James 5:17 CEV]

                                    a.         Answered prayer turns to praise.

                                    b.         B.T. Roberts used the illustration of hiring others to eat our food… it is as silly of an idea as letting others praise God for us.

Issue of musical instruments in the church: “Mere sound, though it be pleasant to the ear, is not worship.” [B.T. Roberts]  

He went as far as calling “worship performed by the ungodly or indifferent… open mockery.”

Attributes of Holiness – Hatred of sin

Attributes of Holiness – Hatred of sin

(B.T. Roberts re-examined)

“The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.” [Proverbs 8:13]

“Holiness is not indifference. One who is truly holy does not feel that he has done his duty by simply abstaining from sin.” [B.T. Roberts]

Topic: Popular holiness vs earnest holiness…

Define “sin.”

1. Moral definition: “A willful transgression of a known law of God.” (Wesley’s definition)

2. Legal definition: “To deviate in any manner from an absolute standard of perfect behavior.”

Problem: In America we think… a.) All sin is equal (none worse than others), b.) Christians sin daily c.) Our sins are forgiven.. past, present, and future d.) we should confess our sins daily (“spiritual breathing”) e. We can never be sinless. (Keith Drury)

Premise: We are NOT to sin; we do not have to sin.

Thus: the legal definition does not make sense in context of God’s prohibition against sin.

Fact: "But to make everything sin is, in effect, to make nothing sin" [Exploring Our Christian Faith, W.T. Purkiser editor, page 293, Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, Kansas City, MO. 1978.]

When something is unavoidable, it is excusable.

“Sin is a choice; an avoidable choice.” [Jeff Paton]

I. Popular holiness:

A. Things earnest holiness does NOT do:

1. Holiness does not “smile at sin.”

2. Holiness does not give “ample toleration” to sin.

3. Holiness is not favorable to “building up the church” by allowing “fashionable or popular” sin.

B. Things popular holiness does:

1. “It valorously kicks the dead lion, but is very careful not to excite the anger of the living jackal.”

2. Popular holiness does NOT recognize the obstacles to earnest holiness.

II. Earnest holiness:

A. “True holiness is not blind.”

1. Not obtrusive or skeptical… it is observing.

2. [American proverb] “All that glitters is not gold.”

a. Some things look good and right… but are not.

b. Some things sound right but when matched against Scripture are shown to be false.

c. It looks beyond manners and correct words.

B. “Scriptural holiness implies hatred of sin.”

1. There is “stern resistance to sin in all its guises.”

2. Serious problem: Often Roberts and early holiness people focused on externals as symbols of internal spiritual sins.

Roberts opposed people “adorning themselves in gold and pearls of costly array.” [quoting 1 Timothy 2:9] He called it pride.

Wesley, using this verse, warned: “These four are expressly forbidden by name to all women (here is no exception) professing godliness, and no art of man can reconcile with the Christian profession the willful violation of an express command.”

(Sounds more like vanity… important distinction: vanity is concerned what others think of us; pride is what we think of ourselves.)

Pride: “a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.”

However, pride is also: “a lofty and often arrogant assumption of superiority in some respect.”

3. Vanity and Pride takes on a deliberate (willful) “better than” attitude. Either by showing of wealth (status) or judging another.

C. “Hates the first appearance of sin in himself.”

1. Quick conscious is necessary to instantly repel a Satanic suggestion.

2. There must be an instinct about us that is uneasy with sin and false things.

3. We must have clear understanding when something is “dead works.”

D. “He hates sin in others.”

1. Ability, talent, accomplishments, position, etc… “does not mitigate the repugnance which he feels on account of his sins.”

2. CAUTION: “there is no malice in this hatred… this does not imply angry, malevolent feelings, but a settled aversion of soul toward the haters of God.”

III. Why is this essential?

A. Notice I did not say “important.”

1. The difference between “important” and “essential.”

a. Important can be ignored…

b. Essential cannot be…

2. “Tyranny of the urgent.” (Charles Hummel)

a. The problem is not time (or resources)…. It is priority.

b. We live in tension between the “urgent and the important.”

c. What Hummel is describing is things that seem important because they are disguised as urgent.

3. Our problem is that we think things are important when they are actually NOT.

a. They drain our energy, time, and resources.

b. They demand our priority.

In the book, “The Kneeling Christian” the anonymous writer claims: “For we can accomplish far more by our prayers than by our work.”

B. Roberts claimed: “hatred of sin is essential to the aggressiveness that belongs to the Christian character.”

1. Do good to others!

a. Inviting others to Christ.

b. Making war on sin.

“A man who goes to the bar and drinks water, while his friend drinks whiskey may be personally temperate; be he certainly cannot be a very warm advocate for temperance.”

2. Fact: Satan is a relentless hunter. (no scruples, no pity)

a. You cannot deal with sin passively!

b. (Ill.) Who is the “father of lies?” (Any lie that exults itself or puts itself against God is Satanic. Any deliberate deception of another is Satan at work. Any lie that hinders another or misleads people from Christ is devilish to the core.)

c. So why can we NOT see that, let alone hate a lie?

d. FACT: if Satan is relentless against God, all that is good, and against all that is godly… then the Christian must also be relentless in ripping sin out by the roots.

3. “Hatred of sin will enable you to stand true to God under all circumstances.”

a. It is a hedge against what our early fathers called “backsliding.”

b. “As long as sin looks odious you will not embrace it.”

c. UNDERSTAND: sin as being against God.

David: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” [Psalm 51:4]

IV. What does this mean?

A. First, we must truly love God.

1. That means we will stand in right relationship with God.

2. We will not knowingly give the enemy a stronghold in our lives…

a. This is war.

b. Our very soul and eternity depends on it.

B. Second, we must become determined.

1. We cannot afford to give sin a place in our lives.

2. We cannot afford to give ourselves rest in our diligence against sin.

3. We cannot afford any compromise with sin in any form.