03.00. Helps to Holiness
Helps To Holiness by Samuel Brengle
Preface
Introduction Chapter 1: Holiness -- What Is It?
Chapter 2: Holiness -- How To Get It Chapter 3: Hindrances To Obtaining The Blessing Chapter 4: The Temptations Of A Sanctified Man Chapter 5: After The Holiness Meeting Chapter 6: "Fight The Good Fight Of Faith"
Chapter 7: The Heart Of Jesus Chapter 8: The Secret Of Power Chapter 9: The Leakage Of Spiritual Power Chapter 10: The Man God Uses Chapter 11: Your Own Soul Chapter 12: Gideon’s Band Chapter 13: The Chained Ambassador Chapter 14: Faith: The Grace And The Gift Chapter 15: Don’t Argue Chapter 16: Letting The Truth Slip Chapter 17: If You Have Lost The Blessing -- What?
Chapter 18: Soul-Winners And Their Prayers Chapter 19: Present-Day Witnesses To The Resurrection Chapter 20: The Radicalism Of Holiness Chapter 21: Perfect Peace Chapter 22: Some Of My Experiences In Teaching Holiness Chapter 23: Another Chance For You!
Chapter 24: Birds Of Prey Chapter 25: "With Peace Unbroken"
Chapter 26: Sanctification v. Consecration Chapter 27: Shouting Chapter 28: Some Of God’s Words To Me
PREFACE This book is intended to help every reader of its pages into the immediate enjoyment of Bible holiness. Its writer is an officer of The Salvation Army who, having a gracious experience of the things whereof he writes, has been signally used of God, both in life and testimony, to the sanctifying of the Lord’s people, as well as in the salvation of sinners.
I commend him and what he has here written down to every lover of God and His kingdom on the earth.
I joyfully add that the perusal of some of the papers which follow has been abundantly blessed to my own heart, and that I have no doubt but that the Holy Spirit has instructed and influenced the writer. In no department of its teaching has The Salvation Army suffered more reproach than in this -- of "Holiness unto the Lord."
Indeed, its teaching, as distinct from its methods, has, apart from this, been largely welcomed by every section of the professing Church.
It is one of the strange contradictions of modern Christianity that every church seems to hold so lightly the importance of its own creed that it extends the right hand of benediction to every other; and thus there is a tacit understanding nowadays that it does not much matter what you believe, so long as you profess to believe something.
Thank God! we have been in great measure preserved from this false charity, and from the chaotic indefiniteness and confusion which inevitably flow from it; and our witness to entire sanctification has done much to preserve us, for it has aroused opposition, not merely from the intellectual apologists for existing systems, but from the thousands whose half-hearted service and unwilling consecration it has condemned.
Because, the holiness that we contend for is a fighting holiness, a suffering holiness, a soul-saving holiness; in short, Jesus Christ’s holiness. Any mere "enjoyment of religion," or "waiting on God," or "fullness of blessing," which has not immediately and indissolubly joined with it, in every expression of it, the most unselfish and aggressive passion for the instant rescue of sinners from their sins, is, in our judgment, a mere caricature of the higher life of complete union with Christ, which the word of God declares to be the highest life of all. And this fact makes it impossible for us to issue even a book like this without a word of caution to every reader.
There are, alas! multitudes of good people who delight to read and to hear anything about holiness, who frequent holiness meetings and higher life conventions, and yet, in the course of years, appear -- whatever professions their lips may make -- unable to see the need of separation from the world in so small a matter as the putting away of the worldly dress of the soberly-elegant, the ease-loving habits learnt in the wealthy home, or the worldly associations of their family and their circle. For your soul’s sake, do not read this, or any other holiness book, if you are not willing to hear in it the voice of God telling you what to leave and what to do for Him. And when you have read, go at once and, without consulting anybody, obey.
God help you!
W. Bramwell Booth International Headquarters,
London, E. C.
February 7, 1896
INTRODUCTION On January 9, 1885, at about nine o’clock in the morning, God sanctified my soul.
I was in my own room at the time, but in a few minutes I went out and met a man and told him what God had done for me. The next morning, I met another friend on the street and told him the blessed story.
He shouted and praised God and urged me to preach full salvation and confess it everywhere.
God used him to encourage and help me. So the following day I preached on the subject as clearly and forcibly as I could, and ended with my testimony.
God blessed the word mightily to others, but I think He blessed it most to myself. That confession put me on record.
It cut the bridges down behind me.
Three worlds were now looking at me as one who professed that God had given him a clean heart.
I could not go back now.
I had to go forward.
God saw that I meant to be true till death. So two mornings after that, just as I got out of bed and was reading some of the words of Jesus, He gave me such a blessing as I never had dreamed a man could have this side of Heaven.
It was a heaven of love that came into my heart.
I walked out over Boston Common before breakfast weeping for joy and praising God.
Oh, how I loved! In that hour I knew Jesus and I loved Him till it seemed my heart would break with love.
I loved the sparrows, I loved the dogs, I loved the horses, I loved the little urchins on the streets, I loved the strangers who hurried past me, I loved the heathen -- I loved the whole world. Do you want to know what holiness is? It is pure love. Do you want to know what the baptism of the Holy Ghost is? It is not a mere sentiment.
It is not a happy sensation that passes away in a night.
It is a baptism of love that brings every thought into captivity to the Lord Jesus (2 Corinthians 10:5); that casts out all fear (1 John 4:18); that burns up doubt and unbelief as fire burns tow; that makes one "meek and lowly in heart" (Matthew 11:29); that makes one hate uncleanness, lying and deceit, a flattering tongue and every evil way with a perfect hatred; that makes Heaven and Hell eternal realities; that makes one patient and gentle with the froward and sinful; that makes one "pure ... peaceable ... easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy" (James 3:17); that brings one into perfect and unbroken sympathy with the Lord Jesus Christ in His toil and travail to bring a lost and rebel world back to God.
God did all that for me, bless His holy name!
Oh, how I had longed to be pure! Oh, how I had hungered and thirsted for God -- the living God! And He gave me the desire of my heart.
He satisfied me -- I weigh my words -- He satisfied me! He satisfied me!
These ten years have been wonderful.
God has become my Teacher, my Guide, my Counselor, my All and in All.
He has allowed me to be perplexed and tempted, but it has been for my good.
I have no complaint to make against Him.
Sometimes it has seemed that He had left me alone, but it has been as the mother who stands away from her little child to teach him to use his own legs that he may walk.
He has not suffered me to fall.
He has been with my mouth and helped me to speak of Jesus and His great salvation in a way to instruct, comfort and save other souls.
He has been light to my darkness, strength to my weakness, wisdom in my foolishness, knowledge in my ignorance. When my way has been hedged up and it seemed that no way could be found out of my temptations and difficulties, He has cut a way through for me, just as He opened the Red Sea for Israel. When my heart has ached, He has comforted me; when my feet had well-nigh slipped, He has held me up; when my faith has trembled, He has encouraged me; when I have been in sore need, He has supplied all my need; when I have been hungry, He has fed me; when I have thirsted, He has given me living water.
Oh, glory to God! What has He not done for me? What has He not been to me?
I recommend Him to the world.
He has taught me that sin is the only thing that can harm me, and that the only thing that can profit me in this world is "faith which worketh by love" (Galatians 5:6).
He has taught me to hang upon Jesus by faith for my salvation from all sin and fear and shame, and to show my love by obeying Him in all things and by seeking in all ways to lead others to obey Him.
I praise Him! I adore Him! I love Him! My whole being is His for time and eternity.
I am not my own.
He can do with me as He pleases for I am His.
I know that what He chooses must work out for my eternal good.
He is too wise to make mistakes and too good to do me evil.
I trust Him, I trust Him, I trust Him! "My expectation is from Him" (Psalms 62:5); not from man, not from myself; but from Him.
He has been with me for ten years, and I know He will never fail me.
During these ten years God has enabled me to keep a perfect, unbroken purpose to serve Him with my whole heart. No temptation has swerved that steadfast purpose. No worldly or ecclesiastical ambition has had an atom of weight to allure me. My whole heart has cried within me as did Ephraim’s: "What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard Him, and observed Him" (Hosea 14:8).
"Holiness to the Lord" (Exodus 28:36) has been my motto. In fact, it has been the only motto that could express the deep desire and aspiration of my soul. For a year and a half at a stretch I have been laid aside from work by bodily weakness. At one time I should have thought this a cross too heavy to be borne; but in this, as in all things else, His grace was sufficient. Of late God has been especially blessing me. My heart pants after Him and, as I seek Him in fervent, patient, believing prayer and in diligent searching of His word, He is deepening the work of grace in my soul.
S. L. Brengle