judge not lest you be judged...


Is there any professing Christian willing to receive only one lash of a whip for every sin committed since becoming a Christian? (think about it before you answer) if the answer is no then read on...

Is everyone professing holiness have already attained to perfect holiness?


If not, be careful how you judge another, remember Gal 6:1 and NEVER wish some ones sins upon them because they have struggles in life. Remember that it is written to bear one another's burdens and to pray for each other.

Some people just don't get it that only God the Father is good, and that unless God enables a person (God inside) to be be holy, it is impossible to be so.

(so how do we get God inside?)

You cannot strive in the flesh to be holy...you can wish for it, acknowledge it, and profess it all you want to dear Christian, but that is only window dressing to real holiness. It is the grace and mercy of God alone that enables us to live our lives for Him (and this does not come from ourselves)...in love from Him and for Him...and because of this love comes submission.

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David

Brethren

There is so much fuzzy thinking about this issue.

I am not saying that the call to holiness is wrong. There are many in the church who are content with their lukewarm state and sins, while claiming that the blood of Christ covers them, like a fall of snow over a compost heap. They truly need to hear that Christ calls us to lead holy lives.

There are also many in the church who look around them and see the failings of others and desire that someone would speak out and bring these black sheep to order, bringing shame as they are to the church. These ones are the self righteous who do not see their own sins and who are high and mighty in their own minds. Thank God they say that I am not like other men.

However, there are also many in the church who desire to be pleasing to their Lord and Master, who strive and strive but yet fail to find any peace. They hear this message, and it adds another burden onto their backs. They need to hear that Christ has done it all.

The message is flawed because it leads us to believe that one can be more pleasing to God by ones efforts. That, if one desires to be holy, but fails often, then God is satisfied with that, that it is enough. Adding emotion into it does not make it valid.

The speaker does not show us how to be holy.

Holiness does not come through beating the flesh. It does not come through weeping and guilt (though there must be conviction). It comes by understanding amazing grace.

It is through amazing grace that the wretch is saved. That is, the believer who has already come to Christ and who is already trying to live a holy life but is failing and struggling. They have not yet been saved from the presence of sin which is the purpose of the crucifixion. And all it takes is faith that Christ will keep us from all sin.

This is the message that is good news as it relieves them of their desperation. However, you get speakers like the one in the OP who claim that a man should feel content with status quo so long as he desires to get there but thinks that it wont happen in this life, which is the death knell to real holiness.

Brethren, the desire to be holy has been put there by God because He enables us to be so, otherwise we would be chasing something that is unobtainable in this life. A cruel joke if it were not possible. A man must be motivated by something that is possible for him to obtain otherwise he will become disenchanted.

The OP message seems to be right but there is a subtle message inside of it that is very wrong.

I must say that I percieve so much of Jesus in our Sister Nancy, resulting in what is so rare these days - the inner beauty of a gentle & quiet spirit.

Dear Krautfrau, what do you think of the following?:
The Holiness Movement was in many ways a reaction to the dead orthodoxy and lifeless spirituality that infiltrated so much of Christianity during the nineteenth-century. However, its remedy, a second blessing resulting in the eradication of sinful tendencies and a higher life not available to the unbaptized, went beyond the teaching of Scripture. As is often the case in reactionary movements, the cure may be as bad as the disease.
&:
All of these 20th century movements can trace their ancestors to the Holiness Movement of the 1800s and to John Wesley before that. They all have in common the desire for some form of instantaneous perfection, or power, that comes through a subsequent work of the Spirit in the lives of believers. Each movement also has in common a faulty view of sanctification—that personal holiness, maturity and power is the result of a momentary experience rather than a lifetime process.

Joch

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J Kruger

Dear Brother Joch

We must beware of being deceived by the appearance of the messenger. Only the truth counts. Many people are taken in by a charming seemingly humble pastor but later find that they suffer very much by being in his church. Some are badly damaged. Even Satan appears as an angel of light. No, we must seek the truth and know that plenty of lovely gentle souls are decieved.

The Holiness Movement traced back to Wesley, may have indeed been a reaction to dead orthodoxy but the doctrine did not start there.

George Fox and the early Quakers were teaching and living this message in the 1600`s (read the Journal for a report of Fox`s experience of entire sanctification when he `came up through the flaming sword`) and many others before Wesley taught it from the begining of the NT church. We have the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th century

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/lindisfarne.html

This book records the lives of those who were pronounced saints due to their holy lives in northern England.

There is indeed a process involved in sanctification but there must come a point where the flesh has been put to death. The Bible nowhere says that one is sanctified after death.

Those who deny this doctrine do so because it has not happened to them. They cannot imagine being without their sins. Scripture says that he who sins is of the devil.

krautfrau wrote:

"Those who deny this doctrine do so because it has not happened to them. They cannot imagine being without their sins."

That statement depends a lot on what the definition of "sin" is.

Scripture may say that he who sins is of the devil, but it also says that whoever says he is without sin is deceiving himself.

_________________
Todd

The Holiness movement didn't start in the 1800s, the Holiness movement was born on Pentecost 2000 years ago.

Acts 15:9 you can read there about the instananous cleansing of the heart by faith.

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Colin Murray

A reading of the New Testament does not teach an intant second blessing where one is infused with holiness and they are suddenly walking on water. What the New Testament does teach is that one has to be continually on an ongoing basis filled with Holy Spirit. And then by the power of the Spirit put to death the misdeeeds of the body.

Paul's letters exhort Spirit filled believers to live out a godly life that is expressed in following directives he lays out. This is what Nancy Leigh DeMise is exhorting the church to do. The bride of Christ is called to be holy. She is only doing what Paul would have us do. Live godly in Christ Jesus.

Yet when the exhortation to practical holiness goes out. The cry is legalism and law and we are under grace. Then what does Titus 2:11-14 tells us. It is grace that teaches us to say "NO" to ungodliness and worldly passion and to live self controlled and godly lives in this present generation.

I suggest we put Wesley and Fox aside and look to the New Testament alone for teeachibg on practical holiness. I see no teaching there on the second blessing or an infusion of holiness that makes one instant like Christ. What I do see is a gradual transforming of the Holy Spirit that is working us and we are working out to be more like Christ. And tes. We will not be completely sanctified until death.

This is what our sister is exhorting us to do. This is what the New Testament writers are exhorting us to do. To walk in a prractical holiness by the power of the Spirit as unto Christ.

Bearmaster.

Brother Bearmaster

Its also known as the baptism of the Spirit and I see a lot about it right through the Bible. It is the point at which we become like Christ and walk as He walked. Many think they have been baptised at the point they came to Christ but that is false as can be seen by their walk - not being Christlike.

Agreed Brother Colin but it was only known as the `Holiness Movement` at the date we are discussing.

Brother TMK

So which one is being misinterpreted? Which one encourages holiness?

Sister even those baptized in the Holy Spirit lack a holy walk or have issues with sin. Peter was baptized in the Holy Spirit. But Paul had to rebuke him for his hypocrissy as seen in Gal.2.

Being baptized in the Holy Spirit does not mean one will obey Christ perfectly as Jesus obeyed his Father. Only one has been without sin while walking on this earth. That person was Jesus. I doubt any person, including myself, can say we have obeyed Christ perfectly. If soeone has such a testimony then they are in deception.

For sure the Spirit does help us live a holy life. But it is a given we will fall into sin. This is why God has given us the promises in 1 John 1:7-10 of forgiveness and cleansing.

The walk of faith on a daily basis is a dying to self and continual filling by the Spirit. Or a daily putting off if the old nature and putting on the new nature of Christ. There is also an exhortation to practical holiness.

I am sure that Nancy DeNies would agree that one's practical walk of holiness must be done in the power of the Spirit. But our obedience to Christ will never be perfect this side of glory. It is only when we get to heaven and see him will we be completely perfect in Jesus.

Bearmaster