A sermon dealing with the need to dig again the old wells of holiness that have been stopped up in our times.
Excerpts from sermon:
“If you preach on holiness, sanctification, even in a Fundamentalist Congress, they will look at you like you are either tending to be a Charismatic or you are tending to be a legalist, because you know, ‘Nobody can live right.’ I mean it’s an assumption around the world—nobody can live right. You’re just saved with pure doctrine and God accepts you because your theology is pure and therefore you are accepted. Well, if you read the Puritans, the Puritan fathers from John Owen all the way to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, you will find out that they believed in that foundational and constructional part and that you could not have the hallowed, holiness, sanctified life without the foundations in your life by pure grace alone.”
“Whatever happened to sin? It is not as bad as it used to be. Whatever happened to holiness? It’s too legalistic, and really it’s a carnal, worldly, fleshly group that’s calling the person who believes in sanctification, he’s calling him a legalist to cover up that he’s a worldly person; he’s a fleshly person; so, he covers it up by putting the emphasis on the person who is speaking for holiness.”
“I believe holiness must be rediscovered now. That’s why the music went bad in the Fundamentalist churches because holiness got lost. The path through the woods—rain and weather hit it again. And now you dare not; you dare have a zippered lip; you dare not say anything against that music.”
“Sanctification is left out of music. Sanctification is left out of styles, dresses. Sanctification is left out of debts, paying debts. Sanctification is left out of integrity and a man’s character.”
“The thing that destroyed the seven historic Pentecostal denominations was music—first thing to destroy it. The old slapping banjo music—got to have it. They said it was the Spirit. I know He can play better music than that.”
“Hagios, the Greek word in the New Testament, 281 times in all its cognates—holiness, hallowed, sanctified, sanctification—is a separation and set apart for God and a consecration to be made over by Him. It is a separation and a consecration. If you were to read the definition of Plummer on the word hagios, it has five parts. It is a separation that produces a cleansing that leadeth to an enablement to be a consecrated Christian, leading to fruition of character.”
“When it comes to sanctification now, there’s no push and shove to it. You will never become a holy person unless you hunger for it, and seek it, and long for it, and ask God Almighty to give you this.”
“I think the best evangelists in the world are those who’s raised Christian, godly children. They’re the greatest evangelists on the face of this earth. That’s what I think. I remember a lady in the Washington, D.C. church my father pastored. She was a peculiar woman. She said the Lord had given her a love for the Chinese, but her husband wasn’t saved, and none of the children were Christians, and my father was her Pastor. My father was a kindly man, like I am, and she kept saying, ‘I want you to pray for me. I got to get to China.’ Well, it became appropriate for my father to say, ‘Why don’t you start in your home, your husband, and your children, and lead them to Christ. Her zeal was expanding. I’ve got to get to China in spite of my husband. Well you can’t take that route. You’ve got to get to China through your husband, lady, and if you can’t get there through your husband, you better shut up, because you’ve got no business going anywhere your head doesn’t want to go. That’s plain, but that’s about the way you have to be. God doesn’t work in spite of husbands. He works through husbands from wives. And my father finally told her and said it’s unreasonable to think that God would want you to circumvent your family and your husband to get to China, in spite of him and if he doesn’t go, to win the lost.”
“I remember in the First Congress, three men came to my hotel room at five o’clock in the morning, and knocked on my door. I had only had a casual making acquaintance with these three men. ‘Dr. Spence, Dr. Spence, have you heard what they’re talking about all night in this hotel about the Congress?’ I said, ‘No, I haven’t heard a word and please don’t tell me a word. I’ve got to preach tonight. I don’t want to hear it my friend. I would appreciate it so much if you three dear brethren would come into this room and pray for me.’ And they did. That is as strong of a rebuke as I gave them. I didn’t want to hear it. I do not want to hear it. I’m just a man, and you cannot hear garbage like that without getting some of the smell on you. And that incident promoted friends, but also enemies. The test of that was holiness. You can’t be going around gossiping. It’s a sin.”
