Entire Sanctification
Please stand as we read our newest memory Scripture together …
Isaiah 9:6
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder. And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
And our memory refresher verses for today are …
Romans 12:1-2
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Please open your Bibles to Colossians 2:20 – 3:11
Last week when we looked at Matthew 3:11 we saw two baptisms; the first dealing with water baptism as a witness to the experience of the second baptism which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Today we want to look further into this Baptism in or with the Holy Spirit in what is often called Christian Holiness and Entire Sanctification.
In the Church of The Nazarene we have 16 Articles of faith. The 10th Article of Faith is entitled, “Christian Holiness and Entire Sanctification.”
Part of the Article of Faith reads this way …
“We believe that entire sanctification is that act of God, sub¬sequent to regeneration, by which believers are made free from original sin, or depravity, and brought into a state of en¬tire devotement to God, and the holy obedience of love made perfect.”
What? Can that possibly be true? Is it possible that God could act on us after we are saved in such a way that we are made free from the effects of original sin and for us to become completely devoted and obedient to God through perfect love for Him?
Is that even possible???
Let’s go ahead and read Colossians 2:20 – 3:14
Colossians 2:20-23 = trying to live a holy life by following rules
Colossians 3:1-4 = you have been saved but that’s not the end of it … more to come
Colossians 3:5-14 = “put to death” … “rid yourselves of” … “put on love” …
Entire Sanctification is a work of grace. Every step we take with God is a work of grace; God working on our behalf and faith is engaging with His work.
We see God’s grace active in …
Prevenient or calling Grace,
Convicting Grace,
Justifying Grace,
Saving Grace,
Sanctifying Grace and
Sustaining Grace.
Even the ability to be a conduit of God’s Grace to others is in itself an enabling Grace of God.
So, does God’s Grace really make this Christian Holiness even possible????
We as Christians look to the Bible for everything we believe in regard to our Spiritual life.
Sometimes churches base their beliefs or doctrines on church tradition.
Sometimes churches base their beliefs on human reasoning.
Sometimes churches base their doctrines on personal experience.
But, it is God’s Holy Word that is the bedrock of all of our beliefs and doctrines.
Church tradition that has no basis in Scripture must be discarded!
The Bible says that “His (God’s) understanding no one can fathom” so human reasoning is not dependable on its own. (Isaiah 40:28)
And, personal experience is so variable that it cannot be depended up alone.
So if the doctrine of Christian Holiness and Entire sanctification is based on church tradition or personal experience or human reasoning alone without Biblical backup it must be discarded!
But, if the doctrine of Christian Holiness or Entire Sanctification or Heart Purity does have a clear Scriptural basis why aren’t we pursuing it with all of our hearts?
Is there a Scriptural basis???
Let’s just look at a few of our memory Scriptures …
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
“May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it.”
“Sanctify you through and through”
What happens when you throw some water, some sand and some concrete mix into a wheelbarrow, stir it for five seconds and pour it into a form?
When the form is removed the concrete breaks down quickly because it has not been mixed through and through.
The Lord wants to sanctify us through and through!
Or what about Romans 6:22-23
“Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
We were all once chained like a slave to a plow and driven to hopelessness by sin but Christ has set us free!
Christ has set us free from the shackles of sin and we are now willful slaves of God which leads to = holiness = eternal life.
Matthew 22:37-40
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.
“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
ALL your heart, ALL your soul, ALL your mind – ALL means no room for devotion to anything else …
If you ask your friend for a piece of pie and he tells you that he ate it all then there is nothing, absolutely nothing left for you because he ate it ALL!
If Jesus has ALL of you there is nothing left for the devil to have! Praise Jesus!
So, we see that Scripture does support Entire Sanctification and Christian Holiness
What about personal experience? Can anyone testify? Louise Robinson Chapman …
The following text is an excerpt from “Africa, O Africa” by Louise Robinson Chapman ISBN 978-0-8341-3716-5
“I settled my call to Africa and received the gift of the
Holy Spirit during my college days. I had experienced a
wonderful conversion and for a time did not feel the need
of any further work of grace in my heart. I tried to accept
this great gift of the Holy Spirit but always felt unsatisfied. I
often wondered if there was any such great cleansing as that
which we heard preached. I frequently went to the altar to
pray for seekers, when in reality I was praying for myself.
Three things troubled me. I still wanted to follow the
plans I had made for my life; I was afraid God wanted me to
preach, and I was afraid that God was going to send me to
Africa as a missionary.
“If I had been sure God was calling me, I would have
cast aside my plans. I didn’t like to see or hear women
preach. I thought it was dangerous enough for a man
to be a holiness preacher, to say nothing of a woman. I
thought it would be certain starvation. But worst of all
was Africa. I had little conception of what it meant to be
a missionary. I did not know how anyone should go about
getting to a mission field. Above all of this, I was not sure
God was calling me, so I was confused and thought I
might be deceived.
“One morning on my way to school, I came into the
midst of a very large flock of restless, bleating sheep. When I
was right in the center of the flock, I forgot they were sheep
and it seemed like I was hearing the cries of lost men and
women, dying without God. It seemed that the Lord told
me to look toward the east. I saw all the lands of the Orient,
where people thronged the streets. It seemed that I heard the
pitiful wails of the millions without God.
“The bleating of the sheep became the cries of the multitudes of the Orient
who were dying while waiting and longing for a Savior.
The Lord told me to look to the south. Here I saw the
men and women of India in the Ganges River and in the
temples. I saw the masses thronging up and down the streets
and lanes like lost sheep driven by the storm and without
guide or shepherd.
“I looked toward Latin America with her needy millions.
I saw the hands lifted to God, the eyes pleading for rest, and
could hear the cries from the lips of those who sought for
God all up and down those broad lands to the south.
“Then God turned me about, and we looked toward the
great continent of Africa—more than 150 million African
people who stagger on in the dark without the light of
Christ to guide them. Every frightened eye looked wildly
up to God. Every hand reached out in a desperate effort to
grasp something to save them.
“Then God showed me my own fair land. I saw people
in every walk of life. Even my friends and neighbors were
there. This caused me to marvel more than anything I had seen before.
They all looked up and cried to God for help.
I saw the beautifully dressed women, the drunks in the gutter, the moral man that
I had known who seemed to have no desire for God, and the neighbor
next door. All were looking up with longing eyes, reaching with
grasping fingers for something that would sustain them. Every
mouth was calling for that rest that only God can give.
Now the bleating of the sheep were the cries of my people,
my friends, and my countrymen.
“With broken heart, I tried to explain to Christ, who had
shed His blood that all the world might be saved, that I had
not realized that all people, no matter how they acted, were
hungry and crying to Him for soul rest. He looked at me
with a sad, tired face, when I asked if He could not go away
and rest awhile. I asked Christ if He must always, night and
day, listen to these pitiful cries. He answered in a sad voice,
“Child, I never rest.”
“I fell at His feet weeping and asked Him to tell me how
I could help. I looked again at the scene, and I saw, here and
there upon the earth, people praying. I saw a man on a hilltop,
a woman in a secret closet, and others shut away, groaning
under the burden of prayer. Then I felt the heavens shaken and
saw the arm of God begin to move. Channels were opened,
and men were set free from their chains of darkness.
“After this experience, I could not rest. I was hungry and
dissatisfied and was always hearing the cries of the lost. One
noon hour, after weeks of wrestling with God, I went into a
classroom and locked the door. I told the Lord I had come
to settle my call and that I did not intend to go out that door
until it was forever settled. I began with my life’s plans. I
promised God I would work no more on them unless I had
direct orders from God to do so. Preach? I would try. I decided
that it would be no more painful to starve to death as
a despised woman preacher than to perish of famine in my
soul. I was so hungry for more of God that life itself meant
little to me if I could not be satisfied.
“Then Africa loomed up. It was not enough to preach
in America. I must preach in Africa. I saw myself way out
in the jungle. I was dressed in a hideous black dress that
began at my ankles and reached to my fingers and my ears.
My hair was pulled back straight and pinned in an old fashioned
way. Since there were no doctors there, all my
teeth but two or three were gone. I sat on an old soapbox
by the side of a grass hut while a few impoverished children
played at my feet. I started in fear and then I heard myself
saying out loud, “Lord God Almighty, You have a little old
woman on Your hands from this very moment, now, and
throughout eternity.”
“I had scarcely finished the sentence when something like
a great iron weight slipped off me and went splashing down
into space beneath. I jumped to my feet, feeling as light as a
feather. The room seemed to be on fire with the presence of
God. Fear and hunger had gone. I was free and satisfied. My
heart was aflame with the love of God. I loved His will for
me. I felt willing and wanted to start immediately for Africa.
Not only had I settled my call, but I had been baptized with
the Holy Spirit.
“So wonderful was the work done in my heart that day
that not once through the years has it ever been suggested
that God did not call me and send me across the sea. Not once
did I ever doubt that God really did baptize me with His Spirit and
completely cleanse and satisfy my soul.
“Many times in Swaziland I defeated discouragement and failure
by remembering that the great God of heaven sent me there to represent Him and that He would make me succeed.”
From “Africa, O Africa” by Louise Robinson Chapman ISBN 978-0-8341-3716-5
You see, many of us are like Louise Chapman was before she yielded herself fully ot the Lord. We are saved but still holding something back from God.
It took a while for her to discover what she was doing but after the Lord made her aware of her disobedience it became like a huge weight around her shoulders and she needed deliverance.
Many of us have been saved but there is something in our lives that we won’t let give over to the Lord.
For many it is money and possessions.
For others it is pretending not to hear the call of the Lord to do something.
Now comes the question!
Is this thing called Christian Holiness and Entire Sanctification just for people like Louise Robinson Chapman?
In all of the Scriptures that we read did we see that Holiness was only for the elite?
Can I have that, too? Can you have that too?
The Bible says yes it is absolutely for you and for all who will receive it!
Then, why don’t we seek the experience, not for the experience but in order to be filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit.
How many of us are carrying the weight that Miss Chapman was carrying?
Don’t you want to let go???
(Invite the church to join with you in constant and urgent prayer for the Holy Spirit to fall upon our hearts and our church in a way that will make us wholly obedient and responsive to Him in entire sanctification. Then and only then will we be pleasing in the sight of the Lord.)
Final remarks and possible invitation.
