I have been absent for a few days but I am back.
I have a couple pages from one of Charles Spurgeons messages that I want to post. This portion of his message titled Our Lord's prayer for His people's sanctification really spoke to me.
"How Sanctification is to be accomplished in believers.
Sanctify them through thy truth: 'thy word is truth." Beloved, observe how God has joined holiness and truth together. There has been a tendency of late to divide truth of doctrine from truth of precept. Men say that Christianity is a life and not a creed. This is a part truth and very near akin to a lie. Christianity is a life that grows out of truth. Jesus Christ is the way and the truth as well as the life, and He is not properly received except He is accepted in that threefold character.
No holy life will be produced in us by the belief of falsehood. Sanctification in visible character comes out of edification in the inner faith of the heart, or otherwise it is a mere shell. Good works are the fruit of true faith, and true faith is a sincere belief of the truth. Every truth leads toward holiness; every error of doctrine, directly or indirectly, leads to sin. A twist of the understanding will inevitably bring a contortion of the life sooner or later. The straight line of truth drawn on the heart will produce a direct course of gracious walking in the life. Do not imagine that you can live on spiritual garbage and yet be in fine moral health, or that you can drink down poisonous error and yet lift up a face without spot before God. Even God Himself only sanctifies us by the truth. Only that teaching will sanctify you that is taken from God's Word. Any teaching that is not true or the truth of God cannot sanctify you. Error may puff you up, it may even make you think that you are sanctified. But there is a very serious difference between boasting of sanctification and being sanctified, and a very grave difference between setting up to be superior to others and being really accepted before God. Believe me, God works sanctification in us by the truth and by nothing else.
But what is the truth? There is the point. Is the truth that which I imagine to be revealed to me by some private communication? Am I to fancy that I enjoy some special revelation, and am I to order my life by voices, dreams, and impressions? Brethren, fall not into common delusion. God's Word to us is in Holy Scripture. All the truth that sanctifies men is in God's Word. Do not listen to those who cry, “Lo here!” and “Lo there!” I am pestered almost every day by crazy persons and pretenders who have revelations. One man tells me that God has sent a message to me by him. I reply, “No, sir, the Lord knows where I dwell, and He is so near to me that He would not need to send to me by you.” Another man announces in God's name a dogma that on the face of it is a lie against the Holy Ghost. He says the Spirit of God told him so-and-so, but we know that the Holy Ghost never contradicts Himself.
If your imaginary revelation is not according to this Word, it has no weight with us. And if it is according to this Word, it is no new thing. The Bible is enough if the Lord does but use it and quicken it by His Spirit in our hearts. Truth is neither your opinion nor mine. Jesus says, “Thy word is truth.” That which sanctifies men is not only truth but also the particular truth that is revealed in God's Word: “Thy word is truth.” What a blessing it is that all the truth that is necessary to sanctify us is revealed in the Word of God, so that we have not to expend our energies upon discovering truth but may to our far greater profit use revealed truth for its divine ends and purposes! There will be no more revelations; no more are needed. The cannon is fixed and complete, and he who adds to it shall have added to him the plagues that are written in this Book (Rev. 22:18). What need of more when here is enough for every practical purpose? “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
This being so, the truth is needful for us to receive is evidently fixed. You cannot change Holy Scriptures. You may arrive more and more accurately at the original text, but for all practical purposes, the text we have is correct enough. Scripture itself cannot be broken; we cannot take from it or add to it. The Lord has never rewritten or revised His Word, nor will He ever do so. Our teachings are full of errors, but the Spirit mistakes not. We have the “Retractions” of Augustine, but there are no retractions with prophets and apostles. The faith has been delivered once for all to the saints, and it stands fast forever. “Thy word is truth.” The Scripture alone is absolute truth, essential truth, decisive truth, authoritative truth, undiluted truth, eternal, everlasting truth. Truth given us in the Word of God is that which is to sanctify all believers to the end time. God will use it to that end.
Learn, then, how earnestly you should search the Scriptures! See how studiously you should read this Book of God! If this is the truth, and the truth with which God sanctifies us, let us learn it, hold it, and stand fast in it. To Him Who gave us the Book, let us pledge ourselves never to depart from His testimonies. To us, at any rate, God's Word is truth. “But they argue differently in the schools!” Let them argue. “But oratory with its flowery speech speaks otherwise!” Let is speak: Words are but air and tongues are but clay. O God, “Thy word is truth.” “But philosophers have contradicted it!” Let them contradict it. Who are they? God's Word is truth. We will go no farther while the world stands. But then let us be equally firm in our conviction that we do not know the truth aright unless it makes us holy. We do not hold the truth in a true way unless it leads us to a true life. If you use the back of a knife, it will not cut. Truth has its handle and its blade, so see that you use it properly. You can make pure water kill a man. You must use every good thing aright or it will not be good. The truth, when fully used, will daily destroy sin, nourish grace, suggest noble desires, and urge to holy acts. I do pray that we may by our lives adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Some do not so. I say this to our shame and to my own hourly sorrow.
The one point of failure to be most deeply regretted would be a failure in the holiness of our church members. If you act as others do, what witness do you bear? If your family is not graciously ordered, if your business is not conducted upon principles of the strictest integrity, if your speech is questionable as to purity or truthfulness, if your life is open to serious rebuke - how can God accept you or send a blessing on the church to which you belong? It is all falsehood and deceit to talk about your being the people of God when even men of the world shame you. Your faith in the Lord Jesus must operate upon your life to make you faithful and true. It must check you here and excite you there. It must keep you back from this and drive you on to that. It must constantly operate upon thought and speech and act, or else you know nothing or its saving power. How can I speak more distinctly and your convictions and your professions unless you sanctify the name of God in your life.
We had better quit our professions if we do not live up to them. In the name of Him who breathed this prayer just before His face was encrimsoned with the bloody sweat, let us cry mightily to the Father, “Sanctify us through Your truth; Your Word is truth.” As as people, we have stuck to the Word of the Lord, but are we practically obeying it? We have determined to keep God's way. Oh, that this one Book, this infallibly inspired writing of Spirit of God. It is incumbent upon us to show the hallowed influence of this Book. The vows of God are on us, that by our godly lives we should show forth His praises who has brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light. This Bible is our treasure. We prize each leaf of it. Let us bind it in the best fashion, in the finest leather of a clear, intelligent faith; then let us put a golden clasp upon it and gild its edges by a life of love, and truth, and purity, and zeal. Thus shall we commend the volume to those who have never looked within its pages. Brethren, the sacred roll, with its seven seals (Rev.5:1), must not be held defiled and polluted. But with clean hands and pure heart we must hold it forth and publish it among men. God help us so to do for Jesus' sake! Amen."
I will post more later today.
- MinisterMedic
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