A CLEAN CHURCH
"Purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts xv. 9).
Holiness is a state; entire sanctification is an experience; the Holy Ghost is
a person. We come into the state of holiness through the experience of entire
sanctification, wrought by the omnipotent energies of the Holy Ghost. This is
the "baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire" administered by Christ
himself, as John the Baptist declares. He did not mean that there were two
baptisms, one with the Spirit and another with fire, but one "baptism with
the Holy Ghost " under the symbol of fire.
There are some things which the application of water will
not cleanse. Water may cleanse the loose dirt on the outside, but fire alone
can make inwardly, intrinsically clean. Metal ore is not refined by mere
washing -- it must undergo the crushing and smelting processes. Again and
again the base ore is subjected to the fiery ordeal, until every iota of the
useless grit and undesirables and is destroyed and the metal is left free from
alloy. So the water of regeneration will free the soul from external
sin-commission, but the sanctifying process of the Spirit is requisite if the
heart is to be holy and sinless.
Poisonous air may be driven from old wells and mine-shafts
with fire. The deadly gases must yield before the flame. And the fire of the
Spirit will rout all miasma and malaria from both pulpit and pew.
Nothing is more refreshing on a hot, sultry July afternoon
than a thunderstorm. A few vivid flashes, a half-dozen dashes of blinding
flame, and lo, the atmosphere has become bracing and invigorating. Of all
urgent needs, none is more truly evident than that the church ought to be struckwith
double-geared lightning from the upper skies. The jagged bolts should be
allowed to play on both preacher and people. This celestial electricity would
sweeten the spiritual atmosphere in our churches and in our own souls. It
would burn away all the fog of uncertainty and unbelief and doubt, and give us
convictions born of assurance.
Proud flesh requires the fire. Nothing rivals it in the
dispatch and effectiveness with which it does its work. A Boston physician
told me that, with all the modern discoveries of science, there had been
nothing found that would do but fire. In the moral world there is nothing
obtainable that will cure proud flesh in our natures and in our churches except
Pentecostal fire. This alone will kill the "brag," the pomp, the
gusto, the ungodly strut so evident in so many professors of religion today.
Let us take down our lightning rods, all our preventatives, and fire, celestial
fire, will leap over the battlements of heaven and fall upon us, slaying all
our pride, destroying all our tin, dross, and reprobate silver, and giving us a
joyous release from all chaff and from all that is lightweight.
Those who have received their Pentecost live pure, holy
lives. They never practice unclean habits, whether secret or known. They do
not have unclean thoughts, unchaste desires, or unholy passions. They do not
use wine, beer, tobacco, snuff or opium. True, a man may have his name on a
church-book and yet indulge in these things of which we speak; but he might
just as well have it on a board fence, for it does not make him a member of the
Pentecostal company. He may "belong to the meeting-house," but he is
not one of this blessed fire-crowned throng. Men who are in unholy
connection with this Godless world in lodges, fraternities and Christless
institutions, or who will stoop to the commercial trickeries of this age, or
who will lend their influence to abet a questionable business, have not been
through the furnace of the upper room. Pentecostal Christians have "clean
hands and pure hearts." "Hands" in the Bible refers to the
outward, manifest, visible life. It refers to what man sees. The word has
regard to conduct. The life must be clean. A man can not be in close contact
with the world without being contaminated. Lot well nigh became a Sodomite by
dwelling in Sodom and among Sodom's inhabitants; and intimate relationship with
men of unrighteous lives always means demoralization for the Christian. "Clean
hands" hold no bribes, they never deal unjustly, they do not give
thirty-five inches for a yard nor fifteen ounces for a pound, they do not pay
debts at forty cents on the dollar when they could do more.
The behavior of the tongue is included in the life. The
conversation must be pure and chaste, never vulgar, never immodest. The jest
with its indelicate association is never heard on the month of the Pentecostal
saint.
The phrase "clean heart" relates to the inward,
invisible, secret nature -- that which God alone sees. It describes a
condition of things in which there is no pride, or anger, or jealousy, or envy,
or strife, or selfishness, or worldly ambition, or any unholy temper. Desire
for place or position in church or state is purged away. We who are of the Pentecostal
Church see no one who has a place we would desire. We are not wire pulling to
get a position. We are saved from political scheming in ecclesiastical
circles, as well as elsewhere. In honor we prefer one another. There can be no
anxiety, for God makes all our appointments for us.
When the heart is clean the Holy Ghost saves us from all
peevishness, fretfulness, sensitiveness and touchiness. We hardly know when we
are insulted and, therefore, never take offense. As Dr. Carradine says, we get
so we "can live on cold shoulder and cold tongue." We are not looking
out for slights. If any one pays any attention to us, it is that much more than
we deserve, that much clear gain.
How plainly uncleanness of heart reveals itself in the
actions, tempers and ambitions of the disciples previous to their Pentecost!
They were selfish: they wanted the best places. Instance John and James
bidding for chief seats. Notice the anger and indignation consequent upon the
rest of the twelve hearing of the request of the two brothers. But, passing
the upper room experience, we look in vain to find evidences of envy or
self-seeking in these men. That Pentecostal electrocution forever put an end
to the self-life.
How this fiery cleansing would relieve the church today!
Office-seeking preachers would not buttonhole the bishops. This continual
lobbying of which the presiding elder or superintendent is the unhappy subject
would cease. Men would be more anxious to show their devotion to Christ and
self- denial for his cause, than to obtain the best appointments. An unheard
of thing might possibly be, viz., a vacancy on the official board, and no one
sitting up nights concocting a scheme which would lift him to the place.
Would-be generals are abundant nowadays. There are plenty
of men who would gladly boss God's army. They want to be bell-sheep. They
must tinkle the bell, and no one else. If they can't be bell-sheep, they won't
be sheep at all, but turn goats. Certainly we need the holy flame to extirpate
unholy ambitions. Before Pentecost, the disciples were sectarian. One
poor fellow was having a glorious time casting out devils. "Does he
follow us?" "NO." "Forbid him. Stop the revival; complain
to the authorities! Schism! Tendency to divide! Come-out-ism!" There are
thousands of people who have no sympathy with a work, however praiseworthy,
without the movers in that work are in full unison with them on all
points.
A revengeful spirit crops out in the pre-Pentecostal
disciples. "Opposition?" "Down with fire!" "Do not
like to hear us preach?" "Rain brimstone!" This is the un-Christlike
spirit of even some so called Holiness preachers. "We can't punish you,
but God can. We will get the Lord to revenge us." How different is the
meekness, the heart-lowliness of the Son of God. "Despised" and
"rejected" yet he opened not his mouth. "Vengeance and
retaliation are burned out of us when we are sanctified, and unholy resentment
thereafter finds in the soul no place.
