Red rage rising like mercury in a thermometer. The face of an infant child transformed into a possessed monster convinced that if certain conditions are not met It will scream to the point of Physical disconnect. This child is no more than a year old. How did it learn this horrific method for getting its way? As you have guessed I encountered the will of an infant this week. Where does it come from? What is inbred sin? We will examine three views of what depravity is.
Is man born with depravity?
Is the power of the will the only way to holiness?
Is the standard too high?
What of spear chucking kings?
" We believe that our first parents were created in a state of innocence, but by their disobedience they lost their purity and happiness; and that in consequence of their fall, all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are exposed to the wrath of God." (The Salvation Army handbook of doctrine)
There are three schools of thought: (1) All sin is willful Change your mind and you are pure. sinning is environmental we are not born with it. (2) There is voluntary transgression and depraved nature but we cannot be cleansed in nature in this life. (3.)We are responsible for both sinful acts and a sinful nature and both can be eradicated in this life.
There are many who teach the first idea that the will is the central issue here and that everyone is clean at birth and corruption is created as time evolves. Thus if a person makes the right choices he will experience holiness. Don't reject this so fast the majority of people today gravitate to this bootstraps Christianity. Others suggest that; yes, we are individually responsible for personal acts of sinning as well as a corrupted nature but we cannot be free from that nature in this life.
The last is the most logical and is confirmed by Scripture as well as personal testimony.
A. M. Hill Holiness and power pp35 # 1
"'The universality of sin is a strong presumptive proof. The fact that every duck as soon as it is hatched takes to water, proves that by nature it is an aquatic fowl. The fact that every child, of every family, of whatever age or tribe or clime, whatever be its surroundings, begins to sin with the very dawn of its moral faculties, is awful evidence that the very faculties themselves are corrupt".
Scripture explains it
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
John 3:6
Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
Romans 8:7-8
the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. [8] Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
1 Cor. 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Ephes. 2:3
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
Ephes. 4:17-18
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. [18] They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
The Salvation Army Doctrine Book 1923 pp 53-54
(a) He has a sinful nature: He is born with an inclination or a tendency to evil. His heart is wrong; he prefers his own way to God's way. This depravity, or disposition to sin, affects every part of mans being, and it renders man unable, by his own efforts, to deliver himself.
Psalm 51:5
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Romans 7:18
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Ephes. 2:3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
(b) He commits sinful acts: These, although the outcome of his sinful nature, are yet done by his own choice
.
Romans 3:12
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
3 .ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION IS COMPLETE DELIVERANCE FROM SIN, AND THE DEVOTION OF THE WHOLE BEING, WITH ALL ITS GIFTS AND CAPABILITIES, TO THE LOVE AND WILL OF GOD.
2 Cor. 7:1
Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
1 Thes. 5:23
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.
1 John 4:16-17
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. [17] In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
(a) The chief difference between Partial and Entire Sanctification is that... i. .Partial Sanctification takes place ant conversion and is deliverance from outward sin and the love of it. ii. Entire Sanctification usually takes place after conversion, and is deliverance from both inward and outward sin - from sin in disposition as well as deed.
(b) Entire Sanctification does not usually take place at conversion few then see their need for it. God gives light gradually as people are able to bear it., and most seekers after Salvation are absorbed with the gaining of pardon. Later on, when they discover the true nature of inward sin and earnestly seek deliverance, God sanctifies them entirely.
(c) Unconverted, Converted, and Entirely Sanctified people thus differ from each other as regards their relationship to sin.
i.. An Unconverted person is under sin. He may see sin to be evil, hate it, and struggle against it; but still he is under it's power, and forced to obey it. This explains why unsaved people make resolutions and break them directly.
Romans 7:14
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
ii. A Converted, or Partially Sanctified, person is over sin. He is
deliveredd from the power of sin; by the power of God he is able to conquer sin. But sin still exists as a principle or disposition in the soul; it is there, though it does not reign.
Romans 6:14
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
iii. An entirely sanctified person is Without sin - "freed from sin" (Romans vi. 7). He is delivered from all sin; his disposition is entirely purified; inward sin is done away with or destroyed.
Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
We have strayed much from the teaching of our early church fathers. Today has become a world of compromise. America, the melting pot of the world, has tried to move the people to tolerance of every form of thinking. Thus we have chaos. Do we alleviate the virtue of the people by lowering the standard. God does not grade on the curve. We must resist the urge to lower the standard to make ourselves look better. True, if you compare your sins to the sins of others around you , you don't look that bad. Dr. Harris of I'm ok your ok fame suggests that we justify ourselves and accept every one as they are. This is a noble thought but ignoring the disease will not keep us from iminate death. Sin is a corruption that will lead to the death of the soul. If we do nothing and ignore its presence we will die.
The awful thing about this issue is that whole congregations can live an existence of comatose mutation. They are alive. But they experience none of the joy of living. They eat but never taste. They drink and feel no thirst but are never refreshed. We must not settle for the lie that depravity cannot be cured. Why would an omnipotent God call for purity if it were not possible. Why would he rescue us from our acts of sinning and not provide for our heart purity.
Consecration is the action of the will.
Sanctification is the action of God the Holy Spirit
Christ was able to sanctify himself because he is truly and properly God. You and I can only offer our will He must do the eradication surgery that will change our orientation to sinning. William Booth told a story of a colored man that explained that if God told him to jump through a stone wall it was his job to jump; It is God's job to get him through the wall. It is limiting God to suggest that the will alone can keep a believer clean. We can live without sinning. But not until the nature to do it is removed.
You like David may work for a spear chucking rage filled leader. But you can resist the urge to kill him on the spot because you know that God has anointed you with His Spirit and your destiny is securely locked in the eternal hope of Christ Jesus. The spears of the enemy cannot penetrate the shell of His will. The apostle Paul declared that he not only suffered for his master he found glory in suffering. we must not just endure hardship but glory in it. Wow joy in suffering. God is revealing Himself to the remnant of the church. If we will obey and walk in the true statutes of holiness God will prevail and the kingdom will be ours. Our inheritance is the fruit of holiness.
I like you I have witnessed the rage of anointed leaders of the church who like infants crying for a pacifier scream there discontent to terrorize all present. God has not lowered the standard and they like King Saul will come to Gilboa. The tragedy of impure service is a painful and lonely death. Yours is to glory in the cross. God will open the door for your personal eternal destiny. It is not the work of will or dreaming it is a gift of second grace.