What is Scriptural Death Route Holiness? Part 4

Read some examples of the variety of experiences of those who took the Death Route and have been entirely sanctified:

Fairy Chism, many years a missionary in Africa, was sanctified on her way home, walking, from an evening service. She had been seeking faithfully and desperately for two years, and left the altar that night unrewarded -- almost to the point of despair. It took her two years to get totally dead to Fairy Chism. The Holy Ghost fell in great power on her that night -- a power which rested upon her throughout the many years of a distinguished ministry, as a missionary in Africa and as an evangelist back in America.

Reuben A. (Bud) Robinson was sanctified out in the corn field, hoeing corn. Uncle Bud, as he was affectionately called, was considered the most dearly loved holiness evangelist of his generation. [12]

Our dear friend and pastor-brother, Hubert Terry, was sanctified while lying on his face under a table in a Sunday School class room. He had been earnestly seeking holiness and dying out to self for three days. Dr. Phineas Bresee preached a revival in his own church where he was pastoring, and realizing his religion didn't meet his needs, went to the altar, a seeker, and God sanctified him. Dr. Bresee became the founder of the Church of the Nazarene, and was doubtless one of the greatest Holy Ghost preachers that ever lived. [13]

C. B. Jernigan, who later rose among the giants of Holiness preachers, was carrying a plow on his shoulders, praying and weeping when the fire fell and God sanctified him. He lost his plow and the carnal mind at the same time, but he got the blessing of a sanctified heart! [14]

Dr. H. C. Morrison, another giant among the holiness preachers, upon reading a letter from a friend, was smitten with conviction over his carnal condition. He prayed through at once, and God sanctified him. However, upon listening to wrong advice, Morrison lost the wonderful experience, but after a long bitter struggle, got it back again. Dr. Morrison lost his experience of heart-holiness because he was persuaded not to testify to it, and thus honor the Holy Ghost. Second blessing Holiness was not at all popular in those days and it was easy for one to keep quiet about it to avoid persecution. But persecution is exactly what all Christians need, while their anointed testimony is what God requires, honors and rewards (Rev. 12:11). [15] Talk about variation!

Dr. A. M. Hills, after dying to carnal self, was hungering and thirsting for the holiness blessing. He had wandered in the unsanctified wilderness for nearly twenty years. Before arising one winter morning, it struck him that he should claim the blessing. He writes: "I began to do it, when speedily the Spirit came to bring the witness. A tide of joy swept into my soul, and I cried out, 'Oh, bless the Lord! Praise the Lord! He does come and fill my soul!'..." He received a clear witness which he never lost during his mighty ministerial career. [16]

By contrast, Dr. J. B. Chapman, for many year general superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene, was saved under a brush arbor in September, 1899, and was sanctified holy the next night. Forty-seven years later he testified clearly that the experience still held good.6 Holiness is the establishing grace. It greatly helps prevent backsliding (I Thess. 3:13; Rom. 1:11; Heb. 13:9; 2 Pet. 1:12).

Dr. S. A. Keen relates his seeking and obtaining holiness of heart. He says: "I struggled against doubt, caught a glimpse of holiness, then let go my confidence and turned back into the wilderness of legalism -- 'Do the best you can,' and work out your salvation with fear and trembling,' -- where I wandered for almost eleven years." After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1868, he entered upon his first pastorate at Chilicothe, Ohio. Here he says: "I had come again in sight of Canaan. I hungered for its generous fruits. The first quarter in my pastoral charge was one of great longing to be made free from sin in my soul." Early in January he began a protracted meeting in his church, in which, though it increased in attendance, there were no conversions. As he left the pulpit on Sunday evening, January 3, 1869, the Holy Spirit spoke to him, saying, "How can you expect sinners to act up to their convictions when you do not act up to your own?" "That arrow slew me," says Dr. Keen. "I saw in an instant what was in the way of the revival. It was the preacher himself. My heart was broken. I then and there began to seek the best I knew. I cried out, 'Lord, I am thine, entirely thine' -- words I had used a hundred times, but now they came with this thought, 'Lord, I am thine entirely thine for you to do this thing for me.' They were scarcely off my lips until a peace inexpressible was in my heart. I arose from my knees, my praying was done. "I did not recognize that the blessing of sanctification had come. All I knew was that a blessed soul rest had come. I went about my pastoral work, my feet were light, my steps were alert, my heart was joyous....The peace seemed even deeper. I slept very deeply. Sunday morning came. I arose and again kelt in prayer, but could say nothing but 'Lord, I am thine, entirely thine,' accompanied with a still sweeter sense of rest in my soul. "Having finished my preparation to preach at about ten minutes before 11 o'clock, I knelt down to ask God not for full salvation, but to help me to preach once more. My knees had no sooner touched the floor when the witness of the Spirit was given to my soul, saying, 'It is done.' Then I saw that for eighteen hours I had been cleansed, filled, fully saved, and had not known it. My heart bounded with joy, my naturally ardent soul burst into a flame of rapture and my head became a fountain of tears. Jordan was passed. The Canaan for which I had so long 'cast my wistful eyes' was reached.

We are not to attempt to have an experience like one of those who have come before us. We are to seek to be wholly His and we shall receive the experience He has for us. You may have no emotional reaction, but instead a calm assurance that the Holy Ghost has come. You may have a shouting time and weep and carry on but neither is proof that the work has been done.  Two people can be in a serious automobile accident. One may cry and one may sit in silence. However, they both had the same experience. It is the witness of the Spirit to your heart that the work has been done that is critical. More later on the Witness of the Spirit.