Death-Route Uniformity Unnecessary

BLJ: While the principle of the death-route is uniform, it is not a pattern to be followed. Everyone is different and therefore their experiences will be different. Follow the principle, not the pattern. Many of those listed below were from the early Church of the Nazarene. 

DEATH-ROUTE UNIFORMITY UNNECESSARY AND UNDESIRABLE

Speaking of the "death-route," we do not mean a stereo-typed pattern that every seeking soul must fit into. It would not be possible for every person to follow the same pattern because of the vast differences in personalities, backgrounds, temperaments, weaknesses, and inherited carnal variations. The prominent carnal traits are not the same in every individual. Some die harder at one point, and some at another. The important thing is for every soul to cover the ground from the condition his heart was in when God first convicted him of his carnal state, to the place of execution of old self, where his rebellious nature against God, and God's will, is slain, and his heart is purified -- and filled with perfect holy love. No one will ever become sanctified wholly by trying to get the experience exactly like somebody else got it. The Holy Ghost does not follow fixed patterns in such matters.
For example, Tom Bly, a spirit-filled layman in our third pastorate, was sanctified riding home from service one night in his buckboard wagon, after he had been an unrewarded seeker every night at the church altar for three weeks. He said, "The Holy Ghost fell on me; I thought He would burn me up."
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.

BLJ: "Uncle" Buddy was the heart and soul of the early Nazarene church. What would he think of the modern holiness church?

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]

BLJ: What heart hunger! To become a seeker at your own revival! This is an example of someone that will have all of God, no matter what the cost.

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]

BLJ: If you think second blessing holiness was not popular then, what about today! Today, it's about hurry, pray, make a dedication and speak in tongues. All in 15 minutes! In my opinion, the modern Charismatic Movement has done much to divert people away from the truth of Scriptural holiness because they have eliminated the teaching of entire sanctification. We that know the truth must proclaim Biblical holiness regardless of the consequences.

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 knelt in prayer, but could say nothing but 'Lord, I am thine, entirely thine,' accompanied with a still sweeter sense of rest in my soul.

BLJ: One of the blessings of entire sanctification is soul rest. You know, what you know, that you know, that the work of cleansing has been done.

"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. That day sinners turned to God in great numbers, and in a few weeks over 160 had been converted. From that day to this, summer nor winter, has the Lord left me without blessed and pervasive revivals of religion. That tenth day of January, 1869, introduced a new era into my spiritual life. The characteristic of my experience since then has been rest, freedom and holy warmth in my soul." [17]
Dr. S. A. Kean [18] was a brilliant Methodist preacher who delivered cultured addresses but was without the vital touch of the Holy Spirit. In the course of his ministry he announced an evangelistic campaign which was well attended for several meetings, but during this time, none sought the Lord. After the seventh night, Dr. Kean went home and said to his wife: "There is something wrong with me. If I were right with God I could not preach without results."

Thereupon ensued a conversation back and forth between his wife and the minister himself, wherein she affirmed he was merely discouraged and blue, but he felt otherwise, saying: "It is not so. If I were baptized with the Holy Ghost, I would see people turning to God." To which Mrs. Kean replied, "If you need this, I need it to. Let us together seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit."

For the following seven nights Dr. Kean continued his revival, but at the close of each service, he and his wife knelt alone at the altar and asked God to sanctify them wholly with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. On the seventh day God poured out His Spirit upon S. A. Kean. That night while he was preaching as usual in the church, the glory of the Lord melted the people and numbers of them fell at the altar. Henceforth for the next thirty years he was noted as a brilliant, soul-winning, second-blessing preacher upon whose ministry thousands entered into the second blessing. [19]
(Please look to the reference note at end of this chapter for Scriptural proof that sanctification is definitely a second work of grace.) [20]

Dr. S. A. Kean dated his spiritual power on that seventh day of seeking when he exclaimed, "He has come! He has come! I know that I am filled with the Holy Ghost."
Dr. Kean is noted for his books, Pentecostal Papers and Faith Papers.
"There is a foe of hidden power The Christian well may fear. More subtle far than outward sin, And to the heart more dear.

It is the power of selfishness, The proud and willful I;
And ere my Lord can reign in me, My very SELF must die."