What are the results of neglecting to seek holiness? Part 1

BLJ: Today, we start a study on the results of neglecting holiness. Again, this is a somber read because it is a somber subject. 

1. It affords fearful advantage to Satan, our great enemy.

He comes to enslave the soul with fear, to inflate it with pride, to inspire it with the love of the world, to inflame its lusts, to excite anger, to obscure the path of duty, and induce rebellion against God. In the soul but partially sanctified Satan finds some tendency, more or less, to unbelief, to fear, to pride, to covetousness, to lust, and, indeed, to every sin. The seed of all sin is yet in the heart. What a fearful advantage is thus allowed to the enemy!

"But of all the foes we meet, None so oft mislead our feet None betray us into sin,
Like the foes that dwell within."

2. It is the occasion of frequent defeat in spiritual conflicts.
Sinning and repenting, rising and falling, are prominent characteristics of those who refuse to seek the blessing of holiness. How truthfully does this familiar stanza describe the lives of multitudes of converted men!

"Here I repent and sin again;
Slain with that same unhappy dart
Now I revive, and now am slain Which, oh, too often wounds my heart."

"We are compelled to declare," says Bishop Peck, "in our honest judgment, there are few cases of only partial sanctification in which every single day does not make bitter work for repentance... How many, through the influence of remaining depravity, have been betrayed into angry passions, into vanity, pride, and unbridled lusts! How many have gradually yielded to the suggestions of an evil heart, and found at length that their strength was lost, their confidence gone, their Saviour grieved, and their souls brought into bitter condemnation!" -- Central Idea, p 122

3. It is the origin of those grievous apostasies which have dishonored the church and ruined souls.

1. "Can there be any question of this ? Who, that believes in the possibility of either temporary or final apostasy, could suggest a mode of backsliding more effectual, more inevitable, than to allow the sinful propensities of our nature to remain undisturbed -- to disobey the great law of progress, which is revealed as sacredly binding upon every converted man?" Central Idea, p. 124.

2. Dr. George Peck says: "Leaving 'first principles,' and going on to perfection, is the only way to be secure against final and total apostasy. ... If, then, we do not wish to end in the flesh, to fall from grace, to lose our first love, to be deprived of the talent committed to us, to have the candlestick removed out of its place, and finally to be cast into outer darkness, we must leave the things which are behind, and go forward to those which are before. ... It is our only security against utter apostasy, the dismal gulf of infidelity, and the pit of hell.

"If we resist or neglect it, we are guilty of disobedience; we contract guilt, and come into condemnation. What, then, is the condition of those Christians who do not seek at all the entire sanctification which God requires? Are they doing the will of God? Let all concerned lay their hand upon their heart, and decide this question according to truth and evidence."

"But what I do mean is, that those Christians who do not seek, and seek CONSTANTLY, for an entirely sanctified nature, FALL INTO CONDEMNATION. And I may add that this condemnation must be removed by pardon, upon repentance, or it will finally 'drown the soul it destruction and perdition.' " -- Christian Perfection, pp. 16, 23, 419.

3. Rev. Timothy Merritt says: "If Christians would not backslide, and bring a reproach upon the cause of Christ, they must go on to perfection. There is no medium between going forward and drawing back. As soon as any one ceases to press forward, he declines in spiritual life." -- Christian Manual.