What are the results of neglecting to seek holiness?
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
No comments:
Post a Comment