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| PentecostalTheology.com
A holy heart is the Condition for and secret of living a holy life. To undertake to live a holy life
with an unholy heart is to undertake the impossible. An impure fountain Can send forth only an
impure stream. To deny the privilege and possibility of having a pure heart and yet demand a holy
life is unreasonable, unscriptural and tyrannical. No man is better than his heart, no matter what his
profession or pretenses may be. “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?
Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield
salt water and fresh.”
Human religions begin on the outside and take for their slogan, “Do right and you will be right.”
In this the Pharisees were adepts, so much so that Jesus said of them, “Ye make clean the outside of
the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.” According to this a man may
have a clean outward life and yet be none other than a Pharisee. “Except your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of
heaven.” The religion of Jesus Christ begins with the heart, and says: “Thou blind Pharisees, cleanse
first that which is within the cup and platter that the outside of them may be clean also.” “A good
man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good.”
The enemy keeps many people out of the blessing of sanctification by telling them that because
of their peculiar temperament and their environments, they could never live a holy life. This is all
a delusion and device of Satan to deceive and defeat a hungry soul. Sanctification will correct your
peculiar temperament and lift you above conditions and environments and enable you to “reign in
life.” There can be nothing more easy or more natural than for a man to live out what is in him. Be
right and you will do right. Sanctification is religion made easy and brings a life of glad victory.
Many seem to think that God has laid down two standards of living — one for the justified and
another for the sanctified, and so may be heard to excuse themselves for some unholy indulgence of
temper or appetite, by saying they never professed sanctification, as though the refusal to walk in the
light and be cleansed from all sin gave one license to live beneath the standard of holiness. This, too,
is a delusion. God requires holiness of all men regardless of what they profess or do not profess. God
does not wait for a man to subscribe his name to the ten commandments before He requires
obedience to the same. A sanctified man has a right to do anything anyone else has a right to do. No
man has right or liberty to do anything that is wrong. A justified man should walk just as straight and
live just as consistent and obedient before God as a sanctified man. God says to all men: “Be ye holy,
for I am holy.”
The beauty of sanctification is that it removes from the heart everything that is antagonistic to a
holy life, and puts His Spirit within you, which will “cause” you to walk in his statutes and keep His
judgments and do them.” — Ezek. 36:27.
Another thrust of the enemy is to say to those professing the blessing of sanctification: “You need
not say anything about it, just live it.” This is like saying to a white man, “Now be a white man.” If
you have the blessing, of course you will live it. If you do not live it, you cannot long testify to the
blessing, and if you do not testify to the blessing, you will soon cease to live it, for you will not long
possess the blessing when you cease to testify to the same. Life and testimony must go together. God
says, “Ye are my witnesses.” “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their
testimony.
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