H O L I N E S S : what it is not & what it is same excesses that the sinner does. He is free from the pride, the temper, the jealousy, the soaring ambitions and selfishness that plunge so many sinners into terrible affliction and ruin. And yet he must not presume that he will get through the world without heavy trials, hard temptations and suffering. Job was a perfect man, but he lost all his property and his children and in a day was made a childless beggar, but he proved his perfection by giving God glory. Then when his wife bade him curse God and die, he said unto her, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). And when his three friends were undermining his faith, he looked up from off his ash heap, and out of his awful sorrow, desolation and fierce pain he cried out, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). Joseph is one of the few men in the Bible against whom nothing is recorded, but like Daniel, his very holiness and righteousness led to the terrible trials endured in Egypt. And so it may be, and is, with saints today. But while we may be afflicted, we can comfort ourselves with David’s assurance, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). A friend of mine said he would rather have a thousand afflictions and be delivered out of them all, than have half a dozen and get stuck in the midst of them. Holiness is not a state in which there is no further development. When the heart is purified it develops more rapidly than ever before. Spiritual development comes through the revelation of Jesus Christ in the heart, and the holy soul is in a condition to receive such revelations constantly. And since the finite can never exhaust the infinite, these revelations will continue forever and prove an increasing and never ending source of development. It would be as wise to say that a sick child would grow no more when he recovers, or that corn would grow no more when the weeds were destroyed, as to say that a soul will cease to grow when it is made holy. Holiness is not a state from which we cannot fall. Paul tells us that we stand by faith (Romans 11:16-22), and he says, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (I Corinthians 10:12). It is an unscriptural and dangerous doctrine that there is any state of grace in this world from which we cannot fall. Probation does not end the moment we believe in Jesus, but rather the moment we quit the body. It is only those who endure to the end who shall be saved. While here, we are in the enemy’s country and must watch and pray and examine ourselves daily, and keep ourselves in the love of God, lest we fall from His grace and shipwreck our faith. But while we may fall, thank God holiness is a state from which we need not fall. In fact, it is a state which Paul calls “this grace wherein we stand” (Romans 5:2). Some have asked the question, “How can a holy soul be tempted, or how can it fall?” I will ask the question, how could the angels fall? And how could Adam just fresh from the hands of his Maker in whose image he was made, fall? And I will ask the more startling question still, how could Jesus, the blessed incarnate God Himself, be tempted? We have our five senses and various bodily continued on page 21 The War Cry | JUNE 2013 od looks upon the purity of the heart, the singleness of the eye and the loyalty of our affection. g 11