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HOLINESS TO THE LORD

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 10, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 30, No. 13.

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HOLINESS TO THE LORD.

By D. F. NEWTON

“TEACH me to walk as thou didst walk, When a weary pilgrim here.”
You profess holiness, do you live holiness? Here lies the test. You tell us you are holy, enjoy the blessing of perfect love; do you practice holiness, live it out? Do you exhibit the fruits of holiness in your family, in your daily and hourly deportment? Is your temper sweet, modest, submissive, Christ-like? Is your walk and conversation such as becometh this high and holy calling? Do they bear a living witness to the fact? Do your friends and companions see “holiness to the Lord” beaming forth brightly in every look, every smile, every word, every moving muscle? Do your little ones see this, your husbands, your wives, your neighbors? Do you exhibit the fruits of the inner life in training your children for the Lord, in the way they should go? How is it also in your dietetic habits, your dress, your furniture, your out-goes and incomes?—in all your business transactions? Does the world take knowledge of your holiness, in providing things honest in the sight of all men? Do you owe any man any thing but love? Are you strictly temperate in eating, drinking, sleeping? in the use of all God’s gifts? Is your conversation chaste, meek, modest, benevolent, heavenly? Do you exhibit the fruits of holiness in regard to the poor, the sick, the afflicted, the oppressed? Do you, as Christ commands, remember those in bonds, as bound with them? Are you always ready to open your lips, “defend the poor and fatherless,” do justice to the afflicted and needy, rid them out of the hand of the wicked, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widows? Do you everywhere bear testimony against novel readings, and novel puffings, intemperance in the use of strong drink and tobacco in every form, the sin of oppression, the spirit of caste, the pride of aristocracy? and every secret abomination? These are test questions, standing out in bold relief, and cannot be lightly passed over, especially by those who profess the higher walks. The eye of God is upon us, the eyes of angels, the world’s eagle eye also, and its gainsayings.
It is one thing to profess sanctification, and quite another thing to live sanctification; our walk must accord with our profession. God expects it, demands it, angels, the world, justly. Holiness, to be holiness, must be Bible holiness, complete, perfectly symmetrical, God-like, Christ-like. “Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure.” What saith God to Abraham? “Walk before me, and be thou perfect?” Christ, on the mount, commanded the disciples to be perfect. Paul, to the Corinthians, says: “Be perfect, be of one mind, live in peace.” “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
Peter also says, i, 15: “As he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written: Be ye holy, for I am holy.” “Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” “Be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”
“Abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” Friends of this high and holy calling, is this Bible holiness your holiness? Are you walking thus circumspectly, keeping a conscience void of offense toward God and man always? Can you testify to these facts, modestly, meekly, humbly, God-fearingly? Bless the Lord, praise him for it. Your light shall break forth as the morning, the Lord will keep you as the apple of the eye, guide you continually, satisfy your soul in drouth, make fat your bones, and you shall be like a watered garden, and “like a spring of water whose waters fail not.”
Nothing so mars the peace of Jerusalem, hinders the onward progress of this blessed Bible doctrine of “holiness to the Lord,” as the inconsistent walk of those professing to enjoy it. Christ is wounded. By whom? “What are these wounds in thy hands?” Then he shall answer: “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” Zech. xiii, 6.
“Let us, therefore,” says Paul, “as many as be perfect, be thus minded. . . . Whereunto we have attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them who walk so as ye have us for an example—for many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.”
“’Tis not a cause of small import, A holy life demands, But what might fill an angel’s heart, And fill a Saviour’s hands.”
The Bible teaches us that true religion is love to God and love to man, and that there can be no true love to God where there is not love to man. “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
“Who is my brother? ’Tis not merely he Who hung upon the same loved mother’s breast; But every one, whoever he may be, On whom the image of a man’s impress’d.”
We look for consistency in the every-day walk and conversation—a spirit of meek, modest, lamb-like humility—a benevolence, disinterested, exalted, Christ-like—that looks not merely on its own things, but also on the things of others; a cheerful, smiling, complacent yielding to the rights of others, where duty calls. We expect a meek, modest, retiring self-renunciation, gospel-like, in those testifying publicly the assurance of faith, great peace of mind, joy unspeakable.
We may be eloquent, loud in our professions, speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and after all be “as sounding brass, or tinkling cymbal!”
“Let us, to perfect love restored, Thy image here retrieve, And in the knowledge of our Lord, The life of angels live.”
—D. F. NEWTON, Author of “Shining Light.”