GREAT QUOTES on HOLINESS

The normal Christian life is holiness, anything less is sickness. Leonard Ravenhill

"A holy man is an awful weapon in the hands of God." -Robert Murray McCheyene

"People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated." D.A. Carson

“Whatever call a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"Many Christians have what we might call a "cultural holiness". They adapt to the character and behavior pattern of Christians around them. As the Christian culture around them is more or less holy, so these Christians are more or less holy. But God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like himself. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God." Jerry Bridges

A baptism of holiness, a demonstration of godly living is the crying need of our day. - Duncan Campbell

A spiritual awakening is no more than God's people seeing God in His holiness, turning from their wicked ways, and being transformed into His likeness. - Lewis Drummond

We need to pray until we get our spiritual eyes refocused on the holiness of God and the lostness of men. –Leonard Ravenhill

"It is an undoubted truth that every doctrine that comes from God, leads to God; and that which doth not tend to promote holiness is not of God." George Whitefield

"There is no shortcut to holiness; it must be the business of our whole lives." William Wilberforce

"It is not great talents or great learning or great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness." E. M. Bounds

"God has one destined end for mankind - holiness! His one aim is the production of saints. God is not an eternal blessing- machine for men. He did not come to save men out of pity. He came to save men because He had created them to be holy." Oswald Chambers

"The greatest wisdom on this earth is holiness." - W.S. Plumer

"Revival is the beauty of holiness adorning the saints."
–James A. Stewart

I have been in Exodus for a while and now moving on to Leviticus to gain a deeper understanding of the Holiness of God and what it means to be Holy.
I appreciated the quotes on Holiness in this thread.

"He that sees the beauty of holiness or true moral good ,sees the greatest and most important thing in the world."-Jonathan Edwards

Have you ever thought of personal holiness –likeness to Jesus Christ-as the most important thing in the world?

...I have selected for our topic, "Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."

There has been a desperate attempt made by certain Antinomians to get rid of the injunction which the Holy Spirit here means to enforce. They have said that this is the imputed holiness of Christ. Do they not know, when they so speak, that, by an open perversion, they utter that which is false? I do not suppose that any man in his senses can apply that interpretation to the context, "Follow peace with all men, and holiness."

Now, the holiness meant is evidently one that can be followed like peace; and it must be transparent to any ingenuous man that it is something which is the act and duty of the person who follows it.

We are to follow peace; this is practical peace, not the peace made for us, but "the fruit of righteousness which is sown in peace of them that make peace."

We are to follow holiness,””this must be practical holiness; the opposite of impurity, as it is written, "God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." The holiness of Christ is not a thing to follow; I mean, if we look at it imputatively. That we have at once; it is given to us the moment we believe. The righteousness of Christ is not to be followed; it is bestowed upon the soul in the instant when it lays hold of Christ Jesus.

This is another kind of holiness. It is, in fact, as every one can see who chooses to read the connection, practical, vital holiness which is the purport of this admonition. It is conformity to the will of God, and obedience to the Lord's command. It is, in fine, the Spirit's work in the soul, by which a man is made like God, and becomes a partaker of the divine nature, being delivered from the corruption which is in the world through lust.

No straining, no hacking at the text can alter it. There it stands, whether men like it or not. There are some who, for special reasons best known to themselves, do not like it, just as no thieves ever like policemen or gaols; yet there it stands, and it means no other than what it says: "Without holiness,"””practical, personal, active, vital holiness,””"no man shall see the Lord."

Dealing with this solemn assertion, fearfully exclusive as it is, shutting out as it does so many professors from all communion with God on earth, and all enjoyment of Christ in heaven, I shall endeavour, first...

~ Charles Spurgeon;

in "Holiness Demanded" a sermon. (No. 2902)
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
On a Lord's-day Evening, in 1862.
Published on Thursday, September 22nd, 1904.

It is the melancholy remark of an excellent man, that he who now preaches the most essential duties of Christianity, runs the hazard of being esteemed, by a great part of his hearers, "a setter forth of new doctrines."

Most men have so lived away the substance of that religion, the profession whereof they still retain, that no sooner are any of those truths proposed which difference the Spirit of Christ from the spirit of the world, than they cry out, "Thou bringest strange things to our ears; we would know what these things mean:" -- Though he is only preaching to them "Jesus and the resurrection," with the necessary consequence of it, -- If Christ be risen, ye ought then to die unto the world, and to live wholly unto God.

~John Wesley
in "The Circumcision of the Heart", a sermon
Sermon 17
Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, before the University, on January 1, 1733.

http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-17-the-circumcision-of-the-heart/

by Giggles on 2010/2/18 18:35:07

"People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated." D.A. Carson

This is so true and very sad. The learned become blind while saying "We see!"

We think salvation means free to do what we want - when truly it is being free from what we want and doing the will of God instead. That is salvation.

I had that kind of liberty when I was in sin, death and darkness - and you can keep it. I want to will and do His good pleasure. Mine is death - His is life and peace!

"Holiness excludes immorality, but morality does not amount to holiness; for morality may be but the cleaning of the outside of the cup and the platter, while the heart may be full of wickedness. Holiness deals with the thoughts and intents, the purposes, the aims, the objects, the motives of men.

"Morality does but skim the surface, holiness goes into the very caverns of the great deep; holiness requires that the heart shall be set on God, and that it shall beat with love to him. The moral man may be complete in his morality without that."

~ Charles Spurgeon;
in "Holiness Demanded" a sermon. (No. 2902)
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
On a Lord's-day Evening, in 1862.
Published on Thursday, September 22nd, 1904.
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2902.php

"Another individual, who thinks to get on without holiness, and who does win a fair reputation in certain circles, is the experimentalist. You must be aware that there are some professed followers of Christ whose whole religious life is inward; to tell you the truth, there is no life at all; but their own profession is that it is all inward. I have had the misery to be acquainted with one or two such. They are voluble talkers, discoursing with much satisfaction of themselves, but bitter critics of all who differ from them in the slightest degree; having an ordained standard as to the proper length to which Christian experience should go, cutting off everybody's head who was taller than they were, and stretching every man out by the neck who happened to be a little too short. I have known some of these persons. If a minister should say "duty" in the sermon, they would look as if they would never hear him again. He must be a dead legalist,””a "letter man", I think they call him.

"Or, if they are exhorted to holiness, why, they tell you they are perfect in Christ Jesus, and therefore there is no reason why they should have any thought of perfection in the work of the Spirit within. Groaning, grunting, quarrelling, denouncing, ””not following peace with all men, but stirring up strife against all, ””this is the practice of their religion. This is the summit to which they climb, and from which they look down with undisguised contempt upon all those worms beneath who are striving to serve God, and to do good in their day and generation.

"Now I pray you to remember that, against such men as these, there are many passages of Scripture most distinctly levelled; I think this is one among many others. Sirs, you may say what you will about what you dream you have felt, you may write what you please about what you fancy you have experienced; but if your own outward life be unjust, unholy, ungenerous, and unloving, you shall find no credit among us as to your being in Christ: "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." The moment you know a man who is drunk on a Saturday night, and then enjoys So-and-so's preaching on a Sunday; the moment you know a man who can tell you what a child of God should be, and then appears himself exactly what he should not be, just quit his company, and let him go to his own place, and where that is, Judas can tell you."

~ Charles Spurgeon;
in "Holiness Demanded" a sermon. (No. 2902)
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
On a Lord's-day Evening, in 1862.
Published on Thursday, September 22nd, 1904.
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2902.php

"There is another class of persons, happily fewer than they once were, but there are some among us still,””opinionists, who think they can do without holiness. These, too, it has sometimes been my misfortune to know. They have learned a sound creed, or perhaps an unsound one, for there are as many Arminians as Calvinists in this line,””they think they have got hold of the truth, that they are the men, and that, when they die, the faithful will fail from among men. They understand theology very accurately. They are wiser than their teachers. They can””

""A hair divide
Betwixt the west and north-west side."

"There is no question about their being masters in divinity. If degrees went according to merit, they would have been dubbed "D. D." years ago, for they know everything, and are not a little proud that they do. And yet these men live a life that is a stench even in the nostrils of men who make no profession of religion. We have some of this kind in all congregations. I wish you would not come here. If we could do you good, we might be glad to see you; but you do so much hurt to the rest, and bring so much discredit upon the cause at large, that your room would be better than your company. You listen to the sermon, and sometimes perhaps have the condescension to speak well of the preacher, who wishes you would not. Yet, after the sermon is done, on the road home, there may be a public-house door just opened at one o'clock, and the brother refreshes himself, and perhaps does so many times. Even if it be the holy day, it is all the same, and yet he is a dear and precious child of God. No doubt he is in his own estimation. And then, during the week, he lives as others live, and acts as others act, and yet. congratulates himself that he knows the truth, and understands the doctrines of the gospel, and therefore he will surely be saved! Out with thee, man! Out with thee! Down with thy hopes! "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord."

""No big words of ready talkers,
No mere doctrines will suffice;
Broken hearts, and humble walkers””
These are dear in Jesus' eyes."

"Heart-work, carried out afterwards into life-work,””this is what the Lord wants. You may perish as well with true doctrines as with false, if you pervert the true doctrine into licentiousness. You may to go to hell by the cross as surely as you may by the theatre, or by the vilest of sin. You may perish with the name of Jesus on you lips, and with a sound creed sealed on your very bosom, for "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall lie also reap.""

Charles Spurgeon;
in "Holiness Demanded" a sermon. (No. 2902)
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
On a Lord's-day Evening, in 1862.
Published on Thursday, September 22nd, 1904.
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/2902.php

Here is a link to read the sermon here on SI: https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?forum=34&topic_id=23578&post_id=185524&viewmode=thread&order=0#185524

"...so far as I can form a judgment, I can say that I would not take all the joys that earth can ever afford in a hundred years for one half-hour of what my soul has known in fellowship with Christ."

~ C.H. Spurgeon
(Ibid)

"A lost reputation is the best degree for Christ’s service."

~ C. T. Studd