COMPROMISE

     Many professors of holiness testify that in their justified experience they attended theaters, dances, wore jewelry and worldly attire, belonged to secret societies, used tobacco, and some go so far as to say that they sometimes swore, were dishonest, etc. Allow a query: If such a life is compatible with the favor of God, which a justified man most surely possesses, what is the dividing line between a sinner and a Christian? If the average church member is converted, surely conversion is a small matter.

     These things cannot be consistent with the favor of God; but, on the contrary, conversion will separate a man from actual sin. The Christian indeed does not go to the sinful world for satisfaction, he finds that in God; a real Christian does not attend the theater, the card party; he does not play at useless games, for he does all to the glory of God. No woman, or man either, who is virtuous at heart, let alone converted, will dance, as such unclean revelings with the opposite sex are blasting to virtue and are absolutely unmixable with grace. A Christian will not belong to oath-bound societies, for the Bible commands him to come out from the world, and to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. A Christian will not dress worldly, for the command is to adorn ourselves with modest apparel. A Christian is a peculiar person, zealous of good works; he keeps himself unspotted from the world; he does not touch the unclean thing; he is God's child, His peculiar treasure, a royal diadem in the hands of his God. Time-serving, truckling to the ungodly world, softening God's truth to please the unholy throng, is inconsistent with the least degree of grace. It is not necessary to lower the standard of justification to make room for the experience of holiness; such procedure is tampering with things too high for us. If the life is free from worldliness there is still abundance of room for the experience of holiness in ridding the soul of the remaining tendencies to evil.

     A saved person does not compromise with sin, but, up to the degree of his light, it can be said of him as it was said of Jesus, "He is undefiled and separate from sinners." It cannot be denied that some are better instructed, and, as a consequence, -- are more rigid in their separation, but willful compromise is inconsistent and cannot exist with saving grace.

     The only line on which compromise can exist with justifying grace is as a carnal element of the soul. It is steadfastly resisted but acknowledged to exist. If it is in the heart of a preacher there is liable to be a struggle on his part to keep from the faults of others who

     But by grace he thunders against sin in every form; if he does not, he yields to an unclean heart and loses grace.

     Compromise in a Christian's heart will cause him, when others are yielding and putting on worldly attire, to wonder why he cannot do the same. The sister may cast a wishful look at the gaudy display in the window, but this inclination is quickly resisted and she truly says, "I do not care for such things." Grace is the stronger element and causes her to hate worldliness, even while nature asserts its love of display.

     While these tendencies exist in the justified soul, the sanctified heart is so thoroughly delivered that it quickly repels the least suggestion of worldliness and does so without the least inclination favorable to the evil. The difference is not in the fact that the justified soul knowingly compromises, for he does not, but in the fact that the wicked principle of which we have been speaking remains in his heart, which, if he yielded to its demands, would cause him to strike an agreement with sin. But the entirely sanctified soul is delivered from even this involuntary principle.