SMALL RESULTS.
Some object that such small results attend the efforts of
holiness professors that there must be a mistake in its profession.
Some will not hear the truth. Jesus was not uniformly successful in
every place.
These are days when the two damning sins of the world, covetousness
and pleasure, have conspired to take things and even the church is
crippled by them. Look into the history of every fallen nation and
you will find that these two forms of sin were the lever that
accomplished their downfall, and with various modifications they
have overthrown the spirituality of every worldly church. Our
country today is reeking with these two vile diseases. Commercial
greed, political thievery and ecclesiastical pomp and emulation are
centralizing power and wealth in great men and concerns, while the
common herd dances to the music of their multiplying pleasures, and,
to gratify their insatiate desire for fun and enjoyment, throw all
they have in goods, power, or reason lavishly and carelessly into
the maw of the great moloch who is hourly tightening his grip on
them.
But what has this to do with the question in hand? Much every way.
Men will not listen. While one seeks gain another seeks pleasure;
while one is miserly another is spendthrift; while one seeks
enjoyment another is inventing means of enjoyment to keep
pleasure-seekers on the run and lest they tire of old things. The
nominal church is caught in this flood tide of sin; now the prophecy
of the apostle is fulfilled and men are lovers of pleasure rather
than lovers of God. The Athenians spent their time in seeing and
hearing new things and even Paul could not reach them.
Again the one thousand and one imitation religions which are being
palmed off as ways to heaven are hindrances. Men used to believe in
the Saviour Jesus; now they believe in the man Jesus: once they
thought they must be holy in heart; now they must follow Jesus; once
they feared an eternal hell; now they fear nothing. The whole
tendency of religions matters is toward the outside. Religion is not
of the heart any more but of the life.
One great reason for the lack of success among holiness professors
is found in the fact that so much is palmed off as holiness which is
false. People take up with the shallow holiness and will not accept
that which is thorough.
After all, outward success not a criterion of experience. That man
is successful who conquers his own spirit whether he takes a city or
not. A man may take a city and be a failure in God's sight. All who
are entirely sanctified have conquered their own spirits, and God
says, "Well done."
|