The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 547

SELF-DENIAL Thus the things which the Holy unto us return to our Surety; for

Spirit took

507 from Christ

to give

evident that not one of our

it is

good works can ever be complete in that sense. Our self-denial is never perfect. Hence the sad complaint that " our best works are ever polluted before God " and the prayer for the cleansing even of our good works. And this must be so; it has been divinely ordained that God's ;

children shall never leave Christ.

If

they really obtained perfection

they would lose sight of their Surety best effort

is

defiled drives

cleansing in His blood.

them

;

but the fact that even their

to Christ for the

Self-defiial is

atonement and

a fruit of the atonemerit

made perfect only by the atonement. And thus, in the growing and ripening of spiritual fruit, God uses our thoughts, words, and deeds as instruments of sanctification.

For does not the exercise of frequent self-denial and the subsefruit of righteousness, under the Spirit's gra-

quent yielding of the

cious operation, create holy habits in the soul?

Is

not in this

the natural bent of the heart transferred from Satan to God?

way And

when the Holy Spirit makes these holy habits, this bent of the heart toward holiness, a permanent disposition, then we have become fellow workers with God in our own sanctification. Nor is it as tho He did one part and we another, but He using our work as a chisel in the sculpturing of our

And from

this

persuade, incite,

own

soul.

motive the faithful ministers of the Word should and constrain believers to be always abounding

work of the Lord. Sanctification must be preached as with mouth of loudest trumpet. The Church of Christ imperatively needs it. The word which declares that God is a God who justifieth the ungodly may not be severed from that other word " Be ye holy, for I am holy." The operations of the Word and of the Holy Spirit flow together. Therefore every young disciple of Christ in the

the

:

should not only confess His of his heart,

but

flee

name and

from worldly

live

lusts to

according to the desires

walk holily and sincerely

before the Lord. Ministers of the

Word

should be careful not to conceal the maj-

Lord Jehovah behind the cross of Christ. The responsibility must be fearful, if ever it should appear that our preaching of the cross of Christ, instead of having smothered sin, had quenched esty of the

holy living.

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