Adventures in the Land of CanaanBerry, R. L. (Robert Lee)
Religion
Adventures in the Land of Canaan
Berry, R. L. (Robert Lee)
Christian life
1. Self-preservation is a natural law. Fear is a part of it. Perfect
love casts out fear, the fear that is slavish and results from sin; but
perfect love does not destroy all timidity nor the sense of the need of
protecting one's life. A sanctified person has just as good a right to
run to a storm-cellar when a cyclone comes as has any one else. One form
of fear is timidity. A newly sanctified person may feel somewhat timid
in performing some duty. If, however, God's will calls to duties that
mean even death, the fully consecrated soul goes on. So in such cases
the law of self-preservation gives way to the higher law of self-sacrifice
for Christ's sake.
2. Sorrow at the death of loved ones is compatible with sanctification.
Many other things cause sorrow, such as disaster, disease, and sin, and
these affect the wholly sanctified. The sanctified, however, have the
Comforter to help support them and assuage their griefs.
3. If a sanctified person receives words of appreciation, he feels
pleasure; not that they exalt him, but that they create in him a natural
joy at being so appreciated. It is said by some that sanctified persons
are "dead," and the point is illustrated by saying that pins might be
thrust into a dead man and he will not wince. If sanctification destroyed
the natural feelings, it would be a disaster rather than a blessing. It
purifies them, but does not destroy them.
4. God planted in man the sense of justice. God made man in His own
image. What we find in God, we find in man. God is just; so the principle
of justice abides in man. Sanctification destroys the selfish
vindictiveness of anger, but it does not destroy the sense of justice,
and a sanctified person will feel the rise of a righteous indignation
at evil. This is illustrated in Jesus, when He "looked round about on
them with anger" (Mark 3:5), and also when He made the whip of cords and
drove the robbers out of the temple (Matthew 21:12, 13). If the righteous
man can not feel indignant at evil, how can God judge the world? Justice
implies anger at evil. If righteous anger is wrong in man, it is wrong
in God. Because God is God does not mean that He can do a moral wrong
and it be right because God did it. His acts must be intrinsically right
of themselves. Therefore, on the fact that He will judge the world we
predicate the righteousness of sanctified indignation. And this is not
carnal anger, which raves and slays and destroys unmercifully and wickedly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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