Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and WorkAlexander, Gross
Religion
Steve P. Holcombe, the Converted Gambler: His Life and Work
Alexander, Gross
Holcombe, Steve P., 1835-; Methodists -- United States -- Biography
have me do?" And to the end of a long and laborious life, amid
persecutions and sufferings and disgraces and loneliness and bonds, he
continually cried, "None of these things move me." And his Christian
life was victorious and glorious.
II. TIMOTHY III: 5.
"Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof;
from such turn away."
This text is a description of certain false teachers who had arisen in
the midst of the church, or who would arise and assume the name of
disciples of Christ, as well as authority to teach. They would assume
the outward form of Christianity and adopt its expressions and conform
to its usage in outward respects, but would deny that there was any
supernatural power or divine unction in it. And there are such men
to-day. But if Christianity be not attended by any supernatural agency
and energy present in it and with it, then it is no better than any
other of the so-called religions of the world. If it has only form and
body, without a living and life-giving soul and divinity in it, it is on
a level with the heathen religions, for they all have these. And,
indeed, all men have a form of religion, and many of them are so devoted
to it that they will suffer and some of them die before they will give
it up. The ancient Jews held to the forms of their religion, and fought
for it in bloody and bitter wars. And the Pharisees at the time of
Christ were the most careful and scrupulous observers of all the forms
of their religion, and yet Jesus denounced them as the wickedest sinners
of His time. There are men of this kind in the Christian churches of
to-day, men who go through the forms of religion, who perform the
outward duties of religion, and who would not give these up for any
consideration; and yet they not only do not experience anything of the
power of inward religion, but they go so far as to deny that there is
any such inward power, and call those who claim to have it fanatical.
But read the following passages, and see if we have not Scripture
warrant for this power of religion: I. Corinthians ii., 4; I.
Thessalonians i., 5; II. Timothy i., 7; Ephesians iii., 16; and our
text, II. Timothy iii., 5.
1. The power of Christianity is shown in the conviction for sin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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