Holiness Demanded.

This sermon was first preached in the year 1862 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The text for today comes from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14.

Listen. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

One feels the happiest when blowing the trumpet of Jubilee. proclaiming peace to broken hearts, freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

But God's watchman has another trumpet, which he must sometimes blow, for the Lord said to him, blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm on my holy mountain.

There are times when we must ring the alarm bell. Men must be startled from their sleep. They must be roused up to ask the questions Where are we? What are we? Where are we going? Nor is it altogether wrong for the soundest Christians to sometimes be constrained to examine the foundations of their hope, to trace back their evidences of being in the faith to the beginning, and to make an impartial survey of their state before God. Partly for this reason, But with a further view to the awakening and stirring up of those who are destitute of all holiness, I have selected for our topic tonight, holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. There has been a desperate attempt made by certain antinomians, you know, those who believe that the gospel frees Christians from required obedience to any law, whether scriptural, civil, or moral, Well, they desperately attempt to get rid of the injunction which the Holy Spirit here means to enforce. They have said that what is spoken about in this text is simply the imputed holiness of Christ, that which is attributed to us by becoming Christians. Don't they know when they say those things that they are guilty of openly perverting God's word by uttering that which is false? I don't know that any man in his right mind can apply that interpretation to the context, which says, make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy. Now the holiness meant here is evidently one that can be followed like peace, and it must be transparent to any sincere man that it is something which is the act and duty of the person who lives it. We are to live in peace, that is, practical peace, not the peace made for us. We need to be peacemakers who sow in peace and who raise a harvest of righteousness. We are to live in holiness. This must be practical holiness, the opposite of impurity. As it is written, God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. The imputed holiness of Christ is not a thing to live. I mean, if we look at it as being something ascribed or imputed to us, that kind of holiness we have immediately. It is given to us the moment we believe. The imputed righteousness of Christ is not to be lived. It is bestowed upon the soul in the instant when it believes and receives Christ Jesus. The holiness that the text is speaking about is another kind of holiness. It is, in fact, as everyone can see who chooses to read the obvious connection, a practical, vital holiness which is the clear intention of this warning of Scripture. It is conformity to the will of God and obedience to the Lord's command. It is, in essence, the Spirit's work in the soul by which a man is made like God. and becomes a partaker of the divine nature, being delivered from the corruption which is in the world through lust. No straining, no hacking at the text can alter it. There it stands, whether men like it or not. There are some who, for special reasons best known to themselves, do not like it, just as no thief ever liked a policeman. Yet there it stands, and it means exactly what it says. Without holiness, that is, a practical, personal, active, vital holiness, without it no one will see the Lord. Dealing with this solemn assertion, fearfully exclusive as it is, shutting out as it does many, many professors of Christianity From all communion with God on earth, and all enjoyment of Christ in heaven, I shall endeavor first to give some signs whereby a person may know whether he has this holiness or not, secondly, to give various reasons why, without holiness, no one will see the Lord, and then thirdly, to plead hard, in Christ's place, with those who are lovers of money, that they may be caused to think of their souls before the time is over and opportunity is passed. First then, brethren, you are anxious to know whether you have holiness or not, whether you have holiness or not. Now if our text said, without perfection of holiness, no one could have any communion with Christ, then it would eliminate every one of us. For no one who knows his own heart ever pretends to be perfectly conformed to God's will. It does not say without the perfection of holiness but rather without holiness. This holiness is a thing of growth. It may be in the soul like the tiny grain of mustard seed and yet not be developed. It may be in the heart as a wish and a desire rather than anything that has been fully realized. a groaning, a panting, a longing, a striving. As the Spirit of God waters it, it will grow until the mustard seed will become a tree. Holiness in a regenerate heart is only an infant. It is not matured. It is perfect in all of its parts, but not perfect in its development. Consequently, when we find many imperfections and many failings in ourselves, we are not to conclude that, therefore, we have no interest in the grace of God. This would be altogether contrary to the meaning of the text. It is not my present purpose to show what this holiness is so much as to show what it is not. I think, while I am endeavoring to undeceive those who do not have this holiness, Those who are not condemned may reasonably draw some comfortable inferences as to their own pursuit of this immeasurable grace. Well now, let us note four classes of people who try to live their lives without holiness. Four classes of people who try to live their lives without holiness. First, there is the Pharisee. The Pharisee. The Pharisee goes to work with outward ceremonies. He pays his tithes of all that he possesses, even his spices of anise, mint, and cumin, everything. He gives money to the poor. He wears his phylacteries and makes broad borders on his garment. In fact, anything and everything that is commanded ceremonially, he most painstakingly tends to. But all the while, he is devouring widows' houses, he is living in the practice of secret sin, and he thinks that by ceremonies he shall be able to appease God and be accepted. Sinner, forsake sinner, listen to the bell of death, the death of your hopes told out by this verse. Without holiness, that is a thing you know nothing of, without it, no one will see the Lord. Your ceremonies are vain and frivolous, even if God ordained them. Seeing that you put your trust in them, they shall utterly deceive and fail you, for they do not constitute even a small part of holiness. You cannot see God until your heart is changed, until your nature is renewed, until the intentions of your actions shall be what God would have them to be. Mere ceremonialists think that they can live without holiness. Foolish delusion. Do I speak to any ritualist who sees himself here in what I have been describing? Am I speaking to any Roman Catholic who has come here tonight to a place where the works of the law are not preached, but rather the righteousness of Christ is lifted up? Let me remind you again very solemnly, my listener, that those fine hopes of yours built upon the various drills of the priest and upon your own performances shall utterly fail you in that great day of judgment. Your soul shall then stand in shivering nakedness when you most need to be well-dressed before the eyes of God. These men, like Pharisees, do not know true holiness. Secondly, we find the moralist, the moralist. He has never done anything wrong in his life. He is not very observant of ceremonies, it is true. Perhaps he even despises them. But he treats his neighbor with integrity. He believes that, so far as he knows, if his life is examined, it will bear no evidence of a single dishonest deed. As for keeping the law, he is blameless. No one ever doubted the purity of his behavior. Ever since his youth, his conduct has been kind, his temperament what everyone could ever desire, and the whole tenor of his life is such that we may hold him up as an example of moral propriety. Ah, but this is not holiness before God. Holiness excludes immorality, but morality does not amount to holiness. For morality may be only the cleaning up of the outside of the cup, while within the heart may be full of wickedness. Holiness deals with the thoughts and the intentions, the purposes, the aims, the objects, and the motives of men. Morality only skims the surface. Holiness goes to the very caverns of the great deep. Holiness requires that the heart shall be set upon God and that it shall beat with love towards Him. The moral man may be complete in his morality without the love of God. I think I can draw a parallel. Morality is a sweet, fair corpse, well washed and dressed, and even embalmed with spices. But holiness is the living man, as fair and as lovely as the other, but having life. Morality lies there of the earth, earthy, soon to be food for corruption and maggots. Holiness waits and pants with heavenly aspirations, prepared to mount and dwell in immortality beyond the stars. These two are opposite in nature. The one belongs to this world, the other belongs to that world beyond the skies. It is not said in heaven, moral, moral, moral is the Lord Almighty. No, it is said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. You note the differences between the two words at once. The one is icy cold and the other, oh, how warm and full of life. Such is mere morality and such is holiness. Moralist, I know I speak to many of you here tonight. Remember that your best morality will not save you. You must have more than this. For without holiness, and that not of yourself, it must be given to you by the Spirit of God. Without that holiness, no one will see the Lord. Thirdly, another individual who thinks that he can live his life without real holiness, and who does have a good reputation in certain circles, is the experimentalist. the experimentalist. You must be aware that there are some professed followers of Christ whose whole religious life is inward. To tell you the truth, there is no life at all. But their own profession is that it is all inward. I have had the misery to be acquainted with one or two of these types. They are verbose talkers, discoursing with much satisfaction about themselves. but bitter critics of everyone who differs from them in the slightest degree, having developed an ordained standard as to the proper length to which Christian experience should go, cutting off everybody's head who was taller than they were and stretching every man out by the neck who happened to be a little too short. I have known some of these persons. If a minister should say duty in the sermon, they would give it a look. a look that said that they would never come to hear him again, because in their mind the preacher must be a legalist. Or, if they are exhorted to holiness, why they tell you that they are perfect in Christ Jesus and therefore there is no reason why they should have any thought of perfection in the work of the Spirit within. Groaning, grunting, quarreling, denouncing, not making every effort to live in peace with all men, but rather stirring up strife against everyone, this is the practice of their religion. This is the summit to which they climb and from which they look down with undisguised contempt upon all those worms beneath who are striving to serve God and to do good in their day and generation. Now I pray that you would remember that there are many passages of scripture most distinctly leveled against such men as these. I think our text today is one among many others. Experimentalist, you may say what you will about what you dream you have felt. You may write what you please about what you fancy you have experienced. But if your own outward life is unjust, unholy, ungenerous, and unloving, you shall find no recognition from us as to your being in Christ. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. The moment you know a man who is drunk on a Saturday night and then enjoys the preaching on a Sunday, the moment you know a man who can tell you what a child of God should be and then he himself appears exactly what he should not be, just avoid his company, get away from him, and let him go to his own place. And exactly where that is, Judas can tell you. Oh, beware of such high flyers, with their wings made of wax, Flying higher and higher up to the very sun, how great will be their fall when he that searches every heart shall open the book and say, I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Now lastly, there is another class of persons, fortunately fewer in number than they once were, but there are some among us still, opinionists, who think that they can do without holiness. They are called opinionists. These two it has sometimes been my misfortune to know. They have learned a sound creed, or perhaps an unsound one, for there are as many Arminians as Calvinists in this line. They think they have got a hold of the truth, that they are the men, and that when they die, the faithful will fail among men. They understand theology very accurately. They are wiser than their teachers. There is no question about their being masters in divinity. If degrees went according to merit, they would have been dubbed DD, Doctors of Divinity, years ago, for they know everything and are very proud that they do. And yet these men live a life that is a stench even in the nostrils of men who make no profession of religion. We have some of this kind in all congregations. I wish you would not come here. If we could do you good, we might be glad to see you. But you do so much harm to the rest of us and bring so much discredit upon the cause at large that your empty place in church would be better than your company. You listen to the sermon and sometimes perhaps have the condescension to speak well of the preacher who wishes you would not. Yet after the sermon is over, on the way home there may be a pub that just opened up at one o'clock and the brother decides to refresh himself. and perhaps does so many times. Even if it is the Lord's day, it is all the same to him. And yet he considers himself a dear and precious child of God. No doubt he is in his own estimation. And then during the week, he lives as others live and acts as others act. And yet he congratulates himself that he knows the truth and understands the doctrines of the gospel. And therefore he will surely be saved. Away with you, man, away with you, down with your hopes. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. No big words of ready talkers, no mere doctrines will suffice. Broken hearts and humble walkers, these are dear in Jesus's eyes. Heartwork carried out later into life work, this is what the Lord wants. You may perish as well with true doctrines as with false, if you pervert the true doctrine into moral depravity. You may go to hell by the cross as surely as you may by the theater or by the violence of sin. You may perish with the name of Jesus on your lips and with a sound creed sealed on your very heart, for no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Now, if any of you belong to any of these four classes, I think you cannot help knowing it, and being destitute of all gospel holiness, you have good reason to deplore your character and to tremble over your destiny. But to help you still further, brethren, That man is destitute of true holiness who can look back upon his past sin without sorrow. He is destitute of true holiness who can look back upon his own past sin without sorrow. Oh, to think of our past lives. There were some of us who came to know the Lord at 15 years of age, but those 15 years of unregeneracy, we can never forget them. Others may say, we did not come to know Christ until we were 50 or 60. Ah, dear brethren, you have much to weep over, but so have those of us who knew the Lord in early life. I can look upon God's mercy with delight, but I hope I shall never be able to look back upon my sins with complacency. Whenever a man looks to any of his past faults and shortcomings, it ought to be through his Some men recall their past lives and talk of their old sins and seem to roll them under their tongues as a sweet morsel. They live their sins over and over again. As it was said of Alexander, he fought his battles over again and twice he killed the slain. There are those who revel in the memory of their iniquities. They live their life in imagination over and over again. They remember some deed of immorality or some act of disgrace, and as they think it over, oh, they dare not repeat it, for their profession of faith would be spoiled, but oh, they love the thought, and they cultivate it with a vicious zest. You are no friend to true holiness, but an utter stranger to it unless the past causes you profound sorrow and sends you to your knees to weep and hope that God, for Christ's sake, has blotted it out. And I am quite sure that you know nothing of true holiness if you can look forward to any future indulgence of sensual appetites with a certain degree of delightful anticipation. Have I anyone here tonight, a professed Christian, who has formed some plan in his mind to indulge the flesh and to enjoy forbidden fruits when an opportunity occurs? Oh, may I tell you, if you think of these kind of things without trembling, then I will suspect the validity of your salvation. I wish that you would suspect yourself. Since the day that some of us knew Christ, we have always woke up in the morning with a fear lest we should that day disown our master. And there is one fear which sometimes haunts me, and I must confess it, and were it not for faith in God, it would be too much for me. You see, I cannot read the life of David without some painful emotion. All the time he was a young man, his life was pure before God, and in the light of the living, it shone with a glorious luster. But when gray hairs began to be scattered on his head, the man, after God's own heart, sinned.

I have sometimes felt inclined to pray that my life may come to a speedy end, lest by chance in some evil hour some temptation should come upon me and I should fail.

And do you not feel the same? Can you look forward to the future without any fear? Doesn't the thought ever cross your mind, he that thinks he stands may yet fall? And the very possibility of such a thing, does it not drive you to God's mercy seat? And do you not cry, hold me up and I shall be safe?

There is no doxology in scripture which I enjoy more than the one at the end of the epistle of Jude. Listen, to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, To the only God our Savior be glory.

I say to you that you are a stranger to holiness of heart if you can look forward to a future falling into sin without great alarm.

Again, I think that you have a great reason to question your salvation unless your holiness is uniform.

Now what do I mean if your life is angelic in public and devilish at home? You must suspect that it is at home that you are what you really are.

I question whether any man is much better than he is thought to be by his wife and family, for they, after all, see the most of us and know the truth about us.

And if, sir, though you seem in the pulpit or on the platform or in the office or shop to be a kind person, a Christian, and God-like to the passerby, the truth will be known by your children.

And if they are aware of your unkindness, your lack of fatherly affection for their souls, and if your wife has to complain about your domineering attitude, of the absence of everything that is Christ-like, you may wisely suspect that there is something wrong in the state of your heart.

O friends, true holiness is a thing that will stay the same night or day. It will be the same at home and in public, on the land and on the sea.

That man is not right with God who would not do the same thing in the dark that he would do in the light, who does not feel within himself that if every eye should look on me, I would not be different from what I am when no eye gazes upon me.

That which keeps me right is not the judgment and opinions of men, but the eye of the omnipresent and the heart of the Lord who loves me.

Is your obedience uniform? Some farmers I know in the country maintain a credible profession in the village where they live. They go to a place of worship and seem to be very good people, but there is a farmer's dinner once a year. It is only once a year, and we will not say anything about how they get home. The less that is said, the better for their reputation. It is only once a year, they tell us, but holiness does not allow for indulgence even once a year.

And we know of some others, when they go overseas, for instance, they say this, well, we need not be quite so exact there. And therefore Sunday is utterly disregarded and the sanctities of daily life are neglected. So reckless are they in their recreations.

Well, my friends, if your Christianity will not remain the same in any climate or location, it is good for nothing. I liked the remark which I heard from one of the sailors on board ship in crossing the Irish Channel. A passenger said, to test him, wouldn't you like to attend a certain place of amusement? Which he mentioned. Well, sir, said the sailor, I go there as often as I like. I have a religion that lets me go as often as I think proper. Oh, how is that, he asked. Because I never like to go at all, was the reply.

I do not keep away because of any law, for it is no trial to me, but I would be unhappy to go there. Surely the fish, if it were asked if it feels bad because it cannot fly, would most likely reply, I am not unhappy because I am not allowed to fly. It is not my element. So the Christian can say, I am not unhappy because I do not spend my nights in worldly society, because I do not join in their party in an immorality. It is not my element, and I could not enjoy it. If you would drag me into it, it would be a martyrdom which to my spirit would be repulsive and painful.

You are a stranger to holiness if your heart does not feel disgust at the thought of sin. Then let me further remark, my friends, that those who can look with delight or any degree of pleasure upon the sins of others are not holy. If you can look with delight or any degree of pleasure upon the sins of others, you are not holy.

We know of some who will not themselves tell an off-color joke. Yet if another person does so, and it causes others to laugh at the improper remark, They laugh too, and thus give sanction to the impropriety. If there is an impure song sung within their hearing, which others applaud, though they cannot quite go the length of joining in the approval, still they secretly enjoy it. They betray a sort of gratification that they cannot disguise. They confess to a gusto that admires the wit while it cannot endorse the sentiment. They are glad the minister was not there. They are glad to think that the deacon did not happen to see them just at that moment. Yet still, if there could be a law established to make the thing respectable, they would not mind.

Some of you know people who fall into this snare. There are professing Christians who go where you at one time could not go. But seeing that they do it, you go too. And there you see others engaged in sin and it becomes respectable because you give it approval. There are many things in this world that would be denounced if it was not for the fact that Christian men go to them. And the ungodly men say, well, if it is not righteous, there's not much harm in it. After all, it is innocent enough if we keep within bounds. Beware, beware. Beware, you professor of Christianity, if your heart begins to suck in the sweets of another man's sin. It is unsound in the sight of God. If you can even wink at another man's lust, depend on it that you will soon shut your eye on your own lust too. For we are always more severe with other men than we are with ourselves. There must be an absence of the vital principle of godliness when we can become partakers of other men's sins by applauding or joining with them in the approval of them.

Let us examine ourselves thoroughly, then, whether we are among those who have no evidences of that holiness without which no one can see God. But, beloved, we hope better things of you, and things which accompany salvation. If you and I, as in the sight of God, feel that we would be holy if we could, that there is not a sin we wish to spare, that we would be like Jesus, oh, that we could, that we would soon suffer affliction than ever run into sin and displease our God. If our heart is really right in God's decrees, then despite all the imperfections we complain about, we have holiness. wherein we may rejoice, and we pray to our gracious God, finish then your new creation, pure and spotless let us be.

Now then, my friends, for the second point, very briefly, without holiness, no one will see the Lord. That is to say, no one can have communion with God in this life, and no one can have enjoyment with God and the life to come without holiness. Can two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? If you walk with the devil, do you think that Christ will go with you? Will Christ be your companion? Do you expect to take the Lord of love and mercy with you into the haunts of sin? Professor of Christianity, do you think the just and holy one will stand at your counter at work to be co-traitor with you and your tricks? What do you think? Would you make Christ a sharer of your guilt? And yet he would be so if he had fellowship with you in it. No, if you will go on in the acts of unrighteousness and unholiness, then Christ will part company with you. Or rather, you never really did have any fellowship with him. You have gone out from us because you were not of us. For if you had been one of us, without a doubt, you would have continued with us.

And as far as heaven is concerned, do you think you can go there with your unholiness? God threw an angel out of heaven because of sin, and will he now let man in with his sin in his right hand? God would sooner extinguish heaven than see sin spoil it. It is enough for him to bear with your hypocrisies on earth, Shall He have them flung in His own face in heaven? What, shall an unholy life utter its immoral ways in the golden streets? Shall there be sin in that higher and better paradise? No, no, God has sworn by His holiness, and He will not, He cannot lie, that those who are not holy, whom His Spirit has not renewed, who have not been, by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, made to love that which is good and hate that which is evil, these will never stand in the congregation of the righteous.

Sinner, it is a settled matter with God that no one will see him without holiness. I now come to my last point, which is simply pleading with you, pleading with you.

Doubtless, there are some in this vast crowd tonight who have some sort of longings after salvation and after heaven. My eyes look around. Yes, sometimes it has been my practice to gaze with sorrow upon some few here whose cases I know personally. I remember one. He has been very often impressed and so impressed too that he has not been able to sleep Night after night he has prayed, he has wrestled with God, and there is only one thing in his way, and that is drink, strong drink. By the time that Wednesday or Thursday comes around, he begins to forget what he heard on Sunday. Sometimes he has taken the pledge and kept it for three months, but the craving has been too strong for him, and then he has given up all resolutions and vows. and has plunged himself into his besetting sin worse than before.

There are others I know like him who have other sins. You are here even now, aren't you? You do not come to the morning service, and yet when you come at night, you feel it very severely. But why not come here in the morning? Perhaps because your business is open, and that business seems to stand between you and any hope of salvation. There are others who say, well now, if I go hear that man preach, I must give up the vice that worries my conscience. But I cannot yet. I cannot yet. And you are willing to be damned for the sake of some worthless joy.

Well, if you will be damned, it shall not be for a lack of reasoning with you and weeping over you. Let me put it to you. Do you say that you cannot give up the sin because of profit? Profit? Profit indeed! What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? What profit have you obtained? You have put it all into a bag full of holes. What you have earned one way, you have spent in another. And you know that, if this life were all that there was, you surely have not been any better for it. Besides, what is profit when compared with your immortal soul? Oh, I appeal to you, do not give up gold for dross. Do not give up substance for shadows. Do not lose your immortal soul for the sake of some temporary gain.

But it is not profit with some of you. It is pleasure. It is a morbid passion. You feel, perhaps, for some particular sin which happens to beset you, Such an intense longing, and in looking back upon it afterwards, you think you could give up everything but that. Young man, it is some secret sin which we must not mention, or it is some private guilt which is hidden from all hearts but your own. Oh soul, what is this pleasure after all? Weigh it, weigh it, what does it come to? Is it equal to the pain it costs you now, to the pangs of conscience, to the agonies of remorse?

When an American doctor who had led a loose life came to die, he seemed to wake up from a sort of stupor, and he said, find that word, find that word. What word, they asked? Why, he said, that awful word, remorse. He said it again, remorse. And then gathering up his full strength, he fairly seemed to shriek it out, remorse. Write it, he said, write it. It was written. Write it with larger letters and let me gaze at it, underline it. And now, he said, none of you know the meaning of that word and may you never know it. It has an awful meaning in it, and I feel it now. Remorse! Remorse! Remorse!

My friends, I ask you, what is the pleasure of sin when contrasted with the results it brings in this life? And what, I ask, is the pleasure compared with the joys of godliness? Little as you may think I know of the joys of this world, Yet so far as I can form a judgment, I can say that I would not take all the joys that earth can offer, even in a hundred years, for one half hour of what my soul has known in fellowship with Christ. We who believe in Christ do have our sorrows, but blessed be God, we do have our joys, and they are such joys. Oh, such joys with such substance in them and such reality and certainty that we could not and would not exchange them for anything except heaven in its fulfillment.

And then think, sinner, what are all these pleasures when compared with the loss of your soul? There is a gentleman high in position in this world with good lands and a large estate who when he took hold of me by my coat after a sermon, and he never hears me preach without weeping, he said to me, oh, sir, it does seem such an awful thing that I should be such a fool. And what for, I asked? Why, he said, for the sake of that court and for those gaieties of life and of mere honor and dress and fashion, I am squandering away my soul, I know, he said. I know the truth, but I do not follow it. I have been stirred in my heart to do what is right, but I just go on as I've done before. I fear I shall sink back into the same state as before. Oh, what a fool I am, he said, a fool to choose pleasures that only last a little while and then are to be lost forever and ever.

I pleaded hard with him, but I pleaded in vain. There was such intoxication in the gaiety of life that he could not leave it. Unfortunately, if we had to deal with sane men, our preaching would be easy. But sin is a madness, such a madness that, when men are bitten by it, they cannot be persuaded, even though one should rise from the dead.

Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. But I hear someone say, it is impossible. I have tried it, and I have broken down. I did try to get better, but I did not succeed. It is of no use. It can't be done. You are right, my dear friend, and you are wrong. You are right. It is of no use going about it as you did if you went in your own strength. Holiness is a thing you cannot get. It is beyond you. The deep says, it is not in me. And the height said, it is not in me. You can no more make yourself holy than you could create a world. But you are wrong to despair for Christ can do it. He can do it for you and he can do it now. Believe on Christ and that believing will be the proof that he is working in you. Trust him. and he that has suffered for your sins, the lion of the tribe of Judah, shall come in and chase away the lion from the pit. He will shortly bruise Satan under your feet. There is no corruption too strong for him to overcome. There is no habit too firm for him to break. He can turn a lion into a lamb and a raven into a dove.

Trust Christ to save you and he will do it. Whoever you may be and whatever your past life may have been, he that believes and is baptized will be saved. That is, he will be saved from his sins and delivered from his evil practices. He will be made a new man in Christ Jesus by the power of the Spirit, received through the medium of his faith. Believe poor soul, believe that Christ is able to save you and he will do it. He will be as good as your faith and as good as his own word.

May he now add his own blessing to the word I have spoken and to the people who have heard it for his own sake. Amen.