1. The Almost Christian
George Whitefield (1714–1770), “The Almost Christian,” a sermon on Acts 26:28, in Holiness Through the Ages: An Historical Reader of Christian Writers on Holiness, ed. Robert E. Coleman, Robert A. Danielson and Faith E. Parry (First Fruits Press, 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States), book VI, chapter 2. Assigned excerpt (selected paragraphs). Scripture quotations in the English are the author’s (KJV). The interpretations are the author’s.
“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” (Acts 26:28)
The chapter, out of which the text is taken, contains an admirable account, which the great St. Paul gave of his wonderful conversion from Judaism to Christianity, when he was called to make his defense before Festus, a Gentile governor, and king Agrippa. … At which the passions of the king began to work so strongly, that he was obliged in open court, to own himself affected by the prisoner’s preaching, and ingenuously to cry out, “Paul, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”
Amongst those who gladly receive the word, and confess that we speak the words of truth and soberness, there are so few, who arrive at any higher degree of piety than that of Agrippa, or are any farther persuaded than to be almost Christians, that I cannot but think it highly necessary to warn my dear hearers of the danger of such a state. …
An almost Christian, if we consider him in respect to his duty to God, is one that halts between two opinions; that wavers between Christ and the world; that would reconcile God and Mammon, light and darkness, Christ and Belial. It is true, he has an inclination to religion, but then he is very cautious how he goes too far in it: his false heart is always crying out, “Spare thyself, do thyself no harm.” … But chiefly, he is one that depends much on outward ordinances, and on that account looks upon himself as righteous, and despises others; though at the same time he is as great a stranger to the divine life as any other person whatsoever. In short, he is fond of the form, but never experiences the power of godliness in his heart. He goes on year after year, attending on the means of grace, but then, like Pharaoh’s lean cows, he is never the better, but rather the worse for them.
If you consider him in respect to his neighbor, he is one that is strictly just to all; but then this does not proceed from any love to God or regard to man, but only through a principle of self-love: because he knows dishonesty will spoil his reputation, and consequently hinder his thriving in the world.
He is one that depends much upon being negatively good, and contents himself with the consciousness of having done no one any harm; though he reads in the gospel, that “the unprofitable servant was cast into outer darkness,” and the barren fig-tree was cursed and dried up from the roots, not for bearing bad, but no fruit.
He is no enemy to charitable contributions in public, if not too frequently recommended: but then he is unacquainted with the kind offices of visiting the sick and imprisoned, clothing the naked, and relieving the hungry in a private manner. …
It is true, he is no drunkard: but then he has no Christian self-denial. He cannot think our Savior to be so austere a Master, as to deny us to indulge ourselves in some particulars. … As to settling his principles as well as practice, he is guided more by the world, than by the word of God: for his part, he cannot think the way to heaven so narrow as some would make it; and therefore considers not so much what scripture requires, as what such and such a good man does, or what will best suit his own corrupt inclinations.
And the first reason I shall mention why so many are no more than almost Christians, is because so many set out with false notions of religion. … Some place religion in being of this or that communion; more in morality; most in a round of duties, and a model of performances; and few, very few acknowledge it to be, what it really is, a thorough inward change of nature, a divine life, a vital participation of Jesus Christ, an union of the soul with God. …
A second reason is a servile fear of man: multitudes there are and have been, who, though awakened to a sense of the divine life, yet out of a base sinful fear of being counted singular, or despised by men, have suffered all those good impressions to wear off. It is true, they have some esteem for Jesus Christ; but then, like Nicodemus, they would come to him only by night. … No wonder that so many are no more than almost Christians, since so many “love the praise of men more than the honor which cometh of God.”
And the first proof I shall give of the folly of such a proceeding is, that it is ineffectual to salvation. It is true, such men are almost good: but almost to hit the mark, is really to miss it. God requires us “to love him with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our strength.” He loves us too well to admit any rival; because, so far as our hearts are empty of God, so far must they be unhappy. … “My Son, give me thy heart,” thy whole heart, is the general call to all.
An almost Christian is one of the most hurtful creatures in the world; he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. … These are the men that turn the world into a lukewarm Laodicean spirit; that hang out false lights, and so shipwreck unthinking benighted souls in their voyage to the haven of eternity.
Suffer me to add a word or two of exhortation to you, to excite you to be not only almost, but altogether Christians. … Let us give to God our whole hearts, and no longer halt between two opinions: if the world be God, let us serve that; if pleasure be a God, let us serve that; but if the Lord he be God, let us, O let us serve him alone. … What is it but this half piety, this wavering between God and the world, that makes so many, that are seemingly well disposed, such utter strangers to the comforts of religion? They choose just so much of religion as will disturb them in their lusts, and follow their lusts so far as to deprive themselves of the comforts of religion. Whereas on the contrary, would they sincerely leave all in affection, and give their hearts wholly to God, they would then (and they cannot till then) experience the unspeakable pleasure of having a mind at unity with itself, and enjoy such a peace of God, which even in this life passes all understanding.
2. Resolved: A Life Wholly God’s
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Resolutions, written in 1722–1723 while he was a young minister, in Holiness Through the Ages: An Historical Reader of Christian Writers on Holiness, ed. Robert E. Coleman, Robert A. Danielson and Faith E. Parry (First Fruits Press, 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States), book IV, chapter 3. Assigned excerpt: Edwards’s preface and a selection of his seventy resolutions, with his numbers. The interpretations are the author’s.
Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat Him by His grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to His will, for Christ’s sake.
Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.
1. Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.
3. Resolved, If ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.
4. Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it.
5. Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.
6. Resolved, To live with all my might, while I do live.
7. Resolved, Never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
8. Resolved, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.
13. Resolved, To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.
14. Resolved, Never to do anything out of revenge.
16. Resolved, Never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.
17. Resolved, That I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
20. Resolved, To maintain the strictest temperance, in eating and drinking.
24. Resolved, Whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then, both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.
28. Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, so that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
30. Resolved, To strive, every week, to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.
31. Resolved, Never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the Golden Rule; often, when I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this Resolution.
34. Resolved, In narrations, never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity.
37. Resolved, To inquire every night, as I am going to bed: Wherein I have been negligent? What sin I have committed? and Wherein I have denied myself? Also, at the end of every week, month, and year.
43. Resolved, Never, henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s.
52. I frequently hear persons in old age, say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, That I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.
53. Resolved, To improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in Him, and consecrate myself wholly to Him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer.
56. Resolved, Never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.
57. Resolved, When I fear misfortunes and adversity, to examine whether I have done my duty, and resolve to do it, and let the event be just as Providence orders it. I will, as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my duty, and my sin.
58. Resolved, Not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness, and benignity.
61. Resolved, That I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it.
62. Resolved, Never to do anything but my duty, and then according to Ephesians 6:6-8, to do it willingly and cheerfully, as unto the Lord, and not to man: knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.
65. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this, all my life long, viz., with the greatest openness, of which I am capable, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to Him, all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and everything, and every circumstance.
67. Resolved, After afflictions, to inquire, What I am the better for them? What good I have got by them? and What I might have got by them?
69. Resolved, Always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it.
70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.
3. Without Holiness No One Will See the Lord
J. C. Ryle (1816–1900), “Holiness,” on Hebrews 12:14, in the editors’ abridged and modernized text, in Holiness Through the Ages: An Historical Reader of Christian Writers on Holiness, ed. Robert E. Coleman, Robert A. Danielson and Faith E. Parry (First Fruits Press, 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States), book XII, chapter 2. Assigned excerpt (selected paragraphs). Scripture quotations in the English are as the editors give them (NIV). The interpretations are the author’s.
“…without holiness, no one will see the Lord,” Hebrews 12:14.
This text opens up a subject of deep importance, that of practical holiness. It suggests a question which demands the attention of all professing Christians. Are we holy? Will we see the Lord? …
To find out what true, practical holiness is, let’s look at the people who God calls holy. A person can go to great lengths and never reach holiness. It is not knowledge: Balaam had that. Nor is it a profession: Judas had that. Nor morality and good outward conduct; the young ruler had that. Yet none of these were holy. …
Holiness is the habit of being one mind with God and agreeing with God’s judgment. This includes hating what He hates and loving what He loves. It means measuring everything by the standard of His Word. This includes striving to be like Jesus. It goes beyond depending on Him, to laboring to have His mind and to be conformed to His image.
Holy people strive after a pure heart. They dread all contamination of spirit and seek to avoid it. They know their hearts are like tinder and will diligently keep clear of the sparks of temptation. Who dares to talk of strength when a man as David can fall?
Holy people fear God. I do not mean the fear of a slave, which is work driven by the fear of punishment. This fear is that of a child, who wishes to please his father because he loves him.
Holy people pursue faithfulness in all aspects of life. … Holy people aim at doing everything well and are ashamed of mediocre work. Like Daniel, they seek to give no fault against themselves except their faith. They strive to be good spouses, parents and children. They are good bosses, employees, friends, citizens, and neighbors; in both public and private.
Holy people follow after spiritual mindedness. They strive to set their hearts entirely on things above and to hold things on earth with a loose hand. They don’t neglect this present life, but they aim to live with their treasures in heaven.
True holiness is a great reality. It is something in a person that can be seen, and felt by those around him. Like light, if it exists, it will show.
I do not say that holiness shuts out indwelling sin. The greatest misery of a holy person is that he carries with him “a body of death.” … Holiness does not come to perfection all at once. … The holiest people have many blemishes and defects. Their life is a continual warfare with sin and the world. … A person may be truly holy and not perfect. But after every allowance, I cannot see how anyone can be called “holy” who willfully allows himself to sin and is not humbled and ashamed of it.
Can holiness save us? No. Our purest works are no better than filthy rags when in the light of God’s holy law. The white robe Jesus offers must be our only righteousness and the Lamb’s book of life our only ticket to heaven. … Then why is holiness so important?
We must be holy because this is the purpose for which Christ came into the world. … So to talk of people being saved from the guilt of sin without being saved from its dominion is to contradict the witness of all scripture. Jesus is a complete Savior. He does not merely take away the guilt of a believer’s sin. He breaks its power.
We must be holy because this is the only sound evidence that we have a saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. James warns us about dead faith: a faith which goes no further than a profession and has no impact on a person’s character (James 2:17). But true faith always shows itself by its fruits.
We must be holy, because this is the way to help others. … Our lives … are a silent sermon which all can read. … You may talk to people about the doctrines of the Gospel and few will listen, still fewer will understand. But your life is an argument that none can escape.
I believe there is much harm done by unholy and inconsistent Christians. Such people are among Satan’s best allies. They pull down with their lives what ministers build with their lips. …
Lastly, we must be holy because holiness on earth prepares us to enjoy heaven. … To reach the holiday of glory, we must pass through the training school of grace.
You may object to the holy life because you would stand out. So it should. Christ’s true servants are always unlike the world around them. … He always said that people must take up their cross and be ready to sacrifice everything if they would be His disciples. Like all other areas of life, that which costs nothing is worth nothing.
It is sometimes forgotten that God married justification and sanctification. They are distinct and different but one is never without the other. Don’t tell me you’re justified, unless you have some marks of sanctification. Don’t boast of Christ’s work for you, unless you can show the Spirit’s work in you.
A word of advice to all who desire to be holy, begin with Christ. You will make no progress until you feel your sin and run to Him. He is the root and beginning of holiness. … Do you want to attain holiness? Then go to Christ and wait for nothing or nobody. Don’t get ready. Just go and cling to Him. … Would you remain holy? Then abide in Christ. He says, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing,” (John 15:5).
4. Treasure in Heaven: A Steward for God
George Müller (1805–1898), from his Narrative, part 3, as gathered under “Stewardship,” in Holiness Through the Ages: An Historical Reader of Christian Writers on Holiness, ed. Robert E. Coleman, Robert A. Danielson and Faith E. Parry (First Fruits Press, 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States), book VIII, chapter 3. Assigned excerpt (selected paragraphs). Scripture quotations in the English are the author’s (KJV). The interpretations are the author’s.
I now add some hints on a few passages of the Word of God, both because I have so very frequently found them little regarded by Christians, and also because I have proved their preciousness, in some measure, in my own experience.
In Matthew 6:19-21, it is written: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
It is the Lord Jesus, our Lord and Master, who speaks this as the lawgiver of His people. He who has infinite wisdom and unfathomable love for us, who therefore both knows what is for our real welfare and happiness, and who cannot exact from us any requirement inconsistent with that love which led Him to lay down His life for us.
His counsel, His affectionate entreaty, and His commandment to us His disciples is: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.” The meaning obviously is, that the disciples of the Lord Jesus, being strangers and pilgrims on the earth, i.e. neither belonging to the earth nor expecting to remain in it, should not seek to increase their earthly possessions, in whatever these possessions may consist. This is a word for poor believers as well as for rich believers. …
If we disciples of the Lord Jesus seek, like the people of the world, after an increase of our possessions, may not those who are of the world justly question whether we believe what we say, when we speak about our inheritance, our heavenly calling, our being the children of God? Often it must be a sad stumbling block to the unbeliever to see a professed believer in the Lord Jesus acting in this particular just like himself.
Our Lord, however, does not merely bid us not to lay up treasure upon earth; for if He had said no more, this commandment might be abused, and persons might find in it an encouragement for their extravagant habits, for their love of pleasure, for their habit of spending everything they have, or can obtain, upon themselves. It does not mean, then, as is the common phrase, that we should live up to our income; for, He adds: “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”
Just as persons put one sum after another into the bank, and it is put down to their credit, and they may use the money afterwards: so truly the penny, the shilling, the pound, the hundred pounds, the ten thousand pounds, given for the Lord’s sake, and constrained by the love of Jesus, to poor brethren, or in any way spent in the work of God, He marks down in the book of remembrance, He considers as laid up in Heaven. … Whilst an earthly bank may break, or through earthly circumstances we may lose our earthly possessions, the money, which is thus secured in Heaven, cannot be lost.
Treasures laid up on earth bring along with them many cares; treasures laid up in Heaven never give care. Treasures laid up on earth never can afford spiritual joy; treasures laid up in Heaven bring along with them peace and joy in the Holy Ghost even now.
Often we hear it said when a person has died: “he died worth so much.” But whatever be the phrases common in the world, it is certain that a person may die worth fifty thousand pounds sterling, as the world reckons, and yet that individual may not possess, in the sight of God, one thousand pounds, because he was not rich towards God, he did not lay up treasure in Heaven. …
The Lord lastly adds: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Where should the heart of the disciple of the Lord Jesus be, but in Heaven? Our calling is a heavenly calling; our inheritance is a heavenly inheritance, and reserved for us in Heaven; our citizenship is in Heaven; but if we believers in the Lord Jesus lay up treasures on earth, the necessary result of it is that our hearts will be upon earth; nay, the very fact of our doing so proves that they are there!
The next passage is Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” … The great business which the disciples of the Lord Jesus have to be concerned about is to seek the Kingdom of God, i.e. to seek, as I view it, after the external and internal prosperity of the Church of Christ. If, according to our ability, and according to the opportunity which the Lord gives us, we seek to win souls for the Lord Jesus, that appears to me to be seeking the external prosperity of the Kingdom of God; and if we, as members of the body of Christ, seek to benefit our fellow members in the body, helping them on in grace and truth, that would be seeking the internal prosperity of the Kingdom of God. … It is not for attending to these two things that we obtain the blessing, but in attending to them.
The child of God has been bought with the “precious blood of Christ,” and is altogether His property, with all that he possesses: his bodily strength, his mental strength, his ability of every kind, his trade, business, art, or profession, his property; for it is written: “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). … We have to stand before our Lord and Master, whose stewards we are, to seek to ascertain his will, how He will have us use the proceeds of our calling.
No wise and really affectionate mother will permit her infant to play with a razor, or with fire, however much the child may desire to have them; and so the love and wisdom of our Heavenly Father will not, cannot, entrust us with pecuniary means, if He sees that we do not desire to possess them as stewards for Him. …
As to my own soul, by the grace of God it would be a burden to me to find, that however much my income in the course of a year might have been, I was increasing in earthly possession; for it would be a plain proof to me, that I had not been acting as a steward for God, and had not been yielding myself as a channel for the waters of God’s bounty to pass through.
5. Why God Used D. L. Moody
R. A. Torrey (1856–1928), Why God Used D. L. Moody, in Holiness Through the Ages: An Historical Reader of Christian Writers on Holiness, ed. Robert E. Coleman, Robert A. Danielson and Faith E. Parry (First Fruits Press, 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States), book XVII, chapters 2, 3, 6 and 7. Assigned excerpt (selected paragraphs). Scripture quotations in the English are the author’s (KJV). The interpretations are the author’s.
My subject is “Why God Used D. L. Moody.” … I shall not seek to glorify Mr. Moody, but the God who by His grace, His entirely unmerited favor, used him so mightily, and the Christ who saved him by His atoning death and resurrection life, and the Holy Spirit who lived in him and wrought through him. … I hope to make it clear that the God who used D. L. Moody in his day is just as ready to use you and me, in this day.
The whole secret of why D. L. Moody was such a mightily used man you will find in Psalm 62:11: “God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God.” … If D. L. Moody had any power, and he had great power, he got it from God.
The first thing that accounts for God’s using D. L. Moody so mightily was that he was a fully surrendered man. Every ounce of that two-hundred-and-eighty-pound body of his belonged to God; everything he was and everything he had, belonged wholly to God. Now, I am not saying that Mr. Moody was perfect; he was not. … I have never yet met a perfect man, not one. … But while I recognized such flaws, nevertheless, I know that he was a man who belonged wholly to God.
The first month I was in Chicago, we were having a talk about something upon which we very widely differed, and Mr. Moody turned to me very frankly and very kindly and said in defense of his own position: “Torrey, if I believed that God wanted me to jump out of that window, I would jump.” I believe he would. If he thought God wanted him to do anything he would do it.
Henry Varley, a very intimate friend of Mr. Moody in the earlier days of his work, loved to tell how he once said to him: “It remains to be seen what God will do with a man who gives himself up wholly to Him.” I am told that when Mr. Henry Varley said that, Mr. Moody said to himself: “Well, I will be that man.” … If you and I are to be used in our sphere as D. L. Moody was used in his, we must put all that we have and all that we are in the hands of God, for Him to use as He will, to send us where He will, for God to do with us what He will, and we, on our part, to do everything God bids us do. There are thousands and tens of thousands of men and women in Christian work, brilliant men and women, rarely gifted men and women, men and women who are making great sacrifices, … yet who, nevertheless, have stopped short of absolute surrender to God, and therefore have stopped short of fullness of power.
The fourth reason why God continuously, through so many years, used D. L. Moody was because he was a humble man. … He loved to quote the words of another: “Faith gets the most; love works the most; but humility keeps the most.” … How often he would stand on a platform with some of us little fellows seated behind him and as he spoke he would say: “There are better men coming after me.” As he said it, he would point back over his shoulder with his thumb to the “little fellows.” … At his conventions at Northfield, or anywhere else, he would push the other men to the front and, if he could, have them do all the preaching. … He continually put himself out of sight.
Oh, how many a man has been full of promise and God has used him, and then the man thought that he was the whole thing and God was compelled to set him aside! I believe more promising workers have gone on the rocks through self-sufficiency and self-esteem than through any other cause. … It made no difference how much God used him, he never was puffed up. … He would get down on his face before God, knowing he was human, and ask God to empty him of all self-sufficiency. And God did.
When the devil cannot discourage a man, he approaches him on another tack, which he knows is far worse in its results; he puffs him up. … The entire shore of the history of Christian workers is strewn with the wrecks of gallant vessels that were full of promise a few years ago, but these men became puffed up and were driven on the rocks by the wild winds of their own raging self-esteem.
The fifth secret of D. L. Moody’s continual power and usefulness was his entire freedom from the love of money. Mr. Moody might have been a wealthy man, but money had no charms for him. He loved to gather money for God’s work; he refused to accumulate money for himself. He told me during the World’s Fair that if he had taken, for himself, the royalties on the hymnbooks, which he had published, they would have amounted, at that time, to a million dollars. But Mr. Moody refused to touch the money. He had a perfect right to take it. … The financial results were offered to Mr. Moody, but he refused to touch them. … Millions of dollars passed into Mr. Moody’s hands, but they passed through; they did not stick to his fingers.
This is the point at which many an evangelist makes shipwreck, and his great work comes to an untimely end. The love of money on the part of some evangelists has done more to discredit evangelistic work in our day, and to lay many an evangelist on the shelf, than almost any other cause.