A Classic Holiness Sermon

God’s Call to Sinners and Believers

Rev. A. M. Hills

Aaron Merritt Hills (1848—1935) was a pastor, evangelist, educator, and author who was influential in the early development of the Church of the Nazarene. His two-volume work, Fundamental Christian Theology, is recognized as the first systematic theology by a Nazarene theologian.

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” James 4:7-8 (KJV).

There are two great moral forces in the Universe. There are two great supreme leaders—only two. There are only two kingdoms, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. None of us can be indifferent spectators of these rival powers, for we are subjects of the one or the other. There is no neutrality. We must follow one of the two commanders named in the text. We are the prizes for which they contend in ceaseless warfare.

“The soul of man, Creator’s breath,
Which keeps two worlds at strife;
Hell moves beneath to work its death,
And heaven to bring it life.”

I. Notice the sublime, God-given power of the human will. Hear these sharp commands that ring out like the crack of a rifle. “Submit,” “resist,” “draw nigh,” “cleanse,” “purify,” “be afflicted,” “humble yourselves.” There is not a hint here at Calvinistic, “moral inability,” either in saint or sinner. Neither is there any suggestion here that some day God will come to the elect with a sovereign, irresistible grace, and surely infallibly convert them. This is in some creeds and theologies; but it is not in the Bible.

No, the Infinite God calls upon man to bestir himself, awake out of the stupid sleep and carnal security of sin, yield his obstinate will, go out of the sinning business, and “submit to God.” He is commanded, just as he is and where he is, to cease running after the devil and “draw nigh to God.” There is not a hint of any inability to obey.

O, men coddle themselves. They play the baby act. They excuse themselves for their wickedness by denying their ability to quit sinning. Such talk insults conscience, denies consciousness and mocks God.

When Finney was a young, unconverted lawyer, he attended a Presbyterian church. His pastor would preach about repentance, urge the duty to repent upon the congregation. But he would invariably close by telling the congregation that none of them were able to repent until God was pleased in His own time to give them the ability and the irresistible grace. Again he would preach on faith and the duty to believe in Jesus and be saved; and close by telling them that none of them could believe until God gave them the ability and the irresistible grace. Of course, then the elect could not help repenting and believing and being saved. Moreover, all the non-elect must go to hell because of the lack of ability and irresistible grace.

To the astute, legal, logical mind of Finney, the absurdity of such preaching was next to infinite. And no wonder, for it makes God directly responsible for all the unrepentance and sin of our wicked race. How utterly false such teaching is our text clearly indicates.

II. The text shows that the devil can be successfully resisted. No man need serve him. “The way of the transgressor is hard,” but no man is compelled to walk in it for lack of ability to resist the devil and get out of it. We do not need to be dragged into sin or corralled into hell. The devil is mighty; but he cannot conquer us in a fair fight. He is compelled to resort to “devices.”

Any man can rise up in his God-given might and vanquish Satan and all the imps of hell. If a man sins it is because he chooses to. If he goes to hell, it is by his own consent. Then, O man, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not!” Arouse you! Shake yourself, like Samson in his chains and break away from the toils of Satan. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

III. “Draw nigh to God.” By your own choice O soul, tear away from Satan, run towards God and cry for His help.

1. “Submit!” Throw up your hands in unconditional surrender, and God will make peace with your soul. Ground your arms of rebellion, and consent to the government of God that it is holy and to the divine law that it is good. Own up before the Universe that “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

2. With all your sins and the story of your shame on your lips, run to His bosom, and His heart will be drawn toward you. The parable of the Prodigal Son is a picture of God’s willingness to receive any repentant child. The ring of adoption and the robe of grace and the feast of pardoning love, and the Father’s smile of reconciliation await any sinner who will only turn to God.

IV. “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners.” The hands represent the doing, the voluntary deeds of men. To cleanse the hands is to forsake sin. The prophet Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar: “Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor.” Again, to cleanse the hands is to get justified from the guilt of sin, the liability to punishment. It is to be pardoned and made at peace with God. It is to have the conscience made clean by the cleansing blood. It brings peace of soul to David after the commission of adultery and murder. It makes Peter comfortable after his wicked cursing and cowardly denial of his Lord. It will bring a sense of peace with God to any sinner’s heart.

V. “Purify your hearts, ye double-minded.” Who are double-minded people? Surely the sinner is not. He has “the carnal mind which is enmity against God.” That carnal mind led him into sin and keeps him there. His subordination to the carnal mind is the very thing that constitutes him a sinner. The carnal mind makes one man worldly, another covetous, another intemperate, and another impure. It makes all of them alike sinful. They have a single mind to indulge appetite and passion as prompted by desire, and in disobedience of reason.

You let one of these sinners become regenerated and immediately he has a double mind. Regeneration implants in him the choice of God as his supreme portion, and gives him a mind, an intention to please and serve Him. But regeneration does not remove the “old man,” the “carnal mind.” All theologies of the world admit this. “Sin,” “indwelling sin,” and “the carnal mind,” remains. So the justified Christian has the regenerated mind and “the carnal mind” coexisting in his heart. Paul pictured such a man in vivid language, as if it were himself, in these words: “That which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. . . . It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. . . . When I would do good, evil is present with me. . . . I see another law (a uniform tendency) in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

It is an awful picture; but every Christian of much experience in the justified life knows its reality. He has himself felt the inner strife and the contentions of civil war in his own soul. Two minds, the one loving, the other hating God. Now provision has been made for the crucifixion of this “old man,” this “carnal mind.” A cleansing blood has been shed. A sanctifying Holy Spirit has been given. A Pentecostal blessing is ready. Any Christian who will cast himself on God in utter self-abandonment and full consecration, and will believe for this blessing can have it. Holy Ghost fire will burn out the “carnal mind,” and he will know the unutterable blessing of a pure heart. With purity will come power and equipment for larger service.

O reader, consent to it; be determined to have it: pay the price, and the sanctifying Spirit will fill your heart, and take possession of your life. “And the peace of God that passeth understanding shall keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.” Amen!

(public domain)