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Elevate the Standard
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from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the
fear of God.”
God’s Standard
God has a law, and it is the great standard of righteousness.
Everyone who has presumed upon the mercy of God, and practiced
iniquity, will be judged according to his works. God has warned you
to depart from all iniquity. He has commanded you individually to
resist the devil, not to entertain him as an honored guest. The time
has come when Jerusalem is being searched as with lighted candles.
God is at work investigating character, weighing moral worth, and
pronouncing decisions on individual cases. It may not be too late for
those who have sinned to be zealous and repent; “for godly sorrow
worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow
of the world worketh death.” This sorrow is a deceptive kind. It has
no real virtue in it. There is no sense of the aggravated character
of sin; but there is a sorrow and regret that the sin has come to the
knowledge of others; and so no confessions are made, except in
acknowledgment of the things thus revealed which cannot be denied.
This is the sorrow of the world, which worketh death, and pacifies
the conscience, while the sin is still cherished, and would be carried
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on just the same if there were an opportunity, and they could not
be discovered. “For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed
after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what
clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea,
what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all
things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” Here
we can see the duty that rests upon the church to deal with those
whose course of action is entirely contrary to the light which they
have received. Will the people of God take their stand upon the
Bible, or will they be worse than infidels, and give arguments to this
class to reproach Christ and the truth, because they do not obey the
claims of the gospel in faith and obedience by a circumspect life and
a holy character?
Those who claim to have the light of truth have not met the
conditions on which the fulfillment of the promises is suspended,
neither have they been worthy of the grace of Christ. The character