SANCTIFICATION IS AN EXPERIENCE Part 4

The wisdom of the fathers

SANCTIFICATION IS AN EXPERIENCE Part 4

It is an experience of glad testifying. Does the reader know what it is to wish for a spiritual lamp that burns all the while, whose oil never gives out; but, being connected with the heavenly olive-trees, would be fed continually, and therefore burn steadily? Has the reader ever sat still in an experience-meeting with a cold heart, and waited until sufficiently warmed up by hymn or testimony of other people before giving his experience? If so, have you not wished for a deeper and more permanent work of grace; one that would enable you at all times and at any time to arise and give a bright, glad testimony about the Savior’s work in your soul?

This, thank God! is one of the peculiar marks of the sanctified life — the power of a constant, glad testifying. Hundreds of times the writer has been impressed with this attribute, or characteristic, of the sanctified. They don’t wait to be warmed up — don’t have to wait — for the full salvation is in them.

There is no harp-hanging on willow-trees, no lamentation over inward sins and corruptions, no deploring over or confessing to a proneness to depart from God. There is a notable absence of all this in the testimony of a sanctified man, but, instead, the gladness, the preciousness, and the blessedness of a full and present salvation gives a ring to the voice, a freshness to the experience, a light to the face, and a triumph to the soul that is evident to all, and profoundly impresses all that hear.

(from "Sanctification" by B. Carradine)