But Fanny Crosby, thank the Lord for, I mean she lost her sight and she still served the Lord and wrote hymns and blessed a lot of people that way. A little off on the sanctification side of things, but thank the Lord. She knew the Lord, she loved the Lord. Godly lady, okay? Asa Mahan Charles Finney, Charles Finney was a false teacher. I'll just put that straight out. He was wrong on the nature of the atonement. He was wrong on the nature of sin and humanity. He was wrong on the nature of justification. He was wrong on sanctification. Charles Finney was a false teacher. He was an attorney who, for example, argued, since he was an attorney, he said, in American law, you never let somebody else be punished for another person's crime. So in other words, if you get arrested for stealing, somebody else can't say, hey, I'll go to prison for him. We don't allow that. The person who did it has to go to jail. And so he said, Jesus couldn't have died on the cross for your sins, because that's not fair. That's not just. That's not how justice works. Jesus did not take your sins. He was not punished for your sins. That's what Charles Finney argued. His death just showed how serious God was about sin. But he didn't take your sins on himself on the cross. So he denied a vicarious atonement, which is a false teaching. They taught what is sometimes called Oberlin perfectionism. They taught at Oberlin College and influenced it there and taught a perfectionism there. They taught that sanctification is entirely consecrating one's autonomous free will to obey the moral law of God. If you're familiar with Oberlin College today, it is really, really liberal. Political liberalism is rooted in theological liberalism. You can trace modern political liberalism back to the theological liberalism of the 1800s. That the theological liberals who were saying, well, we don't believe in the miracles, we don't believe in the authority of the Bible, and these kind of things. So think about this. If you're not sure about heaven and hell, you're not sure Jesus was really God, you're not sure the Bible's really true, then what are you going to live for now? Let's make here and now a better place. So therefore the goal of the church is to reform the world now. Let's make a utopia here on earth. That was 18th century theological liberalism. And then that carried over into political activism. That political activism then became what we would call, you know, theological or political liberalism today. And so there's roots in the theology, the theological liberalism. Eventually, Oberlin, because they weren't far from it anyway, because they were denying some of the things that are clearly taught in the Bible, they moved toward modernism, denying the Bible and the truths of the Bible and all these kinds of things, and therefore became very socially active on a political basis, so that today, you know, the kind of things, everything you think of as the The, you know, what we would call a progressive side of politics is where Oberlin would be today. Now that's not unique for colleges, but they're pretty zealous about it. All right? So they say this, consecrating one's autonomous, notice that's a key word, one's autonomous free will to obey the moral law of God. In other words, what Finney argued is, you can obey God. You can choose not to sin. Because your will can choose it. You've just been following the bad example of your parents and of Adam and Eve and others, but if you want to, you could choose to obey God. So he really taught that it was possible to have a work salvation if you did it. He would say nobody ever did, but he would have argued it was possible, basically. They taught that it begins with a crisis of spirit baptism that Christians should experience at a point in time after they first become Christians. So you become a Christian, but then later you need to be spirit baptized. Now if you remember when I went through the doctrine of the union with Christ and spirit baptism, I tried to lay out very clearly this is not an experience. Spirit baptism is the Spirit of God placing you into the body of Christ. It makes you in Christ. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, right? That's what the New Testament says. So this is a false teaching about the nature of spirit baptism. Spirit baptism is not an experience. It's something the Spirit does at your conversion to place you into Christ. that Christians should experience at a point in time after they first become Christians. Finney states this in his systematic theology. Finney wrote a systematic theology that, I should say this, it unfortunately has been revised. It's been revised to take the bad theology out of it. But there's a lot of good systematic theologies, so why you would take a heretical one and try to take the heresy out of it, I don't know. Let's just get rid of it and keep the good ones, right? But they have, so if you get like a modern version of Finney's systematic, you won't find some of these quotes. But if you find first editions of them, you'll find these quotes. And they're available online for free because they're not copyrighted anymore. This would be on page 352 on the online edition that I found. that this state may be attained in this life, I argue from the facts, that provision is made against all occasion of sin. Men sin only when they are tempted, either by the world, the flesh, or the devil. And it is expressly asserted that in every temptation, provision is made for our escape. Certainly, if it is possible for us to escape without sin under every temptation, then a state of entire and permanent sanctification is obtainable." And so what he's saying is you can get to the place where you no longer sin, because you learn how to escape it. And that is once your spirit baptized. Now, that's not true from the scriptures. In fact, Romans 6, which we didn't read further in, and 7 seem to start arguing against that. As Paul said, the things that I would do, I can't. You know, here's an apostle saying, I want to do right here, but there's this principle in me, my flesh, etc. William Boardman. So, so far, the only one that's a false teacher that I'm pointing here is Charles Finney. William Boardman. Boardman began the higher life movement with his 1875 book, The Higher Christian Life. It's surprising that it would be called that. Boardman was strongly influenced by Phoebe Palmer, Charles Finney, and Asa Mahan. Boardman said that God justified him at 18. In other words, he got saved at 18 and sanctified at 32. That might sound kind of funny to you because I don't think most of you grew up hearing that you have to be sanctified at a separate... Maybe you did, but you didn't... You haven't usually given your testimony saying, I was saved at this age and sanctified at this age. You're like, no, I'm being sanctified. Not I was sanctified at this certain point. But this is how he viewed it. There's this, you move up to the second tier. The heart of higher life theology is separating justification and sanctification. Now, salvation is separate from sanctification. Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Whittall Smith. The Smiths were some of the most influential proponents of higher life theology. Hannah's book, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, had a large audience and continues to be recommended by preachers today. Now, let me say this, that might be a catchy marketing title, but I'm not interested in spiritual secrets because I want to know what the Bible says. How many copies of the Bible are there in the world? And any theologian that says, the apostles, the reformers, the pastors of the last century never found this, and now I found it in the Bible and I have the secret, that's probably a false teacher. Right? I mean, if Spurgeon, if Jonathan Edwards, if they didn't know it, or nobody in their era knew it, if Paul and Peter didn't know it, Or maybe they'd argue they did, and we've lost it since then. But the fact is that if the early Baptists didn't know it in 1620, then why do you think you found it? Nobody else has seen this. Well, that might make you sound important, but I'm just suspicious of any Christian book that says, the secret of. Well, no, God doesn't want it to be a secret. He revealed his word to you for a reason. So why are you saying it's a secret? It's not a secret, OK? I think it's more of a marketing ploy. In other words, I have a truth that you haven't noticed, and I'm going to give it to you. It had a large audience. Her book taught two steps, entire surrender and absolute faith. So entire surrender is let go, and absolute faith is let God. She identified the sanctification crisis with spirit baptism. So she said, that's when you're spirit baptized, at your sanctification. Now remember, to them, sanctification starts with a crisis event. Robert and Hannah sadly eventually apostatized from the Christian faith. Robert fell doctrinally and morally and continued in unrepentant adultery, which obviously put a very terrible strain on their marriage. He eventually became an agnostic, completely rejected Christianity and even the existence of God. Hannah was a feminist and that strained their already difficult marriage. She eventually rejoined the Quakers and embraced universalism and religious pluralism. She'd grown up in Quakerism and she went back to that and universalism, that's a theological term that means everybody's going to heaven. Nobody's going to hell. And religious pluralism says all religions have some truth to them. So Buddhism has some truth from God, Islam has some truth from God. These all have truth in them and God revealed himself in all religions. They all have value. So that's where she ended up. Both of those are places of unbelief. Now, I'm not saying that to discredit their theology. I'm just telling you the story a little bit here. So Finney is a false teacher. I view the Smiths as false teachers. Because obviously they proved in the end that they weren't really believers. That doesn't necessarily prove that, because you can have an unbeliever teach good theology. That happens sometimes. Ultimately the Bible's got to be the answer. Hannah expressed her higher life theology this way, we are to be infinitely passive and yet infinitely active also. Passive is regards self and its workings. Active is regards attention and response to God. It is very hard to explain this so as to be understood, but it means that we must lay down all the activity of the creature as such and must let only the activities of God work in us and through us and by us. Self must step aside to let God work. Okay? So see the passivity they emphasize here? In order to be sanctified, you have to be passive. Now we're going to get into the real, that's kind of holiness movement and a little bit of higher life, now we're going to get into the stuff that was, like, this is the foundation of higher life technically. T.D. Hartford Battersby, that's a good British name, isn't it? Hartford Battersby. Hartford Battersby experienced his crisis on September 1st, 1874 while hearing a sermon on John 4, 46 through 50 by Evan Hopkins. Let's go to that passage because I want you to see how this is kind of unusual passage to preach sanctification on. John 4, 46-50 says this, So Jesus came again unto Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. And when he heard that Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him and besought him that he would come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down, ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way, thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. Hopkins, the preacher, made a distinction between the nobleman's seeking faith and resting faith. In other words, the nobleman comes asking Jesus to heal him, and then when Jesus says, your son's healed, he rests in Jesus. And so he wasn't really sanctified when he was working so hard, trying so hard to follow Jesus. He was trying too much. He needed to surrender. But that's not at all what this text is really saying. reading into it. Okay? Does this text talk anything about now all of a sudden this guy was fully sanctified? He had his crisis experience? No. But he heard this sermon. Hartford Battersby and Robert Wilson began holding similar meetings, hearing the same kind of, with the same kind of message, in their hometown of Keswick, England. That's pronounced Keswick, as if there were no W in it. Sometimes the English spell their towns with a W and don't pronounce that W. So there's another town in England called Norwich, N-O-R-W-I-C-H. It's not Norwick, it's Norwich. So that's a British peculiarity, which seems unusual to us as Americans, unless you grew up in like the Northeast. If you grew up in New England, you might know some towns that are named after English towns that have names like this. But it's pronounced Keswick, so if you hear me saying Keswick and you're wondering why I'm not pronouncing the W, it's because that's how the town is pronounced. And so they started in 1875. The Keswick Convention is held a week-long convention every July since 1875. Many people have attended and adopted the higher life theology taught at Keswick. Some of the most influential to attend include, and I'll talk about these, but they basically had a saying that said, no crisis before Wednesday. In other words, they didn't push for a crisis until Wednesday or later in the week. In other words, you got this week-long starting on Monday, and they had to lay the foundations Monday and Tuesday, and then they started pushing for people to have their sanctification crisis Wednesday, Thursday, later into the week. So H.C.G. Moule. You may not know Mool. Mool is the most famous and prestigious scholar associated with the early Keswick movement. Mool was a professor of theology at Cambridge University. He wrote popular commentaries on Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. In fact, I own all of those commentaries and I've used them to prepare sermons. H.G.C. Mool was a legitimate scholar. He was a godly man. He loved the Lord. I just think he was wrong on this higher life thing. Okay? But he's their probably best known scholar. In fact, if you ever look at one of H. C. G. Moule's commentaries like that, there's a lot of Greek in it. So it's, you know, he knew Greek really well. F. B. Meyer. This might be a name you're more familiar with. Meyer spoke at the Keswick Convention 26 times. During his lifetime, he was one of the most popular preachers in the world. He was a popular author and popularized Keswick teaching in America while preaching at D.L. Moody's Northfield Conference. So he was one of the best known preachers in the world at the time and D.L. Moody would invite him to come preach at Northfield in Massachusetts at D.L. Moody's conference. Moody was very wide open about who he would invite to things. It wasn't unusual for Moody to invite people who were modernists, who didn't always believe the Bible or the miracles of the Bible, to even minister. Even during D.L. Moody's lifetime, Northfield, there was a Bible college there. And while Moody was still alive, there were professors at Northfield that were modernists. So Moody was just kind of funny that way. He was a gospel preacher. He loved the Lord, I don't question that. But he wasn't really militant on trying to keep out the modernists in that era. So that's F.B. Meyer. Andrew Murray, this might be a name you're familiar with as well, especially through his books. Murray popularized higher life theology in South Africa. He was a prolific author, authored over 250 devotionals. I have had multiple people give me a little paperback of an Andrew Murray devotional as a gift. All right? And I appreciate that gift. It was given out of a kind heart, probably had encouraged the person who read it. But I just think the higher life theology teaches is not the right view of sanctification, not the right way to approach sanctification biblically. Again, he loved the Lord, godly man. So, I'm not saying these people were ungodly. J. Hudson Taylor, again, not going to say Hudson Taylor, one of the most famous missionaries in history, was an ungodly man. He loved the Lord, he gave up a lot to serve the Lord, and suffered much to see the gospel go into the interior of China. Taylor founded the China Inland Mission and estimated that Keswick produced two-thirds of his missionaries. Two-thirds of his missionaries surrendered to the mission field through the Keswick Conference. He claimed to have his crisis experience on September 4th, 1869. He spoke at Keswick in 1893. The book Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret teaches Keswick sanctification. And in fact, there's another author, I don't list him here, but maybe you've heard of Watchman Nee. Watchman Nee was a Chinese preacher who was converted under the ministries of China Inland Mission. And he wrote books that are still popular today as devotionals, but they're very much higher life devotionals as well. Again, he loved the Lord, but Watchman Nee was a higher life sanctification advocate. Amy Carmichael, another famous missionary. Amy Carmichael was the adopted daughter of Keswick's co-founder Robert Wilson. She served as a missionary in India for over 35 years. She put one year in in Japan, then she transferred to India where she rescued little girls from really human trafficking in the Hindu temples and ran an orphanage. She loved the Lord. She was a great poet. If you've ever seen Amy Carmichael's little poem has no no scar that has been an encouragement to me personally That's the no scar. I don't know if I can quote it all in foot or hand or side yet. I hear the No in foot and hand or side or foot now How does it mean foot or side or hand yet? I hear the song is mighty in the land. That's the no scar and and it goes through and it ends this way. Can he, and it's like Christ asking it, can he who followed far who has no scar? In other words, the second verse says something like, yet I have a scar. I was leaned against the tree and by archers rent and ravenous wolves rent, etc. It goes through and it talks about Jesus getting scars on the cross. If you follow Jesus, you might get some scars too. So it costs something to follow Jesus. Okay, it's a helpful poem. You can look it up. All right, but she has another one here that's a little more higher life. It's called My Prayer. Here's Amy Carmichael, my prayer. And I shall pray thee, change thy will, my father, until it be according unto mine. Excuse me. And shall I pray thee, change thy will, my father, until it be according unto mine? But no, Lord, no, that shall never be. Rather, I pray thee, blend my human will with thine. Okay, there's the passivity. Instead of saying, let my will obey yours, she's saying, blend our wills, which is a different thing. I pray thee, hush the hurrying, eager longing. I pray thee, soothe the pangs of keen desire. See in my quiet places wishes thronging. Forbid them, Lord, purge, though it be with fire. and work in me to will and do thy pleasure. Let all within me, peaceful, reconciled, tarry, content, my well-beloved's leisure, at last, at last, even as a weaned child." So there's this very much, Lord, help me be passive. I'm working so hard to try to follow you and help me to stop working so you can actually work in me. That's what she's asking. That's higher life theology. In other words, be passive so that you let go so that you can let God do the work. And we'll get into answers to that. Higher Life Theology spawned four influential institutions. The Christian Missionary Alliance. You may be familiar with churches that are in that. A.B. Simpson founded it. They preach the gospel. They send lots of missionaries. Thank the Lord. Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Its first director was a man named R.A. Torrey. R.A. Torrey was the one who organized all of D.L. Moody's meetings. R.A. Torrey also was a well-known evangelist himself. R.A. Torrey loved the Lord, but I read a little book when I was in college about the Holy Spirit by R.A. Torrey in which he said, you have to have the baptism of the Holy Spirit in order to be sanctified. And I remember reading it thinking, this sounds kind of charismatic to me. Because the Charismatics emphasize, you need the baptism of the Spirit so you can speak in tongues, and you won't reach your sanctification until you speak in tongues. Now he wasn't Charismatic, but the reason it sounded Charismatic is the next point, Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism, because if you look at these dates, Pentecostalism starts around 1900 in America, at the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. So the people at Azusa were already influenced by higher life theology. They already had a wrong view of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So in seeking that baptism, they then said, as we study the Bible, what we see is when the apostles get the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is what they're defining happens on Pentecost, they speak in tongues. So it must be that if you're going to be baptized, you have to speak in tongues. They're taking that higher life thing even a step further. So they're wrong, because their very start is wrong. But again, Moody Bible Institute has trained many godly pastors. Dallas Theological Seminary, Louis Sperry Schaefer was an advocate, he's the founder of Dallas Seminary, and he was an advocate of higher life theology. Now let me say this, Christian Missionary Alliance, Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Seminary don't teach higher life theology like they used to. They've backed off of it and they take things from a little different angle. So again, I've been blessed by people who are graduates of Dallas Seminary. A friend of mine, Kevin Bowder, who teaches at Central Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a graduate of Dallas. And then the writings of men like John Walford, Charles Ryrie, some of you have probably read, maybe even, I own a Ryrie study bible, it's been a help to me, okay? Those men, J. Dwight Pentecost, others, they're godly men that love the Lord, all right? Some of them believed higher life theology to some extent. So I'm not saying this is heresy. Don't misunderstand me. Now the younger theology faculty at Dallas wouldn't be as much higher life as maybe the early days like Louis Perry Schaefer. So I'm not saying this is heresy. I'm just saying I think there's a better approach to sanctification. But you can see those institutions are so influential. When I was a boy, the only seminary I even knew existed was Dallas. The churches I went to, if you went to seminary, you went to Dallas. That was the center of Bible-believing scholarship. So, I mean, major scholars. I've got a volume on my desk, in my office, I should say, not on my desk, but it's a Hebrew grammar. And a man, one of the men who wrote it is a man named Bruce Waltke. I think he's passed away now. Bruce Waltke was a great Hebrew scholar. He went to Dallas and got his PhD in New Testament. Knew his Bible very well. Then he decided, you know, I think I want to teach the Old Testament. So he went to Harvard and got a PhD in Old Testament. But he held on to his faith. He didn't pick up all the bad theology of Harvard. But he became a Hebrew scholar. And he was an evangelical, Bible-believing Hebrew scholar. So he was a New Testament scholar and an Old Testament scholar. Brilliant man. Went to Dallas. And that was the kind of caliber of people we thought, wow, Dallas has got some serious really serious theologians and scholars there, and that was true. And so it was just a really well-known school, and so it's been very, very influential. Maybe you've heard of Chuck Swindoll. Chuck Swindoll's a graduate of Dallas Seminary. In fact, he was the president of Dallas for a while. I thank the Lord for... I've heard Chuck Swindoll and he's encouraged me many times listening to him on the radio. So again, I'm not trying to... I'm saying all this because I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush and say that these people are all unbelievers or anything. I just want to deal with the details of this theological movement. Theological errors of higher life theology. It creates a two-tiered view of the Christian life. This is its first error. In other words, it says there's Christians who are Christians but aren't sanctified, and then there are sanctified Christians. So it creates two classes of Christians. I think this is a mistake. I think it's not what the scriptures teach. There's some passages here that they would say teach this, and I'm going to disagree with that. We looked a little bit at Romans 6, and I'm going to go back there. I won't get a whole lot further in these notes tonight because I want to deal with these biblical passages. And when I say not a lot further, I'm not going to get pages further into these notes. I will have to pick it up another week. But I want to look at the passages because these are some of their favorite passages to quote. Now we looked at some of Romans 6 and what Paul is arguing is indeed the fact that you are as a believer in Christ and since Christ died and conquered sin, sin doesn't have the power over you that it has over unbelievers. That's exactly what Romans 6 is teaching. Verse 10, for in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon, reckon, consider. That's what that means. Consider yourself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here's what he's saying, you know the mistake many of you Romans are making? You think you're still like the unbelievers and that sin is your master, and it's not. You're dead to sin and alive to Christ. Reckon yourself dead indeed to sin. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. It's not your master anymore. Sin's the master of unbelievers. Sin's not the master of Christians. Jesus is your master now. So don't let it reign. In other words, don't obey it, that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, your members are your body parts. But yield yourselves unto God. But here's the word they like to come to, yield. And they make that passive. But what does yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness mean? Are you passive when you use your body to sin? Is that yielding passive? No, that's active, right? If somebody takes their hands and they exercise their five-finger discount at Wawa and put a candy bar in their pocket, there's no really legitimate five-finger discount, by the way, in case you're wondering. They shoplift. Were they being passive or active? They were being active. When a person gets mad and loses their temper and punches somebody in the nose because they wanted to take something out on somebody, is that active or passive? They're yielding their members, their body parts, their person as instruments of unrighteousness. That's not passive. But yet, see, they'll say, you need that yieldedness. This is what the higher life theology will say. You need this yieldedness to be sanctified. But it's misunderstanding that word yield. In other words, to yield means I yield to an authority, which means I obey that authority. Right? In other words, I yield to the laws of the United States because that's my government. I yield to the laws of the state of Florida. That doesn't mean I'm passive. That means sometimes I have to do some things actively. Try saying, you know, the next time your tag is expired, well, officer, I was just yielding to the laws. Well, you have to go and pay the money to get the new sticker for your license plate. No, I was yielding. I was passive. They'll be like, no, you have to actively do something, right? All right. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law but under grace." Under the law, sin reigns because you don't have the grace of God to help you obey. You don't have a new heart. What then? Shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace? God forbid! Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves as servants to obey, that's not a passive word, his servants are ye to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that ye were servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. There's an active word, you've obeyed from the heart. Being then made free from sin, you became servants." Are they passive or are they active? They're active. Okay, servants of righteousness. "'I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you have yielded your member-servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your member-servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when we were the servants of sin, For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit even unto holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. All right? But again, there's no passivity in there. This is talking about who are you obeying? And guess what? If you're saved, you don't have to obey sin anymore. You know what? An unbeliever has no choice. They have no other master to obey. But a believer? It's not natural for you to obey the master of sin, it's natural for you to obey the master of Christ. So remember, reckon, that you're in Christ. Right? 1 Corinthians 2, 6 through 3, 4. This is where they get the distinction between natural, spiritual, carnal, etc. 2.6, albeit we speak from wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor the princes of this world, that come to naught. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Okay, let's define a mystery. Biblically, the idea of a mystery is something that you wouldn't know unless God reveals it to you. Even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. In other words, there was hidden wisdom that we could never get on our own, but God had to tell us. which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. They didn't know the truth that God revealed in Christ. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man which is in him? Okay? So who knows what's in your spirit? Only your own spirit, right? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. So, who perfectly knows God? The Spirit of God. Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given. to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." In other words, we know spiritual truth and we accept it unlike the wise people of this world who are really foolish because they don't believe the truth from God. But the natural man Receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. So, what kind of person doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God? The natural man. So what is that? That's an unbeliever. An unsaved person. So that's an easy category. Natural is unsaved. Spirit of God. For they are foolishness under him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. He doesn't have the Spirit, so he can't understand these things. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things. Yet he himself is judged of no man. In other words, the person who has the Spirit of God, and therefore understands these mysteries from God, that person, what kind of person is that? Who has the Spirit of God? A believer. That's a spiritual believer. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. How is it that we have the mind of Christ? Because God has revealed Himself to us, and He's given us His Spirit. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." Now, carnal is the third Greek word. Okay? So natural is one Greek word. Spiritual is another Greek word. Now carnal is a third Greek word. So here's what he's saying. You're not spiritual. He's not calling them natural, though. Notice this. You're carnal. Because you're not thinking with the Spirit. You're not being led by the Spirit. even as to babes in Christ. Instead, what's leading them? Their carnal nature. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? where while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Paulus, are you not carnal?" So he says there's these divisions in your church, and there's envying, and there's all kinds of divisive sins going on here. All of this is going on in your church and that's proof that you're not being directed by the Spirit of God but by your own sinfulness. Now notice what he's not doing though. I'm not saying that he doesn't call them carnal and that some of them are Christians. So I'm not saying there aren't Christians who are carnal. But what I am saying is that he's not teaching two tiers of Christians. He doesn't say to them, so what you really need to do is be passive so that you can reach your sanctification and be spiritual again. What is he saying to them? Let the Spirit of God lead you and stops this sin. It's a specific sin, right? This division in the church. He doesn't call for passivity here. So it's a misunderstanding of these categories. You've got unbelievers, they're natural. You've got believers, they're spiritual. But some believers who are spiritual live in a way sometimes that's not consistent with that, and that's being carnal. Now some of those people who might appear carnal to us are really natural. And some of them are really believers who are living in a carnal way in that way. So for all of us in here who profess Christ, and I think that's most of us, the fact is that there have been times that every one of us has done something that's not consistent with God's teaching and not consistent with what the Holy Spirit would lead us to do through God's Word. We've all done things like that, right? And so what does that mean? When I'm doing that, then I'm being carnal, not spiritual. But that doesn't mean I'm in a category of carnal that needs then to get to a second category of Christian that means I've then surrendered and yielded enough. No, what that means is I'm not obedient to God in that area. And I need to repent, confess that to the Lord, and grow. Okay? Those are two different things. There's no categories here of two kinds of Christians. He's talking about them and them having sin and therefore they're not being characterized by the Spirit as they should be. Okay, 1 Corinthians 12, 13. 1 Corinthians 12, 13. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many, etc. So here, let's go to verse 12. For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit ye were all baptized. He's saying all of you Corinthians were baptized into one body. Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we've gone to free and we've been made to drink into one Spirit. So the work of the Spirit in Spirit baptism, you've been baptized into one body, that body of Christ, by one Spirit. It's the Spirit of God who's done that. And that happened to all of you. So he's not making two categories here. He's not saying some of you are carnal. He's already said some of them were acting carnally, right? So how is it that they've all been baptized by one Spirit if you need Spirit baptism to get to that second tier? It doesn't make sense. What he is saying here, though, is that you're not... Spirit baptism isn't something you experienced, it's something that happened. When you became a Christian, you were baptized into the body of Christ. Otherwise, what you're saying is there are some people who weren't baptized into that body. Really? Tell me what kind of Christian isn't in the body of Christ. That doesn't make any sense. Again, this is a misuse of this passage to view spirit baptism. Earlier days of higher life theology, most Keswick theology today, like I said, they're still having Keswick conventions. I don't know about COVID. I don't know what they've done during COVID, but they're still having Keswick conventions, or were until fairly recently. Maybe COVID has put a break on it for a couple years. But I think they've had virtual ones, actually, during COVID. They're still having it. The Kezik teachers wouldn't today teach that this is spirit baptism. They'd say it's spirit filling, which we'll look at it later. But early higher life proponents taught that this was spirit baptism, which is a false teaching about spirit baptism. Which eventually gave rise to the Pentecostal movement. Ephesians 5.18 Ephesians 5 18 and be not drunk with wine where is an excess but be filled with the spirit so again they teach this is when you get that sanctification this is that crisis when you get spirit-filled And what does he say? Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God. So, don't be drunk with wine, which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. What is he saying here? What happens when you get drunk with wine? You're influenced by wine, right? If somebody gets drunk, and we've seen this, for the adults in here at least, you've seen people drunk, how do they behave? Sometimes somebody who's quiet and mild-mannered gets loud and boisterous and obnoxious because they're drunk. And we go, that's the wine talking, right? Or, you know what, you've heard the expression liquid courage. Where a guy decides, you know, I want to go do something hard. So what am I going to do? I'm going to drink some booze so that I can lower my inhibitions and go do what I'm otherwise afraid to do. So they get influenced by the alcohol. And by the way, this isn't the only command in the Bible against drunkenness. Drunkenness is universally condemned in the scriptures. It's become popular. I've even heard Christian preachers advocating the drinking of alcohol, not just that, but to the point that, you know, the teaching that the buzzed feeling is a blessing from God. I heard one preacher say that. That's not clear from Scripture. It's the opposite of what's clear from Scripture, actually. Okay? And so, you know, the Bible warns us against that. But look what's put parallel here. Don't be drunk with wine, which means you're being influenced by the wine. Sometimes I've said, don't be controlled by the wine, but technically the wine's not completely controlling you. We hold people accountable for what they do while they're drunk. But they're being influenced by it. And so the same thing is true of the spirit. And let me ask you this, are there degrees of being drunk? Yeah. All right? I was at a family reunion. Most of my family and my dad's side was unbelievers. And I was at a family reunion and one of my dad's cousins was quite athletic. And he said, hey, let's go play some bocce ball. We played the first game and he beat me. I'm not an expert bocce ball player, but he beat me. But, you know, after the first game he got his second beer. The second game he barely beat me. And the third game he had his third beer and I beat him. And in the fourth game he was coming nowhere near to putting the ball near where it needed to be because he was on his fourth or fifth beer. And the fact is that at some point along there he was drunk, then he was more drunk, then he was more drunk. And I've seen people so drunk they can't stand up. You probably have too. Okay, so there's levels of drunk, right? I mean there's levels of being drunk. Some levels of drunk, people can almost cope, and yet if they get pulled over and they get a breathalyzer test, they're going to say, you're impaired, you're drunk. And then there's some people who are passed out, unconscious. Okay, those are two different things. I remember going to a Going to a place one time where they had like it was it was an auto show I think but they had this drunk driver simulator And you basically you sit in it and you drive the car It's like a video game and you could go how many beers are you gonna have and you could put zero and you could drive the car and it was a normal video game, but if you put one then you're like your reactions are off and And like if you put, I forget what it was, six, you couldn't find the ignition, like they show this hand trying to find the ignition with the key, because that person's really, really drunk. All right? So obviously, we've all seen that. So don't you think that if this is the parallel, I'm not trying to push it too far, that there's different levels of being influenced by alcohol. There's different levels of Christians being influenced by the Spirit. Some people, more of their life is influenced by the Spirit than others, because they've grown more. It's not an all-or-nothing issue here. Spirit filling isn't a toggle switch on and off. It's, are you being influenced by the Spirit of God? You know, part of the proof of this? Let me show you Colossians 3. Because Colossians 3, Paul says almost the same thing to the Colossians that we see here in Ephesians 5. You know, back there he had said, speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, etc. Colossians 3, verse 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. And then verse 18, wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, which is what he gets to. 22 of Ephesians. So guess what is parallel? I mean he says speak to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in both passages. In both passages he says give thanks. In both passages he gives instructions on how to have a godly marriage. And guess what? The one starts with don't be drunk with wine but be filled by the Spirit. And the other one, where you have the idea that would be parallel to being filled with the Spirit, he says let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. So guess what is parallel, what's the parallel idea to being filled with the Spirit? Let the Word of Christ, let the Word of God dwell in you richly. So being Spirit-filled means you're letting the Spirit of God use the Word of God to help you behave like Christ. That's what Spirit-filling is. It's not an experience that gets you to a second level of Christian attainment. It's not a toggle switch that you're filled or you're not. No, it's the Spirit influencing you or not. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Some people, the Word of God dwells in them more richly than in others. We could point to some Christians and say, I can see growth there, and I can see how God's Word is changing that person, and I can look at another one and say, but this person has been changed even more by the Word of God. I'm not saying we should make judgments on people, but we've all seen that. Different levels of spiritual growth in people. And so these are the passages often though that they go to to try to prove this two tiers of sanctification. Let's go to John 15. This is one of the ones that they really use as well. And I will end with covering John 15 and we'll come back to this next week. But John 15 verse 1. Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Now that's interesting. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. You're clean through the word which I've spoken unto you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, and ye are the branches." So they like to go to this passage and they say, we need to learn to abide. And they make abide a passive word. Alright? Because what does abide mean? The Greek word is meno, which doesn't mean to passively sit and do nothing necessarily. It means to dwell somewhere, to live somewhere. Okay? But they make it passive. Abide. So just abide. Stop trying so hard and just abide. You just need to abide in Jesus. And they make it passive. But here's the thing. If you say, if abide means to dwell somewhere, to live somewhere. When I was a boy, we played a game that required you to abide in order to win. But it wasn't passive. You know what it was called? King of the Hill. You got a big mound of dirt or a big, in Michigan sometimes, a big hill of snow, and you stood up there and you said, I'm king of the hill. And you know what that was? That was a challenge to other people on the playground to come knock you off. And they'd come charging up, and if you could, you'd throw them off. And if they'd win, they'd throw you down the hill, and then they're king of the hill, and then you'd go scrambling back up. So guess what? To abide at that hill meant you had to work. So abiding doesn't always mean passive, all right? If you own a house, is it completely passive? You abide in that house. Do you ever spray for bugs? Do you ever fix leaking plumbing? Do you ever paint the walls? Do you see my point? That's not complete passivity. Abiding is not a passive word necessarily. I am the vine, you're the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you can do nothing." Okay, so they'll say, see, you can't do anything to obey God apart from Jesus, so you just need to relax and be passive in Him, but that's not what he's saying. If a man abide not in me, he's cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. What does that sound like? Hell? So what happens to those who don't abide in Jesus? They go to hell. Guess who's not abiding? Unbelievers. So, he's not making a distinction between abiding and not abiding. Carnal Christians don't abide and spiritual Christians do. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is, anybody who's not tied to the vine, Jesus, please tell me how you could have a Christian who's not tied into the vine of Jesus. And of course, unless you're tied, you can't bear any fruit if you're not tied into Jesus. What kind of spiritual fruit can an unbeliever bear? And here's what he's saying. You've got a dead branch on a tree, on a vine, what do you do? You cut it off, because you want that vine to give energy to bearing healthy branches, not dead ones. That disease might go into the other branches, and you don't want that. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. Now notice, continue is a little different word than abide. In other words, in English, it has more of a, to continue in something is more active. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love." Now, he's not teaching a work salvation here, but what he's saying is, as the Scriptures often say, is that, show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works. In other words, saving faith produces changed life. That's simply what he's saying here by this. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you." Alright? So, and then what do we see? What's it look like? What kind of fruit are they bearing? That the Christians would love one another, just as Christ loves us. So what we see in this passage is, the command to abide is keep following Jesus, cling to Jesus. If you don't, you're lost, you're cut off, and you're burned. It's not a sanctification issue, it's a salvation issue. Now, yes, guess what? Therefore, the true branches that come off the true vine, they bear fruit. Some bear more fruit than others, but they bear fruit. That's a biblical teaching. And so again, this isn't a sanctification passage completely, in the sense that you need to be passive. Again, it has the false idea of making abide passive, and it has the wrong idea of what it means to be a branch. In other words, you're only a branch when you're passive enough. That's not what this is saying. If you're not a branch, you're not saved, is what this passage is teaching. And so it's very important. In other words, these are the most used verses by the higher life movement to try to teach passivity and two tiers of Christians. And yet as I've gone through them, which I think I've been fair with them, you can see it doesn't teach that at all. One of the big mistakes of higher life theology, it's very devotional but not very careful with the text of scripture. It quotes verses and then gives a meaning to them that is not helpful, that isn't really what's in the text, but that sounds good devotionally, okay? And therefore, it causes us to have a misunderstanding. Now, I said I'm going to end, but one thing I do want to say is, if you've been around higher life theology for a while, or around it much, this was my experience with it as well, it's kind of frustrating. Because you try to be passive, and you always wonder if you're passive enough. And you never really attain it. And so it leads to a kind of frustration about our sanctification. And it keeps us in a kind of difficult place. I remember I had this conversation about Andrew Murray with Pastor Bender once. And I was talking to him about Andrew Murray and he said, yeah, I read some of Andrew Murray's books. He said, I tried to figure that out. He said, you know, I tried to figure out, what does this look like? How does it look to live what Andrew Murray's teaching here? And he said, I came to the conclusion that this is confusing, it's not clear from scripture, and it's just frustrating. I'm paraphrasing him, but that's basically what he said. And that was my experience as well. And that was the experience of other people. There are, for example, some of you maybe read Knowing God by J.I. Packer. J.I. Packer grew up with a higher life emphasis. And he said he got very frustrated by it because he was doing his best to try to be passive and get to that crisis and have that, and to get sanctified. But he knew that it wasn't about trying, it was about surrendering, but he could never quite surrender enough And it actually didn't help him spiritually. It made it difficult for him to follow Christ. He didn't give up following Christ, but he actually started reading John Owen, who was a Puritan, on sanctification, and that helped him. And then he wrote a book himself called Keep and Step at the Spirit, Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God, which is actually an approach of progressive sanctification rather than two-tier sanctification. In other words, throughout my Christian life, I'm growing. Ups and downs, yes, but I'm growing. in my walk with the Lord, rather than trying to attain that level of sanctification. And so there are many who've had that kind of an experience with this higher life theology, and it can be quite frustrating. And like I said, a lot of the hymns in our hymnal were written by higher life people. Many of them are good hymns. We might just skip a verse here and there because that verse is a little too much higher life and not going to be helpful for us in understanding our Christian growth and spiritual growth. So I'm not saying we completely write off all the ministry of all the people who were ever involved in the higher life movement. I'm just saying let's be careful because this isn't clearly what Scripture teaches and it's actually probably going to bring you more frustration than help as far as your spiritual walk. We'll continue this next week. I've got As you could tell, as soon as I get to references, I get bogged down, and I got a whole bunch of list of references more. Bogged down for a good way, in a good way, but I hope that's been a help to you tonight. And again, I'm trying to be charitable because there were some really godly people involved in this, but I just want to help you and not have you get frustrated by something that's a little askew there, theologically.