Santification — J. Edwin Orr

A number of people have asked me about my schedule of preaching and teaching. I should explain that I teach missionaries in mid-career at the School of World Mission. You've heard of Church Growth, School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Sometimes I'll have a bishop in my class. It's an exhilarating experience to talk to mature people who've been on the field for 20 or even 30 years. That's one job. I also direct a summer session at Oxford dealing with evangelical revivals.

But then I spend a lot of time in research, researching these movements of the Spirit of God about which nobody has written. Some people know very little about any revival except what they read about in Finney.

And Finney died over 100 years ago. But I have another side to ministry, and that is a mission to the academic community. I love preaching to university students and on college campuses. You say, what kind of ministry?

Now I have a friend, in fact he's a very famous man, and he's visiting the Fuller campus this week. But he would begin his lecture by saying, the ontological argument for the existence of deity is now relegated to the limit of obscurity.

That goes right over their heads. I prefer to talk in a different way. I was talking to a lady in Tashkent, the capital of the Republic of Uzbekistan. And she said, well I'm not so foolish as to say that science contradicts the idea of God, but science explains everything, and that makes the idea of God superfluous.

After all, if you can explain it, what do you need of God? I said to her, well it's true that science explains many things that uneducated people attribute to God. When I was a little boy of four, I heard the thunder roll, and I thought God was moving his furniture upstairs.

I don't hold that view today. Why? Well, I started in at kindergarten after that, and as you get educated, you don't put forth such silly ideas. But does science explain everything? You come into my kitchen, and you say, why is the kettle boiling?

So I reply, the kettle is boiling because the combustion of the gas transfers heat to the bottom of the kettle, which being a good conductor, transfers it to the water. The molecules of water become more and more agitated, they spin around, they make a singing noise, they give off water in the form of steam, and that is why the kettle is boiling.

Then my wife comes into the kitchen, and you say, Mrs. Orr, why is the kettle boiling? And she says, because I'm going to make you a cup of tea. Now when you think that through, I didn't tell you why the kettle was boiling.

I told you how the kettle was boiling. And the more you think about it, the more you realize, science doesn't tell us the why of anything, only the how. For instance, when water freezes, it expands into ice and floats on the top.

Go to a physicist and say, why? He'll say, I'm not here to tell you why, that's the way it does. Science can't tell us why, only how. Therefore when people say science explains everything, science really explains nothing when it comes to the real reason for things.

You have to turn to philosophy, which is man's idea, or divine revelation. Now I like to talk to students along those lines. They're simple enough. I don't think I went over anyone's head just now, did I?

I didn't have to speak about the ontological argument for the existence of deity. I put it into your language. I was speaking at an international student's banquet when a Japanese girl raised her hand.

She said, sir, isn't one man's idea of God just as good as another man's idea of God? I'd heard that often enough. I said, I'll have to answer your question by asking one. I was married in Africa more than 40 years ago.

What do you think my wife looks like? She said, I don't know. I said, well, have a guess. She was unwilling to guess. She knew that in North Africa there are millions of Arabs, in South Africa there are millions of Europeans, in Central Africa there are Pygmies, West Africa Negroes, East Africa Bantu-speaking people.

So she suspected a trap, so she said, I don't know. I said, come on now, I'm not going to grade you. What do you think my wife looks like? So I said, have a guess. She decided to play it safe. Is she brunette?

A majority of the women in the world are brunette. So I said, what else? Dark eyes? I said, what else? Short? I said, what do you mean short? Well, she's shorter than you are. She's still playing it safe because most men marry someone slightly shorter, most men.

I said, are you sure of this? No, she said, I was guessing. I turned to another fellow, I said, what do you think my wife looks like? Well, he said, just to be different, I'll say she's blonde, blue-eyed, same size as you.

Are you sure of this? No, he said, I'm guessing. I asked another fellow, finally I said, now can we get together on this? Do we all agree that her idea is no better than his idea? What he says no more important than what he says?

And we all agreed. So far I was supporting the girl's question. Now I turned back to the Japanese girl, I said, would you like me to tell you what my wife looks like? She said, please, you've made me curious now.

And her parents were Norwegian. She's a natural blonde. She has gray-blue eyes, but she spent 18 years in the African sun, so she has freckles. She's five foot five in her stocking feet. She weighs 125 pounds, 135 pounds, which is only 10 pounds heavier than the day she was married.

As a matter of fact, the day we were married, we were both 125, so we took turns carrying each other over the threshold. Now I said to the Japanese girl, would you say that your idea is just as good as my idea and what I said is no more important than what he said?

She said, that's not fair. I said, what's not fair? Well, she said, we were guessing. I said, what about me? Am I not allowed to guess? She said, you weren't guessing. You were informing us. I said, what gave me that right?

She said, because you know. I said, exactly. The prophets of old didn't say, there must be somebody upstairs that likes me. They're a little more definite than that. Ezekiel said, the word of the Lord came unto me the second time.

Moses said, God spoke these words. This is what we call divine revelation. They spoke because they knew. Now you're not compelled to believe them, but at least admit they were not guessing. But Jesus Christ was a little different.

He was the highest revelation of God. You notice, he never said, thus saith the Lord. That was the highest thing a prophet could say. Why did he not say, thus saith the Lord? Because he is the Lord. He said, verily, verily, I say unto you.

And we have a revelation of God. Now we had dialogue. Now, I don't suggest that you should go out of your depth and bluff that you know everything. But you're going to be asked serious questions by other young people.

There are answers to many of those questions. So I've written little books to help people like that. One, I've got it here, Hundred Questions About God, published by Regal Books. That's Gospel Night Press.

They've gone more than 100 ,000 already. And then a companion book, I was going to call it Hundred Questions About Morality, you know, about situation ethics and about all sorts of things like that, extramarital sex, whatnot.

They call it Candid Questions About Morality. So I went along, I was talking to the managing director of Gospel Night Press, and I said, I'm going to go up to Chuck Smith's place, up to their conference, can you give me a couple of the students there who probably want them.

These are two little books, I think it's $2 .25 each, but the bookstore is letting you have them at a dollar. But only now. I mean, you walk into a bookstore, you won't get them for a dollar. So I just thought I'd mention, if you're interested in that type of ministry, simplifying these problems, you go to the bookstore.

Now, it's one other thing, people ask me questions, where can I get a book that covers all these great revivals that you dealt with in that film? Well, I don't have a book, really, that, in fact, I'm hoping to start on a book interpreting all that I've been researching.

Most of the other books, I've published about eight this past five years, deal with certain aspects, like either the revival of 1792, 1858, 1905, or all the revivals in Eastern Asia, or all the revivals in Africa, or Latin America, and so forth.

But there's one book that does cover the field, but from the point of view of student revivals, deals with the general revivals, but particularly with the student revivals, all the way from the Holy Club at Oxford, in which John Wesley was commissioned, really, right to the Asbury College revival in 1970.

The book was published in 1971, so it doesn't go beyond 1970. But it deals with all the phenomenal student awakenings. And that book, also, was published by the same firm, and if you're interested, you can have it at a bargain price.

I think it's over $3, but you can have it, I saw the price put in the bookstore, it's $1 .75. I just mention those because people are going to come up and ask me all the questions about where to get them.

If you're interested, that's only for now, because you can't walk into a bookstore and say, I want this at half price. They won't give you at half price. Now, would you pray for me? I explained to Brother Paul and Brother Chuck that for a year now, I haven't been able to publish any research or conduct any missions to the academic community because I've been busy rescuing a missionary society with 300 missionaries.

The founder is 80 years of age and just wouldn't let go, and the accounts were in such a mess that if the board hadn't intervened, the Internal Revenue Service would have been down on them, and I hate to even imagine what might have happened to this old man.

So we've been straightening out a missionary society, and it's, for instance, I have to be in Hong Kong for a board meeting the week before Easter, an international board meeting. I'm vice president of the organization.

But next Monday, I have to be up in a court case in San Francisco where somebody's trying to rip off the organization that's in distress. I wish you'd pray with me that the Lord lift this load. The only way it can be done is if we can find someone to take over the organization that we have straightened out.

The auditor says, our accounts are straight now. Thank God for that. That means if we are examined, things will be in the clear. But I would like to get back to my work. I love my work. I love preaching to students, and I love lecturing on the works of God, and I love also teaching a little bit of popular doctrine.

That's what I did in the last series with you, and that's what I'm going to do now. That's bond prayer. Then, Lord, we pray thee for this mission situation, that thou wilt help us get the whole work straightened out.

Not only that, but if it be thy will for the mission to continue, to raise up the right personnel to carry it on, to lighten the load from us, and if it be thy will that the work should not continue, give us wisdom in merging with another organization or distributing the assets to other work doing the same kind of thing.

Now, Lord, we pray thee, lift the load soon. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Now, I'm going to ask questions, and I want you to be free to ask questions, but I put you on the spot. Only if the question deals with a subject, and only if you're asking for information.

Please don't ask a question to give yourself the opportunity to show that you know the answer. You say, well, are you going to apply that to yourself? Well, that's a little different. The teacher is allowed to ask rhetorical questions.

I remember my son came back, my younger son, David, came back from school. He said, my teacher is dumb. Always asking a lot of questions, you say, my teacher sure is dumb. Well, I don't know all the answers.

In fact, you'll guess from the way I teach that I got the answers by asking questions, but then I keep them in my mind, improve them if they need improving. So I want to begin dealing with a very difficult subject, one that has divided Protestant Christians for centuries.

Defining Sanctification and Its Relation to Sin

I was speaking in the Queensland Bible Institute in Brisbane in Australia, and I said, what is sanctification? A girl raised her hand, she said, sanctification is moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, growth in grace.

I said, thank you. I said, any other definition? A young man got up, I could see he was going to contradict her, and he said, sanctification is the deeper blessing. I said, thank you, any other definition?

A young man stood with a great Scofield Bible under his arm, and thus fortified, he said, every believer is sanctified. And in one minute I'd heard three apparently contradictory definitions of sanctification.

I want to deal with that. But did you notice when I spoke about confession of sin, I spoke about acts of sin. In other words, when you lose your temper and say things you're sorry for, what do you do?

Well, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. But if you find that you're in bondage to bad temper, it's a continuing bad habit, what do you do? That's what I want to talk about.

Now, I'm Irish by birth. What are the Irish noted for? Good humor and bad temper, and I had my share of both. I remember trying to commit suicide at the age of 11. You say, what put you in such a rage?

Mother thrashed me. My father died when I was nine. Mother had to be father and mother. She thrashed me. I thought they don't appreciate me around here. I'll go and throw myself in the river. In my imagination, I could see the headlines in the Belfast Telegraph, boy's body found in river, home difficulties, and I thought they won't treat me like that again.

So I went down to the river to commit suicide. It was all over some trivial little affair. Mother thrashed me for taking two pennies out of her purse and buying a box of matches and trying to set fire to two other boys.

So I went down to the river to commit suicide, but the water was too cold. Sometimes I tell people in the States here, it's a regular thing for people to end it all off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, but nobody ever commits suicide in Lake Superior at Duluth.

In July, the temperature of the water is 34 degrees. So I didn't commit suicide after all, but I had a bad temper. But I thought I was a Christian with a bad temper, the way some Christians have arthritis or migraine headaches.

But I didn't realize God could deal with my problem, and that's part of what I want to talk to you about. I'm going to use the overhead projector, and we're going to deal with some definitions first. The first question is, what does it mean to be justified?

Raise your hand before you reply, anyone. You've heard the word before? Yes, to be declared just, but now you've really repeated the question, the answer there. What does it mean to be just then? To be brought into right standing with God.

I'm a little surprised that I haven't heard the usual answer I get. Justified means justified, never sinned. That's a pun. I don't mind the occasional pun. I remember asking my Sunday school teacher in Ireland, who were the Sadducees?

He said, the Sadducees were a Jewish sect. They didn't believe in the resurrection of the body or the coming of the Lord, and that's why they were sad, you see. I've never forgotten that. It wasn't very profound, but it stuck in my mind.

We just got back from Singapore, driving across the states, and coming into Arizona, we turned on the radio in the car, and we heard Brother Norheim, that's a Lutheran radio broadcaster from Montana. Just as we turned on the radio, he says, as Brother Edwin Orr says, why were they called Sadducees?

Well, he gave the answer, that's why they were sad, you see. And we all laughed. So it stuck in my mind, and apparently it sticks to other people's minds. All right then, justified means when God looks at me, sees me just, if I had never sinned.

It means to be counted righteous, counted blameless, from the negative point of view acquitted, exonerated. It's a wonderful thing. Now, I justificate, I spoke to you on forgiveness. It's more than forgiveness.

Justification by Faith and the Meaning of Exoneration

Way back 30 years ago, I was driving along California Boulevard in Pasadena. I came to a stop sign at the corner of Allen Boulevard. Now they have a traffic signal, but then it was a stop sign. I stopped, turned left, driving up Allen Boulevard.

With me was the Reverend Armand Guesswine, a good friend of Chuck Smith and Paul Smith. Now, at that time, before the traffic signal, there generally was a traffic policeman hiding under the pepper trees there.

And as I drove north on Allen Boulevard, in the reflection of my mirror, I saw this motorcycle policeman coming rapidly in my direction. I said to Armand Guesswine, who's he chasing? He looked back, he said, you're the only one on the street.

And sure enough, he pulled me over. Pull over there, bud. I pulled over, I parked my car, he parked his cycle, walked back. Now, I was driving a car with Illinois license plates. I just moved out from Glen Ellyn, but it's not an offense to drive a car with Illinois license plates, provided you just don't keep on doing it.

You don't do it year after year. I wondered what was wrong. He said, mister, do you have stop signs back in Illinois? I thought, what a dumb question. Imagine a cop that doesn't know you have stop signs in Illinois.

But I didn't say that to him, I just said, yes, sir. Mister, he said, when you see a stop sign back in Illinois, do you stop? I thought, that's a dumb question, too. I said, yes. Then he said, why didn't you stop back there?

I said, I did. I mean, I think I did. I mean, I hope I did. I mean, did I? He said, you put your foot in the brake, but you didn't stop rolling. Show me your driver's license. Mercifully, it was issued in Chicago.

He looked at it, and he said, well, I see you are a bona fide visitor to our fair state. We'll forgive you this time. California traffic cops are often considered to out-of-state visitors. In Illinois, they say, there's a California plate, let's give him a ticket, because California drivers have a reputation.

So he forgave me. I drove on. I was forgiven, but I was not justified. You know how I know? Because guess when I look back, and he says, ha, he's following you. I was on probation. When I came to the corner of San Pascual, I stopped, and I let him see me stop.

And then I drove on. Now, justification is more than forgiveness. It's a wonderful thing when God forgives our sins. But when he justifies us, he not only forgives us, he treats us as if we'd never sinned in the first place.

There was a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, 1894, arrested by the French military police, sent to prison for life on false charges. After he served seven years on Devil's Island, the worst prison in the world, the case was retried because of new evidence.

They discovered there had been a terrible miscarriage of justice. It caused the fall of the French government. The President of France issued a pardon, but Captain Dreyfus wasn't satisfied. He said, let them give me back my rank of captain and all my back pay.

And they did, because he had been justified, exonerated. You say, well, that I see. But how does it apply to me? I know I'm guilty. How does God exonerate me? That's part of the mystery of the atonement.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. If someone in Calvary Chapel got in trouble with the police and the judge threw the book at him and said, all right, four thousand dollar fine or a month in jail, and Chuck Smith doesn't want to see the boy go to prison, so he takes up a private collection in the congregation, goes down and pays the fine.

The moment the fine is paid, the boy goes free. Christ paid the penalty for my sin. But note, I have to accept it. There was a case in American history where Andrew Jackson issued a pardon to a man in prison waiting the sentence of death for murder.

And the man was such a bad-tempered rascal that he cursed Andrew Jackson, told him what to do with his pardon. That had never happened before, but it was ruled by the Supreme Court. Then there's nothing to do but to carry out the sentence.

That's why forgiveness must be accepted. Justification is more than forgiveness. Supposing, for instance, back home, you go home after church and the neighbor, somebody says there's a burglar in your house.

Apprehensively you go in. Sure enough, the drawers have been torn out. But then you find a very amusing but alarming situation. The burglar has locked himself in the bathroom and can't get the thing undone.

He's caught. So you get him. But you find he's a transient and he hasn't worked for some time. In fact, he was hungry. So instead of calling the police, you put him up for the night. Take him to church on Sunday.

Take him downtown, get him a job on Monday. He so gratefully comes for Sunday dinner every day at your place, every Sunday at your place. And finally, he marries your sister. Wouldn't that be wonderful treatment for a burglar?

Well, that's the way God treats us. Not only forgives us, but he says, now you're one of the family. That's justification. Any question on that? Or do you understand me? Now what is sanctification? What does it mean to be sanctified, will someone tell me?

That's right, to be set apart. I don't know any good pun on this. It doesn't mean to be set aside. It doesn't mean to be shelved or abandoned, but to be set apart. The word sanctified means to be set apart.

And by the way, the word is used in scripture negatively as well as positively. The children of Israel did set themselves, did sanctify themselves to do evil. That was like saying, hell's angels set themselves out to wreck the town of Hollister to shock you.

Do you know that the word for a male prostitute in the Old Testament is a sanctified one? I suppose you know the way we say he's one of those when we want to speak of a certain lifestyle. In the Old Testament scripture, a male prostitute was called a sanctified one, meaning dedicated to prostitution.

So the word can be used negatively. Did you know that Leonid Brezhnev is sanctified? He's a dedicated communist. That's what the word means, dedicated. But the way we're using it means sanctified to God.

That's the only way we're dealing with it now. Now what does it really mean to be set apart? Sometimes I ask the question, the first response I get is people say it means to be cleansed. That's implied, but that's not the meaning.

Just as justification is more than forgiveness, sanctification is more than cleansing. Many years ago, I came home late one evening. My wife didn't know when to expect me. She had gone out shopping. I was too tired to cook for myself, too hungry to wait until she came back, so I said to my 11-year-old daughter, how would you like to make supper for your daddy?

She was pleased. This was the first time she'd ever been asked to cook. She had just learned something of cookery in junior high. Of course, I knew what I would get, meatballs. That was the first lesson, meatballs.

She put the pan on. She put a knife on the table. She put a fork on the table. Then she put a plate on the table. I lowered my newspaper. I said, take that plate away. She said, what's wrong with that plate, daddy?

I said, that's the cat's plate. I'm not going to eat off the cat's plate. She said, but I washed it. I said, I don't care if you washed it a hundred times. That plate was sanctified unto the cat. You see the point?

Cleansing was beside the point. I remember I had a quartet sing for me. Four nice young fellows singing. And there they were just standing in front of the communion table. And one of the fellows, quite unthinkingly, sat on the communion table.

I said, get off that table. People won't like it. Communion table sanctified for a certain purpose, set apart. That's what it means. When you're sanctified, you're set apart for God. It doesn't mean you can't have fun.

It doesn't mean you can't have entertainment. It doesn't mean you can't have relaxation. It doesn't mean you can't have sport. But it means you can't have sin and expect God to use you too. That's sanctification.

Positional, Critical, and Progressive Sanctification

Now because some of you are training for the ministry, perhaps I should deal very briefly with the controversy over the word sanctification. Remember what I said to you about the Queensland Bible Institute?

Three schools of thought. The girl who said, moment by moment, growth and grace. The fellow who said, the deeper blessing. And the other boy who said, every believer sanctified. I was so puzzled that I decided to study the word sanctification.

Now sometimes when I say, what does it mean to be sanctified? Someone will say, to be made holy. That's answering the question with the question, because sanctified means to be made holy. To be made holy means to be sanctified.

Sanctified is the Latin form. Holy is the Anglo-Saxon form. The Greek word is the word hagios. So I took the word hagios and all its forms and studied it for myself. And I found that sometimes the word is used for moment by moment growth and grace.

And sometimes it's used for a commitment. And sometimes it's used for every believer. There were three cubbyholes to drop the references into. Now I've divided them into three. Positional sanctification, critical sanctification, and progressive sanctification.

What do we mean by positional sanctification? That's the idea that every believer is sanctified. That's his position. Any scripture for this? Of course there is. The introduction to the first Corinthian letter, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, softens our brother to the church at Corinth, sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints.

Now the Roman Catholic Church uses the word saint only for a very special type of person. In fact, there have to be miracles worked in his name after his death. The Roman Catholic Church, according to its definition, has no living saints.

You say, what about Mother Teresa? Oh, she's a saint, all right, but not according to their definition. If ever she becomes a saint, it won't be until she's dead. And then we'll have to have a devil's advocate to find out if there's anything wrong in her life, and so forth.

So I'm not going to deal with the Roman Catholic side. But every believer, according to scripture, is a saint. You're not your own, you're bought with a price. Even if you're only two weeks converted, you're a saint.

It means a sanctified one, a set-apart person. You belong to God. Now this has been stressed by a great theologian long since dead, John Nelson Darby. You've never heard of him. Well, you've never heard of him, but if you've ever seen a Schofield Bible, you know what the teaching of John Nelson Darby is.

Because the Schofield Bible is 99 and 44, 100 percent John Nelson Darby. Schofield popularized Darby's teaching. And Darby emphasized the position, the privilege of the believer. For instance, I have listened carefully, and there's benefit to Chuck Smith speaking on Ephesians.

It's one of my favorite epistles. But the Apostle Paul keeps on speaking about the privilege of the believer in Christ. That's positional sanctification, all right. But I heard Dr. Harry Ironside, pastor of the Great Moody Church in Chicago, say once, every time the Bible speaks about a believer's privilege, it adds something about his responsibility.

You'll find, I think it's the fourth chapter in Ephesians, I, Paul, a prisoner of the Lord, beg you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called. The trouble with some who emphasize the privilege of the believer, they forget his responsibility.

The Los Angeles police found a young fellow lying in the gutter, drunk. They locked him up, went through his pockets to see who he was. Found he was the son of a millionaire in New York. They notified the New York police.

The father telegraphed the money for his flight home. What was the position of the young man? Born to privilege. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth. What was his condition? Just like a penniless bum.

He wasn't living up to his position. So, when we speak of our position in Christ, let's always remember about our condition. But let's not forget, the scripture does teach that every last believer who is born again is sanctified.

Positionally. Or if you like to use the word, theoretically. Now we take the word critical. I was speaking in a free Methodist church. The free Methodists, like the Nazarenes, talk a lot about sanctification.

So I said, what do we mean by critical sanctification? There was dead silence, they'd never heard it that way. Then a lady raised her hand rather tentatively and she said, critical sanctification? Does that mean those people that get sanctified and go around criticizing everybody?

I said, no, no, I don't mean critical of criticism, but critical of crisis. In other words, there's a turning point in the Christian life subsequent to conversion. Now, conversion is a turning point. But there's a turning point in the Christian life subsequent to conversion.

You say, well, is there any scripture for this? Oh, yes. I'll quote the verse that helped change my life. Twelve years after I was converted. Romans 12 and 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

There's that word holy. That means sanctified. You say, well, is that a crisis? Couldn't that be moment by moment? You know, each morning you get up after your devotion, you say, Lord, I'm ready today.

No, no. The tense, therefore, present is the aorist infinitive. There isn't time this morning to deal with all the finesses of the Greek text, but the aorist infinitive is the most pointed of the tenses.

It means an act rather than a process. And in Romans 12 and 1, I say this without any fear of contradiction. It literally says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. Well, I'll quote the C .B. Williams translation that goes into these tenses.

To make a decisive dedication of your whole personality to God. Note, decisive. Now, have you noticed one thing about American evangelical Christianity? It's when they have a campaign, they have so many conversions and so many rededications.

Why do we have so many rededications? What happens to these people? Well, I remember when I was a young Christian, I attended the Christian endeavor meetings. And we used to have a consecration service once a month.

And we, who were members, were expected to say, I've failed Christ many times, but he's never failed me, so tonight I want to rededicate my life to the Lord. Reconsecrate. That was called a consecration meeting.

I did that. And I meant it too. But I didn't give up my sin. I was holding on to Christ with one hand and holding on to my sin with the other. I've talked to people, for instance, who have told me that they were enslaved to drugs.

They tell me they really want to serve the Lord. But I always try to find out, do you get to the place where you just hate the very thought of drug addiction? You hate it. You're ashamed that you were ever in it.

Because there are some Christians who go around bragging about it. They seem to think that because they were addicted to drugs they were some kind of hero. Of course, I can't think of a greater stupidity than taking drugs.

We all know what it does to people, and yet people do it. But we've got to get to the place where we don't hold on to it anymore, even in thought. We just hate the thing. I used to get up and say, I consecrate my life afresh.

But if you had said, well, what about this? That brings my bad temper. I'd say, well, nobody's perfect. You see, it didn't dawn on me at first that God could deal with that. That's critical sanctification.

Who taught this? Another John. John Wesley. I don't need to tell you who John Wesley was. Any weakness in this emphasis? Oh, yes. There are some dear people in the holiness movement think that if they have had an experience of entire sanctification.

You say, is that a scriptural? Oh, yes. It says, sanctify you wholly. W-H-O-L-L-Y. That's in the scripture. They've come to a place of total commitment that they're set for the rest of their days.

A man came up to me in the church of the open door. And he said, Mr. Roar, you look at me. I was gloriously sanctified 17 years ago, and I haven't committed a single sin since. Now, how do you argue with that?

I didn't know the guy. But I said, are you married? Well, he said, that's not a sin. I said, I didn't say it was. But are you married? Yes. I said, is your wife here? Yes. He said, that's my wife over there.

So I called her over. I said, look, madam, I don't want to be too personal. But would you agree with your husband that for 17 years he hasn't committed any kind of sin whatsoever? She said, no, sir. I left the two of them arguing.

The thing is this. If anyone has reached that kind of perfection, it's strange. I've never met anyone else that seemed to recognize it. For instance, one of the most spiritual women of my acquaintance, who was a member of my preaching team for two years, was Corrie Tan Boom.

There's a saint if ever there was a saint. But she would be the last to say she was perfect. In fact, if you read her story, she'll tell you how she apologized for getting cross with somebody, you know, that sort of thing.