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Archive for the ‘TRUE SANCTIFICATION’ Category


Posted by Job on March 2, 2007


You often hear in religious circles, especially among certain charismatic and Pentecostal professed Christians, the term “sanctified” used. It is interesting that the adjective “sanctified” is quite often used, but the verb form “sanctify” is rarely used. People are able to get away with this because in many of these circles, intellectual knowledge and study of the Bible is discouraged. Instead, we are supposed to trust what the preacher says alone because the preacher is this great man of God with this great spiritual anointing. Therefore, the vast majority of people who use the term “sanctified” have no idea what the term means, and their religious leaders are just fine with that and want to keep it that way. They allow you to believe that “sanctified” is another word for cleanliness or holiness, and that it is arrived at by keeping some doctrine, ritual, ceremony, or legal code. Or it can be a certain type of “anointing” or “filling of the Holy Spirit” that comes as a result of keeping some doctrine, ritual, ceremony, or legal code. So, the term is often used by people who believe in salvation and justification through works by religious movements where pastors and church officials exert an absolute degree of control and intimidation over their members.
These people are the ones who talk day and night about how holy they are, and the evidence of this holiness is superficial things like not wearing jewelry or not going to nightclubs or spending hours a day several days a week in church. They claim that there is some spiritual benefit to not dressing a certain way or not going to a certain place that gives them this power and authority in the spirit realm, and that is what allows them to speak in tongues, prophecy, cast out demons, and perform healings and miracles. They also claim that people who do not do as they do are “not really saved”, and if you ever stop being as zealous in your outward signs of salvation that you will not only lose your spiritual power, but you will lose your salvation itself!

Now, a lot of this was brought into the Christian mainstream by “Jesus Only” or “Oneness” sorts who deny trinity. This is interesting because all who claim to worship Jehovah while denying trinity have no concept of grace. “Oneness” or “Unitarian” Christians, Mormons, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews … they all deny trinity, and as such they all deny grace, and they all deny the works of grace in salvation, sanctification, regeneration, and indwelling and baptism in the Holy Spirit. All of these things are accomplished by works in the teachings of religious people like these. Further, Catholics, while they claim to believe in trinity, have rejected grace in favor of works. Why? Because Catholics place the Godhead on one side, totally removed from direct spiritual interaction and worship. Instead, their spiritual interaction and worship is through the pope, priests, saints, angels, and Virgin Mary. They have no concept of individual personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ by way of grace! And if you lack grace, you must do works, because your confidence is not in the spirit but in the flesh. 

The actual meaning of “sanctify” is not “to make clean” or “to exalt” or “to fill with the spirit” but rather “to separate.” The children of
Israel were “sanctified”, or separated, from the other people and nations of the earth by circumcision (which obviously only applied to the males) and keeping the law. Among
Israel, the priests were “sanctified”, or separated, by their tribe (Levites), their occupation (the priesthood and worship and service of the temple), by their place of residence (suburbs) and their lack of inheritance. But none of this was for their salvation! The people of Israel were set apart from the other nations so that God would have an identifiable people that He would use to send Jesus Christ into the world as His Son with which to redeem mankind. And the priests were set apart within the children of
Israel so that they could be overseers to lead and oversee the spiritual and legal integrity of the people and the nation. And remember, this was under the OLD COVENANT. The OLD COVENANT was not for the purpose of reconciling man with God. During the Old Covenant, there was a veil separating man from God; man could not even approach God lest he surely die! Only the high priest was given the privilege of passing through the veil. The Old Covenant has nothing to do with the New Covenant, because the Old Covenant was meant to prepare
Israel – and the world – for the coming of the New.  

So if salvation was not possible by works under the old covenant but rather by grace under the new covenant, how can sanctification be possible by works under the covenant of grace? Simple: it cannot be. As a matter of fact, NOTHING SPIRITUAL is accomplished by outward works of man given by man. So you never go to a nightclub. Well obviously you are a person who has NEVER brought a sinner to salvation, because nightclubs are where the sinners are! And so the women in your church are fully covered, head to toe, so that no lustful thoughts can enter into anyone’s minds. OBVIOUSLY your church has no missions in
Africa and
South America, where women walk around topless! This is the foolishness of this whole deal: if your righteousness is going to be based on good works, then it is going to be based on what is “good” in the context of a particular culture. A woman in Puritan New England would have been beaten, whipped, and put in stocks for going around dressed – or rather undressed – the way many a Christian woman in Africa and South America does today! As a matter of fact, many of these very same “sanctified” Pentecostals and charismatics would have been burned at the stake or hanged as witches for their music, dancing, and speaking in tongues! And the best example of how foolish this is: Jesus Christ himself went into what would now be considered red light districts and places of ill repute to win sinners. These days those “sanctified in the flesh” so – called Christians (and they are not Christians because Christian means “Christ – like”) won’t even so much as rub elbows with a sinner. No, they require the sinner to take a bath, put on their suit, and arrive at church on Sunday morning, come before the altar, and confess. Now a lot of these people do have prison ministries, but they will not minister to the former and future prisoners still in the clubs and streets. Keep in mind that Jesus and His disciples did not care about the outward signs of righteousness. Jesus Christ healed on the Sabbath; his followers did not take part in the ritual washings, and they picked and ate corn on the Sabbath. No, they relied on the Word of God to make them INWARDLY righteous! That is why these “sanctified” Christian movements are not like unto Christ. 

Another indication that these people deny grace: they are all about the gifts of the spirit. Now, the gifts of the spirit can be emulated by demons and dark powers. Demons can cause a person to appear to speak in tongues, heal, prophesy, what have you. But what no demon anywhere can emulate is the FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT! Love, joy, patience, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self – control? You are not going to find that among these self – sanctified Christians, who are among the most hateful group of finger – pointing accusers and condemners that you ever want to see, no different from the Sadducees and Pharisees who delivered Jesus Christ and so many of them who were saved by His Name to the Romans for execution. Now Mormons in particular do a good job of being, well, very nice, but it is an act, a veneer, that gets exposed at the first sign of trouble. Why? Because their good works is an outward work by the flesh rather than an inward work by God’s Spirit, so when the flesh is roiled, the works pass away. But if it is an inward work by God’s Spirit on a Christian who truly loves and seeks God through Christ, it will never pass away. It will last for all time!
So, you hear these people preach sin. You hear these people preach salvation. You hear these people preach repentance. You hear these people preach prophecy and gifts. You hear these people preach works. But you do not hear them preach grace, because grace is not in their vocabulary. They know nothing of grace, because they cannot give or receive it because of the hardness of their own hearts. But you are saved by grace. You are set apart by grace. It is not a work that you receive because you are worthy and you deny yourself all these things. What is abstinence, for instance? Marriage is a good thing, coming together with your spouse is a good thing, bearing children is a good thing! Yet, so many grace – deniers glory in abstinence; they worship Mary’s virginity and maintain that it was a perpetual condition! God did not choose Mary because she was a virgin! Mary’s virginity is not why God she found favor in God’s eyes! It may seem difficult to realize in these evil days where 10 year old girls routinely bear children (and they themselves are the progeny of “women” who were 12 when they had their first child), but there were PLENTY of virgins in Judea at that time. The only reason why Mary had to be a virgin was so that the divinity of Christ could not be denied! Certainly, God chose an upright woman of virtue who did not break the law and was not a fornicator, but he also did not choose a liar, an idolator, a thief, a disrespecter of parents, a murderer, etc. Now of course we all KNOW that virgins have committed all of those sins and crimes and more! God chose Mary because of her HEART; she had the same HEART within her as her ancestor David. And Mary did not have a pure heart because she was a virgin, she was a virgin because she had a pure heart! In just the same way that we are not saved by works but rather works are evidence of those who are saved by grace, Mary’s obeying the laws governing personal behavior that God gave her people was evidence of her having a heart to submit to and follow God.

Yet today untold millions of so – called Christians glory in Mary’s flesh and glory in their own flesh and the works thereof. They ignore the Bible when it says to have no confidence in the flesh. When it says that the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things! We are not set apart by what we do; we are set apart by accepting what was done for us! We are set apart by the Holy Spirit because we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. When we do that, we are set apart from those who will be forever destroyed in the lake of fire and those who will not be. And trust me, that is the setting apart that truly matters! Now of course, there are orders, divisions, sanctifications if you will, among the Body of Christ. But we do not determine that with our works, especially if the works are motivated by our own desire for greatness, our own seeking glory or positions. It cannot even be accomplished by a sincere desire to please God! No, God and God alone chooses our role, rank, and place. The degree which we reach the position, the role, the level, the sanctification that God has chosen for us is determined by our willingness not to strive, but to submit. Not by our work, but by our rest. Not by our seeking God, but by our letting go and letting God. We have to accept what Christ has already done for us on the cross. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to work on us, to mold us, to shape us. We have to accept God’s plan for us and our role in His Kingdom. Yes, we are allowed into the Kingdom, and some of us will be exalted in the Kingdom, but it is still HIS KINGDOM. Those who accept what Christ has done for them will be first, those who try to add to it with their own works will be last. It may seem that the ones who are working to add to what Christ has already made them into are going to be first. They are the ones with the big churches, the ones on TV or radio, the ones who sell millions of records and books, the ones who display these amazing works and gifts, but trust me, the vast majority of these were not called, they were not sent, they are going forth doing what seems to them ought to be done but not that which God wants to be accomplished. Sadly, a great many of these things had even greater potential and could have done much greater things had they merely been patient and allowed God to raise them up, but they could not sit still, gave themselves over to their burning passions and imaginations, and went and built works based on their natural abilities. Though God may yet use them and they may do some good, especially in terms of bringing people to Christ, ultimately on judgment day God will not have respect for what they did. God will have more respect to the frail little elderly woman or the little mentally challenged boy who answered His Calls to get up and pray in the middle of the night for this person or for that person than He will for some of the greatest theologians in history! 

Because those who have set their eyes on Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone, those are the ones who will be set apart by God. Those who reject the world, both the worldly sinful pleasures and the seemingly righteous religious system; those are the ones who will be set apart. When will God’s people understand that it is not about the preacher, it is not about the choir, it is not about the denomination, it is not about the auxiliary, it is all about JESUS CHRIST! It is all about Jesus Christ and what He did for you; it is all about sitting around and being still and allowing God to speak to you so that you can follow. How does one seek God? Do not think that you can go about walking to and fro, looking for God by singing in the choir, washing cars, studying the scriptures, attending seminaries, fasting, spending hours on your knees praying and crying and speaking in tongues. Do you not know that if it were possible to find God that way that everyone would do it? If it were possible to find God that way, someone would have done it and written a book about it, and everyone who is not an absolute fool (i.e. someone who actually WANTS to go to the lake of fire) would read that book and follow it! After all, the very reason why there is so little faith in church today, why so many leading ministers do not themselves believe in the Bible, the Virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus Christ, or the return of Jesus Christ, creation, etc. is because so many have sought the Lord sincerely and FAILED. Why did they fail? It is not because they are not saved, it is not because they are not sincere, it is not because they are not filled with the Holy Spirit and lack gifts, it is because they sought the Lord with works!

You must stop seeking the Lord through works of the flesh. Seek the Lord through obedience. Start with the Bible. You know that the Bible says. You have the example of Jesus Christ, the prophets, and the disciples. Follow it! Seek the Lord through faith. Know that no matter what happens, no matter how the devil is attacking you, no matter how barren and dry your situation might seem, you are still saved. You are still filled with the Holy Spirit. You are still God’s elect. And you are still the one that God can call when He needs a man on the earth to stand up and do His Will. Why hasn’t God called you yet? As Jesus Christ told his mother when asked to turn water into wine, your time has not yet come! But as the time of Jesus Christ came, your time will come! Just wait on the Lord and have faith! Quit trying to redeem and justify yourself with the power and spirit of man! That is rebellion! That is witchcraft! It is abomination in the sight of the Lord! Instead, wait until the Lord calls you. It can be 100 years, but the Lord will call. If you say that you do not believe in waiting, or if you wait the Lord may never call so you are going to move on your own, then you are not really saved. Despite your professions, you are not really saved. You are not really saved because you do not believe in God. You do not believe in the true God, a sovereign God. You believe in a God of your own creation and imagination, a God who answers to your will. And you will pay for that blasphemy on judgment day!

Seek the Lord through submission. Give up yourself, your self desires and will. Be like Christ in the

Garden of
Gethsemane: say “Not my will but thy will be done.” Now how many people preach that today, especially in our charismatic churches? They don’t tell you to submit to God! They tell you to command God through the spirit! To “name it and claim it!” “Mountain be removed!” they tell you to say. But they never ask you “Did God tell you to move that mountain?” Ever sit around and think that maybe God put that mountain there for a reason? Maybe that mountain is blocking the east wind from blasting your crops! So you move that mountain not with the power of God but rather with some dark demonic witchcraft power, and yes, Satan and his demons will go along with it! Why? Because they want that mountain to be moved, and they want your crops to be blasted and ruined! So you get that job, but your marriage breaks up. You get that pile of money, but your kids go to jail. It is not about you and what you want! It is not about how you can hustle about and raise money for and pressure people into attending your church to fill the offering plates and the pews! God is not trying to raise up gangsters, hustlers, pimps, and extortionists! But that is what so many people have turned into because they have forsaken God for their own works! And the very worst of this sort are the very ones who have the nerve to call themselves “sanctified.” Oh, they are set apart all right, but not by God, and they are going to find out on judgment day.  

Watch. Pray. Be at rest. Trust God. Believe the Scriptures and the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ. May the peace of God be upon you so that the spirit of God may come into you and sanctify you. That is the only way it is going to happen; it will happen only if you believe and accept it by believing and accepting that Christ has already done it for you on the cross and claimed it for you and set it free for you when He rose from the grave.  


Father God in the name of Christ Jesus, please lead your children away from dead outward works of the flesh and towards the living inward works of the spirit so that they can find true sanctification. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 


The demons that work in this area are idolatry, false teaching, false doctrine, and legalism. People involved in this heresy deny God’s grace because they do not believe in it and cannot receive it, and they replace God’s grace with concept of their own virtue that they believe they arrive at through works, through personal declarations of their own righteousness, and through continual condemnation of others. Do not join yourself unto these people, and if this describes your current church or fellowship, be as
Lot and urgently leave that spiritual
Sodom and


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