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I do not come here promoting any certain denomination. The only denomination that I know of that teaches foot washing as an ordinance is the Freewill Baptist church. I think the ordinance of foot washing very important and wish it was kept up. When we had a plating department in our facility I worked myself up to Lab Technician and worked under a chemist. This chemist was very smart and very good at math. When he laid out equations he did so in very neat handwriting and there would be much activity as he turned the results of an analysis into an addition. I would take his calculations and put them in the form of visual basic functions and sub procedures.

Of all the years I worked with this man I had one opportunity to witness to him. I made my presentation while he was analyzing adhesion under a microscope in which you could hear the sounds... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! After my presentation he just continued to look under the microscope as if ignored everything I said so I just continued in my work. Then... The scratch scratch, scratching stopped! And he speaks!

"You know what I think it is?" He says while continuing to look under the microscope... "I think it is arrogance!"

And then, without taking his eyes off the microscope, he continues his work... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! I did not reply but went about my work. Inside I feared he was right. In many cases religion can inhabit too much personal ego. Which was not the case when we had good messages, heart felt conviction, ordinances such as foot washings, and trips to the altar and prayer! And we would leave such services with a clean feeling on the inside!

 

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. - 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? - 1 Corinthians 6:19

 

And…
19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. - Ephesians 2

 

Remembering how Christ was experienced here in the Southeast 100 years ago. I don’t know of any services like these here in modern times. This story is dear to me as I experienced these things myself in like methods….

The Life of George Clark Rankin

 

Remembering how Christ was experienced here in the Southeast 100 years ago. I don’t know of any services like these here in modern times. This story is dear to me as I experienced these things myself in like methods….

The Life of George Clark Rankin

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. - Matthew 24:12

I am hoping we are not saying the cold church service is from God. Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps. - Numbers 10:2

Metaphors...

First Trumpet - The Spirit
Second Trumpet - The Word
Whole Piece - They never take two opposing views
The Assembly - Church service
Journeying - Direction and order of service

First Trumpet - As in....
*** The song service
*** Worship
*** Praise
*** The Holy Spirit
*** Prayer Meetings
*** Spiritual fruit - The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. - Galatians 5:22-23
***Spiritual E/c2 - Spiritual Energy (warmth, love, motivation) / Spiritual Light (faith, hope, charity, joy)

Second Trumpet - As in....
*** The Ministry of the Word
*** The Preacher or Evangelist
*** The Circuit Rider of Exhorter
*** Christ Jesus
*** Bible studies
*** Spiritual Knowledge - And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. - 2 Timothy 3:15

And we have had ministry teams such as...

John and Charles Wesley
DL Moody and Ira Sankey
Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver
Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea

I enjoy services when ministry includes good worship and a time in the word. There would have been a lot of ministries that would have been more effective had they good worship to go along with the time in the word. And... A RW Schambach sermon on the topic...

 

John Bunyan's Methods of a full salvation... In which the witness of the Spirit is picked up at the Porter's House. And how I would teach the doctrine....

1. Salvation - As the Christian leaves the City of Destruction and makes his way to the Celestial City.
2. Sanctification - At the interpreter's house - Or in the inner temple
3. The Witness of the Spirit - At the porter's house - Or in the Holy of Holies

The City of Destruction The place where evangelists set people on their journey to the Celestial City
The Slough of Despair This represents the mire that well intentioned religious people bring to the way
Legalities Mountain The enemy attempt to indoctrinate pilgrims with doctrine designed to inhibit spiritual light
Plain of Instruction The evangelist sets the pilgrim on the right direction from the “Mr. Worldly Wiseman”
The Wicket Gate The sinners prayer. Salvation.... The pilgrim now enters into the Lord’s country
The Interpreters House This is a time of instruction where caring people instruct and disciple. Sanctification.
Porters House The journey to a higher place where one receives the witness of the spirit.
Valley of Humiliation Time for some trials and testing!
Valley of the Shadow of Death Time to overcome the wicked one!
Vanity Fair Discipled and proven Christians now witness to their present world.
Doubting Castle Christians choose path that takes them down to the terrible giant despair.
Lucre Mountain Temptations of material goods
Demas Silver Mines Represents those trapped by their material possessions and come to a place of all work.
Delectable Mountains Represents revival and a season of refreshing
An Entangling Net The flatterers will try to flatter pilgrims unto a place of high minded spiritual bondage
Enchanted Ground ground to a sound spiritual sleep!
Beulah Land Experienced Christian faith, hope, and charity that shine brightly night and day!
Great River The river flows through various places in the Pilgrims Progress and represents death.
Final Destination After crossing the river, either the Celestial City or the Underworld… Which will it be?

 

Anyone who teaches sanctification along with salvation is normally someone I will read into and enjoy.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; - 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4

I am a member of the Pentecostal Holiness church. Most preachers in this area are getting their degrees from Liberty University in Lynchburg. And to check into the latest news into Jerry Falwell Jr I worry that the doctrine of sanctification is not taught there.

 

I have read my bible through many times. My favorite theologian is John Bunyan and I have read his complete library at Virginia Tech.

The bible, especially Revelation, is written with much metaphor. I cannot believe one can study Revelation, and the bible, and see the same perspective as another fellow believer. You will agree and disagree on the interpretation of different passages...

John Bunyan was a great writer in metaphors/parables and he explains the use of them in his "The Barren Fig-tree" work):

6 He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.
7 Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?
8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:
9 And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. - Luke 13:6-9

In parables there are two things to be taken notice of, and to be inquired into of them that read.

First, The metaphors made use of.
Second, The doctrine or mysteries couched under such metaphors.

The metaphors in this parable are,
1. A certain man;
2. A vineyard;
3. A fig-tree, barren or fruitless;
4. A dresser;
5. Three years;
6. Digging and dunging, &c.

The doctrine, or mystery, couched under these words is to show us what is like to become of a fruitless or formal professor. For,

1. By the man in the parable is meant God the Father (Luke 15:11).
2. By the vineyard, his church (Isa 5:7).
3. By the fig-tree, a professor.
4. By the dresser, the Lord Jesus.
5. By the fig-tree's barrenness, the professor's fruitlessness.
6. By the three years, the patience of God that for a time he extendeth to barren professors.
7. This calling to the dresser of the vineyard to cut it down, is to show the outcries of justice against fruitless professors.
8. The dresser's interceding is to show how the Lord Jesus steps in, and takes hold of the head of his Father's axe, to stop, or at least to defer, the present execution of a barren fig-tree.
9. The dresser's desire to try to make the fig-tree fruitful, is to show you how unwilling he is that even a barren fig-tree should yet be barren, and perish.
10. His digging about it, and dunging of it, is to show his willingness to apply gospel helps to this barren professor, if haply he may be fruitful.
11. The supposition that the fig-tree may yet continue fruitless, is to show, that when Christ Jesus hath done all, there are some professors will abide barren and fruitless.
12. The determination upon this supposition, at last to cut it down, is a certain prediction of such professor's unavoidable and eternal damnation.

But to take this parable into pieces, and to discourse more particularly, though with all brevity, upon all the parts thereof. 'A certain MAN had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard.' The MAN, I told you, is to present us with God the Father; by which similitude he is often set out in the New Testament. Observe then, that it is no new thing, if you find in God's church barren fig-trees, fruitless professors; even as here you see is a tree, a fruitless tree, a fruitless fig-tree in the vineyard.

Fruit is not so easily brought forth as a profession is got into; it is easy for a man to clothe himself with a fair show in the flesh, to word it, and say, Be thou warmed and filled with the best. It is no hard thing to do these with other things; but to be fruitful, to bring forth fruit to God, this doth not every tree, no not every fig-tree that stands in the vineyard of God. Those words also, 'Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away,' assert the same thing (John 15:2). There are branches in Christ, in Christ's body mystical, which is his church, his vineyard, that bear not fruit, wherefore the hand of God is to take them away: I looked for grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes, that is, no fruit at all that was acceptable with God (Isa 5:4). Again, 'Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself,' none to God; he is without fruit to God (Hosea 10:1). All these, with many more, show us the truth of the observation, and that God's church may be cumbered with fruitless fig-trees, with barren professors.

 

I came to Christ in the old a Methodist way and in the old revival sermons, whose, like Schambachs, were, “typical revival sermons, full of unction and power.” And quoting George Clark Rankin…

After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.

At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!

By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.

As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.

Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.

When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.

After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:

"My son, do you not love God?"

"I cannot remember when I did not love him."

"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"

"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."

"Do you accept him as your Savior?"

"I certainly do, and have always done so."

"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"

"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."

"Do you love everybody?"

"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."

"Can you forgive him?"

"Yes, if he wanted me to."

"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"

"Yes, sir; I can do that."

"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."

Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."

 

The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."

That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.

As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.

 

I frankly miss the old Methodist ways that I was brought up in. I plan on writing a little paper on it and mailing it around. It is especially frightening for me to see the departure of the teachings of Sanctification the Wesleyan way. It was said in these mountains, back in the 1800's, that there was an old farmer who got upset with his horse for not plowing straight wind rows and then proceeds to whip his horse. His wife then hollars off the front porch "Not yet honey! Not yet!" When you get sanctified the Wesleyan way the first creatures to know about it are the family pets. Instead of kicking them you will rub them and show a little love.

As John Wesley set out on his voyage to Georgia in 1735 he began to keep that delightful Journal which has now become an English classic. One Sunday the gale was terrific. The sea poured in between the decks. The main sail was torn to tatters. The English passengers screamed with terror. The German Moravians calmly sang a hymn.

“Was not you afraid?” said Wesley.
“I thank God, no” replied the Brother.
“But were not your women and children afraid?”
“No; our women and children are not afraid to die.”
John Wesley was deeply stirred. For all his piety he still lacked something which these Moravians possessed. He lacked their triumphant confidence in God. He was still afraid to die. “How is it thou hast no faith?” he said to himself.
“My brother,” he said, “I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?”
John Wesley was so staggered that he could not answer.
“Do you know Jesus Christ?” continued Spangenberg.
“I know he is the Saviour of the world.”
“True; but do you know he has saved you?”
“I hope,” replied Wesley, “he has died to save me.”
“Do you know yourself?”
“I do,” said Wesley; but he wrote, he feared they were mere words.

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” - John Wesley