So we come to the fourth step and see disclosed the great ministry of the saints. Their holinesss is all derived. It is begotten in them of God - begotten in that very human nature which man in self-despair had recognized as hopeless and corrupt.
Look at the saints! Listen to the first martyr and his magnificent echo of Calvary: ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge!’ Pass in review the noble men and women of all ages who have ‘marked the footsteps that He trod’ and come to sanctity.
God did this with tainted seed, shapen in iniquity, and begotten into
a polluted world. Can anything be put beyond the power of the Holy
Spirit? Alll the saints came of one diseased stock and some of them had
brought forth fruit consonant with the stock from which they came.
They had been open sinners, sensual, bestial and proud in it. They
made a pagentry of their
evil living. Like their precursors in the faith at Corinth, some
of them had been fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers
of themselves, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners...but
now they were washed and sanctified!.
God did it! Now let the heart of man ‘deceitful above all things’ and ‘desperately sick’ deny the challenge of the saint’s example. If God could do this with men and women - and such men and women - might He not do something with me? Even me? . [part IV]