I’ve been going through on a search and destroy mission for everything in my life that doesn’t honor Jesus Christ. I found here a stupid network marketing blog for some overpriced kool aid that I wasted probably thousands of the Lord’s dollars on and did untold damage to my reputation and credibility trying to gather people into it, like that takes courage.
I almost deleted the whole thing, like I did for other blogs devoted to my wasteful and depraved habits, but then I found a reflection on Sam Allison and stayed my hand. He has gone to be with the Lord now. I didn’t know him in his youth or in his time as a pastor, so I can’t speak to that. But I know I saw Christ formed in him in his old age.
He suffered under a physical ailment that took his voice and mobility for many of the last years of his time here. He always seemed to be rejoicing and endeavored to be an example to the people of God.
I repent of tainting his spiritual legacy to try to hawk some stupid kool aid, but I’ll leave that one post up as it is if only as a caution against the deceitfulness of sin.
My old man makes the note that Pastor Allison gave an example of how we must be in our business. This much is true as it is in Romans 12:11,
“Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord”
It was as though Pastor Allison had read all of Romans 12, and took care to obey it. Look what else it says. v. 12,
“Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;”
This was a prayerful man. He and his wife had extensive lists of names and concerns for the many people that they knew. They would systematically bring them before the Lord. He was one continuing in prayer. Men could not hear him, but he knew the Lord would hear his voice.
I propose that Pastor Allison was not exceptional among those who make their calling and election sure, but is the norm. And yet he was a rare jewel within the visible church. How!?
The arm of the Lord is not short. It’s us. It must be us. We are missing something.
What it is isn’t something complicated. It’s not that he understood the doctrine better than everyone else. I’m sure he understood it masterfully in his youth, but the mind loses some of its sharpness as we age and especially as we near the doors of death.
It’s that he did what he knew. He was sincere. He didn’t make excuses for why he should get to sin. He didn’t tolerate such thoughts to enter his mind, and when they did he must’ve shot them dead by the power of the Spirit.
His heart belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ. I can say that with assurance and certainty. And I say it without any kind of sentimentality because it actually did belong to Jesus Christ. Look here,
1Co 6:19-20 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? [20] For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
It’s his possession. He marked it out in baptism and he said this is mine. Guard it. It’s holy to God.
Some talk about the objectivity of the covenant. And it is objective there’s objectivity to it. But note his election was totally irrelevant to his duty to God in the new covenant. We don’t need to meddle in matters that are too high for us. Look what he says,
Jhn 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Sam (and all of us) had a duty by virtue of his birth to Christian parents to continue in the covenant. And the same was reinforced and sworn at his baptism.
Consider your baptism. How many people are baptized today and do not know what it means. All the wasted energy arguing over mode and recipients when we miss the principle thing. It signifies death with Christ, that those who are dead to sin are made alive with Christ.
But it’s not merely a sign. It’s a seal.
It’s a ratified covenant sealed with the mark of God that requires the recipient to be dead to sin, to repent specifically, totally, and continually, and be united with Christ forever by faith. This is nothing strange: God requires all men everywhere to repent. But especially the church, seeing we are bound in covenant with God to do so.
And that’s what Samuel Allison did. That’s the basic milk and he drank it.
Heb 6:1-2 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
He feared God. He kept the basics and built on them. He said within his soul, “I will do this in his service”. God said the sin must die, he was sworn to kill it from his baptism, and Sam did not spare it. God commands this of me and Sam found the commandments of God were not burdensome. They weren’t burdensome: none of them are! They were a delight to him. They kept his feet from falling. They gave him a good and prolific life as a Christian: as a man of God. Though it was through much tribulation that he entered into the kingdom of God.
And, we can hope, he didn’t wait for any special movement from the Spirit to start doing it. We mustn’t wait for God to move us when we’re just not feeling like it. There’s one God and it’s not you. He commands and you obey. And you better do it irrespective of what you think your elected status is. Because look at what he says,
Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
And again,
Rom 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
And again and again in so many other places. We can be deceived by sin. In fact the first thing sin does is deceive you into thinking it’s not a big deal. But it is.
Living sin kills.
Here is the only way you can have assurance. It’s by walking in the truth and getting enough experience in it to realize: “I am the Lord’s. He’s allowing me to do this by the power of his Spirit. He’s allowing me to oppose my sin and to not let it have dominion over me. He’s giving me the spiritual weapons to fight the spiritual battles in my spirit. And it’s not a burden it’s a delight.”
I believe in Jesus Christ and that he declared me to be righteous irrespective of any of my moral works so that he is glorified in justifying a sinner by grace. Jesus: not some head of doctrine or a set of propositions, but a person. A divine person with power to deliver me and you from the power of sin.
Do you believe this? If so, don’t just have a form of godliness while denying the power of it! That’s the most danger a person can be in.
God has called me as one who has received him by faith to put off the deeds of the flesh. Not merely to leave them behind, but to bring them to the cross, and to crucify them with Christ and never bring them down again as I consider the cost. Consider the cost God paid to deliver you from the guilt of sin. Do not spare the life of that sin any more than God spared the life of his Son.
Someone may say, “well what about all these other people that get away with doing whatever they want in the church?” Do you envy the unrighteous? We must work on our hearts. That’s the battleground! God called us to love our brother and to help him. Start in your heart and help others to see the way by your example and with gentle words. That’s what Sam Allison did.
Go and do likewise. Prove to your soul that there’s a life of faith in you.
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