Introducing The Holiness Podcast

Hi, this is Bernie Dake from Wonderful Words of Life. I want to take a moment and introduce you to a new podcast also produced by the Salvation Army Soundcast. The Holiness Podcast is a monthly Bible study with Salvation Army Officer Lieutenant Colonel Vern Jewett. This is an in-depth study on the gift of holiness God offers to his people. The following is an interview between Colonel Jewett and Major Cam Henderson as they both share the heart behind this new show. Subscribe to the Holiness Podcast on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Well, we've done now three episodes, so we just recorded our third episode, and we thought it'd be a good idea to kind of just stop and introduce you a little bit, introduce me just a little bit, kind of talk to the audience about why we're doing this.

But this is something that's burning in your heart, I remember. So how did you come about with the need to preach and this particular topic? Well, ever since I was a teenager in high school, I became involved in interscholastic debate, then at the collegiate level, and then at the graduate level. And when God called me to preach, he did call me to be a Salvation Army officer, which is a little distinct from being called just to preach. But preaching and teaching are natural gifts.

I say natural, I think they're supernatural gifts that God has given to me and that I've always focused on and enjoyed in my ministry. However, as you know, being a Salvation Army officer requires a lot of other avenues of service and other responsibilities, and particularly the last 15, 16 years of our officership, we did a lot of administrative work. I was able to preach and teach occasionally. So first, it was my desire to do what I felt God had called me to do. But about two years ago, in my own personal devotions, actually was after I had a tragic accident, and I'm probably lucky to still be here.

Yeah. But I had a wonderful experience with the Lord. And what he said to me pretty clearly was that he wanted me to stay in my lane. So rather than accept opportunities in retirement, and I'm now in my 70s, so opportunities to do things I can do, I believe he wants me to do things that I believe he's gifted me to do.

Right. And so I basically am trying to stay in my lane teaching and preaching. Now, the whole podcast end of it, that's your element here, and you've brought me in as a real novice when it comes to that.

So we're exploring it. But holiness has been a big part of my life of teaching, particularly in the last 50 to 20 years. I've had the opportunity to teach holiness on a pretty regular basis, and I have a love for it.

My wife gets a little frustrated because when I sit down in my study and open my Bible, she can come in four hours later and say, what's going on? And I am in my happy place. That's awesome.

So that's kind of where I am personally when it comes to this. Well, it's exciting. I mean, credit where credit's due, Colonel Eliak, our divisional commander now, you were divisional commander in Florida a few commands ago.

Well, no, there was somebody in between. That's right. And Colonel Eliak said he wanted to do a podcast, and it connected with the fact that you are now in Florida, and I'm trying to do some things with the Holiness Center, the Center for Holiness Studies. And so that seemed to all work together. And then Chris Benjamin at territorial headquarters has been a tremendous help to all of us. So we kind of, you do the great work and hard work of study, and then we kind of roll it all up and send it off to them and they package it.

So what the listener hears is a lot through their hard work. And so that's wonderful. But that's been a really neat time. I've been excited by them.

I've enjoyed downloading them myself and subscribing to it so when they roll out every month. And we'll see how this goes. We've talked about maybe doing more than once a month.

We're trying to learn how to do it first and those things. But anyway, I'm real excited too about the aspect about people can download a study material and continue the study. What's your hope for that?

You do studies in your own and young adult studies in your own core. Praise the Lord. So I mean, is there a hope for that or a hope for direction for that?

Or do we even know? Well, it's interesting, you know, in this kind of communication ministry, one medium flows into another. And so I find the other opportunities I have affected by what I'm studying and what I'm doing for the podcast. And I'm very excited about being associated with Soundcast. A long time ago, I was the producer of those programs when I was stationed at Teratola headquarters and was involved in the radio programs there.

And Florida, we just love Florida. And it was when we were here that the Holiness Center became a reality. And the people, the soldiers and officers in Florida have a hunger for holiness that keeps me going. When I meet people at core, divisional events, it's not unusual for someone to talk about having been to a Bringle Institute or asking about what's happening with the Holiness Center. So it seems to be timely and I'm pretty excited too about what's happening.

That's neat. Maybe just the last things are that I'm excited about the specific topic too, not just of holiness in general, but I know your heart of wanting to get out the understanding of the gift of holiness, not my work to look holy or to put on the costume of holy, but to become holy in what God has done. Can you say a word or two about that? I think it would be good for the listeners to understand your heart in that, I think.

Sure. Of course, salvation is a gift and holiness is part of our, of salvation. Salvation is not a once in a lifetime regret for not being sorry sooner, that kind of thing. It's a new life and holy living is part of that life. And in that way it too is a gift from God.

I've been struck by the fact that the end of Luke, the very end of Luke and the first part of the book of Acts, both of which Luke wrote, have the same story and same episode with Luke referring to Jesus saying, God has promised to give you a gift. And that gift is the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives in a way that is different. Even as Jesus taught, the Holy Spirit is with you, but he will be in you. And the power, the spiritual power that comes from the presence of the Holy Spirit only comes if we seek to set ourselves apart and give him complete control of our lives. That, I believe, is what holiness is all about. It's about relationship and the aspect of it coming from God, being of God, originated by God, the power comes from God within us. All of that says to me that we need to make people know and appreciate the fact that God wants to give you holiness.

And you can't attain it in any way, so receive it. And if we can awake passion for that, I mean, we can do our part. It's the Holy Spirit that awakes the passion within us. And if he does that in people's lives, then that's the purpose of my ministry. I praise the Lord for that, too. I mean, I teach a Sunday school class, and in the Sunday school class, sometimes we come across sections where the teacher, who's a godly teacher, but doesn't teach the way we understand and preach and teach holiness.

And I'm constantly finding, not constantly, but whenever those comes up, find myself having to be in a weird spot of not wanting to say, don't listen to this teacher, but wanting to say, can I give you a more full understanding? So to get that word out in a very easy to understand way like you do, I'm excited to do that, I really am. In fact, the last time that came up, which a few weeks ago, I referred folks to the podcast and I said, listen to this episode. I said, Colonel Jewett just spoke about this and subscribe to it and keep learning about how we do it. And it's not a salvationist way of understanding holiness.

It's Wesley Arminian. We're not making something else up, but I don't know that a lot of other folks are sharing, or at least understanding the same message. So I'm glad we are. I agree with you and I do think that's very important for us to realize that holiness is one of the three or four most prominent, pervasive teachings in the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, it is everywhere. There are literally hundreds of commands and instructions and exhortations for us to be holy people. And we certainly have to take some responsibility for the fact that it's allowed to have become almost an afterthought.

And there are some people who have misunderstanding of what it is, and we need to address it because it's God's plan for us. Yeah, that's right. Well, thanks a lot. And this is, I don't know if this will be on video or not, but just in case we set up a video, but this is where we do our recordings.

It's a very humble place. And maybe other people with a message or a heart to share, they want to just set up something simple and record, but this is where we do it. Anyway, glad you're doing this anyway. So thank you, bless you. Thanks so much for listening and we'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions or prayer requests. Visit us at salvationarmysoundcast.org slash holiness. And if you're enjoying this Bible study, share it with a friend. They can subscribe wherever they get their podcasts.