Hi, from the Salvation Army, you're listening to Words of Life. May we live a life that reflects who You are to the world around us. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Well, here we are again, and it's a joy to be with you. In this session, we're going to talk about holiness in its practice in the Salvation Army today. We have one of our 11 doctrines, the 10th doctrine that says, We believe it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, we're on safe ground because we simply quoted Scripture. We quoted 1 Thessalonians 3, 24 and 25, but we do affirm the possibility and importance of holiness in the Salvation Army. And we want to talk about what we see and what we feel and think and experience today in terms of the practice and teaching of holiness. And all of us have been exposed around, at least over the last few years, us retired folks, maybe not as recently. But the Uries have traveled and teach holiness, and we believe that holiness is alive and well in the Salvation Army and the heart of it.
And what do you see? How do you feel as a holiness, part of the holiness movement in a church that affirms scriptural holiness? How are we doing?
Well, okay. Well, I would go back to our roots, and William Booth would talk about not just personal holiness, but the importance of a corporate holiness of the Salvation Army in general and what that looked like as we moved into the world, as we lived out the work and the mission and the command to go into the world and preach the gospel. I think we preach the gospel. I think we share the gospel. I think we are the hands and feet in many places where we serve the marginalized, the less fortunate. And that's in the vein of Mother Teresa would be something that she would speak about, that's holiness.
We need to be people with our sleeves rolled up. Holiness is serving the Lord with our sleeves rolled up, ministering in His name. You know, whether we're preaching it, you know, it used to be a holiness meeting on Sunday morning.
That's what we called it. And I don't know that it's called that very many places, but whether we're preaching it in a general sense and with specificity from corps to corps to corps, I don't know that that's the case, but I still think it's alive and well and being emphasized in many different ways, you know, as seen in this podcast today. So, that would be a little bit of my perspective on today.
That's beautiful. I'm looking at you guys and just thankful to the Lord for your decades of service in all these areas, what you just mentioned, but also deep, passionate love for Jesus, love for His Word, love for His people. Diane and I are grateful to have had seven years in this position, but every time we talk, we say, Lord, this is almost too much glory.
We just can't believe the privilege of being able to do this. Let me just say as I start, I don't know of another denomination that would hire two people to come and say, remind us who we are theologically. That's just a very unique, humble approach to reality. And so we have, and every time we do, we're saying we're not worthy, but we're going to just talk about what we know is true. Historically for me in the church, the sad cycle is you start with a man or a woman, a leader, you become a movement, and that becomes a monument every time it happens.
So, what we're saying right now is not because we're critiquing, except out of love saying let's not become a monument like everybody else before us. Keep moving in the spirit. Let him move us for the sake of the world. And he can only do that if he can make us holy.
That's what the world needs. We need to be holy. But it's hard.
Officer's lives are hard. You deal with crises every few hours or moments, and what you get is people who are broken to the bottom of their lives, and it's hard to say, hey, you need to be sanctified holy. So, I think what we do is we just go for the easiest place. We want to help you, feed you, clothe you, and you need Jesus.
Well, of course. But that goal of offering people holiness of heart and life, that's just very difficult, it seems to me. And so, what happens is officers tend to go toward, I fix the problem. I offer a Band-Aid here, and then I go to the next Band-Aid here.
It's a tough way to live life. So, we don't want to offer something that's impossible, but we do want to say let's not forget our roots, like you mentioned. There's something that those folks saw and were called to that we are also called to. I'm going to read a quote from Catherine Booth. She was the theological founder of the Salvation Army. And she says, she's talking about union with Jesus.
And she says, And I include in that feeding programs and housing programs. If we're trusting in that as the Salvation Army, we're deceiving our people. Christ wants union with himself for all people.
He's no respecter of persons. Everyone, he's calling to holiness because holiness is what every human person's created for. And she says, this is the very essence of the gospel.
Christ came on purpose for us to have this union. And she's talking about holiness. And what I want us to know is that in the Salvation Army, we have this in our DNA and we know in every place Bill and I go, every single place we see soldiers, friends of the army and officers who are hungry for holiness. Hungry for holiness. I would say almost 100% of the places we go, someone will come to me with tears dripping off their face. Thank you. Thank you.
And even just recently, I had a guy come up to me and he was pounding his chest and tears were coming down his face. He said, I want to be a holy man. And he said, don't ever stop preaching holiness. I had given up.
Don't ever stop because now I believe that this can be real. And I just want everyone to know that the Lord is moving in the Salvation Army. Every single place we go, every territory, every person is created for holiness. We're created to be filled with the life of God. And when we talk about holiness, I don't care if you're talking to eight year olds in your core or your church. They're created for that.
And they need that. And so this hunger is met with this very good news. Everywhere I go, I see people living holy lives, serving the Lord. On the front lines often, I think we live holiness.
And I think I would probably vote for this if I had to make a choice. We live holiness better than we teach it and preach it. I see an absence, a void of teaching and preaching holiness. And some of it is our leadership structure and the huge demands and our outreach ministries upon our pastors, our officers. It takes study, preparation, and a real desire to be able to preach and teach holiness on top of all the responsibilities that they have. You have a quote from Catherine Booth I put in my Bible.
If holiness is not the central idea of Christianity, then I do not understand it. And I wish we could get back to that kind of an orientation. I feel like officers and people who are leadership, we seem to have lost that.
We love it sort of as an historical foundation, but in terms of dynamic, like you're saying, engaging, studying, learning. So what I've tried to do over the last few years is say to officers, how do you view people you minister to? What is the goal you have and why you're serving?
What's the end? And the phrase that I've learned from Wesley and Oswald Chambers, and it's biblical, is that person perfect in Christ. That's my goal. Whatever I'm saying, doing, serving, that's the ultimate goal. Not to get saved from sins alone, but walking in perfect love with Jesus. And if that's your goal, then it changes the way you talk, the way you teach, the way you preach. And you're going to get a lot of kickback because that's fought even in the church.
I can't be proud, I don't want that. And we're saying, well, wait, what is the whole Bible about? So it means a whole biblical theology. We feel the weight. When we say it to officers like, oh, I've got too much to do, you're going to add that too?
Well, maybe a little bit. I think holiness strengthens our resolve in a world that's so chaotic and sinful, it strengthens our resolve to live the Christian life, the holy life, and not be squeezed into the mold of the world. So it really is a need, it really is. It's something that the Lord expects of us. I think holiness is the basic human need. And our call and our mission statement is to meet human needs without discrimination.
That means holiness. That's the basic human need. And that should just fill us with joy and passion for everyone we serve, everyone. Preach holiness. That's what people are dying for. They want to be set free.
They want to know they can be who they truly are, their true selves. It's good news. One of our mentors has said this, there's enough truth in the scripture to have a reformation in every generation. And I look at us, and the reformation occurred over 500 years ago.
Now we're half a millennia after that. I'm asking, where are we as a church? What's the evangelical church actually doing in culture?
Not much. So maybe we need a revival and a reformation. Start with us, Lord, whatever you want to do, to do something new that you want to do, not for our sake, for your glory in the world.
And I feel like there's some undercurrent in the army of saying, okay, we're ready. Yes. Lord, do this.
Do this now. I want our listeners to know that God is moving in the Salvation Army. He is moving dramatically. He is.
All around the United States, and even we were just in Europe, and He moved powerfully. And He is doing great and beautiful things. I just want to say a huge thank you to this incredible group for joining us for this series on Words of Life.
I know I've been blessed by it, so I pray that you have been too. If you'd like to study more on this topic, be sure to check out Lieutenant Colonel Vern Jewitt's podcast, The Holiness Podcast, or Bill Urey's podcast called The Hour of Holiness. You can find either one of these on your favorite podcast store, and we'll have links on our website as well. Visit wordsoflifepodcast.org.
Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life.
