Notes of Faith October 22, 2024
Highway of Holiness
A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness…. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to [Jerusalem] with singing.
Isaiah 35:8, 10
Flip Wilson was the first African American comedian to host his own successful television variety show. Many of his catchphrases became iconic in American culture like, “The devil made me do it!”
A day is coming when no one will be able to say, “The devil made me do it.” During Christ’s Millennial Kingdom the devil will be bound (Revelations 20:1-3). And who will be dwelling on earth then? Old Testament saints who followed God, Christians who died before the Rapture, those taken to heaven at the Rapture, those who are martyred for their faith during the Tribulation, and those who become believers during the Tribulation but are not martyred and enter the Millennium. In other words, earth will be populated by all believers in Christ at the beginning of the Millennium!
The prophets foresaw a “Highway of Holiness” leading to Jerusalem on which would walk all those who were holy unto the Lord. Let us purpose to live holy lives today just as we will in the future (1 Peter 1:15-16).
Everything in Scripture has in view the promotion of holiness.
A. W. Pink
Rom 7:15-20
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.
Rom 7:24-25
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!
This battle will go on until we are called home to heaven…but as Paul talked about himself and the battle with his sinful nature, we read of how God used him mightily for His glory. Let us pursue holiness and purity, though we will fail to live a perfect holy life, it is the life that God created us to live!
Pastor Dale