And the application of this is that truth is always vital in sanctification. People make things up, even well-meaning people. Sometimes people come up to you and they are quite troubled because they have been given some advice, and the advice does not work. They were given the advice by an earnest Christian who made a sweeping statement and said, ‘If you were a true Christian, such-and-such would be true.’ It seemed a good idea, but it is piece of homespun philosophy. They did not get it from the Bible. And the result is that somebody has gone round cowed and troubled because this advice did not work.
Sometimes it happens in teaching. You know, when you get into the twentieth century, a lot of the preachers started leaving good old Reformed doctrine and Puritanism behind. These were the days before television and before film, and thousands of people, even people in the world, would go and hear a preacher. There was great interest in the beginning of the 1900s in preachers who could come up with really interesting novelties. And they became enormously popular. I can think of one South African preacher at the end of the 1800s and into the 1900s, who came up with brilliant new ideas about sanctification. His name was Andrew Murray. His books are still very popular among some people. He came up with for the first time with this sanctification expression – ‘Let go, let God.’ Don’t you do a thing. God will do it all for you. If you simply visualise Christ on Calvary and trust him, then you will not have to strive or try. It will all be automatic, but it was complete fiction. Millions tried it. It troubled souls for years and confused the church of Christ. In modern times, you have got somebody like Dr John Piper with his Christian hedonism reducing all of sanctification to just delighting in the Lord. Sadly, people make things up and they try to prove them scripturally, but when you look at the small print you find they have not proved their case at all. Truth is important. Is it in the Bible? If I am going to give somebody some advice, did I get it from the Bible? Nowadays there is all the Christianised psycho-counsel. It is all made up, it is not in the Bible, and yet it is very popular.