How To Live A Holy Life Order Printed Copy

Author: Charles Ebert Orr
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About the Book

"How To Live A Holy Life" by Charles Ebert Orr is a practical guide to living a life that is pleasing to God. The book discusses the importance of holiness, how to cultivate a personal relationship with God, and practical steps for maintaining a holy lifestyle. Orr emphasizes the importance of living in obedience to God's Word and seeking purity in all aspects of life. Overall, the book serves as a valuable resource for those seeking to deepen their spiritual walk and live a life that reflects God's character.

John Stott

Introduction John Stott was born in London in 1921 to Sir Arnold and Lady Stott. He was educated at Rugby School, where he became head boy, and Trinity College Cambridge. At Trinity he earned a double first in French and theology, and was elected a senior scholar. John Stott trained for the pastorate at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He was awarded a Lambeth doctorate in divinity (DD) in 1983 and has honorary doctorates from universities in America, Britain, and Canada. He was listed in Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” (April, 2005) and was named in the Queen’s New Years Honours list as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on December 31, 2005. Conversion Although John Stott was confirmed into the Anglican Church in 1936 and took part in formal religious duties at school, he remained spiritually restless. As a typical adolescent, I was aware of two things about myself, though doubtless I could not have articulated them in these terms then. First, if there was a God, I was estranged from him. I tried to find him, but he seemed to be enveloped in a fog I could not penetrate. Secondly, I was defeated. I knew the kind of person I was, and also the kind of person I longed to be. Between the ideal and the reality there was a great gulf fixed. I had high ideals but a weak will… [W]hat brought me to Christ was this sense of defeat and of estrangement, and the astonishing news that the historic Christ offered to meet the very needs of which I was conscious. (1) On 13 February 1938, Eric Nash (widely known as ‘Bash’) came to give a talk to the Christian Union at Rugby School. His text was Pilate’s question: “What then shall I do with Jesus, who is called the Christ?” That I needed to do anything with Jesus was an entirely novel idea to me, for I had imagined that somehow he had done whatever needed to be done, and that my part was only to acquiesce. This Mr Nash, however, was quietly but powerfully insisting that everybody had to do something about Jesus, and that nobody could remain neutral. Either we copy Pilate and weakly reject him, or we accept him personally and follow him. After talking privately with Nash and taking the rest of the day to think further, that night at my bedside I made the experiment of faith, and “opened the door” to Christ. I saw no flash of lightning …in fact I had no emotional experience at all. I just crept into bed and went to sleep. For weeks afterwards, even months, I was unsure what had happened to me. But gradually I grew, as the diary I was writing at the time makes clear, into a clearer understanding and a firmer assurance of the salvation and lordship of Jesus Christ. (2) Local Influence John Stott attended his local church, All Souls, Langham Place (www.allsouls.org) in London’s West End, since he was a small boy. Indeed one of his earliest memories was of sitting in the gallery and dropping paper pellets onto the fashionable hats of the ladies below! Following his ordination in 1945 John Stott became assistant curate at All Souls and then, unusually, was appointed rector in 1950. He became rector emeritus in 1975, a position he held to the end of his life. In the words of his biographer, Timothy Dudley-Smith, “John Stott has provided a model for international city-centre contemporary ministry now so widely accepted that few now realize its original innovative nature.” Central in this model were five criteria: the priority of prayer, expository preaching, regular evangelism, careful follow-up of enquirers and converts, and the systematic training of helpers and leaders. Soon after his appointment as rector, Dr Stott began to encourage church members to attend a weekly training course in evangelism. A monthly “guest service” was established, combining regular parochial evangelism with Anglican evening prayer. Follow-up discipleship courses for new Christians were started in people’s homes. All Souls also offered midweek lunchtime services, a central weekly prayer meeting, and monthly services of prayer for the sick. “Children’s church” and family services were established, a chaplain to a group of Oxford Street stores was appointed, and the All Souls Clubhouse was founded as a Christian community centre. John Stott was convinced that a pastor needed to know and understand his congregation; he once even disguised himself as homeless and slept on the streets in order to find out what it was like. All Souls Church grew numerically during the 1950s and 1960s, yet John Stott continually pleaded with people not to abandon their local evangelical churches in order to be a part of All Souls. Like one of his mentors, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (1759-1836), Dr Stott turned down opportunities for advancement in the church hierarchy and remained at the same church throughout his ministry. National Influence When John Stott began his ordained ministry, evangelicals had little influence in the Anglican Church hierarchy. Through personal initiatives such as the revived Eclectic Society (originally founded in 1793), Dr Stott sought to raise the profile and morale of young evangelical clergy. From an initial membership of 22 of his friends, the society grew to over 1,000 members by the mid 1960s. Out of this movement grew many initiatives, most notably the two National Evangelical Anglican Congresses of 1967 and 1977, which Dr Stott chaired. John Stott has played important roles in three areas of Christian life in England, serving the church, the university, and the crown. He served as chair of the Church of England Evangelical Council (www.ceec.info) from 1967 to 1984 and as president of two influential Christian organizations: the British Scripture Union (www.scriptureunion.org.uk) from 1965 to 1974 and the British Evangelical Alliance (www.eauk.org) from 1973 to 1974. Dr Stott has also served four terms as president of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (www.uccf.org.uk) between the years 1961 and 1982. He was also an honorary chaplain to the Queen from 1959 to 1991 and received the rare distinction of being appointed an Extra Chaplain in 1991. John Stott was displeased by the anti-intellectualism of some Christians. In contrast, he stressed the need “to relate the ancient Word to the modern world.” This conviction led to his founding of The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (www.licc.org.uk) in 1982. This Institute offers courses in the inter-relations between faith, life and mission to thinking Christian lay people. Stott served as its first director and then as its president from 1986 onward. He claims, The key words in my thinking are “integration” and “penetration.” I think evangelical Christians, if one can generalize, have not been integrated; there is a tendency among us to exclude certain areas of our life from the lordship of Jesus, whether it be our business life and our work, or our political persuasion. That sort of integration is crucial to the Institute’s vision; the second is the penetration of the secular world by integrated Christians, whose gospel will be a more integrated gospel. (3) In light of this work, liberal cleric and theologian David Edwards has claimed that, apart from William Temple, John Stott was “the most influential clergyman in the Church of England” during the twentieth century. Likewise, Oxford University theologian Alister McGrath has suggested that the growth of post-war English evangelicalism is attributable more to John Stott than any other person. International Influence Michael Baughen’s appointment as vicar of All Souls in 1970 and his subsequent appointment as rector in 1975, allowed John Stott to devote more time to his growing international ministry. After that, Dr Stott spent nearly three months each year preaching and leading missions abroad (with three further months spent at The Hookses, his writing retreat in Wales). John Stott’s international influence is clear on a number of fronts. First, he was heavily involved in university missions. In the years between 1952 and 1977 John Stott led some 50 university missions in Britain, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and Asia. He was even vice president of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (www.ifesworld.org) from 1995 to 2003. The level of his influence on North American evangelicalism is evident from the fact that he served as the Bible expositor on six occasions at the triennial Urbana Student Mission Convention arranged by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (www.intervarsity.org). Second, Dr Stott played prominent roles in drafting important evangelical documents. In 1974 John Stott acted as chair of the drafting committee for the Lausanne Covenant at the International Congress on World Evangelization held in Lausanne, Switzerland. The creation of this covenant, outlining evangelical theology and reinforcing the need for social action, is a significant milestone in twentieth-century evangelicalism. Stott continued to serve as the chair of the Lausanne Theology and Education Group from 1974 to 1981. He was again chair of the drafting committee for the Manila Manifesto, a document produced by the second International Congress in 1989. Third, he helped to strengthen the evangelical voice in established churches. As an Anglican, John Stott was committed to the renewal of evangelicalism in the worldwide Anglican Church. He founded the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC), and served as honorary general secretary from 1960 to 1981, and as President from 1986 to 1990. His desire to strengthen ties among evangelical theologians in Europe led to the founding of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians (FEET) in 1977. Fourth, John Stott stressed that the importance of caring for and valuing God’s creation. From an early age, he was an avid bird watcher and photographer, taking his binoculars and camera with him on all his travels. He saw nearly 2,700 of the world’s 9,000 species of birds. He even published a book, The Birds our Teachers, illustrated with his own photographs. John Stott encouraged all Christians to take an interest in some form of natural history and was a strong supporter of A Rocha: Christians in Conservation (www.arocha.org) since its inception in 1983. Fifth, Dr Stott focused on the development of the Majority World, its people, and its leadership. His concern for the world’s poor led to involvement in two organizations: Tearfund (www.tearfund.org), which he served as president from 1983 to 1997, and Armonia (www.armonia-uk.org.uk) which he served as patron. Through his contact with pastors in the Majority World, John Stott became increasingly convinced of their need for books and improved seminary education. To meet the first of these needs he set up the Evangelical Literature Trust in 1971, funded largely by his own book royalties, in order to send theological books to pastors, teachers, and theological students. To meet the second a bursary fund was established in 1974 (as part of the then recently formed Langham Trust) to provide scholarships for gifted evangelical scholars from the Majority World to earn their doctorates, and then to return to their own countries to teach in theological seminaries. The Evangelical Literature Trust and the Langham Trust have now been amalgamated into the Langham Partnership International (langham.org); Dr Stott served as its founder-president until his death. John Stott, in talking about the Langham Partnership International commented: The church is growing everywhere of course, or nearly everywhere, but it’s often growth without depth and we are concerned to overcome this lack of depth, this superficiality, by remembering that God wants his people to grow. Now if God wants his people to grow into maturity, which he does, and if they grow by the word of God, which they do, and if the word of God comes to them mainly through preaching, which it does, then the logical question to ask is how can we help to raise the standards of biblical preaching? The three ministries of the Langham Partnership are all devoted to the same thing – either immediately or ultimately – to raise the standards of preaching through books, through scholarships and through Langham Preaching seminars. Influential Books Finally, Dr Stott wrote a number of influential books, which are noted for their clarity, balance, intellectual rigor, and biblical faithfulness. Stott’s writing career started in 1954 when he was asked to write the Bishop of London’s annual Lent book. Fifty years later, he had written over forty books and hundreds of articles. John Stott’s best-known work, Basic Christianity, has sold two million copies and has been translated into more than 60 languages. Other titles include The Cross of Christ, Understanding the Bible, The Contemporary Christian, Evangelical Truth, Issues Facing Christians Today, The Incomparable Christ, Why I Am a Christian, and most recently Through the Bible Through the Year, a daily devotional. He has also written eight volumes in The Bible Speaks Today series of New Testament expositions. (A comprehensive bibliography was compiled by Timothy Dudley-Smith in 1995; a full booklist can be found here.) Two factors enabled Dr Stott to be so productive: strong self-discipline and the unstinting support of Frances Whitehead, his secretary for over 50 years. John Stott never married, though according to his biography he came close to it on two occasions; and he acknowledged that with the responsibility of a family he would not have been able to write, travel, and minister in the way that he did. Billy Graham called John Stott “the most respected clergyman in the world today,” and John Pollock described him as “in effect the theological leader of world evangelicalism.” John Stott’s biographer, Timothy Dudley-Smith, wrote: To those who know and meet him, respect and affection go hand in hand. The world-figure is lost in personal friendship, disarming interest, unfeigned humility-and a dash of mischievous humour and charm. By contrast, he thinks of himself, as all Christians should but few of us achieve, as simply a beloved child of a heavenly Father; an unworthy servant of his friend and master, Jesus Christ; a sinner saved by grace to the glory and praise of God. (4) 1. Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott: The Making of a Leader, vol. 1 (Leicester, U.K./Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999), p. 89. 2. Ibid., pp. 93-94 3. Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott: A Global Ministry, vol. 2 (Leicester, U.K./Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001), p. 291. 4. Timothy Dudley-Smith, “Who Is John Stott?” All Souls Broadsheet (London), April/May 2001.

saved when the lord appears

Texts: Acts 1:11 — "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 — "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." These two texts of Scripture are plainly presented and there can be no question as to their interpretation; they mean just what they say, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again to this earth, and just as He ascended from the midst of His disciples, clothed with his physical body, and a cloud received Him out of their sight, so He will come again. He left a wondering company of disciples when He was on the slopes of Olivet, and from their midst began to ascend up towards heaven, and strange to say He will come back again to a company of disciples, for notwithstanding the plain statements of Scripture with reference to His coming, many in the Church are apparently unacquainted with the fact of His glorious appearing or else are indifferent to it. This may be because those of us who are in the pulpit have not been faithful in teaching the Word of God, or it may be that the rank and file of Christians have studied the Scriptures indifferently, if indeed they have studied them at all. All evangelical Christians believe that Jesus Christ is coming again sometime. We have said it over and over in our repetition of the Apostles Creed, and there can be no question about the fact at all. The only question is as to when He is coming; some say before the millennium, and they are called pre-millenarians; others expect Him after the millennium, and they are spoken of as post-millenarians. But if He comes after the millennium He will come to a world made ready for His appearing by human effort, righteousness will be asserting its power, and have in its control all things. If this position is accepted, then His coming is far removed from the present time, for just when men thought the world was rapidly growing better, the world-war was upon us and today the world is scarred and marred by its effects. If He comes before the millennium, then He will come to set the world right; He will set up His Throne and establish His Kingdom. He himself will work mightily in all ways and it will be a world worth while living in when it is all under the sway of His Almighty Power. As for myself, I prefer the millennium which He makes ready rather than the one which might be set up or prepared by man himself, therefore I am a pre-millenarian. Just what will it mean to be saved when the Lord appears? To be saved at all is the wonder of heaven and earth. We are saved from sin's penalty by His death on the Cross and our personal acceptance of Him. We are saved from sin's practice by the indwelling of His Spirit strengthening our wills. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." We are saved from sin's presence by His coming again, for when He comes the last enemy shall be overthrown, temptation will be a thing of the past, and our deliverance shall last forever. Let us put it in this way: We have been saved by His death on the Cross and our identification with Him; this has to do with the past. We are being saved by His Spirit who makes Christ real to us and makes the Word of God powerful in the changing of our lives; this has to do with the present. We shall be saved when He appears and the body of this humiliation is made like unto His own glorious body; this has to do with the future. In order to prevent confusion, we must keep in mind the fact that there are to be two appearings of our Lord: First — He comes for His Saints. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, he said, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Second — He comes with His Saints. When the time is up and Scripture has had its fulfillment, he will set up His Kingdom on the earth; His sway will be almighty and His power irresistible. This truth has always been of the greatest possible inspiration to me. I learned it when I was a young minister, and it changed my whole conception of Christ and my interpretation of the Scripture, and filled me with a zeal to attempt at least to do His Will. It has never made me fanatical, and I am sure that it has not made me listless, and from the first day I received the truth until this present time, it has been to me "the blessed hope." In common with other Christians, I believe the Church to be the body of Christ and that as individuals we go to make up that body and as men are won to Christ and they surrender to Him, they are parts of that body. So of necessity, one day the body will be completed — the last member will be added to it — and I have always thought that perhaps the one who comes under the influence of my preaching, might be the last, and the skies would brighten and the Lord return, and I have hardly preached an evangelistic sermon for years without this in mind. It is to me a glorious hope. I have frequently been asked "Would you not be startled, indeed, would you not be afraid, if suddenly the skies should brighten and the Lord appear?" And my answer is "I might be, except for the statement made in my first text of Scripture, 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven,'" it is "this same Jesus" who is coming back; He who was cradled in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes, He who lived in Nazareth as a boy, a youth, and a young man, He who preached in Galilee as never man had spoken before Him, He who suffered in Gethsemane until the blood drops rolled down His face, He who died upon the Cross as my substitute, He who rose from the dead when the time was up and the stone was rolled away from the door, He who ascended up into heaven — He is coming back again. How could I be startled when He appears? So human that He grew weary as He toiled, so human that He fell asleep when He was in the little boat with His disciples, so human that He toiled in the carpenter shop, making this implement and that, and making them well... So divine that the water blushed into wine when He looked at it; so divine that devils feared Him and went rushing into a herd of swine and drove them into the sea; so divine that disease was staid by His presence and His touch; so divine that death was overpowered by Him, and Lazarus, at the sound of His voice, came forth from the tomb bound in his grave clothes. He is coming back again and we shall see Him. "Just to see Jesus once scarred as Redeemer, Jesus, my Lord, from all suffering free, Just to see Jesus transfigured forever, That will be glory, be glory, for me. Just to see Jesus, when saved ones are gathering, Jesus who died upon Calvary's tree, Just to see Jesus with all heaven ringing, That will be glory, be glory, for me." He is surely coming back again and it is well worth while to ask the question as to what this coming will mean to certain classes of people. 1. What will it mean to the saved? 1 Corinthians 15:51-52. — "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." So many times we hear people use the expression, speaking of certain events, "This is as certain as death," but death is by no means certain, it is not at all sure that we shall all die. St. Paul himself tells us we shall not all sleep, and he is speaking of death; some will be alive when the Lord comes back, and perhaps we who are today in health and strength, shall be of the company. (a) Some day the skies will brighten and He will appear, and just as Saul of Tarsus saw what others did not see, so some eyes will be opened to behold Him, while others will be blinded to His coming, and when those who have their trust in Him are taken away, others will remain behind in wonder and in amazement. (b) Families will be separated. In this household a mother was a humble follower of Jesus Christ and all the others were indifferent to Him. She will be taken; the others left. In another household the father was a saint of God. The Bible and Jesus were his constant delight, but he was unable to lead his children to Christ, and with the godly mother he will be taken and the others left. A Christian business man who has been careful in all his business dealings, and consistent in his following of Jesus Christ, taken, and those with whom he is associated, left behind; perhaps the saved children of a household whose parents were worldly and cared not for Christ and His Church are taken. (c) It should be remembered, however, that before these are taken, the dead in Christ shall rise first; their spirits safe with Him from the moment of their death, their bodies have been resting in the tomb, and when He appears, the tombs of the Christian dead shall be opened, and spirit and body united. They shall go up to be with Him. There are some places I should like to be at that wonderful time. I think I should like to be standing here speaking of Him, or I should like to be pleading with an audience to turn to Him, or I should like to be sitting beside some one who is helpless and hopeless and urging them to accept Him, or I should like to be at the grave of D. L. Moody, and behold his tomb open and see him ascend to meet the Lord whom he so faithfully preached; or I should like to be at my mother's tomb where years ago we placed her and said "goodbye" to her with tears blinding our eyes. To sum it all up, however, I think I should like to be just anywhere, seeking to please Him and trying to find out concerning His Will, that I might do it. I stood one day in Wales before the grave of the famous Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, and was told that he was buried in the same grave with a friend, a brother minister, whom he loved dearly, and this was all because they wanted to be together when the Lord came and they be caught up. They had agreed that hand in hand they would ascend to greet Him. (d) In the Scriptures we read that we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, that is, with our beloved who have gone on before. No more separation, no more fear of the cable's message, no more funerals, no more visits to the cemetery, no more going back to the home that has been made empty because the loved one has departed. "We shall not all sleep, what ineffable bliss, Some living at present may taste even of this, His coming, the rapture, the joyful surprise, One moment a mortal, the next in the skies. Our Saviour will come in the air, He'll descend, The living, the sleeping, to Him shall ascend, Some wait there in heaven, some wait here below, Then raptured in triumph to Him we all go. We shall not all sleep, but changed we shall be, Yes, changed in a moment when Jesus we see, In the blaze of His glory, the flash of an eye, (e) When St. Paul was nearing the end of his remarkable career, he writes, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." The expression "if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead" is literally "the out-resurrection from among the dead"! that is, St. Paul knew that the Lord was coming back, that the Christian dead would rise to greet Him, and he wanted to be of the company, and thus expresses his hope and desire... 2. What will it mean to the unsaved for Christ to appear? (a) If they are dead then it will mean that at His appearing their tombs will not be unsealed, they shall wait longer for another great event which is so startling that one shudders even as he reads of it, that is Judgment. (b) If they are living they will be left behind when others ascend to greet Him with their loved ones in the skies. (c) And when the time comes those who have rejected Jesus Christ will face the Judgment. In Revelation 20:11-13, I read, "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." It is a white throne, to me, at least, it is significant that when the saved greet Him there will be "a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." The emerald is green and green rests the eye. In contrast the full blaze of the white of the throne of God's judgment will be torture indeed. He will be upon the throne; the One whom men have rejected and despised in spite of His mercy, and love. "The dead, small and great, shall stand before God." There can be no favoritism there. The books shall be opened and on the basis of one's record, men will be judged. Those who have accepted Christ need have no fear of the judgment of the Great White Throne. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," but if he has been rejected, and finally rejected, we know what the end must be, for the word of the Lord hath spoken it. Recently the Honorable Elihu Root, in one of his addresses used this expression: THE TIMETABLE OF THE ALMIGHTY. What a striking sentence, how suggestive, how true it is to these days, how it fits in to my subject. (a) The hour has come. Jesus said that as he was nearing the end of his earthly ministry, and when the price of our redemption was to be paid in full. (b)"Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (c) The door of mercy is open; it may close at any moment. "Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near." From Evangelistic Sermons by J. Wilbur Chapman. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, ©1922.