"Honey in the rock"

Dedication

To all the people of America that can read, and to those who are going to learn to read later on in this life, I send out this new book, "Honey in the Rock," hoping that it may find a place on your shelves, and that you will read it until you get the back so dirty that you will have to have it rebound. It is just what its name indicates — honey in the Rock, and I give you my word there are no dead bees in the book ; every bee is a working bee, no drones, not one, to be found. As I wrote the book, the Lord and the devil know that my bees swarmed a number of times, but for every swarm of bees I found a hundred acres of redtop clover, and I want you to have one old, fat bee-gum full of honey in the backyard of your soul that you have not robbed this summer, and in a case of immergency you can rob your bees. I wonder if you catch on?

Lovingly,

Bud Robinson.

Chapter I. Why I Believe in Scriptural Hounkss

Dear reader, I would love to just sit down and have a quiet talk with you, and tell you just why I believe in scriptural holiness. Now the question will naturally rise in the mind of a fellow, Why do I believe this doctrine? The most of the people reject it, and men of brains reject it, and even great preachers reject it, and then, who am I that I should believe such a doctrine? Now that is one way that plenty of good men will reason about it, and if we were to look at the people we would drift like the great bulk of them are drifting, and if we were to undertake to accept the opinions of the people, we would believe everything that is above ground, for the crowd that don't accept the doctrine is not agreed between themselves. No two of them advocate the same thing or the same theory, and we are driven to the Bible for our doctrine, and we are frank to say that if the Bible don't teach it, that we won't want it, it makes no difference how reasonable it might appear on the surface. But we believe that the old Book teaches it as clearly as the rainbow and as beautifully.

Now for a text we want to read First Peter 3 : 15 : "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts : and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." Now here the reader will notice that we are to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts, and the word "sanctify" don't mean to justify, or it don't mean to regenerate, or it don't mean to pardon ; it means to sanctify. And then he said, "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." And now I am ready to give the reason just why I believe in the doctrine of scriptural holiness.

I mean by scriptural holiness the experience of sanctification as a second work of grace received by faith instantaneously, and I want to stretch out the word and make it as long as your arm, but I want you to get the blessing in a minute. Now my first reason why I believe in the doctrine is because it is an old doctrine, and not a new idea under the sun, as some want to try to make us believe. In proof of the fact that it is an old doctrine, we will read Eph. 1:4: "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." Now, reader, there is no way of going back any further, and when we trace holiness back before the foundation of the world we have gotten back as far as we can go and keep our heads. That don't look much like a new doctrine, does it? It is old as the foundation of the earth, and the world don't look new to a country boy.

The text says that it was God's choice before the foundation of the world that we should be holy. It is perfectly natural to think of God as a holy God, and then it is perfectly natural to think of a holy God desiring His people to be like Himself, and as Heaven is the home of God and we are to stay with Him in His home, it is perfectly natural to think of God wanting us to be in perfect harmony with Him and His home and His government, and if we could get into Heaven without holiness, we would be out of harmony with God, and therefore as miserable as if we were in the pit. It is strange to me when I think of some people that I have met, that told me that they were Christians and on their way to Heaven, and at the same time they could not stand a little Holiness meeting in this world. I wondered what they would do in Heaven where there is nothing but holiness.

Now, reader, you may not agree with me as to what I say about holiness, but you must agree with the Lord and also with the Bible, and when the Bible tells us it was God's choice before the foundation of the world that we should be holy, it is up to us to say, "Yes, Lord/' and go down after it and lose no time, either, for Christ said, "Walk while you have the light, for the night cometh when no man can work."

Now we come to the next reason for believing in scriptural holiness. We read in First Thess. 4:3: "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification." Now, brother, we have seen that it was God's choice before the foundation of the world that we should be holy, and now we have before us the fact that it is God's will that we should be sanctified, and His choice and His will ought to be in perfect harmony with each other and I believe that they are. Brother or sister, if the great God put it in His will that you are to be wholly sanctified, and you refuse to let

Him do it for you, doesn't it look to you like you are out of harmony with God? How "can two walk together except they be agreed ?" says the old Bible, and if God willed you the blessing of sanctification and you refuse to let Him sanctify you, doesn't that look a little dangerous and a little shaky to you? Hadn't you better reconsider that thing before it is too late? If God says, "Come," and we refuse to come, after while God will say, "Go," and we will go. I tell you, man, when God says, "Come," we had better come, and when God says, "Woe," we

had better woe. When God says, "Come," there is always something good awaiting us, and when God says, "Woe," there is danger. The most blessed thing that God ever said was, "Come unto Me," and the most awful thing that God ever said was, "Depart from Me," and, friends, we will come or we will go. If it is God's will that I should be sanctified, that settles it, so far as I am concerned; I will go to Him to have His will wrought out in me.

"For this is the will of God, even your sanctification," is about the most interesting thing that a man ever listened to, when we think of the fact that it is holiness or it is Hell, one or, the other, and God will never trim things to suit the taste of men or women who would rather have a night in the ballroom or a night in the lodge than a night with God in prayer. Well, now we have come to the next reason why we believe in scriptural holiness. First it was God's choice and second it was God's will. Now we turn to First Peter 1:15, 16: "But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation ; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy." Now here, reader, we see that God has put it into His law and commanded us to be holy, and the only reason that He gave was "Because I am holy." Those were His words and not mine, and He meant it, and we have to meet it at the judgment bar of God. Think of it — His choice, His will and His command, that we should be holy, and then men even preach against it and say that the Bible doesn't teach it. Are they blind or are they deceived by the devil? What is the matter with a man in the face of God's eternal Word? How can they teach such doctrine when we have just read that it was God's choice before the foundation of the world that we shoud be holy, and we have just read that "This is the will of God, even your sanctification," and now we read, "Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" ?

Here it is up to us to take holiness or to meet God without it, one or the other. We can't think of a holy God giving a command to His people to be unholy, but we can think of a holy God giving a command to His people to be holy. We know another thing, we know that the God that is revealed in the Bible loves holiness and hates sin, and we know that the devil that is

revealed in the Bible hates holiness and loves sin, and just in proportion as we love holiness and hate sin, or love sin and hate holiness are we like God or like the devil. Again, we can't think of a holy God commanding us to be any other way but holy, for if He did it would put us out of harmony with Him and there would be no fellowship between us and Him.

No longer ago than yesterday I met a Methodist preacher on the streets, and he is not a believer in holiness. He has opposed it openly and thrown his influence against it, and when we met there was no fellowship between us; he seemed to be perfectly miserable in my presence and wanted to get away, and was so nervous and

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restless that he got out of my sight as quickly as he could. I was a perfect stranger to the man, we had never met before; I was a thousand miles from home and had been called by the good people of the town to hold a meeting. The difference was, no heart fellowship between us, and that will be the trouble with the unsanctified at the Judgment Day, no fellowship between them and God.

Our next reason for believing in scriptural holiness is found in Acts 20:32: "And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified." Now the reader will notice that you have to be an heir before you can have an inheritance, and it takes the new birth to make you an heir; no sinner or even a backslider is an heir to the experience of sanctification. The sinner has to be born again to make him an heir, and the backslider has to be reclaimed to be a fit subject for the experience of holiness. The people that Saint Paul addressed were brethren, or Christians, and he said that their inheritance was the blessing of sanctification, and that proves the two works of grace,

Scriptural Hounkss. ii

because you must be born of the Spirit before you could be baptized with the Spirit. In the above text Paul tells the brethren that their inheritance was the blessing of sanctification ; they were not sinners, they were brethren beloved of the Lord; and they were not backslidden, they were fit subjects for the experience of scriptural holiness just as I am a-preaching it.

The very fact that God will provide such an experience for the children of men proves at least two things: first, it proves that they need it, and second, it proves that we can get it, for it would have been a foolish thing for our blessed heavenly Father to have provided something for us that we could not get, and yet some good people seem to think that we can never get the blessing while we live. There is but very little said in the Bible about what we shall do in Heaven, but nobody has any trouble in believing that we will be holy up there, but they don't think that Christ can make them holy down in this world. But it must be remembered that when the Son of God started back to Heaven, He said, "All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth." If that is so (and we know it is), there is no room for a man to doubt, for if Christ has all power

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in Heaven and in earth, then anything that He can do for a man in Heaven He can do for him in earth. If the man on earth will yield himself to the hand of the blessed Savior, He can first convert him and blot out all his sins, and second He can sanctify him wholly and preserve him blameless until He returns in the clouds to catch away His waiting Bride. That is all Book also, and I believe every word of it from the deep of my soul.

When the dear old apostle said, "And now, brethren, I commend you to God and the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified," I believe that I am one of the brethren, and that it means me, and I am a-going to my Father and tell Him that I have come after my inheritance, for I am an heir and there is no law in Heaven or in earth that can beat a lawful heir out of his estate. When I was born into the heavenly family, I then and there became an heir, and to-day I rejoice in the fact that we have the greatest doctrine in the known world. Of course it does not belong to me more than it does to any other man, but if the other fellow rejects it and I accept it, there is a big difference between me and him, for he is a rejecter and I am an accepter; I have it, and he hasn't it, that is the difference.

Now, dear reader, we have come to the next reason why we believe in scriptural holiness. We have noticed that it was God's choice and God's will and God's command, and our birthright, and now we come to Heb. 13: 12: "Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate." Now here we offer as one of our reasons why we believe in scriptural holiness the fact that the blessed Son of God suffered without the gate that He might sanctify the people with His own blood. This is one of the best reasons for believing in scriptural holiness that I ever saw, and it is up to me to get sanctified or reject the blood of the Son of God, one or the other; it is up to me to either accept it or reject it, and when a man rejects the blood of the Son of God he is not rejecting man, but God. I fear that millions of people will go up to the judgment bar of God a-thinking that they had only rejected man's idea of things, and find out, when it is too late, that they had been rejecting the blood of the blessed Son of God, and had not rejected man at all. So, brother, we must stand or fall by the old Book.

Now, dear reader, we could go on and pile up many words, and could write for the next hour on the above text, but don't you see that all we might say would not strengthen the Bible? If the blessed Son of God suffered without the gate that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, I am going to give you that as a good reason for believing the doctrine of holiness, and no man can reason the text out of the Bible. To deny it, don't answer the Book at all, and as sure as we live, the old Book is true, and by its teaching we will stand or by its teaching we will fall. It is light that graduates guilt, and \v len God turns on the light it is for us to walk in and not to reject. If our Father loved us well enough to provide the blessing of sanctification for us, we at least ought to accept it and praise Him while we have breath for His goodness to us, for we read, you know, that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord," and we believe that God meant just what He said and said just what He meant, and we must be holy, for we all want to see Him and I must see Him.

I now come to the next reason why I believe in scriptural holiness. We have seen that it was God's choice, and God's will, and God's command, and your birthright, and that Jesus died that

Scriptural Holiness. i you might have it, and now we turn to Heb. 10: 14-16: "For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us : for after that He had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them." Now the seventeenth verse says, "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Now the reader will notice that in the tenth verse He says that "by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Now, beloved, He don't say them that are justified, and He don't say them that are regenerated, but He does say them that are sanctified. Now here is the best Baptist and Presbyterian doctrine in the Bible, and, as a general thing, they both reject it. This is the only passage of Scripture that says they have got it forever. How strange it seems to a fellow that has his eyes open that they will tell you that they have it, and can't lose it, and at the same time tell you that they haven't got it! They make me think of the man that was so badly cross-eyed that when he wept the tears went down his back, and their lives are so crooked that they would make you think of the man that had such a crooked nose that when he blew his nose he knocked a fly off of the top of his ear. Now that looks like the fellow that don't believe in the doctrine of scriptural holiness, and at the same time tells you that he can't lose what he has got, and you wonder if he has anything from the way he is living.

But you notice that God said that by one offering He had perfected forever them that are sanctified, then He adds, "whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness unto us." Now the reader will notice that we have got the blessing forever and that the Holy Ghost witnesses to it, so, after all, it is not a perpetual going on and never getting there, for the Holy Ghost could not witness to a thing that could not be performed. If holiness is a perpetual going on unto, as the preachers in many places tell us, of course the Holy Ghost could not witness to it. When a man repents of his sins, confesses his sins, forsakes his sins and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, God then and there gives him an instantaneous pardon. Pardon is not a perpetual going on, but a work of grace wrought in the heart of man in a moment of. time when he meets God's conditions, and so it is with the blessing of sanctification, it comes instantaneously and the man knows that it is done. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will toward men!

In the fourteenth verse we see that we are sanctified forever, and in the fifteenth we see that the Holy Ghost witnesses to it, and in the sixteenth we see that God makes a covenant with us and writes His laws down in our hearts and minds, and in the seventeenth we notice that we are to gtt rid of our sins and our iniquities. The reader will notice two things in that seventeenth verse — our sins and our iniquities. Now don't you see that when we got converted we got rid of our sins, and when we got sanctified we got rid of our iniquities? There are two works of grace just as plain and as reasonable as anything on earth can be. They are not big enough or plain enough to cover up a man's prejudice, but they will cover the soul of every honest man, give him victory through the blood of the blessed Son of God, and make him an overcomer, and then his life will be victorious; he will have a level head, and a big soul, and a good heart, and a sweet experience, and a loving disposition, and a kind word, and a big smile, and a hearty handshake for the fellow that needs it, and that will enable him to read his title clear to the mansion

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in the sky. So I am very glad that God does sanctify a man, and make him perfect, and give him the Holy Ghost to witness to it, and then makes the covenant with him, and writes His laws down in the man's heart and in his mind, and then remembers his sins and his iniquities no more.

Now, brother, to me that is one of the best reasons for believing in scriptural holiness that I think I ever saw; I don't see how you could improve on it. That Scripture is as deep as the demand of fallen humanity, as broad as the compassion of God, as high as Heaven, and as everlasting as the Rock of Ages. No room there for doubts, no room there for complaint, no place there for sore heads, no place there for grumblers, but a mighty fine place for those who have been pardoned, and sanctified, and filled with all the fullness of God, and with their souls a-shining through their faces and a-weeping with their eyes and a-laughing with their mouths, at the same time they are the greatest set of folks on the dirt to-day to see a man or a woman, as the case may be, in a big Holiness meeting, a-weeping just like their hearts would break and a-laughing just like they were tickled to death about something, and all of this a-going on at the same time. What a wonderful combination a wholly sanctified man is anyway ! He is a walking curiosity and a puzzle to the devil, and a wonder to the angels of light. I saw a man get his house burned down once and it was so terrible to him that it took a man or two to hold him, but a few years later my nephew by marriage got his house burned down and everything that he had was consumed, and the neighbors told me that he shouted all the time while it burned, but he has the blessing and he has it good, and he got it by the second-blessing route. Dear reader, we now come to our next reason for believing in scriptural holiness. You may turn now and read Heb. 2:11: "For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Now, reader, if you really have the blessing, your friends and even the members of your own household may be ashamed of you, but there is one glorious consolation, and it is this, that your heavenly Father will not be ashamed of you. There is one city where every man and woman and child is in the experience of scriptural holiness; there is not a man there that smokes tobacco, there is not a spittoon in the city and there is no lodge there,

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there is no such a thing as the man of the house a-staying out till a late hour of the night while his wife walks the floor and rocks the cradle and says, "How long, O Lord, how long!"

I am frank to confess that in the average church of our day it takes more courage and backbone to stand up in the church and testify to the experience of scriptural holiness than anything else that a Christian can be called on to do. I know of but one thing now that is really unpopular in the average church, and that is to be a true, scriptural holiness man and stand up and witness to it in the presence of the people, but, after all, God is not ashamed of the sanctified man, for the text said that "Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Notice first that "He that sanctifieth." That shows that God does it for us. And notice, "they who are sanctified." That shows that somebody has got it. Notice again, "are all of one." There is a holy union between God and the sanctified soul. And now notice, "and for this cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Now, reader, I think that that is a good reason for believing in scriptural holiness. Of course you may not, but I do, and I thank the Lord that I do believe it.

Now. reader, we have come to our last reason for believing in scriptural holiness that we will give you in this discourse. You may turn to Heb. 12: 14: "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Now, in your mind, just turn back and review the reasons that I have given you for believing in scriptural holiness, and see if you don't think that I am reasonable. First, we saw that it was God's choice (Eph. 1:4); second, we saw that it was God's will (1 Thess. 4:3); third, we saw that it was God's command (1 Pet. 1:15, 16) ; fourth, we saw that it was our birthright (Acts 20: 32) ; fifth, we saw that Jesus died that we might have it (Heb. 13: 12) ; sixth, we saw that the Holy Ghost witnesses to it (Heb. 10: 14-16); seventh, we saw that God was not ashamed of a sanctified man (Heb. 2 : 11); and eighth, we see that we can't see God without it (Heb. 12: 14).

Now in a hurried way I have run over these reasons for believing in scriptural holiness, and I have asked the people all over these United States that don't believe in holiness as a second work of grace to give me eight reasons from the Bible why they don't believe in it, and so far not one of them has ever given me a single rea-

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son, and I am going to say here that there is not a man on earth that can prove that men ever get sanctified by any other process than by a second work of grace. There are a few tobacco-soaked preachers that claim that they got it all at once. Well, they evidently did get all that they ever did get all at once, for they don't seem to have gotten anything for the last generation. When you can smell a preacher as he goes by, he is, at the best construction that you can put on him, awful bad off. And even if we grow into it, or get it when we die, or get it in Purgatory, or get it at the general Judgment Day, it is a second blessing, and so everything in the universe is on our side when it is boiled down and skimmed. I have many more reasons, but these will satisfy any reasonable man.

CHAPTER II. Th£ Abundant Supply

Dear reader, you will find the text for this discourse in the ninth chapter of Second Corinthians, and the eighteenth verse: "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." Now, the reader will notice that in the above text God has put Himself on record as being able to make all grace abound toward you, and the question naturally arises in the mind of the man of our day, "Can He do it?" And men halt, and wonder, and doubt, and look wise, and feel big, and turn away, and say, "We will hear thee again concerning this matter." But I want to take this ground and affirm that "God IS able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." And I want to say further on this subject that everything that you need to make you pure and holy and kind and good and Christlike and loving and gentle God has an abundance of for you. And now I affirm that it is up to me to prove it by the blessed old Book, and by the grace of our God, I can do it, and make it so plain that anybody that will look can see it.