October 8

Read: Isaiah 35:8-10

It shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it (Isaiah 35:8).

Way Of Purity

God’s first: concern for us is that we shall be free from sin, that we shall be pure in heart. That is why His way of holiness is a sinless way. Isaiah saw it seven hundred years before Christ was born: “It shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it… but the redeemed shall walk there.” Moffatt puts the promise into poetry:

A stainless high-road shall appear, Its name “The Sacred Way”; No soul unclean shall tread it, No impious loot stray over it; No lions shall ever haunt it, No wild beasts leap on it; But on it the redeemed shall walk, Those whom the Eternal has set free.

Am I today on the way of holiness? If so, the Holy Spirit keeps me pure. The Holy Spirit is first and foremost the Spirit of holiness. So that if I am not clean, no matter what my gifts, no matter what my wisdom, no matter what my intellectual force, no matter what my supernatural and miraculous power, I do not have the Spirit of God in me: If the Holy Spirit is in me, He is making me clean.

This way of holiness is the highway to heaven. Only the pure in heart know God truly here; only the pure in heart may see Him hereafter.

Oh, make me clean! Oh, make me clean! Mine eyes Thy holiness have seen; Oh, send the burning, cleansing flame,

And make me clean in Jesus’ name!*

— George Bennard

Copyright 1940, renewal, The Rodeheaver Co. Used by permission.