Holiness: For the Will of God Is Your Sanctification – 1 Thessalonians 4:3 [Annotated, Updated]

by J.C. Ryle

The eyes of her understanding were never opened. Her conscience was never really stirred up and awakened. Her will was never really brought into a state of obedience to God. Her affections were never really set upon things above. The form of religion that she had was kept up for fashion’s sake and not from feeling. It was a garment worn for the sake of pleasing her relatives, but not from any sense of its value. She did as others did around her in Lot’s house: she conformed to her husband’s ways, she made no opposition to his religion, and she allowed herself to be passively towed along in his wake – but all this time her heart was wrong in the sight of God. The world was in her heart, and her heart was in the world. In this condition she lived, and in this condition she died.