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{Sermons on Ephesians 5:15
The Doctrine Explained
Precisians Are the Sort Who Walk in the Right Way
The Right Way Proved Most Excellent
It
Is the Way of Righteousness and Holiness}
Holiness has a glory in it. Every kind of thing, according to how pure it is, is more precious according to its purity. What other excellency do the angels of light have above the demons—besides their holiness?57 What was it that transformed the angels that became demons? Was it not the loss of their holiness? Among created beings able to reason, in what particular consists their likeness to the God of Glory, if it is not in their holiness? Holiness is of the divine nature; Christians are made partakers of the Spirit of God and of glory, which Spirit which rests upon them (1 Peter 4:14). Holiness has such a self-evidencing excellency that the consciences of carnal people often give their testimony to it—whether they wish it or not. Often, in most of those whom lust has transformed into utter brutes, even while their tongues are reproaching holiness, their consciences give their tongues the lie. Among those whose lust has quite totally put out their lights, who do not, in their serious judgment, conclude that a gracious, humble, meek, merciful, sober, and heavenly life is really more excellent than lewdness and sensuality (however unsuitable virtue is to their brutish appetites)? There is such a great beauty and majesty in holiness that it commands an acknowledgment of it from all sorts of perceptive people.
57God created nothing that was evil, including angels. Scripture informs us that “the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6 NKJV). Regarding evildoers, Jesus said, “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41 NKJV, emphasis added). From these and other passages that describe demons and their activity, we may safely conclude that demons are indeed angels that have, by their sin, eternally corrupted themselves.
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