======================================================================== SANCTIFICATION by Robert B. Thompson ======================================================================== Summary: The sermon emphasizes the importance of sanctification through God's Word and the call for Christians to live holy lives in a challenging cultural environment. Duration: 1:18:01 Topics: "Biblical Truth", "Christian Sanctification" Scripture References: John 17:17, 2 Corinthians 6:17, 2 Corinthians 7:1, 1 Timothy 6:9-10, Hebrews 12:14, 1 Peter 1:15-16, 1 John 1:9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of seeking and standing for truth in a world filled with misinformation. He highlights that while there is an abundance of information and communication in our age, much of it is not true. The only source of truth is the Bible, which has survived for thousands of years. The preacher also mentions that some people may be called to a life of prayer and devotion, like living in monasteries, but ultimately, each individual is called to stand for truth in their generation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I ask the Lord to help us. Lord, as we come unto you tonight, Lord, we are very thankful for all your wonderful love and your goodness to us, Lord. You guys just really helped us in every way, Lord. Every way, and we are so thankful. We pray, Lord, for the loved ones represented here, Lord, that you reach out and answer our prayers, Lord, for our loved ones. They may be found in you, Lord, doing your will. We pray, Lord, now for those in Tape Land, Lord, and there will be many hearing this tape tonight, Lord, and I pray it will be a blessing to them. And for us here, Lord, that we'll know your will and we'll do it. Help us tonight, Lord, through your Holy Spirit, that we may lift up the name of Jesus. You know, we've been talking, at John 17, the prayer of Jesus has to do with his church and its relationship to the world, and that's what we're talking about, is what it means to be a part of the church and how we relate to the world. We're starting in verse 17. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. Now, what does the word sanctify mean? What's the difference between holiness and righteousness? That's a good way to put it. Let me give you a concrete example. People that have TVs that pay, cable TV, sometimes they cheat and they watch pictures that they don't pay for, something they don't pay for, and that is unrighteousness. Now, it may come from an unclean spirit of greed or something like that, but the act, because holiness and righteousness are closely related, but that's basically an unrighteous action. To cheat somebody is an unrighteous action. When we're looking here at the word sanctify, what God's word does is sanctify us. He said, sanctify them in the truth, or by the truth. Thy word is truth. It means to make holy. Now, we talk Sunday, and I know there's children here, but I'm going to talk about it nonetheless in somewhat restrained terms so that the children can understand, because they're coming up into an age that is going to be characterized by immorality. Now, the children would know immorality by the term nasty, something that's nasty. How many children can understand me if I say something is nasty? Yeah, Elizabeth understands, and Rachel, and I'm sure Sophia does, and they can understand me, and they'll be facing it in their schools that they haven't already, because our generation, and the generation they're going to grow up in as I talk Sunday, by using the personal computer, which can do so much good, and I write my books on, at the moment, personal computers, but they're being used for nasty things. If you sit in front of your personal computer at night, or the television, and you watch something that is nasty, that's not unrighteousness, because you're not affecting anyone else. It has to do with your relationship to God. Now, in America, Americans are very keen on unrighteousness. If you're hurting someone else, then you can have a lawsuit, or it can be a crime, but you can do things that are terribly nasty. If you do it in the privacy of your own home, then the American government, by and large, is not concerned about this. You're not cheating anyone. You're not causing anyone pain. You're not depriving them of something, but I want you to know that God, because we belong to Jesus Christ, we can't do nasty things, even if they don't hurt other people. We can't look at nasty things. We can't talk about those things. We can't have anything to do with them, because God said, be holy because I am holy. Those things come from nasty spirits. Now, take, for example, rock and roll. There's no law in America against rock and roll, but if we could see the spirits, if we could see them with our eyes that are behind rock and roll, what we would see would be terrible looking. Demons, goblin-like creatures, you know, misshapen creatures, ugly creatures that serve Satan, that are in rock and roll. And so sometimes the kids say, well, you know, what's wrong with that? They were hurting somebody. They don't want to shoot somebody. No, that's wrong. But what's wrong with rock and roll? What's wrong with it is, it isn't holy, and Christians are called to be holy. Now, why are they called to be holy? They're called to be holy because they are members of God's family, and a Christian belongs to God in a very special way, and that's what John 17 is about. A Christian belongs to God in a very special way. In Ephesians, the third chapter, it speaks about the family, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Now, I am the head of a family, and I have children and grandchildren and a wife, and I am very concerned about those children and grandchildren because they are part of my family. Now, if they belong to the neighbor's family, you know, I mean, what the neighbors do, the neighbors do, that's their business. But what my family does, that comes into my home and eats my Easter eggs and my strawberries, though I like not to get any, oh boy, those kids love strawberries, but I, and if they came in the house swearing or doing something nasty, even though they weren't hurting me, I don't like that. I don't like those things. I don't like things that are nasty. I don't like swearing. It makes me very uncomfortable when people do it. Friends, for example, but I wouldn't have it in my house. I mean, if one of the children came in and said something nasty or did something nasty or used bad language, they're going to hear about it. Why? Because a grandpa and grandma and mom and dad are simply not going, because we belong to the Lord. How many understand that? Do you understand the difference between unrighteousness and, see, everybody can understand if you do something unrighteous and hurt somebody, they know that's wrong. If you steal from something from somebody, they know that's wrong. But, see, our culture is saturated with things that are not clean. They're nasty, like the words in rock and roll are very nasty. And the things that are coming on the television at night are very nasty. Many of the movies are very nasty. And the things coming now over the personal computer, over the internet are very nasty. They're not unrighteous. They don't hurt people. They're not stealing or anything, but they hurt God. God doesn't want them in his house. Does that make sense? You might say, well, nobody sees me, and I'm looking at dirty pictures, and nobody sees me. But you're mistaken. Why are you mistaken, Rachel? Because God is watching every move you're making, and it hurts him. Because, you see, God wouldn't look at nasty pictures. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't swear. He's holy. He doesn't have these spirits around him. And so, when it comes to the church, which is close to God, and the church does things that are nasty, then it hurts God. And so that's what Jesus is saying here. He's saying sanctify them, or make them holy. And how does he do that? How does he make us holy? He tells you right in that verse. By his word. Now, how does God's word make us holy? Because it gives us direction. Because it gives us direction. It tells us about things that are not holy. And when we read it, and we say, yes, Father, you said that, I can't do that, because, for example, the Bible says, don't let any filthy speech be out of your mouth. Then the word makes us holy. Does that make sense? Sanctify them in thy truth, or by thy truth. And it's the word. Tony was telling me that when he goes on a long trip, and he's away from the church for several weeks, even if he goes into Europe or something, that by the time he comes back, he's drained. That's what he told us last night. Because he's not getting the life from the word. The word gives us life. And so, when we're tempted to do something that's not right, not clean, then the purpose that we come to church is that word keeps sanctifying us. Not only by intelligent directions for our mind, but the spirit that comes from the minister should be holy. And it should create hope. We should sense that holiness, and it should have an impact on us. And the Holy Spirit present in all these things are sanctifying us. So, let's look at a couple of verses about sanctification. One of my favorites is 2 Corinthians 7.1. And this is a commandment, by the way. 2 Corinthians 7.1. We're talking now about the church and how it relates to the world and how it relates to God. That's what Jesus is praying for, his church. So, John, does someone want to read that? Having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement, flesh and spirit. That means that whenever we learn that something is unclean. Now, sometimes we do unclean things and we don't realize they're unclean. Until a Bible verse suddenly comes alive to us, or something happened, and we say, wow, I didn't know that that was not nice. I didn't know that. So, then when we find that out, then we pray and ask God to help. And that's what it means, let us cleanse ourselves. But when it says, therefore, having these promises, what does that tell us? Yes, it certainly is plural. We got that one right. Okay, it tells us that something was said previously. See, it's referring back to promises that have been mentioned previously. Since I've already said this, because of that, now I'm telling you to be holy. So, let's look back and see if we can find where it tells these promises, and see if anybody can find what these promises are. So, yeah. See, it's a family thing. He's talking about family. I'll be a father to you if you will come out from the world. That's in 6. It says, come out from among them. Come out and be separate. Verse 17, come out from their midst. That is, from the midst of the world. Now, remember, we're talking about the relationship of the church, the world. And we're to come out from the midst of the things of the world. And in America, see, countries change. Now, America, 150 years ago, was altogether different from what it is now. It wasn't nearly as nasty and doing nasty things. Not nearly. People wouldn't put up with it. Society, you wouldn't find in a book any nasty word. You wouldn't find it. You wouldn't hear it done in public. People, in fact, one time in England, there was a law that you could not spit in the street on Sunday. I mean, people were very conscious of the Bible and of holy things of God. And even today, there are countries that are not nearly as unclean as the United States. In fact, the United States is getting a reputation in the world for being a nasty culture. Yes? So, you would be closed on the Sabbath? Well, when I was a boy, the only thing that was open on Sunday was bakeries that sold hot cross buns for the Catholic people. They liked on Sunday their hot cross buns. They were a bun like that, and then it had a white cross of icing, and they were called hot cross buns. And so, there were a lot of Catholic people where I lived as a boy, and so the bakery would stay open for hot cross buns for the Catholic people. But outside of that, everything was closed. So, it isn't always the same in every country, but our country now is becoming very, very ungodly. And so, that means that we have to stay in the Word. We have to see what it says. And if we have the promise of being God's children, see, it's a family matter. God says, if you're my children, then you come out from the middle of this stuff. When this was written, it was during the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was a lot like America. The Roman Empire started off something like 800 or 900 years before Jesus was born, at the time of the poet Homer. And the Romans were very hardworking. They were mostly farmers, and they had very high standards of righteousness and cleanliness, hard work, honesty, characterized, and that's why Rome became so strong. But by the time of Jesus, and he was born into the Roman Empire, it had done like America. It was beginning, at that time, to be what we call immoral, or nasty, or unclean. That was beginning to happen in Rome. And then, three or four hundred years later, it was so bad that tribes from the region of Germany attacked Rome and conquered, which they could have never done in 100 BC, or even at the time of Christ's birth. They could not have done that. So a man named Gibbons wrote a large book, and Elizabeth, you're a great reader, and Sophia's a great reader, and you may want to get in the library, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and it's by a man named Gibbons. It's a famous book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And America is following that pattern. We started off as farmers, very industrious, we honored hard work, honored honesty, strong family, cleanliness, and in America, Christianity, and then little by little, little by little. So our kids now are coming up at America at its worst, and it will make it militarily weak, and so we don't know how soon some stronger, more disciplined culture will attack America and prevail. So our kids have to be prepared, and if they are holy, then God will protect them in a time of trouble. Because he says, I will receive you. If you will come out from them and don't touch these things, then I will receive you. And then Paul says, because we have these promises of being part of God's family, therefore, we should do what? It says cleanse yourself. Now a lot of things we can just do. If a friend comes to us in school and brings a book that maybe their parents subscribed to Playboy, and one of the children picked it up without their parents' knowledge and brought it to school. Now these kinds of things happen. And of course, when you get into about the 6th or 7th grade, then this becomes very interesting. And then you can cleanse yourself by saying, no, I'm a Christian, I don't look at things like that. You can do that. That would be cleansing yourself. That would be what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 7.1, cleanse yourself. Now sometimes in the case of adults, not so much children, we get into things that we want to stop and can't, like swearing, for example. It becomes such a habit that it's got, like Judy was telling us Sunday night, it's become a root. And then it's not that easy to stop. You have to go to God and sometimes come and be prayed for by the church. It's not that easy. But usually with children, in things like lying, stealing, which is often a temptation to children. Stealing is often a severe temptation for children. They can just not do it. If they keep on doing it, then when they become an adult they can't stop until they're arrested or something. But a child by and large can say, once they know, once they've been told by their parents, clearly, we don't steal, you belong to our family, you don't steal. Like Elizabeth said, I have godly parents. That makes a difference. My parents wouldn't do that, so I don't do that. Not even a penny. Not even a paper dollar. Nothing. I don't steal because my father in heaven will see that and then he'll be very disappointed and hurt. That's what we're talking about. Sanctify them to thy truth or in thy truth or by thy truth. Thy word is truth. And God's word is true. And what we're hearing in America, it's all right and it's what's the big term now? It's alternative lifestyle. It's an alternative lifestyle, which is to put a euphemism. I'll bet you that's a word you don't know, Elizabeth. I'm going to give you a new word. Euphemism? That's pretty good. All right. All right. It's a nice way of saying something that's not nice. And so one of our euphemistic phrases we use in America is an alternative lifestyle, which means I'm doing something that's nasty that wouldn't have been done in America 50 years ago. But now it's all right because it's an alternative lifestyle. The kids are going to meet a lot of alternative lifestyles. And you just have to learn to say, I don't do that. I'm a Christian. And there's nothing wrong with saying that you don't do it because you're a Christian. You're not trying to convert people by that or anything else. You're just saying, I don't do that and this is the reason. And once you say that, you know, it gives you great strength because you say, well, boy, I said I'm a Christian. No, I can't do it. If you just say I don't do it, you might get tempted into doing it. But once you put your, raise your standard and say, I won't do this. I'm a Christian. You'll find that the children will respect you. It's the honest thing. But we're always afraid if we stand up for Christ that other people will not like us or they will look down on us. And I've never seen it to fail that if you do what is right, this even happens in jail. It even is true in jail. The guy that catches it is the one that's, he's, he's not a, he's not a tough guy and he's not a Christian and he's kind of wimping around. These get merciful treatment in jail. Okay. But the person who is right and straight, minding his own business, not a show-off, but just reading his Bible in jail, in his bunk, doing what is right, not bragging about it, not trying to be anything special, will get the respect of the other inmates every time. Yeah, that's just the way it works. And it works that way in school too. It's the, it's the child that maybe is a Christian and wish they were a Christian, but they're afraid to be a Christian. Other kids look at them and they know what's going on and they despise you for not having the courage to be what you really are. If we're going to live with a Holy God, if Hebrews says without holiness, that's cleanliness, no one will see the Lord. And again, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Yeah, sins will. God is holy and he'll have a holy people. He dealt with Israel tremendously about holiness. Well, it was one of his biggest things in Israel. I am holy, be ye holy for I am holy. Don't cut the fringes of your hair, you know, I'm holy, holy, holy, all this stuff. Okay. And then we have another one is in, there's a lot of verses like this, by the way. Galatians 5.24 is another favorite of mine on sanctification. So they find that they might want to read it while the people in Tape Land are looking for it. Galatians 5.24. I'll hear back about all of this, you know, from Tape Land. They track right. Remember that time you talked about Tape Land? All right. 5.24. To a child because they don't have that kind of hormonal compulsion, but we adults know very well what that means. And the children after, when they hit puberty, generally around the age of 12, things get awakened. That's why the fifth grade is the best grade of all, because they're real smart. And they get into the sixth grade, comes who loves who, and then it gets worse and worse. But they that are Christ have done what? They always say, oh, I want to do this so bad. Put the spirit through it. Put the spirit through it. Those who belong to Christ do those things. They are holy people. We are called to be holy people. Not only righteous, but holy. The way we think, the way we speak, and the way we act. Be holy, for I am holy. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And God does it through his word. The labor, as we read the word, the washing of water by the word. The word keeps reminding us, this is unclean. Don't do it. This is unclean. Don't do it. You can't wash just once and get by for the next six months. You know, that doesn't go over in our culture. Might be alright for a mountain man that anoints himself with bear grease and boasts that water never touched his skin, but for most of us in civilization, we wash more than once a week. Okay? Well, that's required in the spirit realm. That constant washing of water with the word. Constant washing of water with the word. Be holy. Be holy. Reminding us of uncleanliness. Alright, now another good verse, a very profound one by the way, is Hebrews 10.14. This is very profound. If you understand this, you really understand the New Testament and you understand the new covenant and what Christ has really done. You understand how the new covenant differs from the old. So I want to read that, Hebrews 10.14. So much better the new covenant is than the old. What did they have to do in the old to get forgiven? And the blood made an atonement and forgave their sins. Okay, now what the writer of Hebrews is telling us is that's not true of Jesus. He was only offered once. And when we accept Jesus, it settles the sin question forever. By one offering he has perfected forever so that there will be no more consciousness of sin. The Hebrew had a consciousness of sin because he knew that every year, that was going to have to be offered again, every year I showed him that sin was an ongoing thing that was not satisfactorily dealt with when he slew his bull. He was forgiven but sin was still present. But under the new covenant, Christ, by the way it should work, in theory, the way God wants it to work is when you accept Christ, that settles the sin question forever. By one offering he has perfected them, but then it says three more words. What is it? For those who have sinned. Ministers have used this verse to show that even if a Christian sins, it's regrettable. Not to worry because Christ has forgiven their sins forever. The judgment was accomplished on the cross. Now you'll have to think about that because that is by far the major teaching in evangelical Christian churches. This is a very key verse in their theology. That the sin was judged on the cross. Therefore they have a tremendous problem with, for example 2 Corinthians 5.10, the judgment seat of Christ. And they've made up all kinds of things about that because they can't reconcile it to this verse in Hebrews. And so what they've come up with is that the judgment seat of Christ is a kind of a sports awards banquet where you are rewarded or not rewarded in terms of your works. But it can never deal with sin because that was settled once and for all on the cross when you accepted Christ. Now how many see the problem here? You see the problem? Alright, now when we read 2 Corinthians 5.10 on the judgment seat of Christ, we can see that it isn't talking about a sports awards banquet. It says we'll receive the good we've done and the evil we've done. So how can you separate works from sin? If the Lord tells you to go to the mission field and you don't go, isn't this sin? This that we preach here in this church is certainly not the first time it's ever been preached, but it is not widely known or understood at all. There's a lot of good preachers in this country and the fellow Dave Wilkerson is one of the best. His last article was marvelous. And of course it was about sin. And he was talking about antinomianism, which I have mentioned from time to time. Antinomianism is a heresy that goes back to the first century. And that heresy said that Christians, once you accept Christ, you have this mental grasp, forget about sin. There's no law that governs the Christian. And David Wilkerson in his last article mentions that Dr. Crisp, who's a theologian, and Dr. Crisp teaches, and he's not the only one, that I can do anything I please. I can do any nasty thing. I can do any unrighteous thing. It does not matter because I'm saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. Now, most good preachers, you know, honest and good upright men, would never carry it that far because they're not consistent. All that Dr. Crisp is doing is being consistent. He's just spitting it out. See, somehow preachers know that America is in need of repentance. They know that. And they're preaching the need to repent. But they don't have any theological basis because they don't understand where it fits. If sin was settled once and for all, and we're saved by grace, by that God sees us through Jesus Christ, and by the way, David Wilkerson hemmed down on that pretty heavy. He didn't give a theological solution. That's my job. He's more of a prophet, and he just says it's wrong. Period. Never mind why it's wrong. Everybody knows it's wrong, okay? But for some reason, the Lord and His goodness has enabled me, I think, to see what the problem is here, and it's subtle. It's subtle, but it can be understood, certainly. That when we come to Jesus, it is the will of the Lord that sin in our personality is gone. I mean, it's not an issue anymore. He has perfected us forever. But if it's stopped there, yes, then we could agree with Dr. Crisp and with other teachers and preachers who have said, well, if I swear, it makes God's grace shine more because He has more to forgive. And that's taught. And David Wilkerson said this question of God's part and our part has been argued for 2,000 years and has never been settled in the church. And that's what he said in his last article. He said this has never been resolved. It's never been resolved. This issue of how much salvation depends on us and how much depends on God. And he doesn't resolve it there, but he addresses the issue, and very well too. But it's a subtle point, and God's people are not always handy with subtleties, but I don't think it's so subtle that we can't understand it. The thing is that yes, sin is no longer a question, provided we are sanctified. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean we've built ourselves up to a state of holiness? No, it doesn't mean that, because most of us would fall short on that. It doesn't mean that. It means that we, from the time... Don't go to sleep yet, Rachel. I want you to hear this. You'll remember it. That little girl reading my book on endurance to the end. Well, endure a little bit longer, because I want you to hear this. Sin, the question, we remain without condemnation, provided that we set ourselves aside each day to Jesus. And that's what it means by being sanctified. Now, if we set ourselves aside each day to the Lord Jesus, then each day He works something special in our life. He may talk to us about obeying our parents. He may talk to us about telling the truth. He may talk to us about honesty. And that's all that He requires, is that we stay separate unto Him, and obey Him. And provided we do that, we can live a life without any conscience. Consciousness, or a conscience, that's bothered by sin, because He perfected us forever. And Romans 8 says the same thing. It says we are without condemnation. There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Now, being in Christ Jesus does not mean that at some point we, quote, made a decision for Christ. It doesn't mean that. Being in Christ Jesus is always a present thing. Today is the day of salvation. When I was so sick here a few months ago, and the Lord talked to me, because I was driving myself way too hard, and I make myself, with my bad habits, but the Lord spoke to me, and He said, all there is is now. I told that to a nurse today, a physician's assistant. We were talking about anxiety breakdowns, and she was talking about the trouble she had because of the stress she's placed under in the hospital. And I said, this is what I felt, God told me, all there is is now. It took me several months. I'm still reflecting on the wisdom of that, the wisdom. See, that fits I am. It fits take no thought for tomorrow. See, today is the day of salvation, now is the day of salvation. We humans have a terrible time living in the present. And the reason we have heart attacks and anxieties is because we're worrying about the future or the past. But if we just live in the present with Jesus, we don't have any anxiety breakdown, because we're always all right now. It's what's going to happen to us tomorrow that causes the arteries to constrict. Not what's happening now. We're almost always fine now. But oh God, it's going to hurt tomorrow. Elizabeth's got to go to the dentist tomorrow. Oh Lord, it's going to hurt. But it doesn't hurt now. It doesn't hurt right now. And all there is is now. And when she goes, the Lord will, she prays, the Lord will help with it. It'll be fine. It'll be just fine. There won't be any problem because God will be there. He's always, God is practical. And so is Satan, by the way. He always deals with the now too. God is practical. And he always takes care of the now. Our problem is last Sunday morning, I was trying to get my message when I was getting dressed, the Lord was telling me, you're not preaching yet. You don't need it. Oh boy. But it's living in the now. Living in the now. And it's not easy. But it's the way Jesus is. I am. Not I was or I will be. I am. Tell the Jews, tell the people, you said to Moses, I am. I'm here right now. So quit worrying about tomorrow. I am. Then we don't have nervousness or worry or anything else because right now we're all okay. Huh? All right. Now, if we live in the now with Jesus, and every moment we're with Jesus, then all our sins are taken care of without condemnation. Is that they have, first of all, said you're saved when you make a confession of Jesus, period. Not noticing that salvation is something that happens every day. And you're not saved till the end. He that endures through the end shall be saved. They've ignored that. And it's become a one-shot thing with its objective is heaven. So then when they go trying to figure out how this process, how we can be perfected forever, it doesn't make any sense. It sounds like once I accepted Christ, I'm perfected forever. No, you don't. We talk about people making a decision for Christ. Hey kids, there's no verses for that. We talk about accepting Jesus. I don't think there's a verse for that either. See, we're going about it the wrong way. That isn't the idea. The idea is you come to Christ and you receive Christ. You put your faith in his blood and eternal life and Christ enter you. And that is where you begin your journey. And every day you live like that. The moment you back out of that, you're out of the light. See, the blood washes us. If we walk in the light, the blood cleanses us. And that's where it all comes together. And that's why the theologians can't figure out because they're making accepting Christ salvation. See, they're making a statement. I believe in Jesus Christ. You're saved. You go to heaven. Well, then Hebrews 7.14 must mean that that means sin will never be an issue. See, that's the confusion. First of all, they're going to have to define salvation correctly. And salvation isn't validated until the end. He who endures to the end shall be saved. He who endures, not he who accepts Christ, he who endures to the end shall be saved. Well, are we saved when we accept Christ? Yes, if we abide in him. If we walk in him. You can't make a statement about Christ and then go about your life. That's not salvation. That's a ticket. That's what I call the ticket doctrine. I've got my ticket to heaven. Well, salvation is not a ticket. It's an experience and an interaction with a living person at all times. So Rachel, you know the Lord, but you know him now. He's with you now. You're being saved now. You're saved now because you're in Jesus. You can't walk away from the Lord, do your own thing, and say, well, I was saved when I was four years old. It doesn't work that way. You're saved now. It's always now. And that's why the Lord told me all there is, is now. And you'll find that matches every verse in the Bible. That's why God said if the wicked man will stop his wickedness and start doing righteousness, his wickedness won't be remembered because God deals with the now. And he says if a righteous man stops his righteousness and begins to do wickedness, his righteousness will not be remembered because God only deals with the now. Before Abraham was I am. I am. I am here now. John 5.27. Now I went over this with Paul Cohen over the phone. He says people are telling me, John 5.27, which says, you know, if any man hear my word and believes in him that sent me, he has passed from death unto life and shall not come unto condemnation, but he has passed from death unto life. Shall not come unto condemnation, but has passed from death unto life. He says, what do you make out of that? I said, of course it's true. When you come to Christ, you have eternal life and you will not come under judgment because he has protected forever those who are sanctified. But it doesn't say if any man makes a decision for Christ, or if any man accepts Christ, he says, if you come to me. And he said to the Jews, you're reading the book. There's no life there. You won't come to me. So salvation is a coming to Jesus at every moment. Now you can't say, well, I accepted Christ last Tuesday. Now I'm going to go out and swear because he's forgiven my sins once and for all. Because when you go out and swear, the Lord, you know, you're not abiding in the Lord by doing that. Now, if you're bound, as Judy was telling us Sunday night, she said, I was bound with this thing. I had a root in me. I didn't recognize that. Okay. The Lord showed that. He used Alex to help her find that out. Okay. So she found out there's a root. Then the Lord has given provision in the word, what to do about that. If she didn't do that, she would not be abiding in the Lord. You're abiding in the Lord only as long as you're serving the Lord. And once you decide to do your own little tripper, you're not abiding in the Lord and you can't claim the promises. So see, we're not saying that you have to be perfect. We're not saying that Christ will make you perfect. That's not the issue. The issue is abiding. Abide in me and I in you. If any man abides in me, he brings forth much fruit. If a man abides not in me, he casts forth the branch. We have to abide. It's now. It's not yesterday I accepted Christ or made a decision for Christ and I wrote a record book. They ought to burn every record book of people that accepted Christ. And I'm going to tell you why. Because the one you think is going to be the apostle lasts maybe six months and backslides terribly and never amounts to a thing. And here you've got their name in the book, you know, and somebody else is like the son that says no. And then they turn around and think about it. And then they decide to do it. And it may be the last one in the church ever dreamed would ever become of anything, or they may become nothing in the church and move to Hoboken or something. And then remember, oh yeah, I think it's about time I did something about that. I think that was right. And then they become a great Christian and a pillar of the church and you never even knew about it. So what good is a record book? Because the kingdom of heaven is like a seed. It's not like a getting voted into the DMOA. It's like a seed. I use that term because Pat understands it. The mother is a member of the white shrine, order of the eastern star. Okay. Does that make sense to you? It's kind of subtle in a way, but you see why it's become impossible to understand is by defining salvation as making an acceptance of Christ at some point and using that as a ticket to go to heaven. When you do that, then theology becomes impossible. But if you say it's coming to a man and living with him each day, becoming his disciple, denying yourself and following him, then you say, well sure, he's taking care of my sins. I don't have to worry about it. All I've got to do is follow Jesus. That's where it comes together. So I don't think that's all that subtle and people can't understand it. But boy, the way things are. Boy. Okay, so this, this, now how many see Hebrews 10? No, it's 10-12. No, 10-14. Do you understand that now? By one offering. See, he's not going to be offered every year like in the Jewish day of atonement. That isn't going to happen. He's offered once. He isn't going to be offered again. If you go back out into sin, you know, stay away from Christ and come back, you'd have to crucify him again. That's what Hebrews is about. It says don't do that. It says if you sin willfully after you receive the knowledge of the truth, there's no more sacrifice and there's no more day of atonement. And he was talking to Jews. He's saying you want to remember this is a one-time shot. Okay. By one offering. He has perfected you forever. Those who are sanctified. Any question about that? Does that make sense to you? Does it seem right in Christian and all that? Not a case of being perfect. Sanctified means set apart. And that's what we decide to do. Either I'll set apart, Rachel's going to decide and Sophia's going to decide and Elizabeth's going to decide and Moshe's going to decide whether they set apart their life to Jesus or whether they say, well, my mother went to church. I had to go to church all the time. My father went to church. And when I grow up, I'm not going to go to church again. They're going to make that decision. Aren't you Moshe? Yeah, I know what you're going to decide. I know what all you kids are going to decide. Okay. You're going to do the right thing. Okay. So back we are now in John 17. And this is what Jesus is talking about. He's praying not for the world. He's praying for his church. It isn't that he doesn't care about the world. God so loved the world. But it's that he's going to reach the world through his church. And the church is his family. His very own people. His sons and daughters. Okay. Now he says in John, sanctify them in the truth. Well, we just studied that. As thou didst send me into the world, I have also sent them into the world. Now, there's our relationship to the world. Sometimes in, let's see what that means to send us into the world. Now, there's been several times over the last 2,000 years in church history. Boy, that's a lot of years. 2,000 years. Moshe says, I think this tonight's already, we've been through 2,000 years. Okay. But he's a good boy. People have decided that the best way to serve God was to go live in a cave somewhere. You can go over to Israel today and you can see monasteries where people just go and live by themselves, maybe 20, maybe 30 people, and do nothing but worship God all day. Now, my opinion after studying on monasteries and nuns, I think some people are called to that. I think some people are called to just give their lives to prayer. You know, it's a calling. And I think that some people are called to do that. Even though there are many monastic orders in our day. Many of them. Convents for nuns and monastic orders for men. France. A lot of them in the Holy Land and in other places. And I think there's some in Greece. I think I saw some in a cave. Man. Whoa. Some of those people went up into their cave. They have a ladder. These are older men and they go right up the side of a cliff. And then they bring all in the ladder and they get in there and they just live in a cave by themselves. Come on. Maybe once every so often they get some food and stuff to let out the ladder. These old people climb right down the face of a cliff. I'm scared the liver out of you. Look at it. These guys. But they have. There's monastic orders. But also, he tells us here, he has sent us into the world, but he also tells us to be separate from the world. So how do we do that? What does it mean? Sophia? In the world and out of the world. I had, yesterday, I went to the doctor and I grow every once in a while for my skin. The sun affects my skin wrong. And he squirted this ear with his CO2 gun. They freeze the thing if they don't like what they see. And it turns black every time. It didn't turn black this time. So I said to him when he did this, this was yesterday. This is a man about 50. His name is Dr. Murphy. And this is the first time I've been to him. He's a dermatologist. And I said, I've got to preach tomorrow night. And I've got a black ear here. And he said, well, you can preach on Job. And then he said, he's rumbling around writing this stuff. And he says, what church is this? I said, well, it's the Forest Square Pentecostal. He says, oh, it's one of those tongues churches. I said, yep. I said, I've been speaking in tongues for 40 years. He said, you have? I said, yeah. And one thing led to another. And I ended up talking to the Lord. And I said, at my age, you know, I'm glad I've got something to look forward to. I said, I had a heart attack a few months ago. And it's awful nice to know where you're going and what's happening. And I didn't start out this way. I told him, you know, he said, well, what church you belong to? I said, boy, I thought I was raised in the woods. I didn't go to any church. I never heard the gospel when I was 19. And we went through this whole thing. He's supposed to be giving me an exam. But you see, he's a 50-year-old man. And all the while I'm praying. How far do you want me to go with this? When is it going to stop? You have to be sensitive. You can't ram stuff down people. The kingdom is like a seed, Jesus said, that springs up, you don't know where. And then there was a time I felt, that's it. I started talking about something else. He's sensitive. You see, we're in the world now. This man is about 50. And I mean, he's, you know, he's not going to live that much longer, a few years, maybe. And who knows, cancer or something else takes his life, 60. And God wanted him to hear that. God wanted him to hear that. That's a witness. That's the work of a witness. A witness is what he is, what he says, and what he does. It doesn't mean we're always preaching to people. It doesn't mean that. You're just what you are. And then today, Audrey had to go in for something. So we were in, and I, and the nurse there, very nice nurse, she's a physician's assistant. And we begin to talk about anxiety. And I, and she said, I have to have, by the rules of the hospital, I have to have a new patient every 15 minutes. Well, she's like this, you know. And she says, when I go home, I'm trying to just relax. You know, as the expression she used was, look at the wisteria. She only has wisteria in her yard. And she goes, every 15 minutes, going like this. Then I said, yeah, that's the way I am. That's what Kaiser calls an A personality, an urgent, time-urgent personality. And we were discussing that, and I said, well, you know, I'm a preacher. And I said, I prayed about this, because that's the way I am. I told her, Dr. McCarver said, told me that it's no use taking it for you to take a vacation. You're not the type. You're just going to have to, you're going to have to work through it while you're working. So we're going on like this. But you see, for the first thing, you know, I was telling her, you know, I said, this is what I felt that God told me. And she listened to it, and I explained it. I said, now, tomorrow is now. Yesterday is now. It's always now. All there is, is now. And she's looking at it, and she's thinking, yeah, it kind of spreads out there. And I said, it's been a big help to me. And I said, I told it to a Methodist preacher, a friend of mine, that had an anxiety breakdown. That's the preacher in Hucumba. And he deliberately left a big church, went to a small church, because of the pressure. And she's taking this all in, because the medical people now, the health services, are under enormous pressure. And so she's taking this all in, you know, and she went out, and she came back in later, and when we were leaving, she looked at me, and she said, I'm going to think about that. You see, God is interested in her. He's interested. She's an upright person. She's worked hard. She's got a degree from when we talked about Yale. I saw on the wall that she went to Yale, graduated from Yale. I told her I was raised in West Haven. Yale is in New Haven. And that's all. I've sent you into the world. To do what? So that we're different. We're not swearing. We're not cheating people. We're not eternally yapping about how bad the boss is, and how wrong everything is, and criticizing everybody. God has sent us into the world. Now, some of us may preach, and do personal work, or whatever. But he has sent us into the world. The trick is to be in the world, but not of the world. And some Christians have made the mistake of trying to be undercover Christians. They have tried to get in with people by pretending they weren't a Christian, so that they could lead them to Christ. That doesn't work. That doesn't work. They say, yeah, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do. That does not work. Paul said, I became all things to all men. But he didn't mean by that that he sinned, or did the sinful things that he meant. He made himself approachable. So God, I mean, this world needs a witness. And that doesn't mean Christians going around, trying to tell them to come to Sunday school, or putting a track in their hand. There's a time for that. But there's God wants much more than that. How many believe that? Lynn, she works for me, so a lot of people on the job she has, see, there's a Christian influence there. And I know Bobby does, and the works that she does, and others. There's a Christian influence there, and God wants that. If it weren't for that, this world would not, God is delicate. So, once we become part of the world, we're no use to God. You follow me? Once we're swearing like everybody else, and doing Elizabeth's over there, as of now. You're still in a public school, aren't you? There's a lot of kids there, from all different kinds of backgrounds. But you see, Elizabeth has the Spirit of God. And those kids will feel that. They will feel that. If she continues to live a holy life, and serve the Lord, and pray, I'm sure she will. She's going to affect it, because she's something that people honor, and respect that. As I said, my son Mark told me a few things about the jail, and Brian. He said, as long as you're up, you know, you're all together, and you're living it, and doing it, and people, they'll respect you, and they'll leave you alone. They don't pick on you. I had that experience in the Marine Corps. I was an out-and-out Christian in the Marine Corps. I never had any problem with assault. In fact, one time I had to order some men off the base that were using it for things that weren't right, and they were men from my own barracks. I was on guard duty. I ordered them off there with a rifle. I said, if you don't get off of here, I'm going to shoot you. I would have too, because in the Marine Corps, when you're on guard duty, whoa, that's not fun and games. Evidently, the guards before me were permitting this stuff to go on, and winking at it. I'd heard some kind of rumors about it. I didn't know about it. I had a rising gun. Oh, that was hard for me to do. I thought I'm going to catch it when I get back to the barracks, because these guys live there in the barracks, and I can't fight. That's not Christian. I'll just have to take whatever comes. I got back, and we're four on, eight off, four on, 24 off, four on. That means you're on guard duty four hours, off eight hours, back on four hours, and off 24 hours. If there's anything guaranteed to destroy your sleep patterns, that's it. I was through with my four hours and back sitting on the edge of my bunk, and here comes the ringleader walking over. I thought, well, here he comes. Praise the Lord. We'll see what happens. He stood, and he looked at me, and he said, you're a Christian, aren't you? He said, well, I used to go to a Pentecostal church. I said, is that right? He said, yep. He walked away. I never heard any more of it, because they knew. There was no monkey business. When I was in the barracks, I was at my post. This was in Japan, this took place. I was at my post. I was the same in the barracks, and they just don't know why. They just say, okay. In their hearts, they're thinking, boy, I wish I had the guts he had. That's what they're thinking. I wish I could be like that, but if I was slopping around and let them on to be a good guy and everything, you think they would respect me when I took out my New Testament? They'd say, ah, there's nothing there. He couldn't stand. He was scared when we'd come on a date. He doesn't know what he's doing. There's a wonderful thing, what you are, to be what you are and be it all the way. We're in the world. God has put us in the world, and if he were to take all the Christians out of the world, whoa. We're here to pray for our neighbors, for our friends, to have that spirit in us. If you work in a financial office, you may be the only Christian there, possibly. It's important. It's important. You may be the only Bible they'll ever read. It's got to be clear that he that runs may read it. It can't be in any way contaminated by your trying to win their friendship in the wrong way. You can be friendly without letting it. Just like Jesus. He was in the world, but he was another world. Any questions on that? We're almost through here. Enjoy the end, kids. I have also sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself. Now Jesus could have lived like anybody else, but he chose to set himself apart to God for our sake. He never was married. He never had children. He never had grandchildren. He never had a job. He was all the time people trying to kill him, and he did all this for our sake. We've got to set ourselves apart for his sake and for people's sake, so we can't do like everybody else. Maybe they can go do whatever they're doing, but we can't do that. We have to always be asking the Lord, would you have me do this? Other kids can do this, but Lord, do you want me to do this? Is this really what you want me to do? Pretty soon the kids are in the 7th and 8th grade. They have school dances. Well, a lot of times there's beer and things there. A Christian might think, well, I can't go with the kids, and I can't go, and everybody will think I'm a nerd and all that, but you have to ask the Lord because you belong to him. You're holy. They are not holy in that sense. You belong to Jesus, and so if you set yourself aside, that's called sanctifying yourself, then Jesus is helped because it's his kingdom, and your friends are helped. You may not like it very much, but think where would we be if Jesus had not have sanctified himself? Where would we be if Jesus said, enough of this. I'm going to get married and settle down in Nazareth and raise kids. Where would we be? We wouldn't be sitting in church here. We'd be out crazy like everybody else with disease. This lady told me, this nurse came from New Haven. I came from West End. She said, I haven't been back to New Haven in a long time because it's full of disease, full of HIV. It's just horrible. From drugs, dirty needles. New Haven, Connecticut, the home of Yale University. Ivy colored buildings, New Haven. Catholic city, typical New England. It's hard to picture. That's the way it goes. Somebody's got to sanctify themselves in there and stand up for it. And he says, so that they also themselves may be sanctified in the truth, and the truth is what is pleasing to God and what isn't. That's what the truth is. Our world today and the world these kids are coming up in is an age of communication. These personal computers, I've been working with computers now, how long was it Mark? It was about 1989. That's only seven years ago when I first got introduced to an X. It wasn't a 286. What they called before that was an X. I had a Commodore. I had a Commodore. That was my introduction to computers. I'd always been on the typewriter for years and years. Oh, that just captivated me, what you could do with that Commodore was something. It had 64,000 bytes of memory. I marveled at that. 64,000 bytes of memory. I was carried away. The things I could do with that computer, of course with some of my longer books that took about 10 diskettes, you know, I put part A and part B because they only hold a little bit of memory. Then they began to take off and somebody got me, Pastor James over there at Vista got me introduced to the beginning of the computer, the DOS computer. That drove me nuts for a while because I couldn't get that going. Oh, they'd be up and we'd have a hard disk. What was that first hard disk? It was around 20 megs, something like that, about 20 megabytes. 20 million bytes compared with 64,000. I thought, wow, 20 million bytes. The Bible only is two and a half megabytes and here this is 20 megabytes. Incredible. And the thing's running about nine megahertz of speed, clock speed going through. What's the XT it was called, wasn't it? XT. They don't have any more maybe in the Smithsonian Institution or something. But this is just since 1989 and 1990 and then they got the 286. Oh, wow, and 30 megabytes of memory. Wonders never stop. Then they came out with the 386 in about 1990, 1991 and Pastor James says, it's so fast, the software can't handle it. It's just unstable. It's screaming with speed. You know, the 386 looked about 25 megahertz or something like that. 30 megahertz maybe for the real screamers and they're going like this. They were getting hard disk now for graphics to take more memory. They were up to 60 megabytes of hard disk. You know what they're talking about now? The little notebooks, the newest ones on the memory are two and a half gigabytes on the notebook. Does anyone know what a gigabyte is? Bill, what's a gigabyte? Tell them. It's a thousand megabytes. A thousand million bytes and they run at 250 megabytes. They're called 486s. That's just since 1989. We're at the infancy. All this is communication, communication, communication. That's what the kids are facing now. They're growing up in a communication age. Dear Lord, what is it going to mean? What is it going to mean? It's being used for good. I'm using it for good. Stuff I do in writing, I couldn't no more do with a typewriter than I could fly. Thanks to Mark Overton, I've got the latest stuff. He keeps me right up there in the state of the art and I'm working with a Windows 95 and I say, oh, there's something in the tabernacle of the congregation I want to change. You know, that's how long. Well, that's about 800 megs. Not 800 megs, about 800 kilobytes. And I just hit the button, up it comes, put on the search mechanism for the word I want, hit a button, change it, hit S7, yes, and save it. And it's out and I'm back in my original manuscript, which is on two screens. And I could hit one button and this screen comes up and the other button and that one comes up and go back and forth. And I can take material out of this one and put it in that one and material out of this one. You couldn't do that in a typewriter in two weeks. I can do it in five minutes. Five minutes. Think of it, what they're coming up to. All right, so the issue, the issue, how many of you are to sanctify them in thy truth? How many see that? Don't quit now, I'm not through. This is important. This is the last thing I'm going to say, okay? Hang on. Moshe's doing a good job here. Moshe, you must have a nap today. Our age is an age of information and communication and most of it is not true. It's not true. What we see in a computer, what we see in a newspaper is affecting our mind, but it is not true. Sometimes it's factually true, but it isn't telling us the meaning of things. The only book, and it's survived now for 4,000 years, that tells the truth, I mean not that well, Moses must have written about 1,200 B.C. No, it's 3,000 years. It's the Bible. And it's not just the Bible. You can have the Bible like we were telling tonight and read it incorrectly. You can get what's called a personal worker's New Testament. It's got maybe 25 verses outlined and read. You put them all together and what you've got is a ticket. It's not really true. So Jesus wants us to have truth. And the truth comes from him himself. It's not just the Bible. It's Jesus making the Bible alive. And so each one of us is called to be, we're called to stand for truth in our generation. Not the big lie that's going on. Belinda here faxed me over something. How many have seen pictures of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? What is up there? Do you remember the great portrait of Fresco by Michelangelo? What does it show? Does it show the Father? Have you ever seen that, Rachel? Have you seen Elizabeth? Or ask Pat or Jeannie there to show you a picture of the ceiling, the Fresco that was done by Michelangelo. And it shows God the Father. And he's coming out of a cloud and he's reaching out like this with his finger pointed. And then over here is Adam with his finger up touching God's finger. And it's showing God creating Adam. And this is all done in Fresco and plaster up in this great cathedral in St. Peter's in Rome. Michelangelo. I don't know what it's called, what that particular scene is called, but it's a creation. But Belinda faxed me over from the Wall Street Journal. And it's got that picture there, but what Adam is doing is he is handing a bag of money to Adam. And the article by the staff writer for the Wall Street Journal is talking about the emphasis in Christianity on God making you rich. And she's reviewed several books. And this is contemporary. They weren't all Christian. I think most of them were, but she had a couple of outsiders. And one Christian book, for example, is called God Wants You to be Rich. And they're books and they have financial seminars. This is a big move. Now this is a case of Christians, and this particular book, God Wants You to be Rich, is evidently based on Abraham. That if you're rich you can have all these people that you minister to their material needs and take care of them and therefore God wants you to be rich. Now there's an example of a person using the Bible as a lie. A Christian. And in one large church they had a financial seminar and the man that said four times the number of people came to the seminar that we expected. The Christian people are into the money thing. But the New Testament says, they who will be rich fall into a snare. The love of money is the root of all evil. They that will be rich pierce themselves through with many sorrows. But you see, here's the Bible, here's educated men that are selling books that are on the bestseller list for months on end to Christian people, charismatic people. Why are they believing a lie? They're not sanctified. See, the people aren't sanctified and the person who is teaching this is not. Because if he were the Lord Jesus who is the truth, see I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is the truth, would have checked them and told them this is not true. And because you go through your Bible you've got Gehazi, the servant of Elijah, you've got Balaam, you've got Judas, you've got Ananias and Sapphira, plus the statements of Paul that the love of money is the root of all evil. And here Christian people are buying books called God wants you to be rich. It's directly opposite from the scripture. Okay, so every one of us, this is our calling, is to be sanctified so that other people can find truth. There's no truth in the world and many times in the church. And if you were sanctified, now Jesus sanctified himself so that we would be sanctified in truth. And now we have to, we can't learn it in college and tell people the only way we can find truth and tell other people truth is how? And what does that mean? Rachel, Elizabeth, Sophia, Moshe, huh? Yes, you've got the definition. Now how do we sanctify ourselves so that other people may find truth? Because you want all your friends in school to have truth, real truth, not just knowledge of facts like mathematics or geography, but real truth, the meaning of life. Now what can you do to make sure that they get truth? What are you going to have to do? You're going to have to sanctify yourself. You're going to have to say, well, whatever my life was meant to be is all, that's nice, but I am a Christian and I am called to set, Jesus did that for me. He didn't get married. He didn't have children. He didn't have grandchildren. He didn't have even a place to lay his head for your sake so that you would have truth and not be growing up with the big lie. Now your job is to set yourself aside so that Jesus can use you to bring truth to whoever he brings you to. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay. Okay. There's no other way, people. There's no other way. If you're going to bring truth, you have to set yourself aside to Jesus. Rachel, how do you bring truth to people? I caught you. You better tell her, Elizabeth, because she did real good right up to that point, so she can write it in her book. Okay. Moshe, did you survive? Are you still alive? Okay. He said he didn't know what survival meant. Okay. Lord, we do thank you. And Jesus, we thank you that you did sanctify yourself. You set yourself apart so that we would not be living in the big lie and deceiving ourselves and deceiving others and wrecking our families and wrecking our health and just believing about alternative lifestyles and all these other lies that are going on as though they were truth or had some importance or meaning of some kind. But Lord, you are willing to deny yourself that we might be sanctified in the truth. Now I pray, Lord, for each one of us that you will help us, right from Moshe, right on up, Lord, that you will help each one of us to set ourselves apart because it's just a short time before we go to be with Jesus in eternity. It's just so few years. So Lord, help us to make good use to set ourselves apart that other people also may find the truth of God and serve him and please him. And Lord, now I pray for each one here, give them a good night's sleep, keep them safe on their way home, that they'll wake in the morning healthy and strong. Help Elizabeth, the dentist, Lord, that all will work out marvelously in your hands. And little Joshua, Lord, that his head will heal where he bumped it, Lord. And all the other medical needs that are here and in Tape Land, Lord, in Jesus' name and everyone's name. Amen. ======================================================================== Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/11/SID11094.mp3 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/robert-b-thompson/sanctification/ ========================================================================