3ABN On the Road

Power In Purity

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Doug Batchelor

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Series Code: OTR

Program Code: OTR000400


01:02 Pastor Batchelor, I want to invite you come to the pulpit.
01:05 I want to say, thank you,
01:07 for coming to Michigan Conference.
01:10 It's just been a joy to have you here
01:12 and have your wife here and your family here.
01:17 And he'll be leaving with his family, of course.
01:19 He'll be here, there, everywhere.
01:21 We will be seeing you on 3ABN
01:23 in other methods such as video.
01:25 We'll be hearing you on the radio.
01:27 We'll be seeing materials.
01:28 We'll be using materials that Amazing Facts produces.
01:31 We'll be using those materials to win souls.
01:34 And we're grateful for that soul winning fire
01:37 that burns in your heart and drives your ministry.
01:40 Amen, thank you so much.
01:41 And so when you go, you're gonna go with all our prayers
01:44 and I wanna pray right now
01:46 and thank the Lord for sending you.
01:48 "Father in Heaven,
01:49 you're so good as our dear brother,
01:51 Pastor Batchelor, leaves us,
01:54 he gives us his last sermon tonight.
01:56 I know your Holy Spirit will be here.
01:58 You've already blessed us, blessed us
02:00 as we went down the road with the Good Samaritan
02:02 and saw the parallels between bad and the plan of salvation.
02:06 Talk to us about our pride,
02:08 how we want to walk with humility,
02:10 true humility before you?
02:13 Bless him as he speaks tonight and as he goes his journey,
02:18 please Heavenly Father,
02:19 continue to send the angels with him, be with his family.
02:22 Build little hedge about them.
02:24 May they sense your leadership ever
02:27 and use the ministry that you have given into their hands
02:31 to have a greater impact than they can even imagine.
02:34 We look forward to all being together in the Sea of Glass.
02:37 Keep our dear Pastor and his family
02:39 now in your hands, in Jesus name, amen. Amen.
02:53 Please turn with me in your Bibles
02:56 to Philippians 4:8. Philippians 4:8.
03:10 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true,
03:13 whatever is noble, whatever is right,
03:16 whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
03:19 whatever is admirable,
03:20 if anything is excellent or praiseworthy
03:23 think about such things."
03:35 Some of the praiseworthy things that we've gotten to,
03:37 some of the praiseworthy things that we've enjoyed this week
03:40 have been the beautiful music.
03:42 Dr. Eric Umali accompanied by Kathy Price,
03:45 brings us a special number.
04:02 In letters of crimson, God wrote His love
04:12 On the hillside so long, long ago
04:21 For you and for me Jesus died,
04:31 And love's greatest story was told
04:43 I love you, I love you
04:53 That's what Calvary said
05:02 I love you, I love you
05:14 I love you written in red
05:33 Down through the ages, God wrote His love
05:41 With the same hands that suffered and bled
05:52 Giving all he had to give
06:01 A message so easily read
06:12 I love you, I love you
06:22 That's what Calvary said
06:31 I love you, I love you
06:43 I love you written in red
06:54 Oh, precious is the flow
07:03 That makes me white as snow
07:12 No other fount I know,
07:22 nothing but the blood, the blood of Jesus
07:31 I love you, I love you
07:41 That's what Calvary said
07:50 I love you, I love you
08:03 I love you written in Red
08:29 Amen.
08:35 Thank you. That was a beautiful song.
08:38 I've appreciated your music here.
08:41 Thank you so much for inviting us
08:43 to be part of your camp meeting.
08:45 I'm really been impressed with the spirit here.
08:48 I'm not just trying to be patronizing,
08:50 I really mean that.
08:51 It's, you sense something different.
08:55 But I won't compare you with any other camp meetings.
09:03 Keep, keep Amazing Facts in your prayers, God is blessing.
09:09 We're doing everything
09:10 we know how to do to win souls
09:13 and even more important than
09:14 that to equip the saints to win the souls.
09:19 That's really what our ministry is all about.
09:23 And we're not only using the radio
09:25 and the TV, we're publishing.
09:26 Oh, I'll be at the ABC after the program tonight.
09:29 I hope to meet some of you there.
09:30 That means I won't be visiting with you until I get there.
09:32 So please understand I'm gonna run over there
09:34 so I can greet you.
09:36 And we're doing-- using the internet.
09:38 Any of you ever used a POP CD, the Panorama Prophecy CDs?
09:42 Have you given some of those out?
09:43 You'll be excited about something new we're developing.
09:46 It's gonna have all the final events of prophecy
09:49 with animation that will take someone
09:51 through the final scenario.
09:53 I get so frustrated when I hear people
09:55 talking about this left behind idea
09:57 that we're all gonna get zapped out of here
09:59 before the tribulation and, you know,
10:02 the same thing the devil did
10:03 when Jesus came the first time.
10:05 Mixing up the church about how it was gonna happen.
10:08 He's doing it again.
10:10 The church is very mixed up about how He's coming.
10:13 And the devil is paving the way for a major deception.
10:17 And so we're doing that. We've got our college.
10:19 I've met several of our graduates here.
10:21 And it's good to see the way they're using their gifts.
10:24 And so just keep us in your prayers.
10:26 God has opened some wonderful doors.
10:32 I'd like to conclude tonight
10:36 by directing our attention to a theme
10:39 that you've been focusing on this week, Holiness.
10:44 And, in summary, my message would be tonight,
10:47 there is power in purity.
10:51 And just please pray with me one more time.
10:55 Father in Heaven, now as we long to hear
11:00 what you have to say to us, I pray Lord,
11:02 that you would remove any distraction.
11:05 Give us ears to hear and even more than
11:07 that I pray that we'll not be hearers only
11:09 but doers of the word.
11:11 We ask in the name of your son Jesus, amen.
11:17 I like Amazing Facts.
11:19 And I remember reading,
11:21 I think this one is in that book,
11:22 Amazing Facts Book about the water spider.
11:26 You know they've got this curious little water spider
11:29 that lives in parts of South and Central America,
11:31 some parts of Asia.
11:33 That builds its nest under water
11:36 usually by the shore of a river or a lake bed.
11:41 And it weaves a web inside the little grasses
11:44 and things that grow there by the edge.
11:46 And then it brings down bubbles,
11:48 a few at a time on its legs, it brushes them off.
11:51 And it slowly builds a big bubble
11:55 that is a diving bell basically and its, its home.
11:59 Now can you, imagine anything in evolution
12:04 that would require the need for a spider
12:06 start living under water in a bubble.
12:12 In any event, it lives under there,
12:15 catches its food under there, eats under there,
12:18 multiplies under there.
12:22 Every now and then, it has to go up
12:23 and get fresh bubbles, bring it back down again.
12:25 So it can keep the air supply refreshed.
12:29 It lives below by surviving on a resource from above.
12:36 This is I think the key for Christians to live
12:39 a Holy life in a world that is extremely wicked.
12:44 You know, that is one of our greatest challenges.
12:46 And I think that especially in the last days
12:50 where sin is multiplying,
12:52 Jesus said the condition of the world
12:54 would be a combination of the condition
12:57 of Sodom and Gomorrah and the days
13:00 before the flood all at one time before Jesus comes back.
13:03 Jesus draws on the two worse scenarios for human decadence.
13:09 And he said the whole world
13:10 would be like that before Jesus comes back.
13:12 Well, I think we've arrived.
13:16 And once again the thoughts of men's hearts
13:18 are only evil continually.
13:21 Selfishness and wickedness
13:23 and things that not even the world would think about
13:26 a few years ago, are being embraced by the church.
13:33 Would you like me to mention some of those?
13:36 Not yet, you're not ready for it.
13:39 You know, I remember hearing
13:40 Floyd Brezig give an illustration
13:41 that really made an impression on me at a camp meeting.
13:45 And when he is talking about the church
13:47 has a desire to be better than the world.
13:50 And instead of using the Lord as our gauge,
13:54 we often say as long as we're better than the world,
13:56 we must be doing our job.
13:57 We have the illusion of Holiness
13:59 as long as we can say we're better than the world.
14:02 But what has happened is the standards
14:04 of the world keeps cycling down.
14:07 And if the church is using the world as its standard,
14:09 just stay better than the world.
14:11 What happens is as the world slowly gets worse and worse,
14:16 how many would agree that's happening?
14:19 Okay, we're together still.
14:20 As the world gets worse and worse,
14:22 eventually the standards for the church are lower
14:26 than the standards of the world used to be.
14:32 I remember when I went to public school
14:33 in New York City, a friend of mine,
14:37 Vickie Ornstein was sent home
14:40 from P.S. 87 for immodest clothing,
14:45 public school in New York City.
14:49 Those same clothes would probably
14:51 now be accepted in many Adventist schools.
14:56 So what does that tell you, is happening?
14:58 That is one of the thousand examples I could use.
15:03 I remember a day when it was considered scandalous,
15:07 when I don't remember was it Dick Van Dyke Show
15:09 or the I love Lucy Show,
15:11 but one of those the first time
15:12 they showed a bedroom on TV,
15:17 you know, what I'm talking about?
15:18 You don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about.
15:22 I don't know, I've never heard of I love Lucy.
15:28 But now, just the stuff that comes lilting over the radio
15:36 and the TV is just, it is so decadent.
15:40 How can we be pure in such a polluted world?
15:45 You know, Jesus did not ask to call us out of the world.
15:48 He doesn't want us all to run to a cave, does he?
15:51 He told Elijah, "What doest thou here?"
15:54 When He thought that the things were beyond hope in Israel.
15:59 You cannot bail a boat when you are in the water.
16:02 You've got to be in the boat.
16:03 You cannot clean a house from the outside.
16:05 And there are those in the church
16:06 that think because there is sin in the world
16:08 and in the church that we need to run off
16:11 and isolate ourselves and insulate ourselves.
16:13 And that's not what Jesus calls us to do.
16:14 The challenge for a Christian is to be pure
16:17 while living in an impure world.
16:21 Jesus says in Mark Chapter 15--
16:24 no that's not the one I wanted.
16:27 John Chapter 17, verse 14 and 15.
16:31 He says, "I have given them your word
16:33 and the world has hated them,
16:34 because they are not of the world
16:36 just as I am not of the world.
16:37 I do not pray that you should take them out of the world
16:40 but that you should keep them from the evil one."
16:43 Christians in the church,
16:45 it's something like a ship in the water.
16:50 Matter of fact the ship looks out of place
16:51 when it's on dry land.
16:55 Ship belongs in the water,
16:57 but as soon as you get the water in the ship,
16:59 it goes down.
17:01 The church has this delicate balance
17:04 of really being in a foreign environment.
17:07 And as long as it can maintain separation,
17:10 it can move in the water.
17:12 It's like an airplane.
17:13 Airplanes don't look like they belong up in the air.
17:16 And when they start moving,
17:17 they don't stay in the air, do they?
17:21 And the church when it seizes to move, it falls.
17:25 One of the best ways for us to maintain this attitude
17:29 of Holiness to stay involved working for the Lord, amen.
17:33 Now how can we be pure in such an impure world?
17:40 Well, probably the most important thing to do
17:42 is as it says in Hebrews Chapter 12,
17:44 "Seeing then that we are surrounded
17:45 with such a great cloud of witnesses,
17:48 let us lay aside every sin
17:49 and the weight which doth so easily beset us,"
17:52 looking on, "And let us run the race."
17:55 Looking unto Jesus,
17:57 the author and finisher of our faith.
17:59 Looking unto Jesus, you are transformed
18:02 by what you behold,
18:04 instead of calibrating our compass by the world and saying
18:07 as long as I'm better than the world, I'm okay.
18:09 Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, focus on Jesus, look at Jesus.
18:14 You become like what you look at.
18:17 We're transformed from glory to glory by what we behold.
18:21 But I know that so much of what is being beheld,
18:25 not only by the world but by the church,
18:28 is not the right thing.
18:32 We spend our times reading what the world reads,
18:35 watching what the world watches
18:37 and listening to what the world listens to.
18:39 And then we wonder why we have trouble
18:41 acting like angels when we live on the food of devils.
18:48 The Pastor who baptized me shared a very simple
18:50 illustration I've never forgotten.
18:53 We have two natures that are at war,
18:55 the spirit and the flesh.
18:58 We got that carnal lower nature
19:01 and we've got the yearning inside
19:03 to be Holy, to be like God.
19:04 Paul describes this in Romans Chapter 6,
19:06 Romans Chapter 7.
19:10 "Whatever nature you feed,
19:12 is the one that is going to be victorious
19:15 when temptations and battles come."
19:18 If you have two dogs from the same breed,
19:21 same size, about same age.
19:25 And you're going to fight them.
19:26 I don't recommend you do this. It's an illustration.
19:29 And for one week you feed one dog,
19:32 just the very best of food,
19:33 give it lots of water, exercise.
19:35 The other one you chain him up
19:36 with about an inch of chain by his neck.
19:38 Don't feed him.
19:39 Don't give him anything to drink.
19:40 No exercise.
19:42 And a week later, you fight them.
19:46 Which one's gonna win?
19:48 The one that's been taken care of.
19:51 You've got these two natures that are at war.
19:53 Peter says, there is a war-- there is a war in our members.
19:58 How many of you have felt that?
20:00 If you don't feel it, it's 'cause you're dead.
20:03 If you say, "I don't ever get tempted."
20:04 Well, that means, you're just going down stream.
20:05 You're not resisting at all.
20:08 But if you're trying to be a Christian,
20:09 you feel the war.
20:11 And the way that we win the war
20:14 and the battles get so much easier
20:15 is if we will feed on that which is good.
20:18 You heard that scripture reading,
20:20 what sort of things are just noble, holy, pure.
20:26 A doctor in this congregation came to a pastor offered him
20:29 two movie tickets that he had.
20:33 And he said, "I can't accept those."
20:35 Oh, you need to relax. Take your wife out.
20:38 You take things too seriously. Enjoy yourself.
20:43 And the Pastor said to the physician,
20:44 he said, "You're a brain surgeon."
20:47 Is that right? He said, "Yes."
20:48 He said would you enter into the operating theater
20:51 and start working on somebody's brain
20:54 without washing your hands?
20:55 He said, "No."
20:57 He said, well, with my work,
20:58 I can't do it with a dirty heart.
21:02 And so many of us are trying to live a Holy life
21:06 while we're feeding on the wrong food.
21:10 I understand there's this beautiful
21:11 dainty little butterfly about half an inch across.
21:14 It's got blue wings with little jewels on the wings.
21:18 And you would think
21:19 it's one of the most beautiful creatures
21:21 until you find out that it doesn't live on nectar.
21:23 It feeds on dung.
21:27 And we've got some folks in the church
21:30 that look like butterflies on the outside.
21:33 But if you watch them long enough,
21:35 they're feeding on the wrong thing.
21:38 You cannot be holy
21:40 if we're feeding on the food of the world.
21:44 You cannot resist the temptations that come.
21:49 What's the solution?
21:50 Well, there is power and purity.
21:54 You know, you read in the Bible
21:56 as long as there was an Achan in the camp,
21:59 they couldn't win any battles with the enemy.
22:04 Now I'm gonna take this in two directions.
22:08 First of all, as a Pastor,
22:11 a constant battle that I fight
22:13 is whenever you bring up to the church board
22:16 and then to the church business meeting,
22:17 people whose names need dropping,
22:21 everybody rises up and they say,
22:23 well, who are we to judge
22:24 and we need to love them and we need to be patient.
22:26 Folks don't know what they're talking about.
22:30 If someone is taking the name Christian,
22:33 don't take his name in vain.
22:36 If someone says they're Seventh Day Adventists,
22:38 then they're going to the bar and they're smoking cigars
22:40 and they're running around on their family, drop their name.
22:45 You know, when you end up doing this,
22:46 we continue to lower the standards of the church
22:49 under the pretence of love
22:51 and it really isn't love for God,
22:52 its love for the world.
22:56 And I believe God could do more to bless the church
22:58 if we deal with some of the Achans in the camp
23:00 and that is the loving thing to do for them.
23:05 We got some cases,
23:07 50 percent of the members in the church don't even come.
23:10 Some one don't even know they're on the books.
23:13 I baptized this man in California
23:16 and as we got ready to vote him into membership,
23:18 the pastor said, well, he's already on the books.
23:21 He said, you're kidding me.
23:23 He said, you know, back in World War II,
23:26 I think, I got baptized.
23:29 I haven't been to Church since then.
23:32 They never dealt with him and he'd been just completely
23:34 submerged in the world.
23:37 So that's one thing
23:39 when I talk about Achans in the camp,
23:40 they couldn't win any battles.
23:41 The other thing is our lives personally.
23:46 If we're fraternizing with the enemy,
23:49 we lose our power.
23:51 How did Samson lose his strength?
23:54 He was sleeping with the enemy, right?
23:57 And then he went to fight and one day
23:58 there was no strength there.
24:00 Gideon, before God could use Gideon,
24:02 God said to him,
24:03 now before I lead you against the Midianites,
24:06 you need to knock down those offers of bail
24:08 that you've got in your triumph.
24:12 And God could do so much more to work with the church,
24:15 if we recognize that there is power in purity.
24:22 If we fix our eyes on Jesus, if you look at the cross
24:25 and the more we understand how our sins have hurt Him,
24:29 the easier it is to live a new life.
24:32 Think about it, friends, be honest.
24:34 If, if right now somehow
24:35 you could be transported back in time
24:37 and you could be given a vision of Jesus,
24:40 right here before you on His cross, bleeding.
24:45 Have you ever watched anyone die?
24:49 Dying, suffering, and then you know
24:52 that he is on your cross you are Barabbas.
24:54 He took your place for your sins.
24:57 How can you walk away from the cross
24:59 and be indifferent about sin.
25:02 The more time we spend at the foot of the cross,
25:04 the easier it is for us to recognize,
25:08 how much sin hurts Him and the easier it is for us
25:10 to turn away from it.
25:12 We realize that it's deadly.
25:15 The devil does everything he can with his clever
25:17 advertising campaign to make sin look attractive.
25:22 This old bachelor on his way to work everyday,
25:24 walked by this antique shop
25:26 and there on the window of his antique shop
25:28 was this beautiful, it wasn't a vase, it was a vase.
25:33 I say that with the little finger out.
25:37 And he knows there's just something about it.
25:39 It was a multi-colored ceramic thing that was just beautiful.
25:42 He thought it was beautiful.
25:43 And he'd slow down everyday and he'd stare at it.
25:45 And then finally one day he thought,
25:46 "What's wrong with me?" He says, "I've got the money.
25:48 I enjoy it so much.
25:49 I stand there in the rain and look
25:50 at the window, and I look at it.
25:52 Why didn't I buy it?"
25:54 So he finally broke down, he bought the vase.
25:56 He brought it in to his musty dusty bachelor pad
25:58 and he set it down in a prominent place
26:00 in the middle of the apartment.
26:02 And then he looked at it.
26:03 All of a sudden, he realized that next to that vase,
26:05 his curtains were torn and faded.
26:07 He thought, "You know, I really need
26:09 to get some new curtains and fix up the curtains."
26:13 Then he noticed that the springs
26:14 and stuffing were coming out of his favorite chair.
26:16 It just didn't look right there with the vase in the room.
26:18 And he fixed up the chair.
26:19 And then, the carpet was stained and musty
26:23 and he changed out the carpet.
26:25 Little by little, the whole room was transformed
26:28 because he introduced something pure.
26:30 He didn't realize all those years
26:31 he was living in that apartment
26:33 that it was slowly deteriorating around him.
26:37 Don't point any fingers.
26:39 But have you ever met old people
26:40 that decorate their house and they do it once,
26:42 50 years later, they haven't noticed that things have aged.
26:52 And you might think it's 'cause they're being frugal.
26:55 They just have not noticed and that's the way sin is.
26:59 Little by little, it creeps into our lives
27:01 and it begins to deteriorate things.
27:03 Things begin to rust, and to rotten, to mold.
27:06 But it happened so slowly.
27:07 We don't know what's going on around us
27:08 until something pure is introduced.
27:12 The Bible says that when Isaiah got a glimpse of God's glory,
27:16 and the angels calling, "The holy, holy, holy."
27:18 He said, "Woe is me."
27:20 Up until that point, he probably felt fine.
27:24 But then, he saw himself through God's eyes.
27:28 In contrast, with the holiness of God,
27:31 he got a picture of himself.
27:35 You know, the word of God
27:37 which is Christ is what we're to use
27:39 to calibrate what is truth.
27:43 A man went to visit a friend of his
27:44 that was an artist in his studio.
27:47 And there by the canvas, on a small table,
27:51 was a basket of gems.
27:56 They may not have been valuable gems
27:58 like diamonds and rubies,
27:59 but they were beautiful colored rocks.
28:03 Many of them brightly colored.
28:05 And someone said, "What's with the basket of rocks?"
28:09 He said, "Well, when I'm working with my palette
28:10 with all these pigments and hues,
28:12 it's easy for my sensitivity to color to become corrupted.
28:19 And so as I'm mixing my colors,
28:21 I hold my palette by the basket of rocks
28:23 because they are constant."
28:26 What a tuning fork is to the musician,
28:31 that's what this basket was to the artist.
28:36 And it's easy for us for our vision to fade.
28:40 You know, Karen and I have a piano
28:42 at our home up in Covelo.
28:44 And I don't know that it's been tuned
28:46 by a professional in 20 years.
28:49 Now I can tune the piano,
28:50 but I don't have any instruments.
28:51 And so what I do is I tune each string
28:54 with the other strings around it.
28:58 Right now I suppose
28:59 it's about an octave off a normal piano.
29:02 And it's gotten there little by little by little
29:06 by comparing one string with another.
29:10 That's what's been happening with the church.
29:12 We're off key, friends.
29:14 It's because we're making that mistake
29:15 that Paul refers to where we compare
29:18 ourselves among ourselves
29:19 and measure ourselves by ourselves.
29:22 And as we do this, the standard of the church
29:24 as long as we're better than each other in the world,
29:26 we feel like we're okay.
29:28 But if we get a glimpse of God and His glory,
29:30 we say, "Woe is me, I am undone."
29:33 "Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God."
29:38 God is calling us to purity. He's calling us to holiness.
29:42 It's a standard that is so far high and above
29:45 even what the church advertises as acceptable.
29:49 Jesus said there are things
29:50 that are highly esteemed among men
29:52 that are an abomination to God.
29:54 And you know who He said that to was the church.
29:57 He was talking about church traditions
29:58 and church rules and our own kind of manufactured dogmas.
30:03 And there are things that we think are just fine
30:06 and they're accepted and we'll even joke about.
30:08 And God says, "They're an abomination."
30:11 How are we gonna know what's right, what's wrong?
30:15 We've got to go by His word.
30:18 We have to keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus.
30:20 He is our example in all of these things.
30:24 There is power and purity.
30:26 Why was it that David could bring down
30:28 Goliath and Saul could not?
30:32 Because Saul had turned his back on God.
30:35 David went against the giant trusting the Lord.
30:38 There is power in purity.
30:42 You know in our home,
30:43 I think I already told you that there's solar electric.
30:47 And up on our roof, we've got
30:48 about eight solar panels that power the whole house,
30:53 but every now and then,
30:54 you know, in the fall the leaves blow around
30:56 and you just get your natural sediment
30:57 in your dusty buildup.
30:59 And about once a year or so, I go up on the roof
31:02 and I just take some Windex
31:03 and I wipe off the solar panels.
31:05 And I can go downstairs and I've got an amp meter.
31:08 And all you gotta do is you clean off the panels
31:11 and you can see they start putting up more amps
31:14 'cause the light is getting through.
31:18 What is it that's gonna give us more power, more amperage?
31:22 "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
31:25 and a light unto my path."
31:27 If we would spend more time in God's word,
31:30 we'd find that power.
31:32 There's power in prayer.
31:36 You know, whenever I really pray earnestly for something,
31:40 God gives me miraculous answer.
31:42 I just have this epiphany and I think to myself,
31:45 "Why don't I do this more often?
31:48 This really works."
31:50 You're surprised, your pastor say that.
31:52 I think its part of my job description.
31:54 But we don't pray like this.
31:56 The founders and the fathers of the church used to pray.
31:59 They would pray for hours.
32:01 We sing that song 'Sweet Hour Of Prayer'.
32:02 Most of us are lying when we sing that, right?
32:06 Come on, fess up.
32:09 We sing that song 'O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing.'
32:11 We don't use the one tongue we do have.
32:16 There's power in prayer. There's power in God's word.
32:21 Some of you remember the story of King Arthur
32:23 and the Knights of the Round Table.
32:26 One of his knights was Sir Galahad.
32:29 And in Tennyson's poem,
32:33 he said, "I have the strength of 10 men
32:36 because my heart is pure."
32:39 God wants us to have that.
32:42 When was it that the Lord poured out
32:44 the Holy Spirit on the church?
32:47 You know it was after Passover what happens--
32:52 it's a time of sacrifice and cleansing.
32:55 It was after the Passover, after they got on their knees,
32:59 after Jesus washed their feet.
33:02 After they were made pure, then they had power.
33:06 There is no limit to the usefulness of one
33:09 who by laying self aside makes room for the working of
33:12 the Holy Spirit in their hearts.
33:14 God wants to do so much for us and through us,
33:17 He wants to fill us but He cannot fill a vessel
33:20 that is already full of the world.
33:24 If we'd empty ourselves, He could fill us.
33:29 But we need to make our vessels available to Him.
33:31 Our hearts are just so full
33:32 and overcharged, you know, Jesus warned us.
33:34 He said, "Beware less for your hearts
33:36 be overcharged with eating and drinking
33:38 and the cares of this life."
33:40 Our hearts can even be overcharged with good things.
33:44 And then after that happened,
33:46 thousands were baptized in a day.
33:49 God is inviting us and calling us
33:52 to a standard of purity.
33:54 I think we need a revival in what
33:56 we decide to look at.
33:58 We need to spend more time reading God's word, friends.
34:01 Let me explain how important this is.
34:03 It's simple.
34:06 I just want you to know I do see the time.
34:12 And I'm just acknowledging I see it.
34:13 That's all I said.
34:17 You know, I know that-- I know that you have plans.
34:22 You cannot obey God if you don't love Him.
34:25 You cannot love somebody you do not know.
34:28 Eternal life is in knowing God.
34:31 The way that you get to know somebody
34:32 is they talk to you and you talk to them.
34:35 Most marriages where people marry the same day
34:38 that they meet each other in Las Vegas, they do no last.
34:41 They get to know each other their chances are better.
34:45 And I should add at this point for any young people
34:48 who might be listening that think you get to know
34:49 somebody by living with them, sharing the bed
34:53 so you get to know them.
34:56 You want to get to know someone shared checkbook,
34:57 you don't need to share bed.
35:03 We love somebody-- we love someone
35:09 'cause they communicate.
35:10 We talk to God when we pray.
35:13 He speaks to us primarily through His word.
35:16 The more we communicate with God,
35:18 the more we will know Him.
35:20 The more we know Him, the more we love Him.
35:21 The more we love Him,
35:22 the easier it will be to obey Him.
35:25 It's that simple, friends?
35:27 Now I know how desperately I need this.
35:32 I barely make it.
35:33 I barely make it as a Christian.
35:35 Sometimes I wonder if I'm making it.
35:37 I'm being honest with you.
35:38 It's a struggle to be holy in this wicked world.
35:45 And I know that what the Lord really wants is purity here.
35:49 The last frontier, inner space.
35:52 Amen! Amen!
35:54 I mean it's easy for us to fabricate
35:55 this façade of holiness when you go to church
35:58 and you take your Bible--
36:00 But God looks on the inside.
36:04 And I surround myself with the word of God.
36:08 You maybe heard me say this before but it bears repeating,
36:11 "I wake up in the morning, I read my Bible.
36:14 Through the day, I listen to Christian music."
36:17 And no such thing is Christian rap.
36:18 That's an oxymoron. I listen to Bible tapes.
36:26 I go to sleep at night listening to Bible tapes.
36:30 We have 3ABN.
36:32 Matter of fact, we got Sky Angel.
36:34 I even sample some of the other religions
36:36 so I keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening.
36:40 There're some good preachers out there.
36:42 You need to know how to eat the melon
36:43 and spit out the seeds, right?
36:46 But, you know, we're not the only ones
36:47 that God speaks through.
36:50 But I have to really surround myself with these influences
36:53 just to keep my compass calibrated,
36:56 to focus on the Lord.
36:58 You need it too.
37:00 What do you think, preachers have it easier?
37:01 We might have it tougher.
37:03 Smite the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.
37:07 Psalms 51, "Create in me a clean heart."
37:09 You'd been singing about that all week.
37:11 Renew a steadfast spirit within me.
37:16 This man was showing his friend his homing pigeons.
37:22 And up on the roof in New York City,
37:24 the while he was showing them the different pigeons,
37:26 you know, there are more breeds of pigeons
37:28 than any other bird in the world.
37:30 They have been crossbred
37:31 and there're some pigeons that looked like hippies.
37:33 They're all these different pigeons.
37:36 And while he was showing him all his pigeons,
37:40 a beautiful white dove, which is a pigeon, you know,
37:46 flew in and the man was happy to see it.
37:49 And he picked it up and he inspected and he said,
37:52 "Well, you look at this."
37:53 he said, "This dove just flew in from St Louis
37:56 and didn't even stop."
37:58 And his friend said, "Well, how do you know that?
38:00 Did it talk to you?"
38:02 He said, "No, it came in clean."
38:07 He said, "There is no pollen or maze on its feet.
38:10 No mud on its wings.
38:12 All it could think about was getting home
38:13 and so it came in clean."
38:18 Do you have your attention fixed on Jesus, friends?
38:22 If we stay focused on Him, that's the only way
38:25 we can live pure lives.
38:27 You become like what you look at, Christ is our example.
38:32 As we fix our eyes on Him, we will become like Him.
38:37 We can say like Paul, "It's not I that lived
38:39 but that Christ that lives in me."
38:41 And if everyday we are taking up our cross,
38:43 the Bible says, "Jesus declared,
38:45 'You cannot come after me,
38:47 unless you deny yourself daily and pray the Lord's Prayer,
38:52 give me this day my daily bread.'" That's this.
38:56 Most of you don't worry about bread from day-to-day.
38:59 Give us this day our daily bread.
39:00 Daily deny ourselves.
39:01 Daily take up our crosses and follow him.
39:04 And if we daily are crucified with Christ,
39:07 then daily born-again as new creatures
39:09 that's the only way we're gonna live a victorious life.
39:13 The Bible tells us in the last days
39:15 the attacks of the devil will be so affective.
39:19 That if it were possible,
39:20 even the very elect would be deceived.
39:26 I want to--I want to read you a statement.
39:30 I keep wanting to stop 'cause I respect your time
39:32 but I keep thinking of some things,
39:34 I just feel like I need to share.
39:36 Steps to Christ, page 29, Isaiah saw the Lord
39:39 and he said, "Woe is me."
39:40 Daniel saw the Lord and he fell down
39:41 as though he was dead.
39:43 John, the Apostle saw the Lord,
39:47 "One ray of the glory of God,
39:49 one gleam of the purity of Christ,
39:52 penetrating the soul,
39:54 makes every spot of defilement painfully distinct,
39:57 and lays bare the deformity
39:59 and the defects of the human character.
40:00 It makes apparent the unhallowed desires,
40:03 the infidelity of the heart, the impurity of the lips."
40:07 You know the Bible says we'll give an account
40:08 for every idle word that we speak.
40:10 For by your words you'll be justified
40:12 and by your words you'll be condemned.
40:14 How do we change our words?
40:16 Why are our mouths closed?
40:18 Is it some kind of Christian muzzle,
40:21 or does the Bible say out of the abundance of the heart,
40:23 the mouth speaks?
40:25 When our hearts are changed, our words will be changed.
40:28 "The impurity of the lips."
40:30 The sinner's acts of disloyalty
40:32 in making void the law of God are exposed to his sight,
40:34 and his spirit is stricken and afflicted
40:36 under the searching influence of the Spirit of God.
40:38 He loathes himself as he views the pure,
40:41 spotless character of Christ."
40:44 The more you look at Jesus, the more clear and accurate
40:49 your picture of your standing will be.
40:51 The Bible tells us, that's why
40:53 you're not supposed to go around judging each other.
40:57 If you're gonna do it, judge a righteous judgment.
41:01 But you're to examine yourself.
41:04 Paul says, "Examine yourself if you're in the faith.
41:06 Prove your own selves. Do you not know yourself?
41:10 Do you know that you're becoming like Christ."
41:13 How are you gonna know that?
41:14 By looking at the church? Don't do that.
41:18 You look at Jesus.
41:20 We compare ourselves with Christ.
41:23 Revelation Chapter 7, the angel says,
41:27 "You know who these are red and white robes?
41:30 And he says, These are the ones
41:31 who have washed their robes and made them white
41:33 in the blood of the Lamb."
41:35 How do we become pure in this sinful world?
41:38 It's the blood of Jesus that washes us, amen, friends. Amen.
41:46 I don't know how it works, but it works.
41:51 Someone asked, Billy Sunday about that,
41:53 he said I don't know how a black cow
41:55 can eat green grass and make
41:56 yellow butter and white milk, but it works.
42:01 And if you come to Jesus as you are and say,
42:04 "Lord, wash me from my sins,
42:07 cover me with your robe of righteousness."
42:09 Like the prodigal son you can--just like you are
42:13 He'll embrace you and He'll give you
42:15 that royal robe like the robe that Jacob gave to Joseph.
42:19 Like the robes that David's daughters wore.
42:22 He'll give you that royal robe
42:24 and you can be pure
42:25 through justification right now tonight.
42:27 Isn't that good news? Amen!
42:29 You can be pure tonight through the blood of Christ.
42:32 And then He can give you power to be pure
42:35 through sanctification and live a new life.
42:39 Would you like to have that, friends? Amen!
42:41 Not just to be putting on
42:44 the dramatic garments of Christianity
42:48 where we pray and fast
42:50 and give to be seen of men, but we're pure in hearts.
42:55 Father in Heaven,
42:57 Lord, I believe that this is the yearning of Your heart
43:02 that Your children might reflect
43:04 the character of Your Son.
43:07 This is the bull's-eye in the gospel
43:10 of the Great Controversy that God might have a people
43:14 that are pure in heart.
43:16 Lord, this is a wicked world and it's not getting better.
43:20 Evil men and seducers are waxing worse and worse,
43:23 but Lord, in the midst of this,
43:24 if Jesus could grow up in Nazareth
43:26 and be pure as a Lily comes up in a swamp,
43:29 then we can be pure too.
43:31 Lord, I pray that we will believe
43:33 that first of all cleanse us right now,
43:36 apply the blood of Your Son to wash us
43:39 from all unrighteousness.
43:41 And then we would ask Lord
43:43 that You give us the power to live new lives.
43:46 Help us to take advantage of the gifts
43:50 you've given us in Your word
43:51 and the privilege of prayer
43:53 to increase our knowledge in our love and then help us
43:56 to be witnesses for You in our family,
43:58 in our community and have that power
44:01 to bring souls into thee.
44:03 Thank You again for Your blessings here.
44:06 And we ask this in Jesus' name.
44:08 Amen. Amen.
44:10 Now, before you jump up
44:11 and do that last meeting shuffle,
44:13 we're gonna close with our theme song, thank you.
44:29 Change my heart oh God
44:35 Make it ever true
44:39 Change my heart oh God
44:43 May I be like You
44:49 You are the potter
44:53 I am the clay
44:58 Mold me and make me
45:03 This is what I pray
45:08 Change my heart oh God
45:13 Make it ever true
45:18 Change my heart oh God
45:23 May I be like You
45:31 As we close this evening,
45:33 I would just like to make this--
45:35 these couple of statements.
45:36 These wonderful green plants if you would like one of those,
45:40 Linda Pellandini has the information for that.
45:43 And if you would just help us
45:44 by taking your chair with you out the side doors
45:47 to one of those crates,
45:48 we would be very appreciative. Let's pray.
45:53 Our gracious Father in Heaven,
45:55 how good and rich has been our experience this week.
46:00 We have felt the presence and the power of Your spirit.
46:04 We have opened our hearts to the preaching of the word.
46:08 We have seen Jesus here.
46:11 And we've felt the Father's love.
46:14 Lord, we know that on this earth
46:16 we cannot gather like this all the time.
46:21 You have called us to live among our families,
46:24 our friends, our neighbors, our coworkers
46:28 what would they do without us living this holiness.
46:34 Give us the power to take this experience with us
46:39 and to put it in place wherever we are for the coming year.
46:46 We thank You for the blood, in Jesus' name, amen.


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Revised 2014-12-17