Righteousness By Faith And The Three Angels Messages

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Righteousness by Faith and the Three Angels' Messages A series of six sermons presented in the La Sierra Seventh-day Adventist Church

by MORRIS L. VENDEN

PACIFIC PR ESS PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

Mountain View, California I Omaha, Nebraska I Oshawa, Ontario

Copyright © 1975 by Pacific Press Publishing Association Litho in United States of America All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 75-21279

Cover Photo: Eric Kreye

Table of Con~en~s 1. The Glory of Man

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2. Do-it-yourself Religion

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3. No Rest for the World

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4. Getting God off the Hook

34

5. Living Without Sinning

46

6. Overcoming Known Sin

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l The Glory of Man We are beginning a series today that wil I last for the next few weeks on a topic which I hesitate to reveal today . If I tell you that it's about the three angels' messages, I am afraid some of you will close us down right to begin with. So I'm not going to tell you it's on the three angels' messages. Now, the reason for the importance of this subject is that there have been people in recent years- including many young people who have felt that in order to be friendly to Jesus and faith and righteousness and the rising tide of emphasis on Jesus only, you have to be unfriendly to these "rusty, old church doctrines." The older, experienced brethren rise up against this and say, "Now, wait a minute. There's something more than Jesus only." And they give the impression, although they don't say it, that in order to be friendly to these doctrines you have to be unfriendly to Jesus. As a result, we have developed a sort of syndrome in which Jesus is on one side while the doctrines and beliefs of the church are on the other side. Some have felt that it really doesn't matter a whole lot what your church believes and teaches as long as you believe in Jesus. So , as a result, some who have had a sense of church mission in terms of a unique contri bution to the religious world are fast losing it. Having been in this dilemma personally and seeing what it was doing to me and others with whom I could identify, I sat down one day and said, "All right, let's see if we can get these extremes together. What would be the most remote, most unlikely doctrine of my church to somehow get together with Jesus and faith and trust?" The first doctrine that came to my thinking was the only unique one for Seventh -day Adventists. If you have studied it at all you are well aware that there are other people in the religious world who believe just like we do on just about e very point except Reve-

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lation 14. We have been unique in our belief and emphasis on these three angels and their messages . Now, when you consider these three angels in a traditional sense, you could come up with (1) a warning about the judgment hour, (2) a plea to get out of false churches, and (3) an indictment of the beast. You say, "If we can find Jesus and faith and trust in the middle of those three, then we ought to be able to find Him in the middle of all the rest of the beliefs of the church." So you sit down and think, "Well , what is this first angel's message?" And you say, "It is 'The hour of God's judgment is come.'" Is that the message? I'd like to invite you to turn to those messages. Revelation 14. We are going to begin today with the first angel. We start reading at verse 6. "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven." There are a lot of angels in the book of Revelation . Here's another one. "Having the everlasting gospel-" What kind of gospel? Everlasting! Now, underline that word right at this point. "To preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred , and tongue and people- " And that includes Moslems. That includes Buddhists. It includes everybody . What should we take to Moslems and Buddhists and everybody? Watch out for the judgment? Get out of false churches? Beware of the beast? What do we take? The everlasting gospel. Notice: It's an angel that is symbolized as taking the gospel, representing speed and efficiency . I can remember listening to an old evangelistic sermon , "From Oxcart to Jet Plane in One Generation Why?" You could almost smell the fire in the old pot-bellied stove. And you could get the flavor of the barn as you hooked up Old Nell to the carriage. Wh ile I was convalescing recently, someone brought me a Sears and Roebuck catalog of 1906 re printed exactly as it was then. If you want something exciting to read, read that. Some of the surreys with th e fringe on top for $49.95! Tremendous! Sewing machines, $6.00. Wallpaper for 3 cents a roll. Well , thi s old-time sermon took me back to some of those days. I don't know too much about them, but I know what a horse looks like. And the sermon went something like this : If John had seen, instead of an angel flying in the midst of heaven, if he had seen a prairie schooner stuck in the sands out in

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the middle of Nevada somewhere with a sign on the side, "Everlasting Gospel," it wouldn't have quite fit into God's plan. If he had seen a sailing ship like the Mayflower sitting in the harbor with limp sai ls, waiting for the wind to blow so the Pilgrims could get the everlasting gospel going across the seas, it wouldn't have fit. He saw, instead, an angel flying! Why did the world go on for almost 6000 years, people plowing with crooked sticks and borrowing fire from their neighbors? Why? Because people were dumb? No. The average man on the streets in Athens in the days of Christ may have had the IQ of a university professor today. I believe it is because God withheld modern scientific discoveries until our day. For what purpose? Number one: If man had had them sooner he would have blown himself off the map a long time ago. Number two: God had a purpose in taking the everlasting gospel to all the world in the last generation. All right, what is the everlasting gospel? We go into verse 7, and here we see the delineation of this first angel's message: "Saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." It has been interesting to catch a typical Adventist audience off guard by asking them what the first angel's message is and hear, "The hour of God's judgment is come." I am going to take the position this morning that that is not the first angel's message. It is only part of it. It is a significant part, but only part. The best way to find out what's involved here is to notice that the message is the everlasting gospel. How long has the hour of God's judgment been lasting? Since what year? 1844, according to you students of Bible prophecy. Is that everlasting? No. What is the everlasting part of th is message? It is in three parts; and if you will diagram it, you will get it straight. I never thought I would diagram again after I finished diagramming, but I had to on this message. I am glad that all the English professors are away today and that we can play around a little bit with th is diagramming here. (1) The first part of the sentence is, "Fear God." What is the subject? The subject isn't even there. That's right. It is understood : "You. " Then the predicate, or the verb, "fear"; and the object,

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"God." Now, you have a compound sentence here. (2) The second part is "give glory to Him." What's the subject? "You" again; "give" (verb), "Glory" (Object), "to Him" (prepositional phrase, I th ink!). (3) All right, now you go to the third part of this compound sentence and you have "You" (subject), "worship" (verb), "Him" (object) "that made heaven and earth ."

(You) j fear I God

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(You) give glory ~Him

(You) I worship I Him When I finished diagramming these "everlasting" parts of the message, I said, "Where does the 'hour of God's judgment' fit in?" "For the hour of His judgment is come." That sounds to me like a prepositional phrase. So I got up in an audience of Pacific Press people and said that. The book editor got me after church and said, "That is not a prepositional phrase." I said, "What is it?" "That's an adverbial clause." "All right, please forgive me." So the next time I said, "This is an adverbial clause." An English professor from Walla Walla College got me afterwards and said, "That is not an adverbial clause. That is a conjunctive clause." So in order to be safe I started saying that this was an adverbial, conjunctive, prepositional phrase-clause. And when I said that one day, someone from the Greek department said, "That

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is a causal clause." That's the last word on it. Please don't see me after church on that! Whatever it is- phrase, clause, or what-haveyou-it is only part of the message and it is subsidiary to the main message. The whole point is: You fear God, give glory to Him, worship Him, for the hour of His judgment is come. I would like to suggest right here that in all of these messages we have a common thread. This is it: a warning against self-worship and an invitation to the deeper life, the life of faith instead of works, especially in the time of the judgment. Is that fair enough? Now, it was interesting to find that there are some real insights on this subject from a little lady who wrote a lot of books with which Adventists are familiar. I want to read you just two or three of them. "There are but few, even of those who claim to believe it, that understand the third angel's message, and yet this is the message for this time."-Manuscript 15, 1888. "Not all of our ministers who are giving the third angel's message really understand what constitutes that message."-Testimonies, Vol. 5, p. 715. Wouldn't that be something? "We talk about the first angel's message and the second angel's message, and we think we have some understanding of the third angel's message. But as long as we are content with a limited knowledge, we shall be disqualified to obtain clearer views of truth."-Gospel Workers, p. 251. "The third angel's message must be presented as the only hope for the salvation of a perishing world."-Evangelism, p. 196. Is "watch out for the beast" the only hope for a perishing world? What would happen if I went to the Moslems and the Buddhists and said, "Watch out for the beast"? They'd say, "Well, who is the beast anyway? We have our own religion." Yet, "the theme of the greatest importance is the third angel's message, embracing the messages of the first and second angels." - Evangelism, p. 196. Back at the end of the last century there was a group of people that became very excited and very interested in the subject of Jesus and His righteousness, faith and hope only in Him. They made quite an impression in their presentations. But some of the old-timers got nervous and began to write letters. Many wrote letters to Ellen White, and they said, "What's this all about anyway? All this

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emphasis upon Jesus and righteousness- everybody knows that; we know that! Isn't it possible that we could become so involved in this that we would forget and neglect our real message to the world, which is the Sabbath, the state of the dead, the 2300 days, and the second coming?" So many letters came in, evidently, that there was a reply written in our church paper, The Review and Herald, April 1, 1890. Ellen White said this: "Several have written me inquiring if the message of justification by faith is the third angel's message. And I have answered, "It is the third angel's message in verity." Or in truth. That's exactly what it is. And when I read that, I said, "That is the third angel's message? How do you get that?" Then I read this comment. "There is not one in one hundred who understands for himself the Bible truth on this subject [justification by faith] that is so necessary to our present and eternal welfare."- Review and Herald, September 3, 1889, quoted in Christ Our Righteousness, p. 87. Now I began to put two and two together. If it is true that justification by faith is the third angel's message, and if not one in a hundred understood justification by faith, then not one in a hundred understood the third angel's message. Is that right? "Well, that was back at the end of the last century," someone says. "We understand it completely now." Do we? We'd better double-check and be sure. That is the reason for this series. Now, what is the message of justification by faith? One of the greatest definitions that you'll come across is this one in Testimonies to Ministers, p. 456: "What is justification by faith? It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself." How much is man able to do for himself? John 15:5. "Without me [Jesus] ye can do- " How much? "Nothing." Well then, what can we do for ourselves? There must be something. It's to get with Christ! We've noticed that earlier. That's all we can do. Get with Christ. And that's the whole essence of righteousness by faith. How does this fit into the three angels' messages? Listen. Notice it here in the three parts of the first angel. (1) "Fear God." I'm not going to spend much time on that. Just enough to say that this is talking about something else than being afraid of God. There are a lot of people who have been afraid of God. We even sing it 10

sometimes in the first hymn of our Church Hymnal. "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne." It did me good when a student came up to me a while back and gave me an alternative. He said, "What it's talking about is before Jehovah's awe-full throne." That took a big load off my back. I've been singing it again since! To fear God means to hold Him in awe-respect-to reverence Him, being afraid to let Him down, but not being afraid of Him. So much for that. Let's get on to the glory part. (2) "Give glory to him." To Him. Now, if I haven't discovered yet that I can't save myself and that apart from Christ I am trying to work my way to heaven by my performance and my behaviour, my good deeds and my lack of bad deeds; if I haven't discovered yet that the whole basis of the experience of righteousness by faith is a personal, daily communication with God, to take time alone before His Word on my knees in secret prayer; if I haven't discovered that by experience yet, the experience of justification by faith-then I am trying to save myself, regardless of what I call it. And if I should happen to be saved by my works, who would get the glory? Is this a fair question? Paul said it in Romans, the fourth chapter, verse 2: "If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God." Instead, he says, in verse 20, "He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God ." The only person who gives glory to God in the work of the gospel is the person who is doing it by faith. The person who is hooked upon the disease of works as his method of salvation is always going to give the glory to himself even though he knows how to use the right words so that it will be socially and religiously acceptable. But there is no glory for the works of man in the plan of the gospel. All of the glory goes to Jesus Christ, who came and made the provision. Is that right? What happens to the glory of man? It doesn't end up on the top of the list in some existential meeting where they are trying to give glory to man. The glory of man in the work of the gospel goes to the dust. To the dust! That's why they didn't like Jesus. They blew their trumpets and sounded everywhere that they were going to pray now. They were going to recite. The hypocrites stood in the synagogue and on the street corners. They didn't realize and they didn't admit that the Shekinah had already left the temple. It had been gone for 11

some ti me. They might have wondered where the glory had gone. And t hey should have named all of their sons Ichabod, "the glory is de parted," like one lady had the foresight to do in facing reality. Whenever the glory of God is absent, the glory of man rises to the top. And whenever the glory of God rises to the top, the glory of ma n goes to the dust! "Oh, what about a little glory, God. Please!" 1 Corinthians 5:6: "Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?" Not even a little glory! "Oh, can't I have enough glory to sing, 'Glory for me, glory for me, glory for me, glory for me?" I suppose we could sing that song in the right way. It is possible. But listen, if I should happen to fall in that category of people whose primary purpose in church and religious life is to get themselves to heaven, then I would like to suggest that it is inevitable that when I sing, "Glory for me, glory for me," that is exactly what I mean. And the "when by His grace I shall look on His face" part will fade into the background. Now, please, I'm not basing my sermon on that song, but there is another song that died in the old Christ in Song a long time ago. "Down at the cross where my Saviour died, Down where for cleansing from sin I cried, There to my heart was th e blood applied. Glory to His name! "Glory to His name! Glory to His name! There to my heart was the blood applied, Glory to His name!" An·1body recognize it? All right then, sing it with me right now. A cappella. Thank you. A lot of you know that song. I know you've got t hat old Christ in Song stuck in the corner of your piano bench, and yo u're keeping it there. Paul said it clearly in Galatians 6: 14: " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Even in church gathe rings we can come into this problem of ill-disguised glory sessions. ''I'm so thankful- " (and if we get any lngathering sermon t his year, here it is in the next two minutes). There are people here in this church who realize that the world mission field needs our lngathering dollars. They realize that the organization is depending 12

on us to do our part, and even though we have hardly said a thing about it, you have been turning in your lngathering mission funds without our getting up here and pitting one person against another person, or passing out buttons, pins, and certificates last year, or giving some kind of plaque or award. I'm thankful for people out there somewhere who are silently doing their wo rk for God, not worrying about who gets the glory. (That's the end of our lngathering sermon for this year.) But we get together and we know that if we put it in the right language, we can get away with quite a bit of self glory. As long as we say, "The Lord has blessed me," we can really advertise our own successess and our own achievements. "You know, I was walking down the street and I met this man. I began to tell him about our message, and I was able to convert him. The Lord has really blessed me. And then I was able to convert ten others. The Lord has really blessed me. And then I raised the most of anyone in Ingathering. Praise the Lord. And this last week I was able to finish reading my Bible the second time this year. Let us stand and sing the Doxology." Is it possible that because we have developed ways of advertising our own glory, as long as we use the right phrase with it, we have these ill-disguised glory sessions? But if you spend an hour patting each other on the back with some kind of cheap praise, and then you end up singing the Doxology, you might as well have forgotten t he Doxology! Is that right? God forbid! God save us from even the subtle little ways in which we pat ourselves on the back. Ego-mania! You know, Rameses the Second was one of the greatest ego-maniacs in Egyptian history. I guess for a long time they thought he was a great man in Egypt. But instead, they found out that he was the great chiseler. All of the Egyptian kings that went before him had their monuments and obelisks, and so when Rameses 11 came along, he chiseled their names off and put his name on their monuments, plus a few more of his own, so it is Rameses 11 all over Egypt. One day we crossed the Nile River, and there on the shores where Moses used to play when he was a boy, we could see the relics of the ancient greats such as Rameses. Here was a toppled monument, shattered and broken in the desert sands, a complete wreck. And 13

someone began to quote Shelley. Now, I don't like free verse. It seems to me poetry ought to have rhyme and rhythm both. I've liked Ozymandias ever since. "I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that the sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away." "I am king of kings!" Zonk! Into the sands. Broken. Disheveled. Again, the great evangelist of yesteryear said it this way: "We live in a time when centuries are compressed into a few short years. Names of great men appear on the horizon, flicker for a moment, and then are lost forever in the sea of forgetfulness. But there is one name that is growing brighter with every passing day. It is the name of Jesus." Someone after the first church service said, "I never knew that when it comes to glory you put Henry Ford and Hitler in the same package. One earned it and the other took it. You mean to tell me that they are in the same package?" Yes, my friend, they are in the same package in our study today. The only difference is that with Henry Ford, perhaps God could be glorified. At least we have a way of getting to church. With Hitler, who was glorified? The devil! Not man! What about man's accomplishments? Give God the glory. Right? (3) "Worship Him." Worship Him. I'd like to propose to you today that if God is not the one worshiped, there's only one other person to worship. It's man. "Oh," you say, "I thought it would be the devil." No, we don't worship the devil. We don't have any

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statues or pictures of the devil in our houses where we bow down and worship him. Most of us don't. Instead, we worship ourselves. Self is the only thing left. And we do it in such subtle ways. If I do not know the experience of daily faith and trust in God, I'm not worshiping Him. If I come here today and think that I am worshiping Him but I don't know how to worship Him all through the week, then six days I am worshiping self, and the seventh day I can seriously question whether I'm worshiping Him. Our text today points out the great purpose and object for worship. "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou king of saints." Revelation 15:3. We sing it. We hear it sung. We pray it. Do we mean it? "Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever." Those who stand on that sea that looks like glass shot through with fire are going to be ascribing honor and glory to God and to Jesus Christ. That's where all the glory belongs in the work of the gospel. "All power is given into His [Jesus'] hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men." Gifts! "Imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in large measure." - Testimonies to Ministers, p. 92. What is the third angel's message, embracing the other two-what is it? "All power is given into His [Jesus'] hands." He has gifts to give to men including His righteousness. We have none. And He gives it to the helpless human agent. Listen, my helpless friend, there is good news for you here. If you've come to the end of you r rope, then you are ready to understand the three angels' messages. You're ready to accept Jesus' righteousness instead of your own. You're ready to give Him the glory for anything that happens in your life, including any goodness or any success or any achievement. And you're ready to worship Him, because you're through worshiping yourself. Could it be that your church may yet end up making a great contribution to the religious world on this point, with these messages? Next wee k we will go into the second angel's message about Babylon, but I would like to close today by giving you Jeremiah's Old Testament plea: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, 15

neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me." Jeremiah 9:23, 24. Shall we pray? Dear Father in heaven, forgive us for our cheap glory sessions. We know we are born bent this way and how easily we pat each other on the back- pat ourselves on the back. And we pray that you will help us to come humbly, in the dust, to the foot of the cross. And forbid that we should glory, save in it. Pull the rug out from underneath us, of self-worship; and put our attention, we pray, upon the Almighty Person of Jesus. Thank You for Your mercy with us while we are trying to understand this, not only in theory, but in experience. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

2 Do-it-yourself Religion Last week we began a series on the three angels' messages of Revelation fourteen . I invite you to turn to that chapter again today. We will continue studying to find out how it is that salvation through faith alone in Jesus Christ is the central thread through all these messages. There's something more involved here than "beware of the judgment, get away from false churches, and watch out for the beast." We've noticed that the common thread is (1) a warning against self-worship, and (2) an appeal to depend upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ as our only hope of Christian experience or of salvation. Now we come to this mystical Babylon term of Revelation fourteen, verse eight. "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all 16

nations drin k of the wine of the wrath of her forn ication." In order for all nations to drink of the wine of Babylon, incl ud ing non-Christian nations like those under communism, Buddhism, etc. (and these messages are for the last of this earth's history), then you have to have something more than some uniquely defined denominational position in these messages. You have to have some false principle un iversally known and followed that is being warned against. This again shows that there is some deep, underlying thread woven through all of these messages. Now we want to take a second look today at what constitutes Babylon. We noticed it just briefly a while back when we were studying about the fourth angel of Revelation 18. We will review just a point or two of that this morning. (1) Babylon came from the tower of Babel. You go back into the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the eleventh chapter, verses 1 through 9, and you will find here Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, the first king of Babylon, or of Babel. He was a city builder. He built a large city and had a great following. The people practically worshiped Nimrod and his wicked wife, Semiramus. Babel was built, to begin with, as a method of men's try ing to save themselves. That's how it all started. They didn't believe God's promise. They didn't believe the rainbow that God placed in the cloud. They said, "We must do something to save ourselves." Babel resulted in confusion, and Babylon has always been confusing. Babel represents a mixture of conflicting ideas. I would like to point out before we are finished today that the mixture of confusing ideas involves something more than just "save yourself" or "do it yourself." The confusion, to a great extent, comes when you have this strange mixture of "do part of it yourself and let God do part of it," which is more popular in the nominal Christian world than simply the do-it-yourself syndrome. But Babel itself became a classic example of self-saving. God dealt with it. It went to the ground. People were scattered through the confusion of tongues, and we have seen the results ever since. Now, following Babel down through the centuries you come to the kingdom of Babylon which at one time dominated the civilized world starting in 606 BC. Nebuchadnezzar was the great king of Babylon at that time. God's people in Nebuchadnezzar's time were 17

taken captive by Babylon. Among them were some well-known Hebrew "worthies," who were taken captive physically but not spiritually. You can see that there is something more involved in being captivated by Babylon than simply being taken by the soldiers back to the city, along with the stolen cups and vessels from the temple. Many of the people of Israel and Judah were captivated by Babylon before Nebuchadnezzar and his forces ever came along. Isn't that right? The only thing necessary to be a captive of Babylon is to be a slave to the idea that I can save myself or that I can do it myself in terms of living the Christian life or of getting to heaven. So when we talk about captivity to Babylon, take a second look! We also discovered that being taken captive by Rome becomes part and parcel of the same thing. Now, this book, The Great Controversy, says on page 381 that "the term 'Babylon' is derived from 'Babel,' and signifies confusion. It is employed in Scripture to designate the various forms of false or apostate religion." Read with that Patriarchs and Prophets, page 73: "Nearly every false religion has been based on the same principlethat man can depend upon his own efforts for salvation." Nearly every false religion! Do you have to be a victim of some false religion in some other part of the world to be a captive to the idea that you can depend upon your own efforts for salvation? We have noticed that this Babylon thing was the unique problem in the days of Christ when He was born as a babe in Bethlehem. Describing that time The Desire of Ages says on page 36: "The principle that man can save himself by his own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion; it had now become the principle of the Jewish religion. Satan had implanted this principle. Wherever it is held, men have no barrier against sin." Someone called up the other day and said : "What about this reference through which you have referred to the fact that we today have out-Jewed the Jews? What is that reference?" If anyone else has wondered, here it is: Selected Messages, bk. 1, p. 406. There we are compared just before Christ's second coming to the Jews just before Christ's first coming. So, I propose to you that our greatest problem in the Christian religion today, including my own church, referred to by this quotation, is that we are trying to save ourselves. We are 18

v1ct1ms of the "do-it-yourself" religion. ''I'm big enough to get myself to heaven. I'm big enough to live the right life. I'm big enough to be a good, moral person. I am strong enough. I can make it." Worshiping the false god that is within us which is none other than our own ego-this is our great danger and if we are going to be realistic, we have to face it. The greatest symptom that I am a victim of do-it-yourself religion is the pitiful, small amount of time and effort spent toward communication with God day by day. Do you know God? Do I know Him, one to one? Do I know what it means to have a personal, real, valid, genuine prayer life? Do I know what it means to spend significant time alone with God's Word? That's the issue. And if I do not, then regardless of what I call it, I am a victim of Babylon. Babylon-somehow trying to operate in the realm of religion without the basic ingredient. Knowing God is not optional in the Christian life. It never has been optional. We do not spend time alone with God day by day as an extra in religion. It is the whole basis. The Christian faith and the Seventh-day Adventist religion without this is nothing. That's why so many people become discouraged and give up the church. It becomes nothing more than a club for some kind of moralistic society of people who are living good, ethical lives; and their whole hope of salvation is based upon that instead of upon Jesus. Now, what is some of the wine of Babylon which has corrupted and permeated society? Nations have drunk of this wine. I suppose that we could spend a great deal of time analyzing this. But I would like to remind you just briefly of some of that possible wine. Source material for further study would be Alexander Hislop's Two Babylons. According to Hislop, Nimrod was the deified king and his wife, Semiramus, the queen of ancient Babel or Babylon. When Nimrod died, Semiramus convinced the people that the spirit of Nimrod had gone to reside in the sun and that he was even then looking down upon them bringing them blessings. People believed it and began to worship the sun. Second only to the sun was the moon, and so Semiramus convinced the people that when she died her spirit would go to be in the moon and moon worship came in as a matter of course. Sometime after Nimrod died, Semiramus gave birth to an illegitimate boy. She named him Tammuz. Now, of course, in order 19

to justify herself with the people she told the people that th is was a miracle baby. (It was quite an idea. There have been a lot of miracle babies ever since !) The people believed it and began to worship not only Nimrod and Sem iramus but they began to worship Tammuz as well. You can already see the clever workings of the enemy centuries ahead of time so that someday when a child truly was born of a virgin, a miracle child, people would already have been predisposed against any particular surprise. Well, Tammuz grew older. He became a mighty hunter like his father, although he wasn't mighty enough to stay away from a wild boar one day, and he was killed. The people began weeping for Tammuz. You know, you can still read about it in the Scripture. If you wan t to jot this down, Ezekiel, the eighth chapter, starting with verse 12. "Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou not seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth. He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz." And so, when the people of God strayed from their allegiance to God anciently, they took up the worship of the pagan sun gods, going all the way back to Nimrod. Now, there were certain pagan holidays that were, of course, observed by the pagans. One of them was the birthday of Tammuz, which was December 25. This was also the time of the year when they noticed that the sun god, who it appeared had been leaving them because the days were gettlng shorter and shorter, began returning again. They worshiped Nimrod and they worshiped Tammuz on the twenty-fifth of December. And then they established another holiday festive occasion. They counted back nine months from December 25, and set up a day in honor of the conception of Tammuz. They worshiped that day in honor of the miracle child and his mother. The way that they designated that day was the first "sun's day," which they had named in honor of their sun god, after the spring equinox at which time the days and nights were equal. That day is still celebrated today, a floating day, never the same date. The first Sunday after the first full

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moon after the spring equinox in honor of the birth of Tammuz, in honor of Semiramus, in honor of the sun. But when Tammuz was killed by the wild boar, they set apart certain days of weeping and mourning for Tammuz. And so they set aside six weeks before the conception day and had forty days of weeping for Tammuz. They even baked cakes to th e Queen of heaven and stamped on these cakes large T's in honor of Tammuz. They called these "buns." And perhaps you are wide awake enough to realize, if you haven't already, of how modern society has swallowed this whole tradition. You can read about it again in Jeremiah, the seventh chapter, beginning with verse 16. "Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee. Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger." Now, you can see how the enemy of God worked to do insult to the God of heaven right on down through the days of Christ. These people on their festive occasions would go out and worship the rising sun toward the east on their special day. They began to worship the sun and it's reproductive powers because they noticed that the sun had something to do with growth and with life. They also began to worship the reproductive powers of men and nature (including fertile eggs and rabbits) . As the sun was the great god and the supreme lord, as he exerted his most glorious powers in reproduction, it was held to be the most acceptable worship for his devotees so to employ themselves and their powers. Consequently, prostitution was one of the chief characteristics of sun worship wherever found . The sacrifice of virginity was the most acceptable offering that could be made in the worship of the sun. Then they went so far as to offer human sacrifices to the sun god upon great T's in honor of Tammuz. When the Son of God was born, they said, "Miracle child? We have heard of that before." Later they said, "Let's take Him and crucify Him on a T." And they did. At His birth and at His death - insult upon insult! The Anglo-Saxon name for Semiramus was Ishtar, from which we 21

get the word "Easter." And the different names, Ra, Osiris, Baal, Shammus, Adoni, Molech, Bel-Peor, Bel-Mithra, Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, and so forth, are all different names connected with sun worship, anciently initiated. Well, perhaps I've said enough for this time of the year (November). (Note: There are historians who question the complete validity of this story as put together by Hislop. They have trouble checking out his primary sources. But we know that parts of the story are valid as suggested by the Bible references.) The more important question and issue has to do with our personal experience today. Am I a victim of "do-it-yourself" religion? Am I depending upon me or in any way upon myself? In this angel's message you have the word "fornication," the wine of wrath of her fornication. "Fornication" in Scripture is the word that is used to describe illicit relationships outside of the marriage status. And if you could boil it down to the lowest common denominator, fornication would be what happens when two parties who are not supposed to merge, merge; when two parties who are not supposed to get together, get together. Now, theologically, you have a form of fornication in what the theologians today are calling "syncretism." Syncretism is the merging, or the attempted merging, of two antagonistic principles or of two ideas that should not be together and that are not compatible. The theologians are using this word to describe the strange concoction of salvation partly by works and salvation partly by faith. These two are not compatible either in theory or experience. Now, there is a comment on this in the book Selected Messages, bk. 1, p. 353. Ellen White points out some who "think they are committing themselves to God, [while] there is a great deal of self-dependence. There are conscientious souls who trust partly to God and partly to themselves." Do you get it? Syncretists. "They do not look to God, to be kept by His power, but depend upon watchfulness against temptation, and the performance of certain duties for acceptance with Him. There are no victories in this kind of faith. Such persons toil to no purpose. Their souls are in continual bondage, and they find no rest until their burdens are laid at the feet of Jesus." Trusting partly to God and partly to myself- fornication,

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syncretism. Still remnants of Babylon. Still part of the wine. Spalding, in his book, Captains of the Host, says, "Most professed Christians ... [believe] that they must strive to be good and to do good and that when they have done all that they can, Christ will come to his aid and help him do the rest. In this confused [Babylon again] credo of salvation partly by works and partly with auxilliary power, many people trust today." Page 601. Do you see what all can be involved in the question of Babylon? But the significant, giant character that some of us have grown up with, sort of still liking in spite of himself, is that man Nebuchadnezzar. You know you have to admit that this was a man evidently born in ignorance, and it's fascinating to trace the days of his life and to find out how the great God of heaven was trying to work with this poor heathen king, showing that this king, even though he had hard struggles with himself, was in the end opened to the inroads of the Holy Spirit and God's call. Nebuchadnezzar the king, a giant king of a giant nation that dominated the whole then-known civilized world. You have to admit he was a big man. I suppose that many people would find themselves victim of the Nebuchadnezzar problem if in his shoes. Nebuchadnezzar was a victim of "do-it-yourself" life. The reason that we transfer into the "do-it-yourself" religion is that we have often been victims of the "do-it-yourself" life. For instance, Nebuchadnezzar wasn't thinking about religion when he walked on the veranda in his beautiful hanging gardens and looked out over the giant city that he had built, the golden city of a golden age. As he looked out he said, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?" God, somehow, by the impressions of the Holy Spirit or perhaps through Daniel, got through to Nebuchadnezzar with a message. "Nebuchadnezzar, you don't take the glory for what you have done. Reme mber who is keeping your heart beating! You give credit and glory to the God of heaven. [That's the f irst angel's message.] And you don't worship yourself. You worship the God of heaven. Don't ascribe glory to yourself again." Nebuchadnezzar was warned, evidently several times, about the trap into which he had fallen-" Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?" "Oh, but I don't walk on the hanging garden veranda. I don't do that kind of thing." Wait a minute. "Isn't this a great profession that I am in?" "Isn 't this a great 4.00 GPA that I have achieved?"

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"Isn't this a great house that I have bought?" "Isn't this a great sports car with the mag wheels that I have earned?" "Isn't this a great face that I am looking at in the mirror?" "Isn't this a great touchdown that I have made?" "Isn't this a great sermon that I have preached?" "Isn't this a great church that we have built?" You follow it through and what do you have? You don't have to be in Nebuchadnezzar's shoes to out-Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar! So the warning came, "Don't do that. Don't ascribe honor and glory and worship to yourself." But Nebuchadnezzar continued, and one day, just as had been predicted (and you'll have to give God the credit for telling him exactly what was going to happen ahead of time, according to the fourth chapter), Nebuchadnezzar's reason left him. It was his choosing, not God's arbitrary doing. He grew long hair and was on "grass" (and there's a little something there!) for seven years. He wandered around in the fields with the cattle until one day he woke up as from a nightmare. His nails were long like eagle's claws, and his hair was hanging over his eyes. As he woke up from this nightmare, his thoughts were centered upon the God of heaven, not in reproach and in anger, but in humility. One of the most tremendous prayers in all of the Bible is the prayer of this poor, heathen king, Nebuchadnezzar. The last few verses of Daniel 4. "At the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation : and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing : and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth : and none can stay his hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou? At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me." But notice now who gets the glory for the brightness and the glory and the majesty. "Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase." Well, you know, you couldn't hesitate for one moment, with a

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prayer like that, of taking poor old King Nebuchadnezzar and putting him in for elder of your church. Right? How can you beat that? A man, a poor heathen man, in the courts and the degradation of Babylon, the very name of the city itself representing the thing that he was a victim of-and God found him. If God could find Nebuchadnezzar and bring him to his senses and get him to, on his own initiative, say, "I praise and extol and honour the king of heaven," then He ought to be able to do something for you and for me today. Don't you think? Thank God that He has us in tow and that He is able to take us away from Babylon and everything that it suggests and bring us to our knees with Nebuchadnezzar in praise and honor and glory, away from worshiping ourselves, away from glorifying ourselves to glorify the Creator, the King of heaven. Dear Father in heaven, thank You for doing Your best to save us from captivity to Babylon. Forgive us for running headlong into it. Forgive us for all the time that we have looked to ourselves and patted ourselves on the back. Lord, take us into the dust with poor Nebuchadnezzar, and go deep into our hearts with the realization that we do need You. We need Your power. We're only creatures. We must learn to depend upon and trust in Your might. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

3 No Rest for the World We're spending time in a series on the three angels' messages. Revelation 14 is the chapter. After last week's presentation someone stopped me and said, "Usually you make sense, but that didn't

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sound ve ry reasonable last week." I got to quizzing the person and discovered that the main problem seemed to be with the story of Nimrod and Semiramus and all of that. He said, "It just sounds too good . It sounds like somebody made it up." I'm telling you this today so that you'll be sure and stay wide awake. Someone might slip something over on you. But if you want to check on the story of last week you should go to the historical source in Alexander Hislop's Two Babylons. If you want to question that source you are free to do that. Today we are going into the third angel's message. In doing so remember that so far we have seen a common thread running through all three of these messages. (1) A warning against worshiping ourselves. Anyone who is not worshiping God and giving God the glory is worshiping himself and giving himself the glory. (2) The appeal on the positive side to accept Christ as your only hope of salvation- to learn, as creatures, to worship and honor and give glory to God and Christ, our Saviour. In this sense, then, the three angels' messages become righteousness by faith in verity. Now, the way that we've understood th is message in the past, in terms of history and prophecy and careful Biblical interpretation, has undoubtedly been true. But what we are trying to do this time is to see the personal element, the spiritual lesson for us in this chapter- someth ing more than just an eschatological or prophetic study. All right, with that in mind let's read the third angel's message. Revelation 14, verse 9. "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image , and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation." Right there I have been accustomed to skipping the next few lines and going down to verse 12, about the patience of the saints-those that "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." The reason I usually skip that or try to clear my throat through those next few lines is obvious. "And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and

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whosoever receiveth the mark of his name." When you're giving a Bible study to someone who believes in hel l fire and eternal damnation or burning you don't need that! It's convenient to skip that. I hope before we're finished today that we may see something in terms of a spiritual lesson even in that. Well, when you look at the message of this third angel, you have several things to consider. First of all, a "beast"; second, an "image"; third, a "mark." And we might add a "name" and a "number" (chapter 13, verse 17). The reason we add them is that in chapter 15 you have a picture of a group of people standing on this sea that looks like glass, and they are singing a song. The song is a song of victory over the beast, his image, his mark, and the number of his name. Can you imagine a group of people standing there singing, and as they're singing this song of victory over the beast and his image and his mark, one of the peopl e stops singing and he turns to the man next to him and says, " Say, pardon me, do you know what this beast is and this image and this mark and name and number that we are supposed to be singing about?" And the other man says, "Don't bother me. I'm busy singing. I don't know, but I'm sure enjoying the song." No, this doesn't sound sensible for the great God of heaven. The people who are going to be singing this song are going to be singing intelligently about something that has happened in their experience through the grace of God. They are going to know what they are singing about. What do we mean by the beast? Well, we are not going to spend a whole lot of time there. If you have in Bible classes or Bible studies gone through the lead-up to this in Daniel and Revelation you know that, according to Revelation 13 and Daniel 7, you have at least 10 major ways of finding out who this beast power is. The interpretation is not based upon one isolated thing like some number (666) or anything else. It is based upon a whole package of identifying features . We need not argue the question of what this beast represents. I'm not even going to identify it today except for this much : If there is anything worse than one person worshiping himself, it is two people worshiping themselves. Or two million people worshiping themselves! In other words, this beast, if you study it purely and simply, is indicating a group or an organized self-wo~hip. Right? And

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anywhere that you have organized self-worship, you have the "beast" in a spiritual sense. Would that be fair to say? At least you are getting in the same rowboat with the beast. Is it possible for a church to worship itself-a church that is not necessarily the one pin-pointed by the prophecies? Is that possible? Self-worship always results in blasphemy. ft is blasphemy. I don't know if you heard Bob Larsen on rock music here the other night. Most of the students did. I was very impressed by something from him. He told about how recently he and another group of people were involved with a demon-possessed girl. They quiz~ed her as they were praying that God would deliver her. They said, "What is your name?" The reply came, "My name is in Revelation 13." (By the way, this Bob Larsen is not from the kind of background that you're from.) Then the demon proceeded to quote the entire chapter of Revelation 13, word for word. Now, I am going to skip the "image" because I want to save the best for the last. We'll take just a brief look at the "mark" suggested here. You're familiar with that. One comment from Testimonies, volume 8, p. 159. "The light that we have upon the third angel's message is the true light. The mark of the beast is exactly what it has been proclaimed to be. Not all in regard to this matter is yet understood, and will not be understood until the unrolling of the scroll [whatever that isl ; but a most solemn work is to be accomplished in our world." Does this sound like there is further understanding possible to what you have ordinarily understood as the mark of the beast? I'm intrigued by this "unrolling of the scroll" and have cast about for some light on it. The closest thing I have got is in the latest book in my library by Dr. Edward Heppenstall, Our High Priest. He says on page 200, "The contents of that scroll are not only the judgments that are to come upon the world but also the revelation of those whose names are inscribed and whose destinies are to be decided." Evidently we won't understand it completely until the very last throes of this world's history. Don't you think we are about there? Do you think we ought to begin to understand it? Now, for the "name" or "number." The thirteenth chapter and the seventeenth verse t ells about them. We have long known, having

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seen it on charts or on slides, that this name evidently refers to a blasphemous Latin title that simply points to man in the place of God-Vicarius Filii Dei. I want to ask you a question. Do I have to be some church prelate sitting on a throne over in Europe somewhere with a cap on my head and the blasphemous title, "Vicarius Filii Dei," in order to qualify for this? If you go back to the very beginning, you discover that the devil at the tree had three major points of deception. I hope that our Week of Prayer speaker won't accuse me of taking away some of his thunder, but the other night when he was talking to the students, he said that Eve came by the tree. She stopped to look at the tree . The serpent looked out and said, "Hi, Eve." (That's the first time I heard it quite that way!) As Eve pondered this the serpent said, "You're wondering why I am able to talk, aren't you?" And Eve said, "As a matter of fact, the thought did cross my mind." Then the serpent proceeded to say, "I was just a serpent, just a dumb creature Iike the rest of the creatures around here until I ate of the fruit of this tree. And then I, a dumb creature, was able to talk. Now if you, who already know how to talk, were to eat of this tree what do you suppose would happen to you? You would become as God!" This is precisely the issue. Three things at the tree. ( 1) Doctrinal: You don't have to keep God's commandments. "God said, 'Don't eat of the tree'? You don't have to obey that!" (2) Doctrinal : "If you eat, you won't die ." (3) Experiential: "If you eat it, you'll become as God." The serpent started his program at the tree that way and he's going to continue and finish his program that way. One of these days the ecumenists are going to get their heads together and say, "What are we squabbling about all of our differences for? We have been wasting our time. Let's sit down and have a big world council and figure out what we have in common. And then let's unite on what we have in common instead of wasting our time on all these differences." And then they'll discover they have three doctrinal things in common . (1) It will have something to do with whether or not you need to obey one of God's commands. Is that right? (2) It will have something to do with whether or not you are dead when you die. (3) Number 3, "You can be your own 29

God." Now listen, friend, the only thing necessary for me to be my own God is to be trying to save myself apart from God. Salvation by works qualifies me for "Vicarius Filii Dei," does it not? "I'm big enough to save myself. I'm too busy to spend time depending upon God in a personal daily communication. I am living a good life. I have lots of self-discipline and backbone. I am a stubborn farmer from South Dakota." Could it be that the church is full of stubborn farmers from South Dakota? "Ye shall be as gods." Let's go to the "image" now because there is where the issue becomes very clear. The image of the beast comes from this thirteenth chapter. The first half of the chapter basically describes the beast. One thing we notice about the beast is that it's different from all the powers around it. It is a combination of a religious and a political system. We have called it historically a "religio-political" power. Right? But it fades away into captivity and another power comes along, which we have understood to be Protestant America, and resurrects this beast. At least it forms an image or sets up a replica of it. Now, a replica would have to be very much like it, which means that it would again be a combination or a religio-political power. Please don't get lost here. This is the pivot point! It is probably better stated in the book, The Great Controversy, p. 445, where there is a description of the image to the beast. "When the leading churches of the United States, uniting on such points of doctrine as are held by them in common [and we've already touched on that), shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result." Here's the clincher on p. 449: "But in the very act of enforcing a religious duty by secular power, the churches would themselves form an image to the beast." The image to the beast is enforcing a religious duty by human power. Will you personalize that, please? Have you ever tried to enforce a religious duty by "secular," human power in your own life? Why, I'm all ready to enforce a religious duty by a secular power come January 1. Does th is figure? On January 1, I will make a resolution (now, that is human power) that I am not going to do this, this, this, and this. And then I will wait 365 days later and make the same one over again. 30

Human nature has long come up with psychological and humanistic gimmicks to try and force itself to obey or to get itself molded into the path of duty. Probably this is better said in the book titled Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 123. "The effort to earn salvation by one's own works inevitably leads men to pile up human exactions as a barrier against sin. For, seeing that they fail to keep the law, they will devise rules and regulations of their own to force themselves to obey. All this turns the mind away from God to self." One of the common denominators of this beast power is force. Always has been. Always will be. Force! And if I am forcing myself to obey, thinking that my obedience is what causes my salvation, and therefore trying to work out my own salvation by my own works, I am a victim of the image to the beast. You see, there is something personal in these messages. There is to be a great revival as the result of understanding Revelation in the light of our own experience. So if I, as a preacher, get up -and have a campaign against some political power that operated in history through the medieval times and down through the last days to force men's consciences, but at the same time I am too busy delivering this kind of prophetic message to spend time with Steps to Christ and the Gospels to know a personal fellowship with Jesus Christ so that I am depending upon Him for my salvation, then I am a victim in my own trap. Is this possible? Is it not possible to see salvation through faith alone in Jesus Christ as a mighty thread woven through these messages, all three of them? Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 19, "The message of Christ's righteousness is to sound from one end of the earth to the other to prepare the way of the Lord. This is the glory of God, which closes the work of the third angel." What closes it? The emphasis upon Christ and His righteousness. If that is not in these messages, then these messages become dry and sterile, without life. Well, let's take a look at these hard lines. "If any man worship ... , the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God." Right here, if you couple this with Revelation 15 and 16, you have the seven plagues of the Apocalypse which are "poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation." "And he shall be 31

tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." If you go to your scholars and your commentaries, your interpreters of Bible prophecy, you find that there is some difference of opinion here. Some think that there are two times mentioned here. One would be the seven last plague judgments. The other would be the judgment at the end of the thousand years at the third coming of Christ. Probably during that judgment at the end of the thousand years, they say, the fire wi II come and people wi II be tormented in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the Lamb. Whether it is at the end of th is world before Christ's second coming or at the end of the millennium before Christ's third coming, I'm not sure. I would like to suggest something else, again making it personal and experiential. Have you ever noticed what happens when a person who is worshiping himself and his own self interests comes into the presence of God? Have you ever noticed? Have you ever read about the days of John Wesley when out in the great open air meetings scoffers would come, determined to break up the meeting, and because of the actual, immediate presence of and power of God and the Holy Spirit these scoffers would be driven to their knees by the power of God and would cry out for mercy? Have you ever read in Matthew, the eighth chapter, verses 28 and 29, of the demoniacs of Gergesa coming out from the tombs, exceeding fierce? And they cried out saying, "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art Thou come hither to torment us before the ti me?" Have you read of the other times when Jesus was here personally and met the devils and they cried out for mercy? Self-worship is always uncomfortable in the presence of God. Is that right? Is it possible that a person, experientially, who is a victim of "do-it-yourself" religion, or righteousness by works, can become so uncomfortable in the presence of God and the angels that he experiences torment and unrest? This has always been true. Verse 11: "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." We don't have any problem with that term "for ever and ever." You know how the Bible in other verses uses that term- as long as they live. We won't go into that. It continues, "They have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and

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whosoever receiveth the mark of his name." No rest day nor night. Have you noticed in your own life, or in the lives of others who are worshiping themselves and their own interests and who have not surrendered to God and who are running from God, that they cannot sit still? They have no rest. They are constantly kicking their feet in the dust or biting their fingernails or running to one more pleasure to find one more thing to occupy their time and attention so they don't have to think. That's the last thing in the world they want is to sit down and think about time and eternity. They can't sleep at night, so they have to take the sleeping pills and the tranquilizers and then the pep pills to wake up. A whole generation has gone down the tubes on that. They have no rest day nor night who worship themselves. They are their own god. Their glory or their pleasure is their prime object. Is it not possible that there is something here besides the lake of fire involved? By the way, if you follow the sequence right after this, it says in verse 13, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth." Are you going to have dead dying in the Lord take place after people have been in the lake of fire? And, by the way, are you going to have people in the lake of fire still worshiping the beast and his image? That's rather inconceivable. They would hate the beast and his image. It's very interesting in the actual reading of the verse in the King James. "They have no rest day nor night." And the Greek says, "Who keep on worshiping the beast and his image." They have no rest now! Listen, friend, if there is someone here today who has discovered that your life is like the waves of the sea, tossed to and fro, and that fea r hath torments, and if you've found no rest, I would like to invite you to picture with me the outstretched arms of Jesus once more as He says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." No rest for the wicked? That's right. Is there rest in Jesus? Yes. Is that message in these three? I hope you see it. Shall we pray. Dear Father in heaven, many of us have spent wasted time and effort trying to understand this experientially. We can see that there are some other issues involved than some political power somewhere. We pray that You will deliver us from the kind of human effort that 33

is useless and help us to make use of the kind of human effort that results in finding us in Your presence. Lord, we thank You that through the power and the grace of Jesus we can come into Your presence and instead of being tormented we can find rest and peace and hope and life eternal. Forgive us for our wandering and help us to accept Your invitation today to rest in You. We ask in Jesus' name . Amen.

4 Getting God off the Hook This last week, when some of us were brainstorming for a title to today's subject, someone suggested "Getting God off the Hook." It sounded sacrilegious. Who needs to get God off the hook? Isn't He greater and more powerful than that? But strangely enough there is some textual evidence for this very title. We are still studying Revelation 14 on the three angels' messages. Here is the evidence for this title in the fifth verse. It is talking about a group of people among the redeemed and reads, "In their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God." The Greek word for "guile" really means "fish bait." I don't know too much about fish bait or what they had in mind back there when they wrote this. I remember going fishing one time with some other academy kids out by the river. Someone gave me a pole with a reel on it that worked very well. I had more fun arching that line across the river to see if I could make it to the other side than I had fishing. I accidentally caught a fish and felt so bad that I had to let it go back into the water again because I have always been chickenhearted (or "fishhearted" in this case). But I do know this much about the bait-down in the center somewhere there is a hook.

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From this analogy you know that the fish bait and the hook together represent someth ing that looks different on the outside from what it is on the inside. So these people without fish bait who someday stand without fault are going to be the same on the outside and the inside. There is going to be no spi ritual schizophrenia, no hook there, no guile. The reason God gets off the hook is that His people get off the hook. T he reason, in the first place, that God is on the hook is that His people are on the hook. Suppose we get to the point by noticing that the "hour of God's judgment" has come. Verse 7. Contrary to what many of us have thought, that this was only referring to people getting judged, the truth is that God is up for judgment. It says so. We've already noticed that in the first angel's message this phrase, "for the hour of his judgment is come," is subsidiary to that message. T he amazing thought is that at the end of the world in the eyes of the universe God Himself comes up for judgment. Is that right? So there is something more here than what some of us may have though t. The issue in the judgment is more than simply going over the heavenly bookkeeping system to find out who is going to be saved and who is going to be lost. It does involve people, but it also involves God. Now, the reason God comes up for judgment is that there have been some serious charges levied against Him. The devil, the one who started this whole mess, before he transferred it to this world, said that God wasn't fair, that there was no humility with God, that God demanded worship, that there was no self-sacrifice with Him, that His law was not correct, and so on and so on. In fact, the twelfth chapter of this same book we're studying makes it very clear that there comes a time in the plan of salvation when the accuser- that old serpent called the devil and Satan, the one who tried to deceive the whole world-gets cast down. So in this great court scene that's taking .Place in the universe now there is a prosecuting attorney, an accuser. Now he has many accusations. We could multiply them if we wanted to this morning. But I'd like to have you notice just two major ones. (1) Once the problem of sin got started, Satan said that God could not forgive the sinner. Now, of course this is a

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worthwhi le accusation on the part of the enemy, because if God can forgive the sinner, then He'd better let Satan and his angels back in. At least t hat must be his reasoning. Man fell, evidently rather easily, into the temptations of Satan. And the serpent said, "Now I've got you. You can't be fo rgiven. God's law is unchangeable, and God is a God of justice." God had a problem, because not only is He a God of justice but He is a God of love as well. You know already how God dealt with that problem, don't you? Several hundreds of years went by , and a lonely cross arose on a distant hill. That is what is referred to in Revelation 12. The accuser in this great judgment scene realized that he was finished at the cross. When from the lips of the dying sacrifice came the words, "It is finished," those words included Satan's own doom, and he knew it. It seems to me that ever since that day on the lonely hill outside Jerusalem the enemy has probably been subdued on this first charge. He still tries to get people to believe that they can't be forgiven. But appa rently his bigger charge is number two-the charge he has made the most of in the last two thousand years. And that is this : (2) Even though God has made provisions to forgive sinners, the sinner cannot overcome. The reality of the truth is that Jesus, when He came to this world came not only to die, but He came to show us how to overcome. Inherent in His life, although it has been obscured since, is the very example and pattern of how to overcome. Now the enemy knows that if a person cannot overcome then he cannot be taken into heaven any more than the devil and his angels can be taken back. God's law and the happiness of heaven are in jeopardy. So he presses this charge against God, the universe, and God's people. Now, God really needs to be vindicated, because He is "on the hook" in terms of His peopl e. But if He is going to be vindicated, both of these charges have to be answered . One person says, "Well, the charge was answered when Jesus came and proved as a man that one life of victory could be lived in this world. That takes care of it." In fact, most of the Christian world, I believe, is much more interested in simply forgiveness than they are in overcoming. Most of the Christian world has been hooked on th is idea that as long as you make sure your sins are forgiven every night before you go to bed, everything is all right. There has been a great landslide toward minimizing the necessity of answering Satan's second charge . God

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has to prove that man can overcome and that we, like Jesus, must be victorious as He was. I'd like to show you a little evidence of this from one or two other source books. Here is one from Christ's Object Lessons, p. 314: "Satan had claimed that it was impossible for man to obey God's commandments." There it is. I've heard people come along and say, "That's right. It's impossible. All you can do is the best you can." And "the best you can" comes out all cloudy. I'd like to remind you this morning that if man does not do any better than man can do, he's sunk. We have to do far better than we can do or we will never know salvation. Don't you believe that? If all Peter had done was the best he could, trying to walk on the water that night, he would have been sunk a long time ago. But through the grace and the power of Christ and His immediate presence Peter walked on the water. Peter did something that he could not do. If all I do is the best that I can as a human being in this world of sin, I'll never do my part in the plan that God has for me. I must do better than I can do. I must do only that which the grace of Jesus Christ can do in my life. Do you believe that? So away with this idea that you simply do the best you can. In the last generation when all the universe is looking on and sin has demonstrated itself to the ultimate, Jesus is going to have a group of people without fish bait, without guile, faultless, or blameless before the throne of God. And you may very well need to be one of them. I was glad last week to hear our week of prayer speaker say what some would not dare say. He said that God's plan is to bring us to the place where we stop sinning. And I gasped! Really! Would he say that kind of thing? I can hear other people gasping too. Do you believe that it is God's purpose to bring you to the place where you stop sinning? "Oh," you say, "we'll never come to the place where we're sinless." No, that's not what we're talking about. Let's not get bogged down in the theological question of how sinless sinlessness can be, you know-your nature, the wrinkles in your cerebrum, your flesh and all the rest of it. No, no. All we're saying is getting to the place through the power of God where we stop conscious sinning. Should we allow for that? Does God? "Thou shalt call his name

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Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." Listen to The Desire of Ages, p. 671: "The very image of God is to be reproduced in humanity. The honor of God, the honor of Christ is involved in the perfection of the character of His people." Does that sound like God is up for judgment in relationship to His people? It does, doesn't it? So when we come to this time of judgment at the end of the world's history, we see that it is a very significant time . It is no time to drag down the standard of God's ideal for His children with alibis like "Do the best you can." "Now, whil e our great High Priest is making the atonement for us, we should seek to become pe rfect in Christ."-The Great Controversy, p. 623. "All need a knowledge for themselves of the position and work of their great High Priest. Otherwise it will be impossible for them to exercise the faith which is essential at this t ime or to occupy the position which God designs for them to fill."-lbid, p. 488. "While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven, while the sins of penitent believers are being removed from the sanctuary, there is to be a special work of purification, of putting away of sin, among God's people upon earth . ... When this work shall have been accomplished, the followers of Christ will be ready for His appearing."- /bid., p. 425. Now, how on earth can a poor sinner purify himself or put away sin? How can he understand this? We know right away that there's no chance, no hope except through the grace or the power of Christ. This is where it becomes very interesting to notice the reason for Christ's mediatorial or intercessory work. These are a couple of terms that we've used for some time . But what do the words "mediator" and "intercessor" mean? These two words are very similar. I used to think that the only person who needed an intercessor was one who was estranged from God, who needed to be reconciled to God, one who was in sin - a sinner. To my surprise, I discovered that it is Christ's mediatorial or intercessory work that keeps the unfallen worlds from falling. I'd never thought of that before. Notice it here in the following comment: "The arm that raised the human family from the ruin which Satan has brought upon the race through his temptations is the arm which has preserved the inhabitants of other worlds from sin." The same 38

mighty arm that takes the drunk out of the gutter and puts him in heaven someday is the arm that keeps other worlds from falling. Did you know that? "Christ is mediating in behalf of man, and the order of unseen worlds also is preserved by His mediatorial work." You'll find that in your old Review and Herald of 1881, January 11, and in Messages to Young People, p. 254. So when we talk about Christ as our High Priest in Hebrews, when we talk about Him as our Intercessor, our Mediator, we are not talking only about Him covering the sins of the past, we are talking about the great work of God to give us power to overcome. I want to be open for that kind of help, don't you? An intercessor before the throne has not only provided for the forgiveness of my sins, but is in the work of supplying power for today and tomorrow to help me to know victory. This is inherent in the three angels' messages, inherent in the judgment. God is up for judgment, and the judgment involves His people. If Satan's charges are going to be met, this one about keeping God's law is going to have to be met as wel I. Now, when we say that the judgment includes more than going over the records of heaven and cleansing the sanctuary of all the records of bad deeds done, we get into something that's been seriously debated in our own church. I remember an incident several years ago in a church in Colorado. A lady who was visiting in town one Sabbath called me on the phone. She said, "Pastor, do you know what's going on in your church?" I said, "I know a few things. What do you have in mind?" She said, "You ' ve got some real heresy being taught in the Sabbath School classes." "Oh?" "Yes," she said. "You have some followers of Grimsley in your audience." I said, "Grimsley? Who's Grimsley?" "You don't know who Grimsley is?" "No. Never heard of him." So I began to try and find out who Grimsley was and what he taught. Do you know what I found? This Grimsley, whoever he was, was supposed to be teaching that the cleansing of the sanctuary involved also the cleansing of the soul temple. And I'll tell you something, neighbor, I believed in that then

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and still do whether I ever heard of Grimsley or not! Don't you? Well, what happened next in reacting to Grimsley was that people began to say, "Oh, no, it doesn't include the cleansing of the believer." Listen , when you go through the Bible and find out God's way of dealing with the sin problem, you know that He is dealing with the hearts of men, not just the record of sin. The cleansing of the sanctuary and the atonement involves people, not just records! Is that right? And this was a universal truth that was around long before Grimsley came along. But do you know what happened? This Grimsley and some of his followers, because of their attitudes and their methods, began to bring into ill-repute two of the greatest truths that are pertinent for these last days. One of them is the sanctuary and the other one is righteousness by faith. I have met people who said, the minute they heard "righteousness by faith," "Oh, no! That's Grimsley. That's offshoot." And the devil sits back and smiles. I have known of Adventist ministers, including myself, who have been very negligent to put into an evangelistic series anything on the sanctuary because "the sanctuary is a no-no now." Are you aware of what I am trying to say? It is too bad to give the devil a heyday like that because of some fictitious character by the name of Grimsley. Listen, I believe that just as surely as the book The Desire of Ages describes Jesus' coming and cleansing the temple at Jerusalem He also announced thereby His mission to cleanse the soul temple. I believe that is exactly what it means, and I believe that God wants to show us through the great understanding of faith in Christ alone how this can be accomplished in our lives . Please, in the meantime, let's not make any cheap excuses for our faults. We ought to at least face them, hadn't we? Listen to this. The Great Controversy, p. 489. "If those who hide and excuse their faults could see how Satan exults over them, how he taunts Christ and the holy angels with their course, they would make haste to confess their sins and to put them away." What happens when I make excuses for my sins and faults? Satan shakes his fist at God, pokes fun at Jesus and taunts the angels. And if I had any concept of what's going on there, it says, I would make haste and put them away. Evidently there would be a great motivation that would come in and help me to respond more to the love of God. 40

So I propose to you today that through Christ's mediatorial work, His intercession during the time of the judgment, when the very character of God is at stake and the whole universe is looking on and one third of the original angels are shaking their fists and saying, "It's not fair," that there is this great, giant issue of whether or not people are going to surrender so completely to the presence and the power of God that the devil's charges can be answered. "He [Christ) is the High Priest for the church, and He has a work to do that no other can perform. By His grace He is able to keep every man from transgression." Signs of the Times, February 14, 1900. 1John1 :7 says it very clearly, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin ." And verse 9 adds, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "It is as necessary that Christ should keep us by His intercessions as that He should redeem us by His blood." There they are. Two things. "Those purchased by His blood He now keeps by His intercession."-Manuscript 73, 1893. "The prayer of John 17 is a lesson regarding the intercession that the Saviour would carry on within the veil when His great sacrifice on behalf of men, the offering of Himself, should be completed."Manuscript 29, 1906. "The intercession of Christ in man's behalf in the sanctuary above is as essential to the plan of salvation as was His death upon the cross. By His death He began that work which after His resurrection He asce nded to complete in heaven. We must by faith enter within the vei I." - The Great Controversy, p. 489. Now, there has been a debate among Adventists and other e vangel icals as of about t en years ago. The debate involved the question of whether or not the atonement was complete at the cross. Have you heard of that? The evangelicals in the Christian world take the position that the atonement was complete at the cross, and anyone who does not accept that finds himself in the camp of the non-evangel icals, namely the "sects." So we began to take a long look at our theology on this question. If you look at it long enough, you discover that it can be a semantic problem, in a way. But Dr. Heppenstall clearly points out in his new book that if the atonement with all of its ramifications was completed at the cross, then we should not have had any more sin or death since! 41

So was the adequateness of the sacrifice and the penalty that was paid complete at the cross? Yes! But the application of what happened at the cross must continue until the final conclusion of sin and sorrow and sickness and pain and death. It's only logical. So maybe the whole discussion is a problem of semantics, a definition of terms. However, it can be seriously suspected that there is a type of Christian in the world today, whose profession does not go very deep, who thinks that the only thing necessary is , the forgiveness at the cross. It could be possible, could it not, that a person might resist the idea of any further application of the atonement, might resist the idea of a mediatorial and intercessory work going on now because he doesn't want that work to go on. He doesn't want to have to face the fact that he needs that work. Do you follow? He wants only the forgiveness. But don't tell him that there is power to overcome, because to many a nominal Christian that looks like too much. You can go to popular religious book stores today and find books by well-known Christians who have emphasized only forgiveness. On the other hand, whenever you find a book in a popular religious book store that includes both forgiveness and power for victory, you can be impressed. To me, that is the real evangelical. But, of course, different book stores will cater to different things. I went down to the local book store a while back to buy some books on a certain subject and asked if they had such and such a book . They replied, "Is it pro or con?" I said, "It's con." "Then we don't have it," they said. So I filed a complaint with the management but found out that I filed it with the wrong person. Well, when you look at this message, "the hour of God's judgment is come," and you see that God is up for judgment in His people and that the character of God must be vindicated in His people, then you begin to realize what a// is included in the cleansing of the sanctuary. Then when you study the sanctuary itself you will also find the methodology or the "how" to go about this cleansing. I realize that there are many people who have my same background. Whenever they hear of the sanctuary, they say immediately, "Oh, please, deliver us from the blood and the skins and the turtledoves and the sheep and the smoke and the incense.

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You are not getting into a discourse on that , are you?" I believe t hat there can be significance in all of t he bloo d and the incense and t he horns and the ski ns and all th at . I believe that there can be. And I believe like one write r sa id , " You can find th e entire message in t he sanctuary." But you don't have to ! It seems t o me that we would be safe here this morning at least to suggest this much. From your recall when you studied this thing in your doctrines classes and when you have seen it on charts, you re member a sanctuary of two compartments within a court. Right? In th e court you have an altar that represents the sacrifice of the Lamb on the cross, don 't you? Jesus is there. You also have a laver there that represents washing, a "baptismal tank," if you please. And then you come to the first apartment. Now, no one went in there except t he priest. So the only way you can get into the first apart ment is through the priest. As you go into the first apartment y ou look st raight ahead and you see an altar with incense ascending to heaven. This, according to Revelation, represents the righteousness of Ch rist and the prayers of the saints somehow together. Are you familiar with this? If you look on the right side of the apartment you see a table with bread on it. Bread represents the Bible, the Word of God. It also respresents Jesus. So far, you have Bible study and prayer and t he righteousness of Christ. Now you look on th e left side and you see t he candlesticks with oil in them. Oil represents the Holy Spirit. As y ou see the flames giving forth light, you remember that light represents what? Jesus is the light of the world, yes. But what does it also represent? "Let your light so shine- " What does it include? The Christian witness. We've taken the position here earlier that the only methods for living t he Christian life are Bible study, prayer, and witness th rough the power of the Holy Spirit and the righteousness of Christ. So in the sanctuary yo u've seen t he cross, you've been baptized. You see, through your Priest, the know-how of the devot ional life and personal experience. It's al l there, isn 't it? You don't have to go any farther than th at t o reali ze that somehow in th is sanctuary and this judgment thing is involved all the work of Jesus in the personal life of the individual Christian . You also have the Ten Commandments and power through your High Priest to obey them, don't you, in the sanctuary?

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Listen. "In Christ dwells 'all the fullness of the Godhead bodily'; and the life of Jesus is made manifest 'in our mortal flesh.' That Iife in you will produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did in Him. Thus you will be in harmony with every precept of His law."- Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 78. But the devil hates that, and so he comes along and tries to get us to believe that all we can ever know is the forgiveness and not the power. May I remind you that my Intercessor has not only forgiveness, but power! Write it down! The enemy comes in, and through defects in our characters he t ries to gain control. "He knows that if these defects are cherished, he will succeed. Therefore he is constantly seeking to deceive the followers of Christ with his fatal sophistry that it is impossible for them to overcome. But Jesus pleads in their behalf ... and He declares to all who would follow Him, 'My grace is sufficient for thee!' ... Let none, the n, regard their defects as incurable. God will give faith and grace to overcome them."-The Great Controversy, p. 489. Do you believe that? It says He will. "In our own strength it is true that we cannot obey t hem [God's commandments]. But Christ came in the form of humanity, and by His perfect obedience He proved that humanity and divini ty combined can obey every one of God's precepts .... "This power is not in the human agent. It is the power of God. When a soul receives Christ, he receives power to live the life of Christ."-Christ's Object Lessons, p. 314. And so our Scripture lesson for today becomes even plainer when it reminds us that we are not simply reconciled by J esus' death; we are also saved by His life. Romans 5:10. Not only is there forgiveness, there is the actual reality of Jesus' life available in the life of th e Christian just as when J esus was here. He lived His life through the life of His Father manifested in Him. And because of what He did in providing not only forgiveness but power, we have these comforting words in the book of Hebrews 4: 14-16: "Seeing that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities." (And I don't know why they didn't say that the way it ought to be. Let's leave the "nots" o ut of the re.) We have a high 44

priest who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." I'm thankful today for a great High Priest, aren't you? Not only is He a great High Priest, but He has passed into the heavens in my human form. Think of Jesus with human flesh and bones like I have. He stands there in flesh and bones- always will-because of His great sacrifice for man. He is identified with what we are like forever. He's standing there in that heavenly court today, and He's pleading my case for the sake of His Father and the universe in the great judgment of God. He has forgiveness, and He has power to give the sinner. That ought to drive us to our knees for God's sake as well as ours. Shall we pray. Dear Father in heaven, we need not only the forgiveness but the power. Sometimes we grope around looking for it, and we fail because of lack of understanding. Forgive us, we pray, and help us to have a clear insight as to what's going on and how to let Your life within. Somehow it must be that we fail because we try to do it ourselves. Deliver us from Babylon , we pray, and help us to know what it is like to be one of that number that vindicate the character of God before the entire universe by answering the devil's charges through the grace and the power of Jesus Christ. We ask in His name. Amen.

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5 Living Without Sinning When you ask the question, "Can anyone live without sinning?" you usually get a negative response or a big question mark. In fact, you may have come across a book in the popular religious book stores, How to Live the Victorious Life, by an Unknown Christian. That's the way the author is listed. Is that really saying something? And if you get serious at all about whether a person can live without sinning, the usual question is, "All right, who's dvne it?" Some comfortably reply, "We can't think of anyone who has ever done it." Now, if I can't think of anyone who has ever done it, then that takes the pressure off of me. Of course that's my reason for asking in the first place. And we say, "I'm quite sure that no one has." And so goes the dialog. This, of course, inevitably leads into the question of perfection. How perfect is "perfect," and how perfect can you be? Quite a group of us talked around the table late one night after an evening meal and got into the subject of perfection. Finally someone said in complete frustration, "It makes you want to go out and get drunk!" Some of the rest nodded their heads. Yet, John Wesley was a sample of one who felt that the subject of perfection needed to be dwelt on and studied often because people needed that in order to press on the upward way. This is a legitimate question . It is also relevant to our series on the three angels of Revelation 14. You see, last time that we were together we noticed that God is on trial in His people. He's on trial over the devil's two charges: (1) that God cannot forgive the sinner (Calvary answered that); (2) that the sinner cannot keep God's law or cannot overcome sin. Now, that charge must be answered. I'd like to point out to you that there is something more than just forgiveness involved in the wonderful theme of salvation through Christ alone. There is power and victory 46

available. However, there is a cross-section of Christendom today that wants to accept only the forgiveness. Can anyone live without sinning? Right to begin with I'd like to remind you that the answer is Yes, and that the proof of th is is Jesus. But, does the fact that Jesus lived a sinless life mean that we are supposed to, or did He simply live the sinless life for us? I'd like to have you consider this carefully, because one of the most exciting conclusions that you come to when you study this is in realizing that J esus did come and live life exactly as we have to live it in terms of victory and power. Now, there's no question that Jesus was born with the moral nature of man before he fell, because there was no sinfulness in Christ. And this explains His life from birth to twelve years of age. But when it comes to the issue of living without sinning, Jesus is our great example. I am encouraged to talk about this subject today because of the preacher who recently said in our church that he was looking forward to God's power bringing him to the place where he stopped sinning. I said to myself, "How can he have the nerve to say that? If he has the nerve to say that, then I ought to have the nerve to bring up the subject some Sabbath." You mean that a person is going to know when he gets to the place where he stops sinning? Is he going to claim it? Is he going to advertise it? What all did he mean by that? Of course I should invite him up here to defend his position, but we'll do that later. Let's nail it down, first of all, that Jesus lived a life without sin. Hebrews 4: 15: "We have [not] an high priest which can [not] be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Taking out the "nots," as we did before. He "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without si n." 1 Peter 2:22, about Jesus again: "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." (Back to that "fish bait" again.) And then Jesus' own statement in John 16:33: "Be of good cheer," He says; "I have overcome the world." This was near the close of His life and ministry, and He's telling this to His disciples. That would be a boasting assertion if you were to take credit for it yourself, but Jesus did not take credit for His overcoming, did He? Who got the credit for Jesus' overcoming the world? That's right. His Father. Evidence for that is Matthew 19: 17.

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Now, of course, Matthew 19 has more in it than one thing, but it's pretty clear here that Jesus is telling where His goodness came from. In Matthew 19, verse 16, this man came to Him and said, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" Notice that t he first thing Jesus did was to face him with his introduction. He said, "Why callest thou me good?" Why did you call Me good? " There is none good but One, that is, God." He wanted to clear that up right away. And let's never forget that Jesus came to live His life through His Father's power, not through His own achievements or through His own personal, inherent strength. So J esus reminds the young man and He reminds us today that He came to be an example to us in how to live our lives. Is it possible for someone today to say, "Why call me good?" Have yo u ever heard the good man's response? If he really is a good man, what does he say? He denies it and says, "Look, anything you see in me is only Jesus Christ." That's what Jesus was saying; otherwise it would have been plain braggadocio for Him to say, "I have overcome." He intended for His disciples to understand clearly how He overcame and who it was that did it. Now, 1 John 3:5 tells it again: "In Him is no sin." And it adds one more thing there. He came "to take away our sin." Can anyone live without sinning? Yes! Who? Jesus did. Our next question: Can we? Notice Romans 8, verse 7. "The carnal mind- " How many peop le out there have a carnal mind? Everybody! Apart from Christ our minds are carnal. Let me ask you : If I have been a Christian for twenty years and have known the renewing of my mind by Christ dwelling within and I turn my back on faith and God and Christ and the Bibl e, what kind of mind do I still have? It is still carnal. Sounds like heresy? It is the truth . Have you ever seen a person who lived the Christian life without blemish for twenty years and all of a sudden he flames out in a blaze of sad glory? What was the trouble? Was his Christianity phony? Not necessarily. The human heart, the human mind is always the same until Jesus comes, as I understand it. Apart from Christ we are sinners; we have a sinful nature and will continue to have a sinful nature until Christ comes. Our only hope is in a continuing personal experience of Christ dwelling within . All right, the carnal mind, then, is at enmity - it is against God. "It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Our o nly hope is

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the renewing of the mind by the indwelling of Christ through the Spirit. So, of ourselves, we can't overcome one sin. Romans 3:23: "All have sinned." And that includes everyone. Romans 3: 10, 11 makes it quite clear: "As it is written, There is none righteous, no not one : there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God ." Man is hopeless. Without the initiative of God Himself we don't even seek God. All we can do is respond to His seeking us. Verse 12, "They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Can we live without sin? Can we live without sin? No. Yet, Psalm 1, verse 6 says, "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous." Now you have an enigma. The strange paradox of a people, helpless and incapable of righteousness, yet somehow they become righteous. All right, so far, Jesus lived without sin. We can't but we must! That sounds kind of hard too. How do we know we must? Revelation 3:5 is just one sample of a thread that runs all through the last book of the Bible. "He that overcometh." "He that overcometh shall-" "He that overcometh shall-" And on down through the book. Revelation 15 talks about these people who are saved. They are going to have the victory, to sing the song of victory! Look at John, the eighth chapter. They drag a woman to Jesus, and they stand around with stones ready to do their evil work. Jesus said to the woman, "I don't condemn you." And in the presence of His love and insight the Pharisees fade away. Then He says, "Go and sin no more." Did she obey? The evidence is that she did. Did that do away with His invitation, His command? No. "Go and sin no more." Our Scripture lesson today gives the proper balance. You don't have to be discouraged, but you also must be challenged in that lesson. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. But Jesus came not only to forgive us our sins but to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. However, in the process of growth, "these things write I unto you that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate w ith the Father." It is God 's will that we live without sinning. He wants to bring us to that. It is also His will to forgive us

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if we fall in the meantime. Is that true? How long do we have to fall? How long does it take to live without si nning? Well, we're going to have to define our terms. This is where we get into trouble sometimes. We say, "Yes, Christians need to come to the place where they have victory." Victory over what? We say, "Yes, a person can live without sinning." But what do we mean by that? Are we talking about living without committing known sins? Are we talking about living without committing unknown sins? Are we talking about living without a sinful nature? We're going to have to subdivide the question in order to understand. Some people, because they have not defined terms, have got into these midnight hours of discussion, wasting time and energy. Now, in order to try and pinpoint this a little closer I'd like to give you a list of the two different camps on the subject of perfection. In recent years there has been in my own church some debate on the question of perfection. One group has hammered away on perfection so much that they have tended to focus people's attention back in on themselves. And the moment that my attention is focused back on myself, I'm finished. Is that right? So in one sense it does not pay to dwel I too much on the question of perfection, because perfection is a result of something else. We should dwell more on the cause. However, let's look at two camps of people theologically: Absolute perfection and relative perfection. I have a few points on each. (1) The absolute perfectionist believes in a freedom from the state of sin in this life, including the sinful nature. (2) He believes that the sinful nature will be removed. (3) He suggests a point of perfection reached when the sinful nature is removed - a point in time, punctiliar. (4) In recent years the absolute perfectionist, has given the impression that this experience is reserved for the last generation only. No one else in the past has ever experienced it. (5) He also believes in and claims, in some instances, conscious holiness. He knows when he becomes perfect, and he can advertise it. (6) He believes in freedom from the liability to do wrong. At the end of the last century this was called "holy flesh ." Some thought a person could become so sanctified and holy that he couldn't do anything wrong after that. (7) The absolute perfectionist is sometimes charged 50

with what we call "intrinsic perfection," or perfection apart from Christ so that he can live in the time of trouble "without a mediator," as he interprets it. (8) The absolute perfectionist is often critical of all who do not believe in absolute perfection. And that's an interesting thing. You might then question his absolute perfec· tion. (9) The absolute perfectionist teaches that holiness may be attained in this life. Now, this kind of person would find Bible support for his position in statements such as: "These things write I unto you that you sin not." "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not," and so on . And he would also find support in statements like this, published in Signs of the Times, July 23, 1902: "Everyone who by faith obeys God's commandments, will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression." On the other hand, we have the relative perfectionist: ( 1) The relative perfectionist believes in victory over known sin. (2) He believes that there is no stopping place or point where perfection is reached but will continue to grow throughout eternity. (3) He insists on the same standard and possibility in every age, including the generations gone by, not just the last generation. (4) He also insists that we can never claim or know when we become sinless. (5) He believes that the liability to do wrong is always present and always will be present. (6) He also believes that intellectual imperfection (the problems of man being created from the dust with a sinful nature) necessitate the same in moral and spiritual life. (7) He sometimes gives evidence that he believes that there must still be provision for forgiveness after probation. (8) He teaches that it is impossible for us to keep the law perfectly in this life-that we can only overcome habitual sin, or continuance in sin , or deliberate, persistent, defiant sin. The relative perfectionist would use texts like, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves ." And he would use quotations like this: "When we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, we shall have no relish for sin." No relish for it. We may make mistakes, but we will hate the sin that caused the suffering of the Son of God. - Messages to Young People, p. 338. And "while the followers of Christ have sinned, they have not given themselves up to be controlled by satanic agencies."-Prophets and Kings, p. 589. I've read articles and books and listened to people discuss th is 51

back and forth, pro and con, and I have had to come to a conclusion. I would like to propose to you today that whatever you make of the differences between these two camps, there is one thing common in both camps. That is that victory over known sin is possible and necessary. The relative perfectionist believes that, and of course, the absolute perfectionist believes that. Now I would lik·3 to ask you, "Isn't that all we need to be concerned about?" If my sinful nature ever gets taken away. it is for sure I am not going to have much say about that. Is that right? Who is going to do it? The Creator, the One who made me in the first place. All right? Am I ever going to be able to do something, for instance, about my unknown sins? There is One who is going to have to bring these out into the open, and once He brings them out into the open, then they're known. And so, could it be that the only thing that a Christian needs to be interested in is the issue concerning how to face known sins and let the rest of it, the sinful nature, and the unknown sins all be taken care of by God. He's big enough to do it. Is this fair enough? In other words, there is no point in going up sky diving when I can't jump off the back steps. And there is no point going out deep sea diving when I can't relax in the bathtub. There is no point in becoming involved with horses when I can't yet run with the footmen. See Jeremiah 12:5. And so, may I propose that we combine our thoughts and our study and our questions on living without sinning purely to how to relate to known sin. "Well," you say, "that's known sin, the grosser sins. We must take care of those. Everybody knows that. We have to stop drinking, and we have to get people over these ev il habits that they have. We cannot take them into the church without victory, and the power of God is available to do it. The adulterer must give up his life of sin and the murderer must change his course." But when we get to the lesser sins, then it's a different story. It's different when we get to the socially acceptable sins. Next week we are going to talk about how long it takes to overcome known sin. But today I would like sim.ply to suggest this much: First, instead of asking the question, "Can I live without sinning?" let's ask, "Did Jesus live without sin?" And, second, "Can Jesus live His life within me?" Is that fair 52

enough? Does Jesus live a life without sinning and has He made it possible to live His life in me? Isn't this the question to ask of the Scripture? We've studied at some length here about how it is that Christ lives His life with in us. It is accomplished through faith, isn't it? And faith is someth ing more than working up some kind of self-generated attitude of mind. It comes from the ingredients God has given by which we become acquainted with Him. "This is the victory that overco meth the world, even our faith." Our faith in whom? It is our faith in the One who overcame the world. Romans 10:17. How does it come? "By the word of God." Psalm 119:11: " Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." Is there something more than just forgiveness? Matthew 26:41: "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." I'd Iike to give you some evidences that we must accept something more than the forgiveness, that we must accept the power as well. The Desire of Ages, p. 555: "The righteousness of Christ is not a cloak to cover unconfessed and unforsaken sin; it is a principle of li fe that transforms the character and controls the conduct." Does that sound like something in addition to forgiveness? Selected M essages, bk. 1, p. 366: "No man can cover his soul with the garments of Christ's righteousness while practicing known sins or negl ecting known duties." The Desire of Ages, p. 311: "The tempter's agency is not to be accounted an excuse for one wrong act. Satan is jubilant when he hears the professed followers of Christ making e xcuses that lead to sin. There is no excuse for sinning. A holy t e mper, a Christlike life, is accessible to every repenting, be lieving child of God ." Christ's Object Lessons, p. 316: "The love of God does not lead Him to excuse sin. He did not e xcuse it in Satan; He did not excuse it in Adam or Cain ; nor will He excuse it in any other of the children of men. He will not connive at our sins or overlook our defects of character. He expects us to overcome in His name." Are those clear? You know, if some of us had wanted to, it would have been much more comfortable to adopt some of the usual excuses for our sins and mistakes and problems a long time ago. But you cannot do it and face God's Word, can you? You can't do it ! 53

And this cheap idea that God is so nice and so good and so kind that He just overlooks our sinn ing is tragic and dangerous. If you go cross-eyed when you look at th is truth and you begin to feel numb all over-well, welcome to the club! But let's not deny the truth of God's Word and drag His truth down to our level of performance. I'm thankful that Jesus still is an advocate with the Father to help us patiently while we are trying to understand what it means to overcome sin. I'm also glad that He presents to us the challenge by His grace: "These things write I unto you that ye sin not." And that means that He is still God. He is a God of justice, and He is also a God of love. And He invites me to cast myself upon Him in an attitude of trust and surrender. That makes the difference. Our problem is that we constantly tend to trust ourselves instead of God. Max Spicura was the fath er of a boy on the second floor of a burning school. It was in Chicago. You may have read about it several years ago. The school was in such flames that there was no way to escape from the second floor. The stairways were aflame. Things were getting worse by the moment. No firemen had arrived yet. Max, who had a boy, Mike, in that room ran across the alley (for he lived near the school). He saw the noses of these boys and girls pressed against the window. He ye lled for them to break a window and someone broke a window. "Now," he said, "jump! Jump one at a time and I'll catch you." The boys and girls began to jump one by one. He caught some of them and broke th e fall of others. Finally everyone had jumped except Mike. "Now," he said, "you! You jump." Mike froze. He couldn't. He backed away from the window. The smoke came in. They found his body later. When I read that story, I wondered why. I don't have any reason to judge Max Spicura. I don't know him, but I just want to suggest a couple of possibilities. Would it be possible t hat a father's previous relationship with his son could give his son reason not to trust him? Could it be that the boys and girls who saw Mike's fat her saw in him an image of their own father whom they had previously learned to trust? Oh, sure, there cou ld be other reasons, but I am just wondering. What is our problem? We are on the second floor of a world going up in smoke, symbolically-and literally one of these days! Nearby

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Jesus is standing and saying "Jump! I'll catch you . Put your trust in Me." Now, there is someone else there. The devil stands with his arms out and says, "Jump. I'll catch you." Some jump in his direction, and he drops his arms and lets them splat on the cement. That's what he does, and you know that, don't you? Then there are some other human beings out there, the humanists, you know, and they're standing there saying, "Come on. Jump! I'll catch you." Another human. Like my four-year-old catching me from the third floor up, and you splat on the cement anyway. But Jesus stands there with His full stature and He stretches out His arms and says, "Trust in Me. Trust Me." That's what faith is. "I will do for you that which you cannot do for yourself." Somehow that's where it lies, isn't it? It has to be. That's where it is. Can anyone live without sinning? Jesus did. Can we? No, we can't. Must we? Yes, we must. How did Jesus do it? By trusting in His Father. How can we do it? Somehow learning to trust Him. There are some other factors known as to how long it takes to get the victory over known sin which we will conclude with next week. In the meantime, are you thankful for a God not only of justice but of mercy and power? Shall we thank Him as we pray? Dear Father in heaven, we thank You for the mighty provision made. Forgive us for our weak alibis, our excuses, our rationalizations. Lord, it drives us to our knees in the dirt when we think about the great challenge before us. We look at our own lives, and we despair; but help us to look to Jesus and take courage. Father, we come to You because of our great need. We accept again Your great forgiveness and Your mercy . Help us to know Your power. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen .

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6 Overcoming Known Sin Last week we talked about living without sin. We noticed as we studied the question that it is answered primarily in the life of One who did. His name is Jesus. Then we noticed that although He did, we can't. The carnal heart is against God. However, we noticed that although we can't, we must! ("These things write I unto you, that ye sin not." ) The secret to this paradox is in knowing the experience of Ephesians 2, Colossians 1, and 2 Corinthians 5-Christ with in. If Christ can live a sinless life, and if Christ can live His life in me, then this ought to deal directly with the problem of sin in me. We also noticed that pertinent to the problem is the answering of the enemy's two major charges, ( 1) that God cannot forgive the sinner (answered by the cross), and (2) that God's law cannot be kept, that man cannot overcome. This must be answered in the person of God's people. Now, the question today is limited by our study of last week. We are not talking today about what happens to our sinful nature. If my relationship with God is proper, then God is going to have to do what He feels needs to be done to my sinful nature in His own time and way. In the meantime the Bible premise is that our sinful nature is not eradicated . It is only dominated by the Holy Spirit as we live the Christian life. The eradication of our sinful nature and when it happens is God's business. We are not talking today about unknown sin, because, obviously, if it is unknown to us it is not going to be very pertinent until it becomes known. It is God's business again, if our proper relationship continues, to deal with unknown sin by bringing it out into the open. What we are talking about and all we are talking about today is the question of what to do with known sin. How long does it take to overcome it?

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We could answer this in the same way as we did the sinful nature and unknown sin. If our proper relat ionship to God continues, He'll take care of known sin too. Yes, that's true. But the reason we dea l with this today is that so many people have at times become bogged down. They question, "How long, Lord, how long?" And the tendency to look away from the Lord to our continuing problems becomes a really difficult thing in the Christian life. So we speak to that today even though we realize that genuine relationship with God is still the entire answer. The Bible is clear that no one should ever say he is sinless. 1 John 1 :8: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." "Well," some person might say, "this means, then, that if I think I am going to overcome known sin I am wrong, because this text says we cannot." Is that what this text says? Perhaps we should get right to the point by taking the position that not "sinning" is not "sinless." If a person were able to stop sinning today, he still would not be sinless-because of his sinful nature. We need a clear delineation between our sinful nature and our sinning, which sometimes we don't make. And we get into trouble. Notice, for instance, that holy men of old never claimed that they were sinless. Acts of the Apostles, p. 561 : "None of the apostles and prophets ever claimed to be without sin. Men who have lived nearest to God, men who would sacrifice life itself rather than knowingly commit a wrong act [notice that], men whom God has honored with divine light and power, have confessed the sinfulness of their nature. They have put no confidence in the flesh, have claimed no righteousness of their own, but have trusted wholly in the righteousness of Christ." I have heard people say that no one ever really overcomes sin, because the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest who ever lived, said, "I am the chief sinner." They assume by that statement that Paul was saying, "I keep sinning all the time." Paul gives plenty of evidence in other places that he knew victory through the power of God. But none of the apostles or holy men of o ld claimed sinlessness, and no one will today. "No one who claims holiness is really holy. Those who are registered as holy in the books of heaven are not aware of the fact, and are the last ones to tell of their goodness." -The Faith I Live By, p. 140. The truly righteous man is unconscious of his

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goodness and piety. Are you in Christ? Not if you do not acknowledge yourself an erring, helpless, condemned sinner. So if a person was to overcome all known sin, he still would not claim it, and he would not think he was sinless o r anything akin to that. Let's make sure of that. "Well," someone says, "then if we're talking about dealing with known sins, conscious problems in our lives, are we really being realistic? Can this be accomplished?" There are many sins which all of us believe must be stopped. These are the socially unacceptable ones. We all agree that the drunkard, the adulterer, the murderer, the thief must overcome these sins or be lost. We do not allow for him to stop gradually or give him so many years or months in which to gain the victory, but we say, "You must stop at once." The question is, Can he stop at once? If so, why can't any and all sins be stopped at once? It is usually the so-called "little sins" that persist. But if the great ones can be stopped at once, why not the small ones? Thousands of people are tired of habitual sinning and long to stop, but they know not how. Are we insisting on too much when we insist that the murderer, the adulterer, and the thief give up their sins? And how long should it take them? Now, right here we divide into two camps. The strong person with lots of willpower says, "Well! You just quit! You quit now. What's wrong with you? If you' re sincere you'll stop." But he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to the weak person who struggles day after day, week after week, year after year with the same thing. Someone else says, "Well, you don't ever really overcome completely. You just learn to hate what you are doing. As long as you hate it, it's all right." But that's pretty hard to buy, isn't it? I'd like to list seven or eight different conditions. I'd like to suggest to the disappointment, perhaps, of some that how long it takes to overcome known sin cannot be answered by the calendar because the "how long" is dependent not upon time but on conditions or perceptions in the Christian's life. How long it took Enoch, we do not know. How long it took Peter we could make some pretty close guesses. How long did it take Jacob? At least longer that it took Peter, it appears. But you analyze every one of the lives of holy men, and you discover it was the conditions.

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1. The first condition for me to overcome known sin is for me to know that whatever it is, it is sin and to acknowledge it and admit it. No one else can do it for me. Have you ever been in a situation, perhaps in a religious community or family or some kind of environment, in which you have the impression from others that what you were doing was wrong? Then did you come to the realization that you never really had admitted to yourself that it was wrong? Our Scripture lesson for today, Psalm 51, is quite clear on this. This passage is one of the greatest descriptions of one who knew the power of God because he had come to the proper condition. He said, "I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me." I have seen a certain person who could overcome one problem, but not another. And the reason became very obvious to both of us in the end. He admitted the first one was sin but never admitted the second one was until some time later. Away with this thing of bringing everyone into our own mold. How easy it is to do that in a church where we sort of become "Holy Spirit" for someone else. Trying to take the place of the Holy Spirit is blasphemy. Maybe God has a different timetable for the person who is sitting across the aisle, and undoubtedly a different sequence of conviction on different things from the plan He has for me. Is this possible? Sometimes we don't allow for this, especially when we come along with our little checklists of things that are required to be a good Christian-especial ly on an institutional or organizational basis. We've got it all organized, and we have it all there, all in sequence. But, the Holy Spirit has to convict me of any given thing. No one else for me. Is that right? 2. In order for me to overcome known sin I have to come to the place in my life where I know that I can't do a thing about it. Emphasis on "I." In Romans 7:18, the great apostle Paul said, "To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not." I know what's right, I know what's wrong, but I can't do the right. Now, that was a great giant step toward victory over known sin in his life. And it wasn't long until he got into Romans 8. There has been a debate for a long time among theologians as to whether Romans 7 is talking about the converted life or the unconverted life. I'd like to take the position here that it is talking about the converted life and that Romans 7 is definitely describing

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the experience of a person who can be sitting in the Christian church week after week and still be going through a desperate struggle with sin in his own life. He knows what's right or wrong but he can't do right. Then comes the breakthrough. He comes to the place where he sees and admits his helplessness. 3. The next step is discovering how to go to God with it and to stay turned to God and away from the known sin. I'd like to remind you of Romans 8 for th is. It starts right out with the premise that "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Now, we had better make clear what that is all about. "Walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." This can include, I am sure, a number of things, a number of different facets of meaning. I'd like to suggest one major one here. Contrast the difference between the fight of faith and the fight of sin. The fight of faith is the vertical life, the life of personal relationship and daily communication with God. The fight of sin is the horizontal life, the life of attention upon the problems, the weakness, the struggle . Wal king "after the flesh" is trying to do it myself w ith my own sinful flesh. It's impossible. The horizontal life is futile. Walking "after the Spirit" is letting God deal with my problems and my weaknesses through allowing the Holy Spirit to dwell in my life in the vertical relationship. So the difference comes when I admit that I have a problem, and instead of working on the problem, I seek the vertical relationship where the power of the Holy Spirit comes in. The man who was weak through the flesh finds his life is changed through the Spirit, and this difference between the horizontal life (Romans 7) and the vertical life (Romans 8) is a difference that has to involve experience, not just theory. I might understand it theoretically, but not yet experientially. Of course it is interesting that it is possible also to understand the experience without ever understanding the theory. 4. Next, as a result of this vertical relationship, I realize what sin does to Jesus. This is a very significant point in overcoming known sin. I suppose that the experience of the apostle Peter is a classic example of what we are trying to say here. He curses and swears by the fire. He's trying to defend himself. He's on the horizontal plane

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until he looks away from himself and sees Jesus, the look of pity and disappointment on Jesus' face. He realizes that in spite of all of the thorns and the spitting and the slapping what he had done to Jesus is the worst blow that Jesus received that night. To fathom in some way what o ur sins and our continuance in sin are real ly doing to Jesus is a major factor. Have you ever disappointed someo ne vvho was your best friend and you realized that you had disappointed your friend and let him down and you felt te rrible afterward? This is something of what it's all about. 5. Another major point in the conditions of overcoming known sin is to know that God justifies. He does not condemn. Romans 8:33, 34: "It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" By the way, let's answer that question. Who is it that condemns? Who is it? Satan hi mself. Satan is the one who condemns, and man often joins him in his sick game. Is that right? Have you ever condemned someone e lse, consciously or inadvertently? Now, this is very, very important, because it has been shown even psychologically th at condemnation has within it something that keeps the person in the same problems and almost forces him to continue. It is in the atmosphere of loving acceptance, the opposite of condemnation, that the person grows best and pulls away from his problems. This is something that parents sometimes have a hard time learning and acknowledging. Sometimes marriage partners have a hard time learning and acknowledging it too. Condemnation almost forces a person to continue what he's doing. That's the reason that Paul, when he saw the difference between the horizontal and the vertical life, immediately sensed what he begins Romans 8 with: "There is therefore now no condemnation." Now, how a God of justice vvho hates sin, who in the person of Jesus Christ could shudder at the ve ry thought and in the presence of sin, can still love the sinner and not condemn him is perhaps a mystery to human understanding. But He does not condemn. The Bible says so. 6. Another conditi on is to know how to abide in Christ, not only to go to Him in the first place and turn over my problems to Him, but to stay there. 1 John 3: 6: "Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." And, of course, this is basic in the continuing life of the Christian. 7. And fin ally, in order to understand victory over known sin we

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must know God's loving presence-His loving presence. As a shield against temptation and sin there is nothing greater than the actual sense of God's presence. It makes the weak strong. It makes the weakest strong. And we see it happen that way even in our temporary, temporal, daily lives. For instance, I am a thief. I take a gun. I hold up banks, service stations, supermarkets. One night I drive up to a service station. I am going to make a getaway with whatever is in the till. They haven't learned yet at that station not to handle any cash after ten o'clock. As I pull up to the station I say to myself, "I wish I could get over this way of life. I am weak. I know it. Last year when I held up that bank I couldn't help it . Five years ago when I was sitting in jail I was there because I was so weak I couldn't stay away from this life. I wish I could overcome it. I am probably the weakest of the weak." I drive up to the station, ready to go in. I see a black car with white sides sitting at the curb, by coincidence. All of a sudden, though I thought I was weak, now I am strong. I keep right on driving. No problem. I do not stop. Suppose I am a preacher who once had a problem with drink. One night after a meeting I am headed home. I go the long way around, driving up in front of a local bar to get a drink. Just as I pull to the curb, I look in my rearview mirror. I see Elder Lukens, my conference president, behind me. I thought I was weak. Now I am strong. Backbone? I have backbone I never knew I had. I get out at the curb and use the telephone booth that's there, waving to Lukens as he goes by. I get back in my car and go home. Weak? No. What made the difference? The sense of somebody's presence. Two teen-agers alone in the car. It is late at night. The moon is shining. They are having a struggle. They are weak. All of a sudden- headlights in the rear window. It's Father and Mother. They thought they were weak, but now they are strong. What makes the difference? The presence of someone. But in all of these examples, and you could add to them, you have one basic ingredient. The person is operating from fear. And love is as different from fear as the heaven is high above the earth. Is that right? If I am living in a married state and being faithful to my wife only out of fear, then if I take a trip of ten thousand miles across the world, I have freedom on the other side of the world

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because her presence is missing. But if I have a marriage that is based upon the relationship of love, I can go ten thousand miles around the world and I am free and still faithful. Love goes long distance. It is the realization of her love and her presence because of her love, even though she is absent, that makes the difference. And love as far as heaven is concerned, goes long distance, too, coming ten thousand trillion miles or more to a lonely hill where Jesus died. Love, today, still works long distance. But He changes that also into short distance through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. John 14, verse 21: "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." God's actual presence has been promised to us, therefore His loving presence and the sense of that presence that comes from the continuing, vertical life of abiding in Him is a great deterrent from known sin. I suppose that we could list other conditions; but these, it seems to me, are some of the primary ones. I'd like to conclude by reminding you that there is something more involved in the issue of sin than sins. Our tendency to dwell simply on the question of sins is a usual tendency on the part of human nature. But let's never forget that the primary issue in sin is living a life of independence or living a life apart from Christ. This results in the secondary issue, and that is doing wrong things. Let's not, because we have spent some time talking about overcoming known sins, forget that the primary issue is still known sin-sin, singular, living a life apart from God, resulting in sins, plural, doing wrong things. Therefore, the bigger issue in known sin is this : "Am I living a life apart from personal relationship and communication and contact with God?" That's the bigger issue. And if I don't know what to do about known sin, it doesn't take very long to find out. Relationship is established by communication. How long since you've spent time alone, my friend, with God? How long since you've spent time seeking to understand a deeper meaning from the Bible in this personal involvement with Christ? I don't want to become so involved and bogged down with my sins that I forget the real issue. And I invite you, my friend, today to deal with it where it really is- on your knees before God's open Word, seeking not for victory over known sins, but for communication with Christ. Shall we pray?

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Dear Lord, we thank You for the open channel from earth to heaven. It's a long way for us, but a short way for You. We pray that You will help us to make use of that channel through the methods You have given us by which we can have victory over our sins of independence and victory over our sins through Your name and Your power. Lord, we've talked a little bit about theory here today. Help us to know the experience. Help us to move from Romans 7 into Romans 8 and know the life of the Spirit. Thank You for Your mighty provision. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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