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Amazing Facts

Sanctification

Joe Crews

01 Sanctification

A top-level spokesman for the United States Defense Department declared that it's the government's inherent right to lie under certain conditions.

Now a leading theologian has announced that tax evasion is not a sin.

More and more often the question is raised, Can an average citizen live a completely honest life?

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz and the amazing facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

You know, friends, the moral strength of our society seems to be crumbling dangerously from the very top down to the bottom.

Some public utterances by men in high position have been both startling and upsetting.

A House subcommittee estimated that one-third of American workers have lied about their work record.

A more recent release of a statement published in a leading religious newspaper boldly declares that tax evasion is not a sin.

Now, whether we agree or disagree with either of these important statements, we must admit that they indicate a very obvious trend in our modern world.

The least bit of encouragement from either government or church officials to misrepresent the truth reveals a flagrant departure from those moral principles that once ruled our society.

How long can this erosion continue before a complete collapse takes place, friends?

Listen to Paul's words in Romans 1.16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.

Now it was said of Jesus, you remember, in Matthew 1.21, Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

And then of course that gospel is called the power of God.

Now what is the purpose of God in giving a Savior and in giving the gospel?

Not to save them in their sins, but from their sins.

According to the Bible, sin is a transgression of God's law.

And preparation for heaven is more than just a beautiful theory.

It is a matter of character, a character produced by a power above man, but which is available to him through the gospel.

The plan of God is expressed by the great Apostle Paul in this language found in Galatians 2.20.

Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Now this whole experience of Jesus living His life in me leaves no room for sin in the life, friends.

It is not I who lives without sin, but it is Christ in me who thus lives.

And this is the secret of a sinless life, and it is the only way.

If 1 is dead, he does not respond to lust.

That is what Paul declares when he says, I am crucified with Christ.

When I am dead, my selfish nature am dead, then Christ has a chance to live in me.

But when I am alive to sin and assert my own carnal desires, Christ does not and cannot live in me, so I may sin.

But when He comes in and lives in me, there is power not to sin, for He does not sin.

Now do you understand this, friends, from our text?

This is the same thought expressed in another scripture where it is called the New Birth.

He that is born of God cannot sin, for his seed, that is, Jesus Christ, remaineth in him.

Now this passage has been greatly misunderstood, and men have been led to misinterpret to teach that a man once in grace is always in grace despite his own wishes even.

But listen, my living a daily life acceptable to God does not depend solely upon a transaction which took place when I was born again, but upon a daily renewal of that inner life by faith, and prayer, and a daily surrender of self.

When that connection with Jesus Christ is broken, then I go back into that old former carnal path, for I am cut off from Him.

I can't receive that spiritual life that can keep me from sinning.

He is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him.

And this lies entirely in my will and in my relationship to Jesus.

The theory that once a man has been born again, he can't afterwards sin or slip out of God's hands is a very dangerous theory, friends.

According to it, men may do as they please once they have been converted, and they still may be called the children of God, and be saved in the kingdom of heaven in spite of themselves.

But this is not the teaching of the Bible.

For it tells us that if a man has once tasted of the grace of God, and then falls away, there is a fearful future waiting for him.

You read that in Hebrews 10, verses 26 and 27.

For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for a judgment and a fiery indignation.

Now this 1 passage alone is so clear on this point that nobody needs to misunderstand it.

When we read the scores of other passages voicing the same solemn truth, when we read the heart-burning appeals of God to backsliding Israel to return to Him.

There can be no doubt that man is in danger of slipping away from his experience with God.

Man's position of living a daily life of victory over sin must be maintained constantly.

No man, no circumstances, no devil, neither height nor depth can remove a man from God's hands.

He holds his children tightly, and we may safely commit our all to Him, to keep, every day.

The only 1 who can remove you from God's hand is you yourself.

But when you will to remain in His hand, He will hold you there fast.

When you will to leave Him in a desire to indulge in sin, he will let you go.

Therefore, the devil tries to control the will.

He may even try to force the will by circumstances and pressures that is created by the artificial society of sin around us.

I think we can illustrate that by observing a father and his little son out for a walk.

Let's say the road is rough for the little feet, so Daddy reaches out to take the small hand in his and holds it firmly for supporting the little boy.

Everything goes well, but then the child says, Daddy, let me hold your hand.

And with his little hand at the end of his small slender arm, he took hold of his father's hand.

And for a little time everything went well, but then suddenly the little fellow stepped into a hole and lost his balance.

The strain was too much for his small fingers, which slipped loose, and down he went.

Looking woefully up into his father's faith, he said, Daddy, you hold my hand.

And oh, how much that is like our life with the Saviour!

We need to let Him hold us, because we don't have the strength or the power to really hold on to Him.

Now let's look at another passage of scripture.

In 1 John 3, verse 4, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law.

And then in verse 6, Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not, whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.

And verse 8 declares, He that commiteth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning.

Continue on in verse 9, Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

Now friends, looking very carefully at these striking passages, we learn first that sin is a transgression of the law, second, that before we can abide in Him we must be born again, and third, when we are born again Christ comes in to live within us, and fourth, while Christ abides within He will not practice sin, And fifth, the conclusion then must be that our only hope of living above sin is to have Christ living in us by faith, and that the evidence of this is the keeping of God's law, and attaining to that Bible standard of a perfect character.

To the very degree that we allow Christ to abide and rule in our life, to that degree we overcome sin every day.

Now, if men think that after being born again they can still flout the law of God and transgress it.

They grossly misrepresent the holy scriptures.

The power of the gospel is not to save men in sin, but rather from sin.

On the other hand, men had better be a bit reluctant also about saying, I have not sinned for a year or for 10 years.

Would to God that could truthfully be said!

But again the Bible speaks out, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

You see, the nearer the apostle Paul came to Jesus, the more he sensed his own unworthiness, and so it will be with every true Christian.

Yet in spite of man's nature and tendency to sin, There is no provision in God's plan for man to keep on living in transgression.

He says, These things write unto you, that ye sin not.

And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Now do you notice what a foolproof plan God has?

First we are given power to keep us from falling, and then if we do fall by the subtle tricks of the devil, we may have forgiveness through Christ.

Now this foresees the possibility of man sinning and makes provision for it.

But it also declares that God does not make provision for man to live in sin.

He makes provision for him only if he should stumble into sin.

Yes, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him.

And the great secret is being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of the word of God that liveth and abideth for ever." How do we know this transaction has been completed, friends?

02 Sanctification

A recent advertising slogan caught the imagination of millions.

Nobody's perfect, yet some people claim that perfection is possible even in this present immoral age.

Hello this is Joe Cruz from the amazing facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

You know, friends, each person feels that he suffers greater trials and tests than anybody else in the world.

And sometimes we wonder just how we can possibly be saved out of all the terrible temptations that surround us.

Every 1 of us has felt that way at some time.

And then to add to our discouragement, voices can be heard on every hand, professing to be holy, professing to be living without sin.

And many poor Christians wonder if they are losing out on something that is very, very important and essential.

Now just what hope do we have in a sinful world to live a sinless life?

Let me tell you first of all that sanctification and holiness is a true Bible doctrine.

1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23 says that God wants us to be sanctified wholly, body, soul, and spirit.

Now this experience has to do with our entire being.

What God does, He does fully and completely.

I know many people talk about it and claim it, but Satan has a counterfeit for the true article.

He has a substitute for sanctification, friends, and that substitute is feeling.

Millions of people are always judging their Christian lives and their experience by the ecstatic emotional feelings that come to them.

They have no other test of the genuineness of their experience.

But what a mistake to trust such shallow tests for one's salvation.

They are converted, they are justified, they are baptized.

But does that make them perfect, friends?

Is an individual put out of reach of Satan when he takes that important step?

Listen, Satan works even harder on a newborn Christian.

There is no magic word or magic button to push that can suddenly take away the temptations or remove us from the presence of the sin.

So then, how can we arrive at perfection and how can we live a sinless life in a sinful world?

In Ephesians 5, 26 and 27 we have a very exalted description of the church of the translation.

It says here that when Jesus comes He will have a perfect people ready to go to heaven, a people who are without spot or blemish.

Now how is that going to be obtained, friends?

How can we ever reach that state of purity and perfection?

Well, first of all, we must believe the truth.

II Thessalonians 2, 13 makes that very clear.

But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.

Now this plainly tells us that sanctification is tied up closely with believing the truth.

So the first step, then, in being sanctified and separated from sin is to study the Bible.

By the way, we can't study the Bible without praying a great deal.

You can't stay a good Christian without it either.

No matter how great your conversion might have been, you need to grow daily in this path of study and prayer.

Now sanctification is also a progressive work.

It is not something that happens suddenly.

You are not made perfect in a moment of time.

You are not delivered from all the dangers of temptation and sin in an instant.

2 Peter 3, 18 says that we are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This means that we will grow closer to the great ideal day by day.

Habits will be overcome by effort, by prayer, and by the use of the will.

God doesn't reveal all our sins and mistakes to us at the same moment.

If He did, we would be crushed by it, crushed with discouragement.

We would simply give up and refuse to try any longer.

But God shows them to us just 1 at a time, and then there is that daily struggle that takes place.

As soon as we become conscious of sin or a weakness in our life, we go on our knees and pray and ask God for help.

By claiming His strength we overcome that sin.

Then God shows us something else that needs to be put out of the life.

In other words, it is a day-by-day experience of growing in grace, growing in knowledge, coming to an understanding of what we should be and what we should do, and then claiming God's power to actually do it.

In Jude 24 we read, Now unto him that is able to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

Oh, friends, God's power is not exhausted by just forgiving us.

Salvation is not something that is past or future.

It is something that we can have right now.

We should pray for a hatred of sin, And after we have asked for a power to overcome it, we can begin to hate it, and then it will cease maybe after a while to even tempt us.

This is the way we are sanctified on 1 point at a time.

It is not God's plan for us to sin at all.

Little children, these things write unto you, that ye sin not." And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the Righteous.

Power has been given to us to keep us from falling into sin, but if the devil traps us or trips us up and we stumble, we can be forgiven through Christ.

Most people are using that second method, I'm afraid, more than the first.

They're falling back on the forgiving power of God instead of taking advantage of His keeping power.

We need to receive His strength to overcome temptation and not to keep on falling day after day into the same old sins.

Now suppose that God did suddenly sanctify us instantaneously in answer to our prayers.

Where would our effort and our will come into that picture?

We have to choose day by day and make up our own mind as to what we are going to do.

Listen, God wants us to walk daily in the path of surrender and not just to make a surrender 1 time in some distant point in the past.

Now I can be perfect and you can be perfect, friends, according to the knowledge we have.

A newborn Christian who has only been in the Christian pathway for a few weeks can walk according to all the light he has, and God considers that man perfect.

Another man has been a Christian for 50 years.

He has received more knowledge, more light, and He should have gained more victories.

He should be further along in this pathway of sanctification.

But at every stage of our development we can be perfect, spiritually speaking.

A little baby, you know, can be a perfect baby.

It can be perfect at the age of 6 months, perfect again at the age of 16 years, but it is really not mature, not fully developed, not full grown, not really perfect until adulthood is reached.

I am talking about absolute perfection now, of course.

A tree can be perfect even as a twig and then as a stripling and so forth, but the Christian can also be perfect as he develops in the Christian path.

There is a relative perfection, In other words, that depends on the amount of knowledge we have.

Now friends, as I go up this ladder of spiritual growth, suppose I should die before reaching the top.

The top of the ladder, as I indicated, is really that point of absolute holiness.

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Series

Sanctification

02 Sanctification

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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