I have more than enough of burnt offerings
of rams and the fat of fattened animals.
I have no pleasure in the blood of
bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to meet with me, who
has asked this of you?
This trampling of my courts.
Stop bringing meaningless offerings.
Your incense is detestable to me.
New moon sabbaths and convocations.
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
Your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts,
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me.
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you.
Even if you offer many prayers, I will
not listen.
Your hands are full of blood.
Wash and make yourself clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight.
Stop doing wrong.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we come before you in the name
of your Son.
Lord, help us to come as we should
and not as we do so many times.
Help us to understand that you are holy
and that you are sovereign and that you
have given your law and it is to
be obeyed.
Father, we recognize that salvation is by grace,
that our love has been sealed, your love
for us, that you cannot love us less
and you cannot love us more because your
love is perfect, that our standing before you
is in Christ Jesus and not by anything
we do.
And yet, Father, you require us to be
righteous and to make every effort to be
holy and to learn to discern what is
a pleasure to you and what is an
abomination.
And Father, we are a people who have
no discernment so that when we come before
you, it is not an offering of praise
as much as a trampling of your courts.
Teach us as though you'd have to teach
a child again how to be holy.
In Jesus' name, amen.
There is so much to be said and
done among you.
There is so much to be done.
I look around, I don't see students.
I see, as I've said so often, sealed
fountains and enclosed gardens, people who may be
used of God to glorify God throughout the
nations, possibilities, endless possibilities to reflect the glory
of Almighty God.
I see before us the greatest potential that
any generation of Christians has ever known.
All the walls are down to preach the
gospel to the entire known world.
Endless possibilities to live and die for the
glory of God.
And yet the work is hindered.
The glory of God is tarnished.
And it's because the people of God no
longer know how to discern the things of
God.
I preached last night on the holiness of
God.
And a dear little girl, as a freshman,
she looked like she ought to be in
the sixth grade.
She came to me and her heart was
so broken.
And she was crying and weeping.
And she said, I've been in church all
my life and no one ever told me
I was supposed to fear the Lord.
And I said, young lady, but that's the
very beginning of wisdom.
We have not wisdom today.
And even among many teachers, there is human
wisdom.
And we do not know how to discern
the will of the Lord.
We must learn.
If you look at this passage in Isaiah,
you find some incredible things.
Now, we're just going to use this to
open up and then we're going to go
to a lot of passages about discerning the
holiness of God.
But look at what can happen to the
people of God.
Have you ever read through the Old Testament?
I hope so.
But have you ever read through the Old
Testament and wondered how the people of God
could walk into the temple of God, could
offer sacrifices to God, could praise God, and
then turn right around and find the biggest
tree on the highest hill and worship every
number of idols and not be able to
tell the difference and not be able to
recognize the wrong in a duplicity of God's?
Well, I want you to know that's the
church in America today.
And because the greatest sin among the men
of God today is the fear of man,
which is a snare, and the fear of
losing economic security and reputation in the denomination,
you're not hearing the truth.
And you need to.
Why?
Because judgment has come upon the people of
God.
We mock Bill Clinton, and we don't realize
that our garments are far more stained than
his.
Because to whom much is given, much is
required.
Has the grace of God touched his life
to convert him?
No.
And it doesn't matter if the Southern Baptist
leaders get mad because I said that.
He's lost.
No, the grace of God has not touched
him, but it has touched you.
You don't laugh at a man like that,
and you don't judge a man like that.
You pray for a man like that, and
you weep for a man like that.
The judgment of God has not come upon
politicians in America.
It's coming upon the church.
And if history repeats itself, and it seems
to always repeat itself, because man never learns.
This is what's going to happen in America.
Because of the sin of the church, God
will allow the political reality in this country
to turn against the church.
And a secular, hating government will rise up
and do everything it can to tear us
apart.
And God will allow it.
It will be of God.
As a matter of fact, Bill Clinton is
God's man in the White House, and you
need to know that.
Read the Old Testament.
God gives a king as a blessing to
a nation, or as a curse.
It's the judgment of God.
And a nation will raise up against the
church, and will persecute the church in America.
Yes, the church in America will be persecuted
if history repeats itself, because we're wicked and
we're full of idols.
And then when the church is purified by
the persecution that God sends, then God will
raise up another nation to come against the
government that had no mercy on his people.
When Hitler was taking over Germany, the theologians,
with the exception of a few like Bonhoeffer
in the confessing church, the theologians were debating
on how long the drapery should be around
the communion table.
And as the church runs headlong into judgment
today, the men of God, instead of repenting
and crying out and studying God's Word with
all their passion, are looking for little models
on how to keep lost people in their
congregations.
And it's wrong.
Here we have in Isaiah a people that
came to God on a daily basis.
They did.
On a daily basis they came.
And God hated it.
Every moment of it.
Why?
Because they had lost the ability to discern
the holy.
Because the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom.
There is not much fear of God.
Especially there's not much fear of God among
some of you.
I've watched you mock the music.
I've watched you laugh at the guitar player.
I've watched you talk among yourself when people
were crying out about the holiness of God.
You don't fear God.
And we need to realize that that's the
very beginning of wisdom.
Nations are established upon one principle, the fear
of God, that He is God.
Schools are to be based upon only one
principle, the fear of God, that it might
walk in wisdom and teach wisdom.
And your life is to be based upon
the fear of God.
But you can't do that when your more
like Santa Claus than he does Jehovah.
The fear of Almighty God is the beginning
of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy.
The knowledge of the holy.
And I'm going to talk about that now
in a practical way.
How do we stop being ignorant of the
holy?
Let's go to the book of Romans, chapter
12, Romans,
chapter 12, verse one.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of
God's mercy to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is
your spiritual worship.
Therefore, an old man told me one time,
every time you see, therefore, you should ask
what there is for and why it's there.
I want you to listen to something.
What is Paul saying?
Therefore, what does he mean?
He means this.
He says, look back at the last eleven
chapters that I've written to you and look
at all the great things that God has
done.
And then live your life based upon this
mercy of God that has been granted to
you.
You see, knowledge of the holy begins with
this, a recognition of the first three chapters
of the book of Romans.
Yes, all revivals and reformations come out of
the book of Romans because it's pure theology
and it teaches us about a pristine God.
A knowledge of the holy comes with realizing
that for all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God.
And the only thing that man deserves is
wrath.
And then moving into chapters four and five,
the glory of God revealed in Christ.
You have to have a knowledge not only
of your sin, but you have to have
a knowledge of God and what He's done
for you in Christ.
And the great work of salvation in chapter
six and chapter seven.
And the great work of the power of
God in your life in chapter eight and
the great work of sovereignty of God in
chapters eight, nine and eleven.
When you study the whole counsel of God,
not just little principles of the Christian life,
but when you know God and His counsels.
By that motivation, you are called upon to
do what?
To offer your life as a sacrifice to
God, to offer your bodies as a sacrifice
to God.
Why does he say bodies here?
Because he's wanting us not to make this
into some kind of just loose metaphor that
requires nothing.
He's not saying to you that he wants
you to have an attitude of sacrifice.
I hear these preachers today who want to
protect themselves.
And when they talk about the rich young
ruler, they say, well, you know, now don't
take that too serious congregation.
Don't come under any condemnation.
Don't think now you have to give anything
up.
Of course, Jesus was just talking about an
attitude.
He would never ask you to give up
everything.
It's strange he's asked me to do it
three times.
It's not an attitude here.
He's literally saying you give your life to
God.
But we find we don't want to.
Why?
Not just because of some remnant of carnal
nature living in us, but because of our
lack of the knowledge of God.
If you could only catch a glimpse, a
heavenly glimpse of who God is.
If you could only see his wonder in
his glory and his passion and his power
and his love.
If you could only just for one moment
be taken to a place where you might
get a clear vision of who he is,
you'd throw yourself on God.
You'd be willing to cut yourself up in
a thousand pieces and throw them around the
world.
But there is no vision of God, and
therefore the people perish.
There is no law of God, therefore the
people perish.
Christianity is surviving today in America by being
propped up, not by power.
It's because we don't know God.
Now for you ministerial students, I want to
tell you something.
It's very, very important.
If your Bible study is Bible study only
because it's used to prepare sermons, then you'll
become as useless as a lot of men
have become in the kingdom of God.
Most Bible study today is done only to
prepare messages, and therefore men do not know
God.
Bible study is to know God.
I don't particularly care how much time you
spend on your message.
What I care about is how much time
you spend in God's Word.
If you're going to be a preacher and
you're going to fulfill a pulpit, then you
get in that Bible hours and hours and
hours a day.
You lock yourself away.
You make rules that say, no one touches
me until God's finished with me.
Or what will happen?
You'll become a lap boy for a bunch
of carnal Christians in the church who don't
want to do anything.
You'll run around and be serving them and
doing all kinds of things they're supposed to
do.
You've got to be a man of the
Word.
You've got to live with God.
How many of you young ministerial students have
gone out into a mountain for days without
food and without friends and without carnal Christian
music and sought God to His face?
Thrown rocks into the heavens saying, God, come
down.
Saying, God, I will give you no rest
until you show me your glory.
How many of you are that bold?
Or how many of you are going to
grow up and play church all your life?
Learn how to do the denominational thing, make
no ways, conform to everything, because that's the
way to get ahead, cooperation.
Are you going to be a man of
God?
Men's this wicked generation.
There's got to be a knowledge of the
holy.
Some of you dress like lost people.
You watch things that only lost people should
watch.
You talk the way only lost people should
talk.
You worship like lost people, because no one's
ever told you that there's such things as
modesty and godliness.
Like I said last night, 30 years ago,
unbelievers had more Christian principles than Christians today.
We have forgotten how to blush.
Some of you watch things last night you
shouldn't have been watching.
And we're going to talk about that in
a moment.
It's funny when I talk about the theology
of the holiness of God, everyone gets so
excited.
When I talk about the practicality of it,
everyone says I'm a legalist.
But how do you find this knowledge?
Look in verse two.
Do not be conformed any longer to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind.
By the renewing of your mind.
The word means this.
Do not be conformed to the image of
this world.
In Peru, when we're building a church out
in the high jungle, we use mud and
we take a box about this big and
we fill it full of loose sand so
that the mud won't stick to it.
And then we fill it full of mud
and then we flip it over and a
block comes out.
And we can make every block just the
same because we have the same mold.
The world has a mold.
Satan has a mold.
Religion has a mold to make you just
like you ought to be.
But they're going to make you not like
God wants you to be.
And you're to break out of that mold.
And there's only one way.
How?
By renewing your mind.
Be transformed.
Be metamorphosized by the renewing of your mind
in God's word.
Many of us are awake about 16 hours
a day.
Some of us a lot less and some
of us a lot more.
And constantly, because we live in a wicked
generation, our minds are being bombarded with garbage,
with filth, with sewer from the world.
I have young men come to me all
the time saying, I have so much trouble
with my thought life.
Well, of course you do.
For 16 hours a day, you're swimming in
a sewer and you spend no time in
God's word.
The only way to have a renewed mind
is for the power of the word of
God to fulfill and fill your mind.
You need the word.
You need to memorize the word.
You need to read the word.
You need to study the word.
You need to meditate in the word.
The word, the word, the word.
God said, put it on the doorpost of
your home.
When you sit down and when you rise
up and when you walk through the streets,
the word of God.
Throw away some of this carnal, stupid Christian
music you're listening to.
A lot of those people don't even know
anything about God.
Start memorizing the word of God.
Most of you live your life based on
flimsy little songs and not upon the word
of God.
You've got to get into the word.
You've got to love the word.
It's got to be a passion for you.
We honor the old prophets, don't we?
We honor the Tozers and the Spurgeons, but
we don't want to pay the price they
paid.
And they paid the price by being men
who walked alone, who lived with God and
loved his word.
When I became a Christian and then felt
the calling of God's ministry, an old preacher
saved my life.
He took me in his office and he
looked at me and he said, boy, I
said, yes, sir.
Do you know how to be alone?
I said, well, what do you mean?
He said, well, you said to me that
God's called you to be his man.
Is that true?
Well, I feel I'm called.
No, that's not what I said.
You're either his man or you're not called.
Now, do you know how to be alone?
Well, what do you mean?
Do you know how to separate yourself from
the college group?
When they go skiing, will you go out
into the desert and pray?
And while they're going to all their little
tiny conferences to get psyched up and enthused
for about a week and then allow the
fire to burn off afterwards because it's not
of God, will you pray for hours?
When they're sleeping because they watched too much
television or had too much fellowship, will you
be burning the midnight oil, reading theology?
Do you know how to go into a
room and walk away from everybody and just
be alone with God?
That'll be the key to your ministry.
But beware, boy, because you'll be alone all
your life.
And a lot of times, the only one
standing with you will be God.
We seek out so much Christian fellowship.
We need to seek out the fellowship of
God.
And we do that by knowing His Word.
God has exalted His Word with His name.
You can't know God apart from His Word.
God has revealed Himself.
He has spoken through His Son.
And look at how His Son treated the
Word.
He honored it with His life.
He fulfilled it and He told us to
obey it.
You can't know holiness unless you know God's
Word.
You just can't.
Now, look what it says in Romans 12.
Do not be conformed any longer to the
pattern of this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and
approve God's will, what His will is, His
good, pleasing and perfect will.
So many people today are out struggling.
Oh, what's the will of God for my
life?
What's the will of God for my life?
You don't need to know the will of
God for your life as much as you
need to know the God of your life.
It says here that we need to change
our habits with regard to the will of
God.
Many of us get in a situation and
then spend all night crying out, God, what's
your will?
And He never talks to us.
Why?
Because He said that's not the way to
do it.
He said you live your life constantly renewing
your mind with My Word and your life
will become conformed to My image and conformed
to My will and you will do My
will as a natural spiritual, better, spiritual extension
of the Word of God in you.
You've got to get filled up with the
Word of God and you won't have so
many decisions to make.
Now, what is the will of God for
your life?
What is God's will?
First of all, whether you eat or you
drink, everything you do for the glory of
God.
That's the first thing to know in discerning
the holy and discerning the will of God.
There's only one question you have to ask.
Does it glorify God?
Does this relationship I have glorify God?
If it doesn't, it's wrong.
Put an end to it.
Does my voice glorify God?
My words, my tongue.
Does this car I'm lusting over, when I
should be giving half that money to missions,
and this big house I don't need, does
it glorify God?
Is what I'm watching on television, does it
glorify God?
Can I bow down before it, lift my
hands to heaven and glorify God for what
I'm watching?
Does my clothing glorify God?
Do you want an answer to that?
For some of you, no.
Let me put it this way.
If your clothing is a frame for your
body, it's detestable to God.
And if your clothing is a frame for
your face, it is to the glory of
God.
And some of you, both men and women,
need to repent because you're a stumbling block.
There are some people here wanting to walk
with God.
You need to change.
Does it glorify God?
Everything I do, it doesn't matter culture, it
doesn't matter style.
Does it glorify God?
That's the only thing you have to ask.
Does your music glorify God?
Do the books you read glorify God?
That's the first thing you need to ask.
That's the discerning of the holy.
You sit down and say, does this glorify
God?
If it doesn't, it's gone.
It's gone.
The second way to discern the holiness of
God and to discern the will of God
for your life.
Romans chapter 12, verse 2.
Then you will be able to test and
approve what God's will is.
His good, pleasing and perfect will.
God's will is always good.
What does that mean?
It's easy.
No, it's helpful.
No.
God's will will always promote spiritual prosperity, spiritual
health, spiritual growth.
It will always do that.
You might be nailed to a stake and
burning, but you'll be spiritual about it.
God's will is always good.
It is always pleasing.
You see, it's just like worship.
One time in Peru, our worship leader came
to us and he met with the elders
and he said, I really feel like I've
got a word from God.
And when someone felt like they had a
word from God in our church, they came
to the elders and the elders would listen
to it and the elders would pray about
it.
And if they thought, yes, this is a
word from God, then he would go up
and he would speak.
Now, when I talk about word from God,
I'm not talking about some mystical prophecy.
I'm talking about something he found in Scripture.
And the music leader came to us and
says, I really feel like God's laid something
on my heart.
And he shared it with the elders and
we were in agreement with it.
And so Sunday morning, he gets up.
He stands behind the pulpit and he said,
Lately, I've been hearing from many of you
that the worship hasn't really been touching your
life.
And it hasn't been blessing you much.
And it hasn't been pleasing you much.
He said, well, I would just like to
share something with you as your worship leader.
I really don't care.
You can get away with a lot of
things in Peru.
You can't in America.
He goes, I really don't care because this
worship is not designed to please you or
feed you or bless you or make you
feel happy or get goose bumps or to
make you wiggle a bit.
This music is to glorify God.
And if you can find for me in
Scripture where what we're doing does not glorify
God, I will be happy to change.
I put an end to that.
You see, we are so busy.
We think that God was actually made for
us to please us.
I heard of a woman.
She said, well, I'm going to get a
divorce.
We asked her why.
She said, well, God wouldn't want me to
be unhappy, would He?
And I'm unhappy now.
God is not that concerned with your happiness.
He's concerned for your soul.
There's a lot of difference between the two.
He's concerned for your soul, my friend.
So the will of God always glorifies God.
And it is always good.
And it is always pleasing to God.
And it is always perfect.
It's mature.
It's complete.
There's a soundness to it.
It's not partial.
It's not halfway.
When you know something is God's will, it's
just complete.
It's right.
It measures in on all corners of God's
Word.
So many people make a list of something
they're going to do, all the things about
it.
And they think, well, at least half of
this I can see is God's will.
I'll do it.
No, if it's God's will, all of it
is God's will.
And so to know what God desires, you've
got to ask yourself, is it pleasing to
Him?
Is it good?
Does it promote spiritual health and prosperity and
soundness?
Is it perfect?
If it's not, I shouldn't be doing it.
That's how you know about the holiness of
God.
That's how you know.
Now, another way, let's go to Philippians chapter
4.
Philippians chapter 4, verse 8.
We're going to talk about your mind now.
Why do some of you have so much
trouble with your thought life?
Why?
This is going to help you.
But I want to make a suggestion.
You might want to leave now.
I'll tell you why.
I say this almost every place that I
preach, because I know what I'm doing up
here.
I'm saying some very extreme things, some very
hard things, taking a lot of risk, and
stand the possibility of getting myself in a
great deal of trouble.
Not before men, but before God.
If I'm wrong, I'm in a lot of
trouble.
And I tell people this everywhere I preach.
If what I say today is a bad
interpretation of the doctrine of Scripture, then what
I say will bring judgment upon me on
the day of judgment, and it holds nothing
on you.
You're not bound to it, and you can
walk out of here laughing at a fanatic,
and no harm will come to you.
But if what I say today has biblical
precedent, it can be found in Scripture, and
it is true to biblical doctrine, then be
very, very afraid, because the words I preach
are the very words of God, and you
will be bound by them on the day
of judgment, and you will be responsible for
them, so it is better that you leave
rather than hear them.
You see, authority doesn't come from some special
anointing, as your TV preachers tell you.
And it doesn't come from some special calling,
as even some Baptists will tell you.
Do you know what it comes from?
When you correctly interpret God's Word and transfer
it correctly to God's people, there and only
in there is found authority.
Now, about your mind.
What kind of decisions must you make today?
Verse 8, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, what
should you allow to enter into your mind,
Christian?
Only those things that are true.
You're watching a television program, and it is
promoting sex outside of marriage, or even laughing
about it.
You shut it off, or you're in sin
and rebellion against God, because you're laughing with
people who are laughing at things for which
Jesus Christ had to die.
You've become a friend of the enemy and
a traitor to God, and your sacrifice of
praise in chapel the next time around will
not be acceptable.
To a lot of churches in America, God
is crying out what He said in Malachi.
I wish someone would come and shut the
doors of this church.
I'm tired of your offerings.
Is it true?
Does it conform to God's Word?
If it doesn't conform to God's Word, it
is not right, and you should not be
listening to it.
Should you be listening to a false prophet?
Should you be going to a conference put
on by the Unification Church or the Mormon
Church?
No.
Neither should you be listening to the false
prophets of television and the media.
If it's not true, you have no business
allowing it to go into your mind.
Whatever is noble, nobility, whatever happened to nobility,
whatever happened to men and women who are
Christians acting noble, acting as people with honor,
who have convictions and virtues and make stands
on things, whatever happened to courtesy and being
polite and dignified and giving honor to those
to whom honor is due, whatever happened to
being noble?
Is what you're watching and what you're reading
and what you're doing, is it something that
on Judgment Day, God would lift up in
honor before the creation?
If it's not, why are you letting it
in your mind?
Is it noble?
If it's not noble, you should have no
part with it.
Whatever is right, not right in the eyes
of the world and not right in the
eyes of a carnal American church.
Do you know how you decide whether or
not you should watch a film?
Well, it doesn't have much cussing in it
and it doesn't have much nudity in it.
There's only one place and we can fast
forward that and then you're going to come
and worship God.
Go play golf.
It'd be safer.
You say, well, if God's so dangerous, why
isn't he doing anything?
Because he's not here like we say he
is.
If God was to manifest his presence in
a real and true way, well, have you
ever read the book of Acts and Ananias
and Sapphira?
We probably don't want the presence of God
to be manifest in this place.
Whatever is right.
What does right mean?
Righteous.
What does righteous mean?
A pole, a straight thing.
God is righteous.
Why is he righteous?
Because God, in all his ways, in all
his being, in all his works, he conforms
to his holiness.
Here is God's holiness of standard.
Here is his righteousness.
He is always righteous because he always conforms
to his holiness.
How are you and I to be right?
By conforming to God's holiness.
We are made right in Jesus Christ.
You bet you we are.
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
But we are called upon to live a
righteous life.
The book of Hebrews says, Make every effort
to be holy.
Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.
Do you make any effort to be holy?
Any separation?
Any renewing of the mind in the word
of God?
Do you?
My goodness, I'm not here to preach to
you.
I'm here to see your life changed.
This is not some little task I'm carrying
out here.
There's life and death hanging in the balance.
There's eternity written on your eyes.
Are you right?
Are you living right?
Are you bent, crooked, the word is, perverted?
Whatever is right, that should enter.
Whatever is right, that should enter into your
mind.
Not anything else.
Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is
pure.
What happened to purity?
White dresses for women and white hats for
men?
Our garments are so stained by the garbage
we feed on, even as Christians.
Purity, the ability to blush.
If you took a Peruvian Christian from the
mountains or a Romanian Christian Baptist, they're called
repenters, and you brought them here and they
watched your worship and the way some of
you are dressed and act, they'd cover their
eyes and start crying.
I know.
I live among the mountain people and I
work with the repenters of Romania also.
One group, like you, came into one of
their churches right before I arrived in Timișoara
a few months ago.
College group, singing group, started singing and doing
all the stuff they do.
The old women of the church covered their
eyes, screamed out, the demons have come, the
demons have come, and ran out of the
church.
Be very careful.
What about modesty?
What about it?
Hiding and blushing.
And I'm not just talking to women, guys.
I'm talking to you too.
Purity.
You say, well, it's not that bad.
Let me tell you something.
What some of you wear to the beach,
a place where you should not be going,
if you were to have worn the same
thing 30 years ago, even among pagan unbelievers,
they would have taken you to a mental
hospital or a prison.
Southern Baptists don't preach this way and they
ought to start.
And I'm talking to family because I am
one.
You want godliness?
Listen, I've learned something.
To the degree that I separate myself from
the things that God hates, God uses me.
And I also know that to the degree
that I've held on to things that God
hates, He does not use me.
I know both sides of that coin.
I'm not setting myself up as some spiritual
giant here.
I know what it's like to be used
of God and I know what it's like
to be cut off.
I know what it's like to sin and
to tarnish my father.
I know what it's like to do wrong
and be a mass of flesh before people,
a showman and nothing more, only to hear
the rebuke of God after it's all done.
I zealously desire that you be holy.
Paul said that.
I burn when I see that things aren't
right.
In my own life and in yours.
That's my job.
That's what God called me to do.
Now it says here, whatever is lovely, beautiful.
Let me share with you something.
When I was a brand new Christian, I
went to Southern Baptist Church in Austin, Texas
called Christ Memorial.
It was a rather large church.
It had a choir of about a hundred
people and I walked in and from the
very first day of church, I noticed this
woman.
She was about 47 and she was right
there in just the middle of the choir
and she was homely.
She wasn't very pretty at all.
She had a rather large nose, long hair
down to here, gray, kind of scraggly and
she sat there.
But there was something I couldn't stop looking
at her.
There just seemed to be something about her.
And I mean, this went on for weeks
and I started thinking, well, maybe I need
to call a counselor or something.
I mean, I can't take my eyes off
this woman.
And so there was a man who was
discipling me, very godly man and I went
to him one day and I thought, I
said, I've got something to share with you.
And he said, well, OK, what is it?
And I said, well, it's about a girl,
a woman.
And he said, well, you're a brand new
Christian, so you're going to hold off on
that.
But he said, there's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing ungodly about that.
And I said, no, you don't understand.
I said, she's real old and she's not
pretty at all, but I can't keep my...
And you know what he did?
He started laughing.
I said, what are you laughing about?
He said, no, stop.
Let me just finish your sentence.
There's a lady who sits in the middle
of the choir.
She has long gray hair and she's not
all that pretty, but you can't stop looking
at her because she seems to be the
most beautiful thing you've ever seen.
I said, yes.
And when you look at her, it's not
a thing that's bad, it's a thing that's
good.
You just...
there's something wonderful about her.
I said, how did you know?
He said, because everybody in the church says
the same thing.
I said, what is it?
He said, it's the beauty of Jehovah.
It's the beauty of the Lord.
Young lady ran out to me last night
and she was just all...
just looked like a little mosquito, she was
so tiny.
But her face was glowing.
With what?
The beauty of a contrite spirit and a
broken heart and humility before God.
And you young men, be careful.
Don't seek out sensual things.
And you young women, slam the door on
the face of any young man that doesn't
know God.
You probably won't listen to what I've said
because most women don't.
Most men don't either.
But you should.
He's not a spiritual leader.
He's a carnal little boy who knows nothing
about God.
Get away from him as fast as you
can.
You want a man who loves God more
than you.
And you want a woman who'll rebuke you
when you're not walking with God.
Oh, and I just want to throw this
in for some of you ministerial students who
have girlfriends.
When you go out with them in a
group, stop talking about theology.
My wife met with some of the girls
last night.
Seems like all you guys know how to
do is talk about theology.
Then go out on a date with yourselves.
You need to know that because when you
get married, you don't get married to discuss
theology with your wife.
All right?
Repentance.
That's what brought the world into the dark
ages and you should know it.
And it's only when a man says, I
will excel.
A young man came to me last night.
He said, you know, I just, after your
preaching, I feel like I should go to
Peru and everything and just serve God and
all this stuff.
And then he said, you know, there's a
possibility I might be able to go to
Oxford and everything.
And I said, I hate you.
I said, boy, don't you come to Peru.
You come to Peru, I'll knock you out
of there.
You get a chance to go to Oxford.
You go there and you live in the
library for 10 years.
And then you come out and maybe you'll
be able to tell somebody about God.
You see, we've made a great divorce in
Christianity today.
The mind has no business.
But you ought to read about Paul and
Peter.
That's all they talked about.
The Bible is theology.
It is doctrine.
What do you think I've been doing here?
Maybe I've been doing a mess, but I've
been trying to do theology.
You need to know.
You need to excel.
You need to strive to be excellent, excellent,
excellent, excellent.
Your music, excellent.
Your studies, excellent.
Your appearance, excellent.
Your manners, excellent.
Whatever is excellent, whatever is praiseworthy, would God
hold it up on judgment day and honor
what you allow to be pumped into your
brain.
Now, I want to go to a passage
in Romans.
And I want you to listen closer than
you've ever listened before, because I want to
say something about you.
And then we're going to go to one
more passage and we'll be finished.
Romans 1, verse 28.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile
to retain the knowledge of God, have you
dedicated yourself to knowing God?
Or do you do those little daily devotions
that last about 10 minutes and those little
books get real?
Are you trying to retain the knowledge of
God?
If you're not, this is a good description
of you.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile
to retain the knowledge of God, he gave
them over to a depraved mind to do
what not ought be done.
They became filled with every kind of wickedness,
evil, greed and depravity.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit
and malice.
They are gossip, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant
and boastful.
They invent ways of doing evil.
They disobey their parents.
They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
You say, but Brother Paul, we're not all
that.
I agree, you're not.
But let's keep reading.
Although they know God's righteous decree that those
who do such things deserve death.
Every one of you here know that those
who do such things as these are under
capital punishment by God.
You know that.
The wages of sin is death and these
sins bring death.
You know that.
So this is describing you.
Although you know that God's righteous decree, God's
righteous decree that those who do such things
deserve death.
They not only continue to do these very
things.
And you say, but we don't continue to
do these things.
I agree.
But here's the last part.
They not only continue to do these very
things, but also approve of those who practice
them.
And that does describe the church in America.
I want you to know something.
You probably have never in your life had
any preacher preach against television.
Well, you're going to hear one now.
Is television bad?
No, it can be a great tool of
God.
I use computers all the time and someone
told me the other day that it was
of the antichrist.
And I said, well, until he comes and
grabs my computer, I'm going to use it.
But let me share with you something.
Would you commit adultery or fornication or homosexuality?
Would you?
Probably not.
But every time you turn on a television
show and watch someone commit adultery and fornication,
homosexuality, you do not continue to do these
very things, but you approve of those who
practice them.
And God will not be with you.
You want the power of God in your
life?
Then you separate yourself from things that God
considers an abomination and you don't compromise.
You want the power of God in your
ministry?
Then you separate yourself from things that God
hates.
You do what the Puritans did.
You go through Scripture and you find everything
in life and you categorize it.
Is this of God?
No, that it doesn't belong in my life.
Is this bringing pleasure to God?
Yes, then it belongs in my life.
But don't conform to the Christianity of Sunday
school literature.
Get in Scripture.
Allow God to cut you like a knife.
If what you're hearing preached is comfortable and
what you're reading does not cut you, it
probably doesn't have much of God's Word in
it.
Now, I'm finishing these three days with regret
and I'll tell you why.
Not because I haven't met some wonderful young
people and some wonderful things that God is
doing.
But I usually don't preach a revival unless
I can preach about nine or ten days
or something like that.
Guys, let me just tell you something.
You're going into the ministry, forget about this
revival stuff.
Going around churches and preaching revivals, it's useless.
Let me tell you why.
People want revivals on a weekend.
You can't have a revival in three days.
You go back to the old men of
God.
They moved into town for six months and
then they gave an invitation.
Do you know why I haven't given an
invitation?
Some of you say it's because I'm not
evangelical.
Well, let me ask you a question.
Did you witness to the man who cleans
these floors of this gym every night?
I have.
It's not because I'm not evangelical or I
don't want people to be saved.
You know what the problem is?
It's become almost like Catholic absolution or something.
You come forward and you do your little
prayer and you go back home and think
it's okay.
And I've been telling you, it's not.
You better go home and you better get
alone with God and you better hear His
voice.
And that's not easy.
You see, if you want a little instantaneous
Christianity, well, that's fine.
You can find it out there.
But if you want to know God, it's
not going to get fixed in a little
invitation.
This is not confession.
This is a rendering of the heart.
A tearing away of dirty garments and a
running to God.
It's a great deal of difference.
I feel bad because I have beaten you
with a large stick.
You know what I would be doing now,
from now on, for the next month?
Teaching you how to dance with God.
If you're willing to separate.
You see, separation is legalism only when it's
separation from the world and not separation unto
the joy of Almighty God.
Read John Piper.
He'll tell you something about the glory of
God.
You see, you need to be taught about
the grace of God now.
You need to be taught about the wonder
of God.
You need to be taught about how wonderful
and exciting and refreshing, how kind God is,
how gracious.
But I don't have time to do that.
But I am going to leave you with
one passage.
It has meant a great deal to me.
Let's turn to the Gospel of Matthew.
And I hope that this will help those
of you.
Matthew 12.
Some of you here have heard hard preaching
and it has no effect on your soul.
As a matter of fact, it's hardened you.
You ought to be very afraid because you
might be going to hell.
Some of you have heard preaching and you've
repented.
But also you have enough knowledge of God
that you know that He does not condemn
you and that He is your Father.
And you're so excited about what God's doing
in your life and there's joy.
But there are some of you who've heard
this preaching and I can't leave you like
that.
Because you're walking away thinking that God, that
His love is not as big as you
thought.
Let me fill you in on something.
It's a lot bigger than what you could
ever dream.
But you see, there's two sides to this
thing and you need to know both of
them.
But for those of you who are sitting
there thinking, man, Paul Washer, he ought to
write a hymn that goes something like this.
Oh my God, holy and firm, step on
me and watch me squirm.
I preached just a while back at a
Presbyterian church and a prominent man in the
congregation got all the other men together and
he was so moved by my sermons, he
asked all the men to take up an
offering to send me back to Peru.
But I want to leave you with a
thing that has meant so much to me
because honestly, the standard I preach causes me
to repent.
Look at this passage and this is for
you.
Those of you who are loved by God
and have been broken by the hard things
I've said and who may think, well, could
God ever use me?
This is your answer.
This is about the Messiah.
Chapter 12, verse 20.
A bruised reed he will not break, and
a smoldering wick he will not snuff out
till he leads justice to victory.
In his names the nations will put their
hope.
A bruised reed he will not break.
You go to Israel and go down by
the river and you know what you'll find?
Reeds.
Not one or two or three or four
or a hundred or a thousand or a
million.
You'll find six gazillions of reeds.
There's reeds everywhere.
I mean, there's so many reeds.
I mean, you could pluck up all the
reeds and you'd still have trillions of reeds.
And well, the children in Israel in Jesus'
time and the prophet's time, they were rather
poor and so they made their toys.
So when the children all wanted to play,
they would go down to the river and
they'd cut them off a reed about this
long.
And they would take the reed, a very
fragile thing, and they'd take an object like
a sharp rock or another stick or something
and they would begin to make holes in
the reed.
Why?
They were going to make a beautiful instrument
to play with.
Make themselves a flute to play music, to
have a good time with, to enjoy and
to bless.
But there's a problem with making flutes out
of cane with a dull rock.
The reeds break.
They break.
You take a reed and you want to
make a beautiful instrument out of it and
you start working on it and because of
the weakness of the reed, it will break.
So what do you do?
I mean, there's thousands of reeds.
You're not going to spend time fixing that
reed back up so you can do something
with it.
No!
Toss it away!
Get rid of it!
Kick it out the door!
Throw it away!
It's no good!
Get you another reed!
God's not like that.
God has called you.
And He has called you to make you
an instrument for His glory, for His beauty,
and to be a means of blessing others.
And because of some old hard preacher that
He brought here, you feel broken.
You say, I've sinned.
I'm broken.
How could God ever use me?
Look at all these faults this man has
pointed out this week.
Well, God's probably just going to toss me.
I mean, after all, He can find somebody
better than me.
He's not going to stick around with me
and fix me and start all over again.
God's not going to waste His time on
someone like me.
It's done!
No, it's not.
It's not done because He doesn't throw reeds
away.
Bruised reeds He does break.
You know what He's going to do with
you?
He who began a good work in you,
He's going to perfect it.
If you are broken in your heart, and
tears have rolled down your cheeks, and shame
has crept upon you in the presence of
God, and you have cried out, Woe is
me!
You can say that.
But don't you ever say, Cut off, I
am, because you're not.
Because He won't allow you to be.
He'll fix you.
Because bruised reeds, He doesn't break.
Look what else it says here.
And smoldering wicks He will not snuff out.
Do you know what you were made to
be?
A light to the nations.
That's you.
You were made to be lights to the
nations.
You, little girl, you're a light to the
nations.
You, man, you're a light to the nations.
That's what He's made you for.
Oh, there's no glorious.
There's no glory compared to the glory He's
given you.
You know, angels get mad at you.
They're envious of the things you've received from
the Father.
And you were created to be this wonderful
light to the nations.
And I say nations.
You want to know why?
When I started out as a missionary, I
was speaking in a church, and they had
this forum where they had microphones and things,
and everyone was asking me questions.
I was going to Peru for the first
time, and when everyone had finished, this little
red-headed boy got up, and he went
to the microphone.
He said, Mr. Paul, he says, I have
a question for you.
I said, Yes.
He goes, What are you going to do
when you win everybody in Peru to Christ?
And you know what?
Everyone in the church laughed except him and
me.
I said, Well, I'm going somewhere else.
You see, I don't put limitations on God.
I started out this Christianity wanting the entire
world to come to know Christ.
I've been 15 years into it, and I
still believe that God is going to use
me so that the gospel might be preached
to the entire world before my generation is
finished.
Now, not only me, but in my time,
a young man traveled with me from the
university.
I took him to Romania because that's the
way I disciple people.
And he said, You know what's wrong with
you?
I said, What?
He said, You're the most idealistic adult I've
ever met.
You're like a child.
Yes.
I believe that about you too, that God
can use you to be a light to
the nations.
But you know what?
You know what happens to a lamp that
burns on oil that has a wick?
When the oil runs out, it stinks.
I know that because I work in Peru,
and sometimes we use lamps like that.
Some of you older Christians in here can
remember.
You let a wick burn down, and the
oil runs out, and that wick starts to
burn.
It stinks.
And if a woman came into a house,
and she found that there was no oil
in the lamp, that it was empty, and
the wick began to burn, and it was
stinking, and the stench was filling up the
entire house, she'd grab the lamp, throw open
the window, and throw the lamp out the
door.
And because it was made of clay, it
would break into a thousand pieces.
No more lamp.
Get you another one.
Well, a lot of you this week have
said, I must stink before God.
I'm to be filled with the Holy Spirit,
to be a light to the nations.
Because of my sin, I've grieved the Holy
Spirit.
And now the only thing burning is my
flesh, and I stink not only to God,
but to my roommates, and to my professors,
and to everyone around me.
I'm a stumbling block.
I walk in the darkness.
There is no light.
There's only stench.
I'm sure now, after this preacher's done, that
God's simply going to open up the window
and throw me out.
But a burning wick He does not snuff
out.
You need to know that.
With repentance, with a true turning away from
sin, and a true trust in Jesus Christ,
you can be filled once again with that
Spirit that burns so brightly and so clear.
You can.
I hate condemnation, and I hate legalism, and
I hate the ideas of right standing before
God because of our works.
That's an abomination, and it doesn't fit into
my theology, even though some of you think
it does.
But I will tell you this, there is
a communion with the Father that can be
broken by sin.
And it can be restored because of the
grace of God and Jesus Christ our Lord.
And I want you to walk out of
here a broken people, but not a condemned
people.
A repented people.
But there is a repentance that leads unto
death.
Judas is a good illustration.
And there is a repentance that leads unto
life.
And Peter is a good illustration.
Even when the prophets came, and they preached
things that I'd even be afraid to say
in a church, they never finished their prophecies
without giving hope.
And I'll never finish a sermon without doing
the same.
You're not cast away.
You're not beyond grace.
You stand here today, I have considered this,
and I've told God, this has been the
greatest privilege, and I don't know why.
Maybe there's a, who knows, a Charles Spurgeon
here, or a Lottie Moon, I have no
idea.
But something in my heart tells me this
is the greatest privilege I've ever had in
15 years of preaching.
God loves you so much, and He's given
you men and women who love Him.
He's given you the opportunity to be with
Christians.
Now, there are quite a few lost people
here too.
But He's given you the opportunity to be
here.
You're not in some jungle somewhere with the
rain coming down on your head all alone.
You've got Christians all around you.
Look at the opportunity that's before you.
I wish myself accursed if only you would
stand before Christ on that day and hear,
Well done, my good and faithful servant.
I want so much for you.
There is so much of God for you.
So much.
And oh, you are His church.
And oh, the love of God.
I know a man who went to a
place and he doesn't know if it was
a dream or he left his room.
But he saw things that cannot be explained
and are not lawful to speak about.
But I suppose that if you could see
those things, you would be driven to passionately
chase after God with everything you ever hoped
to be.
And you would die with your hands lifted
in the air, reaching for the One who
you've longed to see.
Oh God, I come before you in the
name of your Son.
And I lift up those before you who
have hearts of stone.
I know that to so many here, I'm
nothing more than a fool and something to
laugh about.
Fifteen years of that, Lord, you get used
to it.
And I know that there are some here
who have hearts of stone, who've hated every
word I've said.
I pray for them that they might experience
the mercy of God.
Then there are some here, Father, that are
babes in Christ.
And even though they're old in the faith,
they've only heard milk all their life.
Father, I pray that they would find your
Word a source of life and that they
would sit under teaching that would feed them
and make them strong.
Because if they can't run with men, how
can they run with horses?
Father, there are those here who have a
calling to preach.
Oh God, that their highest calling be the
pursuit of God.
I pray for the professors here.
Oh God, it's so easy for me to
come and then leave and not have to
pastor the flock.
So I pray for these professors and administrators
and the president.
I pray that their goal for this school
be the magnificent pursuit of God, the person
of God.
And I pray, Lord, that when all other
faculties and universities and seminaries are running around
building their own little kingdom and that when
you look to and fro throughout the world
looking for someone who might be looking back
at you, that you would find this school
not making a name for itself, but like
a child searching the clouds for the face
of the Father.
Now, I pray this to the one who
is able to do far above all I
ask or think or imagine.
And I rest in that.
In Jesus' holy name, amen.