In our churches we don't often write our
prayers, though I can't find anywhere where it
would be a sin.
Our Lord prayed and they wrote it down.
And I would like to read part of
his prayer as found in John chapter 17.
It's actually called the High Priestly Prayer.
I'm not going to read it all, though
I am going to read a significant portion
of this prayer, and then I'm going to
do like a mailman sometimes does.
I'm going to go out to the far
end of my route and work my way
back to it.
John 17, these words spake Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, Father,
the hour has come, glorify thy son, that
thy son also may glorify thee.
As thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given him.
And this is life eternal, that they might
know thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent.
I have glorified thee on the earth.
I have finished the work which thou gavest
me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with
thine own self, with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was.
I have manifested thy name unto the men
which thou gavest me out of the world.
Thine they were, and thou gavest them me,
and they have kept thy word.
Now they have known that all things whatsoever
thou hast given me are of thee.
For I have given unto them the words
which thou gavest me, and they have received
them, and have known surely that I came
out from thee, and they have believed that
thou didst send me.
I pray for them.
I pray not for the world, but for
them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine.
And all mine are thine, and thine are
mine, and I am glorified in them.
And now I am no more in the
world, but these are in the world, and
I come to thee.
Holy Father, keep through thine own name those
whom thou hast given me, that they may
be one as we are.
While I was with them in the world,
I kept them in thy name.
Those that thou gavest me I have kept,
and none of them is lost but the
son of perdition that the scripture might be
fulfilled.
And now I come to thee, and these
things I speak in the world, that they
might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
I have given them thy word, and the
world hath hated them, because they are not
of the world, even as I am not
of the world.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them
out of the world, but that thou shouldest
keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as
I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is
truth.
As thou hast sent me into the world,
even so have I also sent them into
the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself that
they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through
their word.
Let us pray.
Father, thank you for allowing us to have
the word of God and the prayer of
thy Son before us tonight.
Speak to our hearts, honor the purpose that
you have in our gathering.
May it be fulfilled.
I pray that you would uplift every heart
that is here, uplift everyone in faith.
May the saints, Lord, be uplifted to believe
you and follow you more closely.
And may the unsaved, may their faith reach
out and touch the Lord, believing tonight that
you will forgive their sins and make them
also a child of God, we pray in
Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
We live in a day when in the
church everybody wants to be full of the
Spirit, but no one seems to want to
be filled with the Spirit.
I am convinced it is God's will that
every believer be entirely sanctified, filled with the
Spirit of God.
When I was just about ten years of
age, I was born in 1945, so it
would have been in 1955.
It was on a Friday evening and our
family was doing an exciting thing we did
every Friday evening.
We went to town to get groceries.
I know it doesn't sound very exciting to
this generation, but to us it was.
And since it was a pretty evening, the
weather was nice, while Mother shopped, my stepfather
and I went strolling to do some window
shopping down past the Western Auto and a
few places like that.
And we walked past the Buick dealership.
It was the first time we had seen
the new 1955 Buick.
It had just come out.
My, it was beautiful.
There was a blue one sitting in the
showroom.
If you're antique enough to remember such an
automobile, you will remember that in 1955 they
changed the Buick.
They changed the front end, they changed the
back end, they changed the interior, they changed
the lines.
They just changed about everything there was to
the Buick automobile in 1955, and it was
beautiful.
My stepfather happened to like the Buick car,
and so we stepped into the showroom and
we walked around and rubbed it gently and
stuck our head in the window and admired
the dash.
And we looked at the lines, we oohed
and awed.
And I, being only ten years old, I
could tell very quickly that he liked it,
so I got right down to business.
I stepped back and looked at him and
asked the question, can we get one?
I'll not forget his answer.
He couldn't wipe the smile off his face,
he was so pleased with what he was
seeing.
But he said, well, I think that's the
nicest car I've ever seen, but I don't
guess I could ever have anything quite that
nice.
That's just a human interest story, but of
course I told it for a reason.
I know a lot of people who spend
a lot of time around the showroom of
holiness.
They admire it, they ooh and they awe,
they acknowledge it's about the most wonderful thing
they've ever heard of in this world, and
they think that it's just superb.
But like my stepfather, they come to a
conclusion that they guess they could never have
anything quite that nice.
And so they live their life in defeat.
They live in their life, they believe in
the doctrine, they go to holiness camp meetings,
they attend a holiness church, they like the
holiness preachers, they like the song of the
holiness singers, they just like it.
But yet they live and die without ever
believing that they can truly be sanctified and
have this experience of holiness in their heart
and life.
So I've come tonight to give you seven
reasons why I am convinced every believer can
be entirely sanctified.
There are plenty more, I'm sure, but these
are the seven the Lord helped me to
think of and I want to share them
with you.
The first reason I am convinced that every
believer can be sanctified holy is because the
believer is hungry and thirsty after righteousness.
Amen.
The saved person wants all of God they
can get.
They don't want to see how sinful they
can become.
They don't want to go back to the
old life.
They want God.
They want righteousness.
They are hungry and they are thirsty after
righteousness, and lo and behold, I read in
Matthew, chapter 5, in the great Sermon on
the Mount, where the Lord said, "'Blessed are
they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness,
for they shall be filled.'" Praise God!
So that convinces me that every believer can
be entirely sanctified.
I was in a southern state preaching a
revival in a beautiful little wooden church beside
the road, and it was a nice church.
The people were so kind to me, and
they had in their origin many years before
had had a holiness pastor who had founded
the church, and they had been a holiness
church, and the message of holiness had been
preached.
But he had died, other pastors had come
and gone and died, and things had changed,
and now in the process of time, over
the years, they have forgotten about the message
of holiness and the people who now grace
the pews of that beautiful little country church
knew nothing about it at all.
All of the other generation were gone, and
as I was there preaching that revival meeting,
I've been there numbers of times since, but
as I was preaching that revival meeting, the
Lord laid on my heart to preach to
them and teach them again about the beautiful
message and doctrine of holiness, of entire sanctification.
All week we worked with that subject.
Friday night came.
After the service on Friday evening, I stood
by the pastor at the door.
Folks were leaving.
We were shaking their hands when one of
his leading members, a member of the board
and the Sunday school superintendent, lingered behind.
And when he came by, he had a
troubled look, a very troubled look.
And as he shook our hands, he said,
I need to talk to you two fellows.
Okay.
We slipped into a little room, and he
started pacing back and forth, wringing his hands.
And the pastor said, Junior, what could the
problem be?
And I'll borrow his own words.
He said, I blew it today.
I really dropped the ball.
I really blew it today.
Well, what did you do?
And he told us, he being a rather
large contractor, he said, I went out on
the job this morning.
He said, gathered the men around me, give
them some instruction of what we were going
to be doing for the day.
And he said, one of the men that
works for me really didn't like what he
was told he would be doing, and he
got so angry, said he started cursing me.
And said he cursed me and cursed me,
and he got right up in my face
and cursed me.
And as he was, he was sort of
spitting on me.
And he said, I stood there, and I
took it, and I took it.
And then he said, just all of a
sudden, I decked him.
He said, and I jumped right on top
of him.
And he said, the guys pulled me off,
and I felt so bad.
And he said, I told the man I
was sorry.
And I told the men I was sorry
for what I'd done.
And he said, I got in my pickup
truck and drove off the job to a
private place.
And he said, I told God how sorry
I was for what I'd done.
He said, but I've had an awful, awful
day.
He said, I blew it today.
I dropped the ball.
I've been trying to be a Christian in
front of them, and look what it did.
He said, is there any hope for anybody
like me?
I said, do you remember what we've been
preaching this week?
He said, been on my mind all day
long.
He said, what do I have to do
to get that?
And I told him, and I said, we
could get right down on our knees now.
And he headed for his knees.
And I started to get down with him,
but the pastor said, wait a minute, wait
a minute, wait a minute, hold it, hold
it, hold it, hold it.
He looked at me, and he said, now
look, if you're going to pray for him
to be sanctified, he said, you're going to
pray for me, too, because I need as
bad as he does.
And then a little while, we came out
of that Sunday school room with the pastor
and the Sunday school superintendent freshly and newly
sanctified, holy.
Why did that happen?
Because they were hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
They had not hardened their hearts.
They weren't fighting it.
They were hungry.
And the Bible says, blessed are they that
do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they
shall be filled.
Hallelujah.
Reason number two, I am convinced God will
sanctify every believer, because God is greater than
any earthly father.
You say that doesn't make much sense yet.
Well, let me tell you about it.
You understand that our Lord one day talked
to the disciples and some men, and he
said, now, which one of you, if your
child would ask for bread, you'd give them
a stone?
Or if they should ask for a fish,
you would give them a serpent?
Or if they should ask for an egg,
you would give them a scorpion?
Which one of you fellows would do that?
And they say, no, no, no, not me,
not me.
And then he said, if you, being evil
or earthly, know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more will the
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them
that obey him?
Hallelujah.
To them that ask him, to them that
love him.
Hallelujah.
And God is greater than any earthly father.
I remember coming home from the office that
evening.
We had nine children.
Eight of them were still home.
Only one was married.
And when I got home from the office
at about 4 o'clock in the evening,
five of them happened to be there at
the time.
And I walked in, and Becky, now a
missionary in the Philippines, but she was just
a teenage girl then.
And she spoke up and said, oh, daddy,
I'm going to your home.
I need to be at the library at
5 o'clock, and I need you to
take me.
And she had no sooner than spoken her
desire until one of the boys spoke up,
oh, yes, dad, and I need $9 tonight.
And as soon as he was finished, a
third one made his request known.
Before it was over, each of the five
had made some demand, either on my time
or my resources.
I'm a bottom line kind of a guy.
I said, here's where I was going.
Nobody's going anywhere, and nobody's getting anything.
Case closed.
I thought I'd really handled it.
And then I saw they looked so hurt
and so disappointed, and I thought I'd better
defend my rash position.
So I started telling them again, and then
I saw they were hurt all the more.
And I said, Becky, this is your fault.
I said, you started this.
And I saw she was more hurt than
ever.
And then it took me that long to
hear the voice of the spirit, I guess.
But while I was yakking, and don't look
so innocent, guys.
Sometimes you yak, too.
The Holy Spirit got through to me.
And I said, Becky, come here, honey.
And I put an arm around her and
hugged her, and I said, no, honey, it's
not your fault.
It's my fault.
I'm so sorry.
You need to be at the library at
5.
Well, I believe we can make it.
Buddy, you need $9?
Well, I guess dad can help you one
more time.
And I didn't stop until I'd given each
of them everything they had asked for.
I hear some grisly old grandpa saying, I
wouldn't have done it.
That's what's wrong with this world now.
I know you wouldn't have.
But things might have turned out a whole
lot better if you had.
Maybe I'd better move on quickly.
And if I, being earthly, desire to give
good gifts unto my children, how much more
will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
to them that love Him?
Therefore, I am convinced that every believer can
be entirely sanctified because God is greater than
any earthly father.
Reason number three, I am convinced God will
sanctify every believer because the Heavenly Father wants
His children to be like Himself.
Amen.
You've read it in 1 Peter 1, verse
15.
Be ye holy.
Why, Lord?
Because I'm holy.
Because I am holy.
I don't know if you've caught on yet
or not, but this is the greatest compliment
and the most assuring thing the Lord could
say.
He is saying, I am claiming you so
fully and so completely as my child that
I want you to be like me.
Someone came to me some time ago, dear
little lady, and she said, I heard one
of your boys preach the other night.
She said, if I would have closed my
eyes, I wouldn't have known if I was
listening to him or if I was listening
to you.
You sound just alike.
And I liked it.
I did.
I really liked it because he's my boy.
Now, I was with him over the holiday,
and I said, now, boys, all of you
can preach better than I can, but it
just takes all of you to do it.
We want our children to be like us.
It's OK.
If you're a bricklayer, you may want your
son to be an astronaut.
I don't know, but you still like it
when you see him pick up the trowel
and dip it in the mortar and lay
a nice bead and a nice straight row
of brick.
You say, that's my boy.
A chip off the old block.
Ah, you're happy because that's your son, and
you're glad he's like you.
Every mother finds her heart warmed when someone
speaks of that little girl and says she
has the same kind, sweet traits of her
mother.
You like it, don't you, ma'am?
And it's OK.
That's OK.
It's not sin.
It's not carnal, necessarily.
God's that way.
God said, you're my child, and I want
you to be like me.
Be holy, for I am holy, saith the
Lord.
Glory to God.
Somebody says, but that's impossible.
That is absolutely impossible.
We could not be like God.
Do you understand who God is?
God is the eternal, sovereign one who, with
his creative fingertips, plunged planets into existence and
said, let there be light, and there is.
And he created man and animals and everything.
We can't be like God.
Well, let's talk about it just for a
moment, if you will.
I'll tell you, let's talk about it this
way.
Let's go to the Gulf of Mexico real
quick.
Here we are.
Now walk right down to the water at
the Gulf of Mexico.
Bend over and stick your finger in the
gulf.
Hold your finger up, and a little drop
of water forms on the tip of your
finger.
Now get a slide, and put it on
a little glass slide, and put it under
a microscope.
Now follow me.
Now we're going to pick up the entire
Gulf of Mexico, and we're going to put
it under a great big microscope, and we're
going to look at it.
And now we're going to go back and
look at the little drop of water.
Oh, guess what?
They're just alike under the microscope.
Now the Gulf can do things a little
drop of water can't do.
The Gulf can sail the ships.
It can house the fish.
It can wear white caps.
It can wash the shoreline.
It can do all those things, and the
poor little drop of water can't do it.
But under the microscope, they're just alike.
And God said, Be ye holy, for I
am holy.
I cannot create worlds.
I cannot speak light or life into existence.
I cannot save a soul, sanctify a believer,
or heal a body.
But God can.
But I do know this, that the sanctified
soul under heaven's microscope is like unto the
Father.
Hallelujah!
And that's what he's asking for.
Be ye holy, for I am holy, saith
the Lord.
And since God wants his children to be
like him in holiness, he surely will sanctify
every believer.
Reason number four, I believe God will sanctify
every believer because the believer is obedient, is
obedient.
If you are a saved person, if you
are a child of God, you're not straining
at the reins.
You're not trying to break out.
You're not wanting to go do your own
thing.
You're wanting to obey God.
There may be a fighting spirit within you
that is not always easily subdued.
The carnal nature is there and gives you
battles.
But the real you, what you want to
do, you want to be obedient unto God.
And I read in chapter 5 of the
book of Acts and verse 32, he giveth
the Holy Spirit to them that obey him.
Hallelujah!
Isn't that wonderful?
And the believer is obedient.
Mr. Dobbs, on the Ford dealership in Memphis,
Tennessee, large dealership.
And one day he took a new car
off the lot his wife and daughter and
a young lady that worked in their home.
And they went to the Carolina coast for
a little vacation.
He was a Christian man.
They enjoyed a few days at the coast
and then headed back to West Tennessee.
They decided not to go the main route,
but for vacation purposes, a drive through the
winding mountains.
And as they were winding their way slowly
through the mountain passes, they saw up ahead
in the mountains there was a terrible, terrible
storm.
There was lightning and dark clouds, and they
could see it was raining hard.
And it took them a while, but eventually
they found they were in the storm.
And as they drove along, wipers working as
hard as they could, he looked ahead and
saw some people walking.
And he thought, boy, why are they out
in this?
He noticed it was a man and a
woman and a couple of children.
They didn't have hats or umbrellas or raincoats
or boots.
They were not ready for such weather.
And he couldn't resist.
He pulled alongside, rolled the window down just
a bit and called to them.
Is everything okay?
And then he saw the woman was crying
and she was a spokesman for the family.
And she said, no, sir.
A while ago, lightning struck our little log
home up here in the mountains and it's
gone.
We've lost everything.
And we're walking around to where some other
people live.
Maybe we can stay there until we can
make some arrangements.
He felt sorry for them, and he reached
in his pocket and got a $10 bill
and stuck it out that little window crack
and gave it to them.
They thanked him and he rolled the window
up and drove off.
But he didn't go far.
And he pulled off beside the road and
got out his billful and took out every
dollar he had in cash, around $200.
And he asked his wife, do you have
any money?
She had about 50.
And he took also what his daughter and
the other young lady had and put it
all together.
And he turned around and he went back
and there they were still walking.
And he pulled up beside them again.
And they were so happy to see the
man who had been kind to them a
few moments ago.
And he asked the lady, he said, do
you still have that $10 bill I gave
you?
She said, oh, yes, sir.
He said, give it back.
And she looked disappointed, but she reached in
her shirt or blouse pocket and got it
out and handed it back to him obediently.
And when she did, he took it and
he got that big wad of money out
and he put the $10 bill with it
and just gave it all back to him.
And that's how the Lord works.
He comes to you and me and he
says, do you still have that talent I
gave you?
Do you still have that family I gave
you?
Do you still have that education I gave
you?
Do you still have the money I gave
you?
Do you still have everything I gave you?
Yes, Lord.
And he said, give it back.
Give it back.
And some object.
He says, give me your family.
Give it back to me.
And someone might say, Lord, Lord, my family.
I didn't have much of a family growing
up.
And now I love my family so much.
And Lord, how could I surrender my...
Give it back.
And to another, he says, give me the
job.
Lord, Lord, you know, I've worked so hard
to get where I am.
And, you know, I trained so long and
I worked so hard to get up in
the job that I am.
And Lord, it means so.
And he said, give it back.
Give it to me.
He asked someone for their home, their beautiful
home.
He asked someone else for their money.
Someone else for their education.
But I want you to know something.
When we surrender all, obediently and say, Lord,
you may have my family.
I put it on the altar.
You may have my job.
I put it on the altar.
You may have my money.
You may have my house.
You may have my reputation, my education.
Lord, I put it all on the altar.
I surrender all of it.
He gives the Holy Spirit to them that
obey him.
Hallelujah.
And then he says, now use the education.
Now love your family and take care of
it for it's a gift for me and
it belongs to me.
And I'm aloning it to you.
Everything you have belongs to the Lord.
And he allows us to use it.
But he said, keep it surrendered to me.
And he gives the Holy Spirit to them
that obey him.
Reason number five, I am convinced God will
sanctify every believer.
It is God's design from the beginning of
time that the New Testament church and the
New Testament believer be spirit filled.
Read your Bible.
It doesn't matter if you're a Presbyterian or
a Methodist or whatever you are.
It doesn't matter.
Just read your Bible.
And you'll understand very quickly that he wanted
the New Testament church to be filled with
the spirit.
Listen as the apostle speaks of the church
at Ephesus.
Have you received the Holy Ghost since you
believe?
And again and again, he lets us know
that he wants us to be filled with
his spirit.
He wants the New Testament church to be
a spirit filled church.
He does not want your church to be
dead and cold and nominal and lukewarm.
No, indeed, he wants your church to be
spirit filled.
He does not want you as a Christian
to be always low in spirit, always of
a grumbling spirit, always discouraged, always depressed, always
worrying.
No, he wants you to be a spirit
filled Christian.
Hallelujah.
John the Baptist recognized this and he declared
it to those who were there.
And he said, I indeed baptize you with
water, but there is one who comes after
me whose shoes I'm not worried to carry.
And he said, when he is come, he
will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and
fire.
Hallelujah.
Amen.
Others recognized it.
Jesus told us about it.
His disciples got long faced and melancholy one
day because he talked about leaving.
And he said, no, man, no, no, no,
you mustn't.
He said, it is expedient.
It is necessary for you that I go
away.
For if I go not away, the comforter
of the Holy Spirit will not come.
And he knew it was the will of
God that the Holy Spirit come and fill
their lives.
Hallelujah.
He's called the apostle Paul told the church,
be not drunk with wine.
Where is it?
Where is an excess, but be filled with
the spirit.
Reason number six, why I am convinced our
Lord will sanctify every believer.
Because Christ suffered without the gate and shed
his own blood that he might sanctify us
according to Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 12,
Christ paid such a tremendous, tremendous price that
you and I be sanctified holy when our
oldest son, the first to get his own
car did so it was quite a scenario.
He bought a car that he fell in
love with and it wasn't much of a
car and he brought it home and half
the time it wouldn't start.
It just wouldn't run.
We push started it.
We jump started it.
And I think a few times he tried
to kickstart it.
The neighbor surely thought it had grown to
the front bumper of my car because off
of the street, I was shoving it.
I got tired of it.
And one day I called a friend who
was a real mechanic and I said, I
want you to come by the house and
look at this car.
And he came and I said, look that
thing over and tell me, tell me what
I need to do with that car.
The hood was up, the trunk was up,
the plugs were out, this, that, and the
other.
He checked compression.
He did all kinds of things.
And I still remember when he backed away
and got a big red rag out of
his hip pocket and wiped his hands a
little, wiped the edge of the hood and
slammed it down, wiped his hands some more.
I said, okay, tell me what's the deal?
What's the word?
And he gave me two words.
He looked at me and said, junk it.
I thought it was a pretty good idea.
And I was ready to make his funeral
arrangements.
But my son said, Dad, I can't junk
that car.
Why not?
The thing won't run.
Dad, Dad, I can't junk that car.
And when I saw how serious he was,
I stopped him and got right in front
of him where we could have an eye
-to-eye talk.
And I said, son, tell me why.
It sort of dropped his head.
And he said, Dad, he said, I paid
too much for it and it means too
much to me.
I said, okay, then we're going to make
it run.
I said, if we have to buy a
new engine, it doesn't matter.
Whatever we have to do, son, we'll make
it run.
That's how you feel about it.
And that's exactly what we did.
And I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't
a time when the devil, like it was
in the days of Job, stood before the
Lord and my name came up.
And the devil probably had a recommendation about
me.
And he said, junking is no good.
And it might have been the best thing
to do by conventional wisdom.
But the son, hallelujah, the son stepped in
front of the father and said, Father, we
can't do that.
And he lifted a nail-scarred hand and
said, I paid too much for him and
he means too much to me.
And the father said, then sanctify fully.
We'll make him work.
We'll make him run.
We'll put a new heart in him if
we have to.
Because he will glorify and sanctify his children.
And hallelujah, that's exactly what he is saying
about you tonight.
He will put a new heart within you.
God will sanctify every believer because Jesus paid
too much for you and you mean too
much to him.
His hands bear scars.
His side was riven.
There are scars in the tender flesh of
his forehead and in his feet, all because
he suffered without the gate to sanctify you
with his own blood.
I am convinced that God will sanctify every
believer.
Praise the Lord.
You don't have to just wander around in
the showroom and say how nice it is.
You can have it.
Praise God.
But wait, I told you there were seven
reasons.
So there's one more and it takes us
back to the scripture I read now.
I told you I'd get there.
I am convinced God will sanctify every believer
because Jesus, God's son, prayed for the believer's
sanctification.
You read it there in the passage where
our Lord was praying and he prayed for
the disciple to be sanctified.
But then he came down to verse 20
and he said, Neither pray I for these
alone, but I also pray for them which
shall believe because of the word.
He was talking about then.
He was talking about now.
We are believers because we have heard the
word, because we have obeyed the word.
And Jesus has prayed for you and prayed
for me that I and you would be
sanctified wholly.
And therefore, when Jesus prays, God answers prayer.
Hallelujah.
We're all the product of somebody having prayed.
My mother prayed for me every day that
she lived and was conscious.
My father was killed one day or one
week to the day before I was born.
He was killed defending France and is now
buried in France.
But he was killed one week before I
was born.
And I came into this world with a
grieving mother because she had just received word
that her husband was a war fatality.
And she turned all of her love and
affection on her new baby and spoiled me
rotten.
But she did pray for me.
A few years ago, when I was to
go to Hope Sound to preach the camp
meeting there for the first time, I was
there several times.
But the first time I was preparing to
go to preach the Hope Sound camp meeting.
When I got word and they said, if
you want to see your mother alive, you'd
better come.
So I drove eight hours to be by
her side.
And I went into her sick room and
she was lying there, apparently fading away.
And I took both of her hands and
mine and I talked and I said, Mama,
I want to tell you how much I
love you.
And I leaned over and I kissed her
on this cheek and I kissed her on
this cheek.
And I said, but Mama, I want to
tell you how much I appreciate you telling
me about Jesus.
And I appreciate so much the fact that
you pray for me every day.
And when I stand in the pulpit anywhere
around the world and the going's a little
tough and the devil's fighting, I knew you
were praying and it helped me to get
through.
And I said, Mama, it's awfully selfish of
me.
I said, but I'm going down to Florida
to preach in a camp meeting.
The crowds will be pretty big, two, three
thousand.
And I said, I know you're awfully sick,
Mama, but I need you to pray for
me through this.
One more camp meeting.
And an old sparkle came back in her
eye.
I'll never forget, she looked up with a
weak voice and she said, Sonny boy, you
run along and preach.
I'll be here praying for you.
And I went and preached and she started
getting better and lived another seven years.
Oh, thank God for a mother's prayer.
I want to tell you about a man
also that prayed for me.
Oh, he was he was quite a man
of prayer.
Oh, he prayed for me and I appreciate
you so much.
Prayed such beautiful prayers.
But a terrible thing happened to him.
He was murdered.
But on the third day, he walked out
of the grave and ascended to the side
of his father and he's still praying for
me.
Hallelujah.
And he's still praying for you.
For Jesus prayed for you and prayed for
me.
He was slain, but he rose again and
ascended to the right hand of the Father
and is making intercession for you and for
me tonight.
And I'm confident that he's praying now as
he prayed then.
Father, sanctify them through the truth.
Thy word is truth.
Sanctify them, Father.
And if Jesus is praying, God is hearing
and God is going to answer.
And if the devil has told anybody here
that you cannot be sanctified, if the devil
has told anybody here that it's just like
that new Buick that dad said he couldn't
have, I want you to know the devil
is a liar and the Lord God will
sanctify every believer.
If you will surrender your life completely and
fully to him and desire him and his
ways and his fullness more than anything else
in the world, God will sanctify you this
very moment if you will obey him.
Hallelujah.
Let me close with one more.
What I think is a beautiful truth from
the Bible.
There is a verse of scripture.
I love it.
If I preach from a little bit, I'd
enjoy it.
There's a chance you might enjoy it, too.
It's a verse of scripture that goes something
like this.
Greater is he that is in you than
he that is in the world.
My, couldn't we have a good time if
we preach from that a little while?
But then after we had shouted and preached
and prayed and hallelujahed around, then we'd go
home and pillow our head when the lights
were turned out and say, but what does
that mean?
Greater is he that is in you than
he that is in the world.
What could that possibly mean?
Let me tell you what it means.
In order to understand that verse, we have
to go back a long, long way when
an angel of light by the name of
Lucifer rose up against God and would take
over the throne.
And he was cast out of heaven.
And as he was cast out of heaven
with his thieving arm, he took a third
of the angels with him.
And they became fallen angels, sometimes called demons.
And he became Satan.
And now when Satan wants to do his
best or his worst for his followers, he
says, this is what I'll do.
I'll fill them with fallen angels.
I'll fill them with demons.
And you and I shudder at the very
thought of it.
It's so horrible.
But let me tell you, when our God
wants to do his best for his followers,
he doesn't say, I will fill them with
angels.
He says, I'm going a little higher.
And he goes right into the Trinity.
And he says, I'll fill my followers with
the blessed Holy Spirit.
And therefore, the sanctified can walk through this
demon-possessed old world knowing greater is he
that is in me than he that is
in the world.
Hallelujah forever.
Why would anybody not want to be sanctified
holy and to be sanctified quickly?
Stand with me, please.