This is a study from the book, The
Promise of the Spirit, which is put out
by Bethany Fellowship.
The Promise of the Spirit is a collection
of Charles Finney's writings from his newsletter called
the Oberlin Evangelist, which he put out specifically
because his body was worn out from he
said his organs of speech were worn out.
He lost his voice, he couldn't preach.
He says, and because my organs of speech
and body is worn out, I intend to
come to you through the press so that
I can preach to more, even so, through
this way.
And this is the third chapter of about
25, if I remember right, maybe 22, on
his study of the promise of Jesus of
the Holy Spirit.
And this doesn't really tie in except for
the attitude of the heart.
And that's what in your DTS and in
our ICT, we're trying to develop is the
attitude of the heart, that it be proper
and proper meaning the only attitude that will
reach God.
Now, let me just say that many of
you know me as a piano player, musician,
and very few of you have ever met
me before, and you might have trouble, you
know, because you've had some image of who
I am or what I am or whatever.
Let me just say that I live in
a world where I struggle.
I live in a world where I'm growing,
striving, trying to rest in the Lord as
much as you do, maybe more so because
of the pressures put upon me.
That doesn't mean I achieve more than you
do.
It means that I might struggle more than
you do.
But, you know, God gives a measure of
grace to each person as they need it.
And so I have the same God you
do and the same Bible you do.
That's what Leonard Ravenhill always says, you know,
one thing about Charles, we always talk about
Charles Wesley and I mean, John Wesley, Charles
was there too, and Charles Finney and Martin
Luther, he says, but you know what, their
Bible wasn't any bigger than ours.
And their God didn't love them anymore and
he loves us.
So we can do things that he did
and they did.
And that's something to remember that we think
of the great men and those were the
good old days.
And I wish things were like that now.
Well, you sure got, you sure say a
lot to God when you say stuff like
that.
And you're saying to him that you don't
really believe he's the same anymore.
And there's some, how many people have read
Charles Finney before?
Okay.
Some of you might, when you read our
newsletter, how many people get our newsletter here?
Okay.
Well, we'll have you sign up at the
end here.
Some people who have been on our mailing
for some time, we try to print something
by our brother Chuck here.
Oh, about once every two or three issues,
mainly because his writings are so archaic as
far as the phraseology that he used.
We try to put them into modern English
because they're hard to read.
He was a lawyer from, this was preached,
this was written in 1839, almost 150 years
ago.
And his language was so, and he was
considered the, he spoke in the common language
of the day, of the people, but they
were so much more vocal and they didn't
have television and radio and a bunch of
jive to soak their minds up like pickled
prunes, that they learned, the common man's vocabularies
today is only 2000 words.
And those that, and I haven't read the
statistics, but I can tell from the words
that he preached just to the common people
on the street, that it had to be
at least double that.
I mean, he uses words that curl my
hair and I can't even find some of
them.
Look what happened.
So another thing is people think we preach
and live and breathe finny.
We're kind of on a one string fiddle.
All I want to say is that this
man is somebody we respect, that he's not
our guru or anything.
He's somebody that we respect in a way
that, well, just kind of like a spiritual
guidance counselor.
This guy seemed to go places that I
want to go.
And I'm not talking about deeds, I'm talking
about in prayer.
I'm talking about, he went, he entered into
the spirit of God.
He entered into the presence of God and
got the power of God in such a
way that I would like to, as Paul
said, be imitators of him in the sense
that he knew something that I don't know.
And God revealed certain things to him.
He wasn't a mystic.
He wasn't some great spiritual leader, but he
certainly loved God and he loved people.
And he came back out of the presence
of God with some incredible insight.
Now, how many people here think they know
what devotion is?
Okay, good.
I'm glad you're all here.
This is from an article just titled Devotion
by Charles Finney.
I renamed it, we're going to print this
in the next newsletter, Devotions or Devotion.
And we're going to put devotions in quotes.
I forgot to do that on your copy.
Devotions should be in quotes.
I love when I hear people say, you
know, I did my devotions this morning.
I don't even use that word after reading
this anymore.
And you'll see why.
Let's go ahead and read through it and
we'll discuss it.
Okay.
First, the scriptures that he uses.
He always started out with scripture.
That's a good place to start.
Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatever
you do, do all to the glory of
God.
And whatever you do in word or deed,
do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the
Father.
Whatever you do, do it heartily as for
the Lord, rather than for men.
For not one of us lives for himself
and not one dies for himself.
For if we live, we live for the
Lord, or if we die, we die for
the Lord.
Therefore, whether we live or die, we are
the Lord's.
These scriptures reveal the true nature of what
devotion to God really is.
In discussing this subject, I propose to show
one, what true devotion to God is not.
Two, what true devotion to God is.
Three, that devotion and nothing short of devotion
is true religion.
That's what the word he used and true
Christianity.
And four, several mistakes commonly made upon this
subject.
Going back over those four things, Phinney, when
he taught about what something was, the first
thing he did was destroy every misconception that
he could think of, what people thought it
was, that it really wasn't.
In fact, the best thing you can do
to find out what a thing is, is
first to find out what it isn't.
Because so many people think that love is
something, for instance.
In fact, he's got studies on love and
he starts out just like this.
He tells you what love isn't.
It isn't an emotional gushing of desire for
anything.
And three, when he says that devotion and
nothing short of devotion is true Christianity.
In his day, the word religion had a
meaning of, if you were a religious man,
you were a Christian in his day and
age.
There weren't Buddhists and Muslims running around in
New York in 1830.
They would have been buried somewhere, I think.
In fact, during the American Independence War, War
of Independence, I remember reading something by Thomas
Jefferson or something, that there was a group
of 70 Jews on the island of Manhattan
and that they wouldn't let them vote.
They were anathema.
But imagine, today in New York, there's only
70 Jews when the country came.
There's more Jews in New York City than
there are in all of Israel.
There's also, I think there's more Italians there
than there are in Rome.
Now, don't quote me on that last one,
but I know the first one's true.
There's more pizza there than a pizza man.
Shakies.
So, whenever Finney uses the word true religion
or this man has no religion, he's talking
about that the man's not a Christian, that
the man is not really serving God.
And that's when Finney used the word religion,
it's synonymous with being a real Christian.
Okay.
One, what true devotion to God is not.
Devotion does not consist of reading the Bible,
nor praying, nor attending meetings.
These may or may not be specific instances
of devotion, but are not to be regarded
as devotion itself.
It's pretty clear.
Two, devotion does not consist of a private
or public commitment of our lives to God.
These are to be regarded as special acts,
pledges, or promises of devotion, but not as
devotion itself.
Now, going over the first one, of course,
people think that reading their Bible, reading, you
know, five chapters in the morning and spending
five minutes with God and making sure they
go to the prayer meeting on Wednesday and
to the morning service.
And if there's nothing good on TV, the
evening service on Sunday is devotions.
This is my devotions.
God knows I mean business.
Finney, you know, just destroys that.
That's not devotion at all.
They can be what he calls instances of
devotion or deeds of devotion, but they are
in themselves do not constitute devotion.
And in the second one, many people think
that when a guy in his prayer closet
goes, oh God, I commit my life to
you, that that's devotion.
Or they come forward at the concert or
they come forward at the meeting or at
the sermon on Sunday morning.
And they say, who here wants to devote
their life to God?
And five people come forward and they say
the old sinner's prayer.
And they say, well, I really made an
oath of devotion today.
Well, that's true.
You made an oath of devotion or a
promise of devotion, but that in itself is
not devotion.
Okay.
Three, devotion does not consist of individual acts
or exercises of any kind.
These may indeed be devotional acts, that is
acts of devotion, but let it be remembered
that no acts or exercises in themselves constitute
devotion.
Okay, that's, he's pretty thorough.
Two, what true devotion to God is.
Devotion is that state of the heart in
which everything, our whole life, being and possessions
are a continual offering to God.
That is, they are continually devoted to God.
True devotion must be the supreme devotion of
the will extending out to all we have
and are, to all times, places, employments, thoughts,
and feelings.
Now here he, he does what Jesus does
as far as using a parable.
Let your own ideas of what a pastor
ought to be illustrate my meaning.
You most likely believe that a pastor in
preaching the gospel should have only one purpose
in mind, to glorify God by the salvation
and later the sanctification of sinners.
Since he professes to be a servant of
God, you feel that he ought to study,
preach, and perform all his ministrial duties, not
for himself, not for his salary, not to
increase his popularity, but only to glorify God.
Now you can easily see that if he
does not have this singleness of purpose or
singleness of eye, his service cannot be acceptable
to God, for it is not an offering
to God, it is not a devotion to
God, but a devotion to himself.
Now we're not going to just read here.
If there's some of you thinking, well, he's
going to read this, I could read this
myself.
We're going to stop when we get past
this and discuss this.
Devotion then in a pastor is that state
of mind in which all his pastoral duties
are performed for the glory of God and
where his whole life is a continual offering
to God.
Again, you feel that a minister ought to
be as devoted to God in everything else
as he is praying or preaching.
And in this you are right, for he
not only ought to be, but really is,
only as devoted in the pulpit as he
is out of the pulpit.
If he is influenced by selfish and worldly
motives during the week, then these same motives
are surely in his heart on the Sabbath.
If during the week his thoughts are centered
upon his own interests, endeavoring to promote himself,
you can be sure it's the same on
the Sabbath.
You most likely also feel that if a
minister's devotion is merely an outward farce that
he preaches, prays, visits, and performs all his
duties mainly for the purpose of supporting his
family or to get honor and attention for
himself, you would say that he was a
wicked man and unless he is converted, he
would inevitably lose his soul.
If these are your views on the subject,
they are undoubtedly correct.
Let's stop here.
The standard of righteousness, the standard of truth,
is black and white.
There are two things that are in opposition.
The Bible says mercy and judgment, right?
It says that mercy rejoices against judgment.
Why?
The law of God is black and white.
The justice of God is black and white.
The judgment of God is black and white.
You're either righteous or you're not.
The love of God is not black and
white.
The mercy of God is not black and
white.
The kindness of God.
Behold, the kindness and the severity of our
God.
It's in Romans.
These are things that Christians have struggled with
since the beginning days, that God has seemingly
two ways of looking at you.
One is through the law and one is
through love.
And that doesn't mean the law came from
hatred.
The law is not necessarily the Mosaic law
that, you know, you're not supposed to eat
pork chops, you know, and so on.
The law is, be perfect as my Father
in heaven is perfect.
That's the law.
That's a command.
Be perfect.
And when you're not perfect, you fail the
law.
You fail God's standard.
His standard is that you must be perfect.
That's his standard.
You must have a perfect devotion to him,
a perfect love.
Perfect love casteth out fear, it says.
And here, Finn, he's talking about, to make
a point about you, he's talking about what
you think a pastor should be.
Now, in his day, there was the men
of the cloth and the laity, right?
There was the preachers and the people in
the pews.
I always wondered why they called them pews.
And I found out when I went to
church for a while.
Because the heart character of the Christian stinks
in most cases.
They're waiting for the pastor to do everything.
They're waiting, really, they're waiting for the pastor
to go door to door and lead people
to the Lord.
They're waiting for the pastor to do all
the marriage counseling and all the abortion counseling
and solve all the problems of everybody.
That's not a pastor's job.
A pastor's job is to be an example
of Jesus so that people can be raised
up around him, just like Jesus, so that
the abortion counseling and the opening of the
homes to people can be spread throughout the
body of Christ.
Pastors are to be leaders.
Christians are not to just be followers.
Remember, it says that I am the door
and everyone who comes in through the door
becomes a shepherd of the sheep.
It says that in John 10.
Everyone who comes in through the door who
enters by me becomes, he becomes a shepherd
of the sheep.
When you become a Christian, you instantly become
a follower and a leader at the same
time.
If you don't realize that, if you think,
now I know many of you here at
DTS and you've paid a good sum of
money, which nobody likes to mention, but you've
paid a good sum of money to come
here and live and learn about Jesus and
learn about what it's like to be a
Christian and to be a leader, to be
a disciple.
Discipleship training school.
Our school is called intensive Christian training.
It's kind of like something you put out
of a bottle and soften your hands up.
I'm sure that you came here, most of
you, thinking that you were going to leave
a better person, right?
I mean, you know, it's a lot of
money.
It's a long time out of your life.
You want to be a better person.
You'd be an idiot to come here and
not think you're going to be better because
of all the knowledge and all the love
and prayers and concern and counsel you're going
to receive here.
Some of you look bored.
Some of you look filled up like a
sponge that can't hold anything else.
How many weeks you've been here now?
Five weeks.
Some of you feel like, man, it's filled
up to here and everything comes in this
area, just floats in the top and pours
out the other side.
And I want to tell you something.
That's the way knowledge is.
Knowledge puffets up.
The letter kills.
It murders.
The spirit gives life.
The letter killed.
Knowledge pops up.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon, who I think wrote Ecclesiastes,
says, excessive devotion to books is wearying to
the body.
When all is said and done, this is
what you should know.
Fear God and keep his commandments.
Well, you can all go back home now.
Finney's using a pastor here because most people
think the pastor is supposed to be a
different class of Christian.
That is an insidious thought.
Now, it does say in James, be not
many teachers, knowing that you shall be judged
with greater strictness.
In King James, it says you shall incur
the greater condemnation.
Well, that's scary.
That only means one thing.
Knowledge equals responsibility, equals accountability, equals condemnability.
The more you know, the bigger your punishment.
If you don't live up to what you
know, or as many Christians like to say
nowadays, to the light that you have, living
up to the light that you have.
Don't get more light.
Be afraid of getting more light if the
light that you have is turned to darkness
in you.
And if the light that is within you
is darkness, you're in trouble.
Now, I'm not here to condemn you.
I'm not here to thrust the law down
your nostrils.
I'm here to talk about the standard, because
the standard must be kept high.
We should never, ever, even if, you know,
Catherine Booth said, I've said since I'm 12
years old, since I'm a little girl, I
will never, ever lower the standard.
Even if it sends me to hell, I
will not lower it.
And that's what happens.
People invent doctrines because they can't live up
to the standard.
They invent these crazy doctrines.
You know, these wonderful doctrines that say you
can go to heaven, though you live a
life of sin, and you don't have to
be changed outwardly as long as you get
stamped USDA choice Christian on the forehead when
you say the same prayer.
Now, I'm sure they've dispelled that in the
first five weeks of this school.
The fundamentalist movement in this country, which I'm
not against, fundamental, the word fundamental means basic
truth, has got people believing, in some cases,
that you as a Christian can get saved,
whatever that means.
I mean, my Bible says you're supposed to
be saved from what?
From sin, you know, but you get saved,
which means you get your brownie stars on
your soul that only God can read.
And from this point on, no matter what
you do, God overlooks it because, you know,
your sins are forgiven, past, present, and future,
and no matter what you do, you can't
go to hell anymore.
Well, I got news for you, and this
might curl your hair.
I can go to hell if I want
to, and God isn't going to stop me
unless I ask Him to, or I contain
and remain in that relationship with Him, which
He wants me to stay in that relationship
with Him.
He's drawing me.
He's keeping me.
But if I want to go to hell
bad enough, He's got to let me, or
else there's no virtue in being a Christian.
There's no virtue in following Jesus.
No one would have been lost.
And this pastor that Finney's talking about here,
this pastor that he's talking about, this guy
has got a standard that's not living up
to the gospel.
The guy that's preaching to get support for
his family.
You can't become a Christian to make money.
Oh, God, I know people making a fortune
off the gospel.
I know people that are living in mansions
because they got saved, and they found an
idea, and Christians, gullible enough, put it on
the back of their bumper.
Man, they're merchandising Christ.
Then I know singers and musicians that God
gave them a talent.
God gave them a talent before they even
knew Jesus.
They used it to serve themselves then, and
they use it to serve themselves now, and
they build up their own kingdom with it.
And I'm sure there's people out there that
think that I do the same, and God
knows my heart, and I'm not here to
defend myself.
I'm here to defend the gospel.
It's harsh, and it's soft.
It's severe, and it's kind.
It's black and white, but love goes into
the gray to separate out the black from
the white.
I'm trying to make a point.
Finney gives you a standard, and you shudder.
The Bible does, too, in many cases.
Be perfect.
There's none righteous, not even one.
All have sinned and come short of the
glory of God.
But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.
Here's the thing.
Our Savior will not save us against our
will, one.
Two, he will not cleanse us against our
will.
He draws us.
He wants us.
And we just talked about, and the reason
Finney talked about a pastor is because he
knows that Christians being, you know, remember Jesus
called Christians his sheep?
You know why he called them his sheep?
Because sheep are the dumbest animals in the
animal kingdom.
They are.
There's no animal in the animal, no mammal
that has a lower IQ than a sheep.
He didn't say, these are my dolphins.
You know, behold, wash my chimpanzees.
You know, keep my German shepherds.
He could have said anything that would have
given intelligence to the creature, but he says,
nope, these people are so gullible.
If you tell them they're a plate of
French fries, they'll believe it.
Really, you know, you must eat my flesh
and drink my blood.
Well, Jesus, that's hard.
I can't think of eating your flesh, man.
He tells his disciples, you know, beware of
11 of the Pharisees.
Hey, man, nobody brought any sandwiches, you know.
No, not bread.
Sin, sin, you know.
I mean, he had these people with him
called human beings, just like you and me,
that had thick skulls a mile wide.
Called them his sheep.
That was it.
Pretty good sense of humor, I think.
I go, oh, isn't that cute?
Cheap little woolly bag.
Jesus goes, yeah, and dumb too, you know.
You know, he says, you know, you still
don't understand.
Remember how many times Jesus said that?
You still don't understand?
Do I still have to explain it to
you?
Jesus, what does that parable mean, man?
One plus one equals two.
Parable of the sower.
The sower is me, and the word of
God is the seed, and golly, he can't
understand anything.
I mean, it seems like sometimes he's exasperated,
doesn't it?
Not in the flesh.
Just exasperated.
Just kind of fed up that these people
who he's, remember how many times he says,
I'm going to die, and on the third
day, I'm going to be raised up, right?
Three days, he always said it.
The Son of Man shall be crucified and
raised on the third day.
I think, you know what I think the
saddest day of Jesus' life is?
What?
The resurrection.
What?
Easter?
You know, we all sing, we all sing
how glorious and how wonderful that day is.
That was the saddest day of his life,
because he told them that he's going to
raise on the third day.
He got out of the grave, and no
one was there.
All these thick-skulled people, he told them
three days.
No one was there.
This one woman who was devoted comes out.
She didn't come out to see a risen
Jesus.
She came out to make his grave nice
and smell sweet and, you know, anoint his
body with, you know, she was, she believed
he was dead.
I mean, she gets the credit for, you
know, seeing, she believed it.
Well, you would have too.
Anybody would have believed it when they saw
it.
All the, even Donnie Thomas believed it when
Jesus said, stick it in my side.
What I'm trying to say to you is
this.
A pastor is somebody we expect to be
a Christian.
A real good, look, and he's a pastor.
Look what he's doing.
Hey, God says, he's a Christian, and look
what he's doing.
That's all God says.
I love the thing in, well, you might
not be able to find it, but it
says, you feel that a pastor, a minister
ought to be as devoted to God and
everything else as he is in praying or
preaching.
In this you are right, for he not
only ought to be, but really is, only
is devoted in the pulpit as he is
out of it.
Okay.
You most likely feel that if a minister's
devotion is merely an outward farce that he
preaches, prays, visits, performs all his duties merely
for the purpose of, purpose of supporting his
family or to get honor or attention for
himself, you would say that he was a
wicked man and he would inevitably lose his
soul.
Those were the days.
These were the theological days when people were
wicked men.
They lost their soul.
You know, if you're a wicked man, you
lost your soul.
Today, you can be a wicked man and
go to heaven.
Really?
You get your, you get your, you join
the Jesus club, you get your card in
your wallet, you go to heaven.
Doesn't matter.
God pulls you over for speeding and sending
and you hand your card out.
Hey, you know, I got connections, you know.
If these are your views on the subject,
they are undoubtedly correct.
Here where you have no personal interest, you
form a right judgment and decide correctly concerning
the character and destiny of such a man.
Now remember, nothing short of this standard is
devotion in you.
Do.
Bear it in mind that no particular acts
or zeal or gushings of emotion or resolutions
to change or promises of future obedience constitute
devotion.
For devotion is that state of the will
in which the mind is swallowed up in
God as the object of its supreme affection,
in which we not only live and move
in God, but for God.
In other words, devotion is that state of
the mind in which the attention is diverted
from self and self-seeking and is directed
to God.
The thoughts, purposes, desires, affections, and emotions all
hanging upon and devoted to him.
By the way, you can write on these
papers.
They're yours.
I should have told you that before.
You can make notes on the side or
underline or circle or make crossword puzzles or
whatever you want to.
Okay, let's read that last paragraph again.
Devotion is that state of the will in
which the mind is swallowed up in God
as the object of its supreme affection.
That's beautiful.
In which we not only live and move
in God, but for God.
In other words, devotion is that state of
the mind in which the attention is diverted
from self and self-seeking and is directed
to God.
The thoughts, purposes, desires, affections, and emotions all
hanging upon and devoted to him.
Okay, devotion and nothing short of devotion is
true religion, as Finney would say, is true
Christianity.
Devotion and true religion are identical.
That's quite a statement.
Devotion and being a Christian are identical.
One, it is impossible for us not to
be devoted to the object of our supreme
affection.
Read that sentence and look at it.
It's very important.
It is impossible for us not to be
devoted to the object of our supreme affection.
The word supreme means our highest, the one
we love the most.
If we love God the most, he will
be the reason for which we live.
If an individual loves God supremely, he will
be as conscious that he lives for God
as that he lives at all.
Nothing short of this can be acceptable to
God.
Unless devotion be a habit or a state
of the mind, unless the whole being be
an offering to God, he must have a
rival in our hearts.
This he will not endure and to attempt
to please him by isolated acts of devotion,
when it is not the habit and state
of our minds, is far more abominable than
for a wife to attempt to please her
husband with an occasional smile while she lives
only to please and gain the Look at
this.
To attempt to please him by isolated acts
of devotion is far more abominable than for
a wife to attempt to please her husband
with an occasional smile when she lives only
to please and gain the affections of another
man.
What does that mean?
It's far more abominable.
That means this.
If your devotion to God is not a
habit, it's not a state of mind, it's
not something you live and dwell and have
you move and have your being in, then
to go before God and do your five
chapters or one chapter or twenty minutes or
five minutes of prayer a day is abominable
to him.
Just as much as if you were married
and you knew your wife really loved another
guy or your husband really loved another girl.
Like they said, I'll marry you, but if
Fred ever comes back, I'm splitting, you know,
or something like that.
And she kissed you and she says, dear,
I love you, and she smiled at you
and was nice to you.
You'd hate it.
You'd hate the niceness.
You'd hate the smiles.
You'd hate the kisses.
You'd hate the hugs if you knew her
heart belonged to someone else, wouldn't you?
I mean, it would be sick to you
if you knew that she really in her
heart wanted to be with another person beside
you and that that was her desire and
her motive was to find this guy and
win him.
But yet she did her duty to you
as a wife.
Man, it'd make me want to throw up.
I couldn't sleep.
I'd have a nervous breakdown.
That's the way it is when our hearts
belong to the world or belong to our
family or belong to our husbands or wives
or our children or our finances or our
education or our ministry.
Our hearts belong to something even godly on
the outside, spiritual.
That's the worst kind of sickness.
The Pharisees had that.
And we still do all the deeds that
we think are pleasing God.
And really, we believe in our hearts.
We fooled ourselves.
And now we think we can fool God
with all these religious deeds and acts.
And it's sick to him, according to revelations,
it makes him want to puke.
I wish you were hot or cold, but
since you're merely lukewarm, I'm going to spit
you out of my mouth.
The word in Greek ain't spit.
It isn't spew.
It's vomit.
Look it up.
It's right there in the, if you have
a New American Standard Dictionary, it's on the
side.
It's a little one of those little footnotes.
It says literally, vomit.
That means you make God sick to his
stomach with your religion, with your commitment to
him, because it isn't real.
You're sitting on the fence, if this is
you, if you're trying to please him with
what's called isolated acts of devotion, when it's
not the habit, the state of your mind.
Okay, three, a departure from this state of
devotion is heart apostasy.
The word apostasy means something that has lost
its heat and is now just like, it's
like waxed fruit.
You know how good that waxed fruit can
look when you're fasting, you know, you think
it's going to taste good, you know, but
it, you know, it doesn't, so you don't
desire it.
Whatever a man's outward behavior may be, the
moment he turns aside from sincere devotion to
God, from a supreme consecration of his whole
being to the service of God, he has
in his heart renounced true Christianity.
He is no longer in the service of
God, but is serving the object upon which
his heart is set.
And this is the object of his devotion,
that is, it is his God.
Whatever his heart is set upon becomes his
God.
Four, several mistakes commonly made upon this subject.
One, many imagine that there is a real
difference between devotional and other kinds of duties.
This is really heavy.
If you don't get this, you're going to
miss the whole study.
Many imagine that there is a real difference
between devotional duties and other kinds of duties,
as if a man could be doing his
duty in that which is not devotion to
God.
Duty meaning obligation, like a guy that says,
it's my duty to put bread on the
table.
It's my duty to to support my family,
you know, so I'm going to go do
my devotions and then I'm going to go
out and support my family.
The duties of devotion are generally supposed to
be prayer and reading the scriptures together with
singing and praying in the fellowship of God's
house on the Sabbath.
Oh, God's house on the Sabbath, men imagine
themselves to be devotional while on weekdays, except
for those few acts they call their devotions,
they are serving themselves and are supremely devoted
to their own interests.
Now, all such ideas arise out of a
total absence of true devotion and individuals who
entertain such views do not yet understand what
true Christianity is.
Nothing is duty if it is not performed
for God.
That means nothing.
There's nothing that you have to do if
it isn't performed for God and God doesn't
isn't pleased that you're supporting your family or
paying your debts or or brushing your teeth
if you're not doing it for him.
A man that is truly religious is as
devotional in his daily business as he is
on the Sabbath.
The business of the world is performed by
him with the same spirit and purpose as
he prays, reads his Bible and attends worship
on the Sabbath.
If this is not the case, he has
no true religion.
He has no true religion.
Now, there are some people who really live
for God.
Oh, OK, let's stop there.
I want to say that there's after reading
Finney for a while, I never really saw
this.
I thought that there was a religious part
of my life and a secular part of
my life.
I really did.
I mean, it's a common way to think.
I thought that my prayer life was was
sanctified and my Bible study was before God.
But, you know, my brushing the teeth, going
to the bathroom, eating, you know, I mean,
I knew there was a scripture, whether you
eat or drink to offer the glory of
God, but how to eat a hot dog
for God, you know.
And I knew there were recreational times, play
volleyball or ping pong or God forbid cards.
And can you do that for God?
You know, according according to the Bible, anything
that can be done in a right spirit
is being done for God, for the right
motive, for the right purpose.
And we're going to talk more about those
things in a minute.
But I just want to say it is
idiocy.
And I was an idiot when I thought
that there was my Christian part of my
life and then my business obligations.
If you're a Christian businessman, and boy is
that word misused today.
If you're a Christian businessman and you don't
do your business as you would do it
with Jesus Christ himself.
You know how if you're a businessman, right?
And if Jesus came into the store, you'd
give him the best deal.
In fact, you probably wouldn't even make a
profit, you know.
After a while, you'd have to make a
little one to support your family.
That's God's will for you to support your
family.
But if Jesus came into the store, you
wouldn't sell him the crummy tape machine, you
know.
You wouldn't give him the thing with the
high markups he'd make the biggest profit.
You wouldn't sell him the day old bread
and not say it was day old.
You wouldn't do the little tricks that businessmen
do to make a little bit extra with
him.
And it says that if you don't do
your business as a worship unto the Lord,
you're just a flaming hypocrite.
That's what the Pharisees did.
They prayed.
Oh man, they prayed.
Nobody's prayed as good as them.
Nobody.
They had praying down.
They went to prayer 101 and 102 in
college.
They learned it.
They had giving down, man.
You know, and they'd write their check out,
I'm giving to God, you know, drop it
in the treasury.
They had giving down.
You know, they had prayer down.
They had the scriptures down, man.
They knew it backwards and forwards, just like
the devil.
But they didn't have worship down.
They didn't have devotion down.
They didn't have commitment to God down.
I think it's important that you realize that
Christianity, you know, you've heard this.
I want to be a full-time Christian,
not just a Sunday Christian.
There is no such thing as anything else
but a full-time Christian.
That's like saying I'm going to be a
man on Sunday and then the rest of
the week I'll be a girl.
That's how stupid it is.
It's idiocy.
Two, and this is really an important part
here too.
Now, there are some people who really live
for God and are obviously in a devotional
state of mind who do not seem to
realize that every act devoted to God is
as acceptable to him as prayer or praise.
That means that there aren't first-class acts
to God and second-class acts.
There aren't two-star activities and three-star
activities.
That means that prayer as itself is not
really any more spiritual than taking a bath
or playing volleyball.
Now, that doesn't mean you should quit praying
and play volleyball because the Bible commands us
to make our petitions known before the Lord
and pray without ceasing.
Obedience is one of the most pleasing things
to God, but only for the right motives.
If by necessary responsibilities these people that have
a right state of mind are kept from
spending much time in prayer or going to
a lot of meetings, Satan takes advantage of
their ignorance and brings them into bondage.
He tries to persuade them that they're neglecting
their duties to God by attending to other
things.
Now, you who are devoted to God should
understand that if his providence should confine you
at home to nurse the sick or prevent
you from observing those hours of secret prayer
that you are used to keeping, you are
not to be brought into bondage or condemnation
by this if you are conscious that these
other duties are being done for the Lord.
Whether you eat or drink, therefore, do all
for the glory of God.
All for the glory of God.
Now, you can't be a glutton for the
glory of God, but you can eat or
drink for the glory of God.
There's a right way to do something and
there's a wrong way.
Whether I talk about playing volleyball or playing
ping-pong, you can become in the flesh
and competitive and hate the people who win.
You know, they talk about being a good
sport or a bad sport.
Being a good sport is just loving your
opponent as yourself.
It's scriptural.
You know, doing unto them as you would
wish they'd do unto you, whether they won
or lost.
If they won, you don't want them to
gloat, and if they lose, you don't want
them to pout.
So you don't pout and you don't gloat.
And if the person says, that was my
point and you thought it was your point,
and you talk about it a little bit
and he still is firm, well, give him
your cloak.
Here, have two points.
Turn the other cheek.
You know, the other cheek doesn't mean, all
right, well, you play by yourself.
What I'm saying is there's a Christian way
to do just about everything, because nothing in
itself is good or evil.
The Bible says that.
He says, I'm convinced nothing in itself is
good or evil.
But why you do it?
He says, all things are lawful, but not
all things are profitable.
Now, there are certain things in themselves literally
that are unlawful, like adultery or fornication, but
really adultery or fornication is sex.
Sex is not unlawful with the right person
at the right time.
But with the wrong person at the wrong
time is what makes it unlawful or the
wrong motive, and that's the wrong person at
the wrong time is with the wrong motive.
Did you know that, you know, rape and
incest and homosexual sex and all that other
stuff is the same act done with the
wrong person at the wrong time with the
wrong motive as marital sex, which is godly
and pleasing in his sight.
So, and a knife, you know, you have
a knife.
With the knife, you can cut a bread,
you can prepare a new meal, somebody's all
tied up, you can release them from their
captor, or you can slit somebody's throat.
The knife isn't evil.
The handgun isn't evil.
You know that even the abortion operation isn't
evil.
My wife had a tubal pregnancy, and they
had to go in, and in her case,
it had already passed through when they went
in to take it out.
It had already passed through, she had a
miscarriage.
But they have to remove a woman's tubes.
If her pregnancy attaches to the inside of
the fallopian tube, it can kill her and
the baby can't come to term.
So in that case, abortion is good.
Because it's not evil, because the motive is
to save the life of the mother and
the baby can't be saved in that case.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
That there's no act.
I had to shoot my dog three weeks
ago.
He had cancer.
You know, he was suffering.
And I checked into having him put to
sleep, and two different people told me, two
different people, and we read it somewhere, that
when they put him to sleep, they suffer
for a while.
That it isn't like seconal, they don't just
go to sleep, their heart doesn't stop, but
they're actually, they have pain in that process.
And I knew that a bullet through the
head was not painful for the dog, but
it would be painful for me.
But I wanted to save the dog from
pain, so I borrowed a gun and shot
my dog of 10 years.
It wasn't easy.
It was not murder either, because the motive
was for its benefit.
Do you understand?
The motive made the shooting of a handgun,
which is now illegal in a city in
Illinois, and I'm not for handguns.
I'm just saying that, again, the gun, which
is so used in murder and robbery, wasn't
evil in that case.
The killing of something at that point wasn't
evil in that case.
Do you understand?
So I'm talking again, motive sanctifies or defiles
any action.
Motive sanctifies or defiles any action.
Okay, I killed my dog, but it was
good.
My wife went in to have a pregnancy
removed, and it was good.
Those are evil things in most cases, killing
and abortion.
But the Pharisees prayed and read the scriptures,
and it was evil, because the motive was
wrong.
So good things become evil, and bad things
become good, because you can sanctify or defile
anything by motive.
Does everybody understand that?
Sorry to gross you out with such heavy
illustrations.
Three, others think that devotion can be sincere,
but yet extend only to certain duties.
That is, that a man may pray sincerely
and from right motives, and yet be worldly
in the transaction of business.
Now a little reflection, a little reflection will
convince any honest mind that this is naturally
impossible.
Devotion to God cannot be sincere any further
than it annihilates selfishness.
What a line.
Devotion to God cannot be sincere any further
than it annihilates selfishness.
Devotion and selfishness are eternal opposites.
You can write that on your blackboard.
Four, many mistake the religion of emotion for
that of the religion of the will.
You can see this from their lives.
They weep and appear to melt and break
down.
They promise to change and offer entire consecration
to God, but attempt to do business with
them the very next day, and you will
find them supremely selfish.
They are not devoted to God at all,
but to their own interests.
They are ready to take any advantage, even
of their brethren, to benefit themselves.
How many people here have known somebody, a
Christian like that?
Honest, raise your hand.
How many of you have known a Christian
like that?
Okay, got to go around the block a
couple more times.
Attempt to do business with them the very
next day, and you will find them supremely
selfish.
They are not devoted to God at all,
but to their own interests.
They are ready to take advantage, even of
their brethren, to benefit themselves.
Now, it is obvious in this case that
their melting down and breaking down was merely
a gushing of their emotions and not a
will surrendered and devoted to God.
Some helpful remarks.
One, a spirit of devotion will turn the
most constant cares and the most pressing labors
into the deepest and most constant communion with
God.
That's a beautiful principle.
Spirit of devotion will turn the most constant
cares and the most pressing labors into the
deepest and most constant communion with God.
The more pressing and tedious our duties, if
they are performed for God, the deeper and
more continual our communion with Him.
For whatever is done in a spirit of
devotion is communion with God.
Now, here's something that's going to, this will
fry you.
Two, they are not Christians who do not
hold communion with God in their ordinary employments.
They are not Christians who do not hold
communion with God in their ordinary employments.
If you do not hold conscious communion with
God in your ordinary business, it is because
your business is not performed in a spirit
of devotion.
If not performed in a spirit of devotion,
it is sin.
For whatever is not of faith is sin.
How do you like that for black and
white?
Three, they are certainly not in a sanctified
state who cannot attend to the ordinary and
lawful business of life without being drawn away
from God.
How many people have fought this way that,
all right, I've said my prayers and I've
read my Bible and now I got to
go to work, and now I got to
go to school, now I got to go
take care of grandma or whatever, now I
got to go vacuum the room.
If only I could pray more, I wouldn't
be drawn away from God by going to
work.
If only I could serve the Lord full
time instead of work at this stupid bank,
you know, then I could really love God.
Oh, what hogwash.
If God has brought you, even if he
hasn't brought you, if you've brought you into
a job and God isn't against you in
that job, he hasn't said you're not supposed
to be in this job, you're supposed to
be on the mission field.
You're supposed to be a four-star Christian,
not a three-star Christian.
And you think, boy, you know, I really
aren't close to God in this job.
I wish I could pray more.
Then your prayers are hypocritical.
They're stupid.
They don't mean a hill of beans unless
you can take God with you to work.
Does God go with you to work?
Does he go with you to school?
Does he go with you when you go
home to visit your nagging mother?
I got a nagging mother.
He goes with me when I go to
visit my nagging mother and she doesn't nag
me as much anymore.
It's really neat.
The Spirit of God comes with me and
kind of protects me, a little force field
around me, you know.
They're certainly not in a sanctified state who
cannot attend to the ordinary and lawful business
of life without being drawn away from God.
Four, whatever cannot be done in a spirit
of devotion is unlawful.
If you feel the inconsistency of performing it
as an act of devotion to God, it
is unlawful, you yourself being the judge.
Okay, now we get back to volleyball and
cards and so on.
Can you play volleyball in a spirit of
devotion to God?
Can you go bowling?
Can you play pinball?
Can you read the funnies on Sunday?
Can you jog?
Now, if you can't, it says whatever cannot
be done in a spirit of devotion for
you is unlawful.
You shouldn't do it.
You yourself being the judge.
If you go, oh man, this card game
draws me from God.
If it does, quit playing it, you know.
Eating hot fudge sundaes takes me from God.
Don't eat them.
Going over 55 takes me away from God.
Don't do it.
What you can't do in devotion, if you
go, okay, I want to offer this volleyball
game up to God and your conscience says
you can't, you're supposed to be over here,
better stop.
You yourself being the judge that this can't
be at this time in your life or
this time of the day or this time
of the week or this time in your
responsibilities cannot be offered to God because your
conscience is bothering you because you're supposed to
be doing something else, quit it immediately.
But if you're in prayer, I've got to
get my hour in today.
I promise God an hour.
By the way, don't ever do that.
It's a big mistake.
Don't ever promise God the clock, ever.
It's a big mistake.
Don't ever promise God an amount of chapters
or an amount of minutes.
Now somebody else might have told you something
different.
It's a big mistake.
It will heap condemnation upon your soul until
you fall on your face.
Offer your whole life to God.
Offer every second to God.
Offer every word you read, whether it be
in the Bible or in Tom Sawyer to
God or you will be crushed.
You will be condemned by your own conscience
and by the devil.
So anyway, you're going along and you've got
to get your hour in and your friend
calls, your unsaved friend, and says, hey, you
want to go play racquetball?
I'm serving God, brother.
I can't play right now.
God might say, shut your trap and go
play racquetball, man, and show this person that
you've got flesh and blood and a heart
and a mind and a body and a
soul and a Jesus and that you like
to have fun because people like to have
fun and God made them that way.
Not to have too much fun, not to
have more fun than they work and pray
and serve God in the other thing, but
God made us as little lambs.
He made us that way.
He calls us his sheep.
You ever seen a little lamb kicking around
in the field?
You ever seen a calf running around?
We're all children at heart.
When the children were playing around Jesus, do
you think he didn't enjoy it when they
were laughing and giggling and pulling at his
robe and saying, hey, Jesus, can I come
up here, you know?
Don't you think he played with them?
Oh, my children.
They think of him as Vincent Price sometimes,
you know?
Don't you think that God enjoys it when
his children enjoy the life that he gave
them?
Not in excess.
No, no, no.
You should work more than you play.
Of course you should.
There's only so many hours in a week,
but God would like you.
He doesn't mind you taking some of that
for recreation because he put that in our
hearts.
It's not the devil.
John Wesley was somebody who was seeking after
God.
He was trying to find out what was
pleasing to God, and he thought, well, he
saw all these kids playing in the street
and beating up on each other and being
competitive and being vicious toward each other and
calling each other names and hurting each other
and causing pain and sorrow.
You know how kids are in junior high,
right?
You know, hey, Schmitty, you know, you're a
crummy kickball player, whatever, you know.
They hurt each other.
They call each other names, you know.
You know, there's a guy that's always striking
out.
They call him Strikeout, you know, because he's
always striking out.
He's walking around with a name all over
his face.
Strikeout.
He can't stand it.
Wherever he goes, he's Strikeout.
So John Wesley had an idea.
Well, since all this play is causing them
so much pain, what we should do is
start a school and forbid children to play.
So they can't play anymore.
And he did it.
He started a school and the children couldn't
play.
And it was, of course, a miserable failure.
The children were so depressed and so pent
up, they couldn't think.
And he realized it wasn't playing that was
wrong, but the motives.
They needed to be taught sportsmanship.
They needed to be taught sharing.
They needed to be taught goodness towards each
other and preferring the other person.
That wasn't the deed that was wrong again.
Right?
You understand?
So you're praying and you're doing your thing
and the guy says, can you play racquetball
with me?
And you know this guy is somebody that
God wants to lead to the Lord.
You better go play racquetball with him.
Put your prayer books down, put your Bible
down and go play racquetball.
And don't go to play racquetball.
Go to serve God.
Go to be, this is a misused word,
a witness.
You know, that doesn't mean when you win,
you go, hallelujah, praise God, you know, or,
you know, or you lose while hallelujah anyway,
you know, I mean, that's, that's, that's not
real.
I mean, it can be that if it's
really the true gushing forth of your heart,
that's okay, but that's not witnessing.
It doesn't say any place in the Bible
that you should go out and witness.
It says you should be a witness.
It doesn't say any place in the Bible
you should go witnessing.
It says you should go into all nations
making disciples of men.
We've got this whole perverted Christianity today that
tries to make everything into a deed, a
little package thing where we have, you know,
we have instant Quaker Oats and instant tea
and now we've got instant Christian.
Just add prayer and stir, you know.
All you've got, everything's instant.
We've got instant witnessing, you know, instant witnessing.
You wear your Jesus shirt, you wear your
Jesus bumper stick, you wear your Jesus belt,
you wear your Jesus underwear and you use
your Jesus toothpaste, you know.
It's crazy.
A truly devoted person doesn't need paraphernalia to
be a witness.
He's got the Holy Spirit.
And if he doesn't have the Holy Spirit,
then he's got to go down to the
local bookstore and buy all this stuff to
show he's a Christian.
I'm not saying that those that have those
things don't have the Holy Spirit.
I'm saying they don't really need them.
In fact, some of them are distracting and
bring a bad light to the gospel.
Devotion means at any time you're ready, willing
and able to do anything for God, even
if it doesn't look spiritual to the world.
Okay?
So again, for whatever cannot be done in
the spirit of devotion is unlawful.
If you feel the inconsistency of performing it
as an act of devotion to God, it
is unlawful.
You yourself being the judge.
Anything not right or wrong in itself may
be either right or wrong according to whether
or not it is done in the spirit
of devotion.
Therefore, say these are too heavy.
This is these two paragraphs, really heavy principles.
A selfish mind may condemn a godly man
for doing something that would be sinful if
he himself did it because the motives of
his heart are all wrong.
The selfish man assumes that the other person's
behavior is also wrongly motivated.
You ever thought of that?
Have you ever knew that it was wrong
for you to eat hot?
You're on a diet, right?
You shouldn't be eating hot fudge sundaes.
You go out with this guy.
Don't you hate these people?
You know, they can eat anything and they
stay skinny, right?
Can't stand them.
I've been struggling with my weight since I'm
16 years old.
You know, people like Annie Herring, you know,
Annie Herring can eat a football field and
look the same the next day.