Now, there are many who cannot understand the
concept of revival because they don't know God.
Everywhere I go, I'm contradicted by someone who
says, Why, Mr. Roberts, you just don't understand.
My Bible says, Lo, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world.
And you go around telling people that God
withdraws his manifest presence when he's displeased with
his people.
My God would never do that.
Well, it's possible that your God wouldn't.
But somebody has to have the courage to
remind you that your God is not the
God of this book.
Because the God of the Bible does just
what he pleases.
When he's pleased with his people, he draws
near to them.
And when he's displeased, he draws away from
them.
You have only to know the Psalms to
know the validity of what I've just said.
Why do you suppose there's
a gross misunderstanding of the nature of God?
As if God were at our beck and
call, as if God were a puppet whose
strings we pull.
But the plain truth is, God is holy.
And he hates all unholiness.
And he has nothing to do with that
which is unholy.
He never remains near anyone who practices unholiness.
He is never in any church.
When our lives are in conformity to his
will and purpose, he has the right to
withdraw.
It really needs to be spelled out for
us in language that we can relate to.
When we speak of God's presence, we need
to understand the three dimensions of his presence.
That which I have already referred to as
his manifest presence.
That which must be referred to as his
essential presence.
And that which we need to understand as
his cultivated presence.
Those matters to you.
The psalmist wrote as follows.
If I ascend to the highest mountain, if
I descend into the depths of the deepest
sea, lo, thou art there, whither shall I
flee?
And the young people will relate to what
I'm about to say, if it was possible
for us to put it.
And shoot you out into space.
If you traveled outward for 10,000 miles,
you would never pass.
That is God's essential presence.
But it would be a tragedy to compare
it with his manifest presence.
Most of you have read when he encountered
the burning.
Some of you are familiar with the experience
of the prophet Isaiah.
When his lips and his tongue were touched
with coals of fire.
Many have read the experience of John the
apostle on the isle of Patmos.
When he was in the spirit on the
Lord's day.
No one who understands their Bible would confuse
with God's manifest presence.
For when God manifests his presence, there is
always one unmistakable aspect of that presence.
And that is holiness.
That is why Moses cried out as he
cried out.
Why Isaiah spoke the words that he spoke.
Why John the apostle recorded what he recorded
in connection with the experience of the manifest
presence of God.
Now, I'm going to be very gentle, and
yet very pointed in what I say next.
For years, Pentecostal and charismatic people have sought
to embarrass the rest of the church.
And to cause the rest of the church
to believe that you have something they don't.
The Holy Spirit, in a power that they
don't have.
But many of you have not been wise
enough to know that you have lied about
this.
There is one unmistakable way to discern when
the Spirit of God is present in power.
And that is by this unmistakable mark of
holiness.
Surely you are wise enough to know that
the devil can duplicate virtually anything in the
realm of religion.
Can we discern that God is present because
there is enthusiasm?
Can we discern that God is present because
there are prophetic messages?
Can we discern God's presence by the use
of tongues?
Do we know God is with us in
power because physical phenomena?
No, dear friends.
Satan can and does duplicate all of those.
But there is one mark of God's presence.
And would not, if he could, duplicate.
And that's holiness.
Because he despises holiness.
And he is so far from holiness, there
is no way he could even begin to
imitate it.
But when a congregation is made utterly quiet
before God, and there is an awesome sense
of the Holy Spirit, and people begin to
fall on their faces, and
an impure heart draws
nearer.
That he has man, draws
nearer.
If you've ever studied the history, that in
every revival that has ever occurred, there is
a level of repentance that takes place in
the lives of believers that goes deeper than
anything they ever knew.
The reason why there are so many multitudes
of people converted, which has been driven to
new levels of holiness, begins to look and
act like that.
Now we need revival.
But we don't need special meetings.
And we don't need seasons of shouting and
excitement, or rolling in the aisles, or laughing
like hyenas.
We don't need to have...
We need to have our dirty hearts made
pure.
We need to be changed from self-centeredness
to Christ-centeredness.
Revival is the desperate need of the hour.
Now I want to add this very consequential...
If I were to put this question to
you, when you think about heaven, what is
the most...
How would you respond?
Would you say to me, Why, I can
hardly wait to get heaven.
I would look at you kind of strange
and say, You want to walk on streets
of gold?
Why, I can slip and fall on concrete.
Gold, anything, doesn't appeal to me.
Why, you say the foundations of heaven are
of precious stones.
Well, granted, the Bible indicates that.
But I can go by a jewelry store
twelve times a day and never be tempted
to even look in the window, let alone
enter.
I don't find any appeal there.
Well, you say in the midst of heaven
is the tree of life.
Well, that's interesting.
But I've got a lot of life in
me.
What do you find the most alluring aspect
of heaven to be?
Oh, well, you say let's talk about personality.
Now my dear mother is there, and I
long to see her again.
Well, I can relate to that.
There's some beloved friend from the past who's
gone on to glory.
Yes, that warms me up also.
But is that the best thing that I
can say about heaven?
That some loved one from the past is
there?
No, let me tell you what appears to
me to be the great allure of heaven.
In heaven, we will know the unbroken presence
of God.
Now, I have been a Christian by God's
grace for a long time.
But in all these years, I've never known
the unbroken presence of God.
Oh, I've known days that were like glory
on earth, even occasionally weeks when the presence
of God was perfectly marvelous.
But I've never known the unbroken presence of
God, because it seems before too many weeks
pass, I sin again.
And that sin rises as a barrier between
God and myself until that sin is brought
under the blood of Christ.
I have known many an interruption in my
walk with God.
Maybe some of you honest folks here would
admit to the same thing.
But to be where God is and where
his presence is, that strikes me as
the reason I am so fond of the
subject of revival, and why I'm glad to
go anywhere at any time I can to
speak of it, is because revival, and
right now, it appears to me that our
dear nation needs God to draw near.
But just as I have pointed out the
unbroken presence of God as the greatest mark
of heaven, so I need to warn you
that hell has a mark as well.
If I put the question this way, what
is the most awful thing about hell?
Would you say to me, well, the thing
I dread about hell is that hell is
a place where the worms, they just make
me feel corrupt.
But I don't believe it's the worst aspect.
Somebody else says, well, no doubt the worst
feature of hell is it's a place where
the fire is never extinguished.
It burns, and it burns, and it burns,
and it burns.
Nonsense.
Get out an old National Geographic magazine and
study the pictures of...
But is that the worst aspect of hell?
Or someone else says to Mr. Roberts, I'm
sure that the worst aspect of hell is
that hell is a place where sin reigns
unchallenged, unchecked.
It is simply unleashed.
Day and night, evil prevails on every...
But is that the most awful aspect?
No.
No, I'll tell you what the most awful
aspect of hell is.
Hell is a place where a person can
be a thousand years, or a hundred thousand
years, or a hundred million years, and not
once.
In all that time, can they entertain the
thought, sooner or later, God...
Because just as heaven is marked by the
unbroken presence of God, hell is marked by
the unbroken absence...
But I remind you of what I've said
already.
Revival is a time in the history of
men and women like us, when heaven draws
closer to earth than any other time, and
we experience the presence of God.
If that doesn't excite you, if that doesn't
stir your heart to longing for revival, then
I'll tell you the reason you remain unexcited.
You have an unregenerate heart.
Oh, you may have religious experience, and you
may be able to testify in your own
way, but the regenerate heart craves the presence
of God.
But now some who believe in revival, and
believe in the kind of revival I'm describing,
are unwise enough to believe that revival is
something that we can make happen.
For a long time in this nation, it
was understood by our spiritual leaders that revival
was an act of the sovereign God.
It happened when he determined it should happen.
And then, along about 1820, 1830, a whole
new viewpoint was launched.
And that could be represented by these words.
The revival is nothing other than the right
use of the right means.
If you want a revival, you can have
a revival any time you choose to have
it.
And that is the prevailing view among professed
Christians today.
If we wanted revival bad enough, we'd have
it.
But in all the years that that viewpoint
has been gaining ascendancy, revivals have been non
-existent in this nation.
And they will remain non-existent until that
time when the Church comes back to an
agreement So I'm not here tonight or tomorrow
to tell you the six things you need
to do to force the hand of God
in revival.
There are no six things that will force
God to do anything.
God is the only being in all the
universe who does exactly what he pleases.
Now, many a young person thinks they're going
to do just what they please, but they
never succeed.
When I met and married my one and
only wife, she made it clear to me
early on that she thought it would be
lovely to fly.
Now, she never meant that she wanted to
get on an airplane.
What she meant was she wanted to be
able to flap her arms and just take
off.
Many a time she said to me, can't
you think how lovely it would be just
to be gliding?
I wonder if you're able to notice how
worried I am tonight.
Worried, you see, that my wife may be
flying somewhere.
No, friends, there are many things we will
to do and cannot.
But God has never willed anything but what
it's immediately accomplished, for God has only to
will a thing and it happens.
So don't misunderstand, I am not here to
tell you how to force the hand of
God.
But I have no hesitancy about encouraging you
to long for the finest, the best, the
grandest, the greatest of blessing ever known to
man on earth, the manifest presence of God
in revival.
But now, my theme tonight is different from
that.
I haven't started to preach yet, so if
you're one of those...
But just before I do, I want to
put a very important question to you in
that we cannot cause revival, or in any
way, as I've said, force the hand of
God in this matter.
The question is, what ought we to do
while we're waiting on God to send revival?
Ought we to continue to backslide?
Ought the Church to grow weaker and weaker?
Surely you know that in the last 20
years, the Church has gone from...
There was a time when the Church...
And would be heard...
The world regards the Church as...
And we live at a time when a
very high percent...
...believe that they are...
For instance, the Southern Baptist denomination, which says
they are the largest...
Though every one of those 16 million can
tell you the day and the hour they
accepted Christ.
But there was a time when...
In the morning.
Is that true here now, Pastor?
No.
Where in America would you find a Church
that had as many people in the evening
service as in the morning service?
And have no spiritual interest.
They never read their Bibles.
They have no family altar.
So the question that I put to you
is, in that we cannot force the hand
of God in revival, what ought we to
do during this period when we are calling
upon Him in prayer and pleading with Him
to revive us again?
Well, you brought your Bible, and up until
now you've been wondering whether I was going
to get...
But as I told you, I hadn't...
I don't know whether you're familiar with this
wonderful passage or not, but by God's grace
you will be by the time we leave
here this evening.
2 Peter, at chapter 2.
Let me read to you from this blessed
book of God.
Simon Peter, a bondservant and an apostle of
Jesus Christ.
To those who have received a faith of
the same kind as ours by the righteousness
of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in
the knowledge of God and of Jesus our
Lord.
Seeing that His divine power has granted to
us everything pertaining to life and godliness through
the true knowledge of Him who called us
by His own glory and excellence.
For by these He has granted to us
by His precious and magnificent promises in order
that by them you might become partakers that
is in the world by lust.
Now, for this very reason also applying all
diligence in your faith supply moral excellence and
in your moral excellence, knowledge and in your
knowledge, self-control and in your self-control,
perseverance and in your perseverance, godliness and in
your godliness, brotherly kindness and in your brotherly
kindness, Christian love.
For, now catch these words.
For if these qualities are yours and are
increasing they render you neither useless nor
unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
For he who lacks these qualities is blind
or short-sighted having forgotten His purification from
His former sins.
Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to
make certain about His calling and choosing you.
For as long as you practice these things
you will never stumble.
For in this way the entrance into the
eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.
Now let's carefully work our way through these
words.
I am talking, I repeat, about what to
do until the Lord manifests His presence in
great revival power.
This passage teaches us three tremendously consequent things.
First, it speaks of the source of saving
faith.
Secondly, it describes the appearance of saving faith.
And thirdly, it tells us how to conduct
ourselves in saving faith.
Let me repeat those.
First, the source of saving faith.
Second, the appearance of saving faith.
And third, the conduct of saving faith.
Now, let me tie it in with what
I've said already this evening.
We are living at a time when literally
millions of people who call themselves Christians are
as unsaved as Satan.
They never understood the source of saving faith.
You study their lives and you say to
yourself, they don't look like a Christian, they
don't act like a Christian, and in many
cases you can even say they don't even
smell like a Christian.
But they say they're a Christian.
If you don't understand the source of saving
faith, you'll be confused about the appearance of
saving faith.
And you surely won't know how to conduct
yourself in saving faith.
So let's be certain we understand the source
of saving faith.
Now, saving faith, the faith that saves, is
not something that dwells within me, naturally.
One does not search around in the bottom
of their discover faith and then exercise it,
because saving faith does not belong to us.
We are not its source.
It is not something innate within every person.
This passage makes it crystal clear what the
source of saving faith is.
Let me read it to you again.
Verse 1, A bond-servant and apostle of
Jesus Christ to those who have received a
faith.
Saving faith is always received.
Now there are millions who have never received
the gift of faith, who have gone forward
in a meeting, signed a decision.
You don't have to have saving faith to
walk an aisle, to sign a decision card,
or to pray a prayer.
But you have to have saving faith to
be saved.
And the only source of saving faith is
God.
Saving faith is a gift.
We are in the remarkable difficulties we are
in as a nation because we have lost
sight of the gift of faith.
And we have urged people to believe, and
they have sought to do so when they
had no capacity in and of themselves.
If you believe that the single source is
as it's gifted by to increase the faith,
well now our Bibles are pretty plain.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God.
Much of what is preached in the pulpits
of America today is nonsense, utter foolishness.
Very little real Bible preaching occurs.
You cannot preach like this without making at
least some people roaring mad.
And the average pastor won't run that risk
of offending anybody.
So he can't possibly preach in such a
way that God can quicken the word and
bring to the people that say it.
Now I want to ask you a question
personally.
I wished I could come to you.
Have you received saving faith?
It's important that we recognize that not only
is saving faith a gift of God, but
true repentance is a gift from God.
Now one can go through what appears to
be a repenting experience and yet not be
repentant.
The only truly repentant people are the people
who have received these two blessed gifts of
faith and repentance.
Now I am seeking to say to you
tonight that we desperately need revival because for
decades now we have been saving people.
Now in the Bible, regeneration is that quickening
of the Holy Spirit, but in decisional regeneration
it doesn't require the Holy Spirit.
And if you analyze what's happening in most
of our evangelistic endeavors, now
I'm asking you, do you have faith which
came to you as a gift?
And can you say, by the grace of
God, I am in possession of the gift
of faith.
Well now if one is a little uncertain
about that, and yet honestly grappling with the
matter and desiring to know for sure, then
the second point, let me read again from
verse one, Simon Peter, a bond servant and
apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have
received a faith of the same kind as
ours.
Now what is the appearance of saving faith?
Why it looks just like the faith that
the apostle Peter received after the resurrection.
It looks just like the faith that the
apostle Paul received.
It looks like the faith of Timothy.
It looks like the faith of all New
Testament believers.
You look at a New Testament believer who
has received faith, and is
your faith the same faith that Peter had,
that Paul had?
Or do you have some cheap, some shoddy
imitation, some attempt to believe?
Now if you analyze the faith of those
persons in the New Testament that I've named,
or dozens or even hundreds of others like
them, there are certain things that naturally appear
in connection with their faith.
Their faith, it was active.
In the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke in
particular, when a person is described as having
faith, they were ordered to do so.
Or in the book of Hebrews, in that
classic passage in Hebrews 11, that great array,
that cloud of witnesses, Noah
was told to build an ark.
He didn't argue with God.
He didn't say, why, there's not enough water
on the ground to float the canoe, let
alone a huge ark.
If you send...
No, no, he was told to build an
ark, and he got busy building it, even
though there was no physical evidence that an
ark could possibly be useful.
He had faith.
Or take the case of Abraham, described beautifully
in Hebrews 11, or even Rahab, the harlot.
Every person mentioned in Hebrews 11 had an
active faith.
Not a pacifist, everywhere I go, I'm meeting
people who know nothing about...
The faith of the New Testament Christians was
a life-transforming...
You study their life direction,
and he received the gift of faith.
He became a pillar, a giant, a steadfast,
reliable man, by the Lord Jesus Christ.
All of
you have that.
Now, true faith also involves doctrine.
And the preachers tell me today, you can't
preach doctrine.
Doctrine is divisive.
Well, of course it's divisive.
It was intended to be divisive.
It was intended to separate...
Why are there...
Because there's so little doctrine preached.
But true faith embraces the great doctrines.
Take the objectionable doctrine.
Many men don't want to believe in a
God like that.
They want to think of themselves as sovereign.
...saves those he pleases to save, and allows
to slip into a Christless eternity.
Those...
But the apostles say that enabled them to
embrace the doctrines of Scripture.
Well, I needn't explore...
And does the gift of...
But if you're faithful, then you won't have
any problem hearing the end of this matter.
Let's drop...
These qualities...
And are increasing...
Now you say, what qualities?
Well, the seven qualities that are going to
constitute the third point.
Look at these qualities, just so you're sure
that I'm talking biblically.
In verse 5, the first quality is adding
diligence to your faith.
The second quality is adding moral excellence to
your faith.
The third quality is adding knowledge to your
faith.
The fourth quality is adding self...
The sixth quality is adding godliness.
Then we have brotherly kindness and Christian love.
We'll come back to those seven qualities.
But now, let me read again verse 8.
If these qualities are...
And are increasing...
Now let's get this straight.
There are seven qualities that mark all those
persons who have received saving faith.
They are the qualities that identify us with
others who have received saving faith.
But it is possible to have these seven
qualities but not have them increasing.
Now that's mighty sad, but that's a fact.
These qualities can be yours by right of
sonship, by right of being a joint heir
with Jesus Christ.
But you may be lazy.
You may be careless.
You may have allowed something in your life
to rob you of growth and development.
You might...
Oh, but they rally in their love and
they gather round that child and they pour
their heart...
He's always retarded.
And there are people in the church like
that.
Retarded.
They've never grown past the infancy stage spiritually.
They may have been professing Christians 30 years,
but the qualities that are there as a
result of receiving saving faith are not increasing.
I want to ask you, are these seven
qualities present and increasing in your life?
Now notice what is said in connection with
this.
If these qualities are yours, verse 8 again,
and increasing, then they render you neither useless
nor unfruitful.
Now my observation is that a high percentage
of the members of the average church are
useless and unfruitful.
I've never been here before.
I've never met your pastor until tonight.
But I dare to assume that a high
percentage of the members of this church are
useless and fruitless.
If that's not true, this is an extraordinary
church.
But I don't see anything here tonight that
makes me think it's extraordinary.
Looks quite ordinary to me.
Hopefully I'm wrong, but I doubt seriously that
I am.
I have to ask you, have you been
rendered useful and fruitful?
Or are you in this great number who
are basically useless and fruitless?
Now, read on with me and notice what
is added here.
For he who lacks these qualities is, now
two options are presented.
He who lacks these qualities is blind, that's
the first option, blind.
Or the second option is short-sighted, having
forgotten his purification from his former sins.
If these qualities are not in you and
are not increasing and therefore rendering you neither
useless nor unfruitful, there is one of two
reasons.
Now those of you who love your Bibles
know that in Scripture blindness and lostness go
together.
You may think of yourself as a Christian,
but if you're blind, you're not a Christian
at all.
Christians are those who have received light and
life.
They're not blind people.
So if the qualities are lacking, if the
fruitlessness is present, if the uselessness, the
other option, you're short-sighted.
And notice how this is worded.
Having forgotten his purification from his former sins.
Now what is said here is very powerful.
If you're lacking usefulness or else
short-sighted, somehow you got the silly notion
that God just wanted to save you from
hell and take you to heaven.
And you've lived in a short-sighted fashion.
You've forgotten your former purification from sins.
You've forgotten why he purifies us
to move us onward, to equip us, to
make us beautiful.
But notice now what is added in addition.
Therefore, brethren, verse 10, be all the more
diligent to make certain about his calling and
choosing you.
For as long as you practice these things,
that is, these seven qualities, as long as
you practice these things, you will never stumble.
Now it's very sad for me to say
this, because everywhere I go, I seem to
meet people who have stumbled.
They can tell me about former days that
were happy and useful days.
But they admit, I'm useless now, I'm fruitless
now.
If you abandon these qualities, if they're not
increasing in you, you're going to be a
stumbler.
And I want to tell you ever so
plainly that America is cursed by a stumbling
church.
The big thing wrong with America is not
rotten politicians, though we certainly have plenty of
them.
It's not a rotten judicial system, though our
judicial system is a farce.
It's not even a lousy educational system.
The big problem in America is a stumbling
church.
The vast majority of people in the world
cannot believe in Christ, because they cannot believe
in the people who...
If these qualities are in you, you will
not be stumbling.
But look at these words in verse 11.
For in this way, the entrance into the
eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, will be abundantly supplied to you.
Now look, if you have received saving faith,
and you can prove that it's saving faith
because it has the same appearance as that
of the apostles and the first century believers,
and you know that these qualities are in
you, and that these qualities are increasing, you
are guaranteed an abundant entrance into the kingdom
of heaven.
But I want to ask you to think
for a moment about how sad it is
that some people who sincerely believe they are
going to heaven are sure their entrance is
not going to be abundant.
I've had people say to me, well, all
I care is that I just squeak in.
As long as I make it, that's all
that matters.
And if you have that kind of a
feeling, I want to rebuke you in the
name of what is righteous and holy.
If I was saving myself and I was
just barely saved, well, that'd be all right.
But I'm not my Savior, and you're not
your Savior.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the one and
only Savior.
And do I want to blackmark against him,
do I want his reputation to be that
of one who barely saved?
No, the grace of Christ is abundant grace.
Well, you say, what do you think is
meant, Mr. Roberts, when it talks about an
abundant entrance being supplied?
Well, let me put it this way.
There might very well be some here tonight
who have received saving faith, and there was
a time when there were evidences of this
by the similarity between their faith and Paul's
faith.
And they did have something of these seven
qualities, but they haven't been exercising them for
a long time.
And so now basically they're neither fruitful or
useful.
But still, by the grace of God, they're
going to enter heaven.
But they're just going to slip in.
But on the other hand, there are some
who are going to have an abundant entrance.
Let me picture it this way.
Word begins to spread among the lengths of
heaven.
He's coming.
He's coming soon.
And so the question is, who?
And your name is the name that's given.
You don't mean to say that he's coming
soon.
Yes?
Yes.
Well, let's get the banners up!
And if you have a choice between barely
slipping in and an abundant entrance, which would
you choose?
Well, now it depends on whose glory you're
focused on.
If you've caught something of the glory of
Jesus Christ, and you long that he might
be honored, why, an abundant entrance into the
kingdom will assure his honor in your connection.
Which kind of an entrance do you expect?
An abundant entrance, or merely slipping in unnoticed?
But come along now to the third point.
I said there were three.
The source of saving faith, the appearance of
saving faith, and the conduct of saving faith.
All those, as I've said, who have received
saving faith have received these seven qualities.
But these qualities are to be increased, they're
to be utilized, they're to be exercised.
Let's take a few moments to look at
these seven qualities.
Diligence.
But it's not a separate quality.
It's the quality that is to mark all
seven.
Notice the wording now.
Now for this very reason also.
Applying all diligence in your faith supply excellence.
Do you know what moral excellence is?
A number of years ago, at a time
in fact when my daughter seemed to be
bewildered about spiritual things and didn't really seem
to have taken a direction that was Christ
-honoring, her mother and I were constantly praying
and hoping that her life would begin to
conform to Christ, but we weren't at all
sure at this juncture.
But one day, and
he was quite eloquent, but when we left,
my daughter turned to me and she said,
Dad, I have often heard you use the
expression moral earnestness.
Yes, I said, that is one of my
favorite expressions.
She said, in my opinion, that's what this
preacher is lacking, moral earnestness.
Well, I could scarcely believe what she was
saying.
That was exactly what I had said.
And he does a great job, but he
might also enjoy hunting.
He doesn't put any...
Now I know that was pretty critical and
I hope I'm wrong, but all of us
who have received the gift of saving faith
are to add to that saving faith this
gift of moral earnestness.
When people study your life, what is their
conclusion?
Do they go away saying, I tell you,
if there's ever a genuine Christian on earth,
there she is, I've just been talking to
her?
Or do they go away shaking their head
and saying, I don't know about her.
She seems to speak out of both sides
of her mouth.
I can't tell whether she's serious or not.
Have you been adding that quality to your
life?
Do you find that with each passing month
there is a deeper level of earnestness about
your walk with Christ?
Or have you stagnated?
Have you just gone up so high and
then leveled there and never gone above it?
Look at the second quality that the Apostle
mentions.
Having added this moral excellency, now go beyond
that and add knowledge of faith.
Now not the knowledge concerning Christ and his
saving grace and the power of his blood.
Those are essential elements to saving faith.
But knowledge in becoming discerning, in studying the
scriptures, in understanding the will and the purpose
of God and living to the glory of
God.
You see, there's many a Christian who has
never yet used their Bible rightly.
I am regularly meeting people who act as
if the Bible, they're so south-centered
that they think but those who are adding
knowledge to their saving faith are people who've
gotten serious about discovering, who reveals themselves in
Holy Scripture and arranging their lives so that
they are in control.
There's much I might say about each of
these seven qualities.
Oh, how tragically missing this is from most
professed Christians.
Most people seem to be governed by their
passions, by their emotions.
Few seem to exercise self-control.
We rise to great peaks and we sink
to deep valleys because all the circumstances of
our lives keep churning us up and churning
us over.
But people who have added self-control have
learned to walk stably with their God, uniformly,
and they're not disrupted by the experiences of
life.
How about you?
Have you added self-control?
Is there any habit in your life over
which you do not have control?
Any pattern of thought that keeps leading you
astray and you can't control it?
Any response to what other people say or
do that repeatedly results in an uproar?
I am thinking of a person that I've
known for a long time who, no matter
what is said, somehow always seems to interpret
what is said as being a slap.
She doesn't have self-control.
She's never learned to act reasonably and justly.
Christ didn't just come to save us from
hell.
He came to save us from our sins.
And if you're still under the government and
control of sin, what grounds do you have
to describe yourself as a Christian and what
hope do you have of an abundant entrance
into the kingdom?
But take the next word that the apostle
utilizes here.
First, moral excellence.
Then, knowledge.
Then, self-control.
Persevere.
I've known many people who seem to come
to saving faith, who seem to have experience
to change life.
But a few years later you meet them
again and they're nowhere in the kingdom.
They're lacking perseverance.
How about you?
I wonder how many here tonight have added
to their faith perseverance.
And no matter what happens, you are going
to march straight forward with Christ.
You're not experiencing hot and cold.
You're not up and down.
You are a persevering person.
You've added this spirit of perseverance to your
faith.
And look at the next word that the
apostle uses.
Add to perseverance godliness.
Godliness.
There was a time when godliness was a
much-used term in our churches, when holiness
was expected of all professing Christians.
But somehow we've lost sight of this quality.
Have you been adding holiness to your life?
Can you honestly say before God, year
after year others see the change in me
as I grow in Christ-likeness?
And look at the next term that he
uses.
He speaks in the sixth place about adding
brotherly kindness.
Now, in the church we talk a lot
about Christian fellowship.
But we don't even like one another often.
I've been in many a church where there
has been conflict and tension and war going
on.
Many a great church has been dragged down
to the bottom by a lack of brotherly
kindness.
Brotherly kindness is to be increasing among us.
And his last word, Christian love.
Brotherly kindness is what we exercise, believer to
believer.
And Christian love is what we exercise, believer
to unbeliever.
The love of Jesus Christ.
Well, dear friends, I put in front of
you this truth.
Revival happens when God determines to send it.
And what ought we to be doing in
the meantime?
Well, we ought to be adding these qualities.
And if we're doing so, this church, your
church, will never be useless and never be
fruitless.
But if you have been failing to add
these qualities urgently, systematically, regularly, then you're part
of the problem and not part of the
solution.
And I want to plead with you tonight
to think in terms of an abundant entrance
into the kingdom of heaven.
If you're going, why not go with flying
colors?
Why not be received by a glorious reception
committee?
Why not have others in heaven anxious for
your arrival?
And why not be determined while on this
earth to never know a day when you
are not useful and not fruitful?
And if you long to be useful and
fruitful and to look forward to an abundant
entrance, then get busy adding these qualities to
your faith.
Revival might come this week.
It might not come for another ten years.
And are you willing to be near useless
and unfruitful until revival comes?
I'm not.
By God's grace, I've said it in my
heart to follow this passage.
If these qualities are yours and increasing, they
render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the
true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, for
he who lacks these qualities is blind or
short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his
former sins.
Therefore, be prepared to make certain about his
calling and choosing you for as long as
you practice.
For in this way, the entrance into the
eternal kingdom Some
of us have been mighty careless about these.
Some of us have foolishly supposed that we
had a lot more.