In this sermon, the speaker discusses the demand for perfect holiness from God. He explains that there are three ways people respond to this call to be holy. The first response is to give up and quit trying because it seems impossible to achieve. The second response is to try to be holy through personal efforts, but this often leads to feelings of failure and inadequacy. The third response, which the speaker encourages, is to rely on God's grace and power to transform and make us holy. The speaker references the story of Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai as an example of God's call for holiness.

Heavenly Father, what exciting times to be alive, to be living at that time just before Christ returns, to live at that time when all the ends of the world are coming apart, and to know that no matter what happens, we are His, we are saved, and we are His holy people. Lord, I pray tonight that the message will change lives. God, don't let anybody in the building tonight sit here without knowing, feeling, sensing the Holy Spirit's presence. Oh, Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, come and speak through the power of Your Word. Let the Word go forth as a two-edged sword to cut through everything in our hearts, to the very marrow of our bone. Lord, cut us to heal us. Lord, there are people here tonight that are sick of their sin. They're tired of being a slave to the devil. They're tired of being pushed around by their sins and the devil. God, open up a door of escape. Let there be a miracle happen to everybody here tonight that's tired of sin. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Be ye holy. Three months after Israel left Egypt, they arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai, this great mountain. Moses looked at it and climbed up that mountain to talk to God, and here's what God said to Moses on top of Mount Sinai. I'm going to come to you in the form of a dark cloud so that the people themselves can hear me when I talk with you, and then they will always believe you. So go down and get the people ready for my visit. Sanctify them. Have them wash their clothes. Let them abstain from sexual contact with their wives. Set boundary lines around the mountain so the people can't pass by, and warn them not to come near the mountain. Tell them not to even touch the boundary lines, or they will die. When you hear the sound of a ram's horn sounding one long blast, then gather all the children of Israel at the foot of the mountain outside the boundaries. And on the morning of the third day, there was an awesome thunder and lightning storm, and a huge cloud came down upon the mountain, and all Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because Jehovah God descended upon it in the form of fire. The whole mountain shook with a violent earthquake. As the trumpet blast grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his answer. God thundered his answer. What did God thunder? What did he say to Moses and all of his people? He said this, You shall be unto me a kingdom of priests. You shall be a holy people. You shall be... God thundered that from heaven. Wouldn't you think the people who saw a mountain shake for six days, God rumbled that mountain. In fact it was so horrifying, so frightening, they moved way back away from these boundaries around the mountain. Many of them hid in their tents. You could hear God speaking, but it was like thunder. There was lightning. Six days lightning and thunder and earthquakes, because God was speaking to Moses. Wouldn't you think that people who saw the very presence of God, who heard him speak with thunder, wouldn't you think that they'd never turn their back on God again? Wouldn't you think, well that was so powerful that'll change their life forever. But you know in just 40 days those people turned their back on God, became corrupted, stripped off their clothes and danced around a golden calf. Now there's a prophecy in Hebrews. See that's the Old Testament. Let me take you into the New Testament. It has to do with you and me. There's a beautiful but very important prophecy. Here it is. His voice once shook the earth, but now God is promising, once more I'm going to shake not only the earth but heaven also. So see that you don't refuse me when I speak. For if Israel didn't escape when they refused when I spoke on earth, much more shall you not escape if you turn away from God that speaketh from heaven. God says once more I'm going to shake the whole world like I did at Mount Sinai. And not only the earth, I'm going to shake the heaven, all the angels, Michael the Archangel, and all the seraphims, and all the elders, and all those who are gathered around the throne of God, the prince of powers and powers of heaven, and all the kingdom of the devil, Satan's kingdom is going to be shaken, and all earthly kingdoms are going to be shaken because God is going to thunder from heaven again. I call my people to be holy. I am calling for holiness. We're beginning to see the fulfillment of that prophecy right now. My friends, God is going to shake everything that can be shaken, and the only thing that's going to remain when Jesus comes are things that can't be shaken, that are on the rock. Jesus Christ, unmovable. People who are closing in their hearts close to Christ, being filled with His Holy Spirit, changed by His power. Be ye holy. God said, 1 Peter 1 16, be ye holy even as I am holy. God said, be you holy even as I am holy. This message has to be heard by every Christian. That's a message for Mohammedans, Gentiles, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, every race and color and creed. God demands holiness. I hear that cry of the Holy Ghost in me. I've had it now on me for four to five months. I've been shutting myself in with God, and I hear that night and day. God is gathering together a holy, sanctified people. Jesus came along and He said, you're not only to be holy, you're going to be perfect. Be ye perfect even as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Then you go to the New Testament, and you listen to all these, it seems like impossible demands. God said He's coming back for people that are holy and blameless, glorious without spot or wrinkle. That means not even a spot of sin in their life. Holy, unblameable, unreprovable, righteous, pure, clean, cleansed from all the filthiness of the flesh. Now, the Scripture says there is not one person righteous, not one. There's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after God. Everyone's turned away from Him and become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good, no, not one. That means in their own strength and their own power. This was before Jesus Christ came to reveal His righteousness. There was no righteous person on the face of the earth, but can you name me one truly holy, perfect person on the face of the earth? You may know somebody that's religious, that goes to church a lot and testifies a lot, but you really don't know somebody that is really perfect like God. I want to show you something tonight. God demands perfect holiness. He demands perfection. He demands that there be something happen in you that presents you to Him as a holy, perfect person. And when you hear that demand, you have to answer it in one of three ways. And everybody listening to me tonight is answering that call to be holy in one of these three ways. And I'm going to show you these three ways, and I want you to find out, examine yourself and see which way you're responding to this call to be holy. The first response is to just give up and quit trying because you know you can't do it. Oh, multitudes around the world are giving up. They say, I can't be holy. That's too high of a demand. I can never reach it. You see, inside your heart there's a conscience, and it's that conscience that says, do right, be holy. God pre-programmed that before you were even born. And if your conscience isn't saying, be holy, be clean, then you've seared it with a hard iron. You've messed it up. Your conscience should be saying, God wants you to do right. God wants you to be holy. Every sinner at one time or another remembers that God brought His fear upon them, just as He did to the children of Israel at Mount Sinai. Every sinner in this place tonight listening to me remembers a time that you were afraid of God. You had a real fear in your heart. There was a time you really tried. You said, I'm going to do right. I'm going to be holy. I'm going to be clean. I'm going to be pure. And you tried, and you tried, and the harder you tried, the worse it got. Every promise you made, you broke. I mean, you did everything within your power trying to be holy and clean. I have preached in some of the worst places for sinners in the world. I held a crusade in Mexico City, the largest prison in the world, I was told, over 5,000 prisoners. And my crusade was held inside this big prison in the security ward. A security ward was inside the prison. Nobody got out of this ward. There were 150 to 200 men in there. Every one of them were there for life, for murder or rape. Some of them had murdered and raped. I was in this security ward, you know, I looked at those murderers and rapists. You know what I did? I thought there was a time that those, and oh, they were hard. They were killers. I said, God, how'd they get that way? How did they get so hard? There was a time they were tender children. They honored you. They were reaching out to you, God, but what happened to them? I see drug addicts and alcoholics and prostitutes walking the street, and just throwing their life away. I said, God, what happened? At one time, their mother and dad had them on the lap. They were dear children. They played ball with their friends, and many of them went to Sunday school and church, and what happened to them? How'd they get so hard? And you see, this is what happens to the children of Israel. If you go back to this mountain here, let me tell you why people get hard. Let me tell you why people turn against God. They get just a little mad at Him. They get angry at Him. Now go back to Mount Sinai, and look, for six days, God's speaking and thundering. The Bible said, and the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain, and the eyes of all the children of Israel. For 40 days, 40 nights, Moses was up there communing with God, but you know, for six days, that mountain was rumbling, and you see all the people sitting in their tents, and Moses is gone, and now the mountains quieted down, the thunder and the lightning is gone, and you can hear the people talking in their tents, and one man is saying to the other, he says, how? How can we be holy? See, God had already given them the law. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt have no other God. Thou shalt not steal, and they started playing over those laws in their mind, and they saw the terrible fear of God, and they were saying, how can I be holy like that? How can I be like that? I can't be like that, and they saw how sinful and how weak. They could feel the flesh in them, their evil desires, and then they looked at the law of God, said, that's impossible, and I can see them going from tent to tent, and pretty soon they're little groups here, a little group here, and they're, they're all, they're beginning. It's probably ten days now going by, and people are saying, hey, I don't understand that. How can you be holy? How can you be clean? I don't, and one man finally stands up and says, well, I don't know about the rest of you, and I could just imagine in my mind this happening. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't serve a God who scares you. I can't serve a God that's, that's mean and angry. See, they picture God as mean and angry, just sticking a law out there, bringing them out in the wilderness and abandoning them, allowed them to be tempted, and then saying, you're gonna be tempted, but don't give in to it. You're gonna have sin all around you, but I expect you to stay clean. Don't touch the sin, and that's what's happened. You know, here's what happens in Israel now. You say, Brother David, how can people who had seen the glory of God in just 40 days turn their back on God? Do you know that Aaron, his high priest, had been up on that mountain with Moses, along with Nadab and Abihu, two other priests, and the Bible says, listen to this, Aaron also saw the God of Israel walking on a brilliant pavement of sapphire stones. Now, no one has seen the face of God. Even though God spoke face-to-face with Moses, He spoke through a veil, and then only in shadows. But you see, God revealed His back parts and revealed His feet walking on sapphire stones, and Aaron had been on that mountain. He actually saw the feet of God walking on this jeweled pavement. This was a vision, this eternal cosmic path. God was walking it. You know what he did? This man who'd been in the very presence of God. Folks, what would you do if you had been up on a mountain and you actually saw God walking? You saw Almighty God, the God of the whole universe, walking, and you knew you were in His presence. You heard this earth-shattering thunder of His voice. Wouldn't you say, oh, I'm gonna serve a God like that. He has so much power. It was it was something else. But look, 40 days later, that same man, those people of Israel now saying, we can't serve that kind of God. They got mad at God for making such a big demand to be holy, and they didn't know how to be holy, to put such a law on them, and they didn't know how to fulfill the law. And so they came to Aaron. They said, we don't know what happened to that man Moses and his God. We want another God. So Aaron says, bring all your earrings, bring all your gold. And he put them in a fire. And the Bible said, he fastened, in other words, he molded a golden calf out of all the gold earrings and all the golden bracelets and medallions. And not only did he build a golden false altar, a golden calf, he built an altar in front of that golden calf. Can you imagine a man of God who'd been on a mountain seeing God walk in just 40 days, saying to all Israel, come gather around. This is your God. He's pointing to a piece of gold. He said, this is the God that brought you out of Israel. This is, this is your God. The people started stripping off their clothes, getting drunk, cutting themselves, singing and dancing, lewd and nude. I mean, in 40 days that nation went crazy. Three million Jews dancing. Now I'm sure not all of them, because later God found some people that want, Moses found some people that are on God's side. I believe there were multitudes that didn't give in to that. But all that was a spirit, a wild spirit group gripped Israel that day. And I've thought about that. Oh, I've thought about that for days now. How can people turn their back on God 40 days from heaven to hell? And I think I know God's given me the clue. I know now why sinners rebel against Jesus Christ. I know those who've once known the Lord. They've been to church. They've known God's power. They've known His glory. And then they turn against God. They serve the devil with all their heart. I've seen people so on fire for God, and a week later, right down on their back, serving the devil. You wouldn't even know they ever knew God. Just like Aaron and the children of Israel. And I know why that man. Can't you see Aaron getting mad? He said, oh man, I can't. God's too high. He's too holy. I'm too weak. I'll never make it. And I think in Aaron's heart there was an anger. He was mad that God made such a great holy demand. He said, be holy, even as I am holy. And Aaron says, I can't be holy like you, holy God. And so he had to come down here. And this, that whole wild scene was an act of rebellion. It was a madness. People saying, I can't be holy. I can't do it. I've tried it. I can't make it. So they just went wild. God was angry. He said to Moses, get down off this mountain. Go back to your people. Look how quickly they've turned away from me and my commandment to be holy. Folks, there's never been anything like it in the history of the world. When God's chosen people in just 40 days went from the glory and the voice of God to worshiping a golden calf. You see, there are some of you here right now. You said, I can't serve a God like you. Sorry, Brother David. I can't serve that kind of God. I tried and I can't make it. I can't be holy. And you're mad at God. Aaron was mad at God. The children of Israel were mad at God. He said, isn't it bad enough to be in a world like this where there's so much temptation and trial? Then God come along and tell you you're going to be damned if you don't live up to his holy standards. He said, I can't do it. You see, that's what's happening to many of you sitting here tonight. That's the way you've responded. You say, I can't be holy. So you just gave up. You gave up. And there are dozens and dozens of people sitting here tonight. You may not admit it, but down deep in your heart, you're just a little mad at God. You're a little mad that he just didn't come down and take all the sin out of your heart and do it for you. You're kind of mad that God, you feel your conscience screaming at you and you say, God, I wish you'd leave me alone. I've had drug addicts walk out on me and I'd see them three or four weeks later on the street and they'd say, David, get on my back. I said, well, I'm not on your back. One drug addict said, well, somebody's on my back. Every time I stick a needle in, I hear God breathing down my neck. He said, I hear you praying for me. Quit praying for me. Folks, the most miserable sinners in the world are those who've once seen the glory and the power of God. Then they go out and try to serve the devil. Oh, how miserable, how terrible it is. They're miserable. The most miserable sinners of the world. Better to never come to Jesus than having come to Jesus and go out and try to live for the devil. You're messed up. You don't have a chance. Miserable. The second response. God says be holy, so bless God, I'm gonna be holy if it kills me. And so you start out in your own effort to be righteous and holy and clean and pure. You say, well, bless God, I'm gonna suppress the devil in me. I'm gonna burn it out. I'm gonna pray it out. I'm gonna fast it out. Somehow I'm gonna please God. I'm not going to hell, man. I'm gonna be holy. Sounds like somebody knows what I'm talking about tonight. Paul said of these people, I give them credit for having a zeal or love for God, but it's all misdirected because they are ignorant of God's holiness and righteousness. So they go about to establish their own righteousness. They say, I'm going to do it myself. They have not submitted, they've not surrendered themselves to the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. They are going about to try to be holy in their own way. You see, they go into the Bible and they say, well, there it is. God told you, God says, shun the very appearance of evil. The Bible says resist the devil and he'll flee from you. The Bible says put aside the sin that easily besets you. The Bible says put off the old man and the old evil desires. Touch not the unclean thing. The Bible says don't yield your body to the devil and to temptation. That makes it sound like it's something just you do, doesn't it? So people say, well, that's what it says. Go do it, so I've got to go do it. Well, you go do it in your own power and you will fail. You will fall fat in your face. You will make promise after promise. You'll break every promise you make, and the harder you try, the worse it'll get. You cannot do it on your own strength. So off we go. Well, I'm gonna be holy, so we're going to give up cigarettes, and we give up drinking, some give up drugs, some quit going to theaters, and some quit dancing, and some quit playing their cards. Now folks, a true Christian doesn't have anything to do with any of that. He leaves that all behind because he doesn't need that because he's satisfied with Jesus, you see. But you see, doing all those things, you can quit all those things and still be full of the devil and never be saved, even if you leave all those things. I know a lot of self-righteous Christians. They go around boasting, I don't smoke, I don't drink. They're like the publican in the Bible, or the Pharisee in the Bible. They go around saying, I don't live like those poor sinners. They stick their nose up. They go to church. They're so self-righteous that everybody thinks they're holy. And the Lord Jesus looked at those self-righteous Pharisees. He said, on the outside, you look like you're white and clean, all washed up. But inside, you're full of dead man's bones. You're full of stinking putrefaction. You're full of worms and snakes. He called them vipers, snakes. Some of you people that are sinners say, boy, that makes me feel pretty good. Well, follow me please. There are others who want to be holy so badly, they fast, and they pray, and they weep. You see, they sin and confess, and sin and confess. It's a merry-go-round. They never, see, they get out of Egypt, but they never go to Canaan land. They live in the wilderness. God didn't call you just out of Egypt, which is the world, to stick you in a wilderness of depression and fear and being a victim of the devil. No, you're just passing through. God wants you someday to get to Canaan, where there's victory over the power of the devil. Oh, think of all, in New York City, I've watched it for years. Sweet little Catholic grandmothers. They never miss Mass. Every day of the year, through the sleet and the snow, it can be 15 below zero and chill factor, and there's the little grandmas all wrapped up, and they're going to Mass, and they've got their little rosaries, and they're praying. She prays to Mary. She prays to all the saints. Oh, Mary and all the saints, Joseph and every saint, please make me acceptable to God. Please make me holy. Now, folks, that's beautiful. That's commendable, but see, the Lord said that's a zeal. It's misdirected, and she said, unless that dear mother submits to the righteousness and believes that Jesus Christ alone can make her holy, she could never be holy if she went to Mass for 50 years. Think of all the Jewish, very Orthodox, religious Jewish people all over the world who want to be holy, like their father Abraham, and so they they go through all the traditions. Oh, they are so strict, very, very strict. They never miss it. They keep the law. They keep it right down to the minutest detail, but the Bible, now that's commendable, and thank God for devout Jewish friends, but the Bible said, unless you submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, all of your works, all of your self-righteousness is filthy rags in His sight. All your tradition, all of your self-efforts mean nothing in the sight of God. And Prophet Ezekiel said, the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him on the day of his sin if he trusts in his own righteousness, if he trusts in his own self-effort. You know, God hates, God despises every effort to please Him through self-effort, through just doing it by yourself. Every book that's been written about how to be holy, every holiness movement that tries to say you're going to be holy by doing this or doing that, that's all in vain. Now, give me your good ear right now. I want to show you something. I'm a student of church history. Let me show you what I found. These are monks. These are men who wanted to be holy so bad they thought they'd try to destroy their flesh. They had evil desires in them. Their mind was evil. Their eye was full of lust, and it scared them. And they heard God say, be holy. And listen to what they did. Some monks slept on bundles of thorns and piles of broken glass. They made their beds out of thorns and broken glass and slept for years on thorns and broken glass, thinking if they'd suffer through their body and feel the pain, that would push all the evil out of them. Some of the monks bound one foot and tied the foot this way and for years hopped around on one foot by thinking, well, God, look how desperate I am. I'm desperate enough to hop around on one foot to be holy. And some of them finally were crippled. A monk by the name of Simon Stilites had a big column, a big stone column, 30 feet high. He climbed up that column. They had a little rope they had to bring his food. He stayed on top of that column for 30 years so that would take him away from all the temptations of the world. And when he didn't have any more strength, he had somebody erect a pole on top there, and he strapped himself with ropes. He finally died up there. He was up there, I think, some 42 years up there trying to be holy, trying to stay away from the world. 42 years up on top of that column. Folks, you say that's foolish, that's stupid, but look in our modern days. I'll tell you what I've been through, even I'm only 50 years old. When I was a kid, you know, to be holy, your hair had to be a certain way. Now, when there was a time that short hair was a sin and then long hair was a sin, and when I was a young man, church makeup was a sin. My granddad called women who used rouge and makeup prostitutes, right from the pulpit. He said, you're a harlot. I mean, only harlots did that. And I went into a church once when I was a boy, and the preacher, this is the truth, he had a yardstick tacked to the door, and he stamped the door of the church. And the women had to have their dresses at a certain length. And he had another yardstick, and if he thought to dress, he measured the length. A short dress was of the devil. And you dare not wear a real short, you know, the kind that you see around today. Your dress had to be long, your sleeves had to be long, and man, you weren't a Christian unless you wore the right kind of clothes. And usually it had to be black. One of the great holiness preachers of all time, Dr. Pink, I've got all of, I've got almost all of his books. And he wanted, he preached none but holiness, you see. And he said, I don't even cook, it's a sin to cook on Sunday. He said, we cook all our meals on Saturday, and we serve it cold on Sunday. Now he was an Englishman. He said, except for tea, we do cook our tea. You see what you get into? All the rules and regulations, and people are going around, and they think that just because, almost everybody knows, well, I've got this one thing in my life, I can just get the victory over this one thing, I'd be a holy person. No, you wouldn't. Something else would come in and suck up into that place. It'd be something else. God won't let you pick and choose. He won't let you fight just one sin in your life. That's not the way it works. We've invented all these modern ways to try to be holy. You know, there are some church groups and little prayer groups that think that they're suddenly become very holy people. They're kind of self-righteous. See, they've discovered what they call holiness, and they said, we have left the world completely. Some of them go to communes to live, and that's why there are so many Christian communes now, because people want to be holy, but folks are going about it in the wrong way. You can't be holy by just taking yourself away. The monasteries prove that. For years, men tried to be holy by shutting them into monasteries, and it never did work. Some of the worst temptations men ever fought were inside the cloistered walls of monasteries. Some of the worst temptations that people have ever gone through have gone through in Christian communes, where the world was shut out, because you see, you don't shut the world up just by your location. Here is where you shut the world out, in your heart, and I believe Jesus Christ can give you a holiness so powerful, so much like himself, that you can walk through hell itself, and if every demon and devil of hell was spit out on earth, it wouldn't touch you, because you have an inner holiness. It'll take you through any hell. Hallelujah. Oh, my heart breaks. You know, I look at the church, and I see such worldly-mindedness, and I see people so materialistic-minded. I've had young couples confess, when they come forward, Brother Dave, you're preaching, convicted me tonight, because I was out for bigger house, and bigger cars, and I wanted all these things, and I was never satisfied, and I see this lusting, and grabbing, and reaching for material things. People want it so bad, and I see people that don't pray anymore, and I see people parked in front of their TV sets, watching junk. Folks, you know that within two or three years, we're going to have nudity on the soap operas. They already have it in Australia and New Zealand, and it's coming to America. I saw it in Newsweek magazine, and if you read my book, The Vision, six years ago, I predicted that was coming, and old friends, we're right at the brink of it now, and all hell is going to break loose in America, and the world, and I see the worldliness in the church, and I know that in spite of all that, that people are wanting to be hungry, and they really want to do what is right, and I want to stand up and scream, be holy! And I hear that cry of God to this wicked generation, with the world creeping into the church. We've got to be holy, we've got to be pure, and then I look at people trying. Oh, how we try. Folks, I spent years crying, fasting, praying, weeping, Oh God, make me holy, but I would always feel that God was mad at me. I always felt, I would, you see, if you try yourself, you can make it for a week, sometimes a month, or maybe even a year, but then, just when you think you've got it licked, bang! Down you go! Hmm? Uh-huh. Everybody that knows that's true, say amen. Oh yes, you testify how God saved you, and filled you with His Spirit, and then all of a sudden, you look at yourself, and when you're honest, you know that you're not what you should be. The evil thoughts, and I mean, you could be a very saintly person, and have all the darkness of hell flood your mind, fill you with lust, and set your eyes aflame, and then you, the devil comes along, said you're dirty, you're filthy, and a lot of Christians do that, and they just give up. They say, I can't make it, they quit. Let me bring you to the beautiful part, the third response, the kind the Holy Ghost wants from you and me now. When God demands you to be holy, admit you can't be holy on your own power, so surrender to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Give up fighting the battle yourself, and surrender by faith to His promise to make you holy. God has promised to make you holy. You see, God made that demand so high, so impossible, you can't do it. You tell me one person in this building that can meet that demand to be holy. Show me one person that can meet that demand to be holy on their own strength, and on their own power. Why did God make it so powerful? You know why God did that to children? You know why He appeared in His glory and gave the law? He was trying to show those people that they couldn't do it, and He had a tabernacle built for them, and inside that tabernacle a priest was consecrated, and there was an altar there, and He said, I've made it so high, you can't do it, and you're going to fail. But He said, once a year, there's going to be Aaron and Moses going to have a little lamb, and that lamb is called the atonement, and I'm going to have that lamb slain, and the blood is going to be applied. He said, I want every one of you to know that that lamb there is going to make it possible for you to be relieved from all the guilt, and when that lamb is slain, I'm going to forgive all your sins, even sins you don't know about. Everything you've committed, you may have broken the law and didn't know it, and if you didn't have this lamb, you could be slain, you could be killed because you broke the law, and all God wanted to do was to make them know how helpless they were, to show them how impossible to keep the law, so that when that lamb was slain, they could see a picture of something going to try to show the whole world, because that lamb was this symbol of Jesus Christ who was slain on a cross, and He made atonement so that the world could be forgiven of all their sins and could be made holy and righteous by what Jesus did. That lamb laying on that altar wiped away their sins and their guilt. He made a way for them to be holy and to be clean in His sight by putting their faith in what was done on that altar. You and I are supposed to look to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on a cross and He shed His blood so that you didn't have to be a slave of the devil anymore, so that He could kill the power of the devil and his sin in you. God never intended for you to do anything more but to look at His law to be holy and fall on your face and say, God, I can't be holy. I've tried and I've tried. Folks, I got tired of trying to be holy. I got tired of making Him promises, and I said, God, when you sent Jesus to die at the cross, is that all that I got out of it? Is that all it means? That I come in, I get saved, and then I'm tossed around by the devil, tossed around by temptations and trials like a victim. God, didn't you say that you came to destroy the power of the devil? Didn't you say you put your neck on the devil and destroyed his power and took it all away from him for the believer, those who trust you? And folks, my heart began to hunger for His holiness and His righteousness that comes by faith. The Bible said you must submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And so one day, in my desperation, I came into the presence of Jesus. I knelt down and humbled myself, and I said, Oh God, I'm nothing but a piece of dirt. See, that's what God wants out of you. He wants you to see how hopeless it is. He wants you to show, He wants to show you how weak, how sinful you and I are. And then when you feel low, when you feel helpless, then He says, All right, now that you're down in the dirt, now that you feel low, now that you know you can't do it by yourself, now that you've quit trying to do it by yourself, come on into my presence now. Come to me and confess your weakness. He said, Deny yourself and take up your cross. That's not self-denial. That means deny that you have any power to do it yourself. Deny yourself effort. Say no to trying to do it by your own strength. And you go into the presence of Jesus, and you say, Savior, you died on the cross to break the power of sin, and I can't break it. So I come confessing my sin to you, and I give you my life. That Jesus said, Come to me and present your body to me, a living sacrifice. You know what that means? That means you don't just come to the altar, you get on the altar. Thousands and thousands of Christians have been to the altar, but they've not been on it. He said a living sacrifice. That means he wants to kill you. He wants to kill the sin nature in you. He wants to kill the power of sin in you. And the only way that'll happen is to come like a lamb, and submit, and lay on that altar, and look up to him, and say, God, I'm scared, but I know I can't go on the way I am. Take the knife of your holy word, and your promises. Slay me. Kill the old man in me. You see, there's an old sin nature in you. You got it from Adam. You got it when you were born. If you don't believe that, you watch little kids play, just three and four years old. You watch them fight and scrap. You watch how jealous they are. They won't share their toys. Don't tell me they're not a sin nature in us. It's there. You can see it in your little children. But God wants to kill that old man in you. He wants to have you laid on that altar. He said, Come, present your body to me. Lay down on my altar. And he said, I'm going to take that old man out of you. I'm going to kill him. And he said, there gonna be some blood flow. You see, it's his blood that cleanses. But he also has to suck, not only kill the old man, but suck the very blood out of him, and leaving nothing left. And then you see, he burns all the fat on that sacrifice. That means all the sin and all the corruption, everything is burned. He's a consuming fire. He comes down in your sense. God moving in your heart. There's a fire burning in your side. You say, I hate my sin. I'm gonna rise out of this. I'm gonna be a new man, a new woman. If any man is in Christ, he's a new person. All the old things pass away. All things become new. And if they passed away, they can't hound you anymore. If they passed away, they're dead. They're dead. And by faith, you are raised up a new person in the Spirit. You go down on that altar, a physical person, a sinful person. And God, by faith, can't you just see in your mind, like a spirit rising off that altar. It's the soul rises out. That old dead flesh is laying there, and the Spirit rises. It's going to happen when you die. That soul, that Spirit, you're going to rise right out of that body. And when you come to Jesus, you say, Lord, I'm going to stay here. I want you to kill all the sin in me, and I want a new spiritual man, a woman to rise out of that. And that is the only way to be holy. And folks, it's going to get so bad in these next few years. The Bible says, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea. The devil is going to be cast down on you. And he's mad, because he knows his time is short. Folks, we're going to have X-rated movies on cable already. And soon, there are going to be 70, 80 stations you're going to be able to turn to on your TV set. Probably 10 to 12 of them are going to be R and X-rated. We are going to see rebellion and violence and hatred and all sin. We're going to see ungodly people stand up and mock everything that's holy and sacred. And how are you going to stand in those trying times? How are you going to stand up and be clean and holy when all hell is broken loose? There is only one way, folks, and that's to surrender and say, I can't fight the spirit of this age, but I come to you, Jesus Christ, and I want you to kill that old love for the world. Take the spirit of the world out of me. Kill the old nature. Kill the old man in me. Make me a new person in Christ Jesus. And the one who brings you to the altar, the one who lays it down, the one who kills the old man, the one who convicts you of your sin, is the one who has the power to keep you from your sins. He's got the power to save you and keep you. I'm going to give you a prophecy before I close. There's going to be a revival of holiness. It's already started. Folks, I'm getting letters from pastors and churches across the country. People are fasting and praying again. People have tried materialism. It doesn't work. It makes them feel empty inside. It doesn't satisfy. Sin doesn't satisfy. People are getting sick and tired of their sin. Oh, it feels okay for a while, but then it leaves you dry and empty and dead inside. People are tired of that. And I want you to know that just before Jesus comes, He's going to bring a spirit of righteousness and holiness. He's going to bring many, many people into His kingdom. He's going to put robes of righteousness on them. He's going to give them power over the devil. Saints, God's going to show His church the power they have. We haven't been exercising His power. We have all power over all the power of the devil, and you don't have to be afraid anymore. Oh, Church of Jesus Christ, Christian, rise up by faith and put your foot on the devil's neck and say, I'm victorious in Jesus Christ, victory in Jesus. Listen to John's revelation, and this is in eternity, before the throne of God. Listen to this, And I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, from all nations and kindreds and people and tongues. And they were standing before His throne and before the Lamb, and they were all clothed in white robes, and they had palms in their hand, and they were crying with a loud voice, Salvation is to our God. The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and He shall lead them to living fountains of waters. God will wipe away all the tears from their eyes. Multitudes which no man could number. Think of that. The devil thinks that because he's come down, he's defeated the Church of Jesus Christ, he thinks that he's made a victim, that he's caused a backsliding and a coldness in the church, and just when the enemy came in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord raised up a standard of His holiness. He says, come on, my people, get your eyes on Jerusalem now. Come on, get your eyes off the world, and look up, your redemption draweth not. You're not a victim of the devil. If all hell is loosened, if all hell, every demon in hell is walking on your country, in your nation, don't be afraid, I'm gonna call you, I'm gonna put a robe of righteousness on you, I'm gonna set you free, you're not gonna serve the power of the devil anymore, you're gonna be a free people. Oh, I've been sensing the glory of His love in me. You see, that doesn't mean you still don't have infirmities of the flesh. You still have to fight the infirmities of the flesh, but you see, God took the rebellion out of you. The rebellious person in you died. That's what the Bible says. When you're saved, you're dead to sin. That means that, you see, when you're trying so hard to please God, now you can't do it because you have rebellion, but when you get the rebellion out of your heart, suppose that you come to Jesus and you say, Lord, kill me, and by faith He does. He does what He said. God does what He says, or He would be a liar. God says, when you come to me and confess your sins and believe in all your heart, that He destroys the body of sin in you. What He does, He takes out the desire to sin in you. Now, you still may have some lust in you, but you look at it, you say, I hate that, Lord, that's not for me. That's not for me at all. He changed it. You still have the, you still have the ability to sin, but He takes away the desire to sin. That's what is killed, the desire to sin. That old desiring nature to do what the world does, He cuts the nerve of that, so that even though the devil comes at you with temptation to do it again, you say, well, I don't want to do it, and you'll feel a pull, you'll feel a tug, but there'll be something deep inside you. The spiritual man is in there now. The spiritual man is now fighting for you through the power of the Holy Spirit and says, hold still, I'm gonna bring you through it. Gonna bring you through it. You don't have to do it. Hallelujah. I refuse to live as a victim of sin anymore. I've heard preachers say, I refuse to be a victim of poverty. Well, here's a preacher that says, I don't care about riches or poverty, but I refuse to be a slave of the devil to sin. I am going to be opening my heart to His righteousness and His holiness. And do you know He loves His children? Whenever there's something that rises up in your heart and you say, oh God, I see how weak I am. I see how helpless I am. And that's where He wants you. He doesn't want you to make Him promise that I'll never do it again. You did that a thousand times and broke it. He doesn't want to hear that anymore. What He wants to hear out of you is to say, God, I'm helpless. I can't be holy. You said, I can't do it. Impossible. And I tell you now, in a million years, if you had a million years to live, you could not be holy by anything you do by your own strength, just by willpower. In the sight of God, there's no such thing as willpower, only His power. I've heard people say, well, I think I could be holy if God just helped me a little bit. You can't be holy even with God's help, because God won't help you do it yourself. He won't lend His power to somebody who climbs up like a thief and robber some other way. He said, there's only one way. You're going to bow down in the dust before me and say, God, I'm helpless. I can't be holy. You're going to come my way. When you come my way, I'll give you all my power and strength. You can be holy. I'll give you my holiness. I'll give you the holiness of Jesus Christ. Oh, hallelujah. You say, you mean you don't fight the devil anymore? Oh, I fight him, but I don't fight him on my own strength. Now the Holy Ghost is with me. You heard that story, didn't you? A little girl said, I gave my heart to Jesus. Now when the devil comes knocking at the door, I said, Jesus, answer it. You know, Holy Ghost, answer it. Holy Ghost, devil's knocking. You answer it. And just tell him he doesn't live here anymore. He doesn't live here anymore. The Holy Spirit's bound the strong man, the devil, and cast him out and spoiled all his goods. Spoiled him. Spoiled. You know what it means? To take away his kingdom. God said, I'll move in through the power of Jesus Christ and faith, and I'll get a hold of the devil by the neck, and I'll throw him out. Folks, don't you know the devil doesn't have any power except through the lies you believe he tells? He doesn't have any power over any believer at all. He can't do anything to you. You don't have to be afraid of him anymore. He has no power. He defeated at Calvary. He is done. He is finished. His kingdom is wiped out. You don't have to go around as a slave anymore. It's your own fault. You don't have to do it anymore. There are many people listening to me now. You say, David, I've been through that battle too. I've been up and down. I've felt that God's angry at me. I've never felt at peace with God. I've never felt he really loved me. I never felt I lived up to his standard. I'm tired of that. And there's some of you right now that are living as a victim to sin, and everybody that's sick of being a victim to sin, everybody says in their heart, David, I hear what the Holy Spirit's saying. I don't want to live as a victim. I want a power over sin. I want his power. He won't give you your power. He won't anoint your power. He just does away with your power. And I'll tell you something. When God kills the old man, he even kills the old conscience. Your peace doesn't come from conscience anymore. It comes from God himself, the peace that Jesus Christ gives you. You don't get it from a conscience. Your conscience will cheat and lie to you. And his spirit comes. He gives you the mind of Christ, and he gives you perfect peace. It passes all understanding that you've been a slave long enough, and he wants you to rise by faith. And it's only by faith. And you don't get your teeth and say, give me faith. If you just hate your sin and come to him, the Bible says he'll give you the faith even. He'll even give you the faith. You'll sense it coming up. It's supernatural. And when you're confessing your weakness and your inability, suddenly the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and he shows you the power of God. And then you lean back and say, Jesus, take over. Here's my life. Take over. And trust him that the same spirit that's on you right now are going to stay with you. The Holy Spirit, he said, he's going to be in you now, a well of living water springing up inside. It's going to spring up. Hallelujah. Some have got your well capped. You've got something blocking it. God's going to pull all that junk out. He's going to unstop the fountain and let you praise him like you've never praised him in your life. Hallelujah. But folks, we are now in a time in the Church of Jesus Christ that is supernatural, in delivering people from their sins. You see, Jesus can't come until he delivers his people from their sins. He can't come. He said he's coming from a church without spot or wrinkle. He's coming for a pure church, and that church has to be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the holiness of Christ. And that comes through surrender and submission. And God is saying to his church, surrender. He's saying to sinners, surrender.