In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of measuring one's life by loss rather than gain. He shares a story of a man who had a dramatic transformation in his life after encountering God. The speaker also criticizes the practice of boasting about material blessings and encourages humility in giving. He challenges the idea that spiritual transformation can be achieved through a single sermon or experience, highlighting the need for ongoing growth and sanctification.

Let me just go back here at one thing, talking about separation and sanctification to a purpose, because, again in John 17, Jesus says, for their sakes I sanctify myself. You know, there's a loveliest thing, I think, in, let me put it, how can I put it this way? All right, Ecclesiastes 47, Ecclesiastes 47, you have a river, remember the river, in Ecclesiastes 47? You don't. Okay, he says, here's a river, this is the bank of the river. The man measured a thousand cubits, and it was water to the ankles. He measured another thousand, and it was water to the knees. He measured another thousand, and it was water to the thighs. He mentioned another thousand, and it's water for swimming. To me it always suggests, the progression in the Christian life, we start off with water for the ankles, to the knees, to the loins, and then this vast area of water for swimming. Taking again the 17th chapter of John, it's the same thing. As we, as I mentioned to you, the different things I gave you, the different things suggested in that chapter, and finally we get into water for swimming. Here is this sanctified life, it's an ocean. And we're never going to fathom all the beauties and mysteries and majesty of it. But in John 17 again, Jesus says, for their sake I sanctify myself. Now, you could take that same thing, and instead of, excuse me, instead of having Ezekiel there, you could put the Gospel of John there. And you get chapter 14, and 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, especially 19. And you'll find there's progression the whole way. In the 14th chapter you have the first promise of the Holy Spirit. In the 15th chapter you have the fantastic picture Jesus gives us of the true vine. In the 16th chapter again you have the Holy Spirit kind of define what He has come. And He will do this, He will do it. You know, when you're moving in an area like this, maybe it's not so... Let me say, if you're moving in an area like this, you're constantly hearing about the Holy Spirit. And somebody's going to remind us that the Holy Spirit is not an influence, He is a person. You will be amazed when you're going to church, if somebody will say, by the way, I did not know until you came, or somebody else came, that the Holy Spirit is a person. They thought He was a kind of an atmosphere, they thought He was a kind of a blessing. Now because He is a person, He speaks. Because He is a person, He can be offended. And Jesus makes it very clear in that 16th chapter, when He has come, He will convince the world of what? Of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. But each chapter gets deeper and deeper. You come to 17, that's a tremendously deep chapter. Then you come into the 18th chapter. John 17 is the chapter on sanctification, all right. Chapter 18 is going into the garden of Gethsemane, that's deeper still. Chapter 19 is going to judgment. Chapter 20, you have the resurrection. So once you start reading from John 14, you start going into deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. Now a very lovely, beautiful, wonderful thing. I'm very fond of the Gospel, which is not the Gospel of John. People say very often, and say wrongly, and we shouldn't say things that are wrong, but very often Bible teachers say, now we're going to take the fourth Gospel. There is not a fourth Gospel. There's one Gospel told by four different people. There are not four Gospels. Matthew shows Jesus as a king. Mark reveals Jesus as a servant. Luke reveals Jesus as the Son of God. You know, we need to keep the balance between the humanity of Jesus and the deity of Jesus. Most people say sometimes, Jesus was divine. No, no, no, no, he wasn't divine. I'm divine, you're divine. If you made a partake of the divine nature, you're divine, but not deity. Deity is way beyond divinity. If you and I are made partakers of the divine nature, we receive the divine life, which is so different and contrary to human life, but we're not deity. Deity is equality with God, as a matter of fact. You think of it sometimes, when you've nothing else to do, and I'm sure you've many times like that around here. Get under a tree and read the first verse of the first chapter of the Gospel recorded by John. Anybody recite it? Okay, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Okay, so then in the beginning, oh, here we are, in the beginning, the Word was with God. The second thing, the Word, in the beginning the Word was with God. The second thing, is what? The Word was God. I can't resolve it properly myself now, I'm confused myself here, let me think of this a minute. In the beginning the Word was with God, alright. Pardon? In the beginning was the Word. So in the beginning is eternity. I have to learn to talk, I haven't done this for years. In the beginning is eternity. The Word was with God. Equality. The Word was God. Deity. Now, the whole of the Gospel, we'll call it the Gospel of John here for convenience, the whole of the Gospel as John revealed it is an expansion. In other words you've got the whole of his teaching condensed like a telescope, you can put it in, you've got the battle of the telescope, you can extend it, extend it, extend it. The battle of the telescope is in that first verse. In the beginning was the Word, that's eternity. He was in the beginning, the Word was, He was, eternity. The Word was with God. Equality. The Word was God. Deity. Then the rest of the book again is an expansion of that statement. Now, 92% of what John says in his interpretation of the Gospel is his own. You get the drift of that. What do you have in chapter 15? The vine. You don't find that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. What do you have in the 16th chapter? The Holy Spirit. You don't find that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, not stated the same way. What do you have in John 17? The most hallowed thing. I read the other day where a man said, I write about prayers in the Bible, but I never dare touch John 17. Why? Because you want to stick your shoes off your feet. I'd like to have seen Jesus raise the dead, I think it would be exciting to see Lazarus get up. I'd like to have seen unclogged death-hearers. I would like to have seen him drive demons out of people, but most of all, if I could only see one thing, it wouldn't be to see Jesus walk on the water. If I could only have one experience, I would have wanted the experience of hearing Jesus pray. I remember about the second time I went to Chicago and I said to one of the deacons in Dr. Tozer's church, well, I'm so looking forward to a time of prayer with Dr. Tozer and his family, and I thought you're going to have a time of prayer with him, he doesn't come to prayer meetings. And I said, he what? I said, this man that's written so much and does not come to prayer meetings? Well, he said he did come for a few years in this church, and then we asked him not to come. Why not? Well, and this made me think and made me understand why nowhere in the scripture can I find where Jesus ever prayed with his disciples. Can you think of a place where he prayed? In John 17, he didn't pray with them, he prayed for them. He didn't pray with them for the simple reason that the analogy is best borne out which Tozer is a bit nearer than human to us. I said, why doesn't Dr. Tozer come to the prayer meeting? He said, for this reason, that when he would give a talk on prayer, they'd say, let us pray. They got about 60, 70 to the prayer meeting. And he said, after Dr. Tozer said, let us pray, there was a silence. 10 or 15 minutes, nobody prayed. Then the doctor would pray. Then after he prayed, nobody there prayed. See? But I gave him an interpreter up and said, Lord, I said, now I've got the answer to what Jesus ever said to me. They would never have understood him. He prayed in an area, he prayed with an intelligence, if you like. As I said to that sister a few minutes ago there, the difference is having knowledge. Wisdom is knowing how to apply knowledge. That, Jesus Christ has made unto us wisdom. I don't care how much knowledge or wisdom you have, even wisdom is progressive. When I was in school, I wasn't so smart, I'll tell you that. Sometimes the teacher would say, Rachel, answer this question. He stood up promptly, you know, and very often I'd fumble the whole thing. And the kids would snigger. But you know, God isn't like that. Secondly, the epistle of James, if a man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. Oh, he asks of so many. Now, when did, honest to goodness, when did you last ask God for wisdom? I think you should say that every day, because not every teacher that comes here will tell you everything that's right, apart from myself. But, well, they'll put all the bad ideas and the ideas, and you'll check on it and say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. We need wisdom. And if you needed a real wife, you could do what our son David has done. He's coming back to the Lord, he's been away seven years, and God has told him to come back to America to live and come and live in Texas, so most likely he'll come and teach. He's got a very good teaching ministry. But he has saturated himself on the Book of Proverbs. It's the Book of Wisdom. I think that in our class in Sunday School, with our little fellowship, for one time, one period I said, now children, you learn this proverb by next Sunday, and before all the assembled people, we have a tremendous crowd of people, thirty-five. But anyhow, they, the children come in, in our little community, the children come in, and I say, what was the text this week? And they stand up and say, Proverbs 8, so-and-so. What was the scripture this week? You see, it's no good paying for wisdom if you don't have the material to operate. You can't knit with invisible wool, can you? The lady said, no, thank you. I didn't think you should either. You can't. But if you get wool, and then you get a design, and you apply a bit of knowledge to this, before long you'll knit one and purl two, and drop four be speaking or something. But you'll do it because you have the material to work on. Now God needs material to work on. I have a friend, he's a good man, successful businessman, but I always feel uncomfortable. Not that I'm an intellectual. I never claim to be an intellectual. I know very little. But he's always saying, you know, we don't need profound teaching. The Bible is very simple, is it? I never knew it was. I never knew it was. You see, the Word has expanded the wisdom. If God is going to sanctify me wholly, my spirit, my soul, and my body. Again, my spirit is my God-relationship, my soul is self-consciousness. But in my soul, I have emotion, I have will, I have all those things that disturb, disturb me and so forth. I'm soulish. I have to be soulish. I need purification in my soul area. I need purification in my mind area. I need purification in my body area. I need to have settled things in my mind, that my body is a vessel unto honor, sanctified. I'm not going to pollute it in any way. I'm not going to abuse it in any way. This again is why God says, look, you need a day, as a hymn writer says, a day of rest and gladness, a day of holy joy. You should do a minimum of work on the Sabbath day, or the Lord's day, if you want to call it that. Your body needs a rest. If God could only work six and he rested, then, unless you're smothering God, you need a day in which he'll hardly do a thing. Now don't get it wrong and have it you need six days when you don't do anything and work one. You keep it in order. You have one day in which you don't work and you don't soil your hands in one thing at all. You just keep that day as unto God. And look, if you do that, I guarantee if I see you a year from today, if you give that day to God, totally, you can go courting if you like, but make that even the sanctified he may have swore, and then say, well it's time to go home and go. But give God that day. Concentrate on the things of God. Work out that which God, God will work in you, but you've got to work out your own salvation. Many of us want to come to maturity without working it out. There was a song about Spurgeon a minute ago. I get a tremendous kick out of Spurgeon because you see, he was only fourteen when he was saved, and I was saved at fourteen. I didn't know Spurgeon. He never went to Bible school. I did nearly six months, but I never went to high school. I never went to college. I never went to seminary. If I've learned anything, I learned it on my knees. But at fourteen years of age, Spurgeon was converted. Well, fourteen and five makes nineteen. You didn't know that. All right. Fourteen and five makes nineteen. When he was nineteen, they built him a tabernacle seating five thousand people, which he packed twice a day, which makes ten thousand. He didn't have the baptism. Isn't that amazing? I should think so. Too wild. I mean, to think that a man at fourteen years of age never went to Bible school or seminary, never had the baptism as we have one to interpret it fifty different ways. But he waited on God. He got along with God. He bought some good books. He studied. He prayed. I don't know if any of you have read Have you read Knowing God? Who's read Knowing God by J.R. Tucker? Good, good, good. You should read. That's a tremendous book. In fact, most books by Englishmen are good. But anyhow, J.R. Tucker is in the university, but he begins that very lovely book by stating this was preached in a New Park street pulpit, and he gives you about fifty lines of real profound stuff, like the Puritans used to preach. And then when he's finished it, he says, this was preached by a Spurgeon when he was twenty years of age. Now if he hadn't put that, and somebody said to me, who wrote that? I'd say John Owen wrote that in 1546. You know, I believe, this is what I really believe, I mentioned about this river, you I believe right now the Church of Jesus Christ hasn't even got the shoulders of its feet wet, never mind got its ankles wet. If you were living in a day, again, it's a shrinking world. Sure, that biggest plane goes over the Atlantic, takes roughly three months to come, you can do it in three hours now in this super jet, French, English, Concord. The world is shrinking, the universe is expanding. David said, when I consider thy heavens, he never considered them in the way we consider them. Until a hundred years ago, we only knew the names of a hundred and eighty stars. And we knew there's a streak through the sky, you know, you'll see it, there's a, there's a, there's a streak right through the sky sometimes. I'll do it here and you'll notice, it goes like this. It's just a kind of a light path and, and it's called the Milky Way. And in it, there are supposed to be, I don't know, ten million stars. And it was unique. When I was a boy, I used to go, the Milky Way, the Milky Way, wonderful. Now we've discovered there may be a thousand Milky Ways in the heavens. We didn't have telescopes to bring them in. Now we've got telescopes. A telescope on Mount Palomar, it's so big you fit inside of it to look through it, isn't that something? And it's revealing the majesty of the heavens. You look at the sun, you can get one, this world in which we live. By my other watch it would look better, a round world, you know, not just a round, flat that way. Imagine the men arguing, one man said the world's round, the other one said it's flat, and the other man came up and said nonsense, it's crooked. But anyhow, there you've got the world. You can put one million, two hundred thousand worlds in the sun, it's so big. And you've got suns out in space in which you can put a million suns, they're so great. Now that's not, that's not a guess, that's a scientific fact. The scientist does not believe in eternity, he does believe in infinity. You see, not so long ago we shot, what we do, we shot something from Earth, we were shooting up to a planet here, and we shot it from Earth here, and the thing went up, went right past the planet, and it's still going. And then say we're, eventually we'll get a man on a star. Well, if you'd keep that rocket going at the same pace it goes now, it would get to a star in about eighteen hundred years, and I think the fellows on board might run out of pang by that time. I mean, the only way you're going to get from Earth to a star, all right, here's the planet they missed, there's the star over here, that thing's going to keep going. Well, how in the world are they going to get there? The only two things you need on board, one is a maternity block and the other is a cemetery. Who's going to live long enough to get there anyhow? You see, that's God's majesty, that's part of his great and glorious creation. It's so vast. This again is why I go to some meetings, and they get no further than clapping, have a good time, and whistling, and singing. That's all right if you're in the primary. I keep saying to people, get out of your playpen, spiritually. There ought to be times when we not only leave the sanctuary in awe, but we've come with a sense of awe. You know, if you come with a foul spirit to a meeting, you'll pollute that meeting, and God help you when you get to eternity. We need to be pure to go to the sanctuary. Well, the scriptures say, be ye clean, but bear the vessels of the Lord. People say, well, I ain't going to church. Boy, I really need cleaning up. I've fouled up with temper, or secret lust, or this, that, and the other. And they just think they bring all the dirt, and that's all there is. No, no, no, you should have settled that. If it has to be that way, you should have settled it that way before you came. And make the atmosphere pure, because God only inhabits the place that's pure. The priest in the Old Testament wore a garment. He was sanctified. He was separated from the rest of the people. Oh, I listen to some of these TV boys. They're about as thrilling as TV dinners, but I listen to them sometimes, and oh brother, they just about make me tired. Their shallow conception of God, and the holiness and majesty of God, is pitiable. And you know, they stress this, that, and the other about their ministry, and they'll do this, and they'll do that. And I hark back every time to the Old Testament. I say, let's go back to the Old Testament economy. When a man came out of the world to be separated, as Aaron and his sons, they never touched the thing anymore. And their garments were made, everything was pure. They didn't have electric lights. You didn't know that. They didn't have electric lights. They had lamps that burned with oil. You say, yes, they put olive oil. No, they didn't. What did it? They put pure olive oil in. The vessels were made of gold. No, they were made of pure gold. Everything in that sanctuary was pure. No, the garment of the priest went up to his chin like this. He had a coat that buttoned up, it had hooks and eyes on, right up to his neck. And it went right down to his feet. It was made of linen. No, it was made of pure linen. It could not have any wool in it. Why do you wear wool? Right there to keep warm. What happens if you get too warm? Sweat. Well, you don't use that now, you use it for fire. But you go to see a rule book and the lady says, what are you looking for? You say, I'm looking for two perspiration shirts for my husband. She says, what? Well, I've been to college. You don't say perspiration, you say sweat. No, no, sweat, sweat. Jesus sweat great drops of blood. The priest must not sweat. Why? Because sweat is a sign of the curse. Men never sweat until the curse. Just as in the case that people didn't understand why there was going to be a flood, because it had never rained. Do you ever realize that? It had never rained, they'd never seen rain. God watered the earth with dew. And when you say there are going to be holes in heaven, and there are going to be holes in the earth and water from beneath is going to meet water from underneath, forget it. How can it rain? What's rain anyhow? But in the Old Economy then the priest must not sweat. That's the only commandment that preachers have brought from the Old Testament. They refuse to sweat. Thank you. But he must not sweat. He has to come with dignity. I don't like artificial dignity. I think in America particularly, people are too familiar with the preacher. Hi Bill, see you Saturday. Can I play golf? Now maybe the Europeans have overdone it, but there is a dignity. You respect the man of God. He doesn't want it, but it's a command of God. He's a sanctified man, at least he should be. He is separated. He doesn't have to do the things that other men do. The priest, you'll find these fellows, for instance they say, well praise God, I'm glad he called me, and he filled me with the Spirit, and I'm this, that, and the other, and I'm walking with God and everything else, and he made me a priest like he made Joshua, or like he made Aaron. I sometimes wish TV was two-way, or radio, don't you? I'd say, you mean to say you don't own a thing? The priest was not allowed to own even a spoonful of land. He was sanctified. He must not contaminate himself with anything commercial. He was sanctified to that degree. All right, so Jesus sanctified himself. Why? You say, well sanctification means holiness, but he did not make himself holy. He was holy, but again sanctification is separation. From John 17, he starts going into this area here, and he sanctifies himself, he separates himself. Let's see, did he do any miracles? I don't think he ever did one after that 17th prayer, except one, you know, when Peter slashed at a fellow's ear. Well he sure didn't mean to cut off his ear, he meant to cut his head off, now which he had, because Jesus would have stuck it on anyhow. That would have been a better miracle if there were any degrees of miracles. He had separated himself. Now somewhere along the line, God is going to ask you to separate yourself even from people, and you know that's desperately hard. Some lady comes up and says, by the way, you know, last time you were here you said so and so, and I prayed about it. Do you know what happened? In my mind I say, yes, I know. Do you know, since you were here last time, I believe I've grown in grace, but do you know what? I've lost more friends, I've lost this, I've lost that, great, lost the other. You know, most Christians are stupid, nobody present, but all the other folk outside, they're all such a stupid bunch. Some of you folks will start writing love letters if you haven't already written. I think the second love letter my wife wrote to me had a verse in it I've never forgotten. I don't know who wrote it, I've tried to sign, I can't find it. It said this, measure thy life by loss and not by gain. Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth. For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice. And he who suffers most, has most to give. You see that's God working in and it's God working out. Measure thy life. Everybody says, do you know the Lord has blessed me, do you know that I have. Now I know wealthy people and I'm glad of them for the work they do for God. That's their ministry, they're going to have their reward in eternity. Trouble is that when somebody gives money, you know the fellows pass notes round, hey if you're going through those top songs, you'll get a couple of hundred at least. He gave me a thousand, he gave John fifty, he gave John. And they tip each other. Now I would never do that. If people give me a gift, it's between them and me, not anybody else. I never pass on any information. I've got other folks, I've forgotten what they are, but I don't pass on information. I'm not in the business of what I get out of it except eternally. Now don't measure your life necessarily. If God gives you something, he gives you it as a stewardship, whatever it is. So you measure your life by loss and not by gain, not by the wine drunk. If you had a hundred guests and you had a costly French wine, I guess you don't drink wine, I don't, maybe you do, I don't know, but if you drank wine and you pour out a hundred cups of wine and some only sip, some they quaff the whole lot in one thing, which you should never do, I understand. But if all the other people leave their wine half drunk, you don't measure the wine by the wine drunk, you measure it by the wine poured forth. You wanted them to have all that. If they don't take it, that's their responsibility, not yours. By the same token, if you have a ministry and they reject it, that's their responsibility, not yours. Gilmore went to Mongolia and he worked seven years and never saw a convert. Judson went to Burma and had about the same reaction. But you measure your life by loss and not by gain, not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth. For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice. I learn things very slowly, I admit that. But I've realized really the crux of the Christian life, the crux of Christian ministry is not brilliance, is not knowledge, is not success as we know it. The crux of the whole thing is sacrifice. That's the center of God's love, sacrifice. He loved and he gave. God so loved the world, he gave. Christ loved the church and he gave himself for the church. We love the world, we'll give ourselves for the world. You can't do it theoretically, it has to be worked out. And you know what? When you make a sacrifice, you're the only one that feels the pain. Somebody else will pat you on the back and say, well done Joe, oh that was good Mary, I'm glad to go this. And maybe you go with a broken heart. God takes the very treasure out of your hands. And they say amen and you do all the suffering, that's all right. If you tell, if you, look here, here are three people. This is Mary and this is, this is Jill and this is Peggy, all right. And so, who are they? Mary, Jill and Peggy. Jill is in a meeting and they're singing a hymn, you know, draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord. And she starts weeping and she, yes Lord I mean that, if ever I meant it, I mean it. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer. And she discovers a couple of weeks after, that Peggy, that she's drunk coffee with every Tuesday morning for the last five years, suddenly says, hey don't come today, it's not convenient. And she drops her. And then a friend at the other side, a few weeks after, drops her off. And she's just by herself. And then she wants to know why. Dr. Tozer said to me once, Len, Christians don't tell lies, they just go to church and sing them. And often we do. Hmm? I mean, can God take, I mean, am I, am I just standing up with a bunch, is there a herd instinct when we come to worship? You know, you sing a hymn like Charles Wesley Jiju, Lover of my soul. There's a phrase in there that always gets to me. Thou, O Christ, art all I want. Is that right? Have I got my priorities as straight as that? Thou, O Christ, art all I want. Or a hymn that I think is maybe richer than that. Beneath the cross of Jesus. I love that hymn. I fain would take my stand. Hmm? And in the middle of it it says, I ask, nor the sunshine, and the sunshine of thy face. You mean that? You mean you can stand up when everybody else frowns at you because he's smiling on you? And you'd rather have his smile and everybody's frown, and everybody's smile and his frown? I mean, am I really singing this? Am I really, in my heart, am I, or am I borrowing somebody's language to give me an emotional stir or make me feel good? Am I swearing my allegiance afresh to him? I ask nor the sunshine, and the sunshine of thy face. Because that's just one level of a sanctified life. I bring nothing of the garbage of the world into this. I have so long been contaminated, my body, my mind, my spirit. I've so long been an agent of sin, that he says, now you are made free from sin and you have your fruit unto holiness. Now I hear a lot about gifts of the Spirit. I don't hear too much about the fruits of the Spirit. I hear less about Romans 6, fruits unto holiness. I hear less of the great language of John Baptist when he said, bring forth fruit meet for repentance. You see, we don't stress that. We say to people, you just come up here and weep and tell the Lord you're sorry, and say Lord I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. I was in a meeting a while ago where a woman came to the altar, a big blonde lovely lady, and she just fell down like a sack of potatoes. And somebody dealt with her for an hour and could get nowhere. And they said, Brother Ravenhill, can you help this lady? And as soon as I turned around she said, I want to tell you something Mr. Ravenhill. This is the fourteenth time I've come to an altar. And I've never been born again the way you talked about it this morning. I went to a famous Bible school. And in that Bible school every year they had at least two revivals. And every revival I went to the altar, but I never got anywhere. So they just put their arm around my neck and said, Jesus loves you. Just say this, Lord be merciful to me. Now everything's all right, he loves you. She said there was never any inward transformation. I'm convinced that modern evangelism does not preach being born again. It preaches forgiveness. It preaches heaven. It preaches peace of mind. If you read John Wesley's journal, and you should, you'll discover that he says over and over again, I went to so-and-so and I offered men what? Forgiveness? No. Heaven? No. Peace of mind? No. Joy in the Lord? No. What did he offer them? He says, I went to so-and-so and I offered men Christ. His brother Charles says in one of his hymns, My heart is full of Christ. I've quit asking people if they're saved. Everybody's saved these days. From Mr. Carter to Johnny Jenkins down serving liquor. Graham and his crew saved the other week, and they said that many of the people who serve at the crab tables and gambling, they're born again Christians. They see it as a way of life. Oh well, then people in massage parlors see it as a way of life. What's the difference? Sin's sin? You see one thing about the sanctified life, it surely demands separation from the world, the flesh and the devil in every way. Look what it's going to cost. What are you suggesting? It costs Jesus nothing to come from heaven? I've never heard anybody preach on the loneliness of God. Have you? Or have you even thought of it? God gave his son for 30 years. God was lonely. Had to be a long while. Many times I've crossed the Atlantic and the boat hadn't left the dock before I was wishing I was back. In one sense, wishing I was back with my wife and children. Though I knew I was going on a divine mission. It didn't alter the fact of my loneliness, my separation. And God has separated from his son for 30 years. Pretty long time. And God asks for separation. Don't take them out of the world, keep them from the evil one. John says if a man loved the world, the love of the Father isn't in him. Now you've got saved movie stars, you've got saved this, saved the others. Well wearing God's name is a separation. Come out and touch not the unclean thing. Well then somebody says you're trying to be a goody-goody. Well I'd rather be a goody-goody than a rotty-rotty, wouldn't you? I mean after all if we're going in for the spiritual life, let's aim for the highest. Who wants to be? I never wanted to be the lowest in class at school, did you? Maybe you were there, you didn't want to be there, you struggled and had some mental sweat and effort. God only had one standard. He says the very God of peace sanctify you. Supposing I change the accent and say, sanctify you. See we've got strange ideas of saints. You know some people say, you know I've been filled with the Spirit so long and walking with God. And one day they wake up and say, oh, oh what's this on my pillow? Oh my halo, it's come at last. I thought it would be here one morning when I woke up. You try and put your dress on, it won't fit. They say, oh my wings are sprouting. My, I'm going to be an angel or a saint before long. I have ideas of saints that are so strange. Some of the greatest saints I know are the poorest. Some of the greatest saints I know are the richest. Some of the greatest saints I know are ignorant. Some of the greatest saints I know are just geniuses. I don't rate people according to all these little satellite things that we have, you know. As though you had a, where's my, my rubber, my eraser. Here's a man and let's say he is a saint, he's a saint and I know some saints. Now this area here, all these satellites here are what usually we, we fix people in our mind. This man's extremely wealthy, this man's a genius, this man is a famous author, this man is something else. You know that's, that's all pure nonsense. I want to know about the man's character. You see that's all God is after in your life. That's why I say you can be sanctified, holy. It's your character is after. Now, now charisma is all right, but charisma without character equals zero, nothing. You wouldn't get me go five yards to hear some of the modern charismatic men. Not when they're living with another man's wife, or at least they've dumped the wife and living with another woman. I can give you a list of a whole bunch of them if you like. I'm not interested. I don't want to go and hear a religious philosopher who spins a lot of yarns and gets me excited and then you say, hmm, no that's not his wife, I mean, no adultery, but they're incompatible. Well isn't that what the sanctified life is all about? Look, you say, I, Mr. Ravyn, can you tell me what really, give me a definition of, of really being filled with the Spirit. What is the Spirit in life? Well number one, you're easy to live with. No amen, but it's still true. Maybe that guy heard me walking down the field there, but anyhow. Isn't that the proof of it? Now ask my sweetheart if I'm easy to live with. If I'm not, she'll tell you. And if my children were not walking with God, I would not want to rescue other people's children from hell, if mine were not right. The whole rottenness in the nation is due to this fact that the daddy and mummy in the home are not sanctified, and the home is not sanctified, and therefore corruption is spread. God is wanting sanctified fathers and mothers. You see the idea that many people Here we are, we're all together. Let's say this here, this is the, these are the steps going where? Well, let's put it this way. This is the upper room, all right. Here are the men, there are about one hundred and twenty in the upper room. Now with all the knowledge you have, tell me where six of them went. And when you've told me about six of them, where did the other hundred and fourteen go? One, one, four. Did they all become apostles? Did they all become evangelists? Did they all become teachers? Did they even all speak in tongues? Did they all do miracles? But you'll hear some Tom, Dick or Harry telling you in some meeting, praise God, you can be, I went to a banquet in New York. And the preacher says, Brother Abel here, we're going to have a great meeting, I'm sure you'll preach on this or the other. And he said, I want you to know this. Listen brother, you can go out of here another Wesley, you can go out of here another Finney, you can go out of here another somebody. Boy, he was handing, you know, five deck of crowns out before we ever started preaching. I said it was no good preaching now, they've all got a crown, send them home. But this was what you can be in thirty minutes or fifty minutes of preaching, you can be this, that and the other. That's pure nonsense. Everybody in the upper room did not become a superman spiritually. Well if you disagree, prove it. Tell me where they went. You can tell me about Peter and John and one or two others and after that you're finished. You can't even tell me where the twelve went, never mind the rest of the bunch. You say, well can you give me an answer? Yeah, I just found it about two weeks ago. I found it about two weeks ago. Aren't I dumb? You found this years ago maybe. Because there was a fellow, a very wonderful young man, only young. And his name was T.I.N.O.T.H.Y. A remarkable young man. Do you know what Bible school he went to? Do you remember what Paul says about him? He says, I remember the unsaned faith, in other words the pure faith which is in thee, which dwelt first in what? Thy grandmother who? Lois. I'll write G. That doesn't mean a thousand dollars. That G is thy grandmother Lois and thy M, I'll just spell you this, E-U-N-I-C-E. It means you're nice. So he says the reason, you know the young man you are is the godliness that was in your mother which has become spilled over. You see so often we say, listen remember this, whatsoever you sow you reap. But we always give it a rotten connotation, don't we? Oh if you do that bad thing it'll come back worse than ever. Well that is what Jesus said. Whatsoever a man soweth, if you sow good, good will come back. Jesus said to him in Sunday school in England, sow truth if thou the truth would reap. You don't put carrot seeds in the ground and expect cabbages to come. You put one little seed in the ground and before long it's a stalk and then you get a long, long ear of corn. You didn't put one seed expecting one seed to come back. That would be nonsense. You expect at least the very minimum production in your life and mine is what? Thirtyfold and sixty and eighty or a hundred. No twenties, no tens. You get right up there with what the Lord expects of you. The very minimum is thirty percent anyhow. But you see this young man had so listened to his mother Eunice and maybe he slipped round the corner like I used to to my granny who sat in the corner by the chimney and she rocked and shrayed and she was a real rock and roller and she used to sing, take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord, all trust and obey. She was like a phonograph you know. The old phonographs only had two hymns, one on each side and granny turned it over every day and I'd sneak in the back of the house and I'd sit and listen to her. She built a tabernacle. She had one of those enormous skirts, you know, aprons, you know those great big coloured aprons and she'd take it and I don't know, she threw it over her head and then she used to get her arms in like this and she shut everything out and dear old granny, her name was Annie and my dear old granny Annie, she would sit in a chair and rock and for hours she'd sing take time to be holy. Or some of those other great hymns. The influence of my grandmother came on my mother. The influence of my mother came on me. My daddy was a hellfire preacher. He wasn't an ordained preacher, he was a hellfire preacher. And I thank God for my daddy but my mother's life influenced me more than my father's life. The mother has more time in the home. The husband goes in and out. My wife had a profound influence on our three boys. I'd be away six months at a time, sometimes ten months, sometimes well at least as long as ten months. And, but her influence was so great on the family. So again, God isn't going to make you a superstar because you're filled with the Spirit. Maybe he's going to drive you off here somewhere. You might become the wife of a farmer or some other thing. It doesn't alter the fact you need a holy life. Doesn't mean your life will be ineffective. Where to be sanctified and meet for the Master's use, the Word of God says. Now let's remember this, that this, this sanctified life. We get confused about it because you see people when you talk about holiness of life, they think, they say, well what, you know, you can't be faultless. Well maybe you can't, but on the other hand you can cure a lot of faults you have. I went to a church. I inherited a church. There was a woman who claimed to be the most spiritual woman in the church. She came in before I was there, before the previous pastor was there and when I was there. She came in at twenty minutes past eleven on the Lord's Day morning, Sabbath morning, just as I was getting up to preach. She's a big fat lump of a woman and she'd come down the aisle and we had chairs there, movable chairs and she never sat on the thing, she pushed it over somehow and she disrupted every meeting. Suddenly said they'd talk to her and she won't alter it. I said, next Sunday morning lock the doors. As soon as we stand up and sing the hymn before I preach, lock the doors. They did. Then we went down to a sanctification that flipped a bit. She was quite angry. She said, lock the doors. I said, sure, I ordered them locked. You ordered them locked. Why? I said, it's the only way to teach you a lesson. You've been asked to come at the right time. You live by yourself. You only live up the hill. You don't have to take a bus. It's a convenience. You're lazy. And you know what, it's going to be locked next Sunday when you come and the Sunday after if you don't put things straight. It was merely a habit. Now there are some habits that we can correct. There are some that we can't. Let's say about the sanctified life. Look, it is spiritual maturity. That's what it is. And spiritual maturity is, number one, it is a crisis and it is a process. Now I outlined for you from the Word of God to substantiate my argument. I outlined the beginning of this epistle to the Thessalonians, all these qualifications. They are the electorate of God and much assurance and missionary heartiness and having joy in the Holy Ghost and suffering affliction. And yet despite all those amazing qualifications which would make them saints in our eyes, the Apostle says, I'm still praying the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And to show it's not possible, impossible, in the next verse he says, faithful is he but quality who also will do it. Now, so sanctification is a crisis after a born again experience. You see the weakness of modern interpretation of Pentecost is this, that their accent is power. With the holiness people it is purity. They all need to come together for sure. But when Peter goes to the house of, pardon me, when Peter goes to Jerusalem he's reporting about the working of God, the Spirit of God came on the Jews on the day of Pentecost, it came on the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius. And Peter goes to Jerusalem to report to the big shots there who were in authority and he says, let me tell you what happened about the house of Cornelius. Acts 15, 8 and 9 is the text, verses 8 and 9. Acts 15, verses 8 and 9. And he said, and God who knows the heart, and he knows yours and mine the same, God who knows the heart, bared them, as he means in the house of Cornelius, bared them with, giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did unto us. And everybody says, well then they spoke in tongues, that's not what he's urging about. He put no difference, he says, God who knows the heart, bare them witness there in their room, just what he did in the upper room, God who knows the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did to us in the upper room, and put no difference between us and them. Purely by faith. You don't find people backsliding after twenty dollars. His heart was pure. Now people say, let me condense it this way, I have five minutes to go and I need another fifteen, but anyhow. I was in a certain meeting not long ago and a man came in a beautiful beautiful Cadillac, he was leaving the meeting, and a fellow said to me, you see that man leaving? I said yes. Do you know a few years ago he ran round the town with women, he was a drunkard, he beat his wife, he gambled, he smoked, he drank, he did everything, and then God marvelously said to him, someone said to his wife, it must be very different living in your house now with your husband. He isn't out till two in the morning, he isn't chasing women, drinking, using his money on gambling, smoking, doing this, doing that, doing the other. Isn't it wonderful? The woman paused for a moment and said, let me put it this way, his habits have changed, but his disposition hasn't. Now sanctification changes the disposition. Justification is legal, it changes my standing with God. Adoption changes my relationship, I'm brought into his family. Regeneration works on my heart. Sanctification again, you see, we've separated them unfortunately, they're two sides of the same coin. The argument of the holiness people is that the children of Israel were in Egypt when they were in Egypt. Look this is a fantastic thing, I only discovered this about two weeks ago. It hit me just as we say like a two by four. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, poor, lonely, despised, forgotten people. Here they were in Egypt. For argument let's make it this way. Here's Egypt. Here's a promised land God wants them to have. They were in Egypt for four hundred years. And yet God never gave them a tabernacle. He never gave them a priest. He never gave them a revelation. God wasn't going to set up these tabernacles in lousy, filthy, dirty, immoral Egypt. Come out and be separate. And yet somehow we think that we can just ask God to baptize us with the Spirit, make me a missionary, when I'm plagued inside with unseenness, with vile temper, with secret lust, with ambition, with pride, with anger. God doesn't use polluted things. See so many people can't fight the fight of faith. We don't wrestle against principalities. Why? Because we're wrestling with problems inside all the time. That we should have got rid of years ago. They had to come out of Egypt. And when they got out of Egypt, God said, now look I'll tell you what. I'll give you a tabernacle. I'll give you a priesthood. I'll give you the message of redemption. But it didn't give them a thing for four hundred years. That must have been a heartbreak. Now look everybody here, whether I teach or somebody else, if you all settle to the same teaching for the next four years, you won't be all as mature in four years, because some of you don't have any ears, so you can't hear. Some of you have a ear, but you've got a stubbornness. We don't think much of stubbornness, except the book of God says, rebellion. Stubbornness is what? It is a sin of witchcraft. We don't think of it like that. We say, I'm stubborn. I know you're not stubborn, you just have a strong will. It's the other fellow that's stubborn, but there it is. Now this sanctification, number one, it is not Adamic perfection. You can't be as perfect as Adam. Number two, it's not angelic perfection, because we don't need it. Number three, it's not sinless perfection. Not that I'm making latitude for sin. I don't believe a believer should sin. When I hear people say, well, you know, I'm just, don't look at me, because really all I am is, I'm just a sinner, say, by grace. Sounds pretty humble, but it's pretty embarrassing to God, I think. Why? Well, I say, take a look at me and my dear wife, my sweet wife, look at her. I'm a rather unique character, I'm a married bachelor. Well, what? You say, now you can't be a married bachelor. Oh, I got news for you. I've got a friend who is a truthful liar. I have another friend who is an honest thief. I know a woman who is a pure harlot. I know another man who is a sober drunkard. You say, you're fooling with words. Well, how can you be a sinning saint? Aren't they further apart than a married bachelor? You see, sin doesn't frighten us anymore. That's a tragedy. Oh, we've made latitude for sin. Now look, it's not impossible for me to sin, it's possible for me not to sin. And remember, John is not writing to sinners. We use it for them. When he says in 1 John, if we sin, not when we sin. The scripture says, when ye fast, do this. We've changed that to if ye fast. The scripture says, if we sin, we've changed that to when you sin. Now we get to when and if, we've got to swap them back. It's not if you fast, you should fast. You should fast at least one day a week to keep your body under control, to give you more time. John Wesley fasted Wednesdays and Fridays all his life. But when you fast, you don't display it like the hypocrites, no, you don't show off. If we sin, normally as old watchman, he said, the normal Christian life, the normal Christian life is a life of victory. If I get defeated, if I sin, then I have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous. It's not impossible for me to sin, it's possible for me not to sin. All right, let me say one thing about faults. Some faults we can put right, some take an awful while to correct. Now one day, he's going to present us before his Father's throne. What? How? Faultless. But wait a minute, one of the last things in the revelation is, oh Satan's going to be booted out, won't that be great? We'll shout hallelujah then. Even the Presbyterians will get a voice. But anyhow, we're going to see the old devil kicked to where he belongs, and we're going to be presented faultless before his throne with great joy. But you see, Satan even in revelation is not what he is, he is the accuser of the brethren. Now he'll accuse you before God, he'll accuse you before other people, he'll accuse you to yourself if you take any notice of him. Now, I'm not faultless. I want something more than being faultless. I can be blameless. And if Satan accuses me about something, I say, well wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Tony might say to me, listen, you're going back in the era of, say I'm going up to Chicago, yes, well I've got a letter here, I need it there, you'll be getting the plane, would you mail it in Chicago tomorrow, and I say yes. I put it in my coat pocket, well I don't travel in this nice jacket, I travel in an old one, I can run fluff if I'm traveling in a plane, and I don't put my jacket on for a week. And then I put it on where I'm going to preach, and I put it on my theater seat, I have my pencil, oh boy, Tony's letter's there too. And I meet him in Chicago, and he says, Brother Ramiel, and I see him coming, and there's a mailbox, and I say, look at the mailbox. He says, hi, how are you, fine. Did you mail that letter for me? Sure, sure I did mail your letter. You can lie almost without, you know, trying, can't you? No, I say to him, Tony, I mailed it just now. Just now! It was about a business contract. You know, we've lost a job that's worth a hundred thousand dollars, just through your stupidity, now look at this, that, and the other. Now I don't think he's that kind of man, but some other men would say, I shouldn't have trusted you anyhow, you're a never defender, Now how am I going to sit down and cry and worry about it, not on your life? Why? Because I had no intention to injure him, that's why. I did it in ignorance, not willfulness. I was not faultless, but I was blameless. I need to check in those areas. So it's not sinless perfection, it is Christian perfection. Keep this in your little, between your ears. Christianity is not N or T being weighed in the balances and found one thing. Christianity is being tried, found difficult, and rejected. Thank you.