In this sermon, the speaker begins by sharing his personal experience of not being a drinking man, but witnessing the shame and disgrace of being associated with a drunken person. He emphasizes that our actions and understanding of others' behavior are not the ultimate evaluation, but rather the byproduct of what God has given us. The speaker then reads from the first chapter of Corinthians, highlighting that the letter is addressed to the church at Corinth, composed of those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. He emphasizes the importance of being sanctified in Christ Jesus as the foundation of the church.

I never was a drinker in all my sin. I ran with them, but I would never drink. But a drunken drinking man said to me one day, There isn't anything in the world that makes me more ashamed than to be walking down the street with a drunken man and he's sober. He said his antics make me so ashamed, I feel like I'd like to turn down the first alley and run. But he said, give me a couple of drinks of the same jug no matter how he acts. You can evaluate ultimately by your feelings. You've been drinking all the same jug. It doesn't matter whether you act like they do or if you understand why they do. When it's all said and done, this is only a byproduct of the thing that God has given us. It isn't in the blessing that we have that's rich and I enjoy it, but we wouldn't have that if it weren't for this. It's because of hope that's been born within us, begotten to a lively hope, but we wouldn't have that if we didn't have this. It's because blood was shed to redeem us and the Holy Ghost was sent to sanctify us, but we wouldn't have that if we didn't have this. That's why I'm a lover of this. This is basic. All the other must respect upon it. And I bless God it can and does. I'd like to read from three portions of this book tonight, make a comment or two as I read, and then take up the line of our discussion for the evening. In the first chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians, I should like to read the first two verses. Paul is writing this letter to the church at Corinth. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and sustenance our brother unto the church of God which is at Corinth to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours. There's a lot of preaching territory in those two verses. But I'd like you to note that the letter is address of the church at Corinth and the church is composed of those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. Just I'd like you to get that those that are sanctified in Christ Jesus constitute the church. I'd like to go over to Ephesians chapter 5 and read a verse or two beginning at verse 25. Ephesians chapter 5 beginning at verse 25. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it unto himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish. Now that's what they were saying about them without spot or blemish. A holy church. But did you note here that that group that constituted the church becomes the object of the love of Christ. Christ loved the church. He gave himself for it the church that he might sanctify it the church. Now I'd like you to get this. It is one thing to be sanctified in Christ. It's another thing to be sanctified by Christ. I turn to the 13th chapter of the Hebrew letter and I would read a verse or two beginning at verse 7. Hebrews 13 verse 11. For the bodies of those whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. Are you ready? You'd like the glory, a blessing, all that goes. But what about his reproach? Are you ready? Are you ready? Oh, it's wonderful to be less of God and among God's people. But there's an element of reproach that's facing you if you walk this way. Let us go forth. Where? Outside the camp. What is the camp? Why, that's where our friends live and our enemies if we have any. Our friends and our enemies live in the camp. But we're to go outside the camp to him. I mean to tell you neighbor, there is a consecration that separates you from your friends and your kinfolk in order that you may be loyal and true to him. Now I'd like to look at that word sanctify tonight for that's at the bottom of what I'm reading. There is such a thing as being sanctified in Christ. And if you are not sanctified in Christ, you are not a member of his church. You say, what's the difference between being sanctified in Christ and being sanctified by Christ? That's what I'd like to discuss with you tonight. First of all, I would like you to go back before the creation of man and in the council chambers of eternity, look in a little and understand what is in the mind of God before he starts this business of building the earth upon which he was the creator placed in. In the first letter of Peter, the first chapter, you have it stated that before the foundation of the world, the Lamb of God was slain, was foreordained to be slain. Now whenever God foreordained a thing to happen, nothing in the universe can stop it from happening. I believe in foreordination. I certainly do. I believe that before he ever started building this whole universe of ours, he foreordained that in the whole pattern there would be a slain Lamb and the blood of Jesus Christ would be incorruptible and would be the purchase price of our redemption. You read it there. We are not redeemed by corruptible things as silver and gold from our vain conversation received by tradition from our fathers, but by the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without thought who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world. Now that takes us back into the council chambers of eternity and the Godhead in council foreordained that there would be bloodshed one day, incorruptible blood, blood that had redemptive power in it and the devil couldn't stop that because God foreordained it. Now if you would go to the third chapter of Revelation, at verse 8 I believe it is, he is talking about a book that name could be blotted out of. It's a book of the Lamb's name from the foundation of the earth. Before it was ever started, he foreordained it would come and when he laid the foundation of the universe, he put right in the foundation structure a slain Lamb. God was not caught in an emergency garden of Eden. When Adam sinned, God wasn't caught off guard. He had made all the provisions necessary for the redemption of a race of moral beings who would fall in the soul of the provision made. It was foreordained and then it was laid. Right when the plan began to be executed, the slain Lamb was put right in the foundation structure and from that foundation there's been a book kept regarding all that went on from then until now. Now, when Adam sinned in the garden, if he had received the full measure of his penalty, the day he sinned, you and I wouldn't be here. You can see that, can you not? As Brother Zeit used to say, why a blind man ought to see that with his head. That if Adam had received the full measure of his penalty, the day he sinned, he would have perished and we would never have been here. The race would have perished right there in the garden. But because there had been a slain Lamb, a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, God could drive the man and the woman out of the garden on a covenant of grace that had promise tied to it. It certainly wasn't justice of God that kept Adam out of hell that day. It was the mercy of God. It was the grace of God. Some theologians said original grace, that original sin in the garden. And he kept the man from going to hell. He drove the man and the woman out of the garden. And in the womb of that man was the seed of the whole human family. And every baby that's ever been born into this world has been born because a Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world or from the foundation of the world. Every baby has been allowed to be born because Jesus Christ was put in that foundation. Now when a baby is born into the world, they're born with depravity in their heart. The depravity that came into the heart of Adam when he was driven, as we went into a little, not much the other night, but a little. When Adam was driven out the garden, God blew the candle out in the hole. The Bible says the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. When the spirit of man is in contact with the spirit of God and they're in harmony, the light of God is in his heart. That's why we talk about walking in the light. That's why the Bible talks about being the light. And if we walk in the light, if we keep our covenant and we walk in the light, we have fellowship because we're together in the light. And the light went out in the soul of Adam. He had a soul with a spirit, but no light in the spirit. And the soul pushed the body around and used it as an instrument of sin. An instrument of unrighteousness. That's all the soul could do. It didn't know how to serve God. And the man who is unregenerate does not know how to serve God because the service of God must be a spiritual service. God is a spirit, says the book. And they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. You cannot worship God by physical exercise if there is no spirit in it, no spirit of holiness, no spirit of fellowship, no spirit of worship. It isn't worship. You can sing special songs and pray certain prayers or longer ones, but if the spirit of God has never touched your spirit to give you that inner illumination, you do not know how to worship God. We don't know how. We're in darkness. We're dead in trespasses and in sin. But that baby is born into this world because the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world. And while that baby is in its infancy, it is without responsibility. I do not know when you became responsible for your conduct, responsible to God. No man can tell that from another. Doctor, what's his name? We talked about him the other day. I think names were then converted at two and a half years, Dr. Godby. Others talk about being converted at five, six, seven, eight. I don't know where you come to the hour when in your own heart you know that sin is sin, not because Dad said so, not because Mom said so, not because the Sunday school teacher said so, not because the preacher said so, but you know in your heart by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit that you're a sinner. You remember that hour when you first awakened your soul to the fact that somebody, my dad and mom, was looking at you, somebody besides the Sunday teacher and the preacher was looking at you, that you were under the eye of somebody out there, and the things you were doing were wrong. What makes a cannibal want to bury the bone of a man in the sand? He doesn't bury the bone of an animal that he eats the flesh of, but if he eats the flesh of a human body, he'll bury the bone in the sand to cover up the evidence of his what? Why does he do that? Something in him tells him there are things that are right and some that are wrong. But that baby born into this world with a depraved heart, that soon manifests itself. The Bible tells me that I was shaped in iniquity and in sin did my mother feed me. The psalmist puts it that way. I've often put it I'm conceived in sin and while a body is being formed in the womb, I'm shaped in iniquity and when I come to birth, I come to birth estranged from the womb and go astray as soon as I'm born, making lies. That's the Bible. The wicked are estranged from the womb and go astray as soon as they're born, making lies. But the prophet said, the heart is his equal above all things and desperately wicked. So I'm conceived in sin, I'm shaped in iniquity, I'm born in alienation with a wicked heart. Why did God allow that to be? He allowed it because I'm capable of being redeemed. I'm salvable. I am redeemable. If I will, I can be redeemed. If I will not, there is no power in this universe will ever redeem me against my will. I'm going to have to will. The book makes it very clear. If any man will to do his will, he shall know. If you come to the place when you are in submission to the Lordship of Jesus and willing to do his will, you learn something right there. But here's that child walk away from God, from birth in alienation, but under a covenant of being irresponsible, not held accountable. But there will come a day when they will face that I'm a sinner. Not because mom said so, not because pop said so, but I'm a sinner for God. And if at that point a youngster would ratify the covenant behind my submission to the will of God, they would ratify the covenant. They could walk right on. And I think Dr. Buck claims he never sinned away to sinful justification. That from the time of his beginning, he walked in the light as soon as he came up to it. Well, I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I know the day when sin became me, not because mother said I shouldn't use certain words, and not because of no man that taught a Sunday's class. I'd seen him, and I had heard him, and I knew that he was different than other men. And because he didn't use naughty words, I knew it now because the Lord. And yet, the Holy Ghost didn't present me with any particular sin. When I awakened to the fact that I was a lost being, unless I would be redeemed, it didn't appear to me that I didn't know enough, knew nothing about the Bible, no prayer in the home, no Bible reading, no preacher ever called on our home, nobody ever prayed in it, and nobody ever came to see us and talk about salvation. You say, where'd you live? In the fruit belt of western men. Two miles from one church, three miles from another, and four miles from another, but nobody ever came around to see us and ask us about our soul and talk with us. So I was utterly ignorant, but the issue that fazed me was the matter of dying. My father had died, my grandfather had died, and I watched the body of my grandfather drown into the grave as a little lamb when I was about five or six, and I wondered what it was all about. But this day, on my road to school, the Holy Ghost brought on my heart a sense of the fact that one day I was going to die too, and I wasn't ready. All my conviction consisted of was that. One day you're going to die, and you aren't ready. If I had recited the covenant behind me by saying, Dear Lord, if you will let me, I'll follow whatever you want me to do. Well, actually, that's what I told him as a young man. I didn't know what happened. I wasn't a good talker. I was young. I'd been struggling for about an issue and thought I would, and then the devil would say that I'd go out of the game for a little some more. But I came to the end with my head very tall behind me, and the words that I had to God were, Dear Lord, if you will help, I'll do anything the world ought to do, and that's what you have to do. I didn't see falling stars or rolling planets or anything, but I entered into a covenant with God in heaven. I had been made once earlier and had backslidden France, but this is where I settled the thing that if you'll do for me what I need to have done, I'll walk with you. I've been a try on everything, but I'd like you to see that there's a covenant behind me. There was a covenant that God made that I have nothing to do with. It was a covenant that He made that covered babies. Every baby is under the atonement. Birth, life, opportunity is one of the results or benefits of the atonement that you have nothing to do with. It's over every baby, but when you come to the age of accountability, then it becomes your choice. And when you make your choice that I'm going to walk with Jesus Christ, He'll do something for you and you are at that point sanctified in Christ. And whenever you've grown tall and been rebellious for a long time, you know the road to conversion, except ye repent and become as a little child. Ye shall know case under. No man, no woman will ever get into the covenant of God unless they come back to infancy, back to childhood, repent, and become as a little child, willing to be taught, willing to be led, willing to follow. Isn't that easy? It looks that way. It is. And I tell you, it's hard for big men to come back. It's hard for tall men to come back. The little, because the little, your problem in a close fight is then developing in your heart. And we're too proud to come down. God resists the problem, but He gives us grace to come back individually to repent and come back to childhood and be willing to be taught and willing to be led and let the world become a little child. They get into Christ. Now I'd like to look at that word sanctify. It's a word that has two distinct meanings. Somebody might rise up and say, well, two meanings, I don't want to deal with double meaning where you don't. I were to say to you, I'm going to talk about an eye tonight. What would you think about? I suppose you'd think about the beer head, but what about the hole in the hood? What about the center of a tornado? Would I be violating a word if I used it in any one of those? I say I want to talk about a foot tonight. You might look at me or what size shoes I wear. Well, maybe the carpenters think about 12 inch. I talk about a ball. I talk about a ball. You say, well, one of the things you throw or kick may be a dance hall. When you go into your language, you will find a great many words that have more than one meaning. Some of the meanings are closely related. Some of them are not so closely related. You'd wonder how the same word could reach into both areas. In many cases, you might wonder, but the word sanctify means to set apart to a sacred or holy purpose. It also means to purge, to cleanse, to purify, to make holy. And I would submit to you that when you get into Jesus Christ, you are no longer in the world. You have been set apart from the world to a sacred or holy purpose. Your very objective in life now is to live the glory of God. If you don't want to live the glory of God, you aren't converted. Is that too blunt? No, sir. Not from the word of God. No man has ever been converted. There are two things that will be there. He'll be a lover of holiness, and he will be separated from the world until he wants to live for the glory of God. Those things are inevitable if you're going to become a child of God. You're to be separated from the world to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when I'm separated from the world to take up my walk with Christ, there are four things that will happen at that point. The judge in heaven will blot out the record of my sin that's against me, and we call that the justified. The Holy Spirit will witness with my heart that my sins are forgiven and purchased. Brother, how would I know that my sins were forgiven if the Holy Ghost told me? Could you tell me with authority? You say, I tell you the Bible says yes. I know the Bible says all of that's intellect. That's simply an intellectual apprehension of a fact that's written like on white. But the Holy Ghost will let you know deeper down than in your intellect. His Spirit will bear witness to your spirit that you're a son of God, and you will know deeper down than your intellect. There will be a great sense within your soul somewhere of the fact that there isn't any condemnation. Why? Because in connection with that regeneration is the purging of my conscience. The judge up there cleared the record in heaven. The Holy Ghost down here clears the conscience to agree with it. My conscience answers to the record up there because the Holy Spirit who saw that happen told me it had happened. Is that? Am I making mouth? I don't know how to do it better. I like to visualize things myself. Jesus Christ set the right hand of the Majesty on high. When he was buying out the purge of our sins, the record is he set down the right hand of the Majesty on high, and he ever lived up to intersection. And the Holy Ghost is out there in the world condemning men of sin. When he has come he will remove the world of sin, of righteousness and judgment, and he will lead you, my friend, if you are here unmade or unsanctified. It will be the Holy Ghost himself that will draw you to the place of prayer. When he convinces you, he may bring you to a place of prayer. You say, is this all true? In my case, it was in an old devourer of a big farmhouse. I was unmarried to a bachelor and living alone and running a farm. And it was in a in a parlor back of a farmhouse with my head buried with empty. I was brought there by the Holy Ghost in penitence. And I didn't know what was going on in heaven, but when I bowed in penitence, the Son of God appeared and he took up the intercession for me. He made intercession to the Father for S.I. And the Father, as Wesley puts it, the Father hears him pray. His dear anointed one, he cannot turn away the presence of his Son. The Father was listening and when the Father said to the Son, Yes, Son, I'll forgive him for your sake. Now, I'm down there praying. The Holy Ghost is down there dealing with me and I would never know the Father had forgiven me if the Holy Ghost didn't tell me. For I tell you, when the Father knobs his seat by me like that, the Son of God hears her, my advocate, and he tells him, I'll forgive S.I. I'll forgive him for your sake, the Holy Ghost. What is the Holy Ghost? He will not testify of himself, but whatsoever he is, then shall he testify of. And he saw the Father forgive me for... And he told me something. I tell you, brother, there's something about being in Jesus Christ. When he told me that, my conscience no longer would condemn me because he told me that the judge up there wiped the record off in the court. I'm justified. I'm regenerated. I am initially sanctified. What is sanctification? It's a purging. My conscience is purged from dead work to serve the living God. I have no more sense of guilt than as though I had never sinned. I had sinned a lot but all sense of guilt was gone. Never do tell me that's a little infection. The Godhead is involved in that. I'm adopted into the family. I have the spirit of adoption in my heart. The four things are justified. I'm regenerated. I'm adopted. I'm initially sanctified. And that sanctification consists of two things. A, setting apart for sacred or holy purpose and a purging of the conscience. But you know what's on the conscience? Only what I have acquired by way of depravity. I started out down there, see me? I have inherited depravity. But I acquire depravity by my deconduct. I'm more wicked than I was. I keep adding sin to sin. Piling up sin upon sin and piling up more sin upon sin. But all the time I'm doing that, the Bible says I'm pressuring up wrath against the oppressed. Read it. Romans chapter 2. After thine heart, innocent heart, treasure is stuck under the house, wrath against the oppressed. Not knowing that the goodness of God would be unrepentant when the Holy Ghost stands out there in sin and wants to bring repentance to the feet of Christ. That's the reason I'm so angry God. I'm angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with I'm so angry with I'm so angry I'm so angry with God. I'm angry with God. I'm so angry with I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry God. I'm so angry I'm so angry with I'm so angry with I'm so angry with God. I'm so God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm with God. I'm with I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry I'm so angry with I'm angry with God. I'm so with I'm so angry with I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with I'm so angry with so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with I'm so angry with God. I'm angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry God. I'm so angry angry I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. I'm so angry with God. beginning, there is an everlasting ahead of me without an end, and it takes both of those to make one eternity. But the eternal God is my refuge. From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God, and He is my refuge. And underneath are the everlasting arms. He is my refuge. But then within that I draw a smaller arch, and over this smaller arch I would write the redemptive will of God. God wants every man to be saved. You say He doesn't want me. Yes, He does. He said so. He tells us in 2 Peter 3.9, He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He tells us in 1 Timothy 2, He would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He wants everybody to come within this redemptive arm. He'll never compel you to do it. He'll never drive you in, but He invites you, and He'll make you welcome if you come. He stands to welcome you if you come. But you have the power as a moral being to say to God, I want. Isn't that something? That a mere man down here on earth can shake his head in the feet of a sovereign God and say, I won't do it. You have that power to tell God, I want the good. You can't make yourself good, but He'll use the power of heaven, the power of eternity to make you good if you want to be. There'll be a deep desire in your heart to be good. And when you seek God because you want to be good, you'll want to be holy. You'll want to be rid of sin, but He won't compel you to do that. But let me tell you, if you stay outside of the redemptive arch, down the road somewhere in the eternal purpose, there's going to be a judge. And when He calls you to judgment, you're not going to have any choice in that. You're coming. Whether you have been good or bad, you're coming to judgment because He said so. All men are going up here. Isn't it wonderful that God has made a program by which if I want to, I can turn into the overtures of mercy and tell Him, oh God, I'm not able to be good. I want to be, but I can't be. Will you make me good? You'll be surprised what a sin God can do, because He wants to do it. Shall we stand and bow our heads?