Larry Kirkpatrick. Original 28 March 1998. Reprise 4 March 2000. Castle Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The False Measuring-Stick in Action

Moses was a man trying to serve God. We are all people, I hope, trying to serve God. This morning we look at something very practical for us. I'd like you to turn with me today to Exodus two. It's very important that Christians run on God's plan. And as we begin here, I want us to look together at Moses.

We have this Moses. I believe that Moses had a real problem. Let's look at Exodus two, starting in verse 11.

And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well. (Exodus 2:11-15).

Moses -- who we see up there on Mount Sinai communing with God -- here is Moses the man whom God gave the law through -- and here's Moses, and he wants to deliver his brethren -- he goes out to be with his Hebrew brethren -- he goes out and he kills the Egyptian, and he winds up alone, sitting on a rock, hundreds of miles away from Egypt, and probably wondering, "what in the world has gone wrong? Because I thought I was supposed to deliver Israel."

Well, what was the thought in Moses' mind? I've got kind of an obscure passage for you today from the Spirit of Prophecy, but I'm going to give it to you anyway. Ellen White wrote in Letter 21a, 1893, speaking about Moses,

He was constantly studying the laws of God's government, and thus his faith grew. That faith was of value to him. It was deeply rooted in the soil of his earliest teachings, and the culture of his life was to prepare him for the great work of delivering Israel from bondage.

So in other words, Moses was working up to this thing: "I'm going to deliver Israel." This was what he understood God's will for him to be. And he was training, and putting into his heart and into his mind all these things that he understood would help him to deliver Israel one day. Now listen as I read further into the quotation . . . "He meditated on these things; he was constantly listening to his commission from God." So it filled his mind, "I am to deliver Israel." But the next sentence says, "After slaying the Egyptian, he saw that he had not understood God's plan."

What?

That's right: "After slaying the Egyptian, he saw that he had not understood God's plan." The quotation closes with the remark "And he fled from Egypt and became a shepherd. He was no longer planning to do a great work, but he became very humble; the mists that were beclouding his mind were expelled, and he disciplined his mind to seek after God as his refuge."

So first, he tried to deliver Israel. He thought that by killing the Egyptian, the people would see him as their deliverer. But instead, they turned on him and said, "well, what are you going to do? Who chose you to lead us?" And next he was running with his tail between his legs, and he wound up in the desert out there sitting on a rock.

Oops.

So here's Moses; he's trying to do God's will. He wants to do God's will. But there's just one problem: he has applied a false measuring-stick. He is not following God's plan. Because he understood after he slayed the Egyptian that he had not known what God's plan was. He had the wrong plan in mind--deliver by military force. But that wasn't the plan.

And so the question comes to us: how often do we run what we do on the false measuring-stick? Instead of God's plan, how often do we operate, measuring everything by a false measuring-stick?

And so we have this Moses, and he's using the false measuring-stick. He wants to do God's will, but still he isn't going in the right way. And by no means is Moses the only example of this. We could turn to many others.

One would be the disciples following Jesus. And remember how they were back there, hanging back along the road, arguing over who would be the greatest? Well that's the wrong measuring-stick. The idea in God's kingdom is the opposite of that. It's who will be the humblest?

Remember when they were gathered around there in the room and they had the footwashing service? And nobody got up or moved because the new kingdom was coming, and I wouldn't want to be known as one who was a little bit servile, you know; because I want to be "up there" in the kingdom. Wrong measuring stick.

What about Peter? Now we could turn in fact to Galatians two. Let's turn there. It's not just the Old Testament. Consider Galatians 2:11-14. Paul and Peter had a little run in. Now remember, at the end of the gospels there you find Jesus telling Peter, "When you're converted, strengthen your brethren." And so Peter has this experience; he preaches, he does mighty miracles and things. We read in Acts of all these mighty things that God did through the ministry of Peter. And yet when we come here to Galatians two, starting in verse eleven, what do we read here about what happened?

But when Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?

In other words, Peter, even after his experience and his conversion, and as he grew spiritually, and all these mighty things happened through him still, when this happened in Antioch, Paul stood up in front of him before the whole church, and said, "Peter, you're all wrong!" Here's a converted man, a Christian, and yet here's Peter and he begins to separate himself now and he's limiting himself, and he's over there with only the Jews, with only the Hebrews. And they're sitting at a separate table. And the gentiles are here, and Peter's over here.

You see, Peter, was running, again, on the false measuring-stick. He was using his thinking, his old ways, things that were built into his mind, that's how he was running his life.

There are several more of these. Remember the twelve spies? Two of them had the right measuring-stick. Do you remember the 12 spies? They all went out, and ten of them came back and said, "No. It's a wonderful land, but we just can't do it." And Caleb and Joshua said, "No, we can do it. God said we could do it. We're up here to possess the land." Different thinking. They were almost stoned over that.

Or how do you like Hezekiah? Do you remember Hezekiah there in Isaiah 38 and 39? He becomes ill there, he prays and asks God to give him deliverance there. And what happens? God says, "O.K., I'll give you 15 more years to live." And Hezekiah asks, "What sign are you going to give me?" And so He says, "O.K., let's have the sun go back in the sky a little bit." And, you know, this must have shocked the whole world! When the Babylonian ambassadors came up there, they said, "Hello. We've heard that your God made the sun go back, just for you. And we're quite impressed by that, and we'd like to hear more about your God." What about it?" So Hezekiah says, "Come back here, let me show you my treasure chest." Do you remember that? And what did the prophet come to him and ask? "How much have the Babylonian ambassadors seen?" "Oh, I've shown them just about everything." "Well, you'd better take another look at it, because it will be gone before you know it. It will all be carried away to Babylon."

What was happening? Hezekiah was running on the false measuring-stick. He had a wonderful opportunity to share the greatness of his God with them, and instead, he showed them his treasure. And so, how often even God's people find themselves running on the false measuring-stick -- walking through our lives and yet weighing things against a wrong value system.

God's Call to Revival

How can revival come to God's people in these last days? We often talk about prayer or having the Holy Spirit, and absolutely, you cannot have a revival without prayer and the Holy Spirit. But there's another thing important too. We're going to read it here in a moment in Isaiah 58. About restoring the law. That's right. Let me share this with you from Great Controversy p. 478, "It is only as the law of God is restored to its rightful position that there can be a revival of primitive faith and godliness among His professed people." Now did you hear what that is saying? It is only as the law of God is restored to its rightful position." We can talk about revival all day long, but unless that law is restored, there will be no revival of primitive faith and godliness. It won't happen. It is "only as," it says. See, that's a condition here.

We want Jesus to come, and so we've got the second coming. But what has to come before the second coming? Why, before that, the work has to be finished. And before the work can be finished, God's people must be revived. But before God's people can be revived, the law has to be restored to its rightful position. How can we restore the law to its rightful position? We have to become "restorers of the breach." And how can we do that? That's what I want to share with you, so that we don't find ourselves trying to do God's will with a false measuring-stick, but wind up sitting out there on a rock next to Moses, saying "nice desert you've got here."

So how can the law be restored to God's people?

In Revelation 14:12 (I think you all know that verse; we could pick any number of verses, but let's just use that one), after the three angels speak (Revelation 14:6-11), we find God's people described as having these qualities:

"Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." Now what did we just hear a moment ago: "It is only as the law of God is restored to its rightful position that there can be a revival of primitive faith and godliness among His professed people." Here we have "Here are they who keep the commandments of God." Now I'm not going to give you a Greek lesson today, but that word that is used there can also be translated "guard" -- it means not only to "keep" but to "guard." It includes the idea not only of "doing" (keeping), but "guarding" (preserving).

We have been positioned by God as the keepers of His oracles -- we are to keep God's law and be the guardians of it. Is there anyone just out there in the street that is going to randomly be assigned guardianship over God's law? I don't think so. Friends, no one out there is going to randomly become the guardian of God's law. It is always the people of God that are responsible to be the keepers of His oracles. It is never anyone else. And only because God makes it that way, not because we somehow would make it that way. Somehow this law has to become such a part of our lives that we are changed and we are enabled to keep and guard this law that Christ gave out there up on Sinai. Come with me now to Isaiah 59.

If we do not find God's measuring-stick, we'll inevitably default back to using our own false measuring-stick in the living of our lives from day-to-day. Listen to Isaiah 59:10 again:

"We grope for the wall like the blind." Where is that wall? There's a whole world out here that needs to know where that wall is. As God records the spiritual state of Israel He puts into their mouth "we grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men."

But if you go back about one page to Isaiah 58, there are wonderful things. Let's start in verse 11-12: "And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in" Isaiah 58:11-12. And then we read about the Sabbath, and God's plan in the very last days to restore the Sabbath -- the breach -- the hole in the wall. God calls His people to stand up and to rebuild the wall. You see, Jerusalem was a city that had its walls broken down. And God wanted His people to build up that city and restore the walls. The walls were protective for that city. But as long as there was a hole in the wall, anyone could go in through there. And so God's people are called to build up the walls, so that it will be safe inside the city.

And when we consider this verse in light of that ("They that shall be of thee shall be of thee shall build up the old waste place, shall raise up the foundations of many generations"), we think about the wall going up, and God's people being protected. "Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach." He has His people in these last days, and we are called to lift up the gospel, to lift up Christ, and to lift up God's law too. Because it is only as God's law is restored that there can be this final revival. The great trouble of the Jews was their rejection of Christ. They thought that they understood the law pretty well, but they were rejecting Christ. But in the last days the great sin of Christianity in general will be the rejection of the law of God. They will say good things about Jesus. But they will reject that which is the very transcript of His character. But we are called to restore and to build up. Notice what it says: "the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in." That is restoring the streets -- making the cities streets safe -- making Jerusalem safe to dwell in.

Look at the blessing in verse 13:

If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

What does it mean there when it says that we can "ride upon the high places?" Come with me to Deuteronomy 32. What is this blessing of riding on the high places that God wants His people to have?

You see, in Deuteronomy 32 comes the song of Moses as he recounts the history of Israel. And it speaks about what God did for His people. Starting now in verses 10-13:

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the LORD alone did lead him, and [there was] no strange god with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. Deuteronomy 32:10- 13

And so Israel is described there, in the wilderness protected by God. Christ is with them there as they go through. And they ride on those high places. These blessings come to them. And they have no strange gods with them (in verse 12). They are instructed by God in verse 10, they are led by God in verse 10, and He keeps them as the pupil of His eye. He protects them. He surrounded them and He went with them through the wilderness on this journey. This is the riding on the high places, so that in verse 13 God wants to pour out all these rich things upon us. But we can't receive it unless we are ready to follow our God. Because there is something that might block us from receiving this. We have to make sure that the false measuring-stick is not remaining operational in our lives.

What Happens at Conversion?

What happens when a person is converted? We can't be exhaustive (obviously), but come with me to Luke 4, because (I think that we might have a misunderstanding sometimes of what happens when a person is converted) Luke 4:18. One thing that happens -- I praise the Lord -- because like Israel riding on the high places in the wilderness, there is a release from bondage! Notice what 4:18 says (and you know these words of Jesus): "And the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised."

Do you see, by the way, that each time we read about deliverance we tend to read about a restoration of sight? Very interesting when we think about Revelation three and the call to the Laodicean church that says that your problem is that you can't see, so anoint your eyes with eyesalve. But here we see that when there is a release from bondage there is also an opening of the eyes -- a potential now opens up to us which before had seemed sealed away.

And then in John three we read about the new birth. We are being reborn from above. Now there is a life that comes into us. It illuminates and opens the way and gives us power for victory, power to follow Jesus that we didn't have before.

And then again, there is another item that we can find in Romans 12:2, so let's turn there. Not only are we released from bondage when we are converted. Not only do we receive new life from God, but now we are called to something. Notice what the verse says: "Be not conformed to this world." In other words, don't lay by passively and let this world just seep into you. Don't let this world sell you its false measuring-stick. But instead of just being passive and letting this stuff come into our lives, "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." So God calls us not only to release from bondage, not only to new life, but now we are called also, in this new experience to a deeper submission to God, to let God put His measuring-stick in our mind.

Friends, when a person is converted, does everything magically change? Does your past suddenly disappear? We'd like to say so, wouldn't we? God says He will not remember our sins. He will separate them from us as far as the east is from the west. He says that we each become a new creature in Christ. All those things, brothers and sisters -- I rejoice in those things. But I want to tell you, that when we are converted, all the old ways of doing things don't just drop away. Instead, now with God's help we must revisit the way we do things -- to rebuild our measuring-stick. Now we continue our journey through life with a new value system. Notice this little statement from 1 Selected Message 336:

When a man is converted to God, a new moral taste is supplied, a new moral power is given, and he loves the things that God loves . . . . But those who are waiting to behold a magical change in their characters without determined effort on their part, will be disappointed.

You see? We are renewed, we are released from bondage. But have you heard of these people that go to prison, they spend x number of years in prison, they get out and commit a crime, and they're back there in prison, right? And for some people, I believe the reason for this is that they are used to that structure, they're used to what happens in that environment. They have their habits, and they know how to function in a prison environment. They know how to function in bondage, but they don't know how to function as free people. And so, back they go.

Do you remember this in Israel's experience? How they threw up their hands and said, "Let's make us a captain and go back to Egypt." And all those things that happened to Israel are examples for us, aren't they? We must be wary. It is so easy to go back to where the leeks and the onions are. It's so much more convenient to just live with the things that we can remember.

And the fourth item in conversion, God wants to put His law in our inward parts. The new covenant promise, "I will write My law in their minds and in their hearts." That comes to us there. God begins to write now, inside. Before He influenced us, when we weren't committed to Him. But now as we're committed to Him and we're renewed, now the writing begins on our heart on the inside, in an altogether different way. And I treasure those promises, but I am afraid that we do not suddenly at the "click" of our conversion, suddenly just change over and the way we used to do things is different. I think that we need to keep growing.

Now let's stop and think about Moses again. Moses wanted to deliver Israel. This was his plan. But he went about it in the wrong way in the beginning. And yet we saw that he was thinking about his commission from God. He knew it was God's plan. And he did have some good values there. If you read in Hebrews 11 that he forsook the pleasures of sin for a season, he forsook all the things and the values of Egypt. He was willing to discard that. And we praise God for that. But still Moses killed the Egyptian on his way out. He fouled it all up. Listen to a couple of remarks here. First, from 2 Manuscript Releases, p. 325:

He had been instructed in the Egyptian courts. Nothing was left as unnecessary to train him to become a general of armies. The false theories of the idolatrous Egyptians had been instilled into his mind, and the influences surrounding him and things his eyes looked upon could not be easily shaken off or corrected. Thus it is with many who have had a false training in any line. All the idolatrous rubbish of heathen lore must be removed -- bit by bit, item by item -- from Moses' mind.

When I think about how I grew up, (and perhaps of how you grew up), I'm concerned about all the junk that must still be in there, yet needing to be removed from our minds if we would really let Him clear the pathway so that we could really live His law! Notice what it says in Patriarchs and Prophets p. 248 on Moses:

Moses had been learning much that he must unlearn. the influences that had surrounded him in egypt -- the love of his foster mother, his own high position as the king's grandson, the dissipation on every hand, the refinement, the subtlety, and the mysticism of a false religion, the splendor of idolatrous worship, the solemn grandeur of architecture and sculpture -- all had left deep impressions on his developing mind and had molded, to some extent, his habits and character.

So even though he was trying to study the law of God and do God's will, still the surroundings of Egypt had led Moses to be filled with these strange things that were not of God. The false measuring-stick was there. Implanted. Operational. Distorting. Distorting what even a Moses saw!

Fortunately, we read this just down the same page, "Time, change of surroundings, and communion with God could remove these impressions." Aren't we glad for that? You know, we talk about these things, and it seems its so impossible to get to the bottom. But still, there is hope. All these can be shaken off and removed. They can. Time, change of surroundings, and communion with God can remove them.

On one occasion while we were serving in Nevada I was asked to be part of a committee. The conference had decided that it would spend x number of thousands of dollars on TV advertisements for the Net 96' evangelistic crusade, and the conference was going to pay for it. And so I was on this committee of pastors that came in, and we were going to decide how we would spend the money on the advertising spots. And the representative came in from the TV station, and she began to talk to us about how to do TV commercials. She spoke to us in terms of what she called "sales impressions." She outlined the number of "sales impressions" you would get for a certain amount of money. She pointed out how you have to pile these "sales impressions" up within the space of a certain limited period of time so that people get these impressions over and over again; and how then it would have a greater impact upon them and might even lead them to consider coming out and attending the meetings.

I found that to be quite interesting -- the "sales impressions." And each day we live we are repeatedly exposed to many "sales impressions" that come into our mind. And I'm just going to share a few of these from my experience with you.

The Embarrasing Truth About What's Inside of Yours and My Value Systems

You know, I didn't grow up in the church. And I know that many of us here didn't grow up in the church. One of the major influences on my life was rock music. To this day my wrists will begin to hurt when I overuse them. In college, when it came to time for midterms or finals, my wrists would go south on me. That's part of the price I pay for having practiced those scales on my guitar eight hours a day. My goal was to become the fastest guitarist in the world. Hey, why settle for number two, O.K.? See, it was the false measuring-stick. I'm going to be the fastest! So I got tapes by Al Dimeola, and Van Halen, and all these different people, and I'd go up and down the scales -- back and forth -- for hours at a time. And now I get tendonitis if I do hardly anything. And so when I had to write my midterms and my finals, suddenly my hands became very painful and would remain that way for several weeks. But it comes back to these false values, this rock music that I played.

Not only that, but the earliest TV show that I remember watching was Police Woman starring Angie Dickinson. And here was this lady, and I don't recall a lot about it, but I think she wore short dresses, she carried a gun, and she usually got the bad guy. She drove, she carried a gun, and she had this Hollywood beauty. Not only that, but I remember watching Charlie's Angels, three more female beauties, detectives; they were beautiful, they drove fast, and they carried guns. And they got the bad guy. These were, no doubt, some of the things that my values were built up on.

I used to watch the original Star Trek series. Actually, I think I might have got a couple of good values from that. There were some other things that weren't so good. I used to watch movies starring Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, and of course, the James Bond series. I used to read science fiction books and war novels. And I want to tell you, that if reality was like I was -- this unreal person, and my measuring stick was built on these things -- if that's the way reality was, then every woman in this congregation would have this plastic Hollywood beauty, you'd all drive fast, and you'd all carry guns or maybe phasers. And all the men would be heroic guys running around and within about 60 minutes of time you could solve whatever was wrong with this world and fix it just in time for the commercial. See that's an unreal experience, that's an unreal measuring stick.

And to that extent, that my life is built on these things -- I am an unreal person.

I'm afraid that some of you are too.

But I'm glad that God loves unreal people, aren't you? Because God's got a better measuring-stick; He's not going to leave us there with a view of life that is Charlie's Angels. He's not going to leave us there with a view of life where we have all this good and evil and it's resolved in 51 minutes, and we carry a gun around, and we just go "bang, bang," and we fix it. God's not going to leave us in a Nintendo reality, where all the bad guys get smashed and you just go to the next level.

Instead, God has a better measuring-stick for us. And the basis of our new values -- our new things that we measure by -- has to be Scripture. We go to our Scriptures, and this is our measuring-stick. We go to the teachings, the life of Jesus, and we see -- all over the place -- "blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." That's backwards from the world's measuring-stick, isn't it? But this is the right measuring-stick!

Did you ever wonder why God gave us so many books by Ellen White? Was it just because the press got out of control, or was it just because she couldn't stop writing, she was a compulsive writer? I believe one reason we have all these writings is to help us to get the right measuring-stick in our brain. Because God wants us to have the right measuring-stick. So, we need to wash our minds in these things.

Well, I want to close by suggesting some action-steps that we can take, so that we can think about that. So that our minds can be changed and that our lives can be lived, not on the false measuring-stick. So that we can be keepers of the law, restorers of the breach, and the revival can come and the work can be finished, and Jesus can come, and we can go home to heaven. No, I don't want to live in a world of Nintendo, and of Star Trek and James Bond, and all these toxic things from a culture that is morally broken and poisonous. I don't want to be an unreal person, I want to be a real person as God designed for humanity to be real.

Action Steps

What steps can we take? Just a few of them now as we close.

1. Actively wash our minds in Scripture. Actively wash your mind in Scripture. "Oh, brother Larry, you're talking about brain-washing." Is there anybody here who's brain doesn't need washing? will you just raise your hand? I mean, the world has already washed our brain; we need to wash it out! So let's wash our mind in Scripture. Ephesians 5:25-27, you already know this passage. Notice what it says there: "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's what we need. And then He says, "That He might present it to Himself, a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, that it should be holy and without blemish." Actively washing our mind in God's Word. Now maybe you're not a good reader. Some of us read better than others. You can get a cassette tape of Scripture, a CD-ROM, listen to that maybe. Many are the means by which you can put Scripture into your mind.
2. Plead with God in prayer. Go to Psalm 139. These changes don't just happen. We think of these surface things, but there are all these patterns of decision-making that we habitually use that are beneath the surface. And those things don't change magically, we need to cooperate with God, acting our part while receiving His help. Notice the last two verses of this Psalm, 23 and 24, the prayer of the Psalmist. The false measuring-stick is loose amongst us. Listen to one way that I think we can find help from our Redeemer: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Don't just show it to me, God, but now help me to go that way. I want to ride on the high places. Search me and lead me in the way everlasting. Show it to me O Lord.Psalm 139:23-24. And how about another one? . . .
3. Turn off as much as possible the inflow of media that presses you into its worldly shape. Romans 12:2. You are shaped, I am shaped, by all these things we see on the TV or hear on the radio or view on the internet. I recall on one occasion I was driving down highway 75 in Florida to Tampa. And you know, about every two miles there is a billboard that says "Fantasy Girls," or something like that, I don't recall the exact wording. But this is pressed into your mind every two miles. It must be cost-effective, too, because those restuarant billboards cannot be inexpensive. This is just a sample of some ofthe things that are poisoning us. Now I can't take those billboards down, but I can drive straight ahead. If I am driving to Florida maybe I can put a Bible-tape in or something. Or I can have one of the passengers read Scripture to me. Or we can talk about God's word, we can think about it together and reflect on it. How I rejoice with my wife when we spend time alone together some times, and we just talk about the Bible, we talk about God's things. Those are the things that we need. Because there is too much unreality in our lives.
4. No one says that this will be easy. Is it going to be easy to overcome in this way in the end? It won't be easy. But we have to be constant and continuous.
5. Well, how might be pray specifically? perhaps something on this line: "God, please bring to life the faculties you have given me, so that I can receive Your help. Send light and illumination, help me to see where changes need to occur. Help my conscience to react with hatred toward worldly plants that You want to pluck up out of my life. Lord, please: take it away. Please change me. I promise that I will immerse myself in Scripture, that I will take active steps to wash my mind. I want to stand on Mount Zion with Jesus.

In Closing

Friends, I just want to appeal to you. The false measuring-stick is everywhere. Every one of us has a false measuring-stick. But God's given us the true measuring-stick. So I'm not just talking today about reading the Bible and getting rid of sin in our lives. Amen to that. Absolutely. But I am also saying, there are deep things that we value that we base decisions on, and that we don't think about immediately. And those things don't change the moment that we are converted, and so we need to actively ask God, "Please, come now, and reveal this rubbish point by point, so that I can open the way, so that You can use me, and we can finish this thing and we can all go and see the face of Jesus. There isn't anything false going into heaven. God is going to measure us by the true measuring-stick and by His grace, He's going to say, "Come on in." So its time to be about our Father's work. Amen?

Let's stand and having a closing thought in prayer.

Dear Father in heaven, here we stand, the souls You have created and made. But added to the good things that You've given to us, how many poisonous and toxic and false things are there? And I know that in my heart, so many times I have valued things by the false measuring-stick, the false values that this world has, with my consent, pressed into me. And now I know that we must allow You to wash our minds and speak to us through Your Holy Spirit to reveal the things that must go. Lord, we don't want to be imprisoned in a world where kids shoot each other in school. Lord we want to go home. We want to see Jesus. Decisions are being made here. This is a moment in time, but we still must follow-through. Lord, work in our hearts and lives. Help us to submit even further. Put in our lives the right measuring-stick. Thank you for giving it to us. May it truly become part of our mind and heart. May this all become real to us, may we ride on the high places. Lord, may each one receive what You have given. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

The work that God has begun in the human heart in giving His light and knowledge must be continually going forward. Every individual must realize his own necessity. The heart must be emptied of every defilement and cleansed for the indwelling of the Spirit.

God alone can ripen the harvest. But man's cooperation is required. God's work for us demands the action of our mind, the exercise of our faith. We must seek His favors with the whole heart if the showers of grace are to come to us.

The condition upon which you may come to God is not that you shall be holy, but that you desire Him to cleanse you from al sin and purify you from all iniquity.

God has not left us in the ruin wrought by the fall. Every faculty has been placed in reach by our Heavenly Father, that men may, through well-directed efforts, regain their first perfection, and stand complete in Christ.

Every room in the soul temple has become more or less defiled, and needs cleansing. The cobwebbed closet of conscience is to be entered.

[of Moses] His own heart must be fully in harmony with God before he could teach the knowledge of His will to Israel.

The word of God will give the correct standard of right and wrong, and of moral principle.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Man through sin has been severed from the life of God. His soul is palsied through the machinations of Satan, the author of sin. Of himself he is incapable of sensing sin, incapable of appreciating and appropriating the divine nature. Were it brought within his reach there is nothing in it that his natural heart would desire it. The bewitching power of Satan is upon him. All the ingenious subterfuges the devil can suggest are presented to his mind to prevent every good impulse. Every faculty and power given him of God has been used as a weapon against the divine Benefactor. So, although He loves him, God cannot safely impart to him the gifts and blessings He desires to bestow.

But God will not be defeated by Satan. He sent His Son into the world, that through His taking the human form and nature, humanity and divinity combined in Him would elevate man in the scale of moral value with God.

There is no other way for man's salvation. "Without me," says Christ, "ye can do nothing" (John 15:5). Through Christ, and Christ alone, the springs of life can vitalize man's nature, transform his tastes, and set his affections flowing toward heaven. Through the union of the divine with the human nature Christ could enlighten the understanding and infuse His life- giving properties through the soul dead in trespasses and sins.