Denying Self

The Imperative of Christ's Death and Its Purpose

0:03 Turn with me tonight to the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 16.

0:12 And I shall read verses 21 through 27. Matthew 16, verses 21 through 27.

0:31 You'll remember now our Lord Jesus has just received from Peter a statement concerning the fact that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God. And he told Peter that flesh and blood had not revealed this truth unto him, but the Father who was in heaven. And having revealed his essential person, who he was, the very Christ, the Son of the living God, we read in verse 21 that he begins to unfold the essential purpose for which he came. Having revealed who he is, he now begins to specifically reveal unto his disciples why he has come.

1:11 He has given hints at it before, this concept that Jesus came to the Jewish nation and offered unto them an earthly kingdom, and because they rejected it, then he decided to die and come as a Savior is utterly unfounded in Scripture.

1:28 Jesus said early in his ministry in John 2, with the first miracle performed in Cana of Galilee, destroy this temple, and in three days I'll raise it up, this spake he concerning his body. Our Lord Jesus came as the Lamb. The Lamb ordained from the foundation of the world, he came to die. But it was not until now that he began to unfold clearly and specifically and in detail the manner in which he would die.

1:56 And so we have in verse 21 this clear statement, and I shall read now verses 21 through 27. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must, I want to underline that word, how that he must go unto Jerusalem. And suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee.

2:28 But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me, for thou savest, or thou thinkest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus, Unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life?

3:06 It should not be translated soul, his own life. It's the same word in the original as is used up in the precepts. In the preceding verse, what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own life? For what shall a man give in exchange for his life?

3:22 For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then shall he reward every man according to his works.

3:33 In verse 21, we have announced to us that Jesus began to declare unto his disciples the imperative, the absolute necessity of his death. We read, From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must, and it's a strong word, it's a word of intense imperative, he began to show unto them how that he must go to Jerusalem, and that he must suffer, and that he must be killed, and that he must be raised again from the dead on the third day. Now I want to ask you a very simple question tonight. Why did Jesus speak of the imperative?

4:16 What made the death of this one who was just confessed to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, what made his suffering and his death and his resurrection imperative? Oh, you say, because God loved us, and in our sin, God planned to provide a way of escape, and so Jesus had to go to the cross. Yes, I know that. But I wonder if you've ever penetrated beyond the mere shell of those words and laid hold of the real root of the sin.

4:46 I wonder if you've ever penetrated beyond the mere shell of those words and laid hold of the real root of the sin. Is there a root cause of why Jesus had to go and die?

4:54 Because of man's sin, yes. But what is sin? What is the essence of sin? Until I understand what the heart and the essence of sin is, I will never understand the heart and the essence and the real throbbing gold of God in sending a deliverer from sin.

5:16 If my conception of sin is just salvation, I will never understand the heart and the essence of sin. bad things that I do that sort of make God frown, then I can never understand the core of the purpose of redemptive work in which he plans to deliver men from sin. The oil brewery in one of his books says this, and I'm quoting freely, not verbatim. Sin consisted in nothing but this.

5:58 Sin has as its goal to be the limit and that God knew best for them. They like God. My desire for you is do not touch that tree. Do not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And when they reached out and took of the forbidden fruit, casting off God, my people have committed to eat. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and they have human that can hold

7:12 always this rebellion at which refuseness of our sinful nature and the rebellion of our hearts that God says are wicked, desperately wicked, deceitful of all things. The wickedness of the human heart is that it has cast off God. And it has hewn out broken cisterns that can hold no water. Now we read in this passage, Jesus says, I must die, I must suffer, I must be raised again from the dead. Now what was his goal? Will you get hold of this? Why the imperative of the death of Christ?

8:08 Why the necessity of his sufferings and that terrible baptism of agony and blood and tears? Why the groans of Gethsemane and the piercing cry of Golgotha? Why the cry of the dead? Why the cry of the dead?

8:20 Why the cry of the dead? Why the cry of the dead? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What's the divine purpose in all of this?

8:24 Here it is! It is the time come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. What kind of life? The very life for which the creature was made.

8:36 Life! It's the creature that is the fellowship of this God and anymore of that fellowship, he wants it not, no matter how delightful a morsel it might be. Jesus died that we might have life. What life?

9:08 The very life for which the creature was made. Life in which God's person is the salvation. central focal point of our existence. Let me repeat that. This is not poetic language.

9:20 What I'm saying is the core of the purpose of that terrible scene that's recorded in detail in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John. That scene which interpreted in the epistles is called the message of the cross, which is the very heart of the gospel. You, my dear friend, might be brought to the place by the grace of God where God's person becomes the all-absorbing focal point of your existence. Where you might say with the psalmist, all my springs are in thee, and any spring that is not in God is polluted, and I don't want it. Where God's will becomes the one consuming desire of your life. Jesus died that he might have a people to whom the will of God is precious, who can say with the psalmist, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. And when Jesus died, he died for me. He sealed the new covenant in his precious blood. One of the blessings of that new covenant

10:23 was not merely a changed record in heaven. God says their sins and iniquities I will remember no more, but he says I will write my law upon their hearts. Whenever there's the changed record in heaven, there's the changed heart on earth. God inscribes his law upon the hearts so that he has a people who delight to do his will. Jesus came that he might purchase and enable a people to enter. Before God's will is the one consuming desire, where God's glory is the incentive, the motive, the goal of all that I do, even down to us, whether therefore ye eat or drink, to all the glory of God. Paul said we must to take the word of the Lord, and this goes without

11:26 saying that this should be the only method, the only moral measure for which a man ever stands behind the pulpit. Dear preacher friends, don't have theigns, don't have the facts, but if you want to take ever make the pulpit a pedestal upon which to parade your flesh, your intellect, and your abilities.

11:52 Life, what kind of life? A life in which God's person is all-absorbing. A life in which God's fellowship is our love, is our delight, in which God's glory is the motive that underlies all that we do. A life in which God's likeness is reflected in us.

12:15 For whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. And Jesus said, I must go and die. Why? That I might have a people who reflect the very nature of my Father and of myself.

12:30 This is why he died. He died to purchase unto himself a people to whom God himself would be all-absorbing. Now, did he do this? Yes.

12:42 He went into Gethsemane. He went to the cross. And he cried out upon that cross, it is finished. And in that death, what did he do?

12:52 He satisfied himself. He satisfied the justice of a holy God that demanded that upon us should burn and break through all eternity, eternal wrath. Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. God's curse was upon us.

The Root of Sin and God's Wrath

13:08 And as long as the curse of God was upon us and the wrath of God burned toward us, and may I say this, dear people, you've heard the little shibboleth, God loves the sinner but hates his sin. That's not true. God hates the sinner.

13:21 My Bible says in the book of Titus, On he that is God. Who does God send to hell? They depart from me, not to sin. Men who've been rebels against him.

13:48 How can God love for me to know? Or is it for me to adjust the word of God to make a little shibboleth that seems to answer the question? Listen. You've never known Holy Spirit's conviction until you've seen yourself as an object of the pure wrath of a holy God?

14:11 Until you've taken the place of a condemned, guilty criminal.

14:19 Paul said, Reigning the whole human race before the bar of God's law in Romans 3, that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world may become guilty before God. The picture of the whole human ending before the tribunal of God. The evidence of the law of God.

14:36 Testimony of conscience and light reach has been arraigned. Everyone hangs his head as a guilty criminal and pleads guilty of the charge. Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law. And so as long as the curse of God was upon us, God could not have a basis.

14:57 I speak reverently. God had no basis. Upon which God could not have a basis. Upon which He could enter the life and begin to work out His purpose.

15:03 Here's this creature that has turned from Him. That has turned to His own way, to His own lusts, to His own desires, to His own wisdom, to His own passions. God wants to take that and make it a friendship with Him and to His glory. And this is a barrier because thou art a look upon iniquity, the prophet tells us.

15:29 John tells us God in Him is no darkness at all. So in the death of Jesus, God satisfied His vice. The curse of Christ hath reaped. And the curse of Christ is everyone that hangeth.

15:49 And the curse of Christ hath reaped. And the curse of Christ is everyone that hangeth. But now listen carefully. The cursing of Jesus Christ.

15:54 And remember the secret of the cross is found not in what the Roman soldiers did and what the Pharisees did, but in what God did. Isaiah 53 tells us the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He, God, hath pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Listen.

16:15 Look at the cross. See beyond the soldiers and the Pharisees and the scribes and even beyond the physical wounds. And do you see that here in the person of the Son of God. God the Father found His wrath, finding its object in Him.

16:31 So that the Son of God said, All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Thine arrows stick fast within me. I am quoting from the Psalms. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

16:43 Why art thou so far from my roaring? Our fathers trusted in thee, and thou didst hear them. But I am a worm and no man.

16:53 What's the meaning of all of this? God's telling you how He feels about your sin. For if ever God was to be lenient with sin, He would have been lenient with sin when that sin was being born in the person of His Son. But He brought down wrath unmixed with mercy.

17:11 For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Now that justice of God has been satisfied, Jesus Christ has gone back to the right hand of the Father. And there He sits. And according to the hymn, five bleeding wounds He bears, received on Calvary.

17:27 They pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me. Forgive him, O forgive they cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die. This is familiar ground to many of us.

17:38 I trust our hearts are warmed as we consider it again. But now will you listen carefully? Why did God satisfy His justice in the person of His Son? Why has God dealt with sin?

The Goal of Redemption: God All in All

17:51 Why has He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us? That we might become the righteousness of God in Him, yes. That we might have a perfect standing in Christ. It is there in 1 Corinthians that He has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

18:08 But that was not an end in itself. To every repentant believer who has been born of the Spirit of God, God has given to him a perfect standing in Christ. Why? That now he might begin to work in Him by the Spirit the golden work, which is what?

18:32 The experience of the redeeming desire. His glory. See there? Incessant and constant.

18:42 In burning motive. That His fellowship be the greatest delight. That His service might be that for which they are willing to sacrifice and to toil and to deny themselves. God has given to those who are in Christ a perfect standing in heaven.

18:54 That He might by His Spirit begin to work in them and through them the very goal and His redemptive purpose that God might be all-in-all. Don't you stop with the perfect record in heaven. Don't you stop with the perfect record in heaven. Don't you stop with the perfect record in heaven.

19:14 You're a child of God, God won't let you stop there. The Holy Spirit has come for what purpose? To make valid and real in the experience of the redeemed, what Jesus died. So that they might be with him and see the beauty of this.

19:47 What he prays for at the right hand of the Father. That the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of the redeemed. What a marvelous plan. The working of our God is so great salvation.

20:06 God's purpose is that you and I might know what it is to have God all in all. When redemption is completed, we read in 1 Corinthians 15 that even the Son, in His place as Redeemer, in His place as the God-man who's worked out redemption, it says, then even the Son shall be subject unto the Father, that God might be what? Since gold is finally obtained, God. All in faith, Brother Martin, you've gone a long way from the text, haven't you?

20:45 No. Jesus must die to bring this to pass. He must suffer. He must be killed.

20:52 He must be raised from the dead. And now all by the grace of God, where the person of God, for what he is, becomes all of God's will, becomes the most precious delight of your heart, where God's glory becomes the incentive and the motive undergirding all that you do, where likeness to God begins to be a vital experience, where fellowship with God is a constant reality, how can you enter into this kind of life that Jesus died to purchase? Verses 24 through 27 tell us, Having spoken of His death, Jesus then turns to His disciples and says, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me, for whosoever will save his life shall lose it. Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. These verses are vitally, they're organically tied in with verses 21 through 23.

The Conditions for Entering This Life: Denying Self

22:07 Will you lay hold of this tonight? Will you ask God right now? O Lord, open mine eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Listen.

22:15 Jesus said, I must die. I must be killed. I must be raised from the dead. A purpose of God in their lives.

22:26 He turns to the creature and he says, In essence, you must be pure to enter into the benefits, of my death. Now get this. Listen to what he says. Let's look at the text.

22:42 Any man will come after me. What will that mean, practically speaking? Verse 25 tells us, For whosoever will save his life will lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. To deny myself, to take up my cross and to follow him in vital physical life.

23:08 Let's get hold of the words and then we'll seek to get an understanding. Speaking, Jesus said, If anyone will come after me, deny himself, take up the cross, follow me, it will be a loser. It will be the saving of his life. Now when you lose your life, what's happened to you?

23:23 You've died, right? If you lose your life, you've died, right? Yes, no? All right, good.

23:30 Wiggle your head or nose or ears or something. Let me, I want to see now if we're getting through. All right. Losing your life.

23:39 Now, Jesus said this. If you save your life and lose it, you'll keep it.

23:47 By denying myself, taking up my cross and following him.

23:54 As I have this life.

24:18 He's saying, that's this teaching boiled down in a nutshell. You say, well, I don't understand. Well, I trust God will help us to see it as we move on. But get the principle.

24:27 If any man, let's look at it now, phrase by phrase, if any man will come after. Now get this. This is to do by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said this.

25:10 God has with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Christ is God's forgiveness, adoption. I'm not being ignorant, but I want you to see this principle. God does not reach into the river and take out a little bit of forgiveness.

25:40 And give it to a sinner. Then if he wants a little bit of holiness, reach and take it out of the reservoir and give it a little bit of holiness. No, no. God has.

25:58 Now, listen, the only way to unite a man is united to Christ. Jesus purchased in his love.

26:18 The spirit wants to apply in his experience. Now, that's not. Let me labor at this.

26:30 Here's a prince who goes from a kingdom where there's a very upright moral

26:41 righteousness and peace in which there is full provision for all of his. This prince goes out to another kingdom in which there is nothing. But poverty and squalor and filth and death, decadence and need. In this kingdom, he finds a young woman who captures his fancy.

27:00 He begins to unfold to this young woman the glories of his father's kingdom. He speaks of the tremendous amount of wealth in the father's kingdom and compares it to a poverty. He speaks of that in his father's kingdom by way of health and blessing. That is in such contrast to the squalor and the filth.

27:20 And so he unfolds. To this young woman, all that is in his father's kingdom. And then he says this. If you'll give me your hand in marriage, you'll become mine.

27:32 All that I fall heir to as son of the king will be yours. On one condition, that you give yourself to me. He says, oh, I'd love to somehow get out of the terrible mess and squalor and filth that I'm in. I sure would love some of the beautiful things.

27:52 He begins to talk about them in that kingdom. The prince presses the issue, will you have me? Will you have me? And if she says no to the prince, she'll have none of that to which he is rightfully heir.

28:07 If she will not have him, she will not have his blessings. Listen, the natural heart can want forgiveness if all forgiveness means is getting fireproof from hell, getting into a heaven that's sort of a glorified 20th century America without unions and without income tax and without burglars in the movie shows. But listen, God does not give forgiveness apart from his son. God does not give peace apart from his son.

28:35 God does not give any spiritual blessing apart from his son. And if you'll not have him on his terms, you'll have none of the blessings. If any man will come after me, you see this. Now, what are the conditions of coming after him?

28:59 Coming after him, thereby entering into the very purpose for which he died and rose again and sits at the right hand of the father. If any man will come after me. Let him what? Deny himself, take up his cross and follow.

29:17 Jesus said the first requirement of losing your life in order to find it, of entering into a life in which God himself is central. His will is precious. His glory, the driving motive, his fellowship, the precious delight. This life that I've repeated again and again, trusting that somehow God will filter it down through by the spirit and begin to lay it into those beams and fibers of our hearts.

29:42 How can I enter into this life? Only one way. I must lose my life. What does that involve?

Defining and Repudiating Self

29:47 It involves number one, denying self. Now, what is self? Any man will come after me. Let him deny himself, deny himself.

29:59 What is self? What I am because of my roots in Adam and the rebellion of my own heart. It puts me at the center instead of God. That's what self is basically.

30:12 Second Corinthians 515. And that he died for all that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died and for their sakes rose again. Every man, apart from the supernatural grace of God, is for one purpose, whether he's a drunkard or whether he's a deceived religionist, whether she's a harlot or whether she sits in rocks in a chair and reads the Bible, but has never known supernatural grace. Every one of them.

30:43 Every one of us by nature has this in common. Here it is that they should not henceforth live unto themselves. By nature, you are the focal point of your own life, your will, your thoughts, your wisdom, your desires. What has Jesus come to do?

30:57 He's come to replace that. Not pass on something to it. No, no. Something on to it.

31:06 Change the direction of self. I enter into this. I've got to come to a place where I deny self. And the word denies.

31:30 It's the same used to Peter when they're in the court and the young woman came to him and said, oh, you must be one of them. I speech betray it. It says Peter cursed and denied saying, oh, not the man. What did Jesus Christ?

31:43 And he says, I bear no identification with him. I have no allegiance to him. I do not want to be identified or associated or considered as one of his. I disclaim all and relationship.

31:57 I disclaim all attachment. I deny him. I repudiate him. Now, God says, if.

32:03 A man would come after me, he must repudiate self. Come to the place where there is from the bedrock of the heart a turning from this principle of loving myself, pleasing myself, glorifying myself, serving my own will and serving my own ends and accepting my own motives and thinking my own thoughts. Be a repudiation that is basic and bedrock and thoroughly denying of self.

32:36 The mere. Hopping off of a few sins will not do the mere turning away from a few manifestations of self and then replacing it with more subtle ones will not do. There must be a feeling with the denying. Say, Brother Martin, on what basis can I?

32:59 This thing is so vicious, so strong, so alive. How can I know that if I'm at hallelujah? Listen, when Jesus died, not only did God judge my sin, but he judged me. The Romans chapter six was written to unfold the blessed truth when Jesus died.

33:25 That's not only this thing that we call sin or sins. He bare our sins in his own body on the tree. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. But Jesus Christ so identified himself with his own and they are identified with him that when he died, we died.

33:41 Book of Romans chapter six opens up and says, what should we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Or are you ignorant?

33:53 He says that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. We are buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death. That now get this, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we should walk here and now in newness of life. Jesus died not just to give us a newness of record, but newness of life.

34:18 Get it? Not only newness of standing. What is that newness? We read down and God tells us by the Holy Spirit.

34:29 Listen, as I continue reading from Romans chapter six, for if we've been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old destroyed the body of sin might be rendered inoperative, ineffective, and henceforth we should not serve. My Bible says, knowing this, that our not just our sins, but our old man, natural which has itself as its goal and object, our old was crucified with him, that the body that is liable to sin might be rendered inoperative, that henceforth we should not serve sin. And what is the root of sin? Listen, this disposition to please myself in opposition to pleasing God, the disposition to honor myself instead of honoring him, the disposition of gratifying myself instead of gratifying him, the disposition to seek my own goals and aims and wisdom instead of his goals and aims and wisdom. And in the cross, this was judged.

35:46 This was put to death. For what purpose? That henceforth I should no longer be a servant. Second Corinthians five again, that he died for all the day, which they should not henceforth live unto what?

35:59 Unto the sounds, but unto him. This is why he died. And there's deliverance from the power of self through the cross. So I can come to the place where I, with God, agree with him on what he says about self.

36:15 Lord, thou has judged it and put it to death in the cross. And so I judge it and put it where thou has put it. This is the verse 11. Likewise, reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin.

36:28 I don't go about and crucify myself. God has already done it. This is a historical fact. Now, I must enter in in vital experience and reckon it to be so, repudiate myself.

Manifestations of Self to Be Repudiated: Rival Affections

36:38 Now, I want to be specific tonight. I don't want to deal with this theory. If you are to know the purpose for which you died, you must repudiate self, self as manifested in rival affections.

36:52 Jesus said in Luke 14, great multitude coming after. When he saw a great multitude coming after him, it says in verse 26, he turned and said, a man come after me and hate not father, mother. Name the closest human ties of affection. And then he went even deeper and he said, and his own life also.

37:16 He cannot be mine. Right. How different from modern evangelistic methods. When the multitudes began to press, Jesus knew that when multitudes begin to press, people are most liable to deception.

37:36 There is a psychological pressure in masses. I sat a few years ago when I was in high school at the Army Navy football game. No, it wasn't was army and some other place in Yankee Stadium in New York when I used to live near Connecticut. I don't remember exactly what it was.

37:53 Now, just seeing those soldiers, those cadets come out in that block of 14 square, whatever it was, and marching across there and sitting amongst thousands, amidst thousands of people, there was an emotional stirring that made me just want to do something. I didn't care what, just do something. You know what I'm talking about? You get in a crowd of people and there's something about the psychological pressure of a mass.

38:15 Jesus recognized that if there was to be deception, it was the place at which deception was most liable to enter the hearts of men. So what did he do? Encouraged to the exception by saying, thank you, thank you all for coming. You're all mine and you're all in the kingdom.

38:31 No return. Now, wait a minute. You count the cost. Right now, it's popular to follow me a little while.

38:39 I'm going to die and I'm going to bring in my train of host of men and women who will be willing for my sake to seal their testimony in their blood. Listen, I'm not tolerating rival affection. You come to me with a heart that is unwilling for me to occupy a supreme place above father and mother in your whole life, also you can't be my disciple. He said, I will not tolerate rival affections.

39:07 Here, one's human love is a precious gift from God, but it can become a vicious idolatry. When the desire to please any creature goes beyond the desire to please the creator, that person has become an idol. When the joy of the individual is deeper and more vital than the joy derived from the presence of God, that person has become an idol.

39:38 When the desire to please any individual is more intense and more deep than the desire to please the eternal God, that person has become an idol. Listen, by nature, the human heart is full of idols. Jesus said you must repudiate self. Self, what aspect is this?

39:55 The idolatry of human friendships must be repudiated. Jesus Christ must take the place of absolute sovereign and absolute and sole object of affection. You say, well, boy, that means I'm going to hate my wife. No, the man who knows Christ as the supreme object of affection is most tender and loving in the love of his wife, for he loves her with a pure love, unmixed with selfish idolatry.

40:26 When he must exhort her concerning her own good because his love for his Lord is deeper than his love for his wife, then for her good, he loves her with a pure love that will exhort her lovingly and tenderly. We'll not overlook her faults. We're to love our wife. Our wives as Christ loved the church.

40:43 How he nourishes and he cherishes and part of his nourishment and cherishing is his chastising for whom the Lord loves and chastises. It's his comfort. It's his exhortation. Now, you see, love that is not cleansed of self is spineless sentiment, isn't love at all.

Manifestations of Self to Be Repudiated: Moral Perverseness and Carnal Ambition

41:03 You'll never know how to love your wife. This is intentionally practical until you repudiate self. Rival affection. Secondly, any moral perverseness.

41:13 We read in Colossians, three, five, put to death, therefore, your members, which are upon the earth. Fornication, uncleanness. Then he goes on to say, wherefore, put off anger, wrath and malice. And the verb used here is a decisive verb.

41:28 Put to death with this thing. Don't go around and just pick at them and try to tolerate them and have a little peaceful coexistence with them. God says to death their creation of self, recognizing that these moral perversions, whether they be anger, wrath, malice, uncleanness of thought or desire, whatever they be, those things were judged at the cross. God says put them to death, knowing that our old man and all of his manifestations was crucified with him, all moral perverseness must be put to death.

42:08 No man or woman will ever know the life in which God is all in all, who tolerates any known sin.

42:18 Do you hear me? I did not say whoever experiences sin. I said who tolerates sin. I do not believe the Bible teaches.

42:27 That there's such a thing as sinless perfection, a state to be arrived in this life whereby it is no longer possible to sin and whereby temptation is no longer real. No, I do not believe any such thing. I believe some folk who say they believe that earnest, godly people. If there are any present, I'm not knocking you tonight.

42:46 I love you, but you probably have a more limited definite definition of sin than what the word of God has. If you mean by sin, deliberate, overt, willful acts of rebellion. Knowingly, deliberately, resolutely premeditated. I believe with all of my heart, God can bring us to a place where we do not deliberately, willfully, knowingly, premeditatively persist in sin.

43:10 In fact, if we do, there's good evidence. We're good at this. We believe we're not his. Whosoever born of God does not practice sin habitually, deliberately, willfully, premeditatively, no, no, there is such a thing as having that hard attitude whereby the moment conscience has been made aware by the word of God and by the spirit of God that there's the presence of sin, I do not tolerate it.

43:35 See, the moment there's awareness, there is hard repentance and brokenness and confession and putting aside. Any man will come after me. Let him deny himself self manifested in rival affections. Moral perverseness.

Manifestations of Self to Be Repudiated: Perverse Motives and Fleshly Wisdom

43:50 Thirdly, self manifested in carnal ambition in mind hours. God says you must repudiate that come to the place where there's that desire for nothing but the will of God to be accomplished. Fourthly, there must be a repudiation of self as manifested in perverse motives. Let's be done with this idea that we can use God and make him a certain boy.

44:28 Then we clap the head. Say there's some of you tonight. Your only concept of God is a sort of a divine conductor, a train that goes to glory. That's your only concept, dear friend.

44:47 You're not on the way to glory. Deny self and how to self manifest itself by making God. It's from the depths of your being. Your only goal is that God might be glorified in you and through you.

45:12 And you're committed to that purpose. Anything you ask of him, you ask for that purpose. You've got no grounds of believing your prayers will be answered on any other condition. Listen, whatsoever he shall ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may glorify you.

45:34 You just can't tack that on your prayer if that isn't woven into the work of God. Unless you repudiate itself in the realm of malicious, evil motives of

46:00 they long all for his praise. When they ask God to meet their needs, it's that he might be praised. When they ask God to touch the little sick child, it's that he might be praised. When they ask God to protect the family, it's not merely out of a has no capacity to praise his creator. He has no soul.

46:30 God made us that in all who we ask of him, the motive might be to his praise. Some of you will have a real Gethsemane if you come to the place where you let God deal with perverse motives. This perverse, selfish motive rungs with a warping whoop of much of your experience. When God begins to lay it bare to you, it isn't going to be pleasant.

46:51 This is the only condition upon which I can know how to enter into that life which you provided me. And there must be death. There are other things I could mention. I want to mention one more, a repudiation of fleshly wisdom.

47:06 What did Jesus say or Paul say? I'm sorry, the wisdom of God is foolishness with man. And see carefully, the foolishness of God is wiser than man. My thoughts are not your thoughts, Isaiah 55.

47:21 Neither are my ways your ways, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts. God's thoughts are not just more of ours. We have a little wisdom. God has much, just like at the beginning of a triangle moving out this way.

47:39 God's wisdom is a lot more than ours. No, no, God's wisdom is on a whole different plane. God takes the foolish things to confound the mighty. Listen, we're cursed in the church today with the wisdom of man seeking to do the work of God.

47:52 And it can't be done.

48:02 This is in the church.

48:13 Rebels against God. If you tell men that God hates them with holy hatred in their sin, if you tell men they can never become the children of God until they repent and turn from sin and submit to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you'll never get any converts. So what if what's happened? We have the positive approach to the gospel.

48:34 Bible says you're a sinner. Will you believe it? You remember you did some bad things as a child? Oh, yes, I remember that. All right.

48:39 But don't get too upset. We want to comfort you. Jesus loves you.

48:45 He didn't do bad things, but Jesus loves you. All you've got to do is believe he died on the cross for you. And then you're saved and go to heaven when you die. In the mind of that man, what's his thought of heaven?

48:56 I said it before I repeat it. It's a materialistic, heathen concept of heaven. No gates of pearl, no sickness, no unrest, no fear. He has no thoughts of a heaven where God is all in all and where there is righteousness and holiness and purity and worship.

49:13 His only concept of heaven is a materialistic concept brought in makes his profession and is called the child of God and incorporated to the work of the church on the basis of fleshly, uncrucified, carnal wisdom. You were cursed with this. Some of you are the prophets. But I'm not being unkind.

49:38 My heart bleeds. What's God's saving soul?

49:55 And then presented again and again, his servants of the Holy Spirit have seen God bear witness to it when the terrors of God's holy law are held over the heads of men and when men know that God hates them with holy hatred in their sin, they come trembling and cry out, what must I do? And the Holy Spirit causes the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to dawn upon the smitten soul and they're wonderfully transformed by the grace of God and they become new creations in Christ, attached not to the personal worker, to the preacher, but to the living God. And they rise from the fence to love him and to serve him and to pant after him and to glorify him.

50:43 And a man will come after me, must repudiate fleshly wisdom in the matter of saving souls, fleshly wisdom in what's good for the church. People say, well, if we get too strong, we'll offend. We do this, we'll do that. Listen, that's all fleshly wisdom, fleshly wisdom.

51:01 We must repudiate. I want to ask you tonight, dear people, are you at the place where you're ready to repudiate self? Self as it shows its ugly characteristics, in tolerating rival affections, tolerating moral perversions, carnal wisdom opposed to the wisdom of God, carnal ambition. Any man will come after me, let him deny himself.

Taking Up the Cross: The Necessity of Death to Self

51:25 Secondly, take up his cross. This is a beautiful picture. Here Jesus has told his disciples, I'm going out to die. And in my train, I will bring with me a host of men and women who are going out with me.

51:40 Living dead men. That's the picture. Dead men, after their effects, take it up daily. Follow me.

52:04 When Jesus announced his death, Peter moved in to say, Lord, you can get your purpose accomplished some other way. Get it now. Peter said, Lord, be it far from thee. Don't die.

52:16 You can accomplish your purpose some other way. Get thee behind me, Satan. There's no way. There's no accomplishment of the Father's purpose but through death.

52:25 The minute you begin to set your heart to seek God and say, oh, God, I don't understand all that preacher talked about tonight, but I know this. I've never come to the place where I've seen the wretchedness of self, self wisdom, self desire, self ambition. Lord, I want to see it. I know in the light of what your word says.

52:42 If I don't lose this lower life, I'll never gain the higher life. If I don't die to the lower life, I'll never enter into the higher life that Jesus purchased. And the minute you begin to say, there's no way but death, denying self, there'll be a thousand Peters to rise up and say, be it not so, be it not so, be it not so, there'll be the Peter of your own heart, your own flesh that'll do anything but die. The flesh will be educated, cultured, Bible taught.

53:11 But one thing the flesh will not do is die. But that's the one thing God says it's got to do.

53:18 Culture the old man, dress him up, teach him Bible verses, teach him Bible stories, teach him to preach, teach him to pray, teach him to deep, teach him to do everything else. And he's brightening the church. Yes, uncrucified flesh. God wants there to be the freshness of his own life.

53:38 There's the Peter of modern evangelism gets people in on no repentance. There's no structure, no undergirding foundation upon which they can be taught how to live under God. There's the terrible thing. And I want to speak to you young people.

53:55 There's the terrible Peter of unspiritual advisers. Young people's work is cursed with this. They say, oh, boy, look at that fellow. Broad-shouldered football here. Let's get him saved.

54:04 If I were with him, this would be novice. Go down and take the little nose. Purple face fell away behind the clouds. Get him so in love with himself, get him so empty itself that he doesn't want anything with Jesus.

54:17 God moves him into the school and begins to open his mouth in demonstration of the spirit of power and God works. This whole idea of take the person is popular and push him and set him up. Make an example. No, no, no, no.

54:29 God says he takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty and the things that are not. To bring them off the things that are wide and no flesh to glory.

54:41 And unspiritual advisers, young people, listen, don't let anyone tell you God needs your talents. He doesn't need them. Don't let anyone tell you that you'd be a great boon and a great help to the kingdom of God. Your flesh is telling you that already.

54:54 You don't need someone else to tell you. God doesn't need you.

55:04 That make you uncomfortable? How about it? Does it? That stick a pin in the old balloon of pride?

55:11 Hallelujah. I don't mean to be irreverent, dear ones. But somehow God could get this truth through to us. Don't listen to the Peters who say you can enter into what Jesus provided in the cross any other way but through death.

The Choice: Lose Life to Find Life, and Future Judgment

55:27 Death to self, death to self-interest, death to the rivaling affections, death to the petty sins. Do you know what it is to walk in newness of life? I trust we'll pray and ask God to make this truth clear to us. I don't know how well his servant's been helped in the Lord to get it through.

55:55 But Jesus still says, as he said back then, if any man will come after me, he will deny himself, take up his cross, follow me, whosoever will save his life. All right. You want to save that self-life? You want to save it? All right.

56:13 You're going to spare it? You're going to spare that self-life with its own wisdom and own abilities and own thoughts and own ends and its own glory and its own desires? You want to save it? You say, no, no, I'm going to keep it.

56:24 Jesus said, all right, you save your life. You'll lose it, the life that I purchased for you. But if you lose that life and consign it to death, then you'll find the higher life for which I die, which I die to make you experience. And if you're tempted to just cast this off and say, oh, well, so what if I don't?

56:45 Remember what Jesus said to close this passage? One day he said, I'll come to reward every man according to his deeds. What you do with this truth is going to meet you in the day of judgment, don't you think? This is not optional.

57:03 I dare not close without mentioning that verse. Jesus tied that verse at the end. Son of man shall come. The glory of the angels will reward every man according to his words.

57:16 You spare this self-life, you lose the life that Jesus is providing. You're willing to consign this to death and look to him who bled and died and rose again, not only that your sins might be blotted out and that you might have a perfect standing in him and have him as your righteousness, that he might become, through his grace, the object of your life and the goal of your existence. You're willing to lose the lower life to gain this. One day you'll hear him say, well done.

57:53 Now, our Father, will thou not, by the Holy Spirit, give us understanding? Lord Jesus, we hear thee saying through thy word again, if any man will come after me, he must repudiate himself. Oh, God, may there be a repudiation of self tonight, a turning from self in its manifestations, a glad consigning of self to the cross, that out of this place tonight there might go forth men and women who can say in vital experience, I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Lord, don't let this fall as so much dead theory. Grant that thy words may be spirit and light.