Now, 1 Peter 1 and verse 2. I think this is the fifth message on 1 Peter 1 and verse 2. And this is our third look at verse 2. I think that this is important that we take time over this verse, for it is one of the great verses of Scripture, one of the focal verses of the Bible. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. I will not finish the verse because the text really today is unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. I must confess that this text has entranced me. It has lived with me every day. It has baffled me. It has humbled me. And it has made me realize that it holds depths which I can never plumb this side of eternity. At first sight, this is a very simple text. But it's deceptively simple. Because when you look at it a little more closely, you will discover two things. First of all, you'll discover that as soon as you begin to think upon it, it demands of you an important decision in interpretation. And then secondly, The more you look at it, the more you realize that it states for us some of the deepest and most perplexing doctrines, most far-reaching doctrinal statements in all the Word of God. I think, first of all, of the decision regarding interpretation. We read, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through or in or by means of sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And immediately the question arises, whose obedience? Are we sanctified by the Spirit in order that we may obey? Or are we sanctified by the Spirit unto the enjoyment of the obedience of Jesus Christ? Whose obedience then is the obedience referred to in the text? And of course, when you weigh up that question and come to a decision on it, it's going to have a very large effect on how you deal with the rest of the text, how you apply the text. Now, I must confess that the more I thought about this, the more I realized that each answer made very good sense. and each one could be defended adequately from the Word of God. Think for a moment of the text as speaking of Christ's obedience through the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience of Jesus Christ. Now, all the other parts of the text clearly refer to God's work alone without any intervention or input on the part of man. elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. You believe me, no matter what anybody says, you and I had no part in that. Then through the sanctification of the Spirit. Last Sabbath morning I took time to emphasize just what the word sanctification here meant. It is a very peculiar and restricted meaning of the term here in 1 Peter 1 verse 2. And again, it is the work entirely of the Spirit of God. There is no input of human effort. or human involvement. And so, it is at least at first glance, it is in keeping with that, that the obedience should be the work of God. That the obedience should be the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you will find that that interpretation certainly has the support of other Scriptures. Romans 5, 18 and 19 speak of the obedience of one and the righteousness of one. So very clearly then, the Scripture does speak of the obedience of Jesus Christ whereby we are justified, whereby we are accounted righteous, not because we are righteous in ourselves or by our obedience, but because the obedience of Jesus Christ is made over to our account. and all His righteousness is attributed to us and received by faith alone. So certainly the Scriptures in other places support such an interpretation in 1 Peter 1 verse 2. If we adopt that interpretation, the meaning of the text then is basically that God's eternal purpose is to bring His chosen people unerringly to the personal application of the righteousness and the blood of Jesus Christ. That's really what the text then would be saying. And of course, haven't we noted again and again that that's exactly what Paul teaches in Romans 8, 29 and 30? Whom God did foreknow, He also did predestinate. Whom He did predestinate, them He also called. Whom He called, them He also justified. Whom He justified, them He also glorified. The chain of events showing us that starting with the everlasting and inscrutable purpose of the sovereign God whereby He chose a people to Himself, starting with that, there is the inevitable flow of thought that whom God did foreknow, He always justifies. There is no failure in the plan of God whom He foreknew, He justified, and indeed, He glorified. So clearly then, the text is interpretable in that way. But then, the evidence of 1 Peter itself has to be brought into play. And I notice in the first chapter that obedience is mentioned three times. In verse 2, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Then in verse 14, we read, as obedient children. And the literal translation is, the obedience of children. And then again in verse 22, seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth. And again, while it's a verb here, in the original, it is the obedience to the truth. So three times you have the same word obedience down the chapter. Now in verse 14 and in verse 22, very clearly it is our obedience. And so it seems from the chapter that the obedience that is in the mind of the apostle that is a very major subject for us to consider in 1 Peter 1 is pre-eminently the obedience of our heart to God. And since that is so, I have had to come to the conclusion, much as I like the first interpretation, I've had to come to the conclusion that it's our obedience that is before us in 1 Peter 1 verse 2. And therefore the meaning of the text is this. that in keeping with His eternal foreordination, God, by the work of His Holy Spirit in His own chosen people, produces true faith, that evangelical obedience as it is called, and thereby applies to them all the virtue of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Now, that's easily stated, but here then we get into the deep doctrine that I mentioned. You see, this text, if you look at it, it's very tightly knit together. Now, I say that deliberately. I was reading a scholar last night. Normally, this scholarship is wasted on a buffoon, but now and again, just to humble myself, I read the scholars. And you know, it seems to me to be a scholar, all you have to do with all due respect to the fundamentalist scholars, and I do not include them in this description, but when I read these so-called liberal scholars, all you have to do is to exercise your imagination and say the first crazy, stupid thing that comes into your head, and that's scholarship. Now if you don't believe me, you just read any of the critical commentaries of the New Testament and you'll see it's the greatest load of tomfoolery that mortal man ever spewed out to afflict the minds of other mortal men. I would to God that fundamentalist scholars would put out more work and try and rid ourselves of all this rubbish. But anyway, this scholar was saying that this is a very loose sort of a verse. It's just loosely hung together. Now, why he was saying that was he wanted to escape the force of the words. Now, let me tell you, this is not loosely hung together. This is tightly knit argument. This, though written by Peter, is just as closely analytical and logical as anything that Paul ever was inspired to write. And here we have three great clauses, three great statements in one. elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. That's the first one. The second one, through the sanctification of the Spirit. And then the third one, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, the three things are not three independent themes that you can just divorce one from another. And here's the depth of the doctrine. Here's what perplexes our puny little minds. Obviously, the governing, the controlling, Thought in the verse is the first one. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. The election controls the sanctification. And the election controls the obedience and the sprinkling. We are elect unto obedience. So the obedience that we render to God does not merit God's election. It is the result of God's election. The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ is not something that may be applied or may, on the other hand, feel to be applied. It is something which is guaranteed to God's people in the everlasting and inscrutable purpose of God's decree and will. So this then is tightly governed and tightly knit together. So when you look at this, you begin to see that since the purpose of God from eternity governs the whole text, then if you're going to understand it, and I trust you will make the effort to understand it because I tell you a lot of your personal happiness A lot of your peace of mind, a lot of your assurance of salvation, a lot of your victory over sin, a lot of your enjoyment of the fullness in Christ, which comes in later verses, depends on a proper understanding and reception of the deep doctrine in verse 2. Too many Christians want what they call, quotes, the simple gospel. They never want to think. It seems strange to me that people can think about such stupid things as sociology. and other crazy things like that. But they can't think about the Bible. They think more deeply about the cartoons in the newspaper than the great theological statements of Scripture. Now, let's bend our minds to the Word of God today. And let's ask God to show us this, because I tell you this, it's vital to our spiritual well-being. As I say, when you come to this verse, you discover that the purpose, the decree of God is the all-controlling and foundational fact. Now, if I want to understand sanctification, I've got to see it as the outworking of God's plan. If I want to understand what happens when a sinner bows the knee at the foot of the cross and receives Jesus Christ, I have got to see it not in the terms of the existentialist, by that I mean I have got to see it not as the reaction of a sovereign will, not merely as an event of time, although it is an event of time, but I have got to see it as the outworking of the everlasting purpose of God. You know, I am always thrilled to realize this. I am glad that the salvation of the lost does not ultimately depend upon me. Man, that thrills my heart. Now, that does not say that I do not have to pray, that I do not have to labor, that I do not have to witness, that I do not have to evangelize. I do. There is no excuse for spiritual laziness among the people of God. There needs to be more witnessing, more preaching, more sending out of missionaries, more praying, more giving, more laboring, more winning of souls than ever before. This church needs to catch the fire of God. But my friend, at the end of the day, when I preach, I don't save souls. When we sent missionaries, missionaries don't save souls. It is God who saves. Jonah had to find that out. Salvation is of the Lord. And therefore, we come back to this. I like to emphasize this. what I call the ultimacy, not of man's ability or man's decisions or man's power, but the ultimacy of God's power and God's plan. I believe in a God who is on the throne. He makes no mistakes. Thank God. When we see this obedience in Scripture, we see it as the outflowing of the purpose of God. So then the text could be summed up very simply, by the sovereign purpose of our God, His chosen people are brought to faith and obedience, and by that into the full enjoyment of the merits of Christ's atonement. Now in order to see this in operation, we're going to do something that a preacher has to do sometimes. We're going to turn the text right around. You see, in this text, although it is such a short text on to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, in this text there are three layers, three steps. One is built on top of the other and you will not understand the first nor the second until you understand the last. The first thing then we have got to consider is the blood of Jesus Christ. Then secondly, We have got to consider the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And then finally, we have to consider the obedience which receives the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Now that's a very, very simple sermon outline. You couldn't get any simpler than that. And I trust you will watch it carefully. And I want you to see how the Holy Ghost just builds His thoughts here one on top of the other. The blood of Jesus Christ. Now, come back to what I said a moment ago, that this final part of the verse is the outflowing of the first part of the verse. God's everlasting decree and purpose. Now let me put this clearly to you. When you start to think of God's everlasting purpose, do not make the mistake of so many people, I call them egghead Calvinists, Now, I'm a Calvinist from there down to there and everywhere else, but I don't believe in egghead Calvinism or egghead anything. You know this sort of religion that's all up here, never reaches your heart, never sets your soul on fire, never gives you a love for God, a love for prayer, a love for holiness, a love for souls? I don't believe in that kind of religion. I believe in damned souls. I believe the man that has that kind of a religion is not saved. But why I mention that is simply this, that this egghead religion, as I call it, comes to think of God's purpose and it likes to lift it up into abstract terms. And it uses a lot of big words. I could bamboozle your brain today with some of the big words that men introduce to this whole thing. and they miss the vital element in it all. When you start to think of God's purpose, remember this. The purpose of God in eternity centers on the cross work of Jesus Christ. When you take this Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you find the theme, the centrality of the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. It's at the heart of everything. And if you don't see the blood atonement of Jesus Christ in God's everlasting decree, you don't know anything about God's decree. If you don't see the blood of Jesus Christ and His atonement in all the Scriptures of truth, then you haven't begun to understand the Scriptures of truth. In everything, you'll see the cross. And I mean that. You take the story of creation. Now, I realize that not everybody is going to agree with me here, but then everybody can be wrong. So I'm going to say it anyway. If you take, I honestly believe, if you take the story of creation, you have in very vivid type the history of redemption. Now, I can't go down the days of creation and prove that today. If you want to see it, you'll have a look at the Sunday School notes on Genesis 1 that I turned out last year, and I did it there in a little detail. But Genesis 1 will give you the history of redemption, and when you understand that spiritual meaning, you will see that at the very heart of it all, there is the story of the cross. You go right through the Old Testament. A lot of people misunderstand what they call the Mosaic dispensation. They misunderstand it entirely. They speak as if the only law that God ever gave was the Ten Commandments. And they speak as if God gave the Ten Commandments in order that under Moses men might try to be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments. Nonsense! God never gave the law that men might be saved by it. Weren't men sinners before God gave the law? So they couldn't be saved by keeping it. No, the law was given to condemn their sin. Condemn it. But then along with that, God gave another law. He gave a ceremonial law. And what is the meaning of the ceremonial law? It can be comprehended in one word, and that word is Christ. What's the meaning of the burnt offering? Christ and His blood atonement. What's the meaning of the peace offering? sin offering or the trespass offering, these other blood sacrifices. It is Christ and His atonement. What is the meaning even of the meal offering? It is again the thought of the perfect manhood of Christ sacrificed on Calvary's cross. I tell you, when you go right through all the types and the shadows and the prophecies and even the histories of the Old Testament, you come up to the centrality of the cross of Jesus Christ. When you get into the Gospel, let me tell you, no man preaches the Gospel who does not preach the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. I want to say that that cuts out an awful lot of what passes as evangelical preaching. Today we have preachers who will take a text anywhere in the Bible and they will run far from it as quickly as they can and they will run around the whole time and they will be emphasizing what they want to emphasize and stressing the principles they want to stress. You know I believe in biblical principles but I hear of principles until I am sick, sore and tired of principles. It is the person we want to get to. It is the blood that we want to get to. And I want to tell you today that unless there is a preaching of the blood of the Lamb, there is no preaching of Christ at all. The centrality of the blood. The Word of God is full of it. This very chapter calls it the precious blood of Christ. Verse 19. The precious blood of Christ. The word precious would make us think of the honor that is in the blood, the value that's in the blood, because of who Jesus Christ is. It's the blood of Christ. I could give you many reasons why it's precious. It's pure blood. It's called incorruptible in the very same verse. 18 and 19. It's incorruptible. Pure blood. The difference between the The blood of Jesus Christ in mine is this, that in the bloodstream of Christ there flows no sin." Absolutely pure. And therefore it didn't corrupt. I get amazed when I hear of evangelical preachers and they evacuate the blood of its literal meaning. Some say it means just the death. And then there are others. The famous Bishop Westcott, for one, who said, it doesn't really mean death, it means life. It means life. I would like to have got the good bishop and cut his throat and ask him now, tell me that you're alive. Let all your blood flow and tell me that it means that we're really talking about the living Bishop Westcott. What doesn't make sense in life does not make sense in theology. The blood of Jesus Christ flowing in his veins did not atone. It was the blood of Jesus Christ poured out in sacrifice that atoned. Now, in trying to evacuate the blood of its meaning, what do they do? They say, well, when the blood was shed, the Bible doesn't really mean us to believe in literal blood. I mean, didn't Bishop G. Bromley Oxnard one of the vilest blots on American society this century. Didn't he say that the God of the Old Testament who demanded blood was just a dirty bully? Didn't another Methodist bishop so-called blaspheme the blood of Jesus Christ and tell the people that it could never put away sin? You're not to believe in the blood. These evangelicals even fall for it. And so they say when the blood went on the ground, it just corrupted. Because the Bible's not talking about blood, it's talking about life or death or some other abstract thing. I believe that the Holy Ghost is a better vocabulary than G. Bromley Oxnard or Bishop Westcott or anybody else. And had the Holy Ghost meant to say death, He has said death in other places and so He could say death. Had he meant to say life, I am sure that God Almighty had the intelligence to choose the word life as He has in other places. But when He says blood, choosing the word deliberately, He means the blood. I want to tell you that the blood of Jesus Christ never did corrupt in the soil of Palestine. The blood of Jesus Christ is said by inspiration to be incorruptible blood. Leviticus 16 tells me that the blood of the offering on the Day of Atonement was taken physically within the veal. Hebrews 9 tells me that Jesus Christ took His blood within the veal. Well, dare any man say that the blood of Christ corrupted? Oh, it's precious because it's pure and incorruptible. It's powerful blood. It is powerful Godward, for it made propitiation. It is powerful manward, for it reconciled us to God. It is powerful lawward, for it satisfied every demand of the law of God. It's powerful devil word, for it made a show of the devil and all his powers openly, triumphing over them in the death of Jesus Christ. And therefore we can overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Thank God it's precious because it's pardoning blood. There's no other message for a poor, vile, guilty sinner. You get a man whose heart is wed down with a burden of sin. You get a man whose conscience is soiled and stained. He is under the curse and the wrath of God. Tell me, what other message is there to bring peace to a troubled breast than the message of the precious blood of Jesus Christ? I think it was Dr. Dale of Birmingham. He is in heaven now, so if I have got the wrong man throwing out of the recesses of my brain, He'll forgive me, but I think it was Dr. Dale of Birmingham who started off not believing in the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. And he was in the ministry preaching the gospel as best he knew, the gospel of doing the best you can. One night, a girl came and knocked him out of his bed. don't like to get knocked out of bed. You see, the easiest job in the world is the job of a clergyman or a pastor if you happen to be an apostate, because you preach for ten minutes on a Sunday morning and you play golf for the rest of the week, and you get paid for it into the bargain. But anyway, he was not too happy getting knocked up out of bed, and so he questioned this girl. She was from a very poor area. She said, I want you to come for my mother is dying. And her quaint way of putting it was, I want you to get her in. He hadn't a clue what she was talking about. But she prevailed on him and so he pulled on his clothes and away he went. When he got there, he tried to moralize and tell her all the nice little things that he had been telling his congregation for years. That woman was frantic. She said, that's no use for me. So in desperation, he went back to what he had learned as a boy. He opened the Bible at the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. He read the story of the passion of the Savior. Forgetting himself, he just got carried away and he told the story as he had heard it told in Sunday school. Maybe it was the very first time that that old woman had ever heard the Gospel. The poor in England in those days lived in circumstances it's hard for us to understand. That night, on the bed that was to be her deathbed, she called on Christ to save her. And by her bedside, the preacher did the same. became one of the greatest preachers England ever had. What can wash away the stain of the soul? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Thank God it's pardoning blood. And it is purchasing blood, redeeming us to God. And it is pleading blood, speaking better things than that of Abel. And I would love again to turn back to the incorruptible and preach for half an hour on the permanence. It is permanent blood. It will never, never lose its power. Thank God the blood of Jesus Christ is the tangible expression. It is the expression in time of the purpose of God. How do I know that God ever loved? The blood of Jesus Christ tells me. How do I know that God ever chose any sinner? The blood of Jesus Christ tells me. How do I know that God ever purposed to save sinners from a burning hell? My friend, go to the cross and I tell you, in the Redeemer's shed blood, there is the evidence that God planned the salvation of sinners. So, the first thing to think about is the blood of Christ. The second thing to think about is the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. I must here be very brief. In 1 Peter chapter 1, the blood is mentioned twice, verse 2 and again in verse 19. Now, in verse 19, it is the shed blood, the blood shed that is before us. That's the blood with which we're redeemed. But then in verse 2, it is the blood sprinkled that is before us. That's a different matter. The sprinkling is very important. In Hebrews 12, 24, we have it called the blood of sprinkling. Now, what was sprinkled? Again, I must just bring all the evidence together and not take time to go through the Scriptures on it. But what was sprinkled? If you read Hebrews 9, verses 13, 19, and 21, you will find that the book of the covenant was sprinkled. All the parts of the tabernacle were sprinkled. The people were sprinkled. Now, there is a very comprehensive survey of Israel. The book was sprinkled. The tabernacle, in all its parts, was sprinkled. And the people were sprinkled. And on the day of atonement, the blood was brought right in. And it was sprinkled in the presence of God. Now, that's the blood of sprinkling. The blood of Jesus Christ was sprinkled first in heaven. In other words, it's presented to God. It's the presentation of the blood that is before us in the sprinkling of the blood. Presented to God, and God in heaven has accepted the blood atonement of Jesus Christ. Then it is sprinkled on the book. Now this is what Hebrews 13 and 20 is speaking about, the blood of the everlasting covenant. The covenant is ratified by the blood of the Lamb. How do I know that the promises of that book are any good to me? The blood of Jesus Christ assures me. That's how I know. How do I know that if I come to Jesus Christ as a poor sinner and call upon Him to save me, that He will save me? How do I know that it is not a fairy tale? The blood has been sprinkled upon the book. And my friend, the covenant is sealed, ratified, made certain by the blood of the Lamb. Now, I want you to get what I am saying. What I am saying is this, that any promise of salvation that purports to come from God apart from the blood of Jesus Christ is the devil's lie. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that God never has forgiven a soul in the history of the world apart from the blood of Jesus Christ. I'm saying that God cannot forgive a soul apart from the blood of Jesus Christ. The covenant whereby God promises forgiveness and reconciliation and justification and acceptance and glorification and all the benefits of redemption. The covenant is sealed in the blood. So the blood was sprinkled before God. God accepted it. The blood sprinkled upon the book of the covenant. We are sure the promises are made sure. Thank God the blood was sprinkled on the people. Can I say this very reverently? The blood within the veal, the blood on the Book of the Covenant, but not applied to the individual, did not a veal to save that soul. It's not that there's any lack of power in the blood. The blood could save a million worlds. Let me tell you, unless it's applied to your heart and mine individually, we must perish forever. It's the blood applied that means the difference between God's heaven and God's hell. The sprinkling of the blood. Let me ask you today, have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Let me ask you today, my friend, has the blood been applied to your heart? You know, when the blood is applied, there is a wonderful thought here. You find in Hebrews 10, verse 3, if my memory is not too far astray, you find that when the blood is applied, there is no more conscience of sin. Do you know what that means? It doesn't mean that you're not aware that you're born a sinner. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that you're not aware of your shortcomings. But it means that your conscience is at peace, that there has been once and for all rendered to God a perfect satisfaction, and that there is no more need of any other sacrifice for sin. We don't need another sacrifice. That's why I hate the Pope's masses. Massing priests are an abomination to God. They are forever saying that they are continuing the work of atonement. The Lord helped their puny little wits. The Lord has said that Christ finished the work. And when the blood was sprinkled, there was need of no other sacrifice for sin. It's a delusion that a man can continue or complete what the Son of God says he finished. It's a delusion for man to think that he can carry on when God says there's nothing left to carry on. All the work is complete. There's no more conscience of sin. sprinkling of the blood on our heart, answers to the sprinkled blood upon the mercy seat, and testifies that we are right with God. Finally, just a word on the obedience which receives this sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. You'll notice that it is called obedience. And it is the proper word for obedience. It's the best word that our translators could put in for it. And you'll never be saved without obeying God. Now, I want to make myself clear. The obedience here is that of Romans 1, verse 5. They give the words there, their literal force, the obedience of faith. It's what we call evangelical obedience. Now, watch it carefully. Men are not saved because they obey. They obey because God chose them, the Spirit sanctified them, regenerated them and made them anew. Obedience is the work of a new creation, not the old man. The carnal mind is enmity against God, it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So it's not the old man that obeys. but it's the new man which is created in righteousness and true holiness. This is the direct result of the power and plan of God. You see, salvation is all of grace. This old notion that, well, God did the most of it. God has done his part and it's up to you now to do your part. Haven't you heard that before today? It's up to you now. It's all up to you to do your part. Man, if God did the most of it and left you your part, where do you think you would be? You'd be in hell. If God left you anything to do without divine intervention, you'd be lost. But oh, thank God, by the mighty operation of His Spirit, He enables faith. He enables obedience. Again, you'll notice the three references to obedience in the chapter. And it's very interesting that every one of them is connected with purity. I want you to understand that. You see, I have to keep, as a faithful preacher, I have to keep hammering at the things that need to be hammered at. And we're living in a day of base and wicked and empty, shallow profession of Christianity. And I'm not talking now about your modernists and your ecumenists. I'm talking in our own churches. There are people who have the profession. They say that they have obeyed from the heart the Word of God and they have come to Jesus Christ. But there is no vital godliness about them. There is no purity about them. Man, I want to tell you, obedience in 1 Peter chapter 1 Three times is mentioned and three times it is intimately connected with purity. Don't tell me that you're saved if you've never been made holy. Don't try to fool yourself that you're going to a pure and holy heaven if you've never had given to you a pure and holy disposition. Don't tell me, my friend, that you know the Holy God as your Father, and the Holy Christ as your Savior, and the Holy Spirit as your Indweller, if you have never been in any way made holy. Obedience is always joined to purity. And if you examine those three references to it, you'll find that the source of our purity is not in ourselves. Verse 2, it's in the blood of Jesus Christ. The source of our purity is not in our effort. I have talked with people, and when they have sought to get victory over sin or something like that, they have been pointed to themselves, to their willpower, and they have been told, go and do it. My friend, that's the most foolish waste of breath in counseling anybody. Go and do it. Let me tell you. In the person and work of Jesus Christ, there is the source of our victory. Has He not overcome the devil? Has He not triumphed gloriously? Has He not thrown the proud horse and its rider into the sea? Thank God, therefore, what we are called to do is stand still and see the salvation of the Lord and then go forward. But before you ever go forward, you stand still. For you ever go forward by faith, by the appreciation applied to your heart by the Holy Ghost of what Christ hath wrought on your behalf, you enter into victory. It's the source in verse 2. It's the blood. The significance of this purity is in verse 14. It's the obedience of children. You see, when this takes place in your heart, it signifies something. signifies that you are a child of God. Only God's children can truly obey God. That's what it's saying. There are others who are forced to bow, but that's not obedience. God's children from the heart truly obey God. And when there is in that heart of yours, I have been emphasizing this, for instance, last Sabbath evening again, and I keep coming back to it, for I feel it's of vital and basic importance. When there is in a man's heart a basic yearning for the glory of God, oh, he feels the Lord, and he's grieved about it. But when there is in his heart a basic yearning for the glory of God, and is a basic yearning to obey the Lord. Let me tell you, that's the spirit of sonship. That proves that you're in the family. That's the significance of this obedience. I better close my Bible before I get to verse 22 because if I start preaching in this, we will be here all day. The standard of obedience. It's obedience to the truth. That's what it is. Obedience to the truth. I want to tell you this, my friend. Standards of that old book never change. Never. We live in a day when everything is relative. Do you know what it is to be spiritual in America today? And I'm not singling out America, but it's no good me talking to you about Northern Ireland. I mean, you are Americans. If I were in Northern Ireland, I wouldn't be talking about Americans. I'd be talking about them. Do you know what it is to be spiritual here today? It's to be two or three years behind the world. That's what it is. To be spiritual today is to do what was sinful ten years ago, but the world has got so much worse we can catch up a little bit and we can be as rotten as they used to be and think that we're still holy. That's spirituality in modern America and in modern Ulster. I want to tell you, that's the spirituality, in quotes, that's going to damn millions in hell. Did you ever read the life stories, say, of the great Protestant Reformers, or the great missionaries, or the great revivalists? You've heard me talk about men like Robert Murray McShane, etc., and encourage you to read their lives. John Bunyan, So as I show you, I'll talk about a Presbyterian and then a Baptist. Have a good look at those men. Read them. And you know, there's one thing that will strike you when you read the life stories of men who really knew God. You'll have to say, look, if I went to join that man's church, he wouldn't allow me. The most spiritual of men today would appear carnal in comparison to men of bygone days. And yet, God doesn't change. God doesn't change. We have a word in Ulster we talk about, blether. You call blether here, is that what you call it? I don't know what you call it here anyway, but it means you're talking hot air. That's all. Words with no meaning. They say we call it blether. And there are more preachers and there are more Christians blethering about revival. Oh, what we want to see. My friend, there'll never be revival. Why, we love the world. Why, we love our sin. God's looking for his people to render obedience according to the standard of truth. What does the Bible say? Look, if the Bible says one thing, what would you worry about what the world says? Why would you be concerned about the opposition of the world? The Bible says. Do you know that there are thousands of Christians at this very moment in time behind the Iron Curtain and they are suffering unto death in order to be faithful to the standard of that Word of Truth. And yet we of Christians and they can't forego watching some stupid, vile, immoral, immodest soap opera on television. I wonder sometimes do we even serve the same God? Obedience and purity go together. May God bless His Word to our hearts. May He lead us ever to the blood. May He teach us ever the value of its sprinkling. If you're not saved today, man, if you're religious but the blood has never been applied, trust you'll come to Christ and call upon Him to wash you in His blood and save you. If you have a profession that you are saved but you've never been made holy, may you come to Christ today and ask God to do a deep, lasting, true and real work within your soul. May we go on together to do business with God and to have God's best. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Eternal Father, we pray that Thou wilt bless Thy Word to every heart. Dear Lord, we pray that Thou wilt save the lost. We fear for souls who have religion, but not redemption. We fear, Lord, for young people who have been brought up under the gospel and they have developed some sort of a defense against it. They know the vocabulary of grace, but they don't know the experience of it, the joy of it, the reality of Christ. Lord, we pray that Thou wilt save them. O God, our Father, apply the precious blood. We thank Thee this is not a haphazard affair. We thank You, Lord, it's not something that is a mere possibility. We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast planned and Thou hast purposed Thank God thou wilt perform. Thou art in the business still of saving souls. Lord, save the lost today. Bring sinners to the sprinkling of the blood. And Lord, teach us who are saved through obedience, through purity, through holiness. For thou hast spoken of holiness as being that without which no man shall see the Lord. Hear us now, O God, we pray, and visit us mightily with revival. Part as with Thy blessing, keep us in Thy field. Be the abiding portion of all Thy blood-bought church, both this Sabbath day and until our Lord Jesus either calls us home or comes again in all His glory. We ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen.