No. 38 - LIVING SACRIFICES OR A HOUSE DIVIDED By: John J. Blanchard Saturday, January 24, 2004 Today’s sermon is “Living Sacrifices or a House Divided“. We are going to approach this subject by looking at the type of warfare that is fought in the Bible. There are two types of warfare mentioned in the Bible. There is warfare that is of a physical nature and warfare of a spiritual nature. Both of these are discussed in Hebrews chapter 11. PHYSICAL WARFARE Hebrews 11, verse 30: “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” You have a partial listing here of the famous personages in the Old Testament, their sufferings and their achievements, how they pulled down strongholds, and in their weakness were made strong and valiant in their efforts. Their physical efforts are recorded in the Old Testament. We understand that the physical things recorded in the Bible, just like physical creation, are there for us to understand spiritual things. All of these wonderful things that they accomplished (the tearing down of strongholds, the battling of armies, the kicking of the Caananites out of the Promised Land) did not get them the promise separate from us. There is something else that still needs to be done. They recorded words. The prophets recorded God’s words so we could learn and study, and these examples, as we have studied in I Corinthians, were written for those upon whom the ends of the world had come - us, so we could learn. What is it that we need to learn? Do we need to learn how to fight physically again? Do we need to learn how to kill giants like David did or make the walls of cities collapse like Jericho, or send armies to flight? No, not exactly, but yes, a type of those things must be done by God’s Church in the latter days! Let us see this other form of warfare now, and it is spoken of right after this in Hebrews 12. SPIRITUAL WARFARE Let’s read Hebrews 12:1-11. What is he talking about here? He is talking about spiritual warfare. He starts out in chapter 12 telling us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses therefore “lay aside every weight and sin which so easily ensnares us.” Then he goes on to say bear the chastening of God that is there to help us see our problems and overcome them. Just as a father punishes a child to get the foolishness out of them and to preserve them and protect them, so God the Father does with us. But we need to be aware that we are to endure the cross like Christ did. We need to bear our cross, extinguish all selfishness and get rid of sin. Why does he say this right after chapter 11, where he is talking about the great exploits of the patriarchs and prophets who suffered and died at the hands of cruel people in order to record God’s word and be examples in the Old Testament? Why does he put this right after that? Because we need to do the same thing spiritually. Our battle is different. David wielded the sword. Gideon wielded the sword. Samson pushed pillars down and killed thousands. These men fought with their physical bodies but they were accomplishing the foundational work for the spiritual aspect of God’s Church which would follow once Christ came and shed His blood. Now we fight a spiritual fight from which we can draw examples from the past, and understand what kind of enemy we are fighting and what we need to be doing: pulling down strongholds and being living sacrifices. This is what we are being taught here. We are to be spiritually strong and not necessarily physically strong. LIVING SACRIFICES I want to bring in another aspect here. I want to look at the idea of overcoming sin and becoming a living sacrifice, because that is what we are. We are a living sacrifice and we want to present to God a good wholesome sacrifice, which is our life experiences and our acts and deeds, as we have studied earlier. We have had sermons previously on acts of service and how we are to love one another and our fellow man. By becoming a good sacrifice, we offer something to God. Let us look at more discussion here from Paul about weakness and strength and how we are strong when we are weak. Turn, if you would, to II Corinthians 13:1. “This will be the third time I am coming to you. ‘By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.’” Paul is being quite emphatic here. He wants to get his point across. Verse 2: “I have told you before, and foretell as if I were present the second time, and now being absent I write to those who have sinned before, and to all the rest, that if I come again I will not spare…” Paul says I am writing to the people who are just not getting it. They are continuing to sin. I don’t want to have to be hard. I don’t want to have to deal with you but you will make it necessary if you continue. But he said I will do it for love for you if I must. Continuing in II Corinthians 13:3. “…since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you. For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.” He says physically I am weak, but in my weakness I have God working in me and that is my strength. He should be working in you! He should be in you as well. Verse 5: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? - unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.” He says I am not disqualified. I know at this point I am working for God, but he says you are going to have to check to see whether you have been disqualified or if you are still working with Christ in you. Is He still dwelling in you? Are you accomplishing something for God? This is a very serious matter. This is why Paul is being so forceful about this because it is important that we check ourselves constantly to see if we are in line with God’s will. Are we allowing Christ who dwells in us to do His work and use His body the way He should? He says if you do not, we can run the danger of being disqualified. Leave your finger there for a moment in II Corinthians 13, and we will go to I Corinthians 9 just for a minute because the same concept is mentioned there as well in a different way. Paul applies this to himself. He is not being a hypocrite by any stretch of the imagination. He is not saying that he is better than them and he is immune to problems, because if you go back to I Corinthians 9, he says in I Corinthians 9:24 “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” He does not set himself up as some kind of better person. He knew when he was writing the letter to the Corinthians that he was doing it on God’s behalf. He knew, from checking himself because he applied the same principles to his life, that he had not at that time been disqualified. We know in reading scriptures that he knew just before he had died that he had run a good race. But the point is this: we can disqualify ourselves from this race if we do not bring our bodies, our minds, our hearts and our lives into subjection. Literally subdue our thoughts. Subdue our desires and make ourselves good sacrifices for God. That is the point we are driving toward. Let’s go back to II Corinthians 13 and we will pick it up where we left off in verse 7: “Now I pray to God that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified.” He says you might put me down and say I am disqualified but I am concerned about you and I want you to stay away from evil. WHEN WE ARE WEAK, WE ARE STRONG Continuing in verse 8: “For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. And this also we pray, that you may be made complete. Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the authority which the Lord has given me for edification and not for destruction.” He is meaning to say I do not want to have to be hard with you when I come to visit you the next time. I would like it if you would get this. This is my third admonition to you so you have been witnessed to three times, he says. Out of the mouths of two or three witnesses you can be disqualified if you are not careful! You cannot say you have not been taught to stay away from sin. Concluding here in verse 11: “Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” He concludes his letter saying be at peace, bear fruits of the Holy Spirit by conquering evil. Get it out of your lives, because we have a very important battle that we are engaged in. We are engaged in spiritual warfare and this is how we fight. We cleanse and let God work in us and get rid of sin. We root it out of our lives. This is how we fight, literally pulling down strongholds! We have to be weak in order to do it. Just as the patriarchs and prophets of old had to spiritually be weak and humble and be made physically strong to do miraculous and wonderful things, we need to be meek and humble to do great spiritual battle. We are to win! The idea is we become meek and humble in our sacrifice and the way we view ourselves. Then we can give God something good to work with, because we are the body of Christ and Jesus Christ is working in us, as we just read in II Corinthians 13. Now go back to I Corinthians 5. PUT OUT SPIRITUAL LEAVEN I Corinthians 5, starting in verse 6: “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Paul is explaining a little sin can leaven the whole lump. We need to root it out. Do not keep the feast with malice and wickedness. Get the sin out of our lives. We know that from Unleavened Bread. You can consider this in some ways a preparatory sermon for Unleavened Bread. Passover and Unleavened Bread are not that far off. We need to examine our lives and make sure that we do not think more of ourselves than we really are. We need to get the sin out our lives so we can be a sacrifice. Christ is the Passover Lamb, and He was perfect. Now we are His body. We cannot allow imperfections to stay with us that we do not deal with. We must work on them. Let us examine the Old Testament Passover and the rules and regulations that God gave us that we can look at physically. There are examples in the Old Testament that we can look at to understand what we are supposed to do spiritually. Go to Exodus chapter 12 where the Passover regulations were given. When God instituted the Passover through Moses He wanted to explain to people how to keep it. Here are some of the instructions. Exodus 12, verse 1: “Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, ‘This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: “On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.”’” Every household had to have a lamb. Continuing in verse 4: “And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the fist year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.” God says you are going to take a lamb and you better make sure it is unblemished! Because this is picturing something awesome, and I want you to do something physical to drive that point home. Mainly it is to drive that point home for us who followed Christ’s first coming, the rest of the first fruits. We need to understand what God meant. If we had not had the historical record of the Old Testament, we could not figure our way out of a dark tunnel or anything. We would be helpless. Can you imagine if Christ’s first coming came and that was the start of the Bible? What if we had no Old Testament and He said I am your Passover. I am going to shed My blood for you. You are going to be living sacrifices. Who would even understand what He was talking about? We would not have a clue, but because we can look at the experiences of ancient Israel, we can see what the Passover was, what it accomplished, how it was kept and we can learn. We can take from this physical to learn how to do the spiritual. That is my point. We are involved in a spiritual war and we need to be able to look back to physical examples to understand what we are involved in and how to go about this. Now I want to jump over to Exodus 13 and read some more instructions. Starting in verse 1: “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Consecrate to Me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast; it is Mine.’” This is a parallel of first fruits. Continuing in verse 3: “And Moses said to the people: ‘Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten.’” They were to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread starting with Passover and the Passover lamb. Now drop down to verse 6. Verse 6: “‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters.’” Why? That was portraying us putting sin out of our lives, malice and wickedness. Put the leaven out. If you want to be a consecrated first fruit, that cannot be left there. We must be working on it, and whenever we fall short, claim the blood of our Passover Lamb to wipe it out. Deal with these things. Continue in Exodus 13, verse 8. “‘And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, “This is done because of what the Lord did for me when I came up from Egypt. It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year.”’” We need to do with our hands the right thing. We need to purify our minds and our hearts and then we can allow God to use our mouth to teach. We cannot be hypocrites. If we want to have our mouth to teach, we have to work on the things that would make a blemish. We are living sacrifices. We will get to that in just a moment. Continue reading in verses 11-16. We understand that we were brought out of the Egypt of the world (spiritually) to become God’s first born, the first, in essence, to open the spiritual womb. We are going to be changed first along with the dead in Christ. We will receive a spiritual body. We will receive the promises from Jesus Christ. We need to be perfect. We cannot be perfect on our own. We know we have to have forgiveness, but we cannot tolerate undealt-with sin, selfishness and greed. We have to be like Paul bringing our body, our minds and our hearts into subjection constantly so that we will not be disqualified. This is how important it is to be a good, clean, pure, healthy, wholesome sacrifice for God. He does not want the lame. He does not want the sick. That lameness and sickness is a parallel of sin and leaven in our lives. We are not going to be any use to Him if we are no good and have made no attempt to root out sin: the leaven of malice and wickedness out of our lives. WILLING TO SACRIFICE Let’s go to I Peter 2 because now we are going to start to delve into the concept of being a living sacrifice. We are all familiar with these scriptures, but it is important now to view this as necessary knowledge in the spiritual warfare in which we find ourselves engaged. I Peter 2, verse 1: “Therefore, laying aside all malice…” (There is that term again.) “…all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Christ was a perfect sacrifice. He was a perfect Passover Lamb. We are now His body, and He dwells in us. We need to be as clean as possible in order to join Him in sacrifice, so to speak. Galatians tells us in Galatians 2:20 it is not “‘I who live but Christ lives in me…’” because we have been crucified with Christ. When we give our body to Him, we are allowing Him to use us. Do we want to turn over something to Him that is sick, lame and dislocated? No! We want to turn over a living sacrifice, and we do that not by tearing down physical strongholds like the patriarchs of old but by laying aside all malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and evil speaking. We get rid of the sin that so easily ensnares us. That is how we become a good living sacrifice. Paul understood this very well. When he saw a congregation that just did not seem to get the point, he was very forceful with them. He said you have to do this or you run the risk of being disqualified! I do not want you disqualified. I do not want to be disqualified he said so I work on this constantly. Turn to II Corinthians 12. This was so engrained in Paul that it comes out all through his letters. Go to II Corinthians 12, starting in verse 15: “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.” Listen to this man! Listen to what he is saying here. He says I am willing to be spent. He means literally give his life for you because I love you, but it seems as if the more I tell you, to help you, the less you love me. That is a very difficult position that this man was in. But he said I am willing to do this for you because I understand what is involved here. I love you and I want to help you. This is coming through his letter. There is a deep passion and a love for God’s people. Let’s go back to II Corinthians chapter 11. He is going to do a little boasting here but only to help. He is talking about himself. Verse 22, referring here to the people who were giving him a hard time. “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool-I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness-besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the Churches.” Paul lived what he taught. He was a living, breathing sacrifice for the Churches of God. He loved the people to the point that he nearly gave his life many times and then eventually did. He was a true living sacrifice. We need to examine ourselves as he said. Are we willing to sacrifice for one another and for the world at large? FEEL THEIR PAIN Let’s continue in II Corinthians 11:29. “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.” Listen to what he is saying here. I feel your pain so much that when one of you is weak, I feel weak! When one of you is spiritually hurting, I am hurting! When one of you is made to stumble by a false minister or some sin got a hold of you, I am angry. He said I get indignant when I see harm coming to the Church. I love the Church so much. I feel their pain individually. Continuing in II Corinthians 11:31. “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.” (He sees me. He knows.) “In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me; but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.” SACRIFICE UNTIL IT HURTS Paul lived what he taught. We need to see if we are anywhere near willing to sacrifice like Paul. Yet he said he checked himself to see if he was in danger of being disqualified! He was worried about that at times. Can you imagine? After all of these sacrifices, he is concerned that he is not going to make it. I fear for us sometimes, brethren, because we have it so easy. Yet we feel sometimes we cannot go on. We feel weak. I know I do in my life. I am sure you go through the same experiences. Who are we kidding? And we want to call ourselves first fruits and living sacrifices! Some day I hope we do not have to give account, with the prophets of old and the saints that have gone before us sitting around a table somewhere, and be asked what was it like for you being a Christian? One guy tells, like Paul, of all of these beatings and all these stripes and time spent in jail and being beaten with rods. What was it like for you? I remember I had to sacrifice and drop from an Oldsmobile to a Chevy one time. I remember my phone got cut off one time because I could not afford it. That was a tough sacrifice. For a couple of weeks I could not call anybody. I do not want to make a joke of the whole thing, brethren. But we need to realize we have been through some persecution, but we have to get real here. We have to sacrifice anyway we can until it hurts and root out every bit of leaven and every source of sin, malice and wickedness in our lives so we can some day accompany these people. We want to say we did everything we could. We had a horrible circumstance that you did not have to face and here is what we did. Brethren, we do have certain things that we can count on. When they say, “Were you beaten?” We can say, no, but right in my house there was Satan who could come in through my television, through my radio and through my computer! Did you deal with that? Paul will have to say, no, what are those things? We can sit down and say that is where Satan could take horrible thoughts in one person’s mind and inject them into my mind almost anytime he wanted! Really! That must have been awful. Yes, it was awful, and I fought it with all that I had, rooting out every sin and getting rid of all the leaven out of my life everywhere I could. If we do not have at least that to tell them, we are not much. We need to fight this with every fiber of our being and work at it constantly. Paul understood and he did it in his own way and his time. Our fight is a little different, but it is every bit as hard. The stakes are every bit as high. It is a vicious war we are involved with, brethren, and we have to understand it in order to fight it well. Let’s go to II Timothy 4. At the end, Paul knew some things. He had gone through a lot and here is what he had to say. Verse 6: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.” He said I am about ready to die, and I am still willing to be a sacrifice. I am going to be poured out. My blood will be spilled just like Christ’s was. He knew it. Verse 7: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.” Brethren, we need to be able to say the same thing. I have fought the good fight. I am willing and ready to be poured out, and I have sacrificed in every way with every fiber of my being so that I can be a living sacrifice, a living stone in the temple. I will be able to work with you, the other saints and Jesus Christ forever. Brethren, to get to that point it is going to take a lot of work for every one of us. We have to stop kidding ourselves. We are in the battle of our lives! The enemy is insidious and cannot be seen, but he can get at us in ways he has never been able to get at Christianity before! There are more tools at Satan’s disposal now than ever. We have to be wary, wise and strong. We need to be strong in our weakness letting Christ live in us. We want to be a sacrifice just like Christ. We do not want to be lame, sick and weak in sin and try to be a sacrifice. God does not want that to be a first fruit. He does not want to have both eyes, so to speak, but one is blind, and be lame. He wants us to be clean. We need to all work at this. SPIRITUALLY LAME Let us take a look at some of the actual lameness and things that God was talking about in the sheep in the Old Testament. Go back to Leviticus. The descriptions are quite interesting now that we can draw a spiritual comparison. Read Leviticus 21, verses 16-23. What is he saying here? What are we supposed to learn from this? I have a bad hip. I am lame sometimes. Does that mean I cannot be a minister? Some of you have other health problems. Does that mean you cannot be in the Church? No, we need to look at the physical to understand the spiritual. Am I a lame minister spiritually trying to come before the altar? In other words, am I not working on something I should be? Am I not allowing Jesus Christ to root something out of my life such as the leaven of wickedness and malice and the list we just read? This is what God is concerned about, but He had to give us physical examples to understand the spiritual intent. He had a sanctuary, an altar, and He wanted people to approach it with clean sacrifices and they themselves to be without defect. This was to portray something He was going to do spiritually later on. SPIRITUALLY UNCLEAN Continue in Leviticus chapter 22. Read verses 1-6. This is comparable to the Holy Spirit in verse 6. So what is God is saying here? I am going to give you physical examples of what people need to be like to be in the priesthood. We want to be priests. We just read that in I Peter. They better be clean when they come in My presence or I do not want them there! That is what Paul was trying to convey. He said I am coming to you for the third time trying to get rid of this sin or you will get disqualified. Stop it! Can’t you see you are in danger? If you want to be a living sacrifice, follow my example. That is what he was saying. I am willing to get beaten, stoned and I am willing to die for you because I love you and I am so concerned about you. Do the same for yourself. Become unselfish, clean and pure in mind and heart and get rid of the leaven of malice and wickedness so you are a good, clean sacrifice to God. Now go to Deuteronomy 15 for a little bit more discussion. We saw disease spoken of there: leprosy, emissions or other things making a person unclean. There is a little bit of discussion in Deuteronomy 15 about lameness. Starting in Deuteronomy 15, read verses 19 to 23. LAME SHEEP He said if you want to eat a defective animal that is okay but do not offer it to Me. I do not want it! I do not want it if it is lame, blind or injured. That lameness is spiritually something that we are carrying that makes us lame. It is an undealt-with sin, part of that list that Paul gave us to work on. If we are hypocrites, it is a form of lameness. It is like having an injury. It is an injured character trait, so to speak. God wants pure sacrifices offered to Him, and we have willingly agreed to allow Him to work in us and become a sacrifice: the body of Christ. We have often looked at Ezekiel 34 and talked about it as a prophecy for the end time. With what we have just discussed and learned, let’s take another look at Ezekiel 34 just briefly. It is fascinating when God takes His ministry and sheep to account, and it is specifically for the latter days as well. This is most important for us. Ezekiel 34, starting in verse 1: “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, “Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock.’”’” In other words he is taking the ministry to task here and says you are benefiting from the sheep. They send you their tithes and their offerings. They assist you in many ways. In return you are supposed to feed them! You are supposed to take care of them. Verse 4: “‘The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them.’” He said you have sick sheep, lame sheep and hurting sheep out there, and they are malnourished as well. They are not being cared for! I am holding you accountable for this. Aren’t they taking care of you? You eat their tithes and their offerings. You have houses paid for by their tithes and offerings. You are taking the fat from My flock and giving nothing back. He continues in verse 5: “‘So they were scattered because there was no shepherd…’” (that is, a shepherd who cared) “‘…and they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered. My sheep wandered…’” he said. This is what has happened to the Church in the last days. The sheep are scattered and wandering. They are malnourished, lame, sick and hurting. We cannot place all the blame on the shepherds because if you were to continue down you will see that there is plenty of blame passed out to the sheep (especially the strong sheep) who took advantage of the weak sheep. God is not happy with them as well. We can see to be a good sacrifice, it takes the willingness of the sheep and it also takes a shepherd to help them like Paul was doing. He said I see something, and just like God the Father, I am chastising you and chasing you to correct this fault that is endangering you spiritually. It is making it possible for you to be disqualified, and I do not want that! Most of all, because I am concerned for you; but second of all, I am held accountable! I have to do this so I am willing to die and shed my blood for you that you would be a good living sacrifice. That is why at the end of his life he gave us that example. He said I have done all of these things. I am ready to be poured out; now follow my tracks as I followed the tracks of Jesus Christ. It is a very important concept. Let us turn back to Malachi at the end of the Old Testament. Malachi 1, starting in verse 6 is a warning for God’s Church. It is a specific warning, and it is very important for the end time Church to get this. Verse 6: “‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence?’ says the Lord of hosts to you priests who despise My name. ‘Yet you say, “In what way have we despised Your name?” You offer defiled food on My altar, but say, “In what way have we defiled You?” By saying, “The table of the Lord is contemptible.” And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice, is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?’ says the Lord of hosts.” God says I am very angry because the shepherds are offering Me unhealthy, sick sheep as offerings. They are blind, sick, lame and weak. People are saying how are we doing that? Because they do not see anything spiritually. They do not understand that a sick sheep at the hand of a shepherd is not pleasing to God unless that shepherd has done all that he could to help that sheep. Verse 9 of Malachi 1: “‘But now entreat God’s favor, that He may be gracious to us. While this is being done by your hands, will He accept you favorably?’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘Who is there even among you who would shut the doors, so that you would not kindle fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you,’ says the Lord of hosts…” Go back to Revelation 3 and connect that sometime. Christ is standing at the door to our minds and hearts and knocking to see if we will let Him in so that we would be an acceptable sacrifice of good gold and silver, with good garments and good acts of service. This is spiritual. God is no longer interested in dead sheep on an altar somewhere. Verse 11: “‘For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles; in every place incense shall be offered to My name, and pure offering; for My name shall be great among the nations,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘But you profane it, in that you say, “The table of the Lord is defiled; and its fruit, its food, is contemptible.” You also say, “Oh, what a weariness!” And you sneer at it,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘And you bring the stolen, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring an offering! Should I accept this from your hand?’ says the Lord. ‘But cursed be the deceiver who has in his flock a male, and takes a vow, but sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished; for I am a great King,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘And My name is to be feared among the nations.’” I am a Great God and a Great King says God, and do not do this to My flock! Do not offer it to Me! I want good offerings. I want people who are taught to overcome and kick Satan out of their lives. I want people who will let My Son dwell in there. I want a body of Christ that is healthy and whole and not divided into many pieces. I do not want some who have gone back to pagan doctrines, worshiping on pagan days. I do not want that. I also do not want people who are so weak that every vile filth with their new modern telecommunications are let into their house which gets into My Son’s house: their mind and their heart. I am not pleased with those offerings. Cut it out, otherwise I am going to the Gentiles. I will find some good offerings. They will get cleaned up. God can do it and He will. We want to make sure we are not disqualified, brethren. We need to work hard constantly, everyday rooting out all of the leaven of malice and wickedness. Work on every sin in our life. We will not get rid of them all before Christ returns, but at least we can show God we were improving day by day. For every fault that we found, we covered it with Christ’s blood so that God will not look at it. Then and only then can we even come anywhere near claiming to be a good sacrifice to God. PULL DOWN SPIRITUAL STRONGHOLDS Living sacrifices understand what type of war we are involved in, New Testament style. We can look at the Old Testament and learn how they pulled down strongholds and how they were faithful in their weaknesses. We can learn how they turned to God when they were surrounded by enemies, how they turned to God when there were famines and how they turned to God when there was pestilence. Then we need to apply that in our lives now when we are surrounded spiritually and there is a lack of good food and water, and there is pestilence everywhere, as well as spiritual leprosy. We need to turn to God to fight these things, and He will be there. But we need to turn to Him constantly. We need to fight this war New Testament style while learning from the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets and how they did it. We need to learn how they remained faithful in the face of great adversity. We are fighting a spiritual war but it does have physical overtones. If we go to Passover services and we are not in the right frame of mind and have not examined ourselves but we ask to be healed of physical affliction, we can forget it. We are told that. There are physical overtones, because we can be physically persecuted too. We do have that to face, but it is nowhere near as tough as the early Christian Church or the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets. We face our own enemy situation that is just as tough in its own way. We have gone over that. We need to be aware of all of these things. Turn to II Corinthians chapter 10, starting in verse 1. “Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ-who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you.” He is pleading! Verse 2: “But I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.” Brethren, that is the essence of our spiritual warfare. Fight, sacrifice, root evil out of our lives and pull down the strongholds Satan uses. He uses a lot of them. He uses vain arguments, false doctrine, television, movies, music, animosity and division among brethren. He is out there using every tool at his disposal to make us an unacceptable sacrifice, because if he can keep us unacceptable as a sacrifice, he can prevent Jesus Christ from coming to His temple! That temple must be cleansed. TEMPLE MUST BE CLEANSED Mr. Armstrong built the temple and finished the temple so that it could be cleansed. Then he showed us for seven years how to cleanse it, but we did not get the point. Too many of us have just ditty bopped along since then leaving sin in our lives. We have been watching the spiritual temple get torn apart stone by stone, congregation by congregation until it has been divided up into many pieces. Many of them are so self-righteous they still do not think anything is wrong with them. They are okay. They are a perfect sacrifice while they slander and tear apart their brethren in other Church groups. This is not a unified body that God can use that way. It has come down to an individual thing. In Revelation 3 God is at each of our doors and He wants to come in and sup with us, if we are willing to buy clean garments, untarnished gold and silver and allow Him to put eye salve in our eyes so we can see ourselves for what we really are. We are lame, sick, weak and diseased. We need to get cleaned up so that God the Father can send His Son to this temple and put an end to the misery that this Church finds itself in. ARMOR OF GOD Let’s reinforce this now by going to Ephesians 6. We are very familiar with this. Starting in verse 10: “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” You will notice Paul never said I do not go anywhere without my sword. My favorite spear length is 60 cm. I love this steel shield or whatever. He did not fight with that stuff. He is fighting with spiritual things because he knows it is a spiritual enemy. Continuing in verse 13 of Ephesians 6: “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” He says pray for me that I can continue fighting these heresies and these arguments and continue to teach you how to take up the whole armor of God because this is a spiritual warfare. Never once does he say there are people who have persecuted me in that town. I want ten men here. Pick some good weapons because we are going over there tonight to fight them. That was the Old Testament style. We had to have a physical nation with a physical temple in a physical city with physical faithful people who knew when they saw pagans out there who wanted to bring in false doctrines and tear down what God was building (a holy righteous nation), they would fight physically but based on a spiritual help from God to help overcome insurmountable obstacles. Daniel faced a physical lion. David faced a physical lion and a physical bear. We do not. It is actually in some ways harder for us because it is invisible. That force is everywhere and we are fighting wicked spirits in high places. We need to understand what we are involved in, in order to be successful and be good clean sacrifices for Jesus Christ. Christ uses His body just like we use our physical body. He works with it. He teaches it. He heals it. He builds with it. He accomplishes with it. We are giving Him our bodies to be part of an overall body of Christ in order to accomplish the greatest work that has ever been done: the defeating of Satan and evil. Those who will assist Christ and be good living sacrifices and be willing to lay down their lives for their fellow man and brethren are going to shine like stars forever! This is an awesome calling, and it is hard. We have to be willing to do it. We have come this far and we do not have much farther to go, but we have quite a bit of cleaning up to do yet. Each of us needs to get the job done in our own lives. We just read that the body that is unified must stay together. The body of Christ is divided, but we do not have to get divided. It is small enough. God knows where the little pieces are that are trying to keep it together. He will bless. If we overcome, God will bless us. If we do not overcome, we shall be overcome. This has happened. The Church has been overcome by Satan. We have a choice: overcome or be overcome. It is that bad. Let’s focus on these things so that we can bring down strongholds. We will pull down strongholds, brethren. I am very confident of that. If we do not, we are going to get pulled down. Spiritually we are a stronghold because there are a number of us gathered together as a congregation that supports one another, loves one another and encourages one another. Satan is going to do everything he can to pull us down. God is with us and for us but we need His armor and His help. We need to stay humble in our own eyes. Let’s go back to Ezekiel 34 and read a few more scriptures there. We want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Letting God work with us in our lives makes us part of the solution. Read Ezekiel 34, verses 16-24. God is going to do something tremendous. He is going to gather up His sheep. He is going to take care of the wounded who will come to Him and allow Him to bind their wounds and help heal their diseases. We want to be among the sheep that tried to keep it together, at least tried. We want to have offered to God the best of ourselves as living sacrifices and as pure and clean as possible. PART OF THE SOLUTION The Church is broken, blind, diseased and lame, but we do not have to be. We do not have to be that way individually. We do need to stop looking at things physically in order to accomplish these spiritual things. Stop looking at war, famine, physical disease and earthquakes. God is not concerned with those things. Christ said do not be worried or terrified by those. Those are not the sign of My coming. What has happened to My Church is the sign. My Church is down and out. It is weak. We need to beg God for spiritual eyesight so we can the things we need to see. It is not hard to see war in the Middle East. It is not hard to see an earthquake on the news. It is not hard to see these things. Yet God said it is hard for My Church to see the signs of My coming. Let’s start looking for the right signs, the right evidence. Daniel 12:7 said at the end time the power of the holy people shall be shattered and scattered and then shall the end come. It will be over. So it is almost over! In Matthew 24 Christ said every stone will be torn down. The congregations around the world have been torn apart. The Church has been pulled down, but we can help one another on a little level here as a stronghold that is left. I would encourage any other brethren anywhere on the planet Earth who can get together to encourage the weak. Help bind each other’s wounds and help heal each other’s diseases. Get cleaned up because Christ is coming soon in an hour that we do not expect. A house divided such as we are is in grave danger. Turn to Luke 11. Anybody who will turn the wounded and the lame back to God, He will reward greatly! So whoever hears this tape, please be among those who are part of the solution and not part of the problem. Turn now, if you would, to Luke 11:14. “And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. So it was, when the demon had gone out, that the mute spoke; and the multitudes marveled. But some of them said, ‘He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.’ Others, testing Him, sought from Him a sign from heaven. But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them: ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub. And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.’” He is talking about the body of Christ, brethren. The armor was stripped from the body. Christ was bound in a sense because we will not let Him work in us. It is a free-will agreement. If we do not allow Him to work in us, Satan will! The evidence is there. The body of Christ is divided. The house could not stand. The temple is the house of God and it did not stand. I am telling you God has preserved a few. He knew this was going to happen, and the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. It is incumbent upon each of us to make sure we allow Him to work in our lives. Let Him in. He is knocking at the door. Let Him in to feed us. We may be weak, lame, sick and wounded right now, but He can fix that. He wants to, but there is not much time left. Whoever hears this, realize time is short! Allow God to work in us to be a clean living sacrifice and part of the body of Christ. Do this by subjugating all sin that is in our lives and extinguishing all selfishness, for then we have learned to bear our cross and be part of the body of Christ.