A life separated unto God is very important, but we must see that it is all of grace through the righteousness of God, and only on that basis we are accepted in God.
Excerpts from the sermon:
“There is a need at times in the body of Christ for revival to get people to publicly confess their sins as Christians, but we`re not legalists. You could come here for years and get away with it. We can see the lack of fruit in your life, but we will not project ourselves into the seat of legislature. The biggest thing we`re going to do is to get up behind this pulpit and preach the Bible to you. And you`re going to do your own repentance, and you`re going to do your own confession, and apart from preaching, that`s the way we`re going....But not for a moment do we intend ever to get rid of the preaching about repentance or confessing our sins. We`re going to keep on preaching that until a fire is built in our hearts for revival.”
“We want to make it clear, clear. Our righteousness is not our own, and our purity is not our own. If there is anything right in us, if there is anything to us, it is because of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
“There are churches that an inner clique does run it. There are churches when your hair falls down, you got it. There are churches with holy spots, but this is not one of them. We all here—we all got to have Christ. Everyone of us have to have Jesus Christ. It may be that some will pray more. It may be that some will work more. It may be that some will be more energetic. It may be that some will give more. It may be that some will look more holy. But I want to tell you something. You can`t be holier than being under Jesus, and you can`t be inferior holy under Jesus. You are either under Him, with Him, have His righteousness, or you don`t have it. There is no other imaginary world in which we live but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. There`s no other place.”
“The books we read, the homework, the twentieth-century apostasy—you can take a stand against every apostate in America and not be under the righteousness of Jesus Christ and doing it. And you can be not naming one of them and think you`re so lovely and sweet, you would never call the name of anybody as wrong, and be without the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It can be both ways.”
“If any family is kept from failing and failure, it`s by the grace of God....If any person is kept from failure, it is by the righteousness of Jesus Christ upon them.”
“What grace wants to do and must do is to bring everyone of us (those who were kept from failing and those who failed and were lured back), everyone of us have to finally get rid of the legal word: God is righteous, the Righteous God is going to get me. It is possible to get pure in the blood, and begin to put stock in your own purity. You can by the free grace of God get separated, and pray, and God anoint your little life, and you begin to siphon off the glory of it. It`s possible.”
“Growth in grace is not time been in a church. Growth in grace is how long has it dawned on us that I was saved by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and I am only what I am by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I will make no other claim but this, He is my righteousness.”
“It`s mainly people in the leadership slot that need to be very sure they`re standing under the righteousness of Jesus Christ, for if we`re not standing there, this ministry will come to nought. They`re no pets.”
“I came back from the Orient, almost fifty messages in thirty-two days (seven of those days was traveling), preaching fives times on one Sunday, and the more I go and see, and the more I stay and preach, the more I see it is nothing. It is nothing unless Christ is with us. It`s nothing. It`s nothing to it.”
“Sometimes God saves somebody in our midst and they break the usual speed limit of growth. They get a Bible and get everything straight, want everything right with God, while we`re kind of loping along for the status quo. Sometimes He allows someone to backslide on us as a warning, ‘You can too.’ When you see someone going on with God, when you see someone going back on God, it is to teach us that it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that is our only basis that we are accepted in God.”
