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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Doug Batchelor

Holiness and Purity

You know, I knew I had a limited time and I thought, what can I talk about?

It's been a while since I've been here, and I wanted to talk about something relevant.

And the thing that weighs on my heart as 1 of the most important issues that we must understand today is holiness.

In fact, before I preach, I'm just going to bow in prayer.

Father in heaven, Lord, we are on holy ground now, and as we come into your presence during this Sabbath, and I just pray that your Spirit will be here.

There's such a great work left to do, And we know that there's no limit to what you can do in and through us except our own full surrender.

I pray that your word will come alive today and that you'll teach us how to apply it to our lives.

Be with me, forgive my sins, that it's ultimately your voice that is heard.

My mother-in-law's here, she's always telling me button your jacket but they got 2 belt packs on me today so I can't do that.

I remember reading years ago about someone named Simon Stilet.

He was a young man living in Syria, the border of Turkey, and when his 14 years old father was a shepherd, very poor, he heard the Sermon on the Mount.

And it so deeply affected him, he thought nothing could be more important than being pure of heart but he realized there was so much sin in the world how could he do that and so he thought maybe if I go out into the wilderness and join a monastery and if I afflict my soul that was sort of popular back then, and he joined the monastery and he was so rigorous in his devotions, the monastery kicked him out because he would go days without eating.

At 1 point he went, they say he went the entire Lent without eating or drinking.

He was in a cave where it was cool and moist, but that's hard to imagine.

But they said, you're taking it too far, you're gonna kill yourself.

And then he would go off in the desert and he stayed in a cave and he would try to be alone with God, but people realizing he was a holy man, they kept coming to him for advice.

And when he couldn't find time alone with God horizontally, he decided to try and do it vertically.

So he found a pillar, and there were plenty of broken pillars there in that part of the old Roman Empire.

And he made a platform on top of this pillar.

They called him Simon Stylite because stylite is a Greek word, a style, a pillar in Greek.

And he sat on this pillar and he would just fast and pray and eat very little for days.

And the more he did that the more people came to him.

They thought this is a holy man, he is so close to heaven.

And at first he was just on like a 6 foot pillar and then he eventually worked his way up to 1 that was 60 feet high.

And he spent 37 years living on about a 5 by 5 platform, exposed to the elements, I think he had to coat.

He wore a rough, hairy garment because he thought, you know, if it's too comfortable, I'll be too worldly.

And people would bring him bread and milk, and they'd climb up a ladder, and they'd ask him questions, and they'd haul things up and lower it down by rope, and he lived up on a pillar, trying to get close to heaven.

There were many that followed after him, and they called him the Stilites.

1 man named Anatoly in France, he decided he wanted to be closer to God, he didn't have any local pillars, so he put a chair on his kitchen table in his house, and decided to put on a hairy garment.

He would try to be close to God, but the other people in the home, the cook and the other family didn't appreciate the sublime thing he was doing.

And they made his life so miserable he finally came down off his chair, off the kitchen table.

And he said, I discovered it's very hard to be a saint in your own home.

And that's why Jerome went out into the desert when he was trying to find holiness.

If you forget all the verses today, don't forget this 1.

Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no 1 will see the Lord.

Pursue peace, and among the things you're pursuing, pursue holiness and he goes on to say without holiness not just a few or it will not be limited but no 1 will see the Lord.

Now I don't know about you but that gets my attention Jesus said blessed are the pure in heart they will see God I want to see him face to face someday don't you friends?

Christians are kidding themselves if they think that The only holiness that God is calling for from us is that which we receive through justification.

There is a holiness of sanctification that we receive where we walk with the Lord in a new life.

We become new creatures with new hearts and we're being called to holy lives.

The word holy, well in Hebrew it's Kaddash, in Greek Hagios and it means to be separate.

This is called the Holy Bible, It's separate and distinct from other books.

And in the bachelor home, we don't set anything on the Bible.

You know, we'll have Bibles on the shelf.

I've been in Bible studies before where I saw somebody like set their coffee cup on the Bible.

Doesn't mean I don't know of any other girls out there, but I've got a lot of boyfriends, don't misunderstand.

I've got the beard now because I've been on a couple of camping trips and I found it was just easier, saved time.

The Bible says, you conserve, redeem the time because the days are evil.

So it just takes half as much time to shave now.

You know, I like finding beautiful places in the world, but you probably discovered the most beautiful places are hard to get to.

The reason I ended up in the cave up in the mountains is because when I was 15 years old and I was hitchhiking through Palm Springs camping in the base of the valley with all these hippies and they were partying and there was junk and cans and This guy and his girlfriend went hiking by and I said, where'd you come from?

I Said we live up there Said you live up there how far and they said oh, it's just back a ways up in the hills.

And his wife had been there about 4 years.

And they said, well, we're getting our groceries, and when we leave town, you can follow us up.

Well, by the time they came back to our campsite where all these hippies were partying, the sun had gone down, they said, you still want to go?

He was from Brooklyn, and he decided to stay.

But I thought, that looks like it'd be beautiful up there.

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Holiness and Purity

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