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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dennis Priebe Weekend 2006

Dennis Priebe

Victory Over Sin: How?

I Trust that the Lord has been good to you since we last saw each other If I counted a real honor to be invited back to this special place for another year We had a great time last year And I consider this 1 of my favorite places that I get to come to around the United States.

So I thank you for that invitation and the opportunity to spend a weekend with you before we go on to places like Oklahoma and Tennessee and places like that where we hope, we hope the tornadoes are all finished.

But we trust the Lord on things like that, don't we?

Tonight I'm going to begin by sharing with you an editorial that I came across from the Adventist Review over 30 years ago.

It is 1 of the most powerful editorials that I have come across and I'm going to share most of it with you as the editor wrote it.

Perhaps the most serious danger that threatens the Church is that it will lose its uniqueness, that it will become like the world around it, that its schools, its medical institutions, its methods of promotion, its literature, its standards of measuring success will be scarcely distinguishable from those of the secular world.

Yet few people in the Church seem concerned about this danger.

Too many measure success merely by gains in tithe and membership.

They are confident that all is well with our educational institutions so long as enrollments are increasing and accrediting bodies are pleased.

They seem satisfied with our hospitals so long as their bed occupancy rate is high and their budgets are balanced.

They are content with our literature so long as it sells well and is appreciated by readers.

When anyone raises questions as to whether spiritual values are being given sufficient emphasis, whether our literature is distinctively Adventist, or whether an institution is being operated in harmony with God's revealed will, often he is considered a negative influence, a fanatic.

Few people in the Church welcome criticism, even though it be constructive.

Most would rather be told that everything is going well, that conditions may not be perfect, but they are the best they have ever been.

It is important to keep in mind that the church may operate institutions that meet worldly standards but not God's standards.

The church may give the appearance of being enormously successful and still be a failure.

Burgeoning financial and membership statistics may be accompanied by a sharp decline in spirituality.

Employees in denominational institutions may be efficient but not spiritual.

Some time ago we were startled by several passages in a book entitled Keys to the Deeper Life by A.W.

Tozer, a consecrated non- Adventist Christian.

In the book the author declared, the separating line between the church and the world has been all but obliterated.

Aside from a few of the grosser sins, the sins of the unregenerated world are now approved by a shocking number of professedly born-again Christians and copied eagerly.

Young Christians take as their models the rankest kind of whirlings and try to be as much like them as possible.

Religious leaders have adopted the techniques of the advertisers.

Boasting, baiting, and shameless exaggerating are now carried on as a normal procedure in church work.

The moral climate is not that of the New Testament, but that of Hollywood and Broadway.

Most evangelicals no longer initiate, they imitate, and the world is their model." The editor said, Is this indictment too harsh?

Too many Christians are aping the world in appearance and conduct.

They bring secular techniques into the church to carry forward the work of God.

Tozer described Laodicea best when he said, and this is the most important segment right here, Religious work can be done by natural men without the gifts of the Spirit, and it can be done well and skillfully.

But work designed for eternity can only be done by the eternal Spirit.

No work has eternity in it unless it is done by the Spirit through gifts he has himself implanted in the souls of redeemed men.

Spiritually gifted persons are ominously few among us.

When we so desperately need leaders with the gift of discernment, for instance, we do not have them and are compelled to fall back upon the techniques of the world.

This frightening hour calls aloud for men with the gift of prophetic insight.

Instead, we have men who conduct surveys, polls, and panel discussions." Again, end of quote.

And the editor asked, can religious work be done skillfully and well by natural men?

Layout artists can create clever designs for magazines, administrators can manage and direct, treasurers can handle finances, and on and on.

All of these activities may be carried forward by natural men." And that is the key point of this editorial.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, would you?

1 Corinthians chapter 2, beginning with verse 12.

Would help if I get to the right page myself, folks.

First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 12, Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." Comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ." Isn't that the desperate need of us today, to have the mind of Christ?

We can either be natural men and women, meaning using our best abilities and talents, those gifts which God has given us to run an effective work, or we can be spiritual men and women using the gifts of the Holy Spirit directly guiding our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

Both cases the work can be done, you see, in Both cases the work can be done, you see.

In both cases the work can be done, but which will be the work for eternity?

The editor wasn't quite through with his editorial.

He said, the natural man sees no necessity for yielding to and following implicitly the counsel from God's Spirit, as set forth in the Bible and the writings of Ellen White, the natural man sees no great danger in deviating slightly from the expressed will of God.

By contrast, The spiritual man distrusts self and seeks earnestly to do God's work in God's way.

Thus, if natural men are in positions of leadership in God's work, the church is in peril.

That all leaders, all workers, all employees of the remnant church shall be spiritual men, not natural men.

Wrote Ellen White, to our ministers, physicians, teachers, and all others engaged in any line of service for the Master, I have a message to bear.

The Lord bids you to come up higher to reach a holier standard.

You must have an experience much deeper than you have ever yet thought of having.

Be zealous and repent, the angel tells us.

Will we continue to excuse our deficiencies and proclaim our lack of any need or will we repent?

While we make up our minds, Jesus stands at the door and waits." Powerful editorial in my opinion, addressing particularly the issues at stake in our beloved church today.

Yes, we can do a marvelous work as natural men and women.

We can do the things that any goal-setting person can accomplish, but can we be spiritual men and women?

Now, last year, I talked a fair amount about the goals of Adventism, the purpose of Adventism, the mission of Adventism, the high ideal that God has set for his people.

I talked a lot about the what last year, what God wants.

Tonight I want to talk about the how, because the what isn't much without the how.

If we don't know how to achieve what God has set, then we flounder, we become discouraged and perhaps we even abandon that marvelous message for a message which might sound a little more practical and workable.

So tonight is the practical part of what I want to tell you.

How can we have this experience that we so desperately need?

There are 3 principles that I wish to share with you tonight.

3 basic principles on how we can be spiritual men and women, how we can have victory over sin.

The first 1 comes from a time back in my childhood where a friend of mine wrote up a little story and I think you'll enjoy it.

Even though we were all too young to drive we found the car to be too enticing to leave alone.

Tom's dad had gotten it for him, a 1930 Chevrolet coupe with a jackrabbit clutch, to keep him under the hood and out of mischief until he was legally licensed to drive it on the roads.

But when my brother Larry and I got together with our boyhood buddy Tom, there wasn't much that could keep us out of mischief.

And though we hardly knew which end of the wrench to hold, we managed 1 idle Sunday afternoon to bring the old chivvy to life.

That sturdy cast iron blue flame 6 snorted and popped, then settled into a smooth rumble that shot fire into our blood.

We literally danced around the open hood thumping each other on the back and grinning an unspoken agreement that we would not shut it off until we felt its power from behind the wheel.

We eyed Tom's long gravel driveway and the plan went into action.

Tom of course had first dibs on the driver's seat.

Larry and I took up stations on the running boards.

Sin Shall Not Have Dominion Over You

Charles Fitch is a name that is known to students of Adventist history because of his association with the Millerite movement.

He joined the Millerite movement, began preaching the soon advent of Jesus Christ, but unfortunately, if you remember your history, He conducted a baptism on a chilly day, 3 baptisms.

He caught a serious illness and he died 1 week before October 22, 1844.

Can you imagine what his first question will be on the resurrection morning?

Before he became a member of the Millerite movement, He was a Presbyterian pastor and in the year 1840 in New Jersey He was asked some questions by his Presbyterian board the Presbytery of his church They appointed a committee and they asked him some questions.

These were the questions they posed to him.

Number 1, do you believe that the Bible teaches men are perfect in holiness in this life?

Number 2, what cases or characters were without sin in Bible history except Christ merely named them?

Number 3, of all among the martyrs whose memoirs have come down to us how many do you find perfect?

Number 4, in modern times have not the best of men evidently been sinful more or less and have they not thought themselves to be so?

Number 5, in the circle of your acquaintance, have those who claimed perfection generally turned out as well as those who feared always?

Number 6, are those around you who claim this more meekly and heavenly than others?

Number 7, do not perfection people very frequently run into some palpable inconsistencies.

Number 8, do you avow the belief that you are generally without sin in thought, desire, word, deed, or defect?

And number 9, have you made up your mind publicly to teach and defend the position that there are men among us who are without sin?

I think you get the gist of that discussion very quickly.

The brethren were not happy with the teaching of Charles Fitch in that Presbyterian Church, and they wanted to know what was going on.

Sound familiar to some questions being asked today in the Seventh Day Adventist Church?

Exactly the same kinds of questions are being asked today as were being asked back then over 150 years ago.

And this morning I am going to share with you a non-Seventh-day Adventist message, because it comes from the voice and the pen of 1 who was a Presbyterian pastor before there ever was a single Seventh-day Adventist on the face of this earth.

I'm going to share with you this morning the texts that he used, and that's all we'll do, the texts that he used in defense of what he believed and taught at his church in New Jersey.

We're just going to go through his text that he used and sample them and see what he could find in the Bible to defend this crazy belief that men will be perfect in this life.

1 Peter 1, verses 15 and 16 is where he started.

But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.

Because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

He who has called you is holy, so be you holy also in all your conduct as the 1 who has called you." Now as we go through this here and there I will share some comments that Brother Fitch made on some of these Bible texts and here is what he said on this point.

He said, I ought to have no expectation of dwelling where God dwells unless I have a character fully assimilated to his, unless I love with a full and undivided heart what he loves and hate what he hates and all that he hates with a hatred full entire uniform perpetual like his own.

There must not be in me an approach to any thought or feeling which is not imperfect, full-hearted, and joyous agreement with everything that God is and with everything that God does." Isn't that just a little bit logical?

Why should we expect to be happy in God's home if the things we like are the opposite of what He likes?

What kind of heaven would it be if we on our first day there were searching for all the things we've come to enjoy and find happiness in and not a 1 of them were there.

Would we be running behind trees to participate in what made us happy So that we would hide from the presence of the 1 who wasn't making us unhappy Do you see why there will be only some who will be in that heaven?

They'll be the only ones who would enjoy it God is not going to plant people there who would be miserable And so maybe just maybe if we are planning to be there If we are planning to walk with God in that place that we can't even begin to describe right now but we know some of its characteristics, Shouldn't we be learning the lifestyle, the words, the attitudes that are going to be prevalent up there and maybe even possibly the diet?

Wouldn't it be a terrible shame to walk up to that table that's going to be spread out for miles on either direction, walk up to the table, take a look up and down that table and say, wow, there's the thing I like on this table.

Let's learn to learn to live the heaven life now, what do you say?

That's all that Charles Fitch was trying to say.

Then he went to Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 1, And he started in at verse 68.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.

Go down to verse 74, that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life." Isn't that the right way to serve God?

Without fear, without being afraid, in holiness and righteousness all the days of his life.

And then he went to 1 of the most powerful texts in the New Testament, the sixth chapter of Romans.

If you've not spent much time recently in that chapter, I encourage you to make a study of it.

It is amazing what Paul says about baptism.

Beginning with verse 2, God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin.

The old man, the resurrection life, what is destroyed, what is alive.

We take texts like this with a grain of salt, don't we?

I guess maybe some people have come into that experience, but that's not the way normal life is.

We die and then we kind of live again in the old man for a while, and then we die and then we live again in the old man and that just seems to rotate down through life and there's nothing much we can really do about it because after all we're born with a fallen nature and our circumstances don't allow us to live the kind of life that Christ did.

Do we really believe texts like this that are just right above the level of human experience seemingly?

That just don't quite mesh with what our lifestyle has been and the lifestyle of our friends look down to verse 11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace.

What then, shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?

With a passage like that, how could it ever possibly be interpreted that because of the fact that we are not under the law, sinning will just be going on and grace will just be applied right down to the second coming of Jesus Christ?

For sin shall not have dominion over you because you're not under the law.

That's why sin is a powerless foe right now.

But now being made free from sin, Is that true or not?

But now being made free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life.

Romans 6 my friends, do we believe it or not?

Do we believe the impossible dream that is being spelled out in these pages, or do we have to revise it to come into harmony with cultural and rational norms, that we just have to make it sound less offensive in our ears.

Well, Brother Fitch had a comment or 2 on this particular text as well.

He said, No man is dead to sin who commits sin.

If he falls into sin he is no longer dead to sin.

If a man is crucified with Christ he must be dead to sin.

Rather odd little logic wouldn't you say?

Just very strange to have it so black and white like that.

And then he went to 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 4.

"...whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises." Now folks, some people think that this business of overcoming sin is a demand that the Lord places on us to see if we can jump through the right hoops and qualify for eternal life.

Do we believe that we have been given great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust?

I think God is saying something that we need to hear.

Whenever we talk about the word perfection or living without sin, we are not talking about human abilities, human demands, or God's commands.

We are talking about God's promises and his willingness to give us more than we ever dreamed possible.

How Inspired Was Ellen White?

It's time for us to do some serious study together this afternoon.

During the morning hour, we don't have quite the time.

During the afternoon is the time for us to think carefully about some very important subjects.

But before we do that, I'm going to share with you some items that are totally unrelated to our subject this afternoon.

You can put them under the category of the times in which we live if you want to.

In 1782, Thomas Jefferson wrote this, it is error alone which needs the support of government.

Subject opinion to coercion, whom will you make your inquisitors?

Fallible men, men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.

Introduce the bed of procrustes then and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size by lopping the former and stretching the latter.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.

The several sects perform the office of a censor over each other.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children since the introduction of Christianity have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, yet we have not advanced 1 inch towards uniformity.

What has been the effect of coercion to make 1 half the world fools and the other half hypocrites to support roguery and error all over the earth?

Wisdom, wisdom from a couple of centuries ago, and yet we never seem to learn the lessons that forcing uniformity doesn't produce unity.

All it does is make people either robots or frustrated rebellions.

Pat Robertson, some of his recent statements, when Ariel Sharon was struck down by the coma in which he is right now, the stroke and coma in which he is, Here was Pat Robertson, God says this land belongs to me, you'd better leave it alone.

Because of course Sharon was giving away part of Israel to the Palestinians.

So this was God's judgment upon the Prime Minister of Israel for getting rid of parts of the sacred land that had to be restored to Israel so Jesus could come.

And then when he talks about the Venezuelan president, who I guess is not such a good character, if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.

It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.

A woman by the name of Ann Coulter, I am often asked if I still think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

Well, you've just heard 1 sample of how it should be done.

Today the same churches that have preached against the necessity of keeping the commandments are urging their public display.

Churches that claim to be new covenant put the commandments on stone monuments, so very old covenant, and fail to teach the new covenant promise of the law written in the human heart.

By necessity, since American churches have largely abandoned the real new covenant, the promise of a heart transformed by love and brought into obedience to Christ, they have lost the power of God and now rely upon the power of the state to promote morality and even religion.

Isn't it strange, the times in which we live?

Those who have said the law was nailed to the cross want it now in every office and every courtroom and every school in the land, on stone monuments.

We live in some very, very interesting times, don't we?

These are times like never before in the history of the United States since Puritan times.

And are we wanting to go back there and discover how religion was done?

Number 1, we will have 2 meetings this afternoon separated by a little bit of a break.

The titles of the 2 meetings have already been announced.

Number 2, if you are interested in any of our tapes or books or CDs or DVDs or whatever we have with us, there are 2 ways of accessing them today.

We will not go until sundown with a regular meeting.

So the only way to look at our materials would be if you happen to stay until sundown in discussion, or if you want to come back after sundown for a few moments, we will be here after sundown.

So that is 1 way to take a look at what we have.

If you can't stay and are interested in some of our tapes or materials, then by all means talk to my wife or my son before you get away this afternoon and they can let you know what can be done.

So those are the 2 ways of accessing our materials this afternoon.

Also, I bring with me little booklets and pamphlets and articles on various subjects that if you are interested in something to take home with you for your own personal study, just ask me and I would be delighted to share some of these with you this afternoon.

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Dennis Priebe Weekend 2006

Victory Over Sin: How?

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