HOW DOES A CHRISTIAN BECOME CLEAN AND STAY CLEAN?
How does a Christian become clean? Simple. Jesus cleanses by His Blood. We saw that in I John 1:7.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7).
This refers to the initial cleasing from the guilt and sin and to our standing before God. Standing? Yes. There is standing and state. A lot of people still don’t believe this, but Scripture proves it. Standing is where? In the Lord. Our state changes—it goes up and down. But my standing is in the Lord. I’m positioned in Christ. He has made us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
When I got saved I was born again a new creature. He didn’t use old stuff. He didn’t put new wine in old flasks. This is a new thing. All of have this if we are born again. You are saved unto the day of redemption. And that has been taken care of by our Lord—that is your standing in Him.
But the state of your condition on planet earth in this flesh? Oh man, that fluctuates. It does. So God in that state condition—we are one perfect people.
- He cleanses us with His Blood.
- He washes us with His Word. “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26).
See, the longer we preach and teach, naturally we have this stuff in front of us all the time. So, to me it dovetails a little bit better. I’m in it all the time. I can see how it blends. And some people can’t see how it is all put together. But when it clicks, you all are going to connect this stuff with the Book, because without this you have no power, you have no cleansing—you’re going to find this out. You are going to find this out experientially. When you don’t read your Bible—sometimes for months—you see your spiritual batteries burning out.
We have peace with the Lord, and everything is going so good—we just neglect reading God’s Word here and there—and we don’t notice anything yet. And then something comes up and the word ‘N ... O ...” No, is real weak. We just can’t say no to it like we used to. Whatever it is, and other stuff starts to happen. And the devil is so slick we can never connect the dots. It takes a long time, you either hear a sermon or listen to a teacher, or listen to the Holy Spirit—because He does talk to you. He’ll ask, “What are you reading? That’s a good book, good book here, good book there—I mean, you can have religious books all over the house, like I do. You can read them all the time, but without the Word of God—the promises are only with the Book—God’s promises go with the Book. Other books are written by men that are saved, Lord willing, and they expand your mind with wisdom and different things like that—but they can’t do anything for you except expand your spiritual ramifications so that you understand some spiritual things out there—but you ain’t getting fed by them. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God!”
You must have a supernatural Book to feed your supernatural soul! And if we don’t do it, we start shrinking spiritually—you start losing power. And some people get so far away, the next thing they wonder is why they don’t like church no more ... they wonder why they don’t like the things of God. And then they start nitpicking and everybody’s a hypocrite. I hear all this all the time. Then I ask them . . . Are you reading your Bible everyday? Are you praying? And then I get the stupidest looks ... like, what in the world does that have to do with what’s going on? It’s the simplest thing that we teach Sunday school kids ... You know, how you Grow, Grow, Grow or you Shrink, Shrink, Shrink. The elementary stuff—if you forget, you’ll soon find out as a saved person—you got to get back to the Book!
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:25-26).
Cleanse it with what? the Word. The washing of the Word of God—it’s very important.
There are those that claim, that memorizing Scripture by the teenagers and everything ... that ain’t gonna help them. Well, whatever. They say, ‘they’re not going to remember this stuff’ ... whatever ...
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psalms 119:9).
Remember the Word that you hid in your heart that you might sin, what, sin against God. Remember that verse? You learned a long time ago, it’s true.
You can have all the programs in the world, and all that, but if a child has enough of the Word of God ... that is what is going to keep him. He’ll have that certain protection. He may go away, but guess what is going to bother him? The Word of God. If the Word of God is not in there—never was in there—very difficult.
“Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3).
- Whose doing the talking? The Lord Jesus Christ.
- They are clean by the Word.
- They are washed by the Word.
Remember? Only a great God can purify sinful men and women? We know that He cleanses by His Blood and He washes with His Word.
“Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all” (John 13:10).
Who is speaking? The Lord, trying to do some washing of some feet. And Peter so boldly said, “No way, man!” You know, recognizing His authority and everything, saying, “No, no! We wash Your feet!”
This shows us the association of humility through the washing . . . that’s the daily walk. You have to keep your feet clean, and you wash them with the water of the Word. And when we don’t do simple little things, we run into problems. That is our daily walk.
HOW DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT KEEP US CLEAN
“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:11-12).
We see how the Spirit purges things, always has—always will.
And Hebrews 9:14 is something you ought to memorize or consider. What a blessing! When you grow in the Lord, you are not going to know everything right away—sometimes it gets confusing—but you just ask God and tell Him that you need some understanding, and it will be like a light bulb that turns on. Things will start to become clear. Just like His will for your life—when you surrender to it—there will be a time when you will know it.
“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).
A lot of argument about who wrote this—I’m still sticking with Paul. I’m telling you what, just think about Paul on the road to Damascus. Very religious man, putting people in prison, consenting to the death of people because of this Messiah, Jesus Christ. And Who meets him on that road, Jesus Christ. And what is his first prayer? “Lord!” Almost like the thief on the cross, “Lord!” Right?
Now, you think about his minister. Him going hither and yon . . . throughout the continent over there. He might have even made it to Spain. And going to all those places on the boat and everything. Do you think for a minute that faces didn’t flash through his mind of people and families being torn apart? How about Stephen? He was holding his garments while they were stoning him to death. You don’t think that the devil didn’t bring that stuff up? And then the verses that Paul talks about on how he learned stuff. What did he learn how to be? He learned to be content. Always remember that word, “learned” . . . if they took that word out, you’d just say, ‘My goodness, I must not be saved because I’m sure not learning this.’ But what you think is, when you got the whole ball of wax, after you got saved, “Why aren’t you content?”
Paul said he ‘learned’ it. That’s experience. That means that there was a time when he was not content. And when it talks about how he glories in his infirmities—that’s plural, folks—that’s not just his eyeballs. They theorize-and it makes sense-that he saw a great light, everyone around him was blinded. His eyes were probably messed up. He was blinded because of that light. He probably had some kind of eye disease, because he said that the letter he was writing now-I’m writing in my own hand-giant writing. But Paul didn’t say a ‘infirmity’, he said ‘infirmities.’ But he did have a specific ‘thorn in his flesh’given him by the devil, and he sought Christ thrice Who said, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’
Now you and I are human. Paul is human. Why might Paul have been burdened down to have to come to God for that. Why would he even do that? Because he had the power to heal people. Do you understand that? If I’m going around and I’m healing people, and I got this problem, “Lord? Hey! I’m down here. What’s going on! I’m healing everybody—how about me? A little help here. And then for God to tell him that . . . and Paul says, “Okay, It’s sufficient.” But he learned to be content.
In Christianity today it’s like, you take a pill and all of a sudden you are spiritual. You take a pill and all of a sudden you are a dynamite thing. And a lot of times with baby Christians, God has blessed with a honeymoon of sorts. Because they haven’t read the rest of the Bible yet. They don’t understand that they are like sheep to the slaughter. They don’t understand that the devil hates their guts. They don’t understand that they have to go through boot camp and develop themselves as a soldier according to this Bible. They are supposed to graduate from babes and go on up to intermediate and . . . Nowadays they jump! As soon as they are saved somebody gets a hold of them and tells them that they have to do this or that . . . Next thing you know, they are out floating around making a big name for themselves—and then later on great is the fall thereof.
Does God ever use people like that? Oh yea. Billy Sunday. He’s saved people and put them right out there. He’s saved people and actually put them in the pastorate. How disgusting is that! Where’d He get that from? Well, it happened that the person he saved was already mature, already had character as a human being, didn’t have to get over whole a lot of stuff. You see, God does things a certain way—but that’s not overall. When you read the Bible you learn that you have to go slow, you have to sit before you can stand. And people aren’t doing that any more. I’m telling you. You can go on the internet and get a PHd on the internet. I mean, if you have a good mind you can memorize everything. But when I studied this out no matter how many degrees I would get—why did I get them—what is this? A pride thing? Is this to impress people? You have to go through this because knowledge puffeth up.
So, when you think about it. You can’t add one cubit to your height spiritually . . . God does. So it doesn’t matter how big your head it—it becomes top heavy. Only God, only God elevates the people that He wants to elevate. And you got to pay a price.
He purifies a sinful humanity with the blood and the washing, and He purges everything with His Spirit. Let’s look at that verse again . . .
“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14).
You need to circle that, highlight it, do whatever you need to do with it, but man, I like it!
How much more? More than what? Go through everything, go through the chapter about the blood of bulls and goats. He’s saying you have something now. I’m telling you . . . I’m telling you! It’s not just an atonement—at-one-ment—once a year. Man! There is more than that!
- You are together with God.
- You are in the family of God.
- You are baptized into His body. There is no way you can get out!
- You are sealed forever and ever and ever ever.
- You are joint heirs with Christ.
- You are a child of the King.
So how in the world can you ever do anything in the flesh when the flesh is wicked as hell?
It tells you right here what took place about the Blood. What does the Blood do? Look at it . . . ‘purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.’
Paul could serve God because that blood purged his conscience from dead works. And when you get up, and you messed up all day, and you are dragging your behind to the next morning and wondering will God do anything with you again . . . think about your position and your standing in Christ . . . and you realize you messed up in you ‘state’, so what do you do? You say, “Oh God, be merciful. I’m sorry. I let this flesh, I let it get over me again . . .”
I’m telling you what, He gets the birds singing in your soul again. The next thing you know you’ll forget that that thing even happened. And you’ll be serving a holy, righteous God in this wicked, stinking flesh. And how can you do this? ‘The Blood of Christ purges your conscience from dead works.’ You get a hold of that, I’m telling you ... it’ll help you out! I had to figure out, ‘how in the world can I serve God? Am I like a hypocrite? I mean, what’s going on here? How can I have so much peace? Because I kept reflecting back on something I already confessed to a while back and got under the blood. I keep trying to pull it back up, to figure out how in the world I can serve God. Well, I can do this because the filth ain’t here . . . it is gone! The Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin! It’s gone! It’s Cleansed! I’m clean!
When you forget about that cleansing of the Blood when you were saved, when you forget about that purging through His Spirit, and the Blood, of the conscience, and you forget about the washing that God tells you you need — you can run into a lot of problems — depression being one of them. It’s not God ... now God can allow things to happen to get us to where we need to be ... but most of the time we cause our own problems — and it’s the simplest thing, like — ‘Did you get up and read your Bible?’ ‘Well, I got a little busy today.’ ‘When’s the last time you read it?’ ‘Uhm, a while back.’
So, in other words you are not feeding your new person, but you are feeding your outside person more. You are feeding your outside person more because you are depressed, and you are discouraged. This new person needs to be revived on the inside, but you are majoring on the outside. When you start feeding the inside again—washing yourself with the Word of God—When God reveals something to you as you are reading the Bible—you say you are sorry and you go on and keep reading, I mean, it’s a love letter from God. It’s His Word. If you don’t do it you will pay.
Only A Great God could redeem us from all iniquity, could purify sinful men and women, could choose a peculiar people.
So, how does the Holy Spirit keep us clean? How does He equip us to serve God in our lives? He does it through the washing of the Word of God. We read it to learn, and when it shows us where we come short — we acknowledge it and He continues to wash us and make us fit for the Master’s use.