Desperate for Change (Pure Life Ministries) — Glenn Meldrum

Glenn spoke here last year. How many of you were here. When Glenn was here. A few of you were here and Gave four wonderful messages about revival, and it was we had a very wonderful time in the Lord. So.

They're here, and they're leaving first thing in the morning for Pennsylvania but they agreed to Glenn agreed to just share a few thoughts tonight and and. And Glenn just have your liberty and just feel Free to share what you feel led to share if it's just a few things that's fine or your testimony or whatever you want.

Give them Jesus.

The Christian Journey Requires Perseverance

Well Hard to ask an evangelist just to say a couple of words. Evangelists don't say things in a couple words. You know the Christian journey is not a quick journey. It's not something that happens just overnight.

We may become Christians overnight but We're not going to be the Christians. We should be overnight. Many of the things that the Lord's tried to teach me as a believer. Has taken years and years and years, and I'm just starting to scratch the surface but see there are some basic truths that I believe that so many don't ever grasp and That they don't get a hold of and they don't comprehend and so as a result they don't have victory in their life.

You know victory isn't this elusive thing that's always far away. And we can't ever grasp it this thing that we always see I'll overcome. I have this thing. I'll be rid of this Problem in my life when I finally grab hold of this when I finally attain this particular position this particular place.

As as if something is always out there this victory this this hope of overcoming is somewhere out there. And and maybe one day we'll get it. God wants to do something and he wants to do something in our lives, but we have to come to a point of a radical decision making we have to come to a point of such seriousness that we will do whatever it takes and The seriousness we have to grab hold of.

Desperation as the Turning Point for Change

I pastored for 11 and a half years in the city of Detroit. I picked up drunks off the middle of the other highways that had passed out there. Dealt with junkies on the street stood out on street corners witnessing to prostitutes and and and drug dealers.

Seen people to be so devastated by sin. But still not desperate for change. You see I I met men on the streets. That were businessmen. That everything was gone. Because they got in the drugs and they got into alcohol and they were stripped of everything, but they still weren't desperate.

I'm they're living on the streets now. Still not desperate. God visits his people at the point of desperation. When we become so desperate for him He will begin to do something and to respond to our life in such a way that we will be able to overcome.

Because you see for us to overcome. Sin and all sin is addictive. You're here because you have a particular sin that has plagued you that has become addictive to your life. But all sin is hate is is addictive.

All you got to do is look at people that are prejudiced. It is addictive I mean it dominates controls their thought life everything about them. So not just lust and not just you know the perversions that in in that particular way all sin is addictive.

Jealousy is addictive. I mean anything any form of sin is Addictive once it grabs hold of our personality once it grabs hold of our life. It has to be broke. But it's not gonna be broke to where at that point of desperation and That point of desperation is not the aspect that just another time.

There's another plan. There's another program. There's another book. There's another somebody out there that might be able to do this miracle for my life that I can overcome. It has to come to the point of desperation to the actual point to say I can't do it.

It is impossible for me to do it. I don't have within me what it takes to overcome. Now that becomes difficult becomes difficult as a as an evangelist because I can't save anybody. I can't change anybody.

I don't have the ability. It's not within me to save a person. I can't heal an individual. People don't heal people only God does. But you know we can always be in the point in our life that we always think we're going to have the answer if we Do it just right if we get the program down just right if we get the right ideas.

We get it all pat then eventually it's all gonna fall into place. I'm not going to get into the whole message because it's got it's rather Involved in trying to establish particular ideas. Basically the idea was just murder.

Biblical Questions About Just Violence and Capital Punishment

Is there such thing as just murder. And I was going to just bring out for example sake the Argument that goes on between just war and pacifism. Is there such a thing that we can justly go out and kill people is Abortion right.

Is there a way that a person can kill an innocent baby in the womb and never have it just but then scriptures speak of capital punishment. Is It just today for somebody to be killed for their actions.

But yet when you get into the Old Testament and you get into Exodus and you get into Leviticus. It speaks of all the reasons for capital punishment. It speaks of the reasons for capital punishment of the aspect of of murder goes through all this litany and in Exodus 21 and 22 this litany of crimes that you can do in murder and different forms of murder that you can be Executed for then it goes into Exodus 35 where it says that any person who breaks the Sabbath must be killed.

Any person who breaks Sabbath must be killed and Then when you get into Leviticus 20 it gets into the aspect of all the the the reasons for capital punishment of sexual sins from homosexuality to beast ality to adultery all of them Says that they should all be stoned to death.

I Mean the scriptures get very serious about it that there is an aspect of it. But yet is if we were to look at it and we were to have a firing squad right now. How many people would be lined up to get shot and how many people would be able to shoot?

Crucifying the Old Man Through Total Surrender

There's one type of killing That I'll say is absolutely just and that's the killing itself. Not in the aspect of suicide. Which is there again murder and taking our own life in our own hands and taking away God's right?

But it's the aspect of what Paul refers to is as killing the old man crucifying the old man. But you know there's this idea within crucifying the old man that we can try to do it. We can try to do we can have that lust come against us that hate come against us.

Whatever it might be come against our life and we can go and try and I'm gonna try and kill this thing and never overcome It because we can try and battle it. I'm gonna get this thought on my mind. I'm gonna get it out of my life.

I'm sick of it being a plague unto me. I'm sick of it as being a leech upon me. That sucks my life out of me. I'm tired of it. I want some form of freedom, but I don't know how to get freedom. I keep looking to you.

Jesus keep praying and praying but this thing just is a plague on me. I just can't get rid of it. Romans 12 1 and 2 Tells that we are to give our lives as a living sacrifice. Which is our reasonable service?

That's a reason was that is what he expects of you period of every single human being he expects of every human being to give themselves as a living sacrifice and It's interesting about a living sacrifice because we must be both the priest that offers a sacrifice and the sacrifice itself.

We must be both. We must take our own hand and slay ourselves and be willing to die at the same time. And as a living sacrifice, we are the ones who must Do it as alive and be willing to look at it and say I will kill this.

But you know, there's something that becomes important because there again I can know I should slay this thing in my life. But yet there's still not the desperateness. There has to be something greater.

The Law Exposes Sin but Cannot Transform the Heart

There has to be something more powerful. There has to be something more powerful and that's really what I want to look at is something that is more powerful. You see I could go to you and we could go in and take a magic marker and start writing on all these walls laws and Tell you all the things that you should be doing and we could fill these walls with them of all the things that you guys Should be doing in your life that not just you guys.

But all of us should be doing and you know what those things would do on the wall. All they would do is become a big finger that would point at us and accuse us. Because it would make us guilty. Because we would find every single one of those laws were breaking and we break constantly in our lives or in various ways.

The law would slay us it would kill us. It wouldn't put us to a point of such guilt that we would be in a hopeless state. But there's a reason that's greater the law cannot bring us to a point to want to change.

Knowing we're doing wrong is not enough. To know that you've sinned to know that you've hurt people is not enough. It is not enough that will actually make you change. There must be something more there must be something greater and if you don't grab hold of the greater you will never have the drive of Desperation for change because you'll know you should do right the law will be before you that will say stop it.

Stop the fornication stop the adultery stop the homosexuality stop it. But yet the drive the power isn't there to be able to break the chains. There must be something more. There must be a love that is more powerful than the passions of the flesh and Until you get a hold of a love that is more powerful than passions of the flesh the passions of the flesh whether it be Pride or whether it be be sexual sins, whether it be self-righteousness or whether it be, you know.

Anything else out there that we could name? There must be something more important more powerful and until that seizes our soul. There will not be the driving passion of holiness for him for God that we will long for him so much that we will say anything.

Grace, Helplessness, and the Need for Abandonment

You see that's at the point of desperation when we finally say God I can't break these chains. These chains are too strong for me. I'm tired of it. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of the law that points a finger at me my whole life.

I've known I've been doing wrong. I know this has been sin. This has been a problem a plague upon my life. But the laws pointed a finger at me and accused me and I've been guilty before and not able to change it.

Occasionally, I think I get it in control occasionally I think I get a little bit under control and a little bit of handle on it. But all sudden it just breaks forth again with with new vehemence and new new aggressiveness there must be a passion greater and If you don't grab hold of that passion.

You're not going to be able to really change because it's only in that Robert Murray McSheehan says you are all guilt. He is a fountain to wash you. You are all naked. He is a wedding garment to cover you.

You are dead. He is life. You are all wounds and bruises. He is the balm of Gilead. But see so long as we think that we have control that we have the ability To handle the sin in our life the problems in our life as long as we think that we have it.

We think we're the balm. We think we're the clothes. We think we're the answer. I can do it. I'm not. I just know I have the willpower. My willpower is strong enough to bring this temptation to bring this lust in control.

I have that tenacity. No you don't. You don't have it. I don't care how much you say it. You'll be lying to yourself because you'll always go the same route. All sin is addictive all has the same thing all of it Brings people to the same identical points of helplessness that they can't overcome it by themselves you see.

We don't have the power to change. There must be a love that's more powerful. The power of the law can't change you. I don't care what the power of the law cannot change you. The law points a finger at you.

But it can't change you. It accuses you can't make you be different. Self love can't change you. I don't care how much you like yourself. It can't change you. Can't change you, you know self-righteousness won't do it.

There's a whole thing that becomes very ugly and I refer to it as proud piety. You know, we think that we can be so good Christians, but here underneath is this self-willed Rebellion that that rules and reigns in our life.

But yet we think we're still pretty good. We're not that bad, you know, I just got this little problem in my life this little problem. Not that bad but you see you have the situation of the Pharisee and the publican that went into the temple to pray and Jesus gave this illustration and in Luke 18 and he says the the the Pharisee went in there and he went says God I'm glad I'm not like this man over here says, you know, I fast twice a week.

I do all the things I'm supposed to. I tithe and I give my alms and well, I'm such a swell guy. God I know you and I we just we just got it tight. And the other man went and smote his breasts and says Lord have mercy on me.

I'm a sinner and Jesus says the second man walked away justified. He walked away justified count Zinzendorf, which is the founder of the Moravian revival one of those powerful revivals. I've read on. He ended up making the statement.

He was a man in passion for God he says I am ever as a poor sinner a captive of eternal love running by the side of Christ triumphal chariot, and I have no desire to be anything else as Long as I live.

He came to the point of victory in his life because he saw himself as a sinner once again. But saw the only hope. I don't have a hope as a sinner. There is no hope for me of myself because the law accuses me before my God.

I am guilty before him. So as a sinner, I am helpless. I'm helpless and overcoming my temptations all the things that come against me unless I come to the point of desperation. Unless I come to a point as what I'll deal with in a minute of abandonment of abandonment.

And this is what becomes so difficult of abandoning ourselves, you know all of our life. We've tried to have some form of control all of our life. I mean just look at your own addiction. Look at your own sin that you have.

How many times you tried to control it? How many times you tried to bring it into some corn form of of of handle? You know problem that you could handle. How many times have you done it? How many ways have you thought of it?

How many times you sat down and and grieved over the the sin that's been there but not known how to overcome it. You see it's not in you. You can't overcome it. You don't have the power. That's why we have to come to the point of Reckless abandonment is what Oswald Chambers referred to it as that we come to the point to say God.

There is no other hope as long as you believe there's a hope. Outside of abandonment to Christ you will continue to try those things and you will continue to fail. Because you'll continue to come to the same identical point.

I know I can do it. All I have to do is this particular thing that particular thing just just I'm just having a little problem right now as Long as you keep thinking that it's within your ability within your strength.

You're going to remain a captive and possessed by that sin you see you submit either to one thing or another and Whoever you submit and I was going to get into this but due to time I'm not going to it is in Romans 6.

Take time and read Romans 6. Romans 6 speaks of the situation and how. Whoever we give ourselves to we become the slave to whether a slave to wickedness or whether a slave to righteousness. Whoever I yield myself to it's not the aspect that whoever I take control of it's whoever I yield myself to.

You see sin Possesses us addictions possess us. Christ can possess us. But it's a matter of what we yield to it's a matter of whether we get desperate enough. You see the alcoholic Will be on the streets.

Lose everything in his life family friends everything until he gets so sick of his lifestyle that he'll change. That's the same thing with your lives. I mean you can destroy every single individual around you and that's still not be enough for you.

To want to change. I pray that it is that you become so desperate saying I'm tired of it. God I'm tired of it. There is only one hope when you come to the point of desperation to say there's only one hope and you lay yourself at his feet.

Then you'll find the power to overcome because it's not gonna be in you. It's not gonna be another time of sitting down saying if I just get it together. If I just bring my mind in the captain if I just if I just have enough strength.

It's abandonment. The helplessness that we sit down and say God I can't do it. General William Booth the founder of Salvation Army says the greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender. People who have done great things for God were not people who had great abilities of themselves.

But had the ability to surrender to give up to abandon themselves to say Jesus. There isn't another hope there is nothing else. We have to come to the point to abandon self. We have to see that self is at war with God.

It is at war. I mean, it's just not this small little problem. Your sin is in direct rebellion against God. It is at war with him. You can try and deal with it nicely. You can try and and gloss it over doesn't change the battle.

It is still at war with God a war that you will ultimately lose. Unless you come to the point to abandon yourself. To fall at his feet save Jesus. There is nothing else. There is nothing else. There's no other hope.

I don't have another hope. Until you come to that point. It'll be the works and the battles of the flesh. You see self is the development of idols and in Psalms 115 it relates that all the idols are made after the image of men.

Men make them with their own hands and they make them after What they think that it should be all of the gods in our life all the lusts of our flesh and the pride of our Life is all man-made by what we see.

Christ as the Only Source of Transformation

That's why another man cannot really help you. We can bring in and a Christian can bring you to the point of who the helper is. But I'm as broken as anybody else. It can only be a God Who is absolutely perfect who is not made in the image of men and and made like men.

But is totally other Jesus not like us. He was God incarnate in flesh and blood. He was absolutely perfect absolutely overcame. But this God who is totally different from us is able to impart to us that which can make us to overcome.

Because we can't do it ourselves. We have to come to the point to abandon our self-interest our ambitions right now. Some of you are at a point going man. I wish I was home. I want to be with my wife and kids.

I want this. I want that you're not gonna overcome to you come to the point to abandon yourself to say God. There is no other hope there is no other place. I can't overcome except at your feet. I give up because until you change me I will still be the same identical man doing the same identical things maybe with some different circumstances different situations.

But it can only be you. This is so important. We're not going to be able to do anything and go anywhere to really abandon ourself of our self loves. Andrew Murray says nothing, but the presence of God can reveal and expel self.

A Clear insight was given Paul into the deep truth that the presence of Jesus will banish Every desire to seek anything in ourselves and will make us delight in every humiliation that prepares us for his fuller Manifestation only seeing Jesus.

Only gazing upon him. You have to lay aside your self-worth. That he's the only one that can do it. You have to lay aside your wants and your desires. You have to come to the Point to lay aside ministry to say jeez.

I can't do nothing. You see no ministers as of any value at all until he's at a point of such brokenness that God can begin to use him. It's not just the aspect that an individual can speak it's not just an aspect that he can do particular things.

It's the aspect of abandonment upon Christ because God wants ministry to flow from his very presence not from our human understanding. Not from our human ability not from our plans. But from the aspect of abandonment upon him that we become vessels that he can flow through.

You see as Steve referred to as abiding. This becomes the basics of it of giving up. Entirely our very being and resting in only what he has because only he can make us to overcome. Andrew Murray said against as Christ found this life of entire self renunciation of Absolute submission and dependence upon the Father's will to be one of perfect.

Peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving everything to the father. He lost nothing by giving everything to the father. We have this thing of control once again. We want control of our life, but Jesus saying you must give up control.

You must abandon yourself as long as you try to control as long as you try to have a handle. It's like as long as you try to have an answer. You'll do it on your own. You can't do it. You'll fail. But in Christ, there's absolute victory because we come to the point and abandon ourselves.

We give ourselves up we say jeez I'm helpless apart from you. Only you can do it. Only you can do it and so Jesus Proved this in his own life. God becoming man, but yet abandoning himself to the father.

Did not become less of a man because of that abandonment. He became the epitome the perfect image of what man is to be. That is a man's man right there of what were to look at and what were to be. And so what do I see is the answer.

Seeing Jesus and Fixing the Eyes of Faith

I'm gonna give you very simply what I see is the answer. And I think this to be so important That it is to see Jesus to see Jesus. Psalms 141 verses 8 9 says. But my eyes are fixed on you. Oh Sovereign Lord in you I take refuge.

Do not give me over to death. Keep me from the snares They have laid for me from the traps. Set by evildoers from the traps set by the devil or anything else says if I have my eyes on you. You will keep me from those things.

Every time we fall in the sin is because we take our eyes off of Jesus. We lose the vision we lose our first love. The devil brings temptation something across our our path. And we start taking our eyes looking at this thing as it goes by or that thing we take our eyes off of him.

But when we gaze upon him we look at him saying you are the only source you are the only hope you are the only Power that can break this sin that controls me and has destroyed so many lives. You are the only hope and I'm gonna look at you.

I'm not gonna take my eyes off you because I know you're the only hope. But you know, that is hard you may overcome because you begin to do it. But men of God and women of God are made because they apply this truth to their life in a deep way in a deep way.

So that all they want all they long for is Jesus. You see going back to the idea of the laws written on the walls. All it does is accuse you before God. There is a power for holiness. The power for holiness is rooted in intimacy.

Look at Jesus. Fall in love with Jesus let that love burn in your heart and He'll say change and you'll say yes, and you'll say Jesus anything anything. Show me anything and I'll do it because I have found a love more powerful than lust.

I found a love more powerful than pride. I found a source of strength that is greater than any temptation because if you don't have something more powerful than your temptation. You will not overcome.

Because the power of the temptation will keep taking you down. There must be a greater love a greater power a greater force in your life. He won't cram it down your throat. Jesus isn't gonna come to you and cram his love down your throat.

You must go and seize it and when you don't love him. You must fall at his feet and say Jesus forgive me because I don't love you. I don't know how to love you. Will you begin to teach me how to love you that I might love you and only you and not the things of this world.

Jesus teach me because I can't do it. Smith Wigglesworth went and made the statement. He says no man can see God and live. That's Scripture. But he went on to say he says that is why we all need to see Jesus that we might cease to be and that he might live through us.

You see when I begin to look at Jesus just like Isaiah saw God high and lifted up in the temple. He was changed. He was changed because he saw God he had a new vision. He had already prophesied for five chapters.

It was in the sixth chapter of Isaiah that God visited Isaiah and God touched him and changed him. David Wilkerson ended up saying the true man of God Must fully accept the fundamental principle that of himself.

He can do nothing and all things are of and out of God. You see you can't change yourself. You cannot now. He wants you to cooperate with him. Okay, it's not this thing that God just comes in and rips it out of your life.

He wants you to work with him and cooperate with him. But it is his work if he doesn't touch your life. You'll remain in your sin till you die. It's that he has mercy and wants to rescue you. Wants to take you out of the pit of despair and give you a hope that's alone in him.

But it comes down to the point to say I can't do it. It can only be you and when there's victory to understand where it came from. It didn't come because you decide to pray so much or because you decide to read so much good as those may be.

It came because God and his mercy visited you and you begun to lay yourself at his feet. You saw the cross once again. You saw the beauty of it and the splendor of it and you fell in love with the one who hung on there for you.

And that blood became so precious to you that you cried out for its cleansing stream. Austin Sparks ended up saying to learn Christ. We must first see Christ. The mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit is that such a life is continually and evermore Occupied with Christ that Christ is becoming greater and greater as time goes on.

There's victory that you begin to see Jesus and you fall in love with him more and More and more and you become more dependent because he's the only one that can teach you how to love, right? He's the only one that can teach you how to change.

He's the only one who has victory in it. John Greenfield writing on the Moravian revival and the revival that broke into this church and in her nut Germany says their spiritual vision the Moravians became so keen that they could see him who is invisible.

The form in which he appeared to them most frequently was when he was led as a lamb to the slaughter. Wounded for their transgressions and bruised for their iniquity in this divine presence of their bleeding and dying Lord.

They were overwhelmed with their own sinfulness and with his more abounding grace. Hushed were their confer traverses and quarrels. Crucified were their passions and pride as they gazed upon the agonies of their expiring God their prayers.

Their litanies their hymns their conversation and their sermons had one theme the wounds the blood and the death of Christ in the 1700s. God visited her not with a bunch of people that became so desperate.

So desperate and what they longed to see was Jesus and Jesus showed himself and what they kept seeing. Was this crucified Lord and it made them desperately hungry for him. Passionately in love of a God that would love them so mightily.

A Final Call to Let the Holy Spirit Fill the Heart

I Want to read one last quote before I quote before I close. Robert Murray McSheehan said let the Holy Spirit Fill every chamber of your heart. So that there will be no room for folly. Or the world or Satan or the flesh?

Let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart. Desperation for God let him fill every chamber of your heart. What's not full get on your face and say Jesus. I don't know how to fill it. I don't know what's to happen.

But I know you're the only hope dear God do something in my life because there is no other place. I'm tired of the chains. I'm tired of being a slave to sin. I'm tired of the passions of the flesh Jesus.

I want to see you new and fresh. I want a passion that burns in my heart. He's able to do it. Let him fill every chamber of your heart.