A Sanctified Mind

1 Thessalonians chapter 5, come Sunday evening we're going to switch on to School of Christ mode on our Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings we'll still be preaching messages here and that will go online for those in other countries to see.

But for three weeks we're going to be locked in, praying, fasting, listening to the Word of God, seeking the Lord together, people from all sorts of nations, everything from preachers, leaders, mature, straight through to younger new converts and I really believe it's going to be a very special time for three weeks.

The Sanctifying Work of God in Spirit, Soul, and Body

But here tonight I want to go to part four of our series, The Battle for the Mind, volume two. I actually believe we're going to have a volume three, maybe at the end of the year, maybe next year, and I just believe it's such a weighty and important thing that we're dealing with is the mind, the battle for the mind.

Here tonight as we read from 1 Thessalonians 5, my message is a sanctified mind. Last week we looked at a victorious mind, here tonight a sanctified mind. Reading from 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23 and 24.

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it.

Will you pray with me as we ask God just to bless us here. Father, I do thank you for the Word of God. Father, we are confined, we're restricted in flights and travel and ministry and many other things, but your Word is not bound.

We have seen that over the past several months, how your Word has taken wings, it has gained feet and it has run. We have watched it, we have seen it, that your Word has gone to the ends of the earth, it has impacted lives, it has changed lives, it has saved men and women.

Lord God it is sanctified, it has turned hearts towards you, it's brought people to repentance. And Father, we're praying for yet a greater work not restricted or limited by our physical bodies, our minds, O God, or anything of self.

We pray tonight for the sanctifying of our minds. I pray tonight for every individual in this room, in this church, will you sanctify the mind of Christ in us, will you wash our minds with the Word of God, will you renew our minds and will you grant us the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We do pray for a holy mind, a sanctified mind, a molded mind, a renewed mind, a rewired mind, a mind that's been molded by the written scriptures in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Again, here verse 23 is, we come to a sanctified mind, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly.

And I pray, this is Paul speaking, and this is a prayer, he is actually praying this for every Christian, every believer. I also am praying for you that this happens in you, I want you to make this your prayer for yourself, for this church, and for all those that listen to us, that this might be a prayer that grips us in these days.

May God, the God of peace, sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of Jesus Christ. Here the Apostle Paul writing to a church that wasn't even in existence more than two years, and yet he is praying that they be sanctified wholly.

I'm sad to say in the church of our generation, we've lost the message of sanctification. We've lost our holiness standards. We've lost the reality and the power of God's word to mold our convictions, how we speak, how we think, how we act, how we make decisions.

We call ourselves Christians, we call ourselves churches, we call ourselves preachers, yet we neglect the word of God, and it's no longer sanctifying us. Really the essence of sanctification isn't some strict legalistic way of living, it's not.

Really what sanctification is, is the word of God washing your mind, renewing your mind, changing how you thought, changing how you speak, and changing how you act. Paul here prays for these young believers, and yet they were mature in Christ, young in years of salvation, maybe young as a church, young in age, but they weren't immature.

Look at the letter to the Thessalonians. It is speaking to people who know Christ, who are walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. What is his prayer? That the God of peace might sanctify you wholly. Oh, that again we've come back to sanctification.

We don't preach sanctification apart from Christ. We preach sanctification because it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. What does being sanctified mean? It means to be made holy, to be purified, to be consecrated or set aside for a divine purpose.

When a vessel in the temple in Jerusalem was sanctified, it means that vessel was taken. It wasn't used for anything else, not drinking, not making your daily meals. That vessel in the temple, when it was consecrated or sanctified, it was only used for that purpose, no other purpose.

It was a vessel of one purpose. It was a vessel dedicated to God, to his service in the house of God. And so the word sanctified, that's what it means, not only to be made clean and holy and pure and to have all the filth washed out of you.

It means more than that, that you're a vessel set aside to God's divine purpose. There is a plan for your life, that you're not to be used for anything else. You're not to be given over to this world.

The things of this life aren't to be number one. God is to be number one. That's why you're here. That's why you're born. That's why he saved you, that you might be a vessel not to go to heaven, but to be a consecrated, yielded to do God's will.

And so this word sanctified means an absolute consecration. Look what he says, sanctify you wholly. It's a prayer. And I'm praying it. I'm preaching it to you now. Oh that Christ, oh that the God of peace might sanctify you wholly, that he might set you aside.

Maybe you're not quite there yet. You're saved. You love Jesus. But you know there's areas in your life. You see it says sanctify wholly, not just in one part, not just in your spirit, but in your spirit, soul and body.

That's what the word wholly means. It means in every area of your specific life. I want you to be sanctified and that this prayer will grip you. In the previous chapter in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and 3 it says, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.

Do you want to know what God's will is for you? You're praying, what is my purpose in being here? What is your will for my life? What do you want me to do? And you're preoccupied by that. All the time God is saying, I want you wholly.

I want you sanctified. If I can get you sanctified, I can do anything through you. If I can find a Christian consecrated unto me that's walking in holiness, that departs from sin, then I can do anything.

It's easy to fulfill my will. The problem is lack of sanctification. The problem is in finding God's will for your life. You could be ignorant mentally and say, I don't know what God's will is for my life.

Just sanctify yourself and I promise God will use you. Do you want God to use you? Sanctify yourself. Do you want God's plan to be revealed in your life? Then sanctify yourself. It also says in 2 Timothy chapter 2 and 21, if a man therefore purge himself from all of these things, he shall be a vessel.

So we're talking about the same thing, a vessel consecrated in the house of God for God's plan. Then he says four things in this vessel that he wants. If you purge yourself, if you deal with the things in your heart, the attitudes, the thoughts of your mind, the words of your mouth, the actions that you get caught up in, if you purge these things, if you get certain things out of your life, you will be a vessel.

What type of vessel? He mentions four things. A vessel of honor. Do you know that word honor means valuable? Do you want to be a valuable vessel to God? Then I'll tell you how. Purge yourself. Become a sanctified vessel.

Then God will say, you are very valuable to me. Also it says sanctified, which means holy. We've already said that. Third of all, it says meet for the master's use. That word meet for the master's use, and I've loved this for 25, 30 years.

This is one of my favorite scriptures. Listen to what it means to be meet for the master's use. Easily used. You see, if you're a vessel that's purged itself, you're easily used. The opposite is also true.

If there's lots of gumph in your life, and I don't know how else to express that word or to interpret that or translate it, but if there's a lot of rubbish there weighing down, you're not easily used.

God cannot easily use you. This word meet also means profitable, useful, or usable. Do you know when you sanctify yourself, every area of your life, you're wholly sanctified. Do you know you make yourself usable, useful, profitable, easily used?

He also says, I'm prepared unto every good work. The word prepared there means to be adjusted. So you see that when you're a vessel consecrated that's purged itself, sanctified itself, these four things mark your life.

How do you get there to be valuable, holy, easily used, and adjusted to the plan of God to do all the will of God? I'll tell you, purge yourself from all of these things. Sanctify yourself wholly, and then you become a vessel in the house of God that God can easily use.

Look at what he says here in this prayer, that the God of peace sanctify you wholly. The word holy, which is hollow, tell us, listen to what it means, this is very important. It means in every part, completely, the root word of this means all, everything, throughout.

In other words, there's no part of your life that is left out of this. No part of your mind, your heart, your attitude, your life, your characteristics, your personality. Oh, Brother Keith, that's just my personality.

Really? You need to bring it in here. Oh, Brother, we all have a bit of a laugh. You know what my tongue's like. I'm Northern Irish, and I say that because it's a sin of the Northern Irish. Their tongue is more deadly than any other part of them in the church.

I'm going to tell you, the great sin of the Americans is their feasting and their fellowship. The great sin of the Northern Irish church and the Northern Irish Christian, and there must be someone watching on there from there, the fact that I'm saying it.

But I assure you, their problem is their tongue, their humor, what they hide behind a joke. It is deadly to the church of Jesus Christ. You know what Paul is saying? I'm praying that you're sanctified wholly.

Bring that tongue in, bring that attitude in, bring that fellowship in, bring your meal times in. Maybe God will say you don't need that. Maybe God will say you need to change your eating habits. I'm talking about being sanctified wholly.

It doesn't mean sinless perfection. It doesn't mean that you don't sin in word, deed, or thought ever again. It doesn't mean reaching a place where you never have to fight with the flesh, or that you don't fall or make a mistake along the way.

It doesn't mean that. It means to be sanctified wholly, it means in every single area of your life. When this is used in the Greek language, it could mean the entire body. If it's the body it's speaking about, it means every member of the body.

Or if it's talking about the city of Limerick, it means every person, every building, every road in Limerick. Or if it's talking about Ireland, it means everything that's within Ireland. Do you get the picture here?

To be sanctified wholly means everything within it. The word wholly, sanctified, that's only half the word I've explained here. The other half, telos, it not only means everything, but telos means your goal, your destination, your aim, your limit, your conclusion, or the final result.

In other words, to be wholly sanctified means this is your end game. This is the final destination. This is your entire desire. This is where you're saying, I'm going to get to in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where every area of my life, it may not happen in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year. I'm talking about something you've got to pray into church. We as a church have to pray, oh sanctify us wholly.

I need it, you need it, we all need it. It is a progressive work of sanctification. But here's Paul praying for their entire sanctification, every area of their life. But what does he mean by every area, the entirety of everything?

What does he mean by that? Well, he actually says it here in verse 23, that your whole spirit, he defines it, wholly sanctified, sanctify you wholly. Then he uses the word again, your whole spirit, soul, and body.

In other words, he breaks man down into three parts, the body, the soul, and the spirit. And he says, when I say wholly sanctified, this is what I mean. I mean sanctified in your body, sanctified in your soul, and sanctified in your spirit.

That's what wholly sanctified means. Some people think that if outwardly they're obeying the word of God in their body, they don't need to worry about the soul. I want to tell you, that isn't wholly sanctified.

You're concentrating on the body and going, I'm brilliant. Or some say, well I'm born again, I'm sanctified in spirit. Well, my attitude stinks. I've got pride in there. I'm stingy with my money and generosity.

My body, I let it all hang out. I don't worry about my physical body. Doesn't matter how I dress. It doesn't matter where my body goes. That is not wholly sanctified. I'm talking about an experience where your spirit, soul, and body come under this work of being wholly sanctified.

Since I'm going somewhere here tonight to show you a sanctified mind. We're in one of the most dangerous hours in church history. An hour of terrible deception. There is a flood of filth being pumped out in this generation.

There is an outpouring of deception like we cannot even imagine. It's going to get worse. Filth is flooding out against this young generation and it's targeting the church. All the filth is aimed at the church.

The deception is aimed at the church. All the confusion of this hour, it is aimed at the church. You see, God wants your entire life to be sanctified. Your spirit, soul, and body. Pull your body in. Pull your soul in.

Let your spirit dominate this work of sanctification. And then He goes on having being sanctified in these three areas. Then He goes on and asks or prays that they be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Since between now and you looking on the Lord Jesus Christ, this must be your goal, your destiny, your aim, your burden. What is it? The sanctification of my body, my soul, and my spirit. I want to be wholly sanctified.

I want to be consecrated that I can become valuable in the plan and the purpose of God. To be preserved means that God watches over you. He'll set a guard over you. He'll preserve you. He'll keep you.

In this verse, He's not telling you to do that. He says, you do this work of sanctification and I will guard you. I will preserve you. I will set a military camp around you. Just put yourself and I'll keep you straight through until the Lord Jesus Christ comes.

The Soul and the Seven Functions of the Mind

Now, I don't want to deal with the body tonight. And I don't want to deal with the spirit tonight. I want to deal with this third area and not all of it. The soul. What the Bible calls the soul. In the Greek, it is psyche is the Greek word.

It is the psyche. What we call in English and Latin language, the psyche or the breath of life. It is what a man actually is. This is where we get the word psychology, which means the study of the soul or the personality of a man.

What is the soul? It's usually what we call our personality. It's usually what we say, this is who I am. It's all the traits that go up to make who you are. Let me explain the soul a little better. The mind, the emotions and the will.

This is what the soul is. This is what makes you who you are. Let me go a bit deeper. See, I want to deal with being totally sanctified, wholly sanctified. But I'm leaving out the body and I'm leaving out the spirit.

And I want to concentrate on the soul. Now, let's go a little bit deeper. OK, you ready for this? We're peeling things back. We're going a little bit deeper here. I'm not going to deal with the entire soul.

I'm only going to deal with the mind here tonight. The sanctification, the complete sanctification of the mind. You're now thinking that's only one area. Oh no, I'm going deeper. I'm actually going to go in this message and pinpoint seven areas of your mind that need sanctified, seven functions of your mind.

You see, we don't think this deeply normally about sanctification or the mind. We think our minds are mind. Here tonight, I want to show you a practical way to work out sanctification in your mind. A year ago, I was going to preach this before lockdown.

And I was going to call it the diagnosis of the mind. But it wasn't for then, it was for now. The diagnosis of the mind. And I was going to diagnose the mind and break it down and show you it. This message tonight is highly practical, highly functional.

And it's to show you how to be sanctified. If I preach as I have done, you need to renew your mind. It's a vague thing. If I say you need to be conformed or take every thought captive, or begin to think biblically, it's a very big thing out there.

You could be here. See, when I went to school, high school, no one ever taught me how to study. The teacher sent me. I moved from a B class up to an A class. What an achievement. I was the top of the B class.

I went to the bottom of the A class. And the teachers encouraged me. But no one ever taught me how to study. Not one teacher in all my education ever said, let me show you how to study. Not one single teacher in my entire education up to 16.

I went home with the homework. I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to study. I came in the next morning very sincere. I had tried. And I went straight up to the teacher. And I said, Miss, I don't know how to study.

Will you show me? Her cheeks went red. She exploded and demanded that I march myself to the headmaster. And when I couldn't reason with her, couldn't speak to her, I was blown away. I'm sincere as anything.

But no one explained to me the practicality of how to study. You know what they said? Bring in the homework. You've got to go home and study. I didn't like to ask anyone, what do you mean study? We are the same in the church.

And I don't want to be guilty of this. We say you've got to be holy. You've got to be sanctified. You've got to have a renewed mind. Since I want to come down and make this very, very practical tonight.

That when I say about the renewing of your mind, what do I mean? When I mean your mind has to be changed, what do I mean about the mind? How does that work out in your life? What does it look like in a practical fashion?

I've got seven functions of the brain. And this doesn't cover everything. But I want to show you, begin to open up the mind of man. And show you that actually it's more practical than you ever thought.

Memory and the Sanctification of Remembrance

It's all through our Bible. The first area is memory. Memory is only one function of the mind of man. That mind, when it is not operating the way God wants it to, is in desperate need of sanctification.

Here tonight, you're going to have to ask yourself, is my memory sanctified? This one, just for a moment, just concentrate on the area of memory. When I say your mind needs renewed and sanctified, I mean your memory needs sanctified.

How do you get your mind sanctified? Listen to what it says in 2 Peter 3 and 1. Beloved, now I write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds. So he's dealing with the mind. When he writes these letters, 2 Peter, he is writing it.

Why is he writing it? To stir up their minds. Do you realize what's written by Peter is to make you holy so that you will seek after holiness? But to do that, he's got to stir up your mind. Do you know what I'm doing tonight?

I'm preaching what I'm preaching. I'm stirring up your mind. Isn't that right? I'm actually penetrating in your mind. I'm attacking your mind in a very generous and brotherly, loving way. And I'm actually seeking to stir up your pure minds, listen to this, by way of remembrance.

So a preacher can actually, with people listening to him, either in writing or preaching, he can stir up their minds, their pure minds, because an impure mind wouldn't desire this. But a pure mind actually says, I want this.

I really want this. I'm not what I want to be. I'm not there yet. But I long for this. I desire this. I want to pray this. And that's the mind I'm seeking to stir up. I want to stir up your minds by way of remembrance.

I want to remind you. So we see one of the seven functions of the mind is to remember, to remember. But the question is, is your memory sanctified or not? You go, oh, Brother Keith, you're killing me.

You don't know how bad my memory is. I'm not really talking about that. Do you know I forget more things now than I did 10 years ago, than I did 25 years ago? You young ones, better use your memory. You better memorize Scripture now.

You don't want to wait till you're 50 to memorize Scripture. Why not do it when you're 20, 30, or thereabouts? It's a wonderful thing to have a memory. All through the Bible, you have the memory. Is it sanctified, or is the devil using it, or is the flesh using it?

In Genesis 40, verse 14, it says, and this is Joseph in the prison with the butler and baker. Listen to what he says. But think on me when it shall be well with thee. He answered their dreams. He could interpret their dreams.

He helped them. He showed them what God's plan was, what was going to happen. What does he say? Think on me. You know what he's saying? See, when you get out of here, butler, when you get back in your job and you're in that throne room, I want you to think on me.

I want you to remember me. This is a guy in a desperate place. He's been in prison. He's had a rough journey for about 11 years so far. And you know what? He's been falsely accused, thrown in a pit, sold into slavery.

And here is his ticket out of this trial. And he says, I want you, a man, an unregenerate person, an unsaved person. Look at Joseph. He is beginning to look to a sinner, someone, a man. He's not looking to God and saying, oh God, remember me.

He's looking at a man. He says, will you think on me? Will you remember me? See, there's an area of the mind is to remember. Joseph state everything that this man who he helped is going to remember him.

Isn't it terrible when people forget you in your hour of trial? You've helped them and yet they forget you. That takes some working through within your heart. It says in Genesis 40, 23, yet did not the cheap butler remember Joseph, but forgot him.

He's only just died and he totally forgot him. I believe God was in that. I actually believe that God allowed him for two years to forget Joseph. He was in the plan of God. Joseph must've went, what's he doing?

Why did he forget me? He must've been initially crushed by this. And yet, you know what? God's plan was in it that a man would forget Joseph and that he would have to look up. You know what God was saying?

Oh boy, I've got a better work to do than you. You're looking to the memory of man. It's gonna let you down. In chapter 41, verse nine says, then speak the chief butler unto Pharaoh saying, I do remember my faults this day.

You've got to get Joseph out of that prison. He will tell you the interpretation of your dreams. A little bit after this in chapter 41, verse 51, it says, and talking about Joseph's firstborn child and Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh.

For God said, he has made me forget all my toil. And all my father's house. She realized God was trying to teach Joseph about a sanctified mind. The whole area of remembering, of forgetting. God certainly didn't forget him.

But look at Joseph after all these years, he marries one of the local girls. He gets his position, his new job. God vindicates him. He has two children. And in all of the years, decades of dealing, you know what he names his firstborn?

God's made me forget. Do you know what you can forget? It doesn't mean you blank it out and you can't remember it. It doesn't mean you've gone senile or that you've grown out of all the thoughts. Time doesn't always heal.

It doesn't always heal. They say time heals. Not always, not always. God made Joseph forget. God actually set him free. It's sore to think how your brothers betrayed you. It is sore to think of false accusation from Potiphar's wife.

It is sore to think of sitting in that prison. But you know what? God made him to forget. You see, do you understand what I mean about the sanctifying of the mind of the memory? The memory can plague you in a terrible way.

What is memory? You were designed with a memory by God. It is the ability to think back and to recall things from the past. What does an unsanctified memory look like? We remember things that we said with our lips, we forgive someone.

I forgive you, brother, but yet you remember it. I don't mind you just think about it or know it, but you remember it. You carry it in a way you've never forgiven. I don't mean you get it blanked out of your mind.

I mean, it affects you. It wakes you in the middle of the night. You've told that person you forgive them, but have you forgiven them? What about your memory? Every time you think about them, have you really forgiven them?

Have you let them off the hook? Have you really dealt with it before God? What about people? What people have done to you? How does it affect you? You think back over the years, they'd done that, he'd done that.

I wouldn't be here now. How do you know it's not God working in it? Maybe God wants to renew your memory. Maybe tonight, I don't know it, but God knows that you're fighting with your memory. Thoughts that come back from the past, things you recall, maybe things no one else knows, maybe of some sin or some person or some situation and it comes flooding back.

Do you know what you need to sanctify that area of your mind. Many times over this few years, Candice, we're walking up the road together and they've got an old fire on and the smoke's coming out. And Candice will say, oh, smell that.

She seems to be caught up in euphoria. And I'm there going, what's wrong with you? She's just been transported back maybe 25 years to the old farm in South Africa where her granny and her great-grandparents were and the smell of that farm, she just smelt a smell that transferred her back.

And all of the memories and all of the feelings and all of the thoughts came back. Do you know a smell can transport you or a sight of something or hearing something or a touch of someone's hand, it could transport you.

That's memory. That's memory. It can either be good or it can be bad in a very real way. I was caught in a barn on fire many years ago. I still don't like little candles burning in people's houses. Candice used to walk out of the room, I'd put out all the candles.

I didn't like it. I was in an inferno with flames all around me. You know what? It still marks me. As soon as I see that little flickering, I've got to be careful of that. You know what? Fears, thoughts, betrayals, jealousy, anger, discouragement, your memory can trap you.

You need to sanctify your memory. What does a sanctified memory look like? You remember what God has done. You know, most Christians forget what God has done. God saved you miraculously. I mean, He reached in and pulled you out.

Unlike Israel in the wilderness, we go, oh, wasn't that bad back in Egypt? Was it not? Was it not? What a dangerous thing. It'll affect you. If you keep thinking back, oh, look what I had in that life.

Be very careful. Be very careful. Or you think back to a point in time or a situation. I went, oh, if I could only go back there again. Be very, very careful. Or what about a sanctified mind? You forget things.

Forgetting that which is behind. I press on towards the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to remember the Lord. Listen to all the commands of the Bible. You're commanded to remember.

Remember the Lord. Remember His deeds and His miracles. Remember His dealings with you. Remember how He's led you all through the years as you walked with Him. Remember how you provoked Him at times. That's what the Bible tells us.

Remember the Word of God. Remember the covenant of God. Remember godly elders. Remember the day you came out of Egypt. Remember what Amalekite did unto you. You're to remember all these things. So the entire Bible is filled up with commands.

Remember, remember, remember. Also, forget, forget, forget. Here tonight, you want to be sanctified in your memory. Maybe there's something that you've allowed to linger on comes up. Every time that person comes up in your memory, isn't the memory a powerful thing?

A memory comes and you get angry. Your teeth are gnashing. You know what? You need to sanctify that memory. You need to let go of something. You need to move on with the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 63 verse 6.

When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. That's what you're going to do. At night, you're going to remember. What do we do each Lord's Day, each Sunday? When we break bread and take the cup.

This do in remembrance of me. And when you do this, you do show forth the death of Christ. You know what? As a church, we want to remember that Jesus died on the cross. You don't move on from that. Saints, I remember what he done.

Why do we have a Lord's table? To stir your mind up. Remember Calvary. Remember the blood. Remember that you're a sinner saved by grace. It is a remarkable thing. The second thing, knowledge. Not only memory, but knowledge.

Knowledge, Truth, and Spiritual Growth

You say knowledge is a thing. No, knowledge is what you store up in your head. The mind actually has a function of knowledge. What is knowledge? It's knowing information. Gathering information. Or it's facts and details about many different subjects.

It can either be sanctified or unsanctified. Where do you get your information from? Who do you get your information from? I mean the facts that you store in your mind. And the things that you then repeat to others.

Have you ever picked something up from someone? A fact, a fact. And then you pass it on to go, hold on a second. That's not right. You have to eat your words. It wasn't a fact. Where did you get your knowledge from?

But this takes on a very serious aspect in our generation. You see, I believe the church of our generation is in need of being sanctified in the realm of knowledge. We have made a disaster of the church because of how we handled knowledge.

This is in Hosea chapter 4 verse 6. My people, called them his people, are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because thou has rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee. Look at these people, they're called his people.

They're being destroyed in an entire generation. In Jerusalem, in Nazareth, in Bethel, in Carmel. All of the areas in Hosea's day, he was called to be a preacher and he had to deliver the message. My people are being destroyed.

Do you know what I've got to preach again in this hour? God's people are being destroyed. I've seen it with my eyes. I've experienced it down over the years because of lack of knowledge, lack of knowledge.

You know what the preachers didn't teach them right. Now they're off in deception. No one warned them about sin. Nobody taught them the true gospel of repentance and of really meeting Christ. For lack of knowledge, because of ignorance, because truth wasn't given to the church.

Do you realize the church of this hour, there's a problem with the knowledge in the church. You think knowledge is a small thing. It's facts and figures and details. God doesn't think so. He says for lack of correct biblical knowledge, you're being destroyed.

Do you know marriages, Christian marriages are breaking up for lack of knowledge. They're being destroyed. People are making shipwreck for lack of knowledge. And he goes further, not only lack of knowledge, but you've rejected knowledge.

It's bad to have a lack of knowledge. But imagine rejecting knowledge. It comes to you. You go, no, I don't believe that. I don't need that. Brother, I'm trying to share a biblical fact with you. No, I don't believe that.

It's a fact from scripture, from the Bible, from the apostles, from Jesus. Do you know I've had a pastor in this city said, I don't want to speak to you if you're going to quote scripture. Do you know I've had that happen several times in other nations.

I'm not going to talk to Malcolmson because all he'll do is quote scripture. Do you know how shocking that is? What do you think I'm going to do? Argue with my own thoughts or present the Bible. My people are perishing.