Be Ye Holy for I Am Holy — Keith Daniel

Can we just bow before God in prayer, please? We bow before the dear Lord Jesus. We worship Thee, our Father, that we could have sung these wonderful hymns of our faith. And I think of all the hymns we sang tonight, faith of our fathers, is such a blessing to me, Lord.

And I do believe we sang it from our hearts, as a people before God. And we praise Thee for honoring our fathers, those that served Thee and those that feared Thee, those that laid foundations for nations to be built up with the fear of God, that in the very money that we deal with, in God we do trust.

O God, we thank Thee for everything in this country's history, that ever, ever our fathers looked up and feared Thee and served Thee. And we would ask Thee, Lord, that Thou would take up this generation and bring it back to God.

We don't know how to do that, Lord. We feel so helpless. But I think Thou has brought us to a place where we realize our outreaches, as noble as they are and as honored by God as they are, our efforts are not enough to stop what the devil is doing here.

We've come to a place where we look up and we're looking to God alone. And we realize unless God alone has rent the heavens, nothing will stop the avalanche of destruction and moral decadence. Not all our protesting, not all our cries against wrong will ever stop it.

It's gone so far. So, Lord, we're looking up to Thee now again at some point of this world's history. Thy people are looking away from themselves and crying out, Lord, Thou must come.

Thou must come and stop Satan.

And all we know what to do is pray for that, to cry for that. We don't believe it's possible that God could turn His face away from the cries of His people. We come in faith and ask Thee, God, pour out Thy Spirit upon this land and bring this people back to God.

As only God can, not we. We pray that this night we may open our lives so to God's voice to just be a stepping stone to what we've asked Thee to do. We'd hate to be the ones who pray for revival and yet when it comes we're the ones who stop it.

And I do believe many pray for revival who would be the most fearful if revival came for what it would demand of their lives. Have Thy way, Lord, in our lives. We invite Thee, Lord, to come and speak to the depth of our souls and we will obey Thee in this terrible, terrible generation of wickedness.

We will obey our God that He may come in answer to our prayers. Bless us through this message by the power of the Holy Ghost who writes it upon our hearts. Break down all prejudice, all criticism, all question marks and let us open our hearts to God only tonight and God, be Thou the speaker tonight, not this poor vessel.

Speak Thou through me. Stand beside this pulpit and speak that we will lose consciousness of all even if this poor preacher become conscious we have to do with God. Hold us safely now in the hollow of Thy hand in this building.

Those who turn aside from the world and would seek God to speak again, come speak Thou to us. In Jesus Christ's name, in Jesus Christ's name, we all ask these things together of our Father in heaven. Amen.

The Command to Be Holy

Holiness. Holiness is a word so confused, confusedly preached on and understood even by the people of God. Holiness is a word feared, a doctrine feared, rejected by God's people as a doctrine. Holiness is a word feared to be even preached from the pulpit of God though God said, Be ye holy for I am holy.

You can hate this doctrine of holiness. You can hate this teaching written across the pages of the Bible of God commanding us to be holy. You can hate the word holiness. You can despise those who would embrace it or preach it or embrace it to their hearts to live.

You can reject it and ostracize yourself from all who would dare to preach such a word in this day and age. But you cannot bury it if you are to carry a Bible and open that Bible in the pulpit. You cannot bury it.

The only way to bury it is to bury the Bible. And if you are willing to do that, preacher, you give account to God. You cannot bury God's command to His people to be holy, written and cried out upon the pages of this book so loud, so long, so clear.

The only way to bury it is to bury the Bible in the church. God forbid. Holiness. Listen to words of a number of portions. I will turn and read. Trust me, they are there as they stand. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23.

God says, Abstain from all appearance of evil. Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you, separate you wholly. I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless.

What a prayer! Isn't it possible? Not faultless, not ultimately perfected, but blameless. I pray God, your whole spirit, soul, body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it.

Faithful is he that calleth you to a life of sanctification so that he can keep you wholly, your body, your soul, kept blameless by God. Faithful is he that calleth you to this who will do it if you allow him.

Church of Jesus Christ, if you believe he can, if you believe the Bible and stop believing the devil who says such a thing is not possible, when will we believe God who will do it, who calls you to it, to be sanctified wholly, to abstain from all appearance of evil?

The amplified version which I dare to bring. You've got to dare sometimes to use the new translations. I don't even want them in my home, most of the new translations, they're so corrupt. I hold to the King James that I dare to venture to this amplified now and then because it certainly doesn't pretend what is in there.

It puts in brackets and tells you exactly what it's about. We've got this statement. May the very God of peace himself sanctify you through and through. I love that word through and through. That's Andrew Murray's word.

The godliest man I've ever given you to be sanctified through and through by the blood of Christ so that God can fill you with the Spirit. May the very God of peace himself sanctify you through and through.

That is, separate you from profane things. He makes you pure. Make you pure and wholly consecrated to God that your spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is He that calleth you who is utterly trustworthy, who also will do it, that is, fulfill this call to you by hallowing you and keeping you.

Blameless through and through.

May the God of peace do it. Another mighty portion of God's word calling to you such a dedication of your life that He may consecrate you. And only what you dedicate can God consecrate. You have to dedicate.

The moment you dedicate your life to that which God is calling to you, to holiness, He consecrates. You can't consecrate. All you can do is dedicate. But God does the work. Romans chapter 12,. I beseech you, therefore brethren, do you know what that means?

Presenting the Body as a Living Sacrifice

Paul says something that very few preachers will be willing to do. I beg you, and I'm willing to stoop to that word tonight, I beg you, Christians who name the name of Jesus Christ in this country, I beg you, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy.

You can't get that word out of the Christian vocabulary unless you're willing to bypass a hundred verses at a time. I beseech you, I beg you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world. Be not conformed to this world. Be not conformed to this world, Christians of 1997. For God's sake, I beg you, be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, changing your mind, by God, the Holy Ghost, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

The Amplified brings out this.

I appeal to you, brethren,.

And beg you, beg you,.

In view of the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies, presenting all your members and faculties as a living sacrifice, holy, that is devoted and consecrated by God, which is your reasonable spiritual worship and service.

Do not be conformed to this world, this age, fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs, but be transformed, that is changed, by the entire renewal of your mind, by its new ideals, its new attitudes, so that you can prove the perfect will of God for you and His sight for you.

Holiness According to First Peter

One other verse that I think you all know and love with me in the mighty book of Peter. 1 Peter 4, 1 Peter, chapter 1, verse 14. As obedient children, hope that you are, to this book, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as He which is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

I beseech you, I beseech you, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, of living, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.

The Holiness of Will McFarlane

What a command! Be ye holy, for I am holy, God says. Be ye holy, for I am holy. The holiest man of God that I ever had the privilege to stand with in this earth was Mr. Will McFarlane, burned his life out for God many years in Canada, many years in other countries, and brought thousands to Christ in my land of South Africa.

The one mark of this man was that if he led you to Christ or you came to Christ in his meetings, you never found out any single person anywhere that ever didn't go through with God, that ever backslid.

They went right through with God. Wherever you went, if you came to God through Will McFarlane, you stood like a pillar. What a testimony for his ministry! There was no such a thing as finding someone who came to Christ through his ministry that ever didn't go through with God.

That is said by everyone everywhere he preached, not by him. What a testimony God granted to me! How many ministers could say such words of their ministry? I trembled when I saw this man's face. I began to weep aloud.

And he didn't ask me why. I just wept. Something of the holiness shone through him. Just shone out of his face. Oh, something of God shone through this man that I had never seen in another man's face in my life.

And I trembled to know how holy God could make a man on earth. I trembled. Will McFarlane turned to love me and to love my darling wife later on as the years went by and to love my children in his old age.

And as he was able, especially as he got older, he would stay in our home for long periods of time back in South Africa in Pietermaritzburg. Oh, I thank God for the influence he was on my wife, who he loved, who reminded him so of his godly wife when his wife had been young.

And how when I went up to preach, he would look after the home and pray through and keep his hand on the home. What a man of God to have in our home! I remember being in the home one night while Will McFarlane was in our home and I walked down the passage to the lounge.

And there sitting on the sofa in our lounge was this godly man with my two children. Little Samuel wasn't born at that age, at that time. Here was Nolan Roy, a lot smaller, a lot younger than they are now, sitting on each side of him.

And he had the open Bible, the holy book open. And there he was sitting reading from the book of Daniel, chapter one. And I looked through the door of the lounge and looked at the faces of my little boys as he read slowly about Daniel, young Daniel.

They looked up at him, holding on to every word. This man, as he read profoundly, as I don't know if I ever heard a man read with such profoundness every word in the holy Bible that he uttered. There was something of God as he read from this book.

And he read of how Daniel was taken, this boy, from his family, from his land, from his home, from his parents, from everything he knew, suddenly snatched, taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, conquered Israel.

And they took the nobility, the children of nobility, everything of the cream of the people that they took, they took enslaved. Daniel was suddenly a slave with children from all over the Babylonian empire.

They took the children. They didn't waste their time much with the grown-ups to bring to the palace or to serve. And they trained them in the ways of this godless nation so they could serve this king when they grew up.

And here was this boy now robbed and taken from his land and home, his mother and father, a boy. And it was expected of him and all these young people, all the Jews and all the other children who were there being now trained, it was expected of them to do, to go against the commandments of God, to go against that which they knew God would not have them do as the people of God.

It was expected immediately of them, immediately, that they had to now break the commandments of God, go against God. And here was young Daniel looking at all the other children willing, so that they just obey instead of trouble.

And we read these stunning words. This boy, he purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. He purposed in his heart. He made a decisive dedication of his body and life not to defile himself or his body and go against the will of God.

He made a decision, a decision in a moment that he had to face in life as a boy to decide that he would not defile himself. I will be holy! It was his heart cry. I will be holy! No matter what the others do, no matter what the cost to me.

And sometimes the cost is going to be great. But a boy can make that decision. A boy can do that. Mr. MacFarlane looked at young Noel and Roy, my two sons, and said, Noel, Roy, I tell you now, the time is coming.

Listen to me. He said, the time is coming. You are going to be like Daniel, suddenly out of sight of mother and father. Maybe not on another land, but out of sight of mother and father's boys. Your mother and father aren't always going to be there watching over you.

And you are going to find that there will be things expected of you to do with the other boys. That is not God's will that will defile you. I guarantee you it's coming, boys. I guarantee you. And your mother and father won't be there to say, Don't do it, Noel.

Don't do it, Roy. And you are going to have to come with your own choice in the moment in life as a boy to make a decisive dedication to God. I will not defile myself. You are going to have the purpose in your heart to make up your mind.

I will not defile myself. I will not. I will be holy in this life. It's coming. Now listen carefully, Noel and Roy. No matter what anyone tells you in this world, listen carefully now. You are as holy as you want to be.

You are as holy as you want to be. Don't blame your friends if you compromise. Don't blame peer pressure at school. Don't blame corruption in the land, lack of censorship, filthy books, evil videos and things.

Don't blame anything. You are as holy as you will be. You are as holy as you want to be, my boys. Don't ever doubt that. It's up to you. Don't blame anything. Don't blame the land with moral decadence.

You are as holy as you want to be. I saw my boys looking up at Will McFarland and they sat there for minutes without moving and he didn't say another word. They just looked. And I thank God for those holy moments and that influence on my children's lives.

Resisting Moral Corruption

I was speaking to a godly woman in my country who was talking about the situation in South Africa since this transition and everything's changed. And she said, we used to be protected by law from all the corrupt moral indecencies.

We used to be protected by law from pornography in this country. You wouldn't even hear on the television blaspheme. It wasn't allowed or anything morally decadent. It was law so censoring. So much of all these films across the world were not even allowed on our television or banned, banned.

There was a protection. You wouldn't find magazines that you felt defiled walking by in a book room. There was no such a thing. You'd be jailed. It was called pornography those days. We used to be protected in this land, she said to me, but now it's gone.

The government no longer protects us or our children. There's no censorship. Don't lie by saying there's censorship in my land or yours. That's something of a lie. There's no such a thing as censorship or protection for this generation.

We used to be protected by law, but now the law protects the filthy. They call it art, freedom of speech. The law stands with them. But that's no excuse, she said. No excuse. Now we have to protect ourselves.

Now we protect ourselves. We don't blame the government. We don't blame the state of the world if we're going to be corrupt. You protect yourself. You don't go near a place where you can be filthy. You don't go near a place that can defile you.

You just don't go. And you don't have to go. Not one of you. Not one of you is too weak. You don't have to have a filthy magazine in your home with a dirty word that your child will read. You don't have to.

And you don't. You just don't. When you name the name of Jesus, I thought as this woman was speaking, I thought back to that moment I saw Will McFarlane saying to my boys, Don't blame the corruption. Don't blame lack of censorship.

Don't blame Pierre Prestle, your friend. You are as holy as you want to be. Don't let anyone tell you any different. You need to hear that loud and clear now. You're as holy as you want to be. Don't doubt it.

The Church Must Not Become Like the World

Another godly man. Oh, what a godly man. Lex Buchanan. Back of Natal in South Africa. Farmer. Oh, such a humble and simple man. But a man you never forget when you're with him for minutes. You'll never forget him.

Holy. This man would come up to my wife and I once a month from the farms, the farmland, there in the city. And he would bring a donation for our work for God and say, Here, this is to help you in the work of God.

And I used to say, Please come in, Mr. Buchanan. Come inside. Have tea. He said, No. No, I have no time. Two hours later, the poor man was standing there still speaking. And I used to say to him when he arrived, You know, you must come in.

Because every time we stand here, two hours later, you're still speaking to me. He loved to stand under this big tree and just speak and speak. And I used to weep. I don't know of occasion that I stood there when this godly man stood there speaking to me that I didn't start weeping.

I was in such a state sometimes, I nearly sobbed. As the burden of this holy man for the people of God who were compromising. I knew of no other man so burdened, so broken at what the church was doing.

Compromising with the world. He broke. He wept as he stood there. And he would cry out things to me that I wanted to get on my knees. There in the garden again and again. Oh, he was broken. The world can come into the church and you can't see the difference between the world and the church.

So the world is happy in the church and home in the church. We look like the world. We go to the places the world goes. There's no difference. So the world comes into the church and they're quite at home.

Where the days when the world would come into the church and tremble at the fear of God through these holy people separated from the world. He said to me, you can't win the world by being like the world.

No, the world will win you when you want to entertain like the world. You think we'll win the world? No, you won't. You'll win all your people, all the people of God will be one to the world. There's no such a thing as being like the world to win the world.

There's no such a thing. It's impossible. You haven't won one single person by being like the world to win the world. You're a liar if you think you have. Whether you entertain like the world, entertainment is sin in the house of God.

Go to the theatre if you want entertainment. Don't bring it into the pulpit. Don't stand in the pulpit with any gift God's given you of music or singing unless you sanctify it and pray through to God to anoint you, to use you, to cleanse you in the blood.

You have the responsibility of a man standing with a holy Bible when you stand up in the pulpit to sing. And if everyone isn't aware that you're sanctified in what you're doing and it's holy and God's anointing it and speaking to their hearts to bring them to Christ and make God's people deeply conscious of God with you up there.

Don't you stand in the pulpit if you're an entertainer. You're sinning. Go to the world's theatre and stages if you want to entertain. Don't bring it into the pulpit for God's sake. For God's sake, don't do it, Church of Jesus Christ.

You can't win the world by being like the world. You never will. But they will win you. And in the end we sit and you won't know the difference between the world or the church. They'll be quiet at home with their sin and their worldliness because we're just like them.

That's what will happen if we try and win them by being like them in any aspect of life. This man would stand there pouring out his grievance, his burden, his crushed heart and weep. And I would weep with him as he looked at what's happening in our country and the church.

A Testimony That Moved Young People to Tears

I said to him one day, Sir, you must preach in one of my conventions. He said, I'm not a preacher, Keith. I pray for you preachers. I'm not a preacher. I said, you must preach. You're going to preach.

Between his wife and I, we finally managed, it took a long, long time to get him in the pulpit. And he stood up in one of the great conventions and he started weeping before he started speaking. And then when he did speak, about ten minutes in, I looked around.

The young people were weeping with him at what they'd lost, the standard we'd lost. They sat there weeping in broken hearts, young people. I didn't find one young person, teenager, from a little boy of fourteen up, that wasn't sitting there broken as they realized, as they were hearing, as they suddenly became conscious what we've been robbed of by becoming like the world.

Oh, I'll never forget what he said in that meeting, that one meeting the first time he preached for me. He told us of how as a boy, as a boy, eighteen years old, he said, those days when you were eighteen, you were a boy, you weren't a man.

These days you're eighteen, you're a man, you know everything. Those days farm boys at the age of eighteen were boys. Pure. Naive. Innocent in many ways. I've been robbed of this generation, haven't I?

And he stood there and said, as a boy of eighteen, war broke out. And he went to war. He wouldn't have your background, your protection, your understanding of things. All, all of them went to war. And we were speaking the other night of the horror of war, of how men's minds, something dies when they have to shoot each other, kill lives.

We were speaking of the horror of what happened in that man, Clem Gates. How he just died, something died in him. And he wanted to die. And he hated God and man for war that forced him to do this. He just became a drunk until God saved him.

We were speaking of the horrors of war. The horrors. But there's something even more horrific that happens in war that you people perhaps aren't thinking of. The moral defilement of virtually everyone who goes to war, who left home pure.

That's something to weep about. He had to go. Everyone had to go. They'd go and expect that it was just the done thing. They didn't have your convictions and your stand. And so this boy went off to war.

Walked out of his father and mother's farmhouse to war. He said he couldn't believe what happened to all the young boys who he'd grown up with. They'd never touched drink in their lives. Not once. Not even considered it.

Never sworn dirty filthy language or blasphemed. Not once had he heard it. Once. Not once from their lips. Didn't go up into immoral places. Never. Didn't even think of such things. And suddenly he said he couldn't believe his eyes.

These boys were like birds out of a cage when they went away from home to war. The tragedy is whatever the corrupt people did they followed. Suddenly they were drinking. He said why? What do you want to do it for?

Just because they're doing it. They're drinking and lying drunk. Suddenly they're swearing and cursing. Don't think it's just killing that destroys people. You think of what war has done to destroy moral integrity and honour forever.

You will never have honour again in your life when you come back from war. What it does to you morally. The filth and the depravity. He said he couldn't believe the filthiness the words the carrying on the drunkenness the smoking suddenly.

The boys have never had these things. Out of sight of mother and father when in Rome do as the Romans do. That's virtually the idea. As they off to wicked places with wicked women. The darn thing in war when you're in these strange lands.

Don't say it doesn't happen. He begged his friends don't do it don't throw away your decency. And they went off and he wept he said I wept through the war. And what happened to the lives morally smashed destroyed.

He came back a broken man. But what happened to all these young men he said he came back he didn't know it would be five years later before he came back a real man. He got off the train walked down through the lanes in the valley to the farmhouse into the house and there was father and mother.

And they stood and wept as they saw their son and embraced them and he said the first words he said to them he stood back and said father father I want to tell you and I want you to know this from the day I walked out of this door to this day I have never ever ever done anything morally wrong no matter what the others did I kept myself pure.

I want you to know that mother and father I did nothing that you would be ashamed of not when I walked from this door no matter what everyone else did I did nothing that I wouldn't have done if you had been right there.

I kept myself and I kept your name honorable the name I carry his father then really did weep. What a burden a father must have beside going off not to not just the burden of death but the burden of coming back defiled.

And here this boy came back holy. His father wept and he said these words. Rex we expected nothing less from you boy you are as holy as you want to be. Don't lie and say it isn't. So don't blame the war.

Don't blame others who wanted to taste sin wanted to compromise out of sight of mother and father. You don't have to. It's your choice. Be ye holy for I am holy. God says be ye holy for I am holy. God says.

Practical Holiness and Integrity

What does this word holy mean. What does God mean when he says holy for I am holy. I could spend the next hour taking you through doctrinal definitions of the word holiness and holy of all the great theologians of the church through the ages.

I could spend one hour giving you every definition there is and it would take about an hour. But I don't want to do that. I would like to do this to explain what God means here. When I was a young preacher my district superintendent said to me when I was in Pretoria back home in South Africa rather late in the afternoon.

I want you to go to the center of the city. Get in the car and you go now boy and Russ I've got to have these things. You've got to get to the shop now. Don't come back and tell me you didn't make it.

So I got in the car and I went down and I found the shop in the heart of the city with all the bustling the Catholic. And I found a parking space just outside of the shop where I was to go and collect these things for my district superintendent.

And I looked at the parking meter that you have to pay for being in that parking area all across the city. And I looked at the time and I realized I still had to pay but I didn't have the right change.

So I went to this next shop. There was a man standing there I think it was a Greek man who owned the shop obviously was standing at the end of the day at the doorway of the shop looking out at the street and I went and said sir I need change for the parking meter.

And this Greek man looked at me and said oh don't worry. No policeman comes by here at this time of the day. So I said no. You don't understand. I want to pay even if a policeman doesn't come. He said don't worry man I'll keep an eye open for you.

If a policeman comes I'll put money in. You won't get a fine. You go do your business. I walked over the car for you now go now. He wasn't going to give me the change. So I said oh. I went into the shop next door got all the stuff I was asked to collect and I got the change.

And I walked out put all the stuff in my car and then I put the money in the parking meter that I owed. I mean you owe it by law. You must know that if you steal one cent it is as if you steal one million dollars.

I hope you know that in God's eyes in man's eyes it's a terrible difference in God's eyes that's theft in God's eyes that's wickedness. The one cent is as great a grief to God as one phone call that you steal from your boss who's paying you.

And he doesn't know the time you are being paid for that. You don't work when he's not watching. You're stealing. I hope you know that the small little things are in God's eyes as big. He's so different from men.

He doesn't look at things like men. I guarantee you you are so grieving God at one cent. You may as well have taken one million dollars and I guarantee you that in God's eyes the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit you lose.

You lose the tenderness of the walk with God. I guarantee you with one cent not when you only take one million God is sensitive. I owed what was in the parking meter to the Christian by law. So I put the money in though I'd finished my business and then I got in the car to drive off and this Greek man who'd been watching the car for me he came and he banged on my window and the car was idling.

I was about to pull off and he was angry with me. He really was indignant. He said what sort of a man are you that you put money in the parking meter when you don't have to. As I said I'd watch for you.

There was no policeman. You weren't going to be caught. I'd watch you. What's wrong with you men. Are you mad. He was really angry that he'd watch for me and I'd come and still pay. So I put the engine open.

I got out the car and I said well I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I love Christ. I love Christ and endeavour to serve Him with all my heart. He said I'm a Christian too. And I said no you're not. Oh no you're not.

I said sir a Christian a Christian. The difference between your understanding of Christianity and mine is you don't just with you. You will only do the right thing if you're going to get caught. But a Christian that's real will do the same thing.

Whether no one is watching exactly in every circumstance he will do exactly the same thing as if a whole grandstand of Christians including the minister of your church were standing there watching over you.

You won't do one. I owe to difference otherwise you're a hypocrite now. That's a word you don't hear easily is it. But I guarantee you there's no other word God will write across your life tonight. And so I want to be honest to God in the pulpit tonight.

That's hypocrisy not Christianity. Christianity is you do exactly the same thing if you're being watched by a crowd of godly people who know you carry the name of Christ. You will do exactly the same thing without you see.

You do it for Christ because he's watching. He's watching. And that's why you do your convictions. That's why you don't do certain things not for people. Otherwise if you're just going to do when people are watching that's the height of hypocrisy.

And what agony that must be to be like that and name the name of Christ. Be ye holy for I am holy. Do you know what that means. The most accurate interpretation of what God means. According to one of the greatest theologians the Christian church has ever had in its history.