Gooding, David: 4 - The School of Holiness

There are two reasons why we need to be saved. Paul gives them in his epistle to the Romans. In chapter one, he explains that the p- gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, for the wrath of God is revealed. Number one reason we need to be saved is because before we are saved, we stand under the wrath and displeasure of a holy God because of our sins and their guilt, and we need to be saved from the wrath of God. The second reason is we need to be saved from the wreckage of sin because of the disobedience of our first parents in the garden, we are born of a fallen race. We are all more or less spoiled and wrecked. We have been made slaves under the dominion of sin, of death, and of the law, so we need to be saved from the wreckage of sin. Thank God his salvation is big enough to save us both from the wrath of God and from the wreckage of sin. Please explain again the concept of the initial overall washing. How does that differ from the cleansing by the precious blood? Is it a different way of saying the same thing? When the Lord Jesus died, we're told there came forth from his side both blood and water. In the ancient hymn, English hymn written by Top Lady, the matter is expressed like this: Let the water and the blood from thy riven side which flowed be of sin the double cure. Cleanse me from its guilt, and that we have by the blood of Christ. Cleanse me from its guilt and power, and that we have by being born again of God's spirit. You say, are they the same thing? Not quite. They happen at the same time. The moment we repent and we trust and receive the Savior, that moment his blood cleanses us from sin, from the guilt of sin, and we are forgiven. But at that same moment, we are born again and become children of God, and with the new birth and the new life, there comes a new power, uh, to overcome sin. So that no, they are not exactly the same thing, one from guilt of sin, one from power of sin, but we get both at the same time when we first trust the Savior. When we sin, do we ask for forgiveness, or do we just confess it to resume fellowship? Christ has forgiven us for our sins. Yes, we have forgiveness through his blood, and that forgiveness is full and complete. God says, their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. That mean- doesn't mean he's going to forget that we were sinners. He will never forget that, any more than he will ever forget that his son died for our sin. What it means is that he will never drag up our sins before his judgment court and pronounce sentence on them. That he has already done, and our blessed Lord Jesus has paid the penalty of sin. There is, therefore, for the believer, no penalty. There is no condemnation. But while that is so, we need forgiveness at another. We are in the family of God. And when as believers we sin, we have the assurance that God will never take us to court, but he will begin to discipline us. And if we don't repent, his disciplines can be severe. So that when he disciplines us, when we sin, we need to seek his forgiveness as father. And if we do that, if we confess our sins, then we shall not be judged, we shall not be disciplined. If we don't confess our sins, we don't seek his forgiveness, he may well have to discipline us. We have to distinguish two things, therefore, our relation to God as judge. At that level, when we trust Christ, we are pardoned. He will not remember our sins against us again ever. No penalty. But our relationship to God as Father, as children in his family, that's an ongoing thing. And then when we sin, we need to confess and seek his forgiveness. Otherwise, as I say, he may well need to discipline us, and that could be painful. Uh, the, excuse me, the subject is washing of feet. Is it because of the world we walk in, a cleaning from the dust, in quotations, that is out there in the world. Well, yes, that's one way of putting it, and many preachers have used it as an illustration. Remember, they use it because they explain in the ancient East there was a public bath downtown, and somebody goes and washes all over in his bath, but then as they're walking home, the dust of the road gets on their feet, so when they get home, they have to cleanse their feet. But we can go beyond that, can't we? That's only a way of explaining the background to it. You'll see it is true as we walk through this dirty old world, we ourselves can get defiled, can't we? You'll skest walk down the center of many modern capital cities without seeing terrible things that would tend to defile us. And therefore, in our walk through the world, we need the constant washing of the water through the world. But it's not only, is it, things outside that defile us. Sometimes our own bad temper comes up, or a root of bitterness springs up in the church, and many are thereby defiled. And we need that kind of thing dealt with, don't we? And as we approach the Lord in his word, he shows us wrong things about our attitudes, and that we need to confess and have the Lord deal with. And I suspect all of us, or most of us, know of weaknesses in our own lives. And we give way to things, and when we've done it, we get home and we blush with shame to ourselves, and we... we agonize over the fact, there I've gone and done it again. We know where our own personalities hurt, don't we? We know where the shoe nips, and how stupid we can behave sometimes, even when we've told ourselves we're never going to do it again. There's those things that we can bring to the Lord and allow him graciously to deal with them. Jesus washes our feet to cleanse us. How does this fit in with us washing each other's feet? And a similar question, how do we wash others' feet? The Lord's immediate answer to that question is, I've left you an example that you should do to others as I've done to you. In the first place, therefore, the lesson is of humble, loving service. Anything that would help, and however humble, as our Lord did. Literally washing the feet was the slave's job, and none of the men at the, uh, meeting were going to do it. Our Lord did it, therefore. Any humble service to our fellow Christians or men in the, women in the world. Yes, that is a fulfilling of the Lord's example. Of course, it has deeper implications, has it not? When the war- Lord rinses our feet, what he's doing is washing away some of the grime and washing the grit from out between our toes and making us feel refreshed and improving the general atmosphere in the room and, uh, taking out the bits of grit that hurt the toes and so forth and so on. And we need, uh, to do that for our fellow believers, do we not? Where they've been hurt by the world, where perhaps their attitudes are wrong, and if we know them and we can come alongside and gently help them. We have a duty to help one another that way round. It's a very ticklish job to do, I may tell you. You try it coming to me and saying, you, you're the proudest self-opinionated preacher I ever saw. Ooh, well, that may be true. But if you come like that, all my defenses will go up. I shall make excuses for myself, and I shan't like you. When our Lord washed his disciples' feet, he got down on his knees. He let them sit on the chair, and they felt important. And he was their servant. And it was genuine, you know, because they were important to him. He was. And they knew it when he washed their feet. He did it because he loved them. And if we're going to help other people in their difficulty, then God save us from a critical spirit and help us to adopt the spirit of Christ to get down at their feet and let them feel first that we feel they are so tremendously important and that we love them, so that they open up a bit and we are able to help them with whatever is their problem. But we do have a responsibility to care for one another, even in these spiritual things, and not merely in things material. These are the questions from session two. The first one is on the topic of worldliness. Should we, as born-again believers, be involved with shows, etc.? By going to these places, aren't we taking the Holy Spirit wherever we go, because our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. And secondly, that is a very important thing to remember. When Paul was correcting the behavior of the Corinthian Christian, and they were a difficult crowd, weren't they? For they were ancient Greeks, not modern Greeks, but ancient Greeks had to be told that fornication was a bad thing, you know. Just you imagine if I spent a half an hour this morning lecturing you or that that fornication was bad, what would you think of me? But the Corinthian church had to be told they never would have dreamed it was bad. It was the accepted way of behavior. So when Paul was correcting it, he corrected it by reminding them that their body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we are to remember it and not involve the Holy Spirit in situations that are unworthy of him. But that said, the question of where we should go and what we do and with whom we should mix, in that we need to remember the pattern that the Lord Jesus gave us. And there you remember the criticisms that were flung against him was not that he was too strict, but that to some people he appeared too loose. They said, you know, this man invites prostitutes to have coffee. Wow. And tax gatherers, the lowest of the low. The synagogue wouldn't have them in the synagogue. They had excommunicated them, and rightly so. But the Lord Jesus ate with them. The Pharisees thought he was the most worldly, ungodly man they'd ever come across. And he pointed out to them, but gentlemen, he said, those who are well don't need a doctor, do they? But those that are. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. You see, if you have somebody and he's got, uh, typhoid fever or something, or something worse, you wouldn't necessarily send your teenage daughter, would you? But if a doctor doesn't go and the nurse doesn't go, they'll die. And so the doctor and the nurse are prepared to go. They're not compromising with disease, they're against disease all they can possibly be. But if you're not prepared to go to people who are diseased, you'll never heal them, will you? And so when it comes to our witness in the world, we're not of it, we're to avoid its spirit, avoid contamination. Then, like the Lord Jesus, we shall be asked to go and meet the world. And according to our abilities and the jobs that God give us to do, we must, may, may have to come in very close contact with very questionable people for the purpose of saving them. So in these things we must keep a balance and make as our, our, our, our ideal and as our pattern the way the Lord Jesus himself behaved. We have been cleansed by the blood, but why do we not have the desire to truly seek the Lord with all our mind, heart, and strength? Why don't we even feel the need for cleansing? I'm tempted to say what an Old Testament man said to that question: I'm not a prophet, nor yet the son of a prophet. So I don't know why you find yourself in that position. It is a serious position to be in, isn't it? To have been cleansed by the blood of Christ and not interested to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to be unaware of our need for cleansing. It's a strange position to be in. Why do we get into such a position? Well, I suppose there could be all sorts of reasons, couldn't there? The first one I would say is, are you sure you've been cleansed by the blood of Christ? Would you just have been, had some kind of emotional experience and cleaned up on the outside and never been born again? That's the first question that would appear to me. Could happen, couldn't it? And so, because you've never known the real joy of forgiveness of sins, nor what it is to be born again, you don't feel any gratitude to the Lord. That would be understandable, wouldn't it? But sometimes then it happens to Christians. And if it is because we're not born again, well, the obvious thing to do is to find the Savior, isn't it, and to get really saved. But then it can happen to Christians. Why? Well, sometimes you'll say, the writer to Hebrews says you, what time you ought to be teachers, you're still like little spiritual children that have to be fed on milk. Why is that so? Well, because these particular people, when they began to progress in Christianity, they heard some teachings from the Lord that they didn't like very well. In this case, it was teaching about our Lord as high priest, and they began to see that if they went on far with that, they'd have to leave their Jewish temple in which they'd been brought up and their earthly high priest, leave the lot and come out and stand with the Lord Jesus, and they weren't quite sure they were prepared to pay that price. So they didn't want to hear too much more. And then when people take that attitude, the Bible says they become dull of hearing. It's a kind of a spiritual disease, you know. And the word doesn't get through to them like it should, and they remain spiritual babies. We're in that position, well, we don't have to throw away our profession of faith, but we do need to seek the Lord, don't we? And ask him, ask his forgiveness and ask him to put us right. And sometimes it can happen, as you see in the Christian churches, the letters to the seven churches, that, uh, perhaps we become too occupied with material things, and the heart's door is closed against the Savior. We don't feel our need. Blind, poor, miserable, naked, says the Lord. Think you're increased with worldly goods, but you're spiritually bankrupt and naked. I'm knocking on your door, I'm calling on you to repent, he says, and please be aware, as many as I love, I rebuke and I chasten. If we are really believers and we sense no need of having fellowship with the Lord. And do be warned, his love will in the end chastise us. And if he doesn't, then that will raise a very big question mark. It's only real born sons and children that get chastised. If the Lord doesn't chastise you in that situation, it might begin to suggest that you're not a true believer at all. There's a big question, and I don't know your personal state, whoever you are, that put the question in, and therefore I answer it in those different possibilities. Could you please comment on verse twelve, the expression greater works than these, particularly? This verse is often used in North America by the Signs and Wonders movement with a particular interpretation, but I believe its meaning is much deeper and related to the transformation of human lives into the beauty of holiness, as you have been sharing. Well, thank you very much, because I believe that too, so that's answered the question, hasn't it? I believe with all my heart in God's supernatural power. Now, we do need to be warned nowadays against fake, fake power that is merely hypnotism in another form and uses the techniques of hypnotism to produce results. Were there time now at this session, and there isn't, I could tell you experiences with the young people in my own church, horrific experiences. Having attended such demonstrations in public that seemed to be miraculous and had every appearance of being supernatural and were fake. As the event proved. But do be warned. When our Lord said, you shall do greater works, what was he talking about? Well, the context will tell you what he was talking about. He was talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit, wasn't he? Now, when our Lord was here on earth, the Holy Spirit had not yet come. I have to go away before the Holy Spirit will come, he said. And when the Holy Spirit came, it did something that had never been done before. It, uh, brought people into one body. There had never been the body of Christ before, had there? You'll never read of it from Genesis to Malachi, of course you won't. It didn't exist before. It's when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost that believers were baptized into one body. That is a marvelous thing. A new thing in the whole universe. It had never existed before. It is the great thing about creation now. One, there's a body in heaven. His name is Jesus Christ our Lord, a real human being. The very face of heaven has been changed. And two, there is a reality in this world that never existed before, the body of Christ, brought about by people being baptized into the Spirit and being made to drink of one's spirit. And the greatest miracle of all, of course, is leading folks into a genuine experience of Christ by which they are born again and thus baptized into the body of Christ. That's the biggest miracle. And we keep it to the fore by preaching the gospel. You'll say I was in Czechoslovakia the other month, and they wanted me to talk about casting out of demons and exorcism. They're troubled by those kind of things in some parts of the world where Satan has been so long, uh, uh, in power. And I felt that it was a wise thing just to remind them to get their proportions straight. There are people in this world demonized, of course there are, but they're not the majority, are they? And it isn't just demon-possessed people that will go to hell. It's ordinary folks running along the street who are not yet converted under the power of the prince of this world, millions of them. We need to get our sights on what is the real big problem. People, ordinary people, need to be translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God, the Son. We do that by preaching the gospel. They are the bigger works that our Lord was referring to. Many questions were asked concerning Judas, so Dr. Gooding has condensed these into two questions. Number one, had Judas a free choice? Number two, would Christ have accepted him if he had asked the Lord to help? The answer to the first question is yes, of course he did. You say, how can you say that when it says that, uh, our Lord knew who was going to betray him? Well, our Lord knew who was going to crucify him too. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter explains the two sides. On God's side, the Lord Jesus was delivered by God's foreknowledge. It was God's will that our blessed Lord Jesus died at Calvary. That doesn't mean that Caiaphas and Pilate were mere machines, and God made them do his will when they weren't wanting to. Caiaphas and Pilate did it of their own accord. They had a free will. It is that when they used their free will, God overruled it to the accomplishment of his purpose. Similarly, in the Old Testament, God sent the Assyrian nation to chastise Israel. He used the Assyrians as a rod with which to chastise his people. That doesn't mean that the Assyrians didn't have a choice. They did have a choice. And what is more, says God, when they came and fought and destroyed Israel, they were doing it not to please God, they were doing it for their own selfish reasons. And so says God, when I've used them to chastise you, then I shall turn round and chastise them for doing it. So it was with Judas. He did have a choice. The reason he did it was for money. But of course, he sold himself to the very devil. God overruled it, that our Lord should thus be betrayed and crucified. Second question, would Christ have, have, have, have forgiven him and received him if he had received the thought and repented? Yes, of course he would. But you'll see there are some things that God himself can't do. And, uh, the Epistle to the Hebrews explains it. You have a piece of ground, and the rain comes down on this bit and produces grass. You say, lovely, bit more rain, please, some more grass. And the rain comes down the other side and produces thorns. Oh, you say, I don't want thorns. So what now? You say, a bit more rain. Well, no, the more rain, the more thorns. And when God, by his Holy Spirit, has shown somebody what the truth is, God has illuminated them by his Holy Spirit, and deliberately they refuse it and persist in refusing it. And there comes a point when you'll never get them to repent. You say, why not? Well, what has God got to get them to repent with? You say, well, why can't he do a miracle or two? Would a miracle be stronger than the power of the Holy Spirit himself? The Holy Spirit is. If the Holy Spirit has done everything he can to convince you and, uh, bring you to the truth, and you won't have it, there isn't anybody or anybody, anything left that could bring you to repentance. And there came a point when Judas knew what he was doing, went over the line with open eyes. From that point onward, there was nothing in heaven or hell that could ever bring him to repentance anyway. That's solemn, isn't it? But if he had called upon Christ to help when there was time for it, Christ surely would have saved him. This is the last question from the morning session. John fourteen verse three, I will come again. Does this verse refer to the second coming, the rapture for the church? If so, are we in the last days and nearing to his second coming? Answer. Lovely answer, very short though, because it needn't be long. Yes, it refers to the Lord's coming, and he's going to take us up to heaven to be with him forever. Amen. Does it mean that we're in the last days? Well, yes, it does. We've been in the last hour since John wrote his epistle. He says in his epistle, doesn't he, children, it'll be the last hour, says he. And we know it is because many antichrists have already gone out. One day the antichrist will come, but it's already the last hour, he says. And thank God for that. Yes, we're living in, the church has been living in the last hour, and the Lord's coming draws near. Put your helmet on your head, won't you? Whenever you think of the future, God hasn't ordained you to wrath, but to obtain salvation by the Lord Jesus, who died and rose again for us. From the first part of the afternoon session, the first question is, is there something wrong when the scriptures don't seem to come alive when I study them? Should I be questioning myself? Well, yes, it depends what you mean. Don't let me give you the wrong impression from things I said today. When I talked about the Lord revealing himself to the two on the road to Emmaus, and he does that for us, I didn't mean that every time I personally open the Bible, I get visions of rapture bursting on my side, especially when I'm toiling through the names of First Chronicles. Yeah. I normally find I got to work right hard at scripture for a long time, just persevere at it. And the times when the glory descends are comparatively rare, you'll see. That tests our faith, doesn't it? You'll say, if I read scripture and persevere reading it and don't get much out of it, I'm trying to say, why should I go on reading this? And it tests my faith. Do I really believe that this is God's word? And that, uh, if God opened the heaven and spoke, he would say what is said here. If I really believe that, then I shall plug away reading it and rereading it and learning it. You see, our brains are like computers, aren't they? You won't get out what hasn't been put in. And before you can ask the computer questions and it come up with answers, you've got to put the stuff in. And I find I've got to read scripture hundreds of times very often before it gets on this very slow old-fashioned computer that stands before you, you'll see. And then when I got the information on the old brain, thought about it and prayed about it, then the Lord begins to show me what it means, yes? So if that's your trouble, well, persevere, my good friend. Persevere in your faith that this is God's word, and if you learn it and apply yourself to it and discuss it with the Lord in prayer, he will eventually show you. If it means that you don't have the taste for God's word, and it doesn't speak to you, and you find it a bore, well, then perhaps it's time to ask the Lord why that is. Is it that, uh, you have met a scripture in time past or come to a decision in life when you ought to have obeyed God's word and you didn't, and the Lord isn't talking anymore until you do? Is it that we're too hurried in our reading of scripture, and our hearts are loving the world or something? We need to talk it over with the Lord, don't we? And ask him to show us. If you had a friend in the family and you weren't on talking terms, you would in the end try to do something about it, wouldn't you? And say, look, why are you not talking with me? If that's how you find the Lord, perhaps then you better ask him, why aren't you talking with me? And ask him to show you. The other thing is, isn't it? Do make sure you are born again. I have known people that have found the Bible double Dutch and saw nothing in it, and then when they got saved, they began to see things in it because they had the life of God within. Please comment on God's grace. And there's a comment here, I need lots more. So do I. Agree with you entirely, and I need it more than you do. You'll see. Gift is not grace, je- ladies. You can be very gifted. I'm not, but you could be, and behave very badly. And sometimes the most gifted people are the worst behaved. We all need constant grace. I agree with you entirely. Of course, the Lord Jesus does say, doesn't he, my grace is sufficient for you, and of his fullness we've all received, and grace on top of grace. Yes. You applied the verse, behold, I stand at the door and knock, to the Christian and his Lord. Can this also be applied to the unbeliever receiving the Lord into their heart? Many unsaved people have been saved through this verse. Yes, amen. Of course, yes. It can be used of unbelievers. It was written originally, uh, dictated by our Lord originally and sent through John to a Christian church, at a Christian assembly in a place called Laodicea. And so was written to people who were in that assembly and professed to be Christians. But ladies, never let us forget, being a member of an assembly is no guarantee you are a Christian. And there's many a Christian church today that's outwardly a Christian church, where if you went, you'd have the first thing you'd have to do is to preach the gospel to them. Because, I repeat, being a member of an assembly is no guarantee you are a, a Christian, a true believer. Now, of course, you can, in those circumstances or outside the church, preach it as a lovely message to the unconverted. The Lord stands at the door of their heart and knocks and ask them to bid him in. But you need sometimes to preach it to believers, don't you? We all need to preach it to ourselves sometimes. It's possible for us as believers to have our lives shut to the Lord. He's wanting to come in and he's wanting us to entertain him. I will dine with you, he says, expecting to be entertained in our hearts. Sometimes we're so full of things that we don't entertain the Lord. Brief prayer in the morning, a brief prayer at night, and a snippet off a calendar, and that has to do. Of course, if you are so busy with life, uh, sixteen children and uh, uh, you'll say in a, a big house and things and difficulties, well, so were the slaves. The slaves in Old Te- in New Testament times didn't have a lot of time, did they, to read the Bible. They were asked to open their hearts to the Lord as they went to work and serve the Lord Christ in their daily work and do it for him. Live with the Lord, in other words. Sometimes we as believers need to hear our Lord knocking on the door of our heart when we're neglecting him, when we should be opening our lives to him and entertaining him. Is there a relationship between the rivers of living water? First, in Revelation twenty wa- two verse one, which is, then the angel showed me the river of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. John seven thirty eight, whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow out of him. And the water spoken of in Ephesians five twenty six, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. Is this the same water? No, it's the same person, but not the same water. The symbol in the New Testament of the river of life coming out of the throne of God may very profitably be compared with what our Lord said in John seven. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and out of his inward part shall flow living, living water. This he spoke of the Holy Spirit. So yes, the Lord Jesus gives us the living water of the Holy Spirit to satisfy our thirst. Water has that function then. But then the Holy Spirit has other functions, just like the Lord Jesus can be described as our shepherd, and as our shepherd he, we think of him as tending us, and we're his sheep. On the other hand, he's described as the bridegroom, and as the bridegroom, he loves us, and we're