We are preparing to go to heaven, to worship the Lord there on Sabbath.  That is why the leaders in this church have felt that we need to help each other to prepare for that great worship in which we will engage in above.  That is why we want to learn, as God’s children, to practice reverence in His house and to refrain from unnecessary speaking in the sanctuary.  The deacons want to help you.  If you need to take a child outside, they will not only help you with the door so it gets open and shut quietly, but they also can direct you, if needed, to the mothers’ room, where you can watch the worship service on the video monitor. 

We want our children to be getting ready to worship the Lord, too.  Don’t we?  And that involves education.  So if you need to take your child to the mothers’ room (by the way, I know about this; I have had small children, so I’m not talking about this as someone who has never been through this experience), they still should be taught to sit quietly on a chair.  Our worship services do not go for hours and hours, so we want our children to learn, even in the mothers’ room, to sit on a chair, because you as a parent nor the children can worship when they are running around or talking.  That is impossible.  We want to help each other; that is part of the Christian faith—to help each other, as we are preparing for heaven.

If you have your Bible, I invite you to open it to a very familiar chapter for Seventh-day Adventists.  It is in Matthew 24.  This is the great master prophecy that Jesus gave to His disciples just a few days before He was crucified, when they asked Him: When is Jerusalem going to be destroyed?  What is going to be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the world?  Every verse of this prophecy is important.  As time goes on, we understand it more and more.

I would like to call your attention to Matthew 24:37.  It says, “But as the days of Noah [were], so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”  Now, there are many things about the days of Noah that are similar to our own time, but one of the things that happened during the days of Noah was a great surprise at the end.  Were the multitudes of the earth expecting a great flood to come?  They had been told that there was one coming, but they did not believe.  Were they expecting for one to actually come?  No, they were not.  But they were surprised, were they not, because the flood did come and wiped out that immense population.

Jesus said that it is going to be like that at the end.  There will be a few people ready, as it was in the days of Noah.  But the mass of the world population was not ready, and they had a terrible surprise.

When Jesus comes, it is going to be an awful surprise for most of the people in this world.  Notice how He describes it in Matthew 24:30.  It says, “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn.”  Why will they mourn? Because they are not ready.

Paul says very clearly that the saints are not going to mourn on that day.  He said that they are going to rejoice.  If you are ready, you are going to rejoice.  It will be a glad and wonderful time.  But all the tribes of the earth are not going to rejoice.  They will mourn, because they are not ready.  Before concluding this prophecy, Jesus gives us instruction to be ready, because it is going to happen when we are not expecting it. 

Notice verse 42: “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.”

Look at verse 44: “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” 

It is going to be a surprise.  He is speaking to His disciples, and He says that for even you it will be at a time, at an hour, when you do not expect it.  So, you need to be ready all the time.

I am acutely aware, friend, as I look at what is happening in the world and study the prophecies in the Bible, that we are right at the end of time.  One of these times, all of a sudden, I am not going to be able to study God’s Word with you on Sabbath morning.  You might not even be able to come to church on Sabbath morning.  There is a big surprise coming.  As I have thought about these things, I have concluded there is no question.  If you look at Bible prophecy, at a series of prophecies, and nine-tenths of them have been fulfilled right, according to the letter, there is only one-tenth left.  Do you think that you can have confidence that the last tenth will be fulfilled like the first nine-tenths already have?  Do you think you can?

As I have thought about this and I have thought about the people that come here to worship the Lord on Sabbath morning, I have said to myself, Oh, will every single one be ready?  Jesus said, “Be ready because in an hour that you do not expect, the Son of Man is coming.”  Are you going to be ready?

What is involved in being ready?  There is something a lot more involved in being ready than many Christians have supposed.  A lot of people have a rather shallow view of the plan of salvation.  I want to study with you what is involved in being ready.  Jesus said, “Be ready.”

Turn to II Peter, and see what the apostle Peter said about being ready and what condition we should be in to be ready for the Lord to come.  “Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.”  II Peter 3:14.  If you look back to verse 10, you will see that Peter has just been talking about the day of the Lord and the time when this world is going to come to an end.  And he said, “Seeing that you are looking for all of these things to happen, be diligent so that you might be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless.”  In other words, not defiled, not dirty.

Now let’s go to the Book of Revelation and read one more text and see how important it is to be found without spot—not defiled—when the Lord comes.  Look at Revelation 21:27.  It has just been talking here about the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, that God has built for His church—His saints—and it says, “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”  Is there going to enter anything into it that is spotted?  No, nothing that is defiled.

When we think of something that is spotted or defiled, we often think of our clothes, and the Bible speaks in this language so we can learn about what we cannot see from what we can see.  What do you do if you clothes are all spotted or defiled?  Let’s see what the Bible says about our own character and our clothing.  It likens our character throughout the Bible to our clothing.

When you read in the Old and New Testaments, the word unclean and the word defile are from the same word.  To be unclean or to be defiled are the same thing.  It is equivalent to being spotted.  Notice Isaiah 64:6: “But we are like an unclean [thing], And all our righteousnesses [are] like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.”  So, our righteousness is like what? Filthy rags.  Is it pure?  No, it is not pure; it is defiled.  We are all like an unclean thing, all defiled.  Well, how is this defilement going to be gotten rid of so that we will be ready?  Our defilement must be gotten rid, of or we will not be ready.

The New Testament tells how it is gotten rid of.  “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”  I John 1:7.  The blood of Jesus will cleanse us of sin!  You see, it is sin that defiles us. We could read many texts in the Bible that tell us that.  It is our sins, our transgressions against God’s Law, that defile us.  But it says here that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin.

I want to go a little bit deeper right now and try to understand this cleansing process and what it is that makes us defiled and how it is that we can be cleansed.  We already know from what we read in I John 1:7 that we need to be cleansed from sin.  Sin is what defiles us.  But now let’s go farther than that and find out how it is that sin defiles us.  How does that happen?   Somebody may say that sin is the transgression of the law.  That is true; I John 3:4 says that sin is the transgression of the law, and it is transgressing God’s Law that defiles us.

Now look at the law.  Many people have a shallow concept of the Law of God.  Let’s just look at one commandment—an easy, short one.  What does the sixth commandment say?  “You shall not kill.”  (If you read in the Roman Catholic Catechism, it has a different numbering of the commandments, but in the Bible, the sixth commandment says, “You shall not kill.”)  Many people think, I have not shot anybody; I have not stabbed anybody; so I have not killed anybody.  I am innocent.

What does it say in I John 3:15?  “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.”  Where do you hate?  You hate in your mind.  Before you actually take a gun and pull the trigger or pick up a knife and stab somebody, you have hatred in your heart—in your mind.  That is where sin begins, and that is where we get defiled—in the mind.

Look what Jesus said about it in Matthew 5:22.  He has just quoted the sixth commandment in verse 21, and He says, “But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.  And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council.  But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”  So, the one that is angry with his brother without a cause, Jesus says, has broken the sixth commandment.  He may not have killed him, but he has hatred in his mind.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus goes through several commandments.  He goes through the seventh commandment and says the same thing about it as He said about the sixth commandment.  It begins in the mind, so it is in the mind where we get defiled.

Now I want to ask you a still deeper question.  What is the basis of all sin in the mind?  Sin begins in the mind.  It is acted out by the body or comes out on the tongue, but it begins in the mind.  There is a basic principle that underlies all sin that goes on in the mind.  This basic principle is what defiles the mind, and when the mind is defiled, every thought is defiled.  All the words are defiled.  All the actions are defiled.  So the mind has to be changed; it has to be cleansed. 

That is the promise of the new covenant as found in Hebrews 9:14, 15.  When we talk about the blood of Jesus cleansing us from sin, what is it that is supposed to be cleansed?  “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  And for this reason He is the mediator of the new covenant.”  So, in the new covenant, the mind—the conscience—is to be cleansed.  Cleansed from sin.  Cleansed not just from the fruit of sin.  When you take a gun, pull the trigger, and kill somebody, that is just the fruit of sin.  That is a sinful action, and you are going to be judged on that.  But if you are going to be cleansed from sin, you have to not only be cleansed from the action but you have to go to the root of the problem.  Otherwise, the problem is still there.

Some of you have noticed, when you come to 47th Street and turn east, for several days they have been trimming the trees along the power lines.  The electrical company does not like the tree branches touching those wires, so they have been cutting the trees off below the wires.  But if you will notice, every single one of those trees that they have been trimming is still alive.  In fact, they are going to grow back, and in a few years, they will have to return and trim the trees all over again.  They have cut off the branches and a lot of leaves.  They have hauled away truckloads of branches and leaves, but the root is still there, so it is still going to grow.  That is the same way it is with sin.

There are a lot of people trying to overcome sin in their lives, so they cut off a branch.  And they say, I am not going to eat that any more, or I am not going to drink that any more, or I am not going to say that any more; I am not going to do that any more.  They cut off the branch, and it is really trimmed up nicely, but there is still something underneath that is growing in the heart—in the mind.  That has to be cleansed.  Now let us see if we can find out what this is.

We read in Hebrews 9 that our consciences have to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus.  What is the sacrifice of Jesus supposed to do for our minds?  Have you ever asked yourself that question?  The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, His blood, is to cleanse our consciences.  How does the sacrifice of Jesus change our minds?  Did you know that it changed the apostles’ minds?

After Jesus was crucified, the apostles thought completely different than they had ever thought before.  The death of Christ made a permanent change in their minds.  If you think about it and understand what happened, it will make a permanent change in your mind.

Let’s read a couple of texts that talk about how the cross of Christ makes a change in a person’s mind.  When you see the change that is to happen in the mind, you begin to understand what is the very root or the essence of sin.  Unless this change is made in your mind, you still have the root problem.  You may have corrected some speech.  You may have corrected some things that you are doing.  But the root problem is still there, and it is going to come up in some other kind of fruit.

Let’s look first at II Corinthians 5.  Paul tells us that since Christ died on the cross, it should have an effect on our minds, and it should change our minds on something.  It says, in verse 15, “And He died for all.”  Is “He” talking about the death of Jesus on the cross?  That is exactly what “He” is talking about.  Is that supposed to make a change in our minds?  Notice what verse 15 says, as it continues: “He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”  Paul is telling us that Jesus died, and because He died, those of us that are alive should no longer live for self.  Were the disciples living for themselves before Jesus died?  They most certainly were.

Do you remember that James and John, Zebedee’s sons, had their mother come to Jesus with a specific request?  And what was that request?  She said that she would like Jesus to do a favor for her.  The Lord asked what the favor was, and she replied, “Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.”  Matthew 20:21.  Now that is something!  You do not ask for yourself; you get your mother to ask for you, so maybe it will have more weight.  Incidentally, these were all people that loved Jesus.  The family of Zebedee was all Jesus’ disciples and followers, and two of the sons were two of the leading disciples and apostles. 

When the ten other disciples heard about that, the Scriptures say they had indignation against the two brothers.  (Verse 24.)  Why did they have indignation against the two brothers?  Because they each coveted those positions.  They were mad; they were angry.  Now what is the Lord supposed to do?  Here are His twelve apostles, and they all want the highest positions.

Have you ever read about anybody else that wanted the highest position?  Who was that?  That was Lucifer, and Lucifer was the one that started the sin problem.  How did he get started?  He started thinking about himself and living for himself, and he wanted to exalt himself.  He wanted to be like God.  It was self, self, self.  Read about it in Isaiah 14.  He said, “I am going to do this, and I am going to do that, and I am going to do this, and I am going to receive adoration of all these angels and these people.”  The Bible talks about all the different things he said he was going to do.  He was the subject, the center; he is what he began to look out for.  That is how sin began, and that is the root problem of sin—that I live for myself; I love myself; I please myself; I work for myself; I play for myself; I get married for myself; my family is for myself; and everything is for myself.  That is what sin is. 

That is why our marriages fail, and we have all this fighting.  That is why we have strife in institutions and in churches.  It is the root of the sin problem.  It is self.  I want what is best for me, and you want what is best for you, so we fight about it.

Selfishness is one of the signs of the last days, according to II Timothy 3:1, 2.  In the last days, it says, “men will be lovers of themselves.”  Extreme selfishness is the root of the sin problem, and when you have the root of the sin problem, every thought you think is a sin.

Because every thought you think is selfish, every word you speak and every action you do is sinful, because it all proceeds from a selfish heart.  The root has to come out, before you can be saved.

In Luke 22, we are told that the disciples had been fighting about who was going to be the greatest. (Verse 24.)  They knew that Jesus was the Lord of all, but they were not trying to take His place like the devil was.  They were doing something just about as bad, though.  They thought, Yes, He is going to be number one; we want to be next in line.  The devil wanted to be number one himself. 

Have you ever heard of people being described, and the phrase is used, “He thinks that after God and Gabriel, he is next”?  What is the problem with that description?  The same problem the disciples had—self.  That is the root of sin.

Let’s look at one more text.  It talks about the very same thing and relates it to the cross of Christ.  We are not supposed to live for ourselves anymore.  In Philippians 2, it is talking about the humility of Jesus, and it says, in verse 6, that Christ Jesus, “being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.”  Or, more literally, He did not consider it to be a thing to be held on to or graft.  “But made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, [and] coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to [the point of] death, even the death of the cross.”

Jesus was the majesty of heaven.  He was in the form of God, and He was God, but He did not consider that something that He should hold on to.  He emptied Himself of all of that; He left all that behind and came to this world as a man.  When He came to this world as a man, fashioned like a servant, He humbled Himself unto death, even the death of the cross.

What should we learn from this?  The previous verses say, “[Let] nothing [be done] through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others . . . .”  Verse 3.  How?  How am I supposed to esteem the most ignorant and the poorest person in the church?  How am I supposed esteem them?  What does this verse say?  I am to esteem them how?  Better than myself.  Now that is quite something.  People question, “How can that be?”

Well, friends, if Jesus did not have a mind like that, you and I would be lost.  He was willing to die so that we might live.  He was willing to take our sins so that we could have His righteousness.  He was willing to suffer so that we might not have to suffer.  He was willing to experience death so that we could experience life.  He esteemed us better than Himself.

“Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”  Verses 4, 5.  So, what is the essence or the root of sin?  It is living for yourself, or we say selfishness.  That is the root of sin.  That is what is in our minds that must come out.                                                                                  

We read in Hebrews 9:14, 15 that Jesus came and died so that He might cleanse the conscience.  What does He have to cleanse the conscience of?  This selfishness.  That is what has to come out.  And instead of me being controlled by selfishness, what has to be written in my mind instead in the new covenant?  Hebrews 10:16 says, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them.”  What does it mean to have God’s Law written in your mind?  What is the basis of God’s Law?

Jesus sums it all up for you in Matthew 22:36–39: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?  Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is [the] first and great commandment.  And [the] second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”  Now notice verse 40: “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” 

What is the basic principle of the law?  It is just the opposite of selfishness.  Selfishness is when you love yourself.  The basic principle of the law is that you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.  You see it is just the opposite of selfishness.

When Paul tried to describe what love was, in I Corinthians 13, he said that it “does not seek its own.”  Verse 5.  It does not seek its own; it is not selfish.  That is what it means to have God’s Law written in your mind.  Selfishness is taken out, and God’s Law is written in your mind so that you love Him with all your heart and your soul and your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.  And friend, when that happens in your mind, the selfishness is out.  The whole universe can look on, and the angles that can read your thoughts can see that there is no selfish thought; there are no selfish words; there is no selfish action. You love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.  When that happens, then you are ready for Jesus to come.  That is what it means to be ready, because then, all the defilement is taken out.

Now, what is it that defiles?  It is selfishness; that is the root of all the sin.  Until you get the root out, you still have the problem.  “Well,” somebody says, “Pastor John, I did not know it was so easy!  You mean all I have to do is love God with all my heart, soul, and mind, and my neighbor as myself?”  Exactly!  That is all that it is.  That is the basis, Jesus said, of all the law and the prophets.  That is the basis of the Ten Commandments.

Let’s just think that through.  The first commandment is, “You should love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”  If I love God with all my heart, soul, and mind, would I start worshipping any other god at any time?  Would I?  Impossible!  There are the first two commandments right there.  You cannot break the first two commandments if you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind.  That is impossible. If you love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, would you speak His name in disrespect?  You do not even do that with your own parents—I hope.  So you would not break the third commandment.  If you love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind, and the Lord says to you, “Every week on the Sabbath I want to spend this time with you,” would you tell Him that you do not have time to spend with Him that day?  Would you tell Him that you will spend time with Him when you have time, or whenever you please, but not then?  Would you do that?  That is impossible.

Have you ever seen a young man and a young woman that were in love, but they cannot ever seem to find any time to talk to each other or be with each other—they just do not have time?  Have you ever seen something like that?  When that happens, you can generally figure that they are just about to break up.  It does not matter how close they have been.  If you love somebody, and they say to you, “I want to spend some time with you,” if you love them, you want to spend the time with them.  That is what the fourth commandment is all about.

God says, “You cannot be complete, if you spend all of your time just with the things of this world and doing your work.  You need to spend some time with Me.”  That will be true even in heaven, because even in heaven God’s people will gather to worship Him every Sabbath.  (See Isaiah 66.)  Do you suppose that there will be somebody in heaven that will say, “Lord, I do not have time to come on Sabbath?  I am in the middle of a project, and You are going to have to wait till next week”?  Do you suppose there is going to be somebody like that in heaven?  Well, I want to tell you, if that is a person’s attitude, they are not going to heaven, because they do not love God with all their heart, soul, and mind.

God can decide, by any one of the Ten Commandments, whether your heart has been changed.  You see, if you love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and the root of selfishness is taken out, you will keep the first four commandments.

But the second commandment Jesus said is, “You should love your neighbor as yourself.”  If you love your neighbor as yourself, would you honor your parents?  That is the fifth commandment.  Would you?  Well, you sure could not dishonor them, if you love them as yourself.  Would you want to dishonor yourself?  And how about the sixth commandment?  Could you love your neighbor as yourself and kill them?  Could you love your neighbor as yourself and run off with his wife?  That is the seventh commandment.  Could you love your neighbor and steal from him?  That is the eighth commandment.  Could you love your neighbor as yourself and deceive him?  That is the ninth commandment.  If you really love your neighbor as yourself, would you try to get something that belonged to him and not to you?  That is the tenth commandment.

See, if you break any one of those commandments, you do not love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus said the whole law hangs on these two principles.  What are the two principles that the law hangs on?  Loving God supremely and loving your neighbor as yourself.  Selfishness has to come out; that is what defiles you; that is what you have to be cleansed from.

Once you understand that, go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I want to be cleansed.  I do not want to be selfish anymore.  I do not want to live for myself anymore.  I want to love You with all my heart, soul, and mind, and my neighbor as myself.  That is what I want.”  Friend, if that is what you want and you go and pray to the Lord about it and give your heart to Him, that is what He wants.  He wants to take out the root of sin and put in your heart not just unselfishness but love for God and for your fellowmen.  And that is what will prepare you, so you will be ready when Jesus comes.

We talk with and preach to Seventh-day Adventists all over the world about the judgment, and we need to, because that is the message that God has given to us to take to the world.  The Bible says that we are going to be judged by our actions, because our actions show what is in our hearts.  There are many people that are petrified and terrified of the judgment.  They well should be, because if a change does not happen in their hearts, they are going to be condemned in the judgment.  But did you know that there are going to be some people that will have nothing to fear in the Day of Judgment?  Would you like to be in a condition so that you are ready for Jesus to come and you do not have to be afraid at all of the judgment? 

This is the way that can happen.  With what we have just been studying, you will be able to understand exactly how this works and why it is so.  “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.  God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.  Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness.” [that is, assurance] “in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.  But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”  I John 4:16–18.  The apostle John says that there will be some people that will have boldness; they will have assurance in the Day of Judgment.  They will have nothing to fear.  And who are they?  They are people that love has been perfected in their hearts.  The selfishness has been taken out, and they love God with all their hearts, souls, and minds, and they love their neighbor as themselves.  They have nothing to be afraid of in the judgment.

If that were your condition, if love has been perfected in you, what would your relationship be to the law?  I John 2:5 says, “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.  By this we know that we are in Him.”  Look also at the previous two verses: “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.  He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”  Verses 3, 4.  If you have the love of God in your heart, you will keep His commandments.  God’s love is perfected in the one that keeps His Word. 

So how are you going to be ready?  Jesus said it is going to happen as a surprise, so you need to be ready.  How can you be ready?  You cannot get ready when the surprise comes.  When the rain started to fall in Noah’s day it was too late to get ready.  They had to get ready before that.  Now is the time to get ready.  Now is the time for all the spots and wrinkles to come out of your character.  What is it that defiles you?  It is sin.  And what is the root problem of sin?  It is selfishness.  You are living for yourself.

Friends, there are so many people today that are depressed, that are in mental institutions, that are suffering all kinds of mental torment but that could be free if they could just learn this and start to live for somebody else instead of just living for themselves.  It is destructive living for self.  It can absolutely destroy you, your family, and people all around you.  But when the root of sin is taken out and we begin to live for somebody else; when we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, so we obey Him; and when we love our neighbor as ourselves, so we keep the last six commandments, a complete change happens inside.  As we start to practice what John says, and we “abide in Him”—that is, we stay in love—then we remain or continue in God, and we do not have to be afraid for the Day of Judgment.

If you do not want to have fear in the Day of Judgment, if you want to be ready, the way is to go to the Lord and say, “Lord, here I am.  All my righteousness is like filthy rags.  I cannot change my heart, but I know You can.”  We cannot change our hearts.  We might as well recognize that fact.  But Jesus died so that as we look to Him and when we see what He is like, something happens inside, and the root of sin, selfishness, starts to come out, and we start to live not for ourselves, but for somebody else.

Do you know why we have so much trouble in our homes, and why we have so much trouble in our churches, and why God’s people have so much trouble around the world?  It is because of selfishness.  We are so concerned about what somebody is doing—or not doing—or whatever to us, that that becomes our whole world.  We say that we want to be ready for Jesus to come, but friend, if we really want to be ready for Jesus to come, we had better ask the Lord to take the root of selfishness out of our hearts.  Then the concentration, the focus of our lives will be on somebody else and not ourselves, because if we focus on ourselves, we are lost, and we will never be saved.

Are you praying about this?  You need to be praying about this, saying, “Lord, I want the root of the sin problem to come out of my heart.  Help me to focus on what is good for somebody else and not worry about my own good and my own happiness and my own on, and on, and on.”  (You know we each have a long list for ourselves.)  We need to have a long list for other people, not be worried about ourselves.  That is the way Jesus was.  He spent His whole life ministering to other people.  Can you find any time that Jesus worked a miracle for Himself?  There is not any.  Every miracle He worked was for somebody else, and when He died on the cross, why did He do it?  Because He needed to?  No. If there had been any selfishness in Him, we would not be saved.  Let me tell you, friends, if there is any selfishness in us at the end, we will not be saved either.  It has got to come out.

We must love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves.  As the result of that, we will be perfectly obedient to God’s Law, because His Law will be written in our hearts.  What does it mean to have God’s Law written in your heart?  It means you love Him with all your heart, and you love your neighbor as yourself.  That is what it means to have God’s Law written in your heart, and that is the New Covenant promise.  We read it in Hebrews 10:16.  Do you want God to write His Law in your heart so you can go to heaven?

Do you know what the bliss and happiness in heaven really is?  Everybody up there is spending their full time trying to make other people—other intelligences—happy, full time.  What would happen if somebody got up there and he or she wanted to spend their full time making themselves happy?  That is the root of the sin problem; that would wreck it.  The Lord says, “That has already happened once, and that is not going to happen again.”  If you are going to be saved, if you are going to be ready for the surprise that is coming, the root has to come out.  The root of sin, the root of selfishness has to come out.  I want it to come out of my heart.

The devil makes a claim.  He does it all the time.  He says, “Oh, Lord, just look at your people.  There is nobody in the whole world that is not selfish.”  Are you going to prove the devil wrong, or are you going to prove him right?  Are you going to ask the Lord to take the root of sin out of your heart?  It has to come out, friends, if you are going to be saved.