No preacher knows when he is going to preach his last sermon and no person who goes to church knows when they are going to listen to the last sermon, so we each one need to pray that every one of these opportunities that we get the maximum spiritual benefit.

I had something all prepared to talk to you about today, quite a while ago I prepared it, and I do want to talk to you about it sometime because it is a very important subject and I have stated recently to audiences I have spoken to that I believe that as we draw closer and closer to the end that Adventist preachers are going to spend more and more time on this subject. And it is a practical understanding of what the cleansing of the sanctuary means and it is all about. And I believe that is very important.

I had intended to talk to you today about this, but I do not just pick sermons and preach them. I do a lot of praying when I am deciding what I am going to talk about. So as I was praying and thinking, I decided, actually I told somebody already what I want to preach to you tonight is to give you a word of encouragement.

But I need to give you a warning first. Somebody says, "Why do you need to get a warning if you are going to get a world of encouragement?" Because what I am going to talk to you about is only a word of encouragement if you have faith. If you do not have faith, you are going to get scared to death, I can assure you. But if you have faith, it is like a lot of things in the Bible, if you have faith to just believe what God said, what we are going to talk about it really exciting and very encouraging. Now this subject could be presented in relation to the cleansing of the sanctuary, which is actually a bigger topic.

If you have your Bible I would like to invite you to open it to 2 Peter 1. For those of you here who have come into the Christian faith recently and are studying your Bible, as we get started let me just give you a tip that will help you as you are studying your Bible, reading your Bible. To understand what you are reading in your Bible, you need to notice the context of the verse. Now context is a very big word. It has to do with the time it was written and the place, but most of all it has to do with who it was written to. I will give you a couple of examples. In the book of Ephesians you have some of the most wonderful promises in all the New Testament. And for somebody who is discouraged, I heard an Adventist preacher say one time, he said, "If I didn't have any of the Bible and I had lost my religious liberty, lost my freedom and lost everything," he said, "if I just had the book of Ephesians, I think I could make it." And I thought that if that was the case, I had better memorize that book. However, everything in the book of Ephesians has a context. Do you know who the book of Ephesians was written to? It was written to the holy people, that is the saints, in Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. See it does not apply to everybody. You have to meet that category if you want those promises because that is who it is written to.

The same is true of the book of Revelation. We go over this quite a bit in our prophecy seminar. There is a tremendous confusion today about the book of Revelation. Have you noticed that? You hear people preaching on the radio about the book of Revelation and they are absolutely so mixed up you say, "How can somebody get that mixed up?" Do you know who the book of Revelation was written to? It was written to the servants of Jesus Christ. Do you know who a servant is? A servant is somebody who is obedient. And if you are not a servant of Jesus Christ, you will never understand it.

Now, 2 Peter is written to somebody. Let's see who it is written to. 2 Peter 1:1, "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us. . ." Who is the us? That was the apostles. Peter was one of the apostles. And he said, "I'm writing this to you and you have obtained the same faith that we have." This was the faith of the apostolic church. Do you have the faith of the apostolic church? If you do, then this book is for you.

By the way, Ellen White says in the book Great Controversy that the religion of these early Christians was a terror to evil-doers. If your faith is not a terror to evil-doers, you do not have the same kind of faith these people had. That is something we need to study sometime. What was the faith of the early Christian church? And this is who this book is written to and if you have the same faith they had, it says, "to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." He says, grace, and those of you who have heard me speak here in the past know that grace is one of my favorite topics in the Bible. And here he says grace is going to be multiplied to you. By the way, in the Bible grace always comes first and peace always comes next. If you look in your Bible, you will never find the order reversed. Grace comes first and peace is the result of grace. You never have peace until you have grace first. Grace and peace be multiplied to you, but how is it that it is going to happen? Did you notice? "In the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." There is some knowledge involved if you want grace and peace multiplied to you.

If you will turn back to Matthew 11, you will find there is only one way that has been offered to the people in this world to gain a knowledge of God. There is just one way. There are not two or three ways, there is just one way. And when the Jews rejected that one way, it was all over. They were lost because there was no other way provided or as I have expressed it sometimes, there is no spare tire in the system of salvation. It is made to work this way and there is no alternate way. There is no spare tire.

Now look in Matthew 11:27, "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and [the one] to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." There is only one way to know God and that is through His Son, Jesus Christ.

By the way, there are religions in the world that do not respect Jesus Christ, but they say, "We worship the one God." Well I want to tell you, the one God they worship is not the right one. Because the Bible says that is impossible. You cannot know the Father and not know the Son. That is impossible. The only way you can find out about the Father is through the Son. That is what Jesus taught. You can see the same thing, by the way, in many other places. For example, John 1:18 says approximately the same thing, but not as distinctly as this verse. So if you want to know God, if you would like to have grace and peace, you must know the Son.

By the way, do people need grace and peace today? Let me tell you, when I visit in people's homes, Christian homes as well as non-Christian homes, I feel that there are people in lots of trouble and they need peace inside. You have to have peace on the inside before you can have peace on the outside. And this grace and this peace can come into your heart, if it comes into the heart of the husband and it comes into the heart of the wife, then they are going to have peace in their home. And it comes through the knowledge of God.

And the only way you can have a knowledge of God is through Jesus. And so, look what Jesus says then, since that is the only way there is, there is no other way, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle," Do you like that? "and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy," or more literally translated, My yoke is kind. "My burden is light." The people who translated the Bible could not figure out how a yoke could be kind so the best they could figure out was easy, which is a good translation. Jesus says, "Come to Me." What is going to happen if you come to Him? Oh, Peter says, from the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ you are going to have grace and peace and it is going to be multiplied to you.

Oh friend, what I am going to say now is sad, but it is just reality, you think it over to yourself and see if you don't think it is sad, isn't sad if it is possible for us to have grace and peace multiplied to us that we do not have it? Isn't that awful? Well, somebody says, "I have so many heart sorrows and I have so many burdens and there is no one who understands my situation." And that is the truth. That is why you need to go to the One who does understand your situation because nobody else does understand your situation. That is the truth.

Many times when I am visiting people they tell me something to the effect that, "I am going through a problem right now and you really can't understand it." And I have to say, "Yes, that's true. I really can't understand it." But I want to tell you friends, there is Someone who does understand it. And the counsel that Jesus gives to us, you know in any part of your natural body, if your toe is in trouble, if your hand is in trouble or any part of your body is in trouble, immediately an electric current sends a message to the brain, to the mind. There is a lesson in that, by the way. The mind is going to know what to do for any part of the body that is in trouble. It will give instructions. The rest of the body does not know what to do, but the mind knows what to do.

Now what is the lesson in that? Let me read it to you from Review and Herald, May 26, 1904, "He who by faith daily lays hold firmly upon the invisible One, will reveal the character of Jesus. With lowliness of heart he will accept Christ's invitation to the weary and the heavy laden. Instead of unloading his burdens upon his neighbor, with whose heart-sorrows and burdens he is unacquainted. . ." You see the other person that you are unloading on, you do not even know the trials they are going through. They may have some heavy burden already and they are about to collapse and now you are unloading more. Instead of doing that, "he will seek rest by taking upon himself the yoke of Christ. Let us abide in Jesus. Then he alone - formed within, the hope of glory - will appear in our every word and deed."

Again in this same article, further down, she says, "When we are in trouble, let us go to him instead of to some defective human being. We have a friend in Jesus, and we are without excuse for placing upon our brethren and sisters the burdens that our Saviour alone is able to bear for us." So, do you want to have grace, do you want to have peace and do you want to have it multiplied? Where are you going to go? If you go to Jesus, He says, "Come and learn from Me." and as you learn from Him, as you gain knowledge of Him, you will know the Father and grace and peace will be multiplied to you.

And friend, the letters and telephone calls that I get reveal to me that, throughout Adventism today, we need this grace and peace that God wants to give to us. And so often we are tempted, I think we all have this temptation at least I will say that I do, we are tempted when we are in trouble we think, "Oh, I've got to call this one or that one and talk to them and get this off my chest." And so we gotta unload it on somebody. Who are they going to unload on? There is somebody, friends, who can bear the load. And if you go to Him, He will give you grace and peace. Now please do not misunderstand. I am not saying that we should never counsel with a human being. I am not saying that. But friend, if you have a spiritual problem, you need Divine help because a human being can solve an accounting problem, they can solve those kinds of problems, but if you have a spiritual problem in your home or in your church or wherever it is you have a spiritual problem, a human being cannot solve those kinds of problems. The only thing they can do, if they are a spiritual person, they can lead you to the person who can show you and solve it for you, but they themselves cannot solve it.

What does the Lord want to do for you and what has He provided for you? Look back again at 2 Peter 1:3. This is so wonderful that you could not believe it if it was not in the Bible, but it is in the Bible. It says, "As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue." How much has He given to us? Everything. All things. Let's think this through. If God has given me all things that pertain unto life, if He has promised me grace and peace, is it really excusable for me to spend my time unloading all my troubles on my neighbors? You want me to read to you what Ellen White said about that? She said if we unload all our troubles upon our neighbors "are we not thus insulting God?" He is the one who can help you. "Is not this why there is among us so much spiritual feebleness. Why do we not take everything to the Lord in prayer. He stands at the head of humanity enabling men through His sacrifice to become partakers of the divine nature, to lay hold upon infinite power that will transform them into the likeness of the divine."

And this is what the good news is all about. Sometimes people come to Adventist preachers and they say, "Oh, what you're teaching and what you're preaching, I can't do it. It's impossible." Now the reason it is impossible is because they do not have faith and they do not know what the promises are. The promises are that we have been provided all things, everything that we need. And look at the next verse [2 Peter 1:4], "By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." You and I can become partakers of the divine nature through the promises if we choose to accept that by faith and ask the Lord to work it out in our life. This provides for a miracle to happen in my character development.

Now I want you to notice He is talking about character development. He is not talking just about faith. He is talking about character development and I want you to see how closely he unites character development with having eternal life. Notice what he says in the next verses [5-9], "But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." He is writing, by the way, here to people who have obtained like faith as himself. That was in the first verse. So who are these people? These are baptized Christians.

Now when you are baptized, you make a public confession to the whole world that you have forsaken your sins and you are to arise in newness of life.

Paul explains that in Romans 6. But Peter says if you do not climb this ladder, if you do not add to your faith moral excellence, to moral excellence knowledge, if you do not climb this ladder, you have forgotten that you were cleansed from your own sins. You are not walking up the path. You have forgotten what happened at your baptism. And then he says in verse 10, "Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble."

You see, in cooperation with Christ we each one of us are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians 2:12, 13. Doing the works He bids us to do. We are to become meek and lowly and trials will come to us, but we are to learn to depend completely upon Him for grace and for guidance. We are to learn to live as in the presence of Christ because profession of character only comes through the gift of His righteousness. He says here in verse 4 that we are to become partakers of the divine nature. Have you tried to comprehend or meditate or think through in your mind what it would, what does it mean, to become a partaker of the divine nature? A partaker of the divine nature. What does the word nature have to do with?

This has been a matter of debate among Adventists for a long time. You have all heard of the debate over the nature of Christ. When you talk about the nature of anybody, what are we talking about? What does it mean to become a partaker of the divine nature? Let's talk in terms of the nature of Christ because that is what Adventists are used to, shall I say, debating about, when you talk about the sinful nature what are we talking about? You have a propensity for sin and a propensity to say or do something that is wrong. Is that right? If you talk about a sinless nature, what are you talking about? A person with a sinless nature will have some propensity because he has a nature, so what is his natural thing to do? Obey the law of God. If you have a sinless nature, or a holy nature, your propensity is to do, speak, think, write holy things. Is that right?

So, now let's make it very practical, if I am partaking of the divine nature, will that affect, first of all, the way I think and as a result of that will it affect it the way I speak? Now I am going to give something to you. I am going to need the help of a couple of people. I do not know if I have enough for every single person here. I only made about 40 of these, but I have enough for at least one per family. Can I get a couple, let's just pass these out.

When I was studying this subject this last week, I am a very simple Christian, I just read what it says in the inspired writings and then I decide to do it. And I read that Ellen White said that we should take a pledge. She said that we needed to take this pledge just as much as needed to have a pledge against the use of intoxicating liquor. And if the Lord tells me to pledge something, then God is going to help me fulfill that pledge. And this is what the Lord has told us to take. This is the paraphrase that comes from Review and Herald, May 26, 1904, from a paragraph where she says we should take this pledge. I paraphrased what it said in the first part. It says, "I choose to guard against speaking words that discourage and resolve never to engage in evil speaking and backbiting. I choose to refuse to serve Satan by implanting seeds of doubt. I choose to guard against cherishing unbelief or expressing it to others." The pledge is, "I solemnly promise to speak only those words that are pleasing to God choosing to discipline the tongue by disciplining the mind for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

Now here is what is so exciting about this. If I just thought this up then you could say, "Well Pastor John, you're asking me to do something impossible." But I did not think this up. This is what God inspired His messenger to the remnant church to tell us to do and if I decide that I am going to do this, guess what? A miracle is going to start happening in my life. Now if you do not have faith, this is the most scary thing in the world. How are you ever going to promise that you are never going to speak words, that you are only going to speak words that are pleasing to God. How would you ever do that? I do not know how. All I know is that God says make the pledge. And if God tells me to make the pledge, He is going to help me to fulfill the pledge because remember every command is a promise. It says that in Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, 76.

This is not between you and me. You do ever need to show this to me. You can just put it in your pocket. Let me tell you something. Now this is true locally. I could prove it to you, but I am not going to try to prove it because I am not going to break confidence with the people who have told me. But let me tell you something. Do you know that all over, here and other places, there are homes that are breaking up that if people signed a pledge like this and followed it, it would heal their marriage problems just about over night? Fast! There is divine power in this because God has said to do it and when you choose to do something that God says to do, you are going to have divine power come into your life and help you to do it. If you want to have an exciting week this next week, read this over. Go home and get down on your knees and say, "Lord, You told me to do this. I may never have done it before one day in my whole life, but You told me to do it and I'm choosing to do it. And I'm going to sign my name. You told me to take the pledge, I'm taking the pledge. I'm depending on You to give me the power."

Let me read you the promise in the very next paragraph after she talks about this. She says, "Through the help that Christ can give, we shall be able to learn to bridle the tongue." Now we cannot do it. The Bible says in James 3 that no human being can tame the tongue. That is impossible for you or me or any human being. It says so in the Bible. But that does not matter. It is impossible for human beings to walk on water, too, but when Jesus told Peter to get down and do it, he did it. I know it is impossible, but it is exciting if you know that God said to do it and therefore, He will give you the power to do it.

Oh friend, you know if you follow this, think what could happen in your home. Think what could happen where you work. Think what could happen with all the people you have contact with. By the way, if this was done and we started climbing this Peter's ladder every day. . .I found something that was, I should have figured this out years ago, but I did not. I used to try to concentrate on one at a time and I found out Ellen White says we are to climb this whole ladder every day. Some of us who try to walk up one step a day, that is not enough. You are to climb the whole ladder every day. And do you know what would happen if we would do that? She says, this scripture that we have studied 2 Peter 1:1-10, Ellen White says that when that is fulfilled, when that scripture actually comes to pass in the church, she says we are going to have conversions like we had in the Day of Pentecost. Would you like to see that happen again?

Oh friend, I have been praying, I have forgotten how many years now, but I have been praying for a long time that some way that something like what happened in the 16th century in the Reformation can happen again before the end of the world. I do not know what you have been praying about. You know, when Martin Luther preached 50 million people walked out of the Catholic church? I do not know how the Lord is going to finish the work or what is going to happen, but I want to tell you, we have been promised that when we are living out what we have been studying about in these first ten verses here in 2 Peter, that there are going to be hundreds and thousands of people converted like in the Day of Pentecost. You see God cannot do it yet. Why? Here is why. She tells us why. She says, "Little do we realize the prevalence of evil among those who claim to be Christians." That is the problem. God cannot bring many people into the church now.

"Oh," some people think, "if we had enough money, if we had enough advertising, if we had enough of this and this. . ." Friends, now matter how much resources we have, if we do not have the change inside the Lord wants to give us, it is not going to work. I do not know about you, you can take your time, go home and talk to the Lord about it in prayer, I would not want you to do anything rashly before you talk to the Lord about it, but let me tell you, this is divine counsel and I want to invite you to decide to have a miracle in your life. I want a miracle in my life.

Peter says here in 2 Peter 1:10, we read it, "Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble." There are some people who are concerned about predestination. Have you ever met one of those? And they say, "Who is the elect?" Well, here is who the elect are. In fact, this is the only election that you will find in the Bible. The elect are the people who follow these instructions. Peter says, "If you do this, you make your calling and election sure. You will be part of God's elect." Oh friend, the good news is that not one person needs to fail of having everlasting life. And when I found that out, I was so happy. You know why I was so happy? Because I knew that if not one person needed to fail of having eternal life, then I knew I was included.

And friend, you are included and do not ever say, "I am so wicked that the Lord cannot save me." Do not let the devil convince you of that, friends, that is not true. That is not true. If you choose to learn daily of Jesus, no matter how bad your past has been, no matter what you have done or no matter how vile you have been, the Lord can save you. This is the plan. Follow the instructions. He says if you do these things you will never stumble, "for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Now, He says an entrance will be provided for you abundantly. This is your life insurance contract. If you follow these instructions we have been reading in the first ten verses, Peter says, "If you do this, you're not going to stumble, you're not going to fall, you're going to have an entrance and it's going to be abundant. You won't just squeak through, you're going to have an abundant entrance into the kingdom."

Now this is not a life insurance policy that somebody else is going to get when you die. That is what they write down here in this world. This is a divine life insurance policy. This is a life insurance policy that insures you are going to have eternal life if you follow these instructions. This is the contract, this is the agreement. Peter says if you follow these instructions, that is why he says, "As long as I'm here, I know that I am going to be put to death soon as the Lord has told me, but as long as I am here, I'm not going to be negligent to keep on reminding you about this." You can read that here in verses 12-15. The apostle Peter said, "As long as I am alive. . ." he knew that he was going to crucified soon. The Lord told him so. You can read the prophecy in John 21. He knew that very soon he was going to be crucified. But he said, "As long as I'm here, I'm going to keep reminding you about this."

Why? Because, friend, this is not just true for preacher it is true for every single one of us, we are our brother's keeper. And friends, we have obligations to each other. Every person that I deal, every person that you deal with, is a soul.

I want to say this as kindly and gently as I can, but just to tell you the truth, every single person that we deal with has a soul that is going to go to hellfire or to heaven. It is just that simple. They are going to go one place or the other. There is no limbo in between. They are going to one place or the other. And Peter said that as long as he was here he was going to keep reminding us of this. Why? Because he wanted us to gain an entrance into the kingdom. And you can if you follow these instructions.

We are to help one another to gain perfection of character. As we follow these instructions, that is the divine promise. As we walk up the ladders we are to add to our faith moral excellence, we are to go right up the ladder every day. Ellen White said, "To this end, we are to cease all criticism. Onward and still onward we may advance toward perfection, until at last there will be ministered unto us an abundant entrance into the heavenly kingdom." Oh friend, do you want it?

A few years ago when I was reading for the first the book Upward Look, there was a statement on pg. 163 that caught my attention so much I have never forgotten it. In fact, I have used it many, many times in counseling other people. She said, "In heaven no unpleasant words are spoken." Would you like to be in a place where there are no unpleasant words spoken? Would you? Not even from you? You know what? The people who go up there when Jesus comes are going to be people, who before that time, have learned to talk like they talk up there. I want to learn, how about you?

"Oh," somebody says, "you have to rebuke sin." Jesus rebuked sin. I want to learn to do it the way He did it. Somebody says, "Well, you have to warn people." I believe that. That is the loving thing to do. I want to learn to warn people the way the angels and Jesus warned people. We are not talking about not facing reality. But in heaven no unpleasant words are spoken. What could happen in our homes if we learned to speak like heaven? If we start putting this into practice?

What could happen? Let me tell you one thing that would happen. The Adventists pastors all over the world would quite spending the thousands of hours they are spending right now trying to counsel people to mend their broken marriages. That is one of the things that would happen just right away. We would start spending time in evangelism more than we are now. All over the world. Because what I am talking about is a world-wide problem. Why do they never speak unpleasant words in heaven? Why? She tells us why on that very same page. Because, "no unkind thoughts are cherished."

Friend, it is so easy, let me tell you what the devil is trying to do. The devil is trying to get you to try and concentrate on my character defects and get me to concentrate on your character defects and to get that so big in our minds that pretty soon we just pour forth a torrent of words. If we are not going to speak unpleasant words, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, first we must not cherish unkind thoughts. I do not claim to come up to the standard, but I am determined by the grace of God to reach it. How about you? I want a change in my tongue and to have a change in my tongue I know that I have a change in my mind and in my spirit. And I am determined by the grace of God that what He says can be done can be done in my life because He does not respect people. He is willing to do it for me and He is willing to do it for you, if we are willing.

Do you think that it would be appropriate before we left here this evening for us to have a season of prayer and ask the Lord to help us to come up to the mark and walk right up to the top of Peter's ladder so that we have a change in the way we think and the way we speak and the way we act? Do you think that would be appropriate? And from what we have studied tonight, right out of the Bible, I hope that nobody can ever deceive you by telling that your character does not matter on whether you have salvation, just believe and everything would be alright. We did not get into the new theology tonight, but I hope that just from what we read in the Bible that nobody could ever deceive you on that point. It is too plain! But I want the change in my mind that will result in a change in my tongue, that will result in a change in my behavior. I want it. And if you want it, too, I am just simple enough to believe that if we pray, the Lord will answer our prayer, if we are sincere. Do you think He will?

Do you think if we get in little groups tonight and pray before we go and give everybody who wants to an opportunity to pray, do you think God will answer our prayer? I think He will. Let's get into groups of two or three. I will remind you again that the reason I like groups of two or three is that I do not believe in wearing our children out with our religion. And so if there are four, it takes longer for four people to prayer than for two or three, so if there are four people in a group, you can just split up into groups of two and if we get into little groups of two or three, let's ask the Lord to bring this change about in our life and tell Him that we are willing to cooperate. We are willing to do our part. We are determined to do our part, but after we are determined we still have to have a divine in our life or it will not happen. So let's pray about that and start seeing miracles happen in our lives.

Let's just scatter out all over the room here, in little groups of two or three. By the way, no one is forced to pray. If you are timid, you are not forced to pray. But if you desire to, you are free to pray. Let's get in little groups of two or three and after everyone has had an opportunity to pray, I am going to ask Bob vun Kannon if you would come up here and offer a benediction for us after everyone has had an opportunity to pray who desires to. Let's get in little groups of two or three and let's seek the Lord in prayer and seek for this miracle to happen.