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     1. It Is Truly Wonderful   (2:22)
     2. Being Changed Inwardly   (26:40)
     3. He’s a Wonderful Savior to Me, verse 2   (1:09)

II Peter 1:4.  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Galatians 2:20.  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

David says, “I wait upon the Lord because from Him cometh my salvation.”  Oh, that’s a wonderful thing!  Some people have an idea that to be saved means to have God fix a comfortable place for them in heaven.  That’s the idea they have!  “How could God ever let anybody go to hell?  Why, God is good, sure.  He’ll take people and just make a comfortable place for them in heaven so they can continue the dirty work.”  No, that isn’t God’s salvation.  He works—He changes. 

The choir sang a while ago, “It is truly wonderful what the Lord has done.”  And immediately I had in my mind a story that church history tells—the Roman Catholic Church history.  You know, that’s different from the real church history.  That’s full of legends, full of myths, full of fairy tales.  They tell how that Jesus when He was a little boy, He took clay and made sparrows out of them, and then He blew at them, and then they’d fly.  They believe that stuff.

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The Apostle Paul says, “I testify in the Lord that you don’t walk like other Gentiles walk anymore in the vanity of their minds.”  You’ve “put off the old man with his deeds,” and you’ve “put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”  Can you tell of a miracle like that in your life?  God has been working.  And how does He work?  Why, He sends the word of truth which “worketh effectually also in those that receive it.”  He said to the Thessalonians, “Everybody tells how you turned to God from idols”—not to church, not to an evangelist, or to some idea, but “you turned to the living and the true God, to serve Him.”

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Have I cooperated with God who says “nothing avails” before Him “but a new creature.”  A new creation: “Behold, I make all things new.”  Has God been operating on you?  Has He been working toward you to create a new nature in you?  And have you cooperated with Him?  Have you gotten down?  “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” and “he that exalteth himself shall be humbled.”  And God says, “They that honor Me I will honor.”  Are you cooperating with Jehovah?  Listen, it’s a hard job, but it means death to self.

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I know what I’m talking about.  I know that God did not let me advance; He didn’t let me go on.  I found out you cannot maintain the unction of the Holy Ghost—you cannot live a Spirit-filled life, and still be proud and conceited and sensitive and selfish and ambitious.

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When a minister complained to me that people were lying about him, I said, “You ought to be glad they don’t tell the truth about you!”  God tells you the truth, thank God!  He shines through and through.  There’s the X-ray of heaven that shows what’s on the inside.

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“That ye might be partakers of His divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”  Nobody escapes “the corruption that is in the world through lust.”  God pictures it.  He says, “There’s none righteous, no, not one.”  “Their throat is an open sepulcher.”  What comes out of their mouth is dead, is decaying.  “With their tongues they have used deceit.”  What a picture God gives! …  And nobody will escape “the corruption that is in the world through lust” until you recognize your condition, and you cry like Isaiah, “Woe is me!  I am undone!  I live among a people of unclean lips, and I’m a man of unclean lips.”

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But listen, “It’s truly wonderful what the Lord has done.”  Did He ever wash your mouth so you’re careful next time not to say the naughty word?  Does the Holy Spirit control?  That’s salvation.  Everything else is a farce.

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He visits us with “the exceeding greatness of His power.”  And someday, He shall change this “vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorified body” —and that “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”  And how can I be sure that it will happen to this body of mine?  I can only be sure if I submit to His changing power today and every day.  As He walks with me, as He talks with me, as He manifests the power of His resurrection, I can say, “I live no more.”  Oh, there’s salvation!

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Is God Almighty sanctifying you through His truth?  He’ll certainly do it.  He’ll certainly transform you, and oh, what a joy!  Beloved, it’s the truth; it isn’t a lie.  The world is following a pied piper of hell that promises them joy.  He blows his whistle, or his agony pipe, and all the rats come out of their holes, and all the mice.  And oh, what a parade!  Go down Fifth Avenue, go to Times Square and see what the devil employs in order to attract attention.  And oh, this fleshly “carnal mind is enmity against God”, and they’d rather believe the devil than God.

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How graciously my God gives us the truth so that “a fool need not err therein.”  But tell me, is He “sanctifying you through His truth”?  Are you escaping “the corruption that is in the world through lust”?  Half the people in this meeting wouldn’t stay here if God Almighty put on a screen the corruption they live in.

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A fable about switching the heads of two donkeys.  “You know, God does more wonderful things than that.  The Apostle Paul says, ‘I testify in the Lord that you don’t walk like other Gentiles walk anymore in the vanity of their minds.’”    (from 1:20)

It is Truly Wonderful, a hymn by Barney E. Warren, 1897.

Date: In the last two minutes of the sermon there is a quote from “the new Bread of Life” magazine: “We cannot say that God will protect us if we are too easy about our spiritual lives, can we?”  If that issue could be found, it would place this recording.

Audio Quality: Fair