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The second chapter of Hebrews, first few verses,
one through three.
Now folks, I can't take this out of
my Bible.
It's in your Bible, and we face it
lovingly.
Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest
heed to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should let them
slip.
For if the word spoken by angels was
steadfast, then every transgression, disobedience received just recompense
of reward.
How shall we escape if we neglect so
great salvation, which at first began to be
spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto
us by them that heard it?
God also bearing them witnesses both with signs
and wonders, with diverse miracles and gifts of
the Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, according to his
own will.
In verse three, I want to focus on
how shall we escape if we neglect so
great salvation, which at the first began to
be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed
unto us by them that heard him?
These words came directly from Christ.
Heavenly Father, I pray for mercy and wisdom,
for unction, for strength, for anointing.
Lord, this is a message you spoke to
me personally, that this had to be something
that I see, something that I lay on
my desk and read from the rest of
my life, that I will turn to this
and remind myself and remember the loving warnings
of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, we rejoice in your promises.
We rejoice in the security of our salvation.
We rejoice in these things, but we also
accept through grace.
We accept the loving reminders and warnings of
the Holy Spirit.
Lord, how faithful, what a wonderful act of
mercy and grace that you would come to
us and just show us.
Out of your grace and out of your
love and mercy, you would just say, look
at this, remember this.
Here's what I have to say to you
because I love you.
Lord, speak through love this morning, we pray.
But Lord, let us not bypass the tremendous
things that God wants to reveal to us
by his word and by his spirit.
We pray in Christ's name.
Amen.
Now, as you know, the last four or
five years I've traveled all over the world.
And I observe and I watch and I
listen.
And in the past four years, especially, I've
seen a spiritual evil tsunami, so to speak.
I've seen waves of apathy come to sweep
over the Church of Jesus Christ.
I saw it in Sweden.
I prophesied about it.
I've seen it in Australia.
I've seen it in New Zealand.
I've seen it in the United States.
We see entire denominations drifting away from the
truth of their founding fathers.
The church that I grew up in, the
denomination that I grew up in, the Pentecostal
denomination, such great prayer warriors who were always
thinking about the coming of the Lord, preaching
about the coming of Christ.
And there wasn't much money.
There wasn't a lot of prosperity.
But there was such a hunger and such
a thirst.
And even as a child, I would go
to these meetings and be stricken by the
Holy Spirit and such power.
I was called to preach at the age
of eight in one of those meetings where
the Spirit of God would so fill the
house.
Now, folks, we have that here at Times
Square Church and we thank God for it.
There are other churches all over the United
States that have what we enjoy here.
We're not the only one enjoying the sweet
presence of Christ and the moving of the
Holy Spirit.
But, folks, there's something happening all over the
world.
There is a spirit of apathy.
There's a drifting away from Christ, from the
desire for this kind of glory, the desire
for the nearness of Jesus.
A few times that I have not been
in this pulpit and have traveled and had
a Sunday off and I go and I'm
hungry.
I've done that on three or four occasions
the last two years and I go so
hungry.
And I said, I want to I want
to see I want to hear something from
the Lord.
And I've watched them coming in to the
meetings with such sloth, with their cokes in
hand and their Danish and all through the
preaching, drinking their cokes and eating their Danish
and such irreverence.
And then I watched and listened to a
15, 20 minute little lecture about how to
to prosper on your job, how to raise
your children, which is fine.
And we need all these principles and thank
God for it.
But then at 12 sharp, we we watched
them run to their cars and it's a
race to get out of the parking lot.
And folks, we have warnings all through the
Bible that it's possible for those who who
are at present near to the Lord, those
who yearn and hunger for him, that it's
possible to drift, it's possible to neglect this
great salvation.
You'll find these Bible warnings to devoted people.
This passage I just read to you was
not written to sinners, was written to devoted
men and women of God, to the true
church of Jesus Christ from the heart of
Christ himself.
How should we escape if we we God's
people, if you, David Wilkerson, who testifies that
it was through prayer and devotion to the
Lord that you received a call at an
early age, you who fast and pray and
seek God, you who have been used of
God in a measure?
How will you escape if you neglect this
great work that God has done, if you
drift away from what God has laid on
your heart and the obligations and the personal
responsibilities to maintain the fire of the Holy
Spirit in the soul?
These are powerful warnings from the scripture.
Awake, thou that sleepest.
These are in the word.
The scripture says it's high time to wake
up to sleep.
For now, our salvation has come nearer than
when we first believed.
Paul, the apostle, warns.
And this was right after the outpouring of
Holy Spirit.
Some have become wanton against Christ.
Some are already turned aside after Satan.
But this morning, my concern is not the
drifting in the church of Jesus Christ or
the or the backs of the church.
I'm not focused on the apathy that I've
seen and heard by pastors who come to
me like the one pastor said.
In fact, I can read that he's in
the last few years.
I've never seen the level of trouble, discouragement,
relationship problems, financial stress.
The more I prayed and sought God about
these problems in the church, the more they
increased.
I came to a place of just quitting
the ministry.
I'll never leave Christ.
But things are so difficult now.
We get by e-mails.
We get them by letters from all over
the world.
The same thing.
There's there's a there's a tremendous falling away
from.
I know missionaries who spent years on the
mission field, marvelously used.
I remember one missionary couple had communion every
day, husband and wife, a powerful testimony.
And in their latter day, he died.
She came home and I watched and heard
that one woman who was one of the
spiritual missionary heroes of mine, just sit in
front of a television and waste her spiritual
life and become absolutely dead until her grandson
knelt by her chair and said, I'm you
were my hero.
I was going to serve Christ.
But if this is how you end up,
if this is how the fire dies, I
want nothing with your Jesus.
I want nothing to do with it.
And he backslid and went to college.
You see, none of us.
If you sit here this morning, think I
could never drift.
I could never neglect this great salvation.
Scripture says, take heed when you think you
stand.
Next, you fall doesn't mean from your salvation,
but it means I'm not saying that isn't
possible.
I'm saying the fall away from steadfastness is
what Paul is speaking on.
He himself had a concern.
Now, you can interpret this any way you
want.
But Paul said, I bring my body under
this under any account or in some way,
after having preached to others, I myself to
become a cast away.
He's not talking about losing his salvation.
Paul's never had a thought of that.
But he is saying there is something that
he's entertaining in his mind, a possibility that
he could lose this fire, this vision that
in the end he would just Peter out.
He would just inflame out, not going to
hell, but not having not being useful in
the service of God, not being fruitful.
Paul's life was all about bearing fruit.
It was about having the life of Christ
pouring into other lives.
And he dreaded the very thought, the very
thought that I'm going to keep my body
under.
I'm going to lay hold of the promises
of God and trust the Holy Spirit.
The one who's called me will keep me
by his grace.
Now, I'm secure in my salvation, but I
take heed to these godly men.
There's a law of the there's a law
of nature that interprets the law of the
spirit.
I'll say that one more time.
There's a law of nature that interprets the
law of the spirit.
Jesus, the scripture says, I think the Romans
first chapter speaking about those who claim they
haven't heard about God.
And in that chapter, he's talking about homosexuality.
And he said that which could be known
of God was clearly manifested to them through
the things that are seen or created.
And if you remember all through the scripture,
what did Jesus say?
Remember the ravens, consider the birds, can all
of these considerations that Jesus mentions the scripture.
Paul's talking about remember the oxen that shredded
out the corn.
And he said, go to the anthill sluggard
in the Old Testament.
In other words, look at nature, see how
nature illustrates spiritual lessons.
Let me give you an example how the
law of nature interprets the law of the
Holy Spirit.
I was reading a Christian biologist in the
last few weeks, Britain, probably 150 years ago.
And he was talking about a fish that's
in the Mammoth Cays in Kentucky.
There's a great underground lake in that.
It's it's it's pitch dark down there, of
course, except the electricity where they take shines
for take the tour groups through it.
But there's a fish that is living in
that that has evolved over the years.
At first, it was a multicolored fish and
had good eyes.
But over time, preferring darkness rather than the
light, something happened.
The fish turned blanched white and biologists took
one of those fish out of Mammoth Cave
Lake and dissected the eyes.
They're in this white head.
There are two black eyes look like perfect
eyes.
But when they're dissected, they prove to be
fake.
The optic nerve died and all of the
sight was taken from it.
Nature accommodated for a lack of exercise because
there was no need because of the preference
for darkness rather than light.
This fish lost its vision and goes about
the lake freely, bumping into objects.
And the total nervous system did.
There's just a thin piece of thread left
that once was light, which was alive.
That explains something of the holy of the
spirit of the living God and how the
Holy Spirit is.
There's a law.
What you don't use, you lose.
What you don't lose, you're going to use.
And the Bible makes it clear.
Neglect causes deterioration.
Neglect the gift of God.
Neglect prayer.
I know that can happen to me.
It can happen to anyone who comes to
church and has only auditorium religion.
We have masses who have just auditorium religion,
come to church and want to suck the
life out of those meetings and get enough
to see them through.
You have to have a personal experience, your
own prayer life, your own walk with God
in this world.
You have to have it.
You can't get it just in the auditorium.
You have to be exercising the faculties of
faith.
You have to be exercising your spiritual arms
and your legs.
Psalms, I'll just read it to you.
Psalm 55.
You see, there are a lot of people
that drift away from Christ because they're simply
weary of the struggle, weary of the battle
of life.
And it's not that they're giving up on
Christ, but they're giving up on the struggle.
They can't handle it anymore.
Some people just plain tired.
They are tired of the trouble, tired of
the financial stress.
They are weary.
They are worn out.
And they want to escape.
They don't want to be so intense for
Christ.
I hear it from that.
I just read it to you from a
pastor who said, the more I prayed, the
more trouble I saw.
Yes.
We can't promise you from the word anything
other than that.
Nor could Paul, the apostle, nor did Christ
himself.
He said, we're going to suffer just as
he suffered.
But it's in that struggle we meet Christ.
It's in that struggle we become strong.
Christ meets you in the fiery furnace.
He meets you in the lion's den.
He meets you in the sinking boat.
He meets you in the storm.
He meets you in the hard place.
That's where the revelation of Christ is.
But you see, we get tired of the
struggle.
We say, who needs it?
I don't need this.
Look around all those around me.
They don't struggle.
They seem to be able to just flow
through their Christian life and their Christian walk.
Everything seems to be fine.
Their bills are paid.
They're happy.
And everybody's smiling.
Well, I'm not going to knock that.
I'm not going to try to explain it.
But I will tell you, if you're going
to seek the face of God and you're
going to be avid in this word, you're
going to be tested.
You're going to be tried.
And it's going to be that way.
So settle in and know that you may
not see this strength, but you are growing.
You are growing wings to fly over.
And the Lord is going to come skipping
over the mountains, the Bible said.
From mountain to mountain, come skipping.
David was that way.
You remember what he said.
My heart is sore pained in me.
The terrors of death are fallen upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me.
Horror has overwhelmed me.
And I said, oh, that I had wings
like a dove.
For then I'd fly away and be at
rest.
Lo, I'd wander far off and I'd stay
in the wilderness.
I would hasten my escape from this storm.
You know, I want to get away.
I make an easier way.
I can't handle it anymore.
Who needs it?
You see the Bible.
Let me put it.
The church.
Is it a perfect storm?
This is a perfect storm.
Never in history has there been such when
they call perfect storm where everything is affected
in our life.
Every single thing.
Let me let me tell you the danger
of wanting to escape.
And take the easy path.
Folks, that's a very dangerous place to be
where you may not say it, but the
thoughts are in your planted in your heart,
your mind.
Why be so intense?
Because I I go from one trouble to
another.
And there are some of you here are
in it over your head.
You are you have never been so tested.
You it's beyond your comprehension and you're just
staggered.
You are absolutely staggered.
What's going on?
And deep in your heart, you love Christ.
But you say, why go on like this?
I don't get an answer.
I am struggling like I've never struggled before.
You see, even in your struggle, you have
to.
You have to go for the resources you
have.
There has to be fertilizer, so to speak.
Let me just put it from my heart.
In this time of testing, we have a
tendency to hide from the Lord.
We have a tendency to leave our prayer
closet.
We have we have a tendency to just
to just go in inward, look inward and
say this is enough.
Maybe just sit in front of a television
set and just go numb.
Just just go numb.
So we have a tendency and then it
goes day after day and week after week.
And living in this discouragement, not really resting
and trusting in the work of God that
he is going to bring you through.
Beloved, if that were not true, this is
all in vain.
We might well shut the doors of this
church and turn it into a bar.
God has promised that there'll be a time
that you come out of this.
God said that he's going to be with
you and you've got to hold steady and
you've got to fight the struggles there.
But you've got to fight by faith.
You can't let up on the fight of
faith.
It's easy for me to just stand here
in the flesh and say, hold on, hold
on.
But I've been there.
And I can say after over 54 years
of preaching now and I can say the
Lord has shown me many troubles and many
sorrows and heartaches.
But he's brought me through.
And that's what God will do for you.
There are still struggles and there's still pain.
But I know that I'm gaining strength and
I know something's happening in my life every
time I struggle through by faith and rest
in his promises.
I don't know who I'm speaking to.
In Proverbs, the 24th chapter, it's a word
by Solomon.
He said, I went out to the field
of the slothful.
He's talking about a man who's given up.
He doesn't want.
He's just neglecting his vineyard.
I went out in the field of the
slothful and by the vineyard of the man
void of understanding.
And lo, all was grown over with thorns
and nettles had covered the face thereof.
And the stone wall was broken down.
Then I saw it and I considered it.
Well, I looked upon it and I received
instruction.
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a
little folding of the hands to sleep.
So shall your poverty come as one that
travels.
And I want as an armed man.
Solomon said, I saw in nature something that
taught me in my spirit.
Nature illustrates the law of the spirit, the
law of nature.
And the law of nature is if you
don't water your garden, you can go to
any suburb around here and look at it.
There'll be lawn after lawn, well manicured, watered
trees, plants, green grass.
And on weekends you see both husband and
wife out there trimming and planting and fertilizing.
There's a reason why it's green.
That's the reason why life is flowing.
Because it's being ministered to.
It's being cared for.
It's not being robbed of the resources that
are needed.
But then you come to one that's all
overgrown and the lawns are dry and brown
and everything is dying.
And it screams at you, sloth.
It screams at you, somebody's in there lazy,
somebody's not really keeping up life.
And it's what Solomon said.
He said, I saw that and I considered
it.
Well, and I looked upon it and I
received instruction.
I told you about a little tree I
planted last year.
I preached about it from the pulpit.
Little stump that looked dead.
No fruit, nothing.
I planted it.
I don't know why, I just felt sorry
for it.
Planted it.
And I knelt by it and I prayed,
Lord, let there be life.
Now, if I just planted it and just
left it there and said, well, the sun,
all the nutrients are in the sun, it
also needs water.
But it not only needs water, it needs
fertilizer.
So I began to go out there every
day with a sprinkling can full, about a
five gallon can of water.
And I watched the leaves begin to grow
on it and I watched life come.
But then after, if I would ignore it
for two days, I'd go out and the
leaves were drooping.
So I would go get my sprinkling can.
But this time I added a spoonful of
Miracle-Gro.
Every time I went out, Miracle-Gro, Miracle
-Gro.
Folks, I'm telling you, this is the biggest
Miracle-Gro on the face of the earth.
This is Miracle-Gro.
How do we expect to maintain the fire?
How do we expect if we don't give
diligence?
Let me give you another illustration from the
law of nature.
It shows the ruinous consequences.
How should we escape, the Bible said.
He's talking about the consequences of neglect.
But if we neglect spiritual warfare, if we
just say, hey, I'm going to find a
nice, easy place where there are no people.
Most of our problems are people problems.
You say, minor money problems.
Well, it's still, this is what I think
many of us say, if I could just
get away someplace quiet.
You know, as one preacher with his pulpit
preached, wherever you go, there you are.
But here's an illustration from the law of
nature.
The ruinous consequences of quitting and drifting.
Lack of faith.
This biologist did a study on the life
of a crab.
The crab, a crustacean.
And the crab life is a very different.
Please excuse us.
But when I read this, I said that
that's there's a sermon in that.
If the law of nature illustrates the law
of the spirit, I want to learn from
this.
And I learned and I'll never forget it.
And maybe this one way you won't forget
what I'm saying.
But the crab lives a terrible life.
It's bounced over the jagged rocks and the
bottom of the sea.
The waves just toss them about.
They live a very jagged, rugged life.
And for many, many years, that's how they
develop this strong shell.
And these five pair of legs grew meaty
and strong to resist the tide.
And they learned to hide under rock formations
from their predators.
Nature can't explain it.
The biologist said that the species, a certain
number of those species, decided to take the
easy route.
They were tired of the struggle.
And so they took to making a home
in abandoned shells of mollusks and other animals
that left their shells.
I saw one.
In fact, they call it the hermit crab.
And I saw one crab in Florida that
was in a shell that was eight to
ten inches big.
Great big horn shell.
They call it the hermit crab.
Now, the hermit crab, somehow, a number of
that species decided to quit the battle.
And they go in with their measure of
health, their meaty legs and their shell.
It's like an armored shell.
And they go into this secondhand house.
And they settle in.
And there's a little, the biologist said, a
little tube-like item that sucks through the
wall so it is safe.
In other words, because it didn't want to
struggle, it gave up the struggle for safety.
Like many of us want to give up
the struggle and find a safe house.
A borrowed house, if necessary.
It's like a daughter plant, D-O-D
-D-E-R, that comes and springs up
and it has a measure of life and
gets so high that it's got a limb
that goes over to the next healthy plant,
put a suction cup and sucks the life
out of that and begins to, loses its
life and crawls around the ground until it
dies.
But this hermit crab goes in and there's
a high price for going after safety and
losing the struggle and wanting only to get
to heaven.
Don't want to battle.
Don't want to fight anymore.
No spiritual warfare.
Just give up and just hang on.
I'm just going to love Jesus.
I'm not going to hurt anybody.
I just want to be by myself.
I want to get rid of this struggle.
And so that terrible price, the legs begin
to wither.
The back begins to come paper thin.
And after a season, the legs begin to
fall off one after another until there's nothing
but a shell.
And that little hermit crab becomes a weak,
useless little creature until it finally dies in
its safe place.
Folks, while the other crabs are out swimming
and in the free air, and yes, there
are predators, we fight against principalities and powers
of darkness.
We have predators.
And the winds and the waves toss us
and there are jagged rocks.
But there's only one rock.
There's only one safe place.
I want to be one of those who
fights.
I want to be one who's swimming free.
I want to be one of those.
I'm not going to call you a hermit
crab if you are drifting.
And I'm not trying to be facetious, but
folks, get the thought in your mind.
Just like Solomon said, I saw it and
I perceived and I learned from it.
Now, let me get to the heart of
this.
When I prayed, Lord, how do I keep
from drifting?
How do I keep from neglecting this great
salvation?
I've never once doubted my salvation.
But I know what can happen because I've
seen the shipwreck all around it.
So is Paul when he writes about it.
But when I asked the Holy Spirit, how
do I guard against neglect and drifting?
And he led me to the life of
Peter.
You know well the story of Peter.
And what I'm going to tell you now,
it's not enough to just fast and pray
and read your Bible.
The Lord takes that for granted that Peter,
who's now repentant, nobody drifted further among the
disciples.
Judas, of course, betrayed him.
But among the other eleven, Peter really drifted
from Christ.
He said, I don't even know the man.
And he cursed.
The Bible says he went out and repented.
It was pride.
It was self-boasting.
And he even said out loud these thoughts
he gave voice to.
Others may leave you, but there's no possibility
that I could drift.
Somebody may be thinking, Pastor Dave, why would
you preach about the possibility of somebody drifting
away from the vision and fullness of Christ?
I believe that this is the attitude of
Peter, that I can't fall.
Others may fall, but I have reached a
place in Christ and my faith that I
don't have to be warned.
It was this pride.
And so Peter, I want you to notice
this now.
He's in a boat because he said, I'm
going fishing.
What he means, I'm going back to my
career.
I don't want this struggle.
I don't have it in me.
And you take a look at that man
in the boat.
And you look at that man and pulling
in the hall of fishes.
Here's a man who is repentant.
Here's a man who is prayed.
Here's a man who's been restored.
Here's a man who's been breathed upon by
the Holy Spirit.
Because between his failure and between that moment
in the boat, he had met Jesus in
that closed room when he came through the
wall.
And Jesus had embraced this man and had
breathed on him, touched him.
And the Holy Spirit was in him, the
scripture says.
The Holy Spirit was breathed into him.
But you see, there's another issue.
With Christ, it was not enough that Peter
now was restored safe.
It's not enough that they give themselves in
the upper room.
He sees what was given to Paul.
It's not going to be enough for that
upper room experience.
It's not going to be enough that they
wait on the Lord and minister and are
given avidly to the word of God.
He said, there's another issue.
There's another matter of this matter of neglect.
And Jesus looks at Peter and says, Jesus
said, come and dine in their dining with
Jesus.
And he looks at Peter, remember?
And he said, Peter, do you love me?
Peter said, yes.
He said, do you love me more than
these?
Now, it can't be the disciples you're talking
about, because if he says, yeah, I love
you more than you, then he's back to
the old Peter.
He's back to the old pride.
It had to be.
Do I mean more to you than anything
else in life, your career and everything else?
Am I really all in all to you?
If that's so.
And he didn't tell him, go fast and
pray.
He took it for granted.
He took it is to say, well, he
has my heart now and I have his
heart.
He's going to pray.
He's going to fast.
He's going to do these things because that's
what a devoted Christian does.
That's where he knows his life comes from.
But there's another issue.
It's matter.
Scripture says, how do we escape if we
neglect so great a salvation?
He says, feed my sheep.
Peter, I want you to forget your failure.
I want you to forget that you denied
me.
I want you to forget that you had
drifted away from me.
You have come back to me now.
You have my heart and I have your
heart.
And I'm saying it again.
Feed my sheep.
Don't focus on yourself.
Don't focus on your past.
Don't focus on your failure.
Don't focus on that.
Get your eyes off of your own problems.
And now look at my sheep.
Look at the needs around you.
Look at the suffering around you.
This is the issue today.
I can shut myself in my secret closet.
I can become a man who prays eight
hours a day.
I can read the rest of another eight
hours in the Bible.
I could fast for days, 21, 40 days,
whatever it is.
I could fast and still neglect this great
salvation.
If I am shut off from human need.
If I don't see the hurts and the
pains of the body of Christ.
And I do nothing about it.
I'm a hermit crab.
And Jesus says, feed my sheep.
And Peter got the message like Solomon.
I saw it and I saw the consequences
and I learned from it.
And Peter learned three times, feed my sheep.
You see, Peter goes up later with John
to the temple to pray.
And he passes a man who is a
cripple.
Asking for alms.
Now, folks, I surmise, and I believe this
to be true, that Peter had seen that
man many times.
They went up to the temple.
They were there when Jesus drove out the
money changers.
Remember, Paul later goes up to the temple.
They went up to the temple to pray
and to witness.
And they went through the gate beautiful.
And they'd seen this man before, but Peter
never really saw him.
He saw him, but he didn't see him.
He didn't see him in the light of
this feed my sheep.
This neglecting of human need.
But this time he comes upon the man
and the Bible said he fastened his eyes
on him.
You see, when you have your eyes on
your own problem.
When you're thinking only of your own financial
needs.
Your own pain.
You lose your vision.
You see, but you don't see.
It's like that fish that have eyes that
can't see.
Having eyes, they can't see.
But you see, the need is always there.
It's always in our pathway.
It's always there, but we can't see it.
You don't have to go to China.
You don't have to go to India.
All around us are human needs and we're
blind to them because we're focused on our
own problems.
We're focused on our own pain.
I speak from experience.
I'm preaching to my own heart.
Listen, body of Jesus Christ.
The first thing that suffers when you think
nothing about your own problem.
And you're not casting it upon the Lord
and moving on in your pain.
I think I've done more for God's glory
in my pain than I did without my
pain.
It's true of everyone in this house.
But now Paul fastens his eyes on that
man.
He's not letting go.
And the Bible said he took him by
the hand and raised him up.
Feeding the sheep.
He's not neglecting it this time.
No, I have to do something about it.
Folks, the moment you get that mindset of
the Holy Spirit, you begin to pray.
Oh, God, open my eyes.
Lord, take my eyes off of my own
problem.
I don't want to neglect the salvation of
Christ to those around me, my family and
those that are in pain.
Show me the need.
And folks, when you begin to pray that
and breathe the Holy Spirit for it.
What a wonderful thing happens.
He begins to show you things right at
your doorstep.
He begins to show you needs all around
you.
And then the Lord starts bringing them into
your attention.
He gives you back your discernment.
He opens your eyes and you become you
begin become strong in the Lord.
And I make you a promise.
You begin to get your eyes off of
your own problem.
Commit those things.
Lord, rest in them and say, Lord, now
help me to be a feeder of the
sheep.
Open my eyes to the needs around me
and give me the words and give me
the faith.
That kind of Christian is never going to
drift.
Never.
That's the guard.
That's the wall.
That's the protection.
Giving out.
To others, just giving yourself.
These are the most giving pastors and elders
I have ever met anywhere in the world.
Giving.
They're not hirelings.
They're here to give.
And that's why you hear the word that
you hear, the blessing you see on their
lives.
Because they're feeding the sheep.
Meeting human need.
We stand.
Honestly, many of you probably didn't need this
message.
Maybe the majority of you didn't this message.
I needed it.
But I hopefully have preached it in love
and mercy.
Not suggesting that this church drift.
This church is not drifting.
This church is focused.
It's got the focus of the Holy Spirit.
This church is meeting human need.
But, oh, God, help us as individuals.
Not only as a body, but as individuals
to say, Jesus, use me.
Three days of fasting and prayer.
That's the work and call of the Holy
Spirit.
That wasn't done just in a committee meeting.
That was done because God laid it on
the hearts of the pastors.
And it's called.
Folks, there has to be a purpose to
it.
Out of it has to come a new
burden for lost souls.
And that hunger for the word and the
addiction to this word of God should ultimately
produce in me and in you a new,
fresh burden for the lost.
That's what I'm crying for and praying that
my last days would be mightily used to
win the lost.
That I won't just curl up in this
Bible and not see the need.
But when I open this, I'll let the
Holy Spirit show me what he's saying about
feeding.
Lord, thank you.
For your presence this morning.
Lord, thank you that you will be here
all day speaking from this pulpit, speaking the
word.
But Lord, let us take this to heart.
Every one of us say, I will have
my own experience.
I'm not going to give up the battle.
I'm not going to just depend on what
happens in this auditorium.
But I'm going to seek God at my
own and ask him to open my eyes.
Lord, make us soul winners.
Make this one of the greatest soul winning
churches in America.
Make it one of the greatest soul winning
churches so that everyone in this house can
say, I have reached somebody.
I have not been thinking and talking about
my own problems.
Now, I turn that all over to Jesus.
Folks, I'm not going to preach my sermon
over.
I just want to give you an invitation
to, if God has spoken to you in
any way.
You said, Pastor David, I need fresh fire.
I need a fresh anointing.
I don't know if you've discouraged.
Maybe you haven't given up.
But you come to a place where the
enemy has just opened up your mind to
a lot of doubts, a lot of fear.
And you want God to just encapsulate your
mind, so to speak, and put you back
in the spiritual warfare.
You can come and I'll pray for you
and we'll believe the Lord to touch you
in the first way.
God bless you.
In the annex, if you just move in
between the screens, you can move forward and
stand between the screens.
I'll pray for you and the church will
pray for you.
And we'll believe the Lord to do a
fresh work in your heart this morning.
While they sing, you can gather.
Apostle Paul said, examine yourselves.
Will you be in the faith?
Prove yourselves.
Know you're not your own selves.
How the Christ is in you except to
be reprobates.
He's not accusing being reprobates at all.
He's saying, you know your heart.
He said, just examine it.
You know it.
You know that Christ lives in you.
You know that Christ does not manage you.
You know that Christ is alive in you.
Now, folks, I preach, but the law of
nature is illustrating the law of the spirit.
But you see, we as few free moral
agents, we cannot produce the resources.
We cannot produce the water.
That's the word.
We cannot produce the sun.
That's God's part.
Our part is to open up.
Just open up.
He will not keep you.
I'm reading from Psalm 121.
Lift up your eyes to the hills from
whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord, which made
heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to be
moved.
He that keeps you will not slumber.
He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor
sleep.
The Lord is your keeper.
The Lord is thy shade from the right
hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day
nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve you from all evil.
The Lord shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve your going out, your
coming in, from this time forth, even forevermore.
Do you believe that?
I will keep you.
I will preserve you.
And I'll make you fruitful, is what Jesus
said.
I'll make you fruitful.
Accept the love of Christ.
Accept his loving tap on your shoulder.
And he said, just one thing, by the
way, remember this.
You need my resources.
Don't neglect going to the source.
Don't neglect that.
And don't think that just being saved is
enough.
Just being safe is not enough.
Can you remember that?
Being safe is not enough.
Being fruitful.
Safe and fruitful.
Bearing fruit.
That's the feeding of the sheep.
Can I pray for you?
Lord, we thank you for these that have
come.
I promise to pray for them.
We do right now in faith.
And those in the annex gathered between the
screens.
Holy Spirit, thank you.
That we can live without fear.
We don't have to doubt the day that
we're going to stand before you.
But Lord, we want to stand before you
bringing with our sheaves with us.
Bringing our fruit to lay at your feet.
Lord Jesus, by an act of faith, we
turn over every care.
You said, cast your cares on me because
I care for you.
Lord, by an act of faith right now,
let us cast.
Just throw your feet and say, here are
my financial problems.
Here is my relationship problem.
Here is my marriage problem.
Here is my pain.
Lord, take it.
Lord, I'm going to trust you.
You promised to preserve me and keep me.
Keep my feet from falling.
And Lord, we're going to stand on that
promise now and believe you and accept it.
Raise your hands and begin to thank Jesus
for his promise to keep you from falling.
Present you faultless before the throne of God.
Hallelujah.
This is the conclusion of the message.