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He will not break a bruised reed.
I have a word for you from the
Lord this morning.
Starting in verse 1, Isaiah 42, Behold my
servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom
my soul delighteth.
Put my spirit upon him, he shall bring
forth judgment or justice to the Gentiles.
This is speaking of Christ the Messiah.
He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor
cause his voice to be heard in the
street.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and
the smoking flax shall he not quench.
He shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
He shall not fail, nor be discouraged, till
he has set judgment or justice in the
earth, and the isles shall wait for his
law.
Heavenly Father, we come to you now with
open hearts and open ears, and we're asking
you to speak to us from heaven, from
your heart.
Lord, I speak now at this time in
my life as a father, and I pray,
Lord Jesus, that you are my father, and
you've spoken to me with gentleness, you've spoken
to me with your everlasting tender kindness, and
give me that kind of heart.
Let me feel and know, Lord Jesus, what
it is to just be a channel or
a voice of your heart.
Lord, sanctify the vessel now so that the
word can come forth pure and clean and
holy before you.
Speak to hearts, Lord.
You've brought some people here this morning and
for a special reason, and you have prepared
a word for them, oh God, that could
change their life if they'll just open their
hearts to hear.
In Christ's name I pray, amen.
This is a prophecy of Isaiah that has
been fulfilled in Matthew 12.
In Matthew 12, Jesus is in a synagogue.
It's on the Sabbath, and a man comes
or is in the audience with a withered
hand, and Jesus heals this man on the
Sabbath.
And now the leaders of the church body
are together in conference trying to find the
time and place to kill him, only because
he healed a man on the Sabbath.
And when Jesus heard this, the Bible said,
he went his way.
And the scripture, Isaiah said, you'll not hear
him on the streets, you will not hear
him.
See, he didn't come to force people to
hear him.
He didn't come with a loud clamor.
He didn't come with noise.
He's not going to take revenge.
You're not going to hear him on the
street railing against these who are planning his
death.
The scripture, Isaiah said, he shall not cry
nor lift up nor cause his voice to
be heard in the street.
He had the power, he had the authority
to call down angels, he could have dealt
with them.
He was not like the disciples who wanted
to call fire down out of heaven.
And he could have done that.
But the loving heart of Christ said, no,
I'll just leave them.
And he went out ways from the temple
and he began to minister to the multitudes
that came to him that were hungry.
And it's in this context that Isaiah said,
and it is quoted now about Jesus Christ,
he will not break the bruised reed.
Now, a reed is a long, narrow plant
with a hollow trunk.
And it's a tender plant.
And it's usually found in marshes.
It's found near water supply.
And it grows tall, but it bends also.
It bends under the winds, it bends under
special waves, or if a flood comes, it
can bend it down.
And oftentimes it breaks and is carried away
with the flood.
And Jesus said, the scripture said of him,
and Isaiah said, behold, in the first verse,
my servant who is in my elect in
whom my soul delighteth, in whom my spirit
dwells.
And prophet Isaiah is saying, let me tell
you something about this Christ that's coming.
Let me tell you what it's like.
Because he's going to come to a bruised
society.
A bruised society that was under the Roman
rule.
A bruised and broken people because of the
priesthood taking advantage of the poor and the
widows.
And being mocked and ridiculed.
The Bible said all the prophets spoke the
time that Christ would come to be in
our darkness.
The people that sit in darkness would see
a great light.
And Jesus came into a demon-possessed, broken
society.
Absolutely broken.
This was a society of broken reeds.
The flood tides of the Roman Empire.
Of the evil homosexuality that spilled out of
the bowels of Rome.
All of the cheating and the stealing and
the robbing and all of the hypocrisy.
And Jesus came into that bruised society.
And the word says he will not break
a bruised reed.
I want to talk to you this morning
about this tender loving Christ in two aspects.
I want to talk to you about the
tenderness of Christ prophesied by Isaiah.
This man who would come.
Let me tell you something about the Jesus
you serve and that I serve.
We think we know so much about him.
We study his nature.
We study all of the circumstances about his
life and his time here on earth.
But I don't think we fully understand the
meaning of this.
And the absolute loving kindness of our Christ
for his people and for the world.
God sent his son into the world not
to judge it but to save it.
How many agree with me?
He came to save this world not to
condemn it.
Jesus said I'm not your judge now.
I'm your savior.
I want to talk to you about God's
tenderness to America and to the nations of
the world at this time.
I'm sure if you are a Bible, you
love the word of God, you believe that
to be the revealed word of God, the
absolute word of the living God.
And when you read all the prophecies, you
read of what happened to nations in the
past.
You read of the fallen empires, Roman and
Grecian.
You read of Sodom and Gomorrah and the
flood.
You read of the time when God lost
patience after so much love, after preaching for
120 years of mercy to Noah's generation, and
then God says it's enough.
The question is why is it that God
has not judged America up to this time?
Why is it that a nation that has
killed millions of unborn babies, why is it
that we are not under judgment now?
Because you see, when I grew up, in
fact, I was 15, 16 years old, a
teenager, you know, the Bible was in the
school.
Many of the lessons were Bible lessons right
in school all the way to the 10th
grade, I remember.
And especially in junior grade school, the Bible
was used as a partial textbook.
Many of the lessons were Bible stories.
And look where we've come from now, where
here in New York City, you can put
a Koran on the teacher's desk, you can
put a playboy, you put a Bible here,
you'll lose your job.
And how God has been pushed out of
our schools, pushed out of our court system,
and ridiculed.
And what has happened, it has left a
bruised society without any moral compass.
We are living in a time when psychoanalysts,
psychologists, sociologists, cannot keep up with a flood
of people wanting just one hour to talk
about their distress.
The church counseling teams everywhere are overburdened.
Even in the Church of Jesus Christ, the
distress of finances.
Folks, if we got what we deserved, we
would be in ruin right now.
This nation would have been destroyed if God
was not a God of mercy.
And it's only the mercy of God.
You've heard of daylight saving time.
We're on tender mercy time right now.
We're on tender mercy time.
I see it not only here in the
United States, but everywhere we travel.
Europe is far more secular than the United
States.
I travel to some of these nations.
This new European Union is absolutely secular, is
absolutely godless.
They do not want God mentioned in any
of their meetings.
If you have anything to do with God
or the Bible or anything that is spiritual,
you'll be looked upon as a lunatic.
We held a meeting in Brussels.
And that's where I believe will emerge the
seat of the Antichrist.
That's where the European Union meets.
And you feel that spirit when you walk
the street of arrogance against God.
You find it now in all over Europe.
I prophesied in Sweden.
The Spirit of the Lord came on me.
In one hour, in an afternoon, the Lord
opened up from Amos and prophecy.
And I stood in front of the Swedish
congregations there.
And my message was God's controversy with Sweden,
with the evangelical churches in Sweden.
And it was about apathy.
The richer they grow, it's one of the
richest nations now, and the richer it grows,
the more apostasy and apathy comes.
Ireland is being prospered now.
It's becoming very apathetic and absolutely secular.
God is being pushed out of Europe.
You see all of these things developing.
And you see the world system spinning out
of control.
And you see signs of God warning time
and time again.
God can stop terrorist attacks any time he
chooses.
He just sends an angel.
He can speak a word.
Any terrorist thing, 9-11 could have been
hindered if God chose to.
God didn't allow it, but God allows something.
God has all nature under control.
And God's been speaking to our nation.
He's been speaking to the whole world.
Tsunamis, earthquakes.
And now I've just come home from Europe
again, and nobody seems to care.
If judgment's coming, well, let's live it up
until it comes.
Let's just eat and drink and be merry,
for tomorrow we die.
There's no sense of urgency.
There's no sense of need of God.
And it breaks your heart.
You see Christians falling into the cracks now.
You see, I get letters, letter after letter
after letter on our mailing list of those
who are writing to me now saying, I
go to such and such a church.
These are usually megachurches.
And there's no preaching anymore about sin.
And even pastors tell me, I'm backslidden.
I've gone to, they say, I go to
a church now where there's no worship.
There's no sense of Christ's presence.
There's never a tear.
There's never any brokenness.
And one church that was, a story in
the New York Times just a month ago,
a Pentecostal church with 10,000 people, and
it says, we're here to make you happy.
But you see, it's not bringing happiness.
It's bringing despair and distress and backsliding and
coldness of heart.
And you look at all of this and
you say, Lord, I don't want judgment.
There's nobody here within the sound of my
voice.
If you love Christ and you walk in
true holiness before God, you could not want
judgment on this nation or any nation or
on any people.
And, folks, I'm just as human as anybody
else.
I would like to just live under the
long suffering of God until I die and
there's prosperity.
That would be fine.
I don't want to have to see tears
in the eyes of my children and grandchildren.
I don't want to see these things that
are coming.
I like it the way it is.
That would be nice.
But the only reason it is as it
is now is because God somewhere in this
nation has found some bruised reeds that still
want to take a stand.
He has found some wicks that are just
smoldering.
It's just smoke now.
They were once on fire, churches that were
on fire, people that were on fire.
And he said, I will not extinguish a
smoldering flax.
That's a wick in a lamp.
And that wick, when it goes down, in
Bible times, there was a snuffer, a little
cap, and they would snuff it out.
When it was smoking, snuff it out.
And he said, I will not snuff out.
The fire may be gone.
There's no appearance of fire.
There's no appearance of anything alive.
But I see something.
I hear a cry from some people.
I hear something from hearts.
And I believe in every church that's backslidden.
I believe in every Catholic church.
I believe that in every church in the
United States and around the world, God has
at least one.
He's got two.
He's got a holy remnant that still burn
and still cry and pray.
And God says, I'll not break that bruised
reed as long as I hear a cry.
He has not broken this nation yet.
He's given warnings.
Yes, the time is getting short.
But he said, I will not break a
bruised reed.
Let me talk to you about the tenderness
of Jesus Christ toward his people.
I was in the spirit this past week
in prayer.
And the Holy Spirit spoke to me very
clearly that I had to speak this word
today because there would be in this service
this morning.
Those who are bruised reeds that that word
bruise has many meanings.
It means to be hurt, pounded to pieces.
It concludes injured feelings crushed by unfulfilled expectations.
And there are people sitting here now in
the annex and here in the main auditorium.
And even though you sang and even though
you may have clapped your hands and rejoice
to the Lord, yet you have been bruised.
There's a bruise and there comes a breaking
point, a breaking point that I want to
talk about.
Some of you are close to a breaking
point.
You're bruised and you're wounded.
And the fire seems to have gone out.
It seems to have ebbed down so low
there's nothing left.
You think but smoke.
You're that smoldering wick.
I have received a letter this past week
from a missionary couple bruised.
A number of years ago, the Holy Spirit,
they said, told them to sell everything.
Give it away or sell it and go
to the mission field.
They went to I think was Africa and
they spent seven years in a Bible school
and teaching and into the villages and gave
their lives.
The Holy Spirit told them after seven years
they needed to return home.
They came home.
No money, no house, nothing.
And they didn't give me the details of
where they're living.
He is a skilled man, well-educated, began
looking for jobs and putting in resumes.
And every he put out resume after resume
and he'd always end up in the top
four or five that would be interviewed.
And he would go to the interview and
be moved up to second place time and
again and then get the word that another
man got the job.
And finally, after praying and fasting and seeking
God, and they were they were crushed in
the question.
Lord, why are you testing us this way?
Because we pray, we fast, we've given our
life on the mission field.
There's no controversy with God.
Why are we at this point?
And they came, they were bruised in spirit
and in their heart.
And the letter that came to me came
right after the worst of all that could
have happened to them.
A Christian man invite him to come and
be interviewed the company.
And he said, there are two of you.
And this this was a job that he
knew he could do.
He was qualified for it.
He felt good about it.
And the boss whined and dined him for,
you know, when I say one talking about
this eating and set him up, almost assuring
him that he had the job.
Then he gets a call that he didn't
get it.
And the other man was awarded the job.
And that's when I hear about the breaking
point.
The breaking point.
You see, if you want to see a
bruised man in the bar, you go to.
The Old Testament.
To Elijah.
Elijah, a man of prayer whose prayers open
and shut the heavens.
Here's a man who knew God, a few
men knew him.
Here's a man had such spiritual authority that
he could stand before four hundred of the
idolatrous priest of Baal, take a sword in
his hand and slay them all single handedly.
Here's a man with such power and authority.
And here's a man upon whom the spirit
comes with such might that he outruns Ahab's
chariot almost 20 miles to Jezreel.
But when he gets there, Jezebel sends a
message to tell him, I'm going to kill
him.
And fear comes upon him.
And the next scene is Elijah, a day's
journey dismissed his servant.
He's laying almost asleep under juniper tree, totally
discouraged, totally hurting.
Here's a man.
There's no reason whatsoever.
There's no reason in his thinking that this
should happen to him.
He's lived for years seeing miracles.
He's seen the hand of God on his
life.
He's not living in sin, but now he's
distressed.
He is a broken reed.
Broken.
Let me tell you, there are some of
you at that point.
Now you are bruised.
It may be because of your finances.
You say, God, I've served you faithfully.
I've been your servant.
I've done everything.
And now here I am facing a hopeless
situation.
And I'm tested beyond all my human capacity.
Some of you may be fighting a besetting
sin.
And you've come to the end of yourself.
You're at a breaking point because you say,
I've done everything.
I've heard from the pulpit.
I have gone to the Holy Spirit for
sanctifying power.
I have read my Bible faithfully.
I have prayed and sought God.
But then all of a sudden, here it
comes out of nowhere, something that is in
my past that I thought was over and
gone.
And here I am fighting the same battle
I fought when I got saved.
There are some of you in a married
situation right now.
And it's brought you near the breaking point.
And you are a bruised reed.
And you're holding on for dear life.
Because you know what the Bible says about
divorce.
You've prayed for him.
You have tried to show Jesus to him.
You've done everything.
But it blows up in your face.
And here's what happens when you are down
under that juniper tree.
And that's where some of you are now.
You're down, discouraged and heartbroken and not understanding.
And when you're down, and when the enemy
comes in like a flood, the devil will
come to you with lies.
He will come to you and say, what
kind of a Christian are you?
You don't practice what you preach.
You really have a filthy, unchangeable nature.
You have deceived God.
All kinds of lies will come into your
mind.
But your conscience, most of all, will come
at you.
And that conscience will say to you, you're
not praying like you did one time.
You're not studying the Word like you should.
You've dried up.
You're lukewarm.
Your fire's gone out.
You're not a good testimony.
You don't practice what you preach.
You don't have what it takes.
You've allowed the devil to rob you of
everything God ever gave you.
Your conscience will come and just beat on
you and bring.
Then the Word of God will try you.
The Bible says of Joseph, until his time
came, the Word of God tried him.
And the Word will try you when you're
down, and you're hurting, and you're bruised, and
now just a smoking flax because, folks, I've
been there and I know what it's like.
Many of you there?
And if you're not there, hold on.
I'm not trying to scare you, but it
comes to all of us.
It may last for some just a week.
For some it lasts months.
But that time will come.
That testing time will come.
And when that comes, the Word of God
will try you because you're hurting, and you're
down, and you are stressed, and you try
to put out of the mind and keep
saying, Lord, I'll trust you, I'll trust you,
I'll trust you.
But your faith begins to waver because that's
the flame.
That's the flame.
That's the wick that's dying, that wick that's
smoldering.
It's faith.
The devil is trying to destroy the faith
of this man, this faith of this man
that can believe God to turn a little
cloud into a thunderstorm and lick up twelve
barrels of water around an altar and send
fire supernaturally from heaven.
That's the kind of faith this man had.
And now he's sitting there not wanting to
hear a word.
He's not wanting to pray.
I've been there.
I'm saying, Lord, I just heard.
I don't know what to do.
And you just want to sleep.
Anybody here know what I'm talking about?
I want to go to bed.
That's what the Bible says.
And he fell asleep.
He fell asleep.
Why?
Because he can't carry the burden anymore.
It's just too much for him.
And our Lord, our precious Father, looked at
that man hurting and bruised at the end
of his rope, not able to explain to
anybody, not wanting to pray.
He didn't want to hear another prophet come
and say, what are you doing here?
If God tells him, fine, and God did.
But he didn't want that.
You come to a place where you don't
want to pray.
There's no urgency.
You love God.
You love Jesus probably more than you've ever
loved him.
But you just have no urgency to pray.
You open the Bible and the pages run
together.
And you fall asleep reading the Bible.
And your conscience is beating on you.
And all of those words, remember the foolish
virgins.
They were cast out because their lamps went
out.
What about you?
Your lamp is going out.
You're a foolish virgin.
And you'll hear it, pray without ceasing.
Pray with all your heart, your mind, soul,
and strength.
Pray earnestly.
Pray fervently.
You're sitting there, I can't even speak.
I know I'm not speaking into the wind.
The word of God will try you.
You'll get your Bible out and look at
that and say, I can't handle that.
I can't handle it.
And the Lord knows that.
He saw this.
He's broken.
He's a reed that's bent over.
And the flood has come.
Fear to attack his faith and rob him
of all of his faith.
He's under attack.
And he's about to break it.
But God made him a promise.
I will not break a bruised reed.
I will not snuff out the wick that
is smoldering.
He knew this man still had this breath
of faith in him.
He knew this man's heart.
And an angel comes, not a rebuke, not
a renouncing, but an angel with food.
And the angel wakes him up.
And he said, Elijah, rise up and eat.
Oh, thank God he prepares meals for those
that are hurting.
You see, I'm not an angel.
And I can prove it.
Just ask the woman that just talked to
you.
I'm not an angel, but I'm a messenger.
I'm a messenger.
And I've come with a meal.
And I'm that messenger that's tapping you on
the shoulder and said, hey, wake up.
God's not mad at you.
He's not going to let you break under
this.
You're not going down.
And I want to scream that.
I want to sit with the love of
Christ and the tenderness of a loving Savior.
Don't believe the lie that you're going to
be crushed.
The devil's going to have the upper hand.
No, the Lord said I will not allow
you to be broken.
I will not allow the fire to go
out.
The fire is still there.
I'm going to blow on that flame.
It'll come back again.
All right.
God was so patient with Elijah for 40
days and 40 nights.
Now, he gave him two meals, woke him
up twice.
No rebuke.
He said, you're going to have to eat
because the path, your journey is too hard
for you.
Does anybody get that?
Look, the Lord said this is too much
for you.
And, Lord, I'm going to be patient.
So for 40 days and 40 nights, he
endures.
But this man goes through without a word
of rebuke.
He waits for 40 days and 40 nights
with a man that's just walking almost blindly,
almost hopeless, wounded in spirit, refusing to be
encouraged at that moment.
I think if I'd saw an angel twice,
I might be encouraged.
But he's still in God's just tenderly waits
40 days and 40 nights until he gets
to the cave in Mount Aurobin.
Folks, this man is at a crossroads because,
you see, God said, I won't break the
bruised reed.
So there comes a time God says, I'm
going to have to.
I'm going to have to tell it to
you very lovingly, very straight.
And so after 40 days and 40 nights,
God comes on the scene.
Now, if you're down, what kind of message
do you want to hear to wake you
up?
Do you want thunder?
Because that's what happened.
The thunder came and shook the rocks.
This was in God's hand.
Thunder.
There are a lot of people who think
that's the only thing that's going to wake
them out of their sloth and unbelief.
And what they're going through.
But the Bible says God wasn't into thunder.
I wasn't God speaking.
He said, no, I'm not going to treat
you that way.
Well, what about an earthquake?
And shake the very ground you stand on.
Maybe.
Is that the kind of word you want?
You're hurting.
Do you want the pastor to stand and
just give you an earthquake sermon?
Red, hot, thunder, lightning and everything shaking around
you.
And heaven's lit up.
Repent or else.
How about fire?
I hear preachers being advertised as fiery.
He's so fiery.
I believe in Holy Ghost fire preaching.
If it's through brokenness and tears.
But the Lord wasn't in the fire.
He wasn't in the earthquake.
He wasn't in the thunder.
What was the voice that brought him out?
Still, small voice.
And many manuscripts say a soft wind came.
A soft breeze.
Refreshing breeze.
And in a whisper, God said, Elijah, what
are you doing here?
You know what he's saying?
I can't let you settle down in this
kind of despair.
I can't let you live like this.
I've loved you and I'm patient with you.
And I'm going to tell you, I'm going
to give you some direction now.
And he gave him direction.
He gave him three specific directions that he
was to take.
Now comes obedience.
Now God is requiring faith.
And the only way you're going to get
out, the only way I've ever come out
of this time where I was at a
breaking point, and in my travels I see
it in the ministry especially, hundreds of thousands
of pastors in the past three years who
have wanted to quit the ministry and are
quitting the ministry because they reached a breaking
point and they broke.
Because they would not listen to that still,
small voice.
I'm going to give you, from the word
of God, from James 5.11, here's
your meal.
Here is your food.
I said Elijah got a meal from an
angel.
You're getting a meal now from a servant.
This is what the Lord spoke to my
heart.
James 5.11, we have seen the end
or the outcome of the Lord's dealings.
The Lord is pitiful and of tender mercies.
Look this way for just a moment.
God is not mad at you.
He's not just trying to test you right
now.
The test is nearing its end.
And the Lord knows that some of you
are at the breaking point.
You've got to rely on his word now
and you have to start feeding on what
God is bringing.
If you'll feed, he'll bring the food if
you just have a hunger and say, Lord,
I want you to feed me.
And every time that the enemy has come
against me over 50 years of ministry, I've
had to come to this place where Elijah
came.
Lord, I believe that you'll speak to me.
I believe that my body is a temple
of the Holy Ghost and he abides.
And I can't imagine the Holy Ghost abiding
in me and not speaking to me.
He abides in me.
Jesus said, I'll never leave you, I'll never
forsake you.
And I have to lay hold of that
and say, Jesus, live or die, I believe
that you abide in me.
I believe that my sins are under the
blood.
I don't know what this is all about.
I can't handle it.
I know the journey is too much, but
I know you're with me.
I know that you are with me.
And that's what this whisper from God is.
He's saying, I'm going to take you a
new way of life.
You're not going to be judgmental like you
often were, Elijah, because now you see how
I work with you, how I want you
to work with others around you.
Not to judge your husband or your wife
or your children, not to stand as judges,
but to show them the tender mercies and
that still small voice.
No more screaming mothers trying to save their
kids through screaming.
No more shouting wives that try to berate
their husbands and just losing it.
No more of husbands putting down their wives.
This is all about how we live.
This is this is practical stuff, friends.
It's not some some kind of theology out
there in the heavens.
It has to do with how we live.
And if we're going to come to church
and sing and shout and praise the Lord
and talk about being filled with the Holy
Ghost, we had better know something about Christ
alive in our hearts.
We'd better know that the Holy Ghost that
we say lives and abides and who has
baptized us is here when I need him.
And when I heard that I can cry
out to him and he will not shut
his voice, he will not shut his ears
and he will whisper to you, everything's going
to be all right because I'm with you.
Fear not.
My closing word.
Go to Psalm.
One oh three.
I want you to stand.
I want you to stand as we we
read.
You say you believe the Bible is the
revealed word of God.
All right, then take this to your heart.
So I'm going to read all the way
down to verse 13.
Bless the Lord, O my soul and all
that is within me.
Bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget
not all of his benefits who forgiveth all
the iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who
redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you
with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies
the mouth by mouth with good things so
that thy youth is renewed like the eagle.
The Lord executed righteousness and justice, judgment for
all that are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses and
his acts to the children of Israel.
The Lord is what?
Merciful and gracious, slow to anger, plenteous in
mercy.
He will not always chide.
He will not keep you in suspense.
Neither will he keep his anger forever.
He's not dealt with us after our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as the heaven is high above the
earth, so great is his mercy toward them
that fear him.
As far as the east is from the
west, as far he has removed our transgression
from us.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so
the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
He knows our frame.
He remembers we're just dust.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah for your word.
Raise your hands and give God thanks for
his word.
Just praise him, Lord.
Thank you for the word of the Lord.
The word that gives us life and gives
us strength.
Now while you stand, I have one appeal.
One invitation.
If this message was for you, Now it
may have meant, I don't know.
Five or ten people, but I suspect it's
more like the hundreds.
If you say, Pastor David Wilkinson, I'm bruised.
And some of you may have to say,
I'm at a breaking point.
But that's when God moves with his great
mercy.
And he came with a message to you
this morning.
You were not browbeaten.
You were not condemned.
The Holy Spirit sent a message on the
revelation of Christ and his tenderness towards you
and your problem.
He said, I'm mad.
It's not the anger of God.
It's a test of faith.
That's all it was with Elijah.
He had lost his faith and fear.
Fear has torment.
And I'll tell you right now, your problem
started with a fear.
There was a moment when fear was allowed
to take root in your heart.
And you stand here afraid of the future,
afraid of this, afraid of that.
There's a fear.
And that fear is causing the wick of
faith to just smolder.
But the Lord knows.
And the Lord wants to breathe on you.
He wants to heal your spirit and renew
your faith.
If you don't know Christ, if you don't
have a living personal relationship with Jesus Christ,
up in the balcony floor and in the
annex overflow, in the annex overflow, you can
step forward and stand between the screens.
Here in the main auditorium, upstairs, and you
come down the stairs on either side, and
you come.
I'll pray with you right here at the
front.
Just come and say, Pastor David, today God
spoke to me.
And I want to pray that you have
the promise that God will not fail you,
but you've got to renew your faith before
the Lord, the renewing of your faith.
Now, I could give you a little speech
on what you ought to do, but I'm
just going to give you the word, and
I want you to listen closely.
The Lord is gracious, full of compassion, slow
to anger, of great mercy.
The Lord is good to all, and his
tender mercies are over all his works.
The Lord is near to all those who
call upon him, those that call upon him
in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those that
fear him.
He will also hear your cry and save
you.
The Lord preserves all of those who love
him.
Of all the wicked, he destroys.
He heals the broken in heart.
He binds up their wounds.
He relieves the fatherless and the widow.
The Lord preserves the stranger.
The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear
him and those that hope in his mercy.
Do you want to please God?
He said he takes pleasure in them who
hope in his tender mercies.
You that come forward, would you raise a
hand?
That just says, Lord, here I am, I
surrender.
Just raise a hand and pray this prayer
with me from your heart.
Lord Jesus, I accept your mercy.
I rejoice in your mercy.
You know my heart.
You know what I'm going through.
But I'm coming to you with it to
cast all my care upon you.
Pluck the fear out of my heart.
Forgive my unbelief.
Jesus, I give you all.
And you know that.
You see my heart.
So I come now with faith.
Childlike faith.
To rejoice in your mercy to me.
To thank you for your tender mercies to
me.
Lord, I want to give you pleasure.
Now I want you to just thank him
with your voice.
Thank him with your voice.
Right out loud, I give you thanks, Jesus.
I give you praise.
Now, I want to pray for everyone who
came forward that the Lord would help you
right now to release your fears.
I'm telling you, that's where it starts, your
fear.
But God said, I've not given you the
spirit of fear, but love, power, and a
sound mind.
You've got a good mind.
You know how to make a living.
Then you need to be assured you know
how to lay hold of this truth right
now.
If God has not given me this spirit
of fear that's upon me, why should I
put up with it?
It's from the enemy.
God didn't put this on me.
I've not given you the spirit of fear.
Lord, I come against the spirit of fear.
In the name of Jesus Christ, whom I
serve.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Lord of
glory, I ask you to come right now
and smite every fear.
Lord, that's what you did in that cave
with Elijah.
You came in a still, small voice, and
you plucked the fear out of his heart,
and he became fearless.
And one day later stood before Ahab, and
Ahab said, oh, you found me.
Oh, God, you used this man.
You blessed this man.
Now bless this people that come with open
hearts.
Will you lay down your fear right now
and say, Jesus, I give you my fear.
This is the conclusion of the message.