This message is one of the Times Square
Church pulpit series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge,
PO Box 260, Lindell, Texas 75771 or calling
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New York Times today says, America mourns again.
Then the article goes on to talk about
so much mourning has been placed upon this
nation, the world, and now the whole world
mourns.
And we pray for, I hope you have
uttered a prayer, a godly prayer, a sincere
prayer for the families of the astronauts that
were killed.
You know, it was an amazing thing to
listen on the radio to people being interviewed
and to hear them say what's happening and
to hear them talk about things spinning out
of control and the hopelessness and the despair
and the fear.
And didn't Jesus say that the day was
coming when men's hearts would fail them with
fear, watching those things coming upon the earth.
God doesn't cause these things, but I thank
God, as Pastor Carter said, that we have
hope and we don't sorrow as the world
sorrows.
We have a blessed hope in Christ.
And we mourn as the world mourns.
We sorrow and yet not as the world
sorrows.
We mourn but not as the world mourns.
And we can come to church this morning
and clap our hands and rejoice in the
Lord because we know our redemption draws nigh.
I want to talk to you this morning
on the ministry of beholding his face.
The ministry of beholding his face.
I want you to go with me to
2 Corinthians 3, 3rd chapter, 2 Corinthians.
3rd chapter, 2 Corinthians, the 3rd chapter.
I'm going to read one verse, two verses,
verses 17 and 18.
Now, the Lord is that spirit and where
the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty.
I want to thank God for the marvelous
presence of the Lord in this service, to
be away for a season and then come
back and sense the continual presence of the
Lord and the blessing of the Lord here
on Times Square Church.
There's liberty.
Verse 18, but we all with open face
beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Lord are changed into the same image
from glory to glory even as by the
spirit of the Lord.
I read it again, but we all, all
of us, none accepted with open face, that
means unveiled face, beholding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord and we are
changed into the same image from glory to
glory.
How?
Even as by the spirit of the Lord.
Heavenly Father, I thank you that I can
stand here this morning knowing that you have
brought a word from your heart and you've
worked it into my very soul in my
life and what I preach this morning is
not theory, it's not something I've learned from
any other experience, but that which you brought
me through by the Holy Spirit.
It's something Lord that I believe with all
my heart is your word for this moment
and I pray Lord Jesus that you quicken
me by your Holy Spirit.
Nothing I say, nothing that comes out of
my mouth today is going to have any
impact.
It's not going to touch anyone unless you
anoint it because the letter itself kills, but
it's the spirit that gives life to that
word.
Give life to your word this morning, I
pray.
Quicken it, I pray, in Jesus name.
Give his ears to hear what the spirit
has to say in Jesus name.
Amen.
Every single believer is called to the ministry.
Scripture, Paul says we all have this ministry.
We're going to talk about this ministry that
Paul, I'm going to deal with, that Paul's
outlined in his epistles.
Our modern day concept of ministry is so
corrupted.
We think of ministry only as a career,
ordained, licensed men, women who marry and bury,
they pastor churches, they build and maintain institutions.
We think of the ministry as someone who's
gone to seminary or Bible college and comes
out and some denomination or some organization ordains
or licenses that individual.
We say he is in the ministry.
That is not a biblical concept, not at
all.
No human being, no bishop, no denomination can
put you in the ministry.
They can give you a paper, but that
does not make you a minister of the
gospel.
And folks, God doesn't judge ministry by effectiveness,
by magnitude.
There are pastors that have built mega churches
and great institutions, and some of the greatest
so-called ministries, those that have been so
applauded and so recognized by men often have
come about through the intelligence and the skill
of men who were black in heart, had
black hearts.
Some evangelists, television evangelists and pastors of large
churches have been exposed over the years for
homosexuality and for adultery and for horrible sins
and yet able to accomplish ministries, so-called
ministries that were abomination to the Lord.
Now thank God that God does send apostles
and he sends prophets into the church, and
there are godly men who have raised up
institutions, godly institutions, and godly men, met them
all over the world that are in the
pulpit.
And they are ordained, yes, but they have
the ordination of the Holy Spirit.
It was like Paul said, the Lord put
me in the ministry.
Thank God for these ministries, but Paul speaks
of a ministry that every single one of
us listening to me today have been called
to.
Paul says it's a calling that every born
-again believer has been called to undertake.
It's our first calling.
It's a ministry out of which other, all
other godly endeavors are birthed.
Nothing that pleases God, no ministry that is
accepted by God can be birthed in any
other way than what I'm going to lay
before you today.
There is a ministry that you and I
have and out of that ministry comes every
endeavor, every other kind of service unto the
Lord comes out of this ministry.
It's called the ministry of beholding the face
of Christ.
It's a calling that we all have been
called to, to spend quality time in the
presence of Jesus, just beholding.
That's quietly worshiping.
It's not just quiet worship.
It is dedicated, focused worship.
It's time given to him just beholding his
face.
The scripture I just read to you, we
all with open, unveiled face, with nothing hidden
in our lives come before him.
You see, there's liberty when you allow the
Holy Spirit, the liberty is what we give
to the Holy Spirit to change us, that
we are given the character of Jesus Christ.
But we all, none excluded, with open or
unveiled face, beholding as in a glass.
Then Paul in chapter 4, verse 1 says,
therefore seeing we have this ministry, look at
verse, chapter 4, verse 1, therefore seeing we
have this ministry, as we've received mercy, we
faint not.
We, he's including all, we have received this
ministry.
This word beholding is a very serious and
strong word that the apostle uses.
It's not just taking a look, but in
the Greek it's fixing the gaze.
It's making a decision that I will not
move from this position.
This is my calling.
Before I do anything else, before I try
to attempt anything for God, I've got to
come out of his presence.
I've got to come out with something that
I've received in his presence that is changing
me.
I have been changed.
I have not gotten this in a seminary.
I have not gotten this from man.
I got this along with Jesus beholding his
face.
I have fixed my gaze on him.
I said, this is going to be my
life.
If my life is to count, I'm not
going to sit around saying, what can I
do with my life?
I'm not going to try to figure out
what I can do as a career, for
a career.
I am going to do the one thing
God has called us all to do.
Get alone with him, stay in his presence,
worship, behold his face.
The glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
Now, there's no mirror here.
It's just a glass, as in a glass.
We picture that we are a mirror, or
that Jesus is a mirror, and we see
his face in the mirror, and we look
in, and that bounces back and forth.
There's no such thing.
It's the face of Jesus.
Paul talked about the glory of God in
the face of Jesus.
This is not going into the presence of
the Lord like it was a mirror.
Jesus is not a mirror.
We are not just a reflection.
We become his very nature and character.
No, it's spending that quality time beholding his
face, and as if we were looking into
a glass, only as if we were looking.
In other words, we are studying, we are
looking, we are fixing a gaze.
Not just a passing glance.
We've got a lot of Christians giving Jesus
passing glances.
They get these spurts of religion, spurts of
holiness, and spurts of worship and praise, but
it doesn't change them because they have not
made a commitment to fix their gaze.
The glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
It's the picture of someone shot in the
holy of holies with an obsession, an obsession
to get to know him and to commune
with him.
Paul tells us the man or woman shot
with him and beholding him is being transfigured.
He's being changed, in other words.
But we all are changed into the same
image, and the Greek word is metamorphosis, changed,
transfigured.
I want you to know that this is
what the heart of this ministry is that
I'm talking about, is that when you spend
time alone with the Lord, he becomes the
center and the obsession of your life.
You know that you can't get what you
need any other place.
You can't get it from counseling, you can't
get it from friends, you can't get it
from husband, you can't get it from wife.
And you know that there are trials coming
into your life, and you know there are
hard times you know may be in it,
and you know the only place to go
is into the presence of the Lord.
And the Bible said those who spend time
beholding him are transfigured.
There's a metamorphosis happening.
They are changing.
They're being transfigured just as Christ was transfigured
on the mount.
That was the capstone of his character that
he learned through obedience to the heavenly Father.
And there was a capstone, and it's folks,
it's the capstone, it's the opening up of
the heart and the mind of Jesus until
every time you come into his presence there's
a change.
You may not feel it, you may not
see it, others may not see it right
away, but there's a metamorphosis taking place.
There's a change.
Something is happening.
The glory of the Lord is being manifest.
You cannot choose how that metamorphosis takes place.
You can't choose.
You say, well, it's the same.
I wish God could change us just by
our having happy, painless lifestyles.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could be
changed, transfigured into the character of Christ painlessly.
The Bible said changed as by the Spirit
of the Lord.
Where the Spirit of the Lord, there is
liberty.
That means we give him the liberty.
We say, Lord, I give you the liberty.
I give you my heart and my life.
And when the Spirit comes in and you
give him full control, you say, I want
to be governed by the Holy Spirit.
Where that Spirit of the Lord is, when
you shudder with him, the Spirit of the
Lord is there, and he'll ask you for
the liberty.
I give him the liberty to do anything
he has to do, whatever it takes.
Whatever it takes, Lord, take your liberty to
transform me into the character of Christ, shut
in looking to Jesus.
We have the privilege, too, of seeing ourselves.
And I think that's the first thing that
happens when you behold Christ in his glory,
begin to see how short of that glory
you've come and how blind you've been, how
blind you've been in struggling and striving to
be holy, struggling and striving to do something
to please God, striving so hard to overcome
sin and temptation.
Because you see, when you shut yourself in
and fix your gaze with the Lord and
give him freedom, there's a spontaneous work of
the Holy Spirit.
You don't ever again have to strive and
sweat and plead.
You simply go in there and believe that
he is changing you, changed as by the
Spirit.
There is not a person within the sound
of my voice that has fixed themselves to
seek the face of God and to be
a worshipper, not just in church, but have
a holy place, go into the holy of
holies and have a place where I worship.
It can be in your car, but it
has to be a continual thing, because the
changes are continual.
There's no such thing as stagnant growth.
I can't understand how many people just receive
the covenant truth, they receive the justification truth
of Jesus Christ and his imparted righteousness, and
they say, I'm seated at the right hand
of the Father, and then they go to
sleep.
Don't tell me that you can sleep being
seated at the right hand of the Father.
Impossible.
Get saved and then go to sleep.
Transfiguration comes primarily through trials and suffering.
I'll say it again.
The change, that metamorphosis, that change into the
character of Christ comes only one way.
We have this treasure in vessels of fragile
clay, Paul said, that the exceeding greatness of
the power may be of God and not
from ourselves.
How is it possible that these fragile vessels
of ours, some of us are more fragile
than others, some have a fragile clay more
than others, and how is it that we
can have a continual manifestation of the character,
an ever-increasing outshining of the character of
Jesus in these vessels of clay?
How can it happen?
When Tiffany, we were told she had terminal
cancer and my first thought was Debbie.
How will Debbie take it if God takes
her?
And the Lord had clearly warned me, told
me what the future was and why he
was going to do what he had to
do, because there's never been a day in
those 12, 13 years that Tiffany lived that
wasn't a day that I hadn't prayed for
her.
And my prayer was, Lord, do whatever you
have to do to save my children and
my grandchildren.
And I had this pre-knowledge, but all
along what will Debbie do?
She is so tender.
Oh God, I can't see how she can
handle it.
Home-schooled, I mean inseparable.
But you know something?
Debbie was a rock.
She was the rock.
And I'll tell you why she was the
rock.
Now her husband, Roger, too, solid as a
rock.
Little Tiffany was in the back room in
one of the back bedrooms of our house
for the last 30 days and her family
coming and going.
And Debbie was a spark plug, the peace
of God.
And I knew.
Why?
Because the previous three months she had spent
shut in with God and she was feeding
her.
She was beholding the face of Christ.
She had been spending time reading Madame Dion,
Amy Carmichael, Fenlon, a number of books that
she has.
Dad, what books can I read to bless
my soul?
I just want to get to know Jesus
more.
And folks, that metamorphosis had happened.
And the ministry she had, everyone she talked
to, she ministered.
Even when people came up to the casket
and said, what a cruel thing.
She said, no, no, no, don't.
In words, she said, don't accuse God of
being cruel.
It's not cruel.
God knows what he's doing.
There was a peace that passes understanding.
I talked to Debbie last night on the
phone there in Florida.
She said, Dad, I can't explain to you
the peace that we have.
It's incredible.
Oh yeah, we cry.
There are times of sorrow, but there's a
peace and there's a rest and there's a
strength.
I want to make a statement.
I'm going to make it very boldly and
I'm telling you I can back it up
with everything in this book.
Listen closely.
All suffering in the life of a righteous
child of God is a call to ministry.
I'm going to say it again.
All suffering, all pain, all trial that comes
to the life of a true child of
God is a call to ministry.
Now, let me go on to prove it.
No denomination, no bishop can do it.
Paul said, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord,
who has enabled me for he counted me
faithful, putting me into the ministry.
Now, what does Paul mean when he says
Christ enabled me, counting me faithful?
You can't, that can't be in human strength.
What Paul is, you see, three days after
Paul's converted, he receives this call to this
ministry.
Three days after he's blinded and he goes
into Damascus and he's in a house by
himself and Ananias is sent by the Holy
Spirit and here's the message, here's the call.
He says, Christ put me in the ministry.
But he said, tell Paul I will show
him how many great things he must do
for my sake.
Is that what it says?
Is that what it says, folks?
No, tell him that I'm going to show
him the great things, not just things he's
going to say, great things he's going to
suffer.
And then Paul goes on to say, we
all having this ministry.
All have this ministry.
Why did Paul say Christ enabled me, counting
me faithful, before he says God laid this
ministry of suffering upon me?
Because he said, what he's saying, I have
God's promise that he's going to be my
enabler to be faithful through it all.
And the Greek word there, enabler, is a
continuous supply of strength.
What he's saying, not only did he tell
me he's going to take me through great
suffering, but he says, I'm going to give
you more than sufficient strength.
I'm going to give you everything you need
to go through it.
I'm going to enable you so that you
can be faithful in this ministry.
You will not be approached, reproached.
You will not give in.
You're going to be the testimony.
Now, how did Paul look upon his ministry?
Did he consider himself put in the ministry
because of the manner of his preaching?
Hardly.
He said, I don't preach with enticing words.
And he was accused of not being well
understood.
In fact, Peter said, he writes some things
that are hard to understand.
He didn't judge it by his preaching nor
his teaching.
He didn't judge it by any of his
wisdom because he said that was all done.
He had thrown away all of the worldly
wisdom, the earthly wisdom, and all of the
things he had learned of his skills and
how to use psychology, whatever it may be.
These things are all gone.
So how does he judge his calling?
How does he judge his ministry?
Oh, not by the standards we have today.
You know, how many of you have in
church and what have you done?
Show, what can you show?
I get so weary of that.
That is not God's plan.
It is not the scriptural way that God
looks at ministry whatsoever.
My speech was not with enticing words, he
said.
His ministry, listen to me closely, Paul's ministry
was the outshining of Christ produced in him
through great sufferings.
It is how he reacted.
It is what the world saw of his
reactions to his sufferings.
It was the sweetness, the outshining of Jesus
Christ.
And Paul said, I live, nevertheless I live,
yet not I, but Christ lives in me.
He said, yes, you see a human being,
but I want you to know that God
is taking me through great sufferings and all
of those sufferings have produced the nature, the
spirit, the character of Christ.
It is the character of Christ, you see.
Only the enabler could do this.
Only the Holy Spirit could take me through
what I have been through with a song,
with a testimony of victory.
Paul impacted his age and he is still
impacting our age today by the way he
responded to his sufferings, by the way he
glorified the Lord in his sufferings.
Let me give you Paul's ministry.
Here it is.
We sang about this morning.
I am troubled on every side, but not
distressed.
That means I am not crushed by it.
Yes, I am hurting, but it is not
going to crush me.
I am perplexed.
Yes, I do not understand it, but I
am not in despair over it.
I am persecuted, but I am sure not
forsaken.
I have been cast down, but not destroyed.
Always bearing about in the body the dying
of the Lord Jesus, that the life also
of Jesus might be manifest in my body.
That is his ministry.
Paul was no superman.
He knew what few other men knew about
despair.
There were times he thought he could not
make it, despair unto death he called it.
Sudden trouble that came to him that overwhelmed
him.
I want to go to 2 Corinthians now,
the first chapter, to slip over the first
chapter.
2 Corinthians, first chapter, beginning of verse 8.
For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant
of our trouble which came to us in
Asia?
We were pressed out of Masia, above strength,
insomuch that we despaired even of life.
We had the sentence of death in ourselves
that we should not trust in ourselves, but
in God which raises the dead, who delivered
us from so great a death, and doth
deliver, in whom we trust that he will
deliver us.
He also helping together by prayer for us,
that for the gift bestowed upon us, he's
calling their prayer for him as a gift,
that for the gift bestowed upon us by
the means of many persons, thanks may be
given by many on our behalf.
Pressed down beyond all strength, utterly at a
loss to explain it, at the point of
believing it was all over, but in his
most trying time he remembers his ministry.
A world is watching me.
All my friends are watching me.
I've preached a lot about God's power to
keep.
I've told everybody how Jesus comforts and the
Holy Spirit comforts, and now I have a
world watching me.
And suddenly his ministry that God has given
to him rises up in faith, and he
cries out in so many words, and we
trust in God who raises the dead.
And then he tells the Corinthian church, it
was your prayers that helped, enabled me to
come through with the song of victory.
Ye also helping together by prayer for us.
Folks, don't take lightly this matter of praying
for your brothers and sisters in need.
Don't just take it lightly and say, I'm
going to pray for you, and then while
you're driving in a car or in a
moment you remember, just you flash a little
prayer to the Lord.
No.
Paul says, I came through this by the
work of the Holy Spirit and by your
help.
You prayed for me, and it helped me,
and it brought me through.
And folks, our family knows what that's all
about.
Many of you know what that's all about.
Those 30 trying days in her home, in
the last hour as we gathered around the
bed, she was breathing her last breaths.
We were all holding hands and singing, God
is so good.
God is so good.
And in that moment, I'm telling you, we
felt the power of the prayers of Saints
of God.
It was just as real as the breath
we were breathing.
And I thank so many here and all
over the country.
We've been receiving calls and emails from all
over the world.
So many, many prayed.
We thank God for that.
But Paul said, he said, you're also helping
together by prayer for us.
He said, that was a gift.
Because you gave us that gift, we're able
to glorify God.
This ministry is glorifying God because there's a
testimony now.
We came out of this.
It didn't cross us.
The world didn't have, the devil didn't have
the pleasure of seeing us coming apart.
Folks, listen to me very closely now.
The time is coming, I believe it's even
now, when the only message that's going to
impact a world that's gone insane is this
ministry that I'm speaking about.
I'm going to go into it a little
deeper, but I want you to follow.
I want to make this statement again.
The time is coming and it's even here
now.
The only message that's going to impact an
insane world or the atheist, Muslims, whoever it
may be, is this ministry that I'm speaking
of.
Why don't you go to 2 Timothy, the
fourth chapter, and let me prove it to
you.
2 Timothy, the fourth chapter.
I want to start at verse 1 and
read the first five verses.
I charge thee therefore before God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick
and the dead as appearing in his kingdom,
preach the word, be instant in season out
of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long
-suffering a doctrine.
For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but after their own
lust they shall heap to themselves teachers having
itching ears.
They shall turn away their ears from the
truth and they shall be turned unto fables.
But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions,
do the work of an evangelist, make full
proof of the ministry.
Now look at me and listen closely.
In the annex, wherever you may be, listen
closely.
The time is here now.
And the Bible said that men are going
to be so given over to their lust,
what is given so over to hearing messages,
having itching ears and creating teachers that will
minister to their own lust.
He said they're not going to endure sound
doctrine, but he said yes, go ahead and
preach sound doctrine.
Yes, reproof is needed.
He said preach the word, be instant in
season out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all long-suffering a doctrine.
But then in the next verse he said
the time is coming, it's not going to
work.
They're not going to hear.
They will not endure sound doctrine.
They're not going to endure sound doctrine.
They're going to turn away their ears to
the truth and shall be turned unto fables.
The time is coming that no amount of
preaching, no amount of doctrine is going to
get through to these hard hearts.
So they're going to turn away their ears.
So what ministry is it that will reach
them?
What ministry is going to reach these?
Folks, I believe we've come to this point,
not only here in the United States, but
worldwide.
Oh, bless God, there is a ministry.
There is a ministry that reaches atheists, that
reaches Muslims, and the more, the closer we
get to the coming of the Lord, and
you've heard it from this pulpit.
You heard it last Sunday, understood very strongly
from Pastor Carter, and you've been hearing it
from Pastor Neal and all the pastors.
You've been hearing it.
The hard times are coming.
Difficult times are coming.
What is the ministry that is going to
have an impact?
It is going to be the outshining of
Christ in and through deep, hard suffering in
the lives of the redeemed.
I say it again, it's going to be
the outshining of Christ.
It's going to be how you and I
as believers, who for years and centuries have
boasted on the glory and the power of
our God and our Christ.
When all these things begin to happen, and
everything is being shaken, and when your life
is being twisted and turned in by sickness
or disease, when your family is being shaken,
everything is being shaken, only the outshining of
Christ, only that victory that is not just
in words, but in deeds.
Men and women who have been through the
fire and they've come out, they have endured
the pain and the suffering.
I leaned over to Pastor Carter doing a
song that was sung this morning.
It says, I'm giving up my pain and
trouble, and I said, well, I'm getting up
and preaching.
I'm going to embrace my pain and suffering.
I didn't see too much Scripture in that
one part.
It's not because I want it to happen,
because I know there's no other way for
the character of Christ to be produced in
me.
No other way.
Even Christ learned obedience by the things He
suffered.
But watch thou in all things endure afflictions.
Do you know what he's really saying?
Be careful now, the world's watching you.
You're going to endure afflictions.
But be careful that you don't, listen, don't
discredit everything you preached.
Don't discredit everything you have testified to this
world about the keeping, comforting power of the
Holy Ghost.
Don't discredit it.
The moment of time when something comes into
your life, suddenly, unexpectedly, it comes into all
of our lives.
It's going to come to yours.
It comes to all of us.
It's going to come.
He said everything's going to be shaken.
It's going to come.
He's not the author of it, but when
it comes, the testimony, he said, do the
work of an evangelist.
You know, when I was a young preacher,
I thought it'd be so wonderful to go
through the hospital corridors and have faith.
And I said, boy, what an evangelism that
would be.
I'd just go and lay hands on them
and people get up off the beds all
over the hospital.
And I said, why not?
That's what the Bible, you know, Christ is
the healer and all of that.
Let me ask, let me illustrate this.
Who is the real evangelist?
Here comes down the hospital corridor, a young
preacher who's never had any pain or suffering
in his life.
He's got a good Bible under his hand
and he's a sincere young man and he
walks into a room with an atheist who's
suffering and he opens the scripture and he
says, God sent me here and I want
to tell you that without Christ you're going
to hell.
And he gives the scripture.
Now, folks, I'm not putting down hospital visitation.
Hospital visitation is a high calling.
And this church is deeply involved, marvelous involved
in that.
But which one is the evangelist?
This young man who's told to leave the
room because he's not working in wisdom and
God hasn't really sent him and he really
doesn't have the word.
He's never really experienced the kind of pain
this man has because this man's just had
a heart operation and he's here talking about
something a man doesn't even understand.
But you see across the hall there's a
woman who's had a double mastectomy.
She's had a kidney removed and she can
hardly walk and she's been in a wheelchair
and she lights up the room and every
nurse loves to go into the room because
there's something in that room.
And there's a Jewish doctor that can't wait
to come there every day and sit and
he said, I want to know the secret.
How can you have such peace and joy?
What's the secret?
Tell me which one's doing the work of
an evangelist.
Paul said watch because the whole world's looking
at you.
All your co-workers, everybody's watching how you
react.
Are you going to complain?
Are you going to just go and dump
your problem on everybody you see?
During Tippi's last 30 days with us, there
was a workman that was coming.
We had some work being done and he
would come once or twice a week and
he knew there was a little girl in
there dying.
And after three weeks he went home and
told his wife, he says, look there's something
going on in that house.
He said, I don't know what it is.
He said, I want what it is.
And nobody would preach to him, not a
single verse given to him.
We just loved him.
He'd look at our faces.
What was the ministry?
Me getting down on my knees beside him
and say, are you saved brother?
You're smoking, don't you understand?
You're killing your lungs and God said your
body's the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Folks, I'm not mocking, I'm not putting any
of that down, but you see how far
away we've gotten from true ministry.
The ministry here right now is that I
am telling the world that I have a
Christ in me, that I have a spirit
of God in me that can take me
to anything the world can throw at me.
Not through human strength.
Doesn't mean you don't cry.
I've cried a river of tears.
Folks, you come out of it, look up,
and don't you ever dare say to God,
ever.
What a cruel thing, what a cruel thing.
Now beloved, before I close I want to
tell you something.
Everybody in this building, everyone hearing the sound
of my voice, we're all changing.
One way or another we're changing.
You are in the process of changing.
There's a transfiguration taking place in all of
our lives.
Our character is formed and changed by what
obsesses us.
Whatever has your heart, whatever your eyes have
fixed, the one thing that you're going after,
that's going to form your character.
Folks, I have seen the changes that come
to the homosexual, especially those who are just
engaging in the lifestyle.
For example, there were men, two years ago,
when Fifth Avenue, there were numbers of gays
who stood by, and one of those parades
that I was there watching, and there were
homosexual men, business men that said, I would
never, I never ever want to march in
that march.
No exhibitionism for me.
I will never be an exhibitionist.
And two years later, they're leading the parade
half naked.
I have seen, in the homosexual lifestyle, the
changes in appearance, voice, countenance, and then suddenly
a boldness to sin without fear, in your
face kind of sin, that you see the
degeneration, you see the character changing.
Nothing changes a man or a woman quicker
than pornography.
Nothing.
Because first it's a girly magazine, and then
finally it goes down, down, down to the
pits of hell into child pornography.
The character changes.
The adulterer, he's honest, or she's honest, and
for a number of years is married and
loves her children.
And she'd tell you at one time when
she was honest, or he was honest, I
love my children, I would never give up
my children, and then you watch the change
in their character until they can walk away
from their own children.
Both men and women walk away without shame,
without one iota of conviction, because their character,
they've been metamorphosed into another person.
Whatever you're feeding your soul on is changing
you.
It's affecting you.
We're all being changed, the Scripture says.
Slothful, lazy Christians.
Oh folks, I tell you, and I'm going
to close in just a minute.
One thing I dread more than anything else,
if anything puts the fear of God in
my heart, is that either through vacations, thank
God for vacations, or just having a long
period of ease where there's no demands made
upon me.
I become lazy.
I'm not into the Word, and I don't
have that time of beholding His face.
Then I know that the growth is fucked.
And I want to tell you, you start
going back the other way.
And I tell you, you can lose the
very vision until the face of Jesus just
begins to fade away.
I would rather die.
I don't ever want that to happen in
my life.
Say, God, do whatever you have to do
to keep me on my face in the
Holy of Holies.
I'm going to give you one last gift.
I'm going to tell you again before I
close.
If you're going through a hard time, now
if you're facing a trial, the Lord has
just put you in the ministry.
So be careful.
The Scripture says that you do not bring
an offense to that ministry by turning into
a sniveling, complaining coward.
You may not think that you have the
strength, but I'm going to tell you something,
folks, you better be prepared.
If you're not seeking God now, for example,
you get a telephone call.
I've had numbers of them and suddenly everything
changed.
Just think of how quick it happens.
Ten minutes from the Florida landing, families are
all gathered around, everybody's happy, great smiles on
their face, and suddenly the word comes, they're
gone.
They're gone.
You see, you have to prepare.
You have to have the character before the
impact.
So now the call to this church and
all God's people, prepare your heart.
Your ministry now is to get alone and
behold my face, worship me, get to know
me, and you'll be ready for anything.
And out of that will come this outshining,
this ministry of outshining, of peace and rest
and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Here's the last Scripture, giving no offense in
anything that the ministry be not blamed.
No offense.
Don't be an offense by reacting just like
the world reacts.
Oh, folks, I have seen people coming apart,
going in the hospital so much recently, and
funeral parlors, and seeing people screaming.
No consolation.
They have nothing.
And folks, the time is coming.
Many of you will fall apart because you
have not been beholding His face.
That's your ministry.
That's mine.
When I get to heaven, the Lord, when
He opens a book, He's not going to
be talking about any building that I was
enabled to build or any institution.
He's not going to talk about any of
the crusades.
He's not going to talk about that.
He's going to talk about the outshining.
We'll talk about the character.
He's going to talk about how I responded.
But in all things, approving ourselves as the
ministers of God in much patience in afflictions,
patience in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in
strife, in imprisonment, the sorrowful, but always rejoicing
as poor but making many rich.
How do you make people rich?
You make it rich by when atheists and
Muslims stand by amazed.
What's the secret?
How can they take it?
Where did they get that peace?
Where did they get that strength?
Where did they get that rest?
That's the ministry.
If all of it is an inquiry, it
opens up the door and then you can
tell them what a ministry that is.
I ask God to give me that.
And if you're suffering or headed for suffering,
God has put you in the ministry where
you stand.
I'm asking for those that came this morning
in the annex in here, in the main
auditorium, in the overflow roof.
You came here this morning carrying anguish and
trepidation and fear.
It may be a financial disaster that's looming
ahead of you.
Some of you may be facing a situation.
You say, I don't know how I'm going
to take it.
I don't want it to overwhelm me.
I'm telling you, if you love the Lord,
you've been walking with Him, you may think
that you'll fail.
You may think that you won't have it.
But sometimes I've seen some of the most
fragile, most tender people become like Gibraltars, Rock
of Ages, because the Holy Spirit came and
gave strength they didn't know was possible for
them to have.
If you're here with fear, you're facing something.
I don't know if it's a divorce, you
have some family problems.
There's a whole catalog of things that may
be.
But if you're here this morning, you carry
this burden.
The Lord, the Holy Spirit doesn't want you
to walk out.
You're among friends.
You have pastors and you have saints around
you that care to invite you to get
out of your seat.
You may have walked into this church this
morning.
You say, I don't even know why I'm
here.
Or somebody may have invited you.
But you know what you're going through.
You know what you're facing.
And you want Jesus to give you the
power, the strength to endure.
Wherever you're up in the balcony, I'm even
going to invite those that are in the
annex.
You can go to the hall.
They'll tell you how to get into this
auditorium.
You can walk down this aisle.
Here in the auditorium, up in the balcony,
you go to the stairs on either side.
You say, Pastor David, I'm in despair.
I've got fear.
And I want to be a true minister.
I don't want to bring reproach on the
Lord.
And I don't have the strength in myself.
Now, if you don't know Jesus, if you're
backslidden, you can follow these that come down.
Nobody will know why you came forward.
The Holy Ghost knows.
Come move in tight, if you will.
Please make room for those who are coming
as we sing it.
Oh, how I love Jesus.
Let Him minister to you.
Now, just open up your heart and He'll
do that.
Wherever you're at, the Lord wants to meet
your need this morning.
He wants to lift this burden from you.
He wants to give you a sense of
His love, a sense of His great care.
Lord Jesus, we're convinced of your love, your
great tender love for your children.
You will never put anything on us to
hurt us.
You never allow anything in our lives, oh
Lord, but that which is meant to produce
Christ's likeness in us.
But everything that comes into our lives, if
we're in trust with you, if we're walking
with you and we're just loving you and
resting in your promises and your word, we
need not fear.
We need not fear anything that happens in
this physical body.
We need not fear what happens around us
or to us.
Because you said you have everything under control
and you know what you're doing.
Oh Lord Jesus, send a comforter.
Send the comforter this morning.
Not when everybody came forward.
And those in the auditorium and in the
annex and who have been touched by just
maybe one statement or one thing that was
said in the message and the Lord's trying
to reach your heart and encourage you before
you walk out.
Why don't you just lift up your hands
to the Lord right now.
Right now.
And tell the Lord Jesus that you trust
that He'll do only what is right in
you.
And say, Jesus, give me the strength of
the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, I pray you come down now
to everyone that's reaching out to you.
We are changed as by the Spirit of
the Lord, not by our own strength, but
by the Holy Ghost, by the Holy Spirit
who abides in us.
Oh, blessed Holy Spirit, come now and fill
every vessel with faith.
Fill every vessel with confidence that in the
trial we're going to be transfigured.
We're going to be changed to the character
of Jesus Christ.
And we're going to have a testimony, oh
Lord, not just in word, but by the
very reaction of our lives, the outshining of
Jesus, the outshining of Christ in the trial
and in the hard time for those, Lord,
that are facing financial disaster.
Those, oh Lord, who say, I am nearly
being crushed.
Oh God, undergird them now, give them faith
and let them know God said, I'll never
fail you.
I'll never let you down.
God, for those that are facing cancer, those
facing marital problems, those that are facing all
kinds of physical health problems, God, remove all
fear.
Bring the peace of God.
Oh, Holy Ghost, come and minister to your
church.
Now, if you're coming to Jesus and you're
backslidden, you know what to do.
Just say, Jesus, here I am.
I surrender and I yield.
Holy Spirit, come, make Christ real to my
heart this morning.
Just yield.
Father, we thank you for your faithfulness.
We thank you for your mercy and your
goodness and your grace.
Hallelujah.
Glory, glory to Jesus.
Let's just worship him.
Worship the Lord.
Lord, we worship you.
We give you thanks.
We give you praise.
Lift the burden of your children.
Oh, blessed comfort or common comfort now.
You said, I'll never leave you.
I'll never forsake you.
Yea, though I walk through the valley in
the shadow of death, thou art with me.
You are with me.
Say it out loud.
You're with me, Lord.
Again, you're with me, Lord.
Hallelujah.
This is the conclusion of the message.