You have to understand today that the position
I'm coming from in speaking this message is
that it's in God's heart to restore you.
It's in God's heart to bless you.
It's in God's heart to allow you and
I to have to receive the fullness of
the life that he's promised us through Jesus
Christ.
And if you can understand that, it makes
it easier to hear this.
It makes it easier to get to the
conclusion and understanding where God wants to take
you.
Jesus himself said, you shall know the truth,
the truth shall make you free.
While the know is not head knowledge, it's
an inner embracing.
It's an intimate word in the original text.
It means that you shall inwardly embrace the
truth, love the truth, desire the truth, want
the truth, and then you shall be brought
to the freedom that was purchased for you
and for me on Calvary.
I come to you today as a pastor
who's very well aware of my own frailty.
One of the conditions of the high priesthood
in the Old Testament is that those who
led the people spiritually had to be aware
that they too were frail.
They too had struggles.
They too needed the same grace that they
were about to speak about to others.
I need the same grace that you need
to make it through to the end.
I have no strength of my own.
The strength I have has been given to
me of God, and it's only been given
because in my heart there's been a desire
to walk in the truth.
You would ask, has there ever been a
time in your life when you've wanted to
walk away from the truth?
Oh, you better believe it.
From the pathway that God's led before you?
Yes, absolutely.
The very same struggles that you go through,
I go through.
We're all in this together.
We're all in the same storm.
We all live with the same promise that
we're going to make it to the other
side.
Thanks be to God.
Please open your heart today.
Matthew chapter six, I want to talk to
you about when sin and religion become friends.
When sin and religion become friends.
Father, I thank you for the anointing of
your Holy Spirit.
Thank you for your mercy.
Thank you for your grace.
Thank you for your goodness.
Were it not for these things, none of
us would have strength.
There would be no hope.
We would corrupt everything around us.
Our reasoning would turn dark.
Our lives would be captivated by sin.
But because of your mercy, we have hope.
We have strength.
We have a future.
Father, we just thank you.
I thank you for that anointing that overpowers
my frailty.
God, I plead for your people today.
I plead for this church.
I plead for everyone who will hear this
message in the future.
I ask you, Lord Jesus Christ, give me
the power to speak this in such a
way that people will want to hear it.
And I thank you for it in your
precious name.
Amen.
When sin and religion become friends, Matthew chapter
six, verse 22 and 23.
These are the words of Jesus.
The light of the body is the eye.
If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole
body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee
be darkness, how great is that darkness.
Now, what does Jesus mean if the light
that is in thee be darkness?
Now, we look at the context of what
he's speaking about in the scriptures.
He's talking about using money as an illustration.
He's talking about the principle of serving two
masters.
And basically, he says, you cannot serve two
masters.
You'll either hate the one and love the
other or else hold to the one and
despise the other.
You can't serve two masters.
I can't, you can't.
Now, illustration is money, but it goes deeper
than that.
It's that inner struggle that all of us
have to face from time to time when
we come to at least a minimal understanding
of the ways of God, but yet in
our own heart, we think we might know
a better way.
We might be able to secure a more
sound future.
If we simply follow the path of our
own reasoning, we might be happier.
If we don't take the pathway that God
has set before us and take another pathway
that seems to be easier, it seems to
be more attractive, more admirable as it is
to our own way of thinking.
Now, it's possible to have a clear vision
before us of what is of real value.
And yet choosing to set our affections on
something which could, which we have been made
aware could be harmful.
It's possible to sit under the word of
God to actually know what God is speaking.
A clear view as it is, but inside
wondering how close can I get to the
fence before I'm outside?
How close can I walk to the line
before I'm rejected?
Do I have to really, do I have
to really walk the way that God says?
Do I have to really do it the
way that God says that I need to
do it?
How much do I really need to obey
God?
In the book of Ezekiel chapter 28, you
don't need to turn there.
There's, there's a story.
It's a prophecy to a king of a
place called Tyrus.
And it's those who study this say it's
a reference to the fall of Satan himself
and his subsequent corrupting of the human race.
Now, whether or not the scripture refers specifically
to this king, you can honestly say that
it is in a sense of measure of
that sin nature that was sown into the
human race in the garden of Eden.
Satan himself came down to the earth and
corrupted humankind.
He corrupted Adam.
He corrupted Eve.
He corrupted you.
He corrupted me.
We were born with a nature that is
corrupt.
It is against God.
It is contrary to the things of God.
And let me show you exactly how it
happens.
Speaking about this king, prophet Ezekiel says, or
the Lord says through Ezekiel, you've been in
Eden, the garden of God, and every precious
stone was your covering.
You had an anointing and you had been
put in an appointed place.
You walked in the presence of God.
The actual scripture text is that was upon
the holy mountain of God.
And you've walked up and down in the
midst of the stones of fire.
You knew the character of God.
You came to an understanding of who God
is.
You walked in holy places.
You sat in a place of an unhindered
view as it is of who God really
is.
He says, you were perfect in your ways
from the day that you were created until
iniquity was found in you.
In other words, the very ability which I
gave you corrupted you.
We have reasoning.
We have the power to reason because God
gave it to us.
But yet that reasoning can corrupt us if
it's not surrendered to the revealed Christ.
Now consider for a moment that Satan had
an unrestricted view of perfect light.
It was in the presence of God.
Now you and I are in the presence
of God.
For example, we are in a place where
we are worshiping.
We do have minds given to us to
understand the text of scripture.
We do have the Holy Spirit within us.
If you're a child of God and through
the Holy Spirit, you and I have the
ability to be taught of the Lord, the
ability to know what is right and the
ability to know what is wrong is given
to us by God.
So in another measure, in a smaller measure,
perhaps we have an unrestricted view of God.
That means that if you want truth, you
can have it.
If you want freedom, it can be yours.
If you want life, it's promised.
If you want assurance, it can be in
your heart.
If you want a future, there is a
future in Christ for you.
If you want strength, strength is yours.
But even with the pureness of that light
before him, he chose to follow his own
reasoning.
See, that was the downfall of Satan.
He chose another pathway.
He believed that he knew a better way,
that in fact, he could be God to
himself.
He could be his own God.
I can know what is right and I
can know what is wrong.
Why do I have to dwell in this
narrow place?
Now he was in an exalted place.
The scripture seems to bear witness that there
was a specific beauty about him.
There were giftings given him.
There was a brightness about him.
Perhaps one of the finer created beings in
heaven in that particular moment, but his brightness
corrupted him.
And he began to chafe at the narrowness.
Here I am a little bit lower than
God.
Here I am assigned to a specific place.
But I believe that, you see, I'm created
for something more than this.
I believe that I have a destiny to
occupy something bigger than what God's given me
to do.
Yes, I'm the anointed cherub.
And perhaps some suggest he was leading in
some form of worship in heaven, whether or
not that's the case.
In his heart, the very giftings that God
gave him corrupted him.
And folks, you see this repeat itself in
the human race over and over and over
again.
People with brilliant minds, but absolutely corrupted by
that mind, using the thought process to go
farther and farther and farther away from the
kingdom of God.
He believed that he could be the instructor
instead of the instructed, the discerner instead of
the disciple, that he could become the creator
of his own reality instead of being one
who occupies a perfect reality that was actually
made available to him to enjoy.
He could create his own reality.
He could create his own right and his
own wrong.
And that is the very key.
That's what Satan fell with.
That's what he brought down into the Garden
of Eden.
The same logic, the same reasoning.
He came down to Adam and Eve and
said to them, listen, God created you and
he put you in this garden and you're
tending these plants and you're naming a few
animals.
But don't you think that you're created for
something more than this?
He brought his own logic and so did
in the human race.
Don't you know that if you just do
it my way, that you can become as
God's and you can know good and evil.
You don't have to do it God's way.
I know God says that certain things are
good and certain things are evil, but he's
narrow.
You don't have to live in this narrow
way.
You can be as God and you can
make your own declaration.
This is good in spite of what God
says about it.
Folks, you wouldn't believe what we have to
counsel in this church from time to time.
People have sat in this congregation with all
kinds of practices that are very clearly prohibited
in scripture.
But over time, sin and religion have made
friends and they've come to the place of
calling evil good.
And it's amazing.
Oh, God understands and this is wonderful.
Yeah, I know she's married and I know
we've lived together for the last 12 years,
but this is good.
You see, we study the scripture together and
we pray together.
And I know that what God said, you
see, but this is good.
It's amazing when sin and religion combine.
That's what Jesus meant when he said, if
the light that is in you be darkness,
if you've sat under truth, but embraced a
lie, how deep is that darkness?
In other words, how do you get out
of that darkness?
Better to be an overt sinner, better to
be the most reprehensible person in New York
city, because then you know it, because then
you have a chance to be redeemed.
Better to be that than be in the
house of God and be reprehensible and having
put on a covering of religion and embraced
a wrong view of God and a wrong
view of the ways of God.
In his own mind, he had become God.
That's the great, that's the danger we face
folks.
That's the danger you face.
It's the danger I face.
It is in us, in all of us,
in our fallen nature to want to be
as God, to want to have the power
to say this is to not forgive a
person, for example, who's wronged us and say,
this is good that I've not forgiven.
I know what God says, but you see,
this is good.
It's, it's in our power in the workplace
to put our hand in the till and
say, this is good.
You see, they don't pay me enough.
And you know, last year I didn't get
that vacation I deserve.
So this is, this is good.
Yet the scripture says all thieves dwell outside
of the holy city, not just for time,
but forever that no thief inherits the kingdom
of God.
But yet we can get to the place
where we can actually be in the house
of God.
We can actually be putting on clothes, religious
clothing and becoming our own gods.
Romans chapter one says it this way in
verses 18.
Let me just read it to you.
For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and the unrighteousness of
men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
In other words, hold the truth with an
unsurrendered heart, hold it in unrighteousness, read it,
but won't do it.
Even when it's plain, even when it's clear.
Now I know there are times that you
and I might be confused or not be
sure which way to go, but if we,
if we truly pray, the Lord will show
us.
If we seek godly counsel, we will find
our way through.
There's darkened corridors that sometimes come before us,
but yet some things are very clear in
scripture.
Verse 25 says they worshiped and served the
creature more than the creator.
In other words, worship and serve that which
has been created.
That's what Satan did.
That's what Adam and Eve fell for.
That's the inherent nature that you and I
received when our initial parents sinned in the
garden of Eden, that there's a tendency that
we can worship our own reasoning, our own
thinking more than the one who created us.
In verse 28, it's all summed up by
saying, and God gave them over to a
reprobate mind, a corrupted thinking, a crooked mind.
There is a point folks, and you and
I ought to always pray that we never
get there, but I have met people who
are like this, who are in the house
of the Lord, but they have such a
corrupted thinking.
After years of being and not obeying the
word of God, their thinking is so corrupted
that it's almost as if it can't be
straightened.
You can't get them out of this thinking.
They've so worshipped the thoughts of their own
heart.
They've so become their own god.
They've so denied the text of scripture that
you simply can't get them out of that
way of thinking.
I have known people like this over the
years.
There's no greater darkness than when that which
is inwardly corrupt takes on the covering of
religion.
That's why Jesus went to the Pharisees when
they approached him in the gospel of Matthew.
He said, you serpents, you generation of vipers,
how will you escape the damnation of hell?
Now he's not condemning them in one sense.
He's saying that you have so covered corruption
in religion.
You've so boxed yourself in.
You bought yourself a ticket to hell.
How will you escape?
How will you get out?
How will you change?
How will you ever get to the place?
You've embraced this corrupted reasoning of Satan.
You've covered death and decay with fine clothing
and sweet religious words, but inwardly you hate
God.
Now keep in mind that Israel was potentially
the most religious nation on the face of
the earth at that time.
And Jesus could stand them to the face
in John 8, 44.
And he said to the Pharisees, you are
of your father, the devil, and the lusts
of your father you will do.
He was a murderer right from the beginning.
He basically said to them, you're going to
kill me.
I've come to you.
I've come with words from God.
I've come to bring you into freedom.
I've come to draw you into the heart
of God, but you've so fallen for the
deceptive strategy of Satan.
You've so covered death and decay with religious
garments.
You're so entranced now in the wrong way
of thinking that you are going to have
two alternatives.
The one is that you're going to repent
of your sin and the other is that
you're going to kill the voice that has
been sent to draw you to the presence
of God.
Oh, Jerusalem, he said, you stone the prophets.
You scourge those that are sent to you.
How many times I've longed to draw you
to my heart.
How many times I've reached out.
How many times I've tried to make this
crooked way straight, but you wouldn't come to
me.
There's no deeper darkness than when sin and
religion become friends.
There's incredible power in this deceptive state.
The scripture tells us that Satan succeeded in
taking one third of the angels with him
in his rebellion against God.
Now think of that for a moment, almost
inconceivable, created beings who also had an unrestricted
view of the glory of God.
And yet Satan succeeds in taking a third
with him into his rebellion against God.
You look down on the earth in Numbers
chapter 16, there was a man as Moses
led the people of God through the wilderness.
His name was Korah.
And it's almost inconceivable to me, how did
this man, he succeeded in getting 250 men
of renown, the scripture says, to stand in
opposition to divine order and God's leadership through
Moses.
And here are these men standing before the
tabernacle.
They have their censers in their hand, which
is a type of holy devotion, a type
of prayer, a type of submission and surrender
to God.
And they are completely unaware that they're about
to be burnt to a crisp by the
presence of God.
They have no idea how did they get
to that state?
These are men of renown who became men
of renown under the leadership of God.
They were just stomping slaves in Egypt, that's
all they were, but God brought them out.
And in that bringing out, the giftings were
given and leadership ability was imparted by the
presence of God to them.
And yet there's an inner corruption.
And all it took is that strategy of
Satan one more time to say, no, no,
no, this is narrow.
You see, you were meant for much more
than this.
You're in a kind of a confined place,
but just think of how, just think of
the glory that could be given you.
Think of, you're meant to lead, you're not
meant to follow.
And here they are with their censers, 250
men of renown, almost inconceivable, unless you understand
that there's incredible power in the deceptiveness of
the human heart.
There's power in your heart to deceive you.
Do you understand?
I'm not talking about some exterior prophet comes
into your house and leads you astray.
There's power in your own heart.
Each one of us has that inner capability
to walk away from God and to develop
a scriptural reasoning around it that is completely
corrupted.
Keep in mind that it's the most religious
nation on earth that cried out for the
death of the son of God.
Folks, I don't know if there's a more
religious nation in the world than Israel at
that time.
And they had the scriptures, they had as
realistically, they had the Pentateuch, they had the
books of the prophets.
They had this, if they wanted it, this
unrestricted view.
Remember, Jesus said himself, search the scriptures because
in them, you think you have eternal life,
but they are they that testify about me.
It's very clear.
It's very plain where this was all leading
to.
And I've not come to destroy what you
believe, but to bring it to its conclusion,
to its completion.
And they had a choice.
They'd formed a religion.
They had covered corruption as it is.
Jesus looked at the leaders and said, you
appear righteous, but you're full of death inside.
You clean the side of the cup, but
inwardly there's simply decay.
And folks, and so they had a choice.
God came.
Not a message about God, not another theory
about God, not just a good man, not
just a prophet.
God came.
God in a human body.
God.
And all the evidence was there that he
was God.
He could raise the dead.
He could walk on water.
I mean, he could multiply a few loaves
and a couple of fishes and feed thousands
of people.
I mean, God came.
And so the choice was given them.
I either believe God, I either go with
what he's saying, or I just embrace myself
as God.
And I embrace my covering as sufficient.
I embrace my religion as worthy to be
worshiped.
And so it leaves me no other choice.
I have to cry out away with this
man, crucify him.
Folks, there are times you sit in church
perhaps, and the preacher's preaching.
It might even be happening to some right
now.
And you're just in your heart, you're saying,
oh, I wish he'd just be quiet.
I wish he'd get onto something positive.
Away with this man, away with this voice,
crucify him.
He's touching.
He's touching something I've embraced.
He's touching a covering I've manufactured.
He's touching a religion I've started to practice.
He's touching a sense of righteousness that I
have created for myself.
And it angers my heart.
And I don't want to hear this.
I come to Times Square Church and hear
one more sermon like this, I'm going to
some positive place in the city.
Some place where I can just practice my
religion and feel good.
And there's probably a few places where you
could do that.
In him was life, the scripture said, and
the life was the light of men, and
the light shined in the darkness.
And the darkness comprehended it not.
Now, you have to understand, the light shined
in a religious darkness, and the darkness didn't
comprehend it.
Isn't it strange that the lepers heard it,
the prostitutes could respond to it?
Even the dead could hear it.
But religion has a certain depth about it
that makes it almost impossible sometimes to hear
the voice of God.
But he says in Matthew 6.22, but
if your eye is single, your whole body
shall be full of light.
Now, go with me to 2 Corinthians, please,
in the New Testament.
If your eye is single, if you're singly
focused, if you and I are standing before
a holy God, and we're saying, Lord, whatever
you say is truth is truth.
Whatever you ask me to do, Lord, and
I clearly know it's you, I'll do it.
Wherever you lead me, I'll follow.
Whatever you say is right is right.
Whatever you say is wrong is wrong.
God Almighty, I'm not going to create some
religious thing in my own heart that allows
me to move in a direction of death,
thinking it's life.
2 Corinthians 3, verse 14.
Now, speaking about Israel, their minds were blinded.
For until this day remains the same veil
untaken away in the reading of the Old
Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.
The religion blinded their minds, folks.
It's that simple.
They created a system that was operating outside
of truth.
Even to this day, verse 15, when Moses
is read, the veil is upon their heart.
Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord,
the veil shall be taken away.
Now, that's a principle for there's a day
coming when Israel is going to turn to
the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
But it's a principle that applies to you
and I, to everyone who's here today.
When you and I turned to the Lord,
the veil, that which hinders us, that which
blocks the view, that which keeps us in
weakness, that which keeps us apart from the
life that God offers us in Jesus Christ
is taken away.
And then suddenly something happens.
He says in verse 17, now the Lord
is that spirit.
And where the spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty.
And the word liberty really in the original
text means generosity.
But we all with open face beholding as
in a glass, or that means a mirror,
the glory of the Lord are changed into
the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the spirit of the Lord.
The veil is taken away when you and
I stand before God.
And we're just simply willing to be honest
in the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ
and say, Lord, not my will, but thine,
not my ways, but yours, not my thinking,
but what you say.
This veil of incomplete religion, the deceptive reasoning
of the human heart is taken away and
we're brought into life.
We become aware of verse 17 of the
incredible generosity of God, where the spirit of
the Lord is, there's liberty.
It means generosity.
This incredible generosity where God says, I'm willing
to give you a new heart.
I'm willing to give you a new mind.
I'm willing to give you a new spirit.
I'm willing to put love inside of you.
Joy, long suffering, peace, holiness, temperance.
I'm willing to give you peace in the
midst of the storm, strength in the midst
of your weakness.
I'm willing to do what can't be done
apart from the strength of God within you.
We're changed as we behold him into the
same image that we're looking at from glory
to glory.
We are changed into the image of the
one who thought it not robbery to be
equal with God, but made himself of no
reputation, humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.
We're changed into the image of the one
who was given for us when we're not
even looking for him.
We're changed.
Our hearts are changed.
The whole basis of our religion is not
to move ahead on some kind of a
social ladder that we've created in our heart.
The whole basis of what we do is
to honor God and to see fallen men
brought to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
We're changed into the same image from glory
to glory by the spirit of the Lord.
That means that means that which brings the
name of Christ to reputation.
We're changed.
It's a miraculous life that we enter into.
Religion is obnoxious.
Religion is death.
Religion is taking a corpse and putting a
covering on it and calling it the church.
But Christ is life.
Christ is joy.
Christ is peace.
Chapter four, Paul says, therefore, seeing we have
received this ministry, verse one, and have received
mercy, we faint not.
We don't draw back in other words, but
have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not
walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of
God deceitfully.
But by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of
God.
If our gospel be hid, it is hid
to them that are lost in whom the
God of this world has blinded the minds
of them which believe not.
Lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them.
Folks, knowing this, we don't pull back, but
we renounce.
If we are the church of Jesus Christ,
if you are part of the bride of
Christ, you and I renounce dishonesty.
We renounce craftiness.
We renounce deception.
We renounce ever handling the word of God
deceitfully.
We simply renounce it.
We don't pull away from it.
We say, God, your ways are right.
Your ways are true.
I'm not going to sit in your presence
and try to justify wrong anymore.
I'm not going to justify evil.
If you call it evil, it's evil.
I'm not going to hold to my heart
something that you call me to put away.
Young people that sit here this morning, and
I wonder how many were out dancing in
some club last night.
Don't pull back.
The Lord says, let go of a certain
lifestyle.
Let go of a certain way of doing
things.
Let go of relationships that you shouldn't be
in and practices that you shouldn't be doing.
Let the truth bring Christ to reputation.
Paul says, commending ourselves to every man's conscience
in the sight of God.
Commending ourselves by the manifestation of the truth,
by walking a holy life, by walking a
life that is simply true.
We're commending Christ to every man's conscience by
walking in truth.
If Satan can get the church and any
generation to walk in spiritual compromise, he takes
away the conviction that is supposed to be
in us.
It's a natural conviction.
We don't even have to say anything.
Just the fact that you walk honestly.
The fact that you and I do what
is right when everyone else is doing what
is wrong.
When the whole world is living as its
own God, we acknowledge there is a God
and we submit and surrender to him and
worship him.
We open this book and we don't treat
it lightly.
We recognize that it's truth and say, Lord
Jesus, come and bring your name to reputation
through my life.
You are God and I'm not.
Your ways are right and mine aren't.
I'm leaving my own reasoning and I'm moving
towards where you're calling me.
Jesus said, if your eye be single, your
whole body will be full of light.
Your whole body.
In other words, every chain, every wall, every
enemy, every power of hell begins to be
broken.
Your whole body.
Your whole body, he said, full of light.
Your whole body given strength that can only
come from God.
Your whole body glorifying God.
Paul said it this way, in him we
live, we move, we have our being.
It's all in him.
Your whole body being a declaration of the
keeping power of God.
Your whole body saying one thing when the
world is saying something else.
Your whole body, everything you are, everything you
say, everything you touch, everything you do is
a declaration.
Every little old lady you help across the
street just because the tenderness of God is
in your heart.
Your whole body.
Your whole body becomes an expression of God.
Your whole body is full of light.
Changed into the image of God, if we
do it God's way.
Satan is so deceived that he doesn't realize
the perilousness of his condition or position.
Most likely still believes he can overthrow the
kingdom of God and be God.
It's sad to say multitudes and multitudes and
multitudes have embraced his reasoning.
You can walk a certain way and never
suffer a consequence.
My whole body resurrected quick and brought to
the life which God intended, just like Lazarus
raised from the dead.
Given life, strength, health, hope, determination, direction.
My whole body full of light.
Unhindered by the frailty of the fallen nature
that I've inherited.
Unhindered.
Like David in Psalm 18, he said, through
God, he said, I can leap over a
wall.
Because of God, he said, I can run
through a troop.
No matter how many are amassed or what
kind of force is against me.
Because of God, David said in my life,
I can run through all opposition that is
set against me.
I can leap over any wall that the
devil tries to build around me.
I can believe that my life is going
to be a testimony of his glory in
my generation.
I can believe it with all my heart.
Now the question arises, what is God telling
you to stay away from?
See, this is where we move towards truth,
or we cover our own selves with a
garment of religion.
And what is he calling you towards?
What are we to leave behind?
And what are we to move forward to?
Collectively, but most importantly, individually.
This is a call to each one of
us.
What is the Holy Spirit telling you right
now to walk away from?
See, this is where you're going to make
a choice.
You're going to either cover sin with religion,
or you're going to throw off that garment
and move towards a holy God and say,
Lord, I'm going where you're calling me.
I'm going to be what you have designed
me to be.
I'm going to walk the pathway that you've
set before me.
Don't fall into the religious trap of becoming
your own God and justifying wrong.
And don't put off for long what God
has called you.
If you're really wise, you won't put it
off at all.
But don't put off what God's called you
to do.
The more you put it off, the greater
chance that you'll make peace with it.
And eventually call it good.
Don't put it off.
If you're under conviction, you're sitting reading your
Bible, you're in a church like this one
today, and the Holy Spirit has got his
finger very clearly on an area of your
life.
Don't put it off.
You will end up making peace with it.
You will end up covering it.
You will end up calling it holy because
that is the fallen nature of the human
heart.
I want to challenge you and encourage you
to do today what you know is right.
And what God says is right.
Simply put, I'm out of here.
I'm going with Jesus.
It's that simple.
There've been times in my life where the
Lord has asked me to lay some things
down, things dear to my heart.
But I saw clearly in Scripture what God
was saying and made the decision to go
with him.
And to this day, I've not regretted it.
That is my altar call today.
As simple as it sounds, I'm out of
here.
I'm going with Jesus.
Whatever that means to you, whatever it is
that God's put his finger on, I'm not
covering this with religion anymore.
I'm not calling evil good.
I'm not calling my own reasoning right.
I'm going to do what God says.
I'm going to do it God's way.
And I'm going to trust him for the
miracle, the strength, the power, the glory.
And folks, if you do it God's way,
there'll be a shout come into your heart.
There'll be dance come into your feet.
There'll be joy come into your heart.
There'll be strength come into your home if
you simply make the choice to do it
God's way.
I'm going with God.
What he clearly has spoken to me, the
clear revelation of Scripture as it applies to
my situation, I'm going to go with God.
I'm not going to follow my own reasoning.
And folks, the absolute outworking of this is
joy and strength.
Seems like a hard thing sometimes to follow,
but if you choose to follow when God
is speaking, the end result is both strength
and joy.
Father, I just thank you, Lord.
I know I've delivered your heart this morning.
I know it's in your heart to restore
and to heal.
Now, Lord Jesus Christ, as we worship you,
as we stand and behold you, give us
the grace to move towards you.
Help us, Lord, not to retreat, excuse or
cover that which you're calling us to walk
away from.
Father, I thank you for this in Jesus'
name.
We're going to stand in a moment, and
if the Holy Spirit is drawing you, and
God has spoken to you, and there's something
you need to just simply walk away from
to walk towards God, I'm going to invite
you to meet me at the front of
the sanctuary.
In the annex, you can step between the
screens if you will.
After worshiping for a few moments, we're going
to pray together.
Let's stand together.
Please just make your way here, and we're
going to pray.
Now, listen very carefully.
I see some people at this altar just
being overcome with grief, and that's not what
this is about.
Joshua was commissioned by the Lord to bring
the people of God into their inheritance, but
a lot of the people born in the
wilderness had never had that deep working of
the Holy Spirit and that putting away of
what is dishonoring to God.
This church is coming up to its 25th
anniversary in the next couple of years, and
the joy that is here, the open altars
in this house have been because it was
founded on a word that penetrated the heart
and helped people put away things that needed
to be put away.
And the end result was an open altar,
and the joy of the Lord became our
strength in this house.
But we're another generation.
It's another time, and we're going to need
the strength of Christ to get through the
days ahead of us.
We need our inheritance, and God wants to
give that inheritance to us.
But in order for that inheritance to come
our way, everything that is a reproach to
God must be put away.
There must be no friendship between sin and
religion in this house and in your life.
No friendship, and that's really what this altar
calls about.
There's no friendship between sin and religion.
I'm not taking anything wrong and calling it
right anymore.
I'm going to walk in the way that
God chose me to walk.
That's the way I'm going to walk.
The end result is strength, is joy.
The end result is victory in the battle.
The end result is direction in the storm.
The end result is provision and famine.
That's what God wants to do, and that's
what God is going to do for all
of us.
He's going to take us through and give
us His life, because that's all that will
get us through the coming days.
It has to be His life.
There's nothing, there's no religion will get anybody
through what all of us are going to
have to face.
It has to be His life within us.
So this is not a time to be
overwhelmed with grief.
This is a time to say, God, thank
you that my heart's still open.
Thank you, Lord, that you can speak to
me.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, Jesus, that we can be challenged.
We can be corrected.
For me, personally, I got to tell you,
preaching like this is hard.
I don't enjoy this, but we promised you
as a congregation that from this pulpit would
come the full counsel of God.
There'd be messages on joy, but I would
do you such a disservice to not bring
to you the full counsel of God.
And we've promised as pastors as much as
lies within us to walk this path and
to be as tender as we know how
to be, because we all need the same
grace.
I need it just as much as you
need it.
Pray this simple prayer with me.
Lord Jesus, in my life, there will be
no friendship between sin and religion.
Give me the grace to obey you, to
do what you say, and trust you for
the power.
God Almighty, I thank you so much that
in the coming days you will strengthen me.
I will have the inheritance of the life
of Jesus Christ that is rightfully mine because
of Calvary.
God, thank you that the truth is all
that I need for strength, for life, for
provision, and for freedom.
You've promised, Lord, to keep me and sustain
me.
Jesus, thank you for the strength today to
do what I know is right, to walk
away from what I should leave, and to
move toward your truth, your power, your kingdom,
and your spirit.
For thine is the kingdom.
It's the power and the glory today and
forever.
Amen and amen.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
The end result is joy.
It's joy that's unspeakable and full of glory.
The end result is joy.
Thanks be to God.
You have a reason to praise him.
You have a reason to clap your hands.
You have a reason to leap in the
air if that's what God asked you to
do.
You have a reason because you and I
are going with God.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Let's give God praise.
Give him praise in this house.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
I made up my mind to go God's
way the rest of my life.
I made up my mind to go God's
way the rest of my life.
Goodbye world.
I'll stay no longer with you.
Goodbye pleasures of sin.
I'll stay no longer with you.
I made up my mind to go God's
way the rest of my life.
I made up my mind to go God's
way the rest of my life.
Goodbye world.
I'll stay no longer with you.
Goodbye pleasures of sin.
I'll stay no longer with you.
I made up my mind to go God's
way the rest of my life.
I made up my mind to go God's
way the rest of my life.
Born again.
Born, born, born again.
King God, I'm born again.
Born of the water, born of the water,
spirit of the flood, did not unfold again.
Born of the water, spirit of the flood,
did not unfold again.
Born of the water, born of the water,
spirit of the flood, did not unfold again.
Born of the water, spirit of the flood,
did not unfold again.
I've got my mind, I've got my mind
made up, and I won't turn back.
Cause I want to see my Jesus someday.
I've got my mind made up, and I
won't turn back.
Cause I want to see my Jesus someday.