Bless God Almighty.
Good morning, Times Square Church.
I trust that you're doing well this week.
If you would turn to the book of
1 Corinthians, please, with me.
Chapter 1.
I hope to answer the question this morning,
why is God's strength made perfect in our
weakness?
Why is God's strength made perfect in our
weakness?
Now, Lord, I just thank you for the
anointing of your Holy Spirit.
I thank you, God, for the incredible truth
of your word.
Thank you, Lord, for the depth of your
mercy.
Thank you, Lord, that you're willing to take
any of us to use for your glory.
Jesus, Son of God, come upon me today,
Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit,
and give me the power to speak this
word.
My mind is not sufficient, Lord, to comprehend
it.
You have to expand the borders of my
understanding.
You have to give me the intonations of
voice.
You have to put the passion in my
heart.
I pray for this congregation that you give
us the ears to hear this today, to
be able to understand it and to embrace
it.
This is an incredible truth.
Lord, we thank you for it in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
1 Corinthians 1, verse 26 to 31.
How many have the King James Bible here?
Can I see your hands?
Okay.
With the King James, I'm going to ask
you to read along with me, please, this
morning, if you will, and share it with
the persons beside you, if you can.
Beginning at verse 26.
For you see your calling, brethren, how that
not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble are called.
But God has chosen the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise.
And God has chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things which are
mighty.
And base things of the world, and things
which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things that are not to bring to naught
things that are, that no flesh should glory
in his presence.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according
as it is written, he that glories, let
him glory in the Lord.
Hallelujah.
Turn to the person beside you and say,
according to the word of God, you are
foolish, weak, and base.
Hallelujah.
Now the weak are happy, and the proud
are upset, right at this very moment.
But why is God's strength made perfect in
our weakness?
Now Paul, the apostle, didn't write this just
because he was looking for things to write
in the word of God.
He had a personal revelation of this.
He was brought, according to the words of
his own mouth, into the place that he
referred to as the third heaven.
He was brought into the place, in a
sense, where God dwells.
And in that place, he saw things that
he said are not allowed to be spoken.
I can't, Paul was basically saying, I can't
repeat it.
And the Lord had shown him that it
wasn't even lawful to write it down, what
he had seen.
He had seen something so divine, so incredible,
so holy, that it could not be put
down in writing on paper.
And having come back from that kind of
a revelation, Paul, dealing with the same condition
that you and I deal with, because remember,
the inherent sin of man in the Garden
of Eden is this desire to be as
God.
And knowledge will puff up.
Knowledge can bring us to a place where
we actually become the teachers who are in
ourselves unteachable.
We can actually come to the place through
study where we no longer even represent God.
Unless that should happen to Paul because of
the abundance of the revelation, he tells us
there was given to him a thorn in
the flesh, a messenger of Satan that was
sent to buffet him.
And it so troubled him in his body
and in his mind that he went to
the Lord three times and says, God, would
you please take this away from me?
Perhaps Paul argued with the Lord and said,
I don't see the reason for this.
You know, I'm going to serve you.
You know, I'm going to walk with you.
But the Lord made a profound statement to
Paul and he said, my grace is sufficient
for you.
My ability to carry you and to sustain
you is all that you need for my
strength is made perfect in weakness.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
That really is in measure, the reason why
those who are wise in the flesh and
those who are mighty in themselves, those who
feel more noble than other people in humanity,
those who believe that they are superior or
stronger to other people, most often, even with
study, live outside of the power of God.
They increase in knowledge, but it never brings
them to an understanding of who God is
and what God really is desiring and able
to do through all of fallen humanity around
them.
Now, to understand why God had to make
Paul weak, let's go to Isaiah chapter 6
for a moment, please, if you will.
Go in the back, the Psalms, Proverbs, and
then very shortly after that is you'll find
the book of Isaiah chapter 6.
Now, this is another story of a young
man who's about to be brought into ministry
in the year it says that King Uzziah
died.
Now, you remember Uzziah is a king who
died in pride in the disease of his
mind.
He thought he could be as God.
He thought he could do anything he wanted
to.
He walked into the temple and began to
offer incense on the altar of incense when
it was strictly forbidden him.
And in a sense, his base nature had
taken over him.
And he had become what Satan sowed into
Adam in the Garden of Eden and Eve,
that he himself could be as God, chart
his own course, do what he wanted to
do, even in the name of God, and
suffer no consequence for it.
You see, in the year that King Uzziah
dies, that's when we're brought into the, in
the year that pride dies, in the year
that we begin to realize that, and you
and I realize that we are base, we
are small, we don't have any strength in
ourselves.
We would never get through this life and
certainly never get into heaven without the mercy
of God.
In the year that Uzziah dies, in the
year that our natural tendency to do our
own thing, even in the name of God,
dies.
In the year that we finally come to
an understanding that we don't make the rules,
God does.
That we don't have the right to chart
our own course in life.
God has the right.
In the year that Uzziah dies, Isaiah said,
I saw the Lord.
I saw him in the year that pride
died.
And Uzziah does represent pride.
Remember, and very often many young people, especially
or any of us who are going to
be called into the ministry, are going to
have to have this vision of God.
Ezekiel had a similar vision.
Daniel had a somewhat similar experience in the
presence of God.
To be called into the work of God,
there's a requirement.
We have to come to the understanding that
his strength is not made perfect through our
strength.
His strength is perfected in our weakness.
Isaiah is about to be brought into ministry.
Now, it seems that Isaiah was already at
least marginally a prophet at this point.
He was already probably from a priestly family,
familiar with the temple, familiar with the religion
of his day.
Might've been a gifted young man.
Maybe some of the elders in the temple
saw him, picked him out, saw something of
nobility or strength in him.
And perhaps he was already being more or
less promoted as people would see it in
the religious side of things on the earth,
in the kingdom of God.
But God was about to commission him.
And I have a feeling in my heart
that the Lord is about to commission us.
Now, I'm not just saying this because of
this message.
It's something that's so very deep.
We're going into revival, folks, in New York
City.
And God is about to commission us to
represent him in the city.
And yet we sit here this morning, many,
and say, oh God, I've walked so long
with you, but I'm so weak.
And I learned so much, but so little
of it seems to be applied to my
life.
And I don't have any degrees.
And I'm not as smart as other people.
And I don't have nobility in the background.
I don't have an army behind me.
I don't have a budget.
I don't have anything.
But Lord, I somehow strangely feel that you
want to use me for your glory in
the days ahead.
But how are you going to use me?
And why?
And how does this whole relationship between you
and I work?
I thought I had to be strong for
you.
Don't I have to have it all together?
Don't I have to understand the scripture?
Don't I have to be able to quote
at least 300 verses of scripture to be
effective?
God, my prayer life hardly has life.
It's on resuscitation.
I'm just being honest.
I'm not talking about myself right now, but
that's the cry of many hearts.
I've been there.
I know what that's all about.
Well, you almost need two paddles on your
chest to pray in the morning.
And in our weakness, there've been times through
my life, as even in ministry, that I
wondered, how could God use me?
I don't have the pedigree of others, and
I don't have a Christian background.
And when I got into ministry, I didn't
even know how the thing worked.
I just know that I used to get
things from God and I'd speak them and
people get saved.
And in the year the King Uzziah died,
he said, I saw the Lord sitting upon
a throne high and lifted up.
Now Paul says in Colossians 1.16, by
him were all things created in heaven and
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all
things were created by him and for him.
And he is before all things and by
him, all things consist.
Number one, he is above everything.
Every name that is named, every kingdom that
ever will be, every power, every principality, every
circumstance, every situation, every trouble, every trial, every
mountain, every valley.
He's above it all.
And everything was created for him and by
him for a divine purpose.
Everything that we see, everything that we know,
everything that we experience, everything that we have
to go through, he stands above all of
it.
Nothing will ever take the son of God
by surprise.
Nothing escapes his attention.
Nothing is allowed to happen without his permission.
Why do the heathen rage, David said, and
imagine a vain thing.
He who sits that they can cast off
the Lord and cast off his anointed.
He said, he who sits in heaven shall
laugh and have them in derision.
He stands above it all.
And how foolish for any of humankind to
think they can cast off the presence or
government of God.
How utterly foolish.
He's high and lifted up.
So no matter where you are today, he
is above your situation.
And if you are in him, that means
that he is able to take you out.
He's able to make you and I into
everything that he's ever promised us he would.
And his train, that means that the border
of his garment filled the temple.
Now think about this for a moment in
Matthew chapter nine, verses 20 and 21, there
was a lady who had a sickness in
her body.
And she said to herself, if I can
just touch the hem of his garment, I
will be whole.
And so she had to more or less
perhaps climb a bit of a hill.
She had to press through a crowd that,
that everybody wanted to get close to him.
And it must've been difficult.
She had to, she had to press through
and then finally made her way through the
crowd with a lot of effort and touch
the hem of his garment.
And immediately the problem she had in her
body was healed.
His garment was only on one physical body.
The man, Jesus Christ, it was confined to
probably a three foot radius at that point,
wherever he was, where he walked to touch
the hem of his garment, you had to
travel miles.
You had to go through crowds to get
there.
But Isaiah said, I saw him.
I was lifted up and his garment, the
hem of his garment filled the temple.
There was nowhere in the temple where you
couldn't touch him and be healed.
Now, listen to me.
We are the temple of the Holy Spirit
in the New Testament church.
You understand the presence of Christ is within
us.
And what Isaiah saw is a reality in
the actual body of a New Testament believer,
that the hem of his garment fills the
temple.
There's no area of your mind, no area
of your past, no area of your present
or future or body that he can't touch
or that you can't touch, that you can't
reach out and literally touch.
In other words, the healing of Jesus is
in every part of you.
There's nowhere where you can't be healed.
There's nothing he can't touch.
Actually, there's nowhere where you can't touch him
and be healed.
And above all of this, verse two, stood
the seraphims.
Each one had six wings, and with two,
he covered his face, with two, his feet,
and with two, he did fly.
Now that's incredible when you think of it.
Now, these are created beings at the throne
of God.
Now, Isaiah is standing there looking at this.
They have six wings.
And I'm assuming that the top two, it
says they cover their face.
And with the bottom two, they cover their
feet.
And with the middle two, they're flying.
And so looking at this, Isaiah would have
to draw a conclusion as I would, if
I was there, that they're not looking where
they're going.
They're covering their face with the top two
wings.
And secondly, they're not traveling where they're going
in any amount of natural strength.
They're covering their feet.
They're flying by divine power.
They're moving by divine power.
I wonder how many of them there were.
When you and I get to heaven, this
is going to...
I believe Paul saw this.
It's incredible.
And there's perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of these
created beings around about the throne.
When you read Ezekiel, you seem to get
the impression that they can move literally at
the speed of light.
And yet they never crash into one another.
In other words, everything is in divine order.
Where God is, there's order.
Everything that is created and in subjection to
him knows its course in life, knows where
it's to go, knows what it's to be
doing.
And flies or moves together.
Paul said in the book of Acts, in
him, we live and we move and we
have our being.
We're not crashing into things.
We know where we're going because he's the
one who's leading us.
We're not walking by sight nor by power,
but by the spirit of almighty God.
We don't have to figure it out with
our eyes.
We don't have to see it with our
eyes.
We don't to achieve it with the strength
of our own feet and our own labors.
But God by the Holy Spirit has promised
to carry us and to make us into
everything that he's ever promised us to be.
Praise be to God.
And they cried one to another and said,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
Holy.
It's the only word they knew.
And what it really means in the Hebrew
is separate from all sin, separate from death,
separate from idolatry without any equal anywhere and
completely perfect free from moral imperfections and all
the failures of humanity.
And it also means he's absolutely faithful to
every one of his promises.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of
hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
Now, how could the earth be full of
his glory?
You walk out of this church today into
the streets of Manhattan.
You travel through the boroughs of New York
city.
You read the newspaper.
You say, Lord, am I missing something here?
Now I know the heavens declare the glory
of God.
The order that's in nature declares the glory
of God.
So there's a partial fulfillment in that.
But how's the earth filled with your glory?
Well, you see, it's simply this, that the
church of Jesus Christ, you and I are
still here.
The glory of God abides in this temple
and all of there's a church of Jesus
all over the earth.
That's why the earth is filled with his
glory.
I think the problem that we face as
people is we don't know who we are
in Christ.
We don't understand who's inside of us.
We live so much of our time trying
to be, trying to be what only God
can make us, trying to do or go
where only he can lead us.
Holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
It's so important that we know this when
we pray that we're coming to a throne
above every other throne.
We're coming to a place of absolute and
complete divine order.
We're coming to a place where healing flows
everywhere where he is.
We're coming to a place where he is
absolutely above anything we could ever hope to
be and completely faithful to all of his
promises.
When we come to him in prayer, we
have to realize that he has commissioned us
to be his representatives on the earth until
the day he takes his church home to
be with him forever.
And when we pray, it says the post
of the door moved at the voice of
him that cried and the house was filled
with smoke.
The post of the door moved.
Now I've searched that out in so many
different places and the best as I can
understand it is that from the threshold of
the door to the sides of every opening
in the temple, from simply just waving from
side to side or heaving from top to
bottom to moving to a completely different place,
the door, the doors moved.
In other words, to the church of Philadelphia,
he said, you have a little strength and
you've not denied my name.
He said, behold, I set before you an
open door and no man can shut it.
When you and I know God is, when
we come into the prayer closet realizing who
it is that we're serving, when we finally
understand that nothing is impossible to him and
we begin to cry out, holy, holy, holy,
oh God almighty.
And we begin to say, Lord, you are
faithful to your promises and anything you want
to do with my life, you're well able
to do it.
Then suddenly a door can appear before you.
What was impossible becomes possible.
Where the enemy planted a wall and said
this far and no farther, God says, no,
I set before you an open door and
no man can close it.
I didn't call you because you're strong.
I called you because you're weak.
I didn't call you because you're smart.
I called you because you're foolish.
I didn't call you because you're noble.
I called you because you're nothing.
I called you to represent my kingdom.
And here's where it gets to be interesting.
When Isaiah saw this in verse five, he
says, woe is me.
I am undone.
I'm a man of unclean lips and I
dwell in the midst of a people of
unclean lips.
For my eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of hosts.
I am undone.
Everything I thought I was, everywhere I thought
I was going, how I thought I was
so wonderfully representing the kingdom of God or
not representing the kingdom of God.
All of our boast, you have to understand,
he comes from perhaps the most religious people
on the face of the earth.
And they legitimately laid claim at that time
to being exclusively the people of God on
the earth.
And there was just a myriad of religious
exercise going on and, and potential study of
the word of God and practical exercises in
the temple.
And Isaiah said, it's unclean.
It's all unclean.
It's we, we claim to know God, but
we don't know anything about God.
We claim to be smart, but we're ignorant.
We claim to be strong, but we're weak.
We claim to have it all.
And we, we claim to be holier than
thou, but mine eyes have seen the King.
Mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts.
And I know that all of my boasting
and all of my promises to God are
worthless.
The things I've stood and said, the times
that I've said, this is what God looks
like.
This is how God feels.
This is what God thinks.
He said, it's all short because my eyes
have finally seen his glory.
And the whole of the nation has said
is unclean.
And our speech is unclean.
Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord
of hosts.
We fall so short of this divine order.
Isaiah could rightly say everything I am, everything
I thought I could add in my own
strength, that God's kingdom has suddenly fallen into
ruin.
What have I got to give to this
kingdom?
What can I do to help this?
He's the worst off in the whole place.
His life is a mess and he knows
it.
He's weak and he's aware of it.
He has no strength and he's become completely
filled with the understanding that there's nothing I
can do here to add to this.
This is so far beyond me.
This place is holy.
This place operates in divine order.
There's absolute truth and perfection here.
How in the world can I ever be
part of this in my condition?
Now he's about to be given the greatest
revelation of all.
It says, then flew verse six, one of
the seraphims unto me, having a live coal
in his hand, which he had taken with
the tongs from off the altar.
And he laid it upon my mouth and
said, lo, this has touched thy lips and
that iniquity is taken away and thy sin
is purged.
And that coal speaks to me of the
cross of Jesus Christ.
I've come and I've touched you and you
don't have to make any promises to me
anymore.
You can't fulfill your promises to me.
The kingdom of God will not advance in
you and through you because of anything you
promise to be or to do for me.
It's not about your promises to me.
It's about my promises to you.
All you have to do.
If you want clean lips, you just speak
back to me.
The things that I've promised.
When you go in the prayer closet and
you say, Lord, I'm an angry person, but
you have promised to make me gentle.
You promised to give me a loving heart.
I read it in the book.
He says, you don't have to come to
me with unclean lips anymore.
You come and bring back just like Hannah.
Once Samuel was born to her, she brought
back that which was given her of God
and brought it back into the temple.
He says, I've given you my, my redemption.
I've given you my promises.
Now you come into the prayer closet knowing
who I am.
I'm above your weakness.
I'm above your frailty.
I'm above your circumstance.
You don't bring me any promises.
Don't tell me you're going to do better
because you're not going to do better in
your own strength.
Don't tell me these things.
Don't, I don't want to hear that you're
going to pray more.
You're going to read more.
You're going to study more.
You're going to do more.
You bring my promises back to my throne.
Hallelujah.
I've touched your lips.
Praise God.
And he says, and your iniquity is taken
away.
Now the iniquity is from my understanding is
it's human effort.
It's, it's everything that we thought we could
be to be as God.
It's, it's that essential sin that's been sown
into the human race.
That, that thought that we would, we can
add to the kingdom of God.
Somehow we can figure it out.
We can do this.
We can make God's kingdom grow in our
own reasoning and strength.
Remember Zechariah 4, 6, he said, not by
might, nor by power, but by my spirit
says the Lord of hosts.
You're not my, not your promises to me,
but my promises to you, not human effort.
But Isaiah, you've now seen that this kingdom
moves by the power of the Holy spirit.
No, not by human effort, but by the
leading and empowerment of the Holy spirit of
almighty God, bringing every one of these promises
to life inside of you.
And when you fall short, remember the border
of his garment fills the temple and you
can come and say, Lord, you got to
touch me.
You got to touch me in this area,
Jesus.
You got to, you got to heal me.
And the Lord says, just reach out.
It's all yours.
It's all in this book.
It's all here, folks.
It's all here.
And my iniquities is taken away and the
sin is purged.
In other words, the, the damning power of
sin is gone.
The light controlling power of sin is broken.
Jesus said it is finished.
And it is finished.
It's all broken.
I don't live under the dominion of sin
anymore.
And neither do you, you're absolutely free from
its power.
You're free from its life controlling force by
the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Now, Isaiah with this revelation, just like Paul
begins to hear the voice of the Lord
and God is speaking to himself and saying,
who shall I send and who will go
for us?
Now, what would you do in that situation?
You're standing there and you see this and
you feel completely undone.
What would you do this morning?
If I gave an altar call and say,
the Lord is looking for evangelists starting today,
who will go?
Who will God send?
Our natural tendency is to look around us,
say, what's up pastor William or pastor Patrick.
I mean, these guys are good.
I mean, you obviously got everything you need
right here.
And Isaiah is the worst off in the
whole, if this was a play that you
could see, he's the worst off in the
whole place.
He's the only guy that doesn't have it
together.
He's the only one that's not really at
that point operating in divine power.
He's the only one that's completely undone.
Everyone else seems to have it all together.
Who will go?
Who will we send?
And it's like this little hand in the
back row comes up and says, I'll go.
It's, you'd expect all of heaven to, to
gasp and say, it, it's like if we
asked for a new elder for X or
something in Times Square church and the, you
know, somebody that really is unqualified raised their
hand, says, boy, I'd like to do that.
And that's what heaven would feel like when,
when Isaiah raised his hand, you see, Isaiah
had come to the revelation that the kingdom
of God is about mercy.
He's the only one there that needed mercy.
Nobody else needed mercy.
He needed mercy.
He said, I'm done.
I'm finished.
We're all finished.
And if God is not merciful to us,
we're doomed.
We'll never be able to occupy this place.
If he doesn't do something, God's got to
do something for us.
He had realized he'd been taken from a
place where people thought they were strong.
They thought they were mighty.
They thought they were influential.
They thought they had spiritual knowledge only to
stand in the presence of God and say,
we're all doomed.
We're finished God.
If you deal with us in the manner
that we deserve, who among us is going
to be able to stand?
And suddenly he's touched with the power of
God.
He's touched with the mercy of God.
He's touched with the cleansing of God.
He's touched with everything that Jesus did on
the cross of Calvary.
And he has this revelation.
God wants to show us mercy.
That's why he raised his hand.
That's why he said, I'll go, I'll go.
They need to know that all of our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
They need to understand that God, the only
way we're ever going to get through this
is you're going to have to come.
Even if it's as a root out of
dry ground, you're going to have to come.
You're going to have to open the book.
You're going to have to say the spirit
of the Lord is upon me.
You're going to have to touch us with
that live call.
You're going to have to touch our lips
and our lives.
Yes, judgment is coming and Isaiah knew it,
but he had a clear vision that the
ministry of the church on the earth is
mercy.
Mercy.
That's my message.
That's your message.
When you leave this place today and somebody
asks you for a reason for the hope,
mercy, mercy, not because I've memorized things.
It's not just because I go to church.
It's not because I read my Bible X
number of minutes or hours a day.
I stand by mercy, the mercy of God.
And suddenly you will be an evangelist.
Suddenly you can't open your mouth because he
has not chosen the strong, not chosen those
who are noble in themselves, not chosen those
who have it all together, but those who
know that I stand by mercy.
The mercy of God has given me hope.
The mercy of God has broken my sin.
The mercy of God has made me and
can make any person in this city a
brand new creation in Christ Jesus.
We're all on level ground, folks.
The proud will form their own religion and
unfortunately will take them nowhere.
But those who know, those of us who
know that we need a savior, hallelujah to
the Lamb of God.
We don't need any more than just to
say, Jesus, it's mercy, mercy.
My God, you've been merciful to me.
You've touched me, Lord.
You've set before me an open door.
Here am I.
Send me.
Hallelujah to the Lamb of God.
Hallelujah.
Mercy.
It's all about mercy.
The lame take the prey.
Isaiah was right.
Isaiah wrote these words talking about the coming
messianic kingdom.
He said, and the lame take the prey.
Jesus himself said harlots and prostitutes and publicans
will go into the kingdom of heaven before
the religious will.
Because they know they need mercy.
They know they can't get in by their
own strength.
But the religious, unfortunately, oftentimes are not aware
of that.
Mercy.
And the moment you, what did Isaiah have
to do?
No more than the prodigal son did.
God does the work.
In our hearts, it's just to not resist
it.
To let God do his work and to
realize that it's not up to me to
more or less embrace God's kingdom.
It's up to God and his strength to
embrace me and my weakness.
And my part is simply just not, yes,
I do embrace his kingdom, but the reality
is I don't have to bring any strength
there.
I come as I am and he embraces
me and his strength.
When the seraphim came with the call, he
could have moved his head and say, oh
no.
Even in pretended humility.
Oh no, not me.
Remember when Jesus came to Peter and said,
I want to wash.
Oh no, not me.
Oh no.
And it can have an appearance of humility
and it can actually be resistance against that
which truly allows the power of God to
begin to flow in a person's life.
Letting the power of the cross touch us.
Letting the sacrifice of Calvary become sufficient for
our sin.
Letting God break the bondage of hell and
evil.
Realizing that the Christian life is a life
that is lived in mercy.
And the gospel that we preach is about
the mercy of God.
We've all sinned and come short of the
glory of God.
There's not one righteous.
Isaiah could say it clearly, not even one,
because he'd been there.
He'd seen it.
And Paul said, because I had this revelation,
God, to protect me from pride, allowed a
weakness to coexist with me in my body.
And he said to me, my grace is
sufficient for you for my strength is perfected
in weakness.
So if you feel weak today, you can
give God praise and glory for it.
You can give him thanks and say, Lord,
thank you, God.
You have protected me from spiritual pride and
you've kept me in a place where I
can speak for you.
And I can go to anybody in the
city and I can say to them, the
Lord has been merciful to me.
I am not the strongest of people in
his kingdom, but yet he has touched me.
And his healing is beginning to flow in
my life.
And he's changing me.
And it's a change that's happening sovereignly by
his power.
On my part, I simply yield to what
he wants to do and let him begin
to lead my life.
And anybody can preach that gospel.
The proud can't because it doesn't fit their
theology, but you can.
Hallelujah.
You can.
And so the Lord says today for New
York City and for wherever you happen to
be from today, who will I send?
What has held you back from opening your
mouth and telling others about Jesus Christ?
If not that you have been very aware
of your weakness and the devil is there
saying, well, no, you can't open your mouth
because of this and this and this and
this.
When that weakness is the very thing that
God will use to bring glory to his
own name.
Now, I'm not, I'm not suggesting that we,
our whole testimony is that we fall and
fail and fall and fail.
No, I'm talking about that our strength and
the source of our strength, because we are
aware of our frailty comes from God.
The change that comes into our lives is
given to us freely by Jesus Christ.
And it's a gospel that everybody can preach.
Isaiah knew it.
Everybody can preach it.
Everybody here can be an evangelist today.
Everybody.
All you have to know is that you're
weak, foolish, base, and you're not the strongest
in God's kingdom, but you cannot be stopped
from speaking the name of Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
Who will go?
It's not the Lord's will that this city
should perish in its sin.
Now Isaiah was only given one in every
10 souls roughly that he spoke to, but
is it not worth it even for the
one in 10?
Society in his time had become very hard
to truth.
We may be living in a similar time,
but the Lord simply says, who will go?
Who will start speaking?
Who will not be ashamed, triumphed over?
Who will understand that your strength is in
God, not in yourself?
Who will start to speak about the one
who came and died on a cross and
not have to be perfect to do it?
Just aware that your strength is in God.
Who will go?
Now you may need healing today.
You may need strength.
You may need freedom in an area of
your life, but if you'll get up and
go, I believe that God will give you
that.
You'll become aware.
It's in this commission that you become aware
of these things.
If you'll make the choice to get up
and go, folks, it isn't right that New
York City end up in hell when so
many of us know the Savior.
It simply is just not right.
It's time for us to speak.
It is time, not tomorrow, today.
It's time to start speaking about Jesus Christ
and the cross.
It's time to, as he did, despise the
shame that the world will try to put
on you.
Put that away from you and say, no,
this is true.
This is right.
This is eternal.
And I'm only doing it because I'm not
willing that you should die without Christ.
It's time to speak, folks.
The time of being quiet is over.
Who will go?
And if you can say today, I will,
and trust God for the power, I'm going
to give you an opportunity to come to
the front of this sanctuary and we're going
to pray together and truly believe God.
This is a commissioning service for many here
today.
Truly, truly believe God that when you leave
this sanctuary today, that the Holy Spirit will
guide you into those places, into those people
that the Lord wants you to speak to.
Now let's stand together in the annex.
You could stand between the screens.
And if the Holy Spirit is drawing you
to this, the front of this, just slip
out wherever you are now.
Who will go?
Those people who say, I will, I will,
I will.
I'll speak.
Young, old, rich, poor, it makes no difference.
The Lord is no respecter of persons whatsoever.
He'll put his spirit on the hungry heart.
Let's worship for a little while.
And as we do, just come.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
Praise God.
Luly, lead us in prayer, will you, please?
God, we thank you, Lord, that you know
us.
And Lord, when the enemy put a line
and said we couldn't go any further and
we listened, forgive us, God.
And you set an open door before us,
Lord, and help us to walk through it,
God.
Help us to walk through it, God.
Because we can't stay quiet anymore.
Because there's a lot of people that need
mercy.
I know so many, Lord.
And I'm afraid to speak.
Please, Lord, we know what you did at
the cross, Lord.
There are no enemies left at the cross,
Lord.
You opened the door, help us to walk
through, God.
God, and we bring you all our weaknesses,
Lord, our cowardice, Lord, God.
We bring us our fears, Lord, we bring
them to you, God.
Lord, because you said you would open our
mouths and fill it, God.
Because somebody needs to hear that you've given
them mercy, Lord.
Because there's nothing left, God.
There's nothing left to do, Jesus.
Help us, Lord.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Father.
Thank you, Spirit of God.
God, we thank you, God.
We thank you, God.
We worship you, Father.
We love you.
We love you, Lord.
We give our lives, Lord God.
We give you our hearts, Lord God.
God, help us, Father.
God, to come, Lord.
We surrender, God.
God, our weaknesses, our fears, Lord.
Everything, Lord.
God, mercy.
It is mercy.
It's so mercy.
Your great mercy, God.
Mercy.
Give us mercy for the city.
We ask for mercy to break out, Lord.
Oh, God, mercy.
Give us mercy, Father.
Thank you for mercy on the city, Lord.
Oh, God.
Such great mercy and outpouring.
Lord of mercy, God.
God, that this city would know, God, that
you truly are merciful, God.
Lord, to the sinner, God, to anyone, to
anyone, Lord, whosoever they might be, God, you
will grant mercy.
There's great mercy with you, Lord.
Awesome mercy, God.
There's great mercy.
Mercy.
Mercy today, Lord.
Mercy.
Mercy, God, in this place.
An outpouring of mercy, Lord.
We worship you because we've known your mercy.
We thank you, Lord, for mercy, God.
We give you our sins.
We give you, Lord, our iniquities.
We give it all to you, God, our
baggages, our troubles, our fears.
Lord, God, we bring it to the throne,
Lord, and leave it there.
We leave it there, God.
We give it to you, Jesus, and we
trust you and believe you, God, and leave
it with you, Lord, because it's done, Lord.
It's done.
Oh, God, it's done.
It's finished.
It's finished, Lord.
There's mercy.
Hallelujah, Lord.
Hallelujah.
In Jesus' name, I ask you for a
mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit to come
upon this church.
God Almighty, not by power, but by your
Spirit, oh God.
Thank you for the empowerment.
Thank you for the boldness.
Thank you for the strength, Lord.
Paul said, in Jesus Christ, is our wisdom,
our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption.
He is everything that no flesh can glory,
but he that glories, let him glory in
the Lord.
God Almighty, God Almighty, put a song of
praise in our mouths.
Put gladness in our hearts.
Jesus, send us, Lord.
Send us, God.
Send us, mighty, mighty Christ.
Send us, Lord, into the city.
Father, we thank you, God, with all our
heart.
We thank you, Lord.
Just say these words with me today.
Here am I.
Send me.
Here am I.
Send me.
Here am I.
Send me.
Hallelujah.
Glory to God.
All the glory goes to God.
All the glory, all the glory belongs to
him.
Hallelujah, love of God!
Hallelujah!
Glory to your holy name!
Hallelujah!
Thank you, Jesus!
Thank you, God!
Do you know how God gets glory?
He uses me!
Do you know how God gets glory?
He uses you!
That's how He gets glory!
That's how His glory fills the earth!
Hallelujah!
There's going to be a revival in the
land!
There's going to be a revival in the
land!
Hallelujah!
From the north to the south to the
west to the east, there's going to be
a revival in the land!
Hundreds of thousands of people are going to
turn to God in this generation!
Thanks be to God for His mercy!
Mercy!
Hallelujah!
Got a song?
Let's go rejoicing today!
One more song and let's go rejoicing!
Praise God!
See you at three o'clock!
Hallelujah!
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
What can make me hold again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
Oh, oh, precious is the glory that makes
me right as new!
Oh, oh, nothing but the blood of Jesus!
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
Oh, oh, precious is the glory that makes
me right as new!
This is all my hope and pain!
This is all my righteousness!
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus!
He saved
me!
Mary, He carried my sins far away!
Brother, He chose the path to lead me
forever!
One day He's coming back!
Oh, He'll stay safe!
He saved me, loved me, died to save
me!
Mary, He carried my sins far away!
Brother, He justified me!
The spirit that praises one day would see
what the darkness can be!
That's when Jesus came down on a temple
that's here!
Mary, He loved me, died to save me!
Mary, He carried my sins far away!
Brother, He justified me!
He leads me forever!
One day He's coming back!
Oh, He'll stay!
Conceal Him no longer!
One day the stone goes away from the
door!
That's when Jesus rose!
Now He's ascending!
Sitting at the right hand of the Father
just for me!
Mary, He loved me!
Mary, He saved me!
He carried my sins far away!
Brother, He justified me!
He leads me forever!
One day He's coming back!
Oh, He'll stay!
One day
He saved me!
Mary, He carried my sins far away!