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,
Post Office Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or
by calling 903-963-8626.
None of these messages are copyrighted, and you
are welcome to make copies for free distribution
to friends.
Holy Spirit, come down upon me right now.
Holy Spirit, I yield my body to you.
I yield my voice.
I yield my mind, everything I am and
all that I have.
I yield here as an offering before this
people to you.
I lay my life down before you, Holy
Spirit, Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus
Christ, the Lord of glory.
Lord, what I say tonight is not profound,
but I believe it's come from your heart.
Oh, Holy Spirit, take words and use them
tonight to open up hearts, to bring healing,
to bring strength, to open our minds, open
our understanding, Holy Spirit.
I can't do it, but you can.
Let your precious word come forth, anointed of
the Holy Spirit, because the letter kills, and
it's the Spirit that gives it life.
In Jesus name I pray, amen.
You could keep your Bible open to the
15th chapter of Luke.
Just open it to the 15th chapter, start
in verse 11, and don't read it now,
but that's about the prodigal son.
We'll be coming back to that.
The unclaimed treasures in glory.
Now in recent weeks, the Holy Spirit's been
leading me to pray for a greater understanding
of the love of God to me.
I thought I knew something about that until
I read 1st John 4 16.
You don't have to turn there, but John
wrote, We have known and believed the love
God has to us.
God is love, and he that dwelleth in
love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
Now, most Christians know about the love of
God to them because you've heard it preached.
You know the scriptures.
Many of you could quote to me many,
many scriptures about the love of God.
Now, you know it theologically, you know it
from scripture, or you know it from preaching.
But most of us are limited to a
line out of a children's course.
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the
Bible tells me so.
But that's not enough.
How many of us here tonight can sing,
Yes, Jesus loves me, because I understand fully
what that love is, and I have apprehended
it, I understand it, and I live in
it.
It's not enough to know the Bible tells
you that God loves you.
You have got to experience.
John said, We have known and believed, and
then he goes on to talk about dwelling
or living in that love, because if you
live in love, you're living in God.
That's a profound statement.
You know, you and I are convinced that
we believe every verse in this Bible.
We, we, if I came to you say
I believe every word of it.
But you know the majority of Christians, the
daily walk is not a walk of love.
Their daily walk for Christ is under a
cloud.
There are people sitting here now that have
walked with Jesus for years, and they've never
been free of guilt.
They've never been really free of condemnation, and
the enemy is able to come in with
all kinds of lies, all kinds of confusion.
They may have weeks or months and even
maybe a year or so of peace, a
measure of peace.
They're able to sit in church and rejoice.
They're able to raise their hands, and outwardly
they look like everything is fine.
Outwardly they look happy, but they carry a
secret baggage with them at all times.
There is never a period when they are
not free of this nagging, this nagging of
guilt, of condemnation, of unworthiness, of never really
pleasing the Lord, that there's always something lacking
that I am not measuring up to some
standard.
Either a standard you believe a pastor or
evangelist has set for you, or a standard
that you believe is your interpretation of God's
Word, and you can't measure up, and it's
left you guilty.
It's left you condemned, and in spite of
your joy, in spite of everything that you
do, there is this nagging that's inside nagging.
There is this little bit of fear that
brings confusion into your life, and I want
to address that tonight.
Paul said, Walk in love.
Walk in love, or your daily Christian walk
should be walked in love as Christ has
loved us.
In other words, it means Jesus truly loves
you, so walk as somebody who is truly
loved.
Walk as somebody that's truly loved by God.
Folks, I've heard the confessions of Christians that
have walked for God sometimes 30 and 40
years, who have never really known the joy
of being truly loved by God.
They have never entered into the peace that
that is supposed to bring to the heart.
For 30, 40 years, not that they're hypocrites,
not that they're phonies, but they've never understood,
they have never truly understood in their spirit
and in their mind the love of God
in Jesus Christ for them.
They have never appropriated it.
They have never experienced it.
They've just had a measure of it, but
they don't know the fullness of it.
They've been confused.
They've never understood this love that God has
toward them.
They drag on and on.
Now, let me tell you something, and listen
closely, please.
You will never go after a revelation of
God's love to you until you get sick
and tired of the guilt.
And you get sick and tired of the
condemnation, and you get sick and tired of
being blessed one moment and straight and thinking
God is speaking to you in the next
moment confused and mixed up.
And until you come to the place where
you get sick and tired of that, and
you say, I know God never intended that
I live like this.
God never intended that I'd be up and
down.
God never intended that I'd be swayed by
winds and waves of doctrine.
God never intended that I'd be teased by
the devil or his lying spirits.
God is not a tease.
God is not the awful confusion.
God did not put guilt on you.
He did not put fear on you.
The Bible says that very clearly.
He's not given us the spirit of fear.
So wherever you got it, you didn't get
it from God.
And my feeling is if God didn't give
it to you, I put up with it.
But you see, you've got to come to
the place where you say, this is not
a way to live the Christian life.
Surely, I'm not living up to something in
this.
I'm missing something.
Because as much as I love Jesus, as
much as I believe my sins are forgiven,
why am I bombarded?
Why do I have to carry this guilt?
Why do I have to be so condemned?
Now, let me tell you something.
The Holy Ghost convicts, but he never condemns.
He convicts of sin.
That's his ministry.
But it's only to heal.
It's only to bring you to a place
of peace and rest in Christ.
And he does it redemptively.
He does not do it with wrath.
You've got to wake up one day, and
I hope you wake up tonight during my
preaching.
I hope something strikes deep in your heart
and say, that's right, Brother Dave.
That is me.
I carry this sense of never measuring up.
I carry this sense of unworthiness, or that
I'm going to fail God, or that the
devil's going to be able to trip me
up and drag me back down to some
old temptation.
Or you may be carrying a temptation you
can't seem to shake off.
And you say, how could Jesus love me
when I have this thing that keeps coming
back and badgering me in my mind?
Now, God didn't save you to let you
go on living with guilt and condemnation.
Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that heareth my word and believeth in
him that sent me has everlasting life and
shall not come into condemnation that is passed
from death unto life.
Now, the word condemnation here means two things.
It means wrath.
You won't come under the judgment.
You are free at the judgment day.
There are many of you scared to death
of the judgment that shouldn't be scared at
all.
If you believed this book and rested in
the blood, you wouldn't be afraid.
Some of you are carrying fear needlessly.
Your sins are under the blood, you're forgiven,
and you've allowed the devil to lie to
you that you're not ready to meet Christ
at the judgment.
Jesus said, He's passed from death unto life.
He shall not come under condemnation.
That means He shall not come under the
feeling of never...
Now listen, this is it.
He shall never have to come under the
feeling of never measuring up.
All right, there's so many of you here
tonight that I'm talking to that you have
lived that way.
I just don't measure up.
You see others that are apparently more holy
than you and making more progress.
But you know one of the greatest things
God ever taught me?
Nothing is as it appears.
I see some people, I say, Oh, I
wish God would bless me like that.
I wish I could be like that, and
then when I find out what they're really
like, I say, Thank God I'm not like
that.
And there are other people I've seen that
seem to be so down, and I wonder
if they're ever growing.
And then when I talk to them, I
know they've grown more than anybody else around
them.
And they don't know it, they just don't
boast about it.
So nothing is as it really appears, because
man looks on the outward appearance.
Only God's a mind reader.
If anybody here has learned how to read
minds, see me backstage after, I've got a
good job for you.
Romans 8, 1 says, There is now, therefore,
no condemnation to them which are in Christ
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but
after the Spirit.
All condemnation and guilt is from the devil.
Hear it again.
All, in fact, here's the scripture for it.
Paul was warning Timothy of those who fall
into the condemnation of the devil.
That's in 1 Timothy 3, 6.
He warns of those who are going to
fall into the condemnation of the devil.
It's a fall.
When you are in condemnation, you've fallen from
grace.
You've fallen from the security that God has
offered us through His blood of His own
Son.
Who is He, the scripture says in Romans
8, 34.
Who is He that condemneth?
Who's condemning you?
He's the accuser before the brother.
Who is He that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that's
risen again, who is ever at the right
hand of God, who's also making intercession for
you.
Hallelujah.
But it says, who's condemning you?
Why are you walking around the condemnation?
Because Jesus, your heavenly Lord, your Savior, is
right now before the Father, pleading your cause.
Hallelujah.
The only condemnation is upon those who refuse
the light of the gospel and who prefer
darkness to light.
Now I'm going to ask you, do you
prefer darkness to light?
Do you love the light?
Do you love to have the word of
God come and expose everything in your heart?
Then why in the world are you allowing
the devil to put you on trips of
guilt and condemnation, fear and confusion?
Why?
Because here's the scripture.
And this is the condemnation.
Here are the only people to be condemned.
That light has come into the world and
men love darkness rather than light because their
deeds were evil.
Now if you're covering something up all the
time and you don't want God to expose
it, that's different.
But the condemnation is meant only for those
who are hiding sin and those who love
darkness.
So if you're sitting here now and you
can say with all grace and all assurance,
I thank God for the light of the
Holy Ghost.
Turn your light on Holy Spirit.
Then you have no reason ever to have
guilt or condemnation upon you.
Now Christians who live in guilt and condemnation
and fear, they do so because they're not
rooted and grounded in love.
Here's the scripture.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by
faith, Paul said, that you're being rooted and
grounded in love.
Rooted and grounded in love.
And you know what that means?
To build a steady, deep foundation of knowing
and understanding the love of God.
In other words, he's talking about an understanding.
He said, you don't understand.
You're not rooted.
You're not grounded.
That means dig deep and get a stable
foundation.
Let me tell you.
A knowledge of the love of God to
you is the foundation upon which every other
doctrine, every other truth must build.
You must have under you a firm foundation.
You have got to be fully persuaded about
God's love.
That is where the fear of God builds
upon.
And folks, this holy dread of God is
the dread of his holiness against sin, against
the world, and what he can do to
those who love darkness rather than light.
It's not living under a dread that God's
going to strike you down or that he's
trailing you looking for some little fault and
says, I got you.
I got you.
I knew if I waited long enough I'd
catch you.
No.
That's not our heavenly father.
He sent his son to die for that.
No.
But he said you've got to be rooted
and grounded that you may be able, listen
to this, that you may be able to
comprehend, and that word in Greek means to
eagerly seize it, to lay hold on it.
Are you one to have a knowledge, an
understanding of the love of God to you?
Then lay hold of it.
Get a hold of it.
Get your spiritual hands out and say, I'm
going to grab hold of this.
That's what he means, that you may comprehend,
that you may seize this truth, that you
may get hold of it and make it
the foundation of your Christian life.
And everything else you build it upon the
fact that you know in your heart God
truly loves you.
We'll talk about what that means in just
a moment.
In the same message Paul says that you
may be able to comprehend or seize, lay
hold upon it.
Now let me share with you tonight what
the Holy Spirit's been showing me in Revelation
about the love of God to me.
And I believe to you and to all
who hear it.
Just a few simple truths, and I really
believe the Holy Spirit revealed this to me.
Didn't get it out of a book.
First of all, and listen closely please, the
love of God to us has to do
with his treasures and glory.
You cannot divorce his provisions from his love.
Now I want you to, if you can
comprehend this, it's going to change your whole
thinking about the love of God.
It has to do with his bountiful resources
that's been laid up in glory for us.
It has to do with unlimited provisions available
to you and me in everyday life.
Love has to do with God's unlimited treasures
in heaven.
It has to do with his bountiful provisions
for the body of Jesus Christ to live
victorious at all times.
All the provisions for every crisis in life.
Now, folks, I had been praying for weeks,
literally months, for a fresh revelation about the
love of God to me.
I said, Father, I want to know your
heart.
I want to know, and I'll tell you
why, I just got starved for his love.
Are you starved for his love?
And it dawned on me, well, here I
am, one of the pastors of Times Square
Church, and if I'm starved for love, what
are the people like?
They must be starved like I am.
I knew he loved me, but I wanted
to experience, I said, I want a revelation.
And I said, Lord, I don't want to
go to my library and get it out
of a book.
I don't care if it's one of the
holiest men of all history.
He can't implant it.
It has to come from the Holy Spirit.
Lord, I want my own revelation directly from
your heart, and I want to see it
so clear it'll change my way of living.
Not that I'm living in sin, but I'm
just frankly tired of putting up with guilt
and condemnation.
I'm tired of it.
I woke up one day and said, I
don't want to live like this.
That's not what the Bible says I'm supposed
to live with.
Folks, please don't think I'm living in sin.
That's not it.
The devil can bring guilt and condemnation for
not praying enough, for not reading your Bible
enough, for making you feel unworthy.
Folks, I have come home from a busy
evangelistic tour sometime where I preached to thousands,
and I'll sit and two days later I'll
say, Gwen, I don't feel like I'm doing
anything.
And I feel guilty if I rest for
two days.
Guilt trips from every corner of hell put
on me.
You know what I'm talking about.
I don't know where you got your guilt,
I don't know where you got your condemnation,
but you sure didn't get it from the
Holy Ghost.
And I prayed, Oh God, you must open
up heaven to me.
I want it from your heart.
Shine the light on.
I don't know what I expected.
I don't know whether, I thought, well, maybe
it's a revelation of his love that's going
to flow over me like oil.
I'll feel oil just coming all over me,
and I'll feel sweet and tender, and I'll
see these big arms coming out of the
cosmos and reaching out and saying, Come on,
David, and pulling me right to his heart.
And I could get up here and tell
you this great story of, Oh, I had
a vision of his love.
I thought that's the way it might come.
Or maybe it's some new insight that will
make me so breathless I can hardly stand
up here and say, Folks, it's so wonderful,
I can't tell you about it.
So Paul said, I went to the third
heaven, but I can't tell you anything about
it.
I thought, well, maybe it's a manifestation of
such nearness and a feeling of being so
special to the Lord.
I thought, well, maybe it's, I'll be in
a meeting and he'll just come down and
touch me.
I can feel his touch.
It'll be just like a physical touch on
me, and my face will glow and the
whole church will see it.
And he'll come up to me and say,
What is that?
I said, I finally got my revelation of
love.
I didn't know what to expect.
But then he gave me this simple little
verse, God so loved that he gave.
That's where the key came.
You can't divorce my love from my giving
heart.
That's where we begin.
Now, I want you to follow me closely,
please.
Our love for the Lord, our love for
him is evidenced by our obedience.
That's how we prove to him we love
him.
If you love me, Jesus said, you'll obey
me.
He said, for this is love, that you
keep my words and my commandments.
This is how we prove to God, Jesus,
we love him.
That's what he said.
That's his definition of our love toward him.
But his love toward us is evidenced in
another way.
It's evidence in his love to give.
You cannot know him as a loving God
until you see him as a giving God.
I say it again.
You cannot know him as a loving God
until you see him as a giving God.
God so loved the whole world that he
invested in his own son all the treasures,
all the glory, all the riches, all the
bounties of heaven.
And he invested them in Jesus.
And the scripture said, it pleased the Father
that in him, in Jesus Christ, should all
fullness dwell.
For in him dwelleth all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in
him.
Meaning, in Christ, I provide for you every
provision you need for every crisis in life.
I provide for you all the peace and
the joy you need to walk, no matter
how worldly it may be around you.
I have provided in Jesus Christ all the
treasures of glory in your Savior.
Everything is in him.
Now, it's not that we doubt that Christ
has all the glory of God and everything
we need.
And it's not that we doubt that he's
promised it to us.
There's not a Christian in this church tonight
that wouldn't say, I believe Jesus has everything
I need to take away my guilt, my
fear, and give me peace and joy, and
let me walk day by day, growing in
his peace and love.
Yes, I know that.
There's not a person here that could tell
me that you don't know that God promised
it to you, and that you and I
would have it.
The problem is, we don't appropriate it.
We don't go after it.
It lays in glory, unclaimed.
It lays in the heart of Jesus, unclaimed.
That's why I've called this message, The Unclaimed
Treasures in Glory.
And boy, what a shock it's going to
be when we get to heaven, and God
begins to show you all that was available.
And you and I didn't use it.
We lived like paupers when we were multimillionaires.
I'm not talking about money.
I'm talking about the life of Jesus Christ.
Now, God's love is profoundly revealed in the
story of the prodigal son.
Now that's where I want you to go
to Luke 15.
And it begins in the 11th verse.
Quickly, it says, A certain man had two
sons.
The younger of them said to his father,
Father, give me the portion of goods that
follow to me.
He divided unto them his living.
Not many days after, the younger son gathered
all together, took his journey to a far
country, and wasted his substances with riotous living.
You know the story.
He ended up, a friend sent him out
to his pig pen.
He was feeding and slopping the hogs.
He was feeding the hogs, the swine, and
even began to yearn after the pigs' food.
Then he remembered his father's house, and he
goes back, and his father forgives him, and
then, well, I don't want to get ahead
of my story.
I want you to listen, please.
First of all, do you remember what I
told you?
The love of God cannot be divorced from
the bounties of God, from the goodness and
all the treasures of His storehouses.
How many understand it right now that our
Savior has been invested with everything that God
has, and He's freely offered it to you
and me?
How many believe that?
Alright, you understand, that's where you begin.
Alright, secondly, God's love, listen close, God's love
insists that we come to the end of
all human resources, and claim and appropriate His
bountiful treasures.
You've got to come to the end of
your own resources, and that's what the whole
story of the prodigal son is about.
Prodigal means runaway.
The runaway or prodigal son, there are two
sons in this story, one who comes to
waste his own resources, comes to the end
of his resources, and the other son who
would not claim the resources.
And I'm going to show you that the
older son is the one who committed the
greatest sin.
Not the runaway son, but the elder son
who would not move in and claim the
bounties that his father said were his.
The wayward son, now I want to show
you this very clearly, the wayward son comes
home, or comes in one day and says,
Father, give me the portion of goods that
falleth to me.
In fact, the Bible says the substance that
he gathered together was his own goods.
These were his.
This represents the innate human resources that God
gives to all of us.
All of us have a certain intellect, we
have a certain wit, we have a certain
fortitude.
And really, this is the story, when you
see the spiritual side of it, of a
man who goes out and says, I can
do it on my own.
I've got good wits.
I can make it on my own.
I'm doing it with my hands.
I've got a good background.
And he goes out.
He really doesn't need God.
He doesn't need all the resources of his
father.
He's just going to take what he has.
I'm going to go out and face it.
I'm going out on my own.
And folks, when you go out on your
own, it doesn't take long to run out
of all resources.
Ah, how quickly you spend everything that you
have inside of you.
When things get hard, you come to the
end of your human resources.
You know, there are some problems you can
figure yourself out of.
There are some hard places that you can
just grit your teeth and you just mule
your way through.
There are some things that you can just
walk your way through, you can talk your
way through, you can think your way through.
But oh, there comes a time in every
life you say, uh-uh.
You look inside and there's nothing left.
You're at the end of your resources.
Everything is crumbled.
There's nothing to turn to.
There's no voice of a friend that can
save you.
All your human resources, you've come to the
end of it.
And that's what happened to this young man.
He came to the end of himself.
There's nothing left in him to draw on.
He's run out of all human resources.
Now, I want you to see something here.
Some of you in this place tonight can
say, I'm a child of God.
He's my Father.
But you have been running.
You're still hanging around the devil's pig pen.
You've been trying to...
You have worked out a gospel all of
your own.
I get so sick and tired of people
saying, well, I may not serve Jesus like
you do, but I serve my own way.
And you know what that is.
My own way is all human resources.
I'm doing it on my own.
No strength of the Holy Ghost.
No calling on God for His provisions.
And look what it finally ends up.
You have problems that you can't solve.
You have deals that are too big for
you to handle.
And suffering too much to bear.
And then you wind up saying, hey, this
is getting to me.
It's bigger than me.
Now, what was it that woke up the
prodigal son?
He's sitting in a pig pen now and
he's starving.
And I'll tell you one thing.
He didn't come home because of love for
his father.
There's not one place here, now maybe he
did, but there's not one word mentioned that
he sat there saying, oh, he loved me
so much and I have abused him.
I've got to go back.
I love him so much.
There's not a word about his love for
the father.
You know what the Bible said?
He loved us first.
Not because we loved him, but because he
loved us.
You see, God loves, this father loved this
boy unconditionally.
There were no strings attached.
He didn't come back and the father starts
on a right away, said, where have you
been?
Give me accounting.
Open your wallet.
Let me see how much is left.
How many harlots did you lay with?
He didn't go over the list of his
sins.
In fact, he fell on his neck.
He kissed him and he said to his
servants, kill a padded calf, put a new
robe on him, put a ring on his
finger, new shoes on his feet and let's
have a party.
Let's rejoice and be happy and be merry.
Do you know what brought him back?
This statement.
In my father's house, he said, I'm hungry,
I'm famine stricken, but in my father's house
is bread enough and to spare.
Do you know what brought him back?
He was reminded of his father's resources.
He was reminded of the provisions that were
really available to him.
And he comes back.
Now, he's repentant.
Yes, he is.
He said, I'm sorry, Father.
I've sinned against you and I've sinned against
God.
I'm not even worthy to come into the
house.
Now, folks, you tell me, where is the
revelation of love in this story?
Is it when the father so freely forgives
him?
He doesn't judge him.
He doesn't condemn him.
Is it when he falls on his neck
and kisses him?
Is that the picture of love?
Is that the revelation we're looking for?
Is it when he puts a ring on
his finger, a new robe on his back,
or new shoes?
No, that's not the heart.
All of these things are evidence of his
love, yes.
But it's not the heart of love.
This is the end of side 1.
You may now turn the tape over to
side 2.
The heart of love is when the father
unconditionally forgives him, yes.
Kisses him, yes.
But the real evidence of love, the real
revelation of love is the father could not
have full joy until he knew that boy
was in the banqueting hall.
Song of Solomon says, he brought me into
his banqueting hall, banqueting room, and his banner
over me was love.
There's no revelation in its fullness of the
love in this story until the father is
in the banqueting hall, sitting at the table,
and he has made sure that that boy
knows that he's forgiven.
He knows that his sin is wiped out.
And they're eating at the table of the
father.
Of course, you know who the lamb is,
slain from the foundation of the world, and
they're feasting on the lamb.
And you look in that window, and some
of you need to get up that window
like I had to do.
You need to get up the window and
take a look inside and see a young
man has just returned, and he is dancing,
and he's happy, and he's got no burden
of guilt.
He's not feeling condemned.
He's not listening to the lies of the
devil where you've got a streak in you,
and you're going to go right back to
that big bed.
He is dancing, he's laughing, and he's happy,
and his father's sitting there enjoying it all
and smiling at him.
He's smiling at him.
Here is the evidence of his love.
Here's the hard one.
Bring forth the fatted calf.
Kill it.
And let us eat and be merry.
And they began to be merry.
Hallelujah.
The Bible says we love him because he
loved us first.
Hallelujah.
I'm sure that prodigal son learned to love
his father.
But inside that banqueting house there was a
feast of love.
Now we have an even better promise.
To know the love of Christ, Paul said,
which passeth knowledge that you might be filled
with all the fullness or all the provisions
of God.
You may be filled with all the provisions.
You may go to the storehouse and claim
all that I have offered you, in other
words.
Now unto him that's able to do exceeding
abundantly above all we ask or think according
to the power that worketh in us.
Here's God's love.
He's saying, I offer you exceeding abundant fullness,
provision for every crisis, joy throughout all your
Christian life.
Hallelujah.
Now the older son is out in the
field working and he hears this great noise
and he comes near and he calls his
servant out and said, what's going on?
And he said, come on, look in the
window.
And he looks in the window and there's
his wayward brother who's wasted his father's substance
with harlots and riotous living.
And he sees the father dancing with his
son, the prodigal, the runaway son.
And he sees the joy.
And he gets mad.
He gets angry.
The scripture said he was angry.
He wouldn't go in.
Therefore his father came out and entreated him.
And there was an anger in him.
And he said, father, this is not right.
He said, all these years, all these many
years I've served you, neither did I ever
disobey you at any time, and yet you
never gave me a goat or a party,
in other words, that I might make merry
with my friends.
Folks, listen to it now because probably 90
% of us are represented by this elder
son.
And we're standing outside.
I've been there.
I've been outside that window, and I've looked
in there, and I'm tired of being out
here looking in.
And I said, I'm not going to do
that anymore, Lord, because, you see, I got
saved when I was just a child.
I got called to preach when I was
eight years old.
I've never smoked a cigarette in my life.
I've never had a drink in my life.
I've never lived in adultery.
I've never gambled.
I've lived a moral, upright, moral life.
I'm like that young man.
The older son said, Lord, all these years
I've kept your commandments.
And then I look at somebody that's lived
in sin, and they come back to the
Lord, and within two weeks, they're dancing, and
they're praising the Lord, and they're happy, and
they're free.
They've come with simple faith, no guilt, no
condemnation, no memory of their past.
Everything's new.
And I said, that's all right.
And I walk in.
I'll take a peek in the door and
say, oh, yeah, look at them dancing, but
are they holy?
I paid a price for where I'm at.
I worked for what I've got.
And here they come in.
It's like the one who labored all day
for a penny, and somebody comes in at
the eleventh hour and gets the same pay.
I've been out there.
And I said, Lord, that's not right.
They're so free, and I've got all this
complicated theology.
You talk to them, and they'll say, Jesus
loves me.
I'm so happy.
Hallelujah.
You know what bothers me most of all?
I know Jesus is sitting there smiling at
them.
They're forgiven.
And here I am walking with all this
load.
You know, I really believe in my heart
that that older brother went right back to
his shack out in the hills where he's
watching sheep.
And you know what he's saying?
Well, you just wait.
He's waiting for death to roll in so
that he can get his inheritance.
He's waiting.
You see, after death rolls in, then he
inherits everything.
He's waiting until another...
This is the person that says, well, I
may not be happy now, but you just
wait till I get to heaven.
One of these days, I'm going to have
peace and rest, and we dream of heaven.
Oh, in heaven, no more tears.
In heaven, peace and rest.
And some of you think you've got a
private cloud and a little harp, and you're
just going to float around all through eternity.
Ninety-five percent of you are just going
to be glad to get to heaven so
you don't have to go to work anymore.
Our heaven is with Jesus in eternity, but
Jesus' heaven is with us on earth.
That's His heaven.
And we don't give Him a chance to
have heaven.
His heaven is when He rests in us.
When He's able to see you come right
in, the greatest joy that you can give
Jesus is to go in and claim what
He's freely offered to you.
I hope you're getting sick and tired of
guilt.
I hope you're getting...
I hope there's an anger rising up and
you say, I don't have to live like
this.
You know what the Father said?
And I believe He was heartbroken.
He looked at him, and I don't believe
it's the first time He told him, I
believe He told him this over and over
again.
He said, Son, you are always with me,
and all that I have is yours.
You know what's His?
Food enough, bread enough, and to spare.
The more you take out of His storehouse,
the more it grows.
You're not going to keep anybody else in
the blessing by getting it yourself.
It's just like the bread that He broke.
The more He broke, the more it multiplied.
God has more than enough for every one
of us on the face of this earth.
I think of the multitudes in China.
If God sends a revival to China, multiplied
millions, the Lord has enough grace for everyone.
He has mercy, forgiveness, and love for every
one of us to meet every need.
Glory to God.
Hallelujah.
You see, the greater sin was not wasting
or rejecting this sustenance and the provisions.
The great sin was not in the sensuous
living and the runaway spirit.
It was this grievous sin of rebuffing.
It's this sin of living so needy and
so burdened down when the Lord is waiting
and He's told you over and over again.
He's told us, look, everything I have is
yours.
Come and get it.
Come and claim it.
Come lay hold of it.
Now, I'm not naming it and claiming it.
That's not the gospel here.
But this is a matter of entering in
and claiming the resources that the Lord has
provided.
Now, finally, before I close, God's love, listen
closely now, God's love insists that we stop
focusing on our sins and our failures and
instead focus on the riches offered to us
in Christ.
The runaway son was not chastised or rebuked
or reminded of his sin.
In fact, God wouldn't even let the elder
brother bring up his sin.
He said, no, he was lost, but now
he's in the house, he's forgiven, and it's
time to rejoice and get happy.
Folks, I don't know about you, but I'm
ready for a party.
I'm ready to rejoice from now till Jesus
comes.
Oh, yeah, there'll be trials, there'll be heartaches,
yes, there'll be temptations, but through it all,
we ought to be in His banqueting hall
and His banner over His love, and He
said, I have everything you need.
And I'm tired of living like a pauper
when I've been promised everything I need.
Glory be to God.
Some of you have had the wrong focus.
You've been looking at your failure and your
sin and your past, and the Bible says,
my Bible said, look unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of our faith.
If you'd quit looking at your failure and
start looking to Jesus every day, get your
eyes off of your failure, and I'll tell
you what, the devil will come to you,
he'll stand before the Father and accuse you,
and then he'll send a lying spirit to
you and say, let me tell you what
I told your father.
Not until you get every right to say,
my father already knew that.
That's what the Bible said, for if our
heart condemns us, God is greater than our
heart, and He knows all things.
He knows all about you, and He still
loves you.
That's the miracle.
He knows all about me, and He still
loves me.
He loves me enough to say, come on
in and get all you need.
The storehouse is open.
You know there's a scripture in Genesis about
Joseph storing up all these provisions in the
storehouse for a famine that was coming?
And then when the famine comes, the scripture
says, and Joseph opened up all the storehouses.
Can you imagine the kind of theology that
we have or we've allowed to be ingrained
in us that we can believe Joseph would
open the storehouses but not our Lord?
Why did he store it up?
To give it out when it was needed.
Why has God laid up all of these
provisions of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?
So that we could go to Him when
we have a need, when we're guilty and
condemned, and say, Jesus, I don't have to
live like this.
I'm not going to live with it.
You're not condemning me.
It's either the lying spirit or it's my
own flesh condemning me, and I'm not going
to live with guilt and condemnation anymore.
You know what He said?
Come boldly to my throne.
You can claim mercy and grace for every
hour of need.
Then He said, I'll give it to you
full, pressed down and running over.
Now, in closing, I'm going to try to
answer very quickly in just two minutes here,
how do you get what you need out
of this storehouse?
How many of you believe God's provisions in
His storehouses are wide open?
Some of you have both hands up.
Now, if you don't believe it, it's a
double lie.
Believe it.
Now, how do I go in and get
what I need?
First of all, He said, come boldly to
the throne of grace and ask largely so
that you can have.
You've got to go to prayer and say,
Lord, I'm weary.
That's what I did.
I went to Him and said, Lord, if
I live like this, I'm going to die.
You say, well, Brother Wilkson, is that what
you've been doing, sitting up here loaded down
with guilt and condemnation?
No, not at all.
But there are times it just comes in.
Have none of you had a lying spirit
come to you and tell you how unworthy
you are?
Have you ever heard the devil lie to
you and say that you're never going to
please God?
I'll tell you what, he's got a million
ways to make you feel jealous, fearful, guilty,
condemned, confused, all of these things.
And then when you get confused, the devil
comes and says, you know why you're confused?
You know why you have guilt?
Because you're a sinner.
Because you've got all this junk in you.
It's never been out.
It's still.
If you knew what's in your heart, I
quit looking in my heart because it's always
black.
I don't want to look in there.
But it's black to the flesh, but it's
white to him because he's covered it with
the blood.
Hallelujah.
It's all covered with the blood of the
Lamb.
Hallelujah.
I don't care how you feel.
I don't care if you feel condemned.
I don't care if you feel guilty or
confused.
Look to Jesus and what he's done.
He has wiped the slate clean.
Don't let him put these lies into your
soul, into your spirit.
In prayer, when you go to prayer, remind
God that it was his idea for you
to come to him.
It was his idea for you to ask
him.
It was his word that says, all I
have is yours.
You didn't go to him and say, Lord,
I want everything you have.
The Lord said, you have everything I have.
You come and get it.
And you're not going to get any infusion
while you sleep.
You've got to go after it.
Hallelujah.
Glory to Jesus.
God said that everything that we obtain from
him is obtained by faith.
No other way.
A spirit of faith has laid hold of
my heart the past 30 days or so.
A dear sister came to me after service
this morning, twinkled her eye.
I think she's in the choir.
Yeah, she is, because she had a robe
on.
She blessed me.
She said, oh, Brother Dave, I see a
tenderness coming out in you.
You know what that's from, if it's there?
I hope it's beginning.
It comes from being rooted and grounded in
a revelation that His love to me is
not a feeling.
His love to me is a word that
He Himself has spoken.
In my house is bread and enough to
spare, which means provision for everything you need.
All I have is yours.
Glory to God.
All the peace, all the rest I need
is yours.
Come and claim it by faith.
Hallelujah.
Do you know you can have it by
faith tonight?
You don't have to work it up.
You don't have to come up here and
say, well, maybe if I get up there
and cry for an hour.
If I walk down the aisle and I
really say, oh, God, I'm so sorry.
You've already told Him that a hundred times.
When are you going to believe it?
When are you going to say by faith,
Lord Jesus, come flood me with peace.
It's mine.
I'm going on the job tomorrow claiming peace.
I claim rest for my soul.
I'm going to bed.
Let the devil lie.
My Father knows it anyhow.
He's forgiven me.
He's cleansed me.
I'm free.
Hallelujah.
Glory to God.
Hallelujah.
No guilt, no condemnation.
I am His.
Hallelujah.
Let's stand and praise Him.
Just stand on your feet and worship Him.
Lift your hands and say, thank you, Lord,
I'm free.
Thank you, I'm free.
I'm free.
I'm free in the name of the Lord.
I am free.
There is no condemnation.
There is no guilt.
Glory, glory, glory, glory, glory.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Folks, I can't, you can't sing this down.
We can't work it up.
You can't clap it down.
It's when you lay hold of the Word
of God.
And if you'll ask the Holy Spirit right
now, before we leave this church, if you
ask the Holy Spirit to help you seize
it and lay hold on it and get
rooted and grounded in it, this next week
will be the greatest week you've ever had.
Because you won't be focused on the lies.
You won't be focused on the guilt.
You'll be focused on all the power of
Jesus that he has for you.
You say, Lord Jesus, yeah, I know I'm
not where I should be yet.
I know I'm going to make mistakes.
But nothing going to shake me.
That you have everything I need to get
to victory and live in it.
Hallelujah.
My last statement to you, the victory is
not in you anyhow.
It's in Jesus.
It's not in you.
I hear people say, I got the victory.
No, he got the victory.
You just take it.
He did it.
Hallelujah.
I'm going to have an invitation only for
one particular group of people tonight.
While your heads are bowed, please.
And I'm not trying to create a mood.
I mean this with all my heart.
Balcony and here on the main floor.
If you're here tonight and you are not
walking with the Lord.
You have been running from God.
You're like that runaway son.
I invite you to come and take full
possession tonight of what Jesus wants for you.
He wants you to have joy and glory.
He wants to give you his full acceptance
and forgiveness.
If you just bring your repentant heart to
him right now and say, Brother Dave, I
know I'm not, I came here tonight empty.
I came with a spirit that is not
truly right with the Lord.
We're not going to close this service until
we give you a chance.
Whoever there is in this building, I want
you to come and let me pray for
you right now.
I won't beg you to come because the
spirit has touched you and he's drawing you.
And say, Brother Wilkins, I've been living like
I was poor and hopeless.
And I want to claim my inheritance in
Christ.
I want the fullness of Jesus.
I want to be drawn close to him
tonight.
Up in the balcony, go to either stairs
and down and come down any aisle.
You that are here while we're singing.
Folks, we're going to sing come and go
with me to my father's house.
And what are you going to the father's
house for?
To a banquet of love and to claim
his provisions.
Hallelujah.
Everything you need, glory to God.
Now, folks, if you're happy, it'll show.
It'll show.
And these that are coming here, God's going
to break out in joy.
These people that are coming, God's going to
give them joy before they leave this house
tonight.
He's going to replace the agony, replace the
emptiness, fill their hearts, and let a great
thing happen, a great miracle happen in their
lives.
While we're singing, come on right down the
aisle.
Follow these for a great miracle in your
life.
Hallelujah.
Until something comes up, until the word of
the Lord hits home.
And you just, if you have to, just
reach your hands out and say, Lord, I'm
going to get this.
I'm going to get it good.
You love me so much that you want
me to have everything that I need.
Glory to God.
Financially, physically, spiritually, you need healing tonight?
That's what he wants you to have.
You believe he's got all the healing power
that you need?
That was awful weak.
He has all the healing power that you
need?
He can take away every lying spirit and
set your mind free?
Hallelujah.
He's got everything in our Father's house.
But first of all, let's pray for these
that are up here right now.
You that have come forward, raise your right
hand.
Raise both hands.
Just lift your hands up to the Lord
right now.
The Holy Ghost is here right now.
Pray this right out of your innermost.
Pray it right out of your heart.
The words alone won't save you unless your
heart is in it.
You have to speak out the abundance of
your heart.
Pray with me.
Jesus, I came forward and I stand here
now because I know you love me.
And I've come to your love.
It's not that I know how to love
you, but you know how to love me.
And I accept your love.
Forgive me.
Cleanse me.
And I'm coming to you, Jesus, because I
need help.
I need your blessings.
I need your power.
I need your joy and peace.
Lord, start it with me right now.
Now, with your hands raised, thank him for
peace and rest and everything you need by
faith.
Lord, forgive and cleanse and heal.
Thank him right now.
Thank him with your own words.
I thank you, Jesus.
This is the conclusion of the tape.