Wonderful, wonderful word has come forth already today,
and hopefully this will be a capstone message
on those very subjects.
Now, let me preface what I'm going to
preach tonight.
I told you, most of you know that
the book America's Last Call has sent a
warning throughout the United States.
It was primarily for the United States, and
that thing is, that's bearing down on us
very fast.
And then, the Lord spoke to my heart
one day and said, if you're going to
warn, you've got to believe me for hope,
a message of hope for the Church.
And so, I've been, I have preached ten
messages so far along this very line, how
God intends to keep, the name of the
new book that will go into publication shortly
is called, God's Plan to Keep His People
in the Coming Depression.
God's Plan to Keep His People in the
Coming Depression, and we are offering it to,
across the switchboard, I think it was in
some 50 languages, we're offering it in every
language all over the world to all the
publishers who've published their books, and this is
a message tonight that you're going to hear
tonight that will go all over the world,
not because I'm preaching it, not because it's
that special, but it's a word that's needed
today, because the whole, one-third of the
world is already in depression.
Brazil is about to go down, soon Mexico,
Argentina, and all of Latin America, and the
times are very, very perilous, but I have
a word of caution tonight, something the Lord
is dealing with me about sharing with the
body of Christ in these perilous times that
we face.
And if you'll listen closely tonight to what
the Holy Spirit is saying, you'll be able
to hear any kind of news that's coming,
it will never bother you, there will be
no fear in your heart, because I believe
that God would not deliver this in this
church and send a message around the world
without first meeting our need here.
He would first prove the point, so to
speak, right here, that there's a body who
have heard it, believed it, and are practicing
the presence of the Lord, and are unmoved
by these things.
In fact, my message is entitled simply, Resting
in Jesus.
Now you talk about God's plan to keep
his people in coming depression and perilous times.
He mandates that we come into this rest
in Jesus Christ, that he not just be
a theology, but we would enter in to
a place in him of total, absolute rest
and peace.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you anoint this
message tonight.
I pray that you touch me with fire
from heaven.
Lord, I want it to come from the
innermost being.
I want it to come from the throne
of God.
Lord, I believe you're speaking to the nation,
you're speaking to the whole world.
And Lord, I feel unworthy of this challenge
tonight, but I know that you have placed
a call in my heart.
You have given us an international pulpit.
Lord, you've opened doors, you've given us the
respect of many, many people who want to
hear what God is saying.
And Lord, we humble ourself before you right
now, and we ask that the word that
goes forth in this pulpit tonight will bring
life.
Let it produce life.
Let it shatter the fear that is arising
in so many hearts of so many Christians.
Lord Jesus, I give my heart to you
fully, that I may be able to express
your mind tonight that you've placed in me,
for the mind of Christ is in us.
We give you thanks, we give you praise,
in Jesus' name, amen.
Resting in Jesus.
Now there's a great difference awareness and obsession.
Now to be aware means to be informed,
to be alert, to gain knowledge, gather as
much knowledge as you can.
You become informed, you get all the knowledge
that you can gather, but to be obsessed
is to be dominated by that gathered knowledge.
You have to be careful when you gather
knowledge.
When you really enter into a subject and
you get all the information, you become alerted
to the subject, whether it's judgment, whether it's
Y2K, on any subject in life, you have
to be careful that it does not take
over your thinking.
And that's all that you think about, that's,
you're totally obsessed with that one thought.
For example, I asked the Lord to show
me how I could approach the future, and
he said, first of all, go back in
the Old Testament and see how I've worked
with past generations.
He said, why don't you just go back?
In my book on America, I talked about
the destruction of London, how we could learn
from that, and how to go back to
Shiloh.
The Lord told me to go back to
the last depression, the 1930s in the United
States, to see why God smoked the country
with the Great Depression that lasted for 10
years, that broke out in 1929.
And so I gathered as many books as
I could to get informed.
And one of the books I read was
by an author who spent, I think, 12
years writing this book.
And most of the book has to do
with letters that President Hoover and Eleanor Roosevelt
and her husband received.
I think he said he waited through 250
,000 letters that were on file in the
archives, Roosevelt archives.
And he absolutely got so involved in this,
it just consumed his life.
In fact, the book is very powerful.
You feel the terror of those days, and
especially among the poor and among the blacks
in the southern United States.
But in the foreword of the book, this
man apologized to his wife for having made
her eat and drink the Depression.
In fact, it so got to him, that's
all he can, it literally took his life,
literally consumed his life, everything.
He was absolutely obsessed with the Depression in
the 1930s.
Now let's talk about the subject that I've
been bringing to this audience for the last
10 weeks or so, and then 12 weeks
before that on the previous subject on America's
Last Call.
I've warned about coming judgments, I've brought to
you some very frightful things that the flesh
doesn't want to hear.
I've talked about an impending storm and the
warning of a worldwide Depression.
Now as a watchman, I am only one
of many, many of God's watchmen.
I'm mandated by the Holy Spirit to share
what I know from Scripture and what the
Holy Spirit is saying to my heart.
If I'm on the wall and I see
a storm coming, I see a tornado coming,
I've got to warn those in the city
that I've called to warn.
Now the trumpet may sometimes, you can see
something is so terrifying and get so emotional
and blow the trumpet so loud it could
pierce the ear of everybody within the walls.
But nevertheless, the watchman's only job, his only
calling is to warn, to inform, and to
give you the knowledge of what is coming.
He's called a seer, he looks into the
future, he looks into the Word of God.
In fact, you can discount everything I say
that you can't prove by the Word of
God.
We have so many people calling themselves prophets
today.
First of all, you can't show me any
prophet in the Old Testament who called themselves
a prophet, and they never tried to qualify
that they were.
They never tried to prove that they were
prophets by what they said.
In other words, you know I'm a prophet
because this is going to happen, this is
going to happen, to validate their fact that
they thought that they were a prophet.
But you see, a watchman's calling is to
sound an alarm.
Now all the Old Testament prophets were watchmen,
every one of them.
They were seers, they were alerting God's people
of awesome judgment were coming down on them,
the Spirit of God would come on these
men, and they would talk about invading armies,
and they described their very hoofbeats.
You could almost, when you listen to them,
you can hear the sound of the war.
They talked about pestilences, and famines, and judgments,
and wars, and shakings.
Yet I find when I study these men
to be the most well-balanced men that
had an underlying strength of joy, and judgment
was not their only message.
They were just, they were just as excited
about alerting God's people about the love and
the mercy of God.
And we have totally misjudged all of the
old prophets, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel, because we
hear them talking about their bowels boiling, and
the fear, and the trembling.
And so we picture these prophets just running
around their whole lifetime with a long face,
and the wind blowing, and thunder, and lightning.
That's the wrong concept of every single prophet
in the Word of God.
They never did allow, not a single prophet
that I've studied, allowed the prophets of wrath
and coming judgment to dominate their thoughts to
the point that it hid the face of
God, the mercy and the grace of God.
They never allowed that to happen in their
lives.
Let me give you an example.
Go to Isaiah 24.
Now I want to prove my point now.
Now folks, if you love the Word of
God, I'm going to show you some things
tonight that will bring great joy to your
heart in the days ahead.
Chapter 24 of Isaiah.
I presume everyone has their Bible with them
here tonight.
I go to verse 16, beginning to read
verse 16 of Isaiah 24.
Now listen to this horrible prophecy.
This watchman is saying, from the uttermost part
of the earth have we heard songs, even
glory to the righteous.
But I said, my leanness, my leanness, lo
unto me.
The treacherous deiters have dealt treacherously, yea, the
treacherous deiters have dealt very treacherously.
He said, all I see, everywhere I look,
is treachery, lying.
And in another portion he said, truth is
fallen to the streets.
Fear and the pit and the snare are
upon the own habit of the earth.
So come to pass that he that fleeth
from the noise of the fear shall fall
into the pit, and he that cometh up
out of the midst of the pit shall
be taken to the snare.
For the windows from on high are open
than the foundations the earth do shake.
The earth is utterly broken down.
Boy, if you were frightful of anything I've
ever prophesied.
Verse 19, earth is utterly broken down, the
earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved
exceedingly.
The earth shall reel to and fro like
a drunkard, and shall be removed like a
cottage, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy
upon it, and it shall fall and not
rise again, and it shall come to pass
in that day that the Lord shall punish
the host of the high ones that are
on high, and the kings of the earth
upon the earth.
Now look at me please, folks, this is
an incredible thing that he's saying.
God is shaking everything that can be shaken,
everything in sight, all joy is darkened in
another place, all mirth is gone, the earth
here he said is reeling to and fro
like a drunken man.
He said the Lord is punishing the whole
earth.
The whole earth is under punishment, this man
says.
Now Isaiah is describing to the people what
he sees coming.
It has not yet happened, but he said
this is what is about to happen, and
he's alerting them.
He's doing the work of a watchman.
He's grieved at what he says, that my
soul is so lean.
In other words, he said I'm emaciated when
I think about it.
It's really gripped me so, what I see
and I know is coming, and it pained
him.
He felt it deeply, but having delivered his
soul and no longer blood guilty, absolutely have
delivered his soul the message God gave him
to him.
I want you to see how quickly he
moves into the message of grace and the
mercy of God.
Chapter 25, the very next chapter, verse 1,
O Lord thou art my God, I will
exalt thee, I will praise thy name, for
thou hast done wonderful things, thy counsels of
all are faithfulness and truth.
Now that's, that's got to be a happy
soul.
No one can be talking like this unless,
he said, I have done my part, I
have warned the people, but all I want
you to know I serve a wonderful, marvelous
God.
Look at verse 4, if you will please.
For thou has been a strength to the
poor, a strength to the needy in his
distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow
from the heat, when the blast of the
terrible ones is a storm against the wall.
Isn't that marvelous?
Verse 8, he will swallow up death and
victory.
Do you think this is a morose man
who's allowed the, the watchman's message to discourage
him and take away his joy?
He will swallow up death and victory.
The Lord God will wipe away tears from
off all faces, and the rebuke of his
people shall he take away from off all
the earth, for the Lord has spoken it.
It shall be said in that day, Lord
this is our God, we've waited for him
and he will save us.
This is the Lord we have waited for
him.
We will be glad and rejoice in his
salvation.
Isaiah was a glad prophet.
He was a happy man, carried the burden
of the Lord, but he was never far
away from this message.
Oh, there's no more grace, there's no more
mercy in all the Bible than you can
find right here in these prophets, especially in
Isaiah.
Jeremiah, you remember, is called the prophet of
gloom and doom.
His warnings and was terrifying in the Bible.
He's the prophet, remember, that was called to
pronounce judgment on Jerusalem.
He was the one who announced the captivity
for 70 years, and that was in a
time of prosperity.
He said, no, I'll tell you what, I
see armies coming in.
This city's going to be destroyed.
You're going to be eating your babies.
You're going to be boiling your babies.
If this whole city's coming down, the walls
are coming down.
You're going to go into captivity 70 years,
and they mocked him and they laughed at
him.
And that's when this man said his bowels
would boil in him until he got even
tired of preaching the message because nobody wanted
to hear.
But you see, the judgment of the fiery
wrath of God was not his prime message.
That's really not the message of Jeremiah.
Go to Jeremiah the 30th chapter, if you
will, please.
Turn to your right, Jeremiah 30.
I hope I can change your mind about
these prophets.
Jeremiah is almost always talking about restoration, health,
cure, rebuilding.
Look at verse 17, Jeremiah 30, starting verse
17.
For I will restore health unto thee, and
I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith
the Lord, because they called thee an outcast,
saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh
after.
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring
again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have
mercy on his dwelling places.
And the city shall be built upon her
own heap, and the palace shall remain after
the manner thereof.
And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving in
the voice of them that make merry.
And I will multiply them, and they shall
not be few.
But I will also glorify them, and they
shall not be small.
Their children also shall be as aforetime, and
their congregations shall be established before me.
And I will punish all that oppress them,
and their nobles shall be of themselves.
Their governors shall proceed from the midst of
them, and I will cause him to draw
near.
He shall approach unto me, for who is
this that engages his heart to approach unto
me, saith the Lord God.
He said, I'm going to have a holy
remnant, and I'm going to bless them.
His eyes were always on that holy remnant,
and always on the provision that God would
make for a repentant people.
This is, this is not a man who
goes around moaning and groaning his whole lifetime.
This man is a preacher of mercy.
In fact, in Jeremiah 32, turn over a
little, I'll give you his heart.
Jeremiah's heart is found in this one verse.
Jeremiah 32, verse 42.
Verse 42, For thus saith the Lord, Like
as I have brought all this great evil
upon the people, so will I bring upon
them all the good that I have promised
them.
That's his heart.
He said, Just as sure as I tell
you what is coming of judgment, I'm telling
you repentance will bring forth the goodness and
the grace and the mercy of God.
That was the heart of the Prophet Jeremiah.
He was not obsessed with the judgment message.
Oh, he would not spare, he cried aloud,
because he knew God's hatred for sin.
But no man could have spoken about restoration
like this man did, unless he had a
heart that was at peace and at rest.
Now look at me, please.
You say, Pastor, what's the point?
Now here it is, and listen clearly, please.
We're to listen carefully to the warnings of
God's watchman.
We're to be alerted.
We're to be warned.
We're to heed the message.
We're to repent.
We're to prepare our hearts and anticipate the
coming storm.
But you do not become obsessed with the
warnings.
You don't allow them to take over your
life.
You don't allow it to consume your thinking.
You don't let it take your heart.
The devil, if he can't get you to
misbelieve the words of the Prophet, he will
take you to the other extreme, and he
will try to plant forebodings and fear and
anxiety in you, and he will so want
you to get so involved in prophecy, he'll
make you a prophecy addict, so that you
will run around, you'll get tapes, you'll get
books, you'll run to every prophecy conference, and
you'll be so obsessed with studying the Armageddon,
the Mark of the Beast.
Am I going to have to take the
Mark of the Beast?
Where am I going to buy?
Where am I going to sell?
You'll be so hooked on finding out who
the Antichrist is.
I told you the one book I told
you, I saw some, I got in a
bookstore, The Antichrist and a Cup of Tea,
that Prince Charles is the Antichrist.
A whole book, and people go into the
conferences to hear who the Antichrist is.
And you, you, you will get so far
away from Christ the head.
You will get so away from the vision
of the grace and the keeping power of
Jesus, that you, that the enemy can use
that to give you an obsession that absolutely
dominates your life.
We're to be informed, but we're not to
dwell on it.
In fact, in Philippians 4.8, Paul tells
us what we're to dwell on in our
minds.
Finally, brother, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things
are honest and just, whatsoever things are pure,
lovely to, of good report, if they have
any virtue, if there be any praises, think
on these things.
He said you're going to think on the
good and the love.
You have the warning, you, you take heed
to what the word of the Lord says,
and what the prophets say, or rather the
watchmen say, and then you say, thank you
Lord for the warning, but now let me
think upon Jesus Christ and his goodness.
Hallelujah.
Now folks, I have, as far as I
know, faithfully warned those things that God's told
me to warn.
And I've warned that there's going to be
a lot of suffering for God's people, but
folks, that's not the focus of my ministry.
I don't have an obsession on these things,
but I do have one obsession, and that's
my relationship with Jesus Christ.
It's my intimacy, it's my life with him
that I keep my heart focused on.
Now folks, I know the stock market is
going to blow, and I know the American
lifestyle is going to change, and the lifestyle
of every prosperous nation on earth is going
to change, but I don't get up in
the morning and say, Lord, what am I
going to eat?
What am I going to drink?
What am I going to wear in the
cold?
Where am I going to get fuel to
stay warm?
I don't talk, I don't get up in
the morning, or I don't lay in my
bed at night and say, Lord, what's going
to happen to Times Square Church?
What's going to happen to all the people?
I sleep like a baby.
I don't worry about those.
You see, I'm not God, and there's nothing
I could do for anybody in any way.
I can't do anything, so I do what
Isaiah did.
He put his mind to rest.
He saw all that was coming, and even
though in his flesh he trembled, and he
said, this has left me lean.
There's an inner emaciation in my spirit because
of this, but he never dwelt on that.
Listen to what he says, Isaiah 26 3,
Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose
mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth
in Thee.
In the original Hebrew, it is peace, peace.
He will give him not perfect, but peace,
peace.
It's a double portion peace.
It's peace for the flesh, peace for the
spirit, mind, soul, and body.
Jesus said a peace that no man can
give you.
It's this, it is the peace of the
Lord Jesus Christ himself.
In the original Hebrew, he will be kept
in peace, peace, whose mind is resting in
Christ, whose mind is resting in Christ.
Y'all, his mind is resting in his
relationship because he fully trusts in Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
Praise you, Jesus.
Now, there's many devices that Satan uses to
try to discourage God's people, and I, when
I'm reading Isaiah especially, you know, I've never
considered myself a prophet, and I wouldn't be
worthy to be a servant to Isaiah, this
holy man of God, but sometimes I think
I know how he felt when he looked
at the nation, and especially in light of
what God was showing him, and he knew
that the people had not responded to former
judgments, and he knew that God was going
to shake everything, and he watched God take
away their prosperity, and he saw the Lord
humbling the nation for a season, they stood
and responded, and then he watched as God
began to prosper the nation again.
He said, let favor be shown to the
wicked, yet he'll not learn righteousness.
In the land of uprightness he will deal
unjustly and will not behold the majesty of
the Lord.
He said, it's an amazing thing.
Isaiah's looking over the situation, he said, now
how does God get through to this people?
They won't accept the famines and the pestilence,
they don't see God's hand in it, it's
just a happenstance to them.
And he says, now when God favors them,
they don't learn righteousness that way.
When God prospers them, they just turn to
their own evil ways and say, look what
my hands have accomplished.
And this is what is baffling this man.
He said, they don't behold the majesty of
the Lord in any of this.
We see the same thing happening here.
We've seen nations battered with storms and floods.
I mean, they've been battered with tornadoes and
hurricanes and famines and pestilences and all kinds
of ways that God's trying to get the
attention of the peoples and they don't respond.
But you see, Isaiah never gave up.
He never gave up hope through all this
because in Isaiah 25, 23, he says, in
spite of it, he's saying, the Lord of
hosts shall reign in Mount Zion gloriously.
This man had this knowledge, folks, Christians, through
it all, no matter what you hear, what
you see.
Folks, the day is going to come soon
that I don't have to say anything to
you.
The newspaper is going to say it, radio,
television, everything, it's all going to be there.
And it's going to be here, but there
has to be in your heart, in my
heart, no matter what happens, we know that
God is reigning in Zion gloriously.
He's on the throne.
He sits king of the flood.
He says, for when your judgments now are
on the earth, that inhabitants of the world
will learn righteousness.
And what he's saying, there's going to come
a time that God says, I will teach
you now by my rod.
And the judgment that was coming to Israel
now was the rod.
I was reading an article yesterday, a paper
by a Hollywood party goer, one of these
Hollywood producers, and he's a party goer, and
they're having such wild parties now, drunken orgies,
in all over Los Angeles and Hollywood.
And he made this statement.
He said, things have become so debauched, divine
retribution has to come.
This is a man who's drunk all the
time and using drugs.
And he said, it's so wild now.
And this man, you see what God says?
There is going to be retribution until every
man knows it's divine.
It's divine.
Only God can do what he's about to
do, he's saying.
I know.
What are the righteous supposed to do when
all of these things start coming down on
men?
Isaiah said, for the Christian, there's a wonderful
outlook for those who have their minds stayed
on Jesus Christ.
There's a prophesized judgment from Isaiah 26, 12
chapters preceding.
It's all about horrible judgments that are coming.
He's prophesying to a number of nations, and
especially to Jerusalem and Judah.
He warned of the collapse, in those 12
chapters, if you read them, he warned of
the collapse of the world's greatest power, Babylon.
And this seemed impossible.
How could the world's greatest superpower ever come
to ruin?
Nobody could believe this fantastic prophecy from Isaiah.
How could it fall into ruin?
It's too rich, it's too powerful to fall.
But suddenly Moab begins to fall, just as
Isaiah warned.
Tyre was judged.
And now he sees in his mind Damascus,
Egypt, Arabia, Tarsus, along with Israel, Judah, Jerusalem,
and finally Babylon.
And God's saking, he said, everything that can
be saken.
All men everywhere were in mourning.
There's desolation everywhere.
And this is all in his mind.
Now you'd think a man that sees destruction
coming to the whole world would be so
devastated he couldn't, he couldn't maintain his ministry.
He'd be overwhelmed by it.
But you see, I always told you his
secret.
He said, my mind is staying on my
Lord.
None of these things can affect me, because
my mind, I'm at rest in my mind.
Pastor Carter was so at rest this morning
he started just about to dance all over
this platform.
It's a mind that stayed on the Lord.
How do you come into this resting place?
It's one thing to say you need your
mind stayed on Christ, but how do you
come into this?
According to Isaiah, first of all, when the
judgments are shaking the nation, he was shut
in with God.
He was waiting on the Lord.
In Isaiah 26a, yea, in the way of
thy judgments.
In other words, when your judgments are upon
the nations, oh Lord, we have been waiting
for thee.
The desire of our soul is to thy
name and to the remembrance of thee.
You see, he was ready for anything that
came because he's on his knees.
He's waiting on the Lord.
He said, my desire, my whole desire, I'm
not waiting for these things to come.
I've made my statement.
I'm not looking for them.
I'm not desiring them.
They're going to come.
But he said in the meantime, I'm waiting
on the Lord.
Not waiting for judgment.
What are you waiting for?
Are you waiting for judgment?
Are you waiting till you see whether you're
going to make it or not?
Are you waiting till you get into employment
or you fear you're going to lose your
job or your house or whatever?
What are you fearing?
If you're waiting on the Lord, you're getting
strength and your mind is being stayed on
Christ.
He's revealing his power and his strength to
you in the secret closet.
I read a statement by a Puritan this
past week.
He said, no matter what a man claims
about Christianity, he is not a Christian who
does not pray.
He's an atheist.
He said, I don't care what his claim
is.
I don't care how much he claims he
knows of Christ.
If he neglects his prayer closet, he went
on to say this man is not a
believer.
He's not a Christian.
He's an atheist.
He said, how can you be a believer
and neglect him?
How can you say you trust him and
not pray to him?
No, there is no, there's no way on
earth that you can work yourself into a
place of trust.
You can't work up faith.
There's no human power.
There's no way in the world.
In fact, you say, well, doesn't the Bible
say, faith come by hearing the word.
I'll just read the word and faith will
come.
Folks, it's not just the word.
It's the spirit of the word.
And the spirit of the world does not
come to you.
The spirit of the word does not come
and tell your son in with God.
He gives you the spirit of the word.
The secret of the Lord is of them
that seek him.
And this is the secret of the Lord
and you don't get it just reading it.
Isaiah could say, I see the frightful judgments
falling on all the nations and I tremble
at it.
The judgments that are coming are unspeakable, but
none of these things dominate my thinking.
None of these things can take from me
this perfect peace because in the midst of
this, I have one obsession.
I have my mind totally obsessed with Christ,
with my Lord.
Don't tell me Christ, Isaiah didn't know Christ.
Oh, he knew Christ.
Prophesied about his coming, saw him in his
spirit.
It's not God's will that any Christian, any
true believer approach the perilous times of fear
and trembling.
It's not his will that these prophecies frighten
his people.
Let me give you the heart of Jesus,
folks.
Listen closely.
Jesus said, peace I leave with you, my
peace I give unto you.
Not as the world gives, give I unto
you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let
it be afraid.
That's the heart of Jesus.
In Matthew 24, Jesus himself gives some very
powerful, alarming prophecies of the coming events.
Folks, what bothers me today, we have pillow
prophets, I call them, going all over the
land and they're saying it's the year of
Jubilee.
God's going to pay all your debts this
year.
You won't have any debt.
That's a lie.
What are they going to do at the
end of the year when their bills are
piled up?
That's not what Jubilee means at all.
If you wouldn't preach from this pulpit, it's
all about Christ.
It's all about his redeeming power, setting you
free from the debt of sin.
Not Sears and Robbock.
Jesus said, there'll be wars coming, pestilence, earthquakes
in various places.
You'll be afflicted and some will be killed.
Iniquity will abound.
False Christ and false prophets are going to
rise.
Many will be deceived.
The sun will be darkened.
The stars are going to fall from the
heaven.
And Jesus said, behold, I've told you before.
I've told you these things.
And there's a reason not to scare them.
He's not trying to motivate holiness through fear.
He's not saying in so many words, you
better tell the line because look what's coming.
No, no, no, no, no.
He later explained to them.
He said, I told you all these things
so you would believe when you saw them
coming.
That a Christ who had the foreknowledge to
warn you has the power to keep you.
He said, so that your faith would not
be shaken.
He said, I've told you all these things
so that you would not be shaken when
you saw, see them come.
Now folks, I want to tell you something.
And I want you to listen closely.
We don't want to hear this kind.
We want to go to the Bible and
we want to lay hold of every keeping
promise there is.
But I want to open your eyes tonight
and listen closely, please.
In 1949, just before the communists took over
China, they were always already moving on, on
the, on the Eastern provinces.
They were coming and already reports were that
they were murdering and, and maiming the people
and, and, and confiscating property.
But almost all evangelicals were telling the Chinese
Christians, the Lord's going to come and rapture
you away.
You're not, there's not going to be any
suffering.
And they quoted the scriptures and the people
in their churches, raising their hands, praising God
on these promises.
And they were told they would not suffer
because Jesus is going to come and keep
you from the hour of temptation.
The communists came in, into their churches, burned
them, murdered, maimed, and took their children.
And this can't be denied.
It's a historical fact.
And then the Christians, millions of Christians became
absolutely self-shocked.
They didn't want to hear about Christ.
They said, well, we're, we were told that
we would not have to endure any of
this.
They endured it.
Faith was shattered for many, many years because
there were no prophets, there were no watchmen
trying to remind them what Jesus said.
Jesus said, some of you will be killed.
Some of you are going to be cast
in prison.
In fact, he said, some that kill you
will think they're doing God a favor.
Rwanda.
There were many, many Christians, and many of
those evangelical, especially Pentecostal churches, who sat in
Rwanda listening to prosperity gospel, saying that you
don't have to suffer if you come to
Christ.
Their eyes were blinded.
And then when the war broke out, their
churches were burned.
The same thing.
There were, it was one murder after another.
They had to run free as refugees.
And then in the refugee camps, many, many
pastors got together in churches, and they released
first in one camp 1,200 Bibles.
Camps in Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi.
But they wouldn't take them.
They didn't want to hear about the Word.
They said, we were told we would be
raptured.
And we weren't raptured.
We weren't ready for this.
We weren't told we would suffer.
We weren't warned.
They said, we've been failed.
Where was our God?
Now folks, I want to listen, I want
you to listen closely, because God gave me
revelation.
Some of you are scared already.
You say, well how am I going to
trust any of their promises?
I'm going to show you tonight something I
don't think you've seen, and something you and
I are going to have to hear, because
the Lord told me that I have to
warn you tonight that there's going to be
suffering like you've never seen.
Some of you are going to lose your
houses.
Some of you are going to lose your
jobs.
There's going to be suffering.
There's going to be pain.
Some of you may be killed.
I can't stop what the Holy Ghost taught
me to tell you and warn you.
There is going to be suffering, and all
of these prophets who are telling people they're
going to prosper, one day they're going to
be most hated, despised men on earth.
Their lives are going to be in danger,
because people are going to take them by
the throat and say, why didn't you warn
me?
You told me my bills would be paid.
You made me false promises.
Now folks, every promise in the book is
yea and amen to all belief.
Not one promise will ever fail, but I
want to show you something.
I want to show you that every Christian
that was martyred, every person that's been killed
in the name of Jesus, everyone that suffered
in this way, first of all, when you
get to heaven, you're going to understand what
Stephen saw, what Stephen said, and why it's
recorded in the Word.
Just before he was stoned to death, the
stones were already pounding him.
You say we're not going to suffer.
You say that you're going to be raptured.
Do I believe in the rapture?
I believe in the imminent return of Jesus
Christ at any moment.
I believe he could come tonight, but I
also believe that there's going to be suffering
and tribulation.
I'm not talking about the great tribulation before
then.
There may be much tribulation, but I can't
soften the blow of what the Word of
God says and what I see.
I don't care if anybody hears.
Well, I do care, but I don't care
what they say of it.
I want to show you that those who
go this path, those of you who will
suffer, it may, I may be one of
them.
The first thing I want to tell you
is that when you get to heaven, you're
going to find out that every single one
who was martyred saw the heavens open and
Jesus standing at the right hand of the
Father with his arms wide open.
Everyone, this was not a special grace only
for Stephen.
If you read Fox's Book of Martyrs, you'll
find that men that were burning the stake
just before they went into eternity said, I
see him, I see him, I see him.
You see, we see death not as God
sees it.
We're going around mourning and God says, how
precious in the eyes of the Lord are
the death of his saints.
Not the killing of them, but the death,
the going of them into his presence.
I want to tell you, my friends, that
if you were in heaven right now, in
paradise, and you were to walk up and
down the streets of glory, and you were
to ask every, any one of them, would
you like to go back and fulfill your
years?
Would you like to go back and get
your 70 some years?
Do you want to go back to that
blade of grass?
Do you want to go back to that
veil of tears?
They'd say, no, God wiped all my tears.
Not one would trade places with you for
your measly 70 years when they've got eternity.
Not one.
Furthermore, and this nails it, so that you
never again have to worry about what's coming
even to the point of death.
Live or die, I am the Lord's.
Though he slay me, yet will I trust
him.
That's Bible.
Now let me give you even better.
You ready?
Every single believer who goes this path of
martyrdom suddenly receives the goal and the fulfillment
of every promise in the book.
Every promise.
You said, well, he said he'd supply every
need.
Oh, isn't that the supply of every need?
Come on now.
Isn't that the supply?
In fact, God revealed to me that the
91st Psalm was the martyr's psalm.
Go to Psalm 91.
That's the martyr's psalm.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of
the Most High shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, he's my
refuge, my fortress, my God, in him will
I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare
of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
Aren't they delivered?
Instant glory.
The fowler can't touch him.
Hasn't he fulfilled that promise?
Right there it is.
He shall cover thee with his feathers and
under his wings thou shall trust.
His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shall not be afraid for the terror
by night, nor the arrow that flyeth by
day.
When those arrows might hit you, don't be
afraid.
It's my arrow.
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy right, at
thy side.
Ten thousand at thy right, it shall not
come near thee.
Only thy eyes shall see.
Thou shalt behold and see the reward of
the wicked, because thou hast made the Lord
which is my refuge, even the Most High
thy habitation.
There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall
any plague come near thy dwelling.
Now folks, what is the dwelling?
This is the dwelling, the temple of the
Holy Ghost.
He said nothing can touch this temple.
He's talking about the dwelling of the Lord
himself, the dwelling place of the Holy Ghost.
Cannot affect your dwelling place of the Holy
Ghost.
Cannot affect your spirit and your soul.
Can't touch it.
Not a hair of your head shall perish.
Oh now folks, if you're going to talk
physical, every hair on the head of Christ
perished.
Every head and the disciples when they were
murdered.
Folks, Jesus was murdered.
He was murdered.
He was killed by the hands of angry
wicked men.
He's talking about eternal life.
Not a head of your hair, not one
hair of your head is going to hell.
It's going to the fire.
You've got eternal life.
We're not seeing it right.
We're so focused on protecting ourselves from any
bit of suffering.
You read it.
I'm not going to go through it all.
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the
adder.
Oh folks, what great victory than death in
Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
Ever been in the funeral parlor where a
saint of God has departed in the last
time we see them?
There's such a peace of the Holy Ghost.
There's such a rest.
I can tell every time I go into
a preaching field, I know whether they're right
or wrong.
Holy Spirit bears witness.
There's a peace of God that floods the
whole place.
Hallelujah.
Glory to God.
91st Psalm, I'll say it again, is the
martyr's song.
Glory to God.
The prophet gives a final warning.
He said, you're not going to be able
to make it, what is coming.
Pastor Carter said it ably this morning.
You'll not be able to endure what's coming
unless your spirit and your mind is fully
at rest on the rock of ages.
He told the children of Israel the reason
you have such grief in your heart and
sorrow as these things come.
God's people, even the remnant at that time,
some of the remnant, because you see what
had happened, some of the remnant had repented,
and they turned to the Lord.
The scripture says, but they didn't fix their
mind on the Lord himself.
They didn't fix their mind.
And here's what he said, thou hast forgotten
the God of thy salvation, and you have
not been mindful of the rock of your
strength.
You haven't been mindful of the rock.
You didn't remember where your strength comes from.
This rest in him, absolute rest.
Now folks, this message is meant to encourage
your faith and build you up.
It has to come to this place where
you say, Pastor Dave, I hear what you're
saying.
I'm going to go to the secret cause.
I'm going to be waiting on the Lord.
Now, if you're not going to pray, if
you're not going to seek the face of
God, and I'm going to close this in
a few months, if you're not going to
set your heart and your face to seek
the Lord and wait on him, it's what
waiting on the Lord means, just to seek
his face.
If you're not even going to take that
step, you're going to plant yourself in front
of a TV set.
You sit there a little, a little couch
potato, and say, well I got all the
promises of God.
God's going to protect me and everything's fine.
Folks, the goal of every promise, the goal
of every promise, is to bring us safely
home to Christ.
That's the goal of every promise.
Why would God give them?
No, folks, the wonderful thing is to bypass
all of this and reach the goal, so
that every purpose of every promise is fulfilled.
I don't know if you're seeing that.
Any of you pastors seeing it?
You know, I would rather have the fruits
of the promises, I would rather quickly come
right in.
That's what Paul's talking about.
He said, I want to go home.
I want to, I have all these wonderful
promises from my flesh and my body, but
I miss him.
I want to be with the Lord.
That's my heart.
He didn't care how he got there.
He got there through martyrdom, but he said,
you have not been mindful of the rock
of your strength.
I want you to go to Psalm 125,
please.
Will you stand?
I have a feeling, look at me, I
have a feeling some of you thought, well
pastor, you started really well, but then you
scared the daylights out of me.
Folks, something went in my notes, the Spirit
of the Lord came on me.
Jesus said, I'm not told you any of
these things to scare you, is what he's
saying.
I didn't tell you any of that to
frighten you, but Jesus said, I have to
tell you, some of you, I'm gonna go
that way, but he said, told you these
things that you'd be not afraid.
He's saying, I don't want your face shipwrecked.
I don't want your face shipwrecked.
Can I believe these promises?
I believe them now more than ever.
I lay hold of them, but folks, over,
over and above all of these promises, there's
only one thing that God says you need
to see you through any dark day through
anything you have.
You simply put your trust in me, totally.
Just give, he said, are you, folks, are
you, you're willing to give your mind, you're
willing to give your spirit, you want to
give your body?
Are you willing to say, Lord, just take
what you, just take my life.
I'm not going to be afraid.
I'm going to live with fear or anything
else.
I'm not going to live with fear.
I know that God dealt with Pastor Carter
on this, because when he first came here,
he talked about, about this very thing.
I wonder if God would ever expect martyrdom.
I don't know if somebody remembers that, and
I do, but I want you to read
this chapter with me, and I want you
to listen carefully to it.
They that trust in the Lord shall be
as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but
abideth forever, as the mountains are round about
Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his
people from henceforth even forever.
For the rod of the wicked shall not
rest upon the lot of the righteous, lest
the righteous put forth their hands to iniquity.
Do good, O Lord, unto those that be
good, and to them that are upright in
their hearts, for such as turn aside under
the crooked ways of the Lord, so lead
them forth to the workers of iniquity.
Peace shall be upon Israel.
Now I want you to go to one
last chapter, Psalm 5, the fifth chapter of
Psalm, if you will, please, and I want
you to read this with me.
Hallelujah.
Fifth chapter of Psalm, verses 10 to 12,
please.
I want you to read it out loud
with me.
I'll read the tenth, and then you read
the 11th verse.
Destroy thou them, O God.
Let them fall by their own counsels.
Cast them out in the multitude of their
transgressions, for they rebelled against thee.
You see, he's talking about what's going to
happen to the wicked, but now he's got
a message for the righteous.
In verse 11, read it out loud if
you have King James.
But let all those that put their trust
in thee rejoice.
Let them ever shout for joy, because thou
hast defended them.
Let them also that love thy name be
joyful in thee.
He said, I want to rejoice and be
joyful in thee.
Folks, I have read of those who went
through hard times in past history, and they
were even being led.
You see, we don't know Jesus like this,
and we ought to.
We are going to know him more and
more as he manifests himself.
But all the way to the stake, the
burning stake, where the faggots of fire were
burning, they were singing praises to the Lord.
There was peace, and there was rest.
The Holy Ghost gave them to that.
Now folks, there may not be anybody in
this place ever have to be martyred before
the Lord.
You may not be persecuted to that point,
and in the riots that come, you may
never find a straight bullet or anything else,
but I want you to know one thing.
No matter what happens, God is faithful to
his people, and live or die, we are
the Lord's, and he is going to keep
his promise.
He is going to keep his promise to
his people, and he said, you keep your
mind state on me, and you rejoice.
When you see all these things come, look
up and rejoice.
It's because your redemption's drawing nigh.
Do you want to go with the Lord?
Would you prefer to be with him?
Oh, you're young and 24, about to be
married.
You say, well, I hope he waits a
year.
You got a new car, and you want
to enjoy it.
I think there's something the Bible about that.
I married a wife.
I bought a piece of land.
No, he said, let's go to the feast.
Folks, we're going to a feast.
Let me, let me show you something.
You're singing, I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll
fly away.
Then a watchman comes and tells you something's
coming.
Sure, you're going to fly away now.
You see how fickle we are?
You say, will you believe every word in
this book?
If you believe every word in this book,
there should not be one moment of fear
in your heart right now.
There shouldn't be an ounce of fear, not
one iota of fear in you, because if
you have fear in your heart, you've not
been hearing what the Holy Ghost has been
saying.
It doesn't matter what happens.
It doesn't matter what comes.
You're in the palm of His hand, and
nobody can take you from Him.
Nobody.
Hallelujah.
But there's one thing I have to say
before I close.
This is an altar call.
If you're here tonight, now maybe you, sorry
you came, but if you become this church,
and you're from Times Square Church, you're glad
you came.
I argued with the Lord all along.
He told me to do this a week
ago, and I said, I can't do it.
I can't warn that kind of strong warning.
And the Lord said, if you do, I'll
bless you.
I'll honor you if you'll do what I
tell you to do.
Because see what I told you, I'm telling
millions now around the world.
You talk about being called doomsday preacher.
I hope you'll pray that I can handle
that.
But there's some of you came here tonight,
and the fear is not martyrdom or anything
else, and it's not the fear of losing
your job or anything else.
Because you that lose your job, God won't
provide other ways for you.
There's no question He's going to provide.
You lose your house and your apartment, God's
going to give you something in His place.
He's not going to leave you out in
the streets.
You're not going to beg for food.
That's not what it is at all.
No.
But some of you came here, and the
fear that you have in your heart is
because you're not ready to face Him face
to face.
Because you've got a great big sin right
in front of your eye.
You have a great big thing standing there.
God's dating with you.
You know it.
I don't have to dig into your heart
and tell you what it is.
You know it, and the Holy Ghost knows
it.
We're long past playing games in this church.
That's not what this church is all about.
This church is about life and death.
And when you truly repent and turn to
the Lord, He comes running to you.
He comes with all the mercy and grace
and strength.
The Holy Ghost will come to you and
comfort you beyond anything you can receive.
He's got abundant comfort for you and strength.
He'll help you fight that sin.
He'll help you overcome it.
But you've got to acknowledge that it's sin.
You've got to acknowledge it's wrong.
You've got to acknowledge it's going to damn
your soul and send you to hell.
It's that street.
And God sent you here tonight, and some
of you have been backslidden.
You're not right with God.
You're playing games with Him.
Some of you are still watching porno.
Some of you are still watching filthy videos.
Or you're watching television that you ought to
be ashamed of.
Some of that stuff that you're watching is
out of the pits of hell.
And you're sitting and come to the house
of God and praise Him.
The Lord says, no, that's not enough now.
I want you to lay it down.
I want you to come on us and
for it.
There's some things that God expects us to
do.
And how can we expect to do the
miraculous when we won't do the normal?
When we can't do the natural?
That which we have the power to do.
You've got power to shut it off.
You've got power to walk away from it.
At the end of it comes in the
Holy Ghost to give you power to keep
your no.
He'll give you strength.
But you've got to make a move.
I'm going to open these altars right now
for those who've been dealt with by the
Holy Spirit.
He's putting His finger on sin right now.
He's putting a finger.
He said, I love you.
I don't want you to walk out here
tonight the way you came in.
The Lord says, I want you to leave
here tonight with the greatest peace you've ever
had.
I'm going to give you that peace, peace,
that double portion of peace, the peace that
passes all understanding.
I want to give it to you tonight.
If you've got sin hanging over you, there's
no peace.
There's no way you can have peace.
You know, you can have a false peace
if you don't have the peace of Christ.
Up in the balcony, go to the stairs
on either side and come down any aisle
and you'll hear the main floor.
Just come here and let me pray with
you and we'll believe God right now to
break the chains and give you freedom right
now.
Wherever you're at, if you're bound by fear,
come and we're going to take authority over
that in Jesus' name right now and believe
God for total victory in your life.
Up in the balcony, go the stairs on
either side.
Come only as the Spirit draws you.