walking in the power of the new covenant.
Heavenly Father, show us your loving heart this
morning.
Show us the loving heart of Jesus and
the great love and compassion of the Holy
Spirit and the commitment that you've made to
keep your children from the problems and the
trials and the temptations and the terror that
comes in these final days.
We're not on our own, oh God, from
the foundation of the world you've made provision.
God, open our eyes and our understanding.
We can't see this in our own power.
We can't see it in our own strength.
I can't convey it in my own power
and strength.
I can't produce an anointing.
I can't produce unction.
I am but a voice.
I'm but a channel.
Oh God, in Jesus' name, send your Holy
Ghost.
Give us ears to hear and eyes to
see and a heart to yield to you,
we pray.
God, send truth that sets us free, we
pray.
Hallelujah.
Amen.
Now, in the Old Testament, you know, folks,
please, you have got to put on, my
teacher at school said, put on your thinking
caps.
We like to be spoon-fed.
We like just little bits and tidbits and
try to, we have such a short interest
span.
You're never going to get this unless you
ask the Holy Ghost to help you.
No matter how eloquent or how sadly I
present this, it's not going to be understood
without the anointing of the Holy Spirit on
your ears as well as on my tongue.
So pray for that as we approach this
incredible subject of the covenant.
Now, in the Old Testament, it was the
practice of godly men to lay hold of
the covenant to find relief and strength in
their terror times when there were difficulties and
troubles that they couldn't understand.
They always laid hold of the covenant.
It was in the covenant they found their
strength and relief.
It's all through the Old Testament.
Take David, for example.
David, in his last days, is looking back
over his life.
He's looking back at all the trouble, the
distress, especially caused by his sin in his
own life and in his family.
What tragic times.
There's no life saved more troubled than David's
life.
A man after God's own heart, and even
in his final days, he can't understand why
he was so tempted and so tried with
fiery trials, and he said, my sins are
so innumerable, they're more than the hairs on
my head.
And yet, in his last days, he said,
although my house be not so with God,
yet he has made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure.
He said, I know one thing, God gave
me a promise, and I have walked in
my life in the power of that, and
now in my dying days, I die in
the power of a promise given to me
from God that I'm going to have a
sure house until the end of time, that
someday my descendants will rule and reign on
this earth.
And he wasn't thinking about his own name,
he was thinking of the Messiah.
He, all of these men, all of the
Old Testament prophets and kings like David understood
if they walked with God that one was
coming to redeem mankind.
He found relief.
He said, no matter what my condition may
be, no more I see.
It may not be what I want it
to be, but God has made me a
promise, and I've cast myself on that promise,
and that produced power in his life.
Consider Jacob, if you will, with me.
His father sends him away to Patam Arum
to find a wife.
It's a long journey, it's going to be
set with dangers from wild animals, from thieves.
It's long, it's hot, it's a long journey,
and you read the story and something seems
strange to the human eye.
This father, Isaac, is a very wealthy man.
He has cattle, he has camels, he has
mules, he has riches, he has servants.
Sends his son away with nothing.
He sends him away with nothing.
In fact, Jacob's own testimony was, I had
nothing but my staff.
When I crossed Jordan, I went with my
staff only.
Now, why would a rich father send away
his son on an errand of his own
choosing, in his own direction, and not give
him anything of material benefit?
Why didn't he give him a few servants
to go with him?
Why not a camel to travel on?
Why not a little bit of finances to,
a little bit to establish him when he
finds a wife so he can buy some
cattle and piece of land and start over,
just like his father had.
But yet, his father had inherited so much.
And you look at that and say, well,
he sent him away poverty-stricken.
But no, he didn't send him away poverty
-stricken.
Isaac gave him something worth more than all
the cattle on a thousand hills, gave him
something more valuable than all the riches of
gold and silver on the earth.
He sent him away with the covenant blessing
of his grandfather Abraham.
I picture him laying his hands on his
head, and he's saying, you know about your
grandfather, how God revealed himself as God Almighty.
That was the first time he was revealed
as God Almighty.
And when he said, what will you give
me, God Almighty?
God says, I give you myself.
I'm all you need.
You will need nothing else.
I am.
I'm everything you need.
That was the revelation that was given to
him.
And it was such a powerful revelation.
He said, I will be your shield.
No one can harm you.
And Isaac lays his hand on Jacob's head,
and he prays that same prayer.
And God Almighty bless you, Jacob.
Make you fruitful and multiply you and give
you the blessing of Abraham.
You see, his father didn't want him to
be able to go out in the world
and say, I have heard of a covenant.
I have heard that a covenant was given
to my grandfather.
My grandfather was delivered from all of his
enemies.
My grandfather told me that God was his
protection.
My father Isaac taught me these things.
No, God wanted him through his father Isaac
to have his own revelation.
Isaac knew that God would not fail him
because God had made him a promise.
He stood on this promise and given to
Abraham.
I am going to bless you and keep
you and be God Almighty to you and
all your children, your sons, your daughters, your
grandkids, your great-grandkids, your great-great-grandfather
and great-great-grandchildren.
As far as you can see, I am
going to be God Almighty.
That's all you need.
Whatever danger, whatever enemies, it doesn't matter whether
it's a bear, a lion, doesn't matter whether
thieves, doesn't matter whether your relatives cheat you,
whatever happens, you've got a promise.
And you're going to live on that promise.
You're going to cast your life on that
promise.
He goes toward Paddan Aram and he lays
down on a rock and he has a
dream.
Because you see, God, hallelujah, is keeping covenant.
The promise he gave to his father and
grandfather and to Isaac is now being given
to Isaac.
There's a ladder, remember?
And he sees angels ascending and descending and
God Almighty is at the top of the
ladder.
You see, he's going to be able to
say now, oh, I heard about the covenant.
My grandfather enjoyed it and all the blessing
walked in the power of it.
My father had a revelation of it.
He walked in the power of it and
it kept him all these years.
He's been blessed and kept and protected from
his enemies and he's been drawn closer to
God.
He knows God the Father.
Now Isaac, now Jacob can say, I have
seen the covenant because God came down to
Jacob and said, the Lord said, I to
Jacob, I am the Lord God of Abraham,
your father and the God of Isaac.
And behold, I am with you now in
all places, wherever you go.
And I will bring you again into this
land.
I will not leave you until I've done
everything that I spoke to you about.
Never leave you.
Folks, if we've got better promises in the
new covenant and God says under the old
covenant, I'll never leave you till I fulfill
every promise I've made to you.
I will never leave you.
I'll never forsake you.
I'll keep you from the wicked one.
How glorious these promises are.
Now God makes covenant with man simply to
show how committed he is to protect and
keep and preserve us from all the powers
of the enemy, from devil himself.
That's why God makes covenant.
Covenant is God trying to convince his people
they're loved.
It's almost as though as though God comes
at us as if he couldn't be trusted
and makes these incredible promises and then swears
by himself because there's no greater one to
swear by.
God makes covenant because he's yearning to be
God to his people, to be almighty in
their behalf.
God is doing everything in his power and
authority to get us to trust him and
cast our lives and our future on his
word.
You see, God wasn't satisfied that Jacob had
a secondhand revelation of the covenant.
And folks, I can tell you right now,
God's not interested in you just getting it
from a sermon from this pulpit.
I can preach about the covenant, Pastor Carter,
and others can preach about it.
You can get tapes and you can read
books and you will never understand it.
These will just be words of mystery to
you unless there is something in your heart
that is craving and yearning to know Jesus
in a greater way.
There has to be a yearning and craving
in your heart to walk in holiness and
righteousness in a dark age.
And the darker it gets, the more you
see violence, the more you see mass hysteria,
the more you see the arrogance of the
wicked.
There has to be something in your heart
rise up and say, oh God, I want
to be a shining light.
I don't want to go this way.
I want to be a witness to your
holiness, your power to keep people in the
darkest of ages.
Let me remind you of some of the
great promises of the covenant, new covenant.
Now folks, there are only two covenants mentioned
in the New Testament, the old and the
new.
They represent two ways of approaching God, two
ways of serving God.
The old covenant has to do with works.
It has to do with sweat.
It has to do with striving to please
God by human nature, human willpower.
Now you're under one of these covenants.
You're either in the new covenant or you're
in the old covenant.
If you're a believer, you're in one of
these covenants and you have to choose.
There are some of you still striving to
please God in the flesh.
I want to show you some, we'll come
back to that, but I want to show
you first some of the great promises of
the new covenant.
I want you to go to Luke the
first chapter, if you will, please.
Start on verse 67, if you will.
Luke one, beginning with verse 67, I'm going
to read five or six verses.
And his father Zacharias was filled with the
Holy Ghost.
Now remember John, John Baptist has just been
named.
His father Zacharias was filled with the Holy
Ghost and prophesied saying, now folks, listen, God
has loosed the tongue of this man and
the spirit of God has come upon him
and he's preaching covenant.
He's preaching covenant.
God has remembered his covenant.
Listen to it.
Please.
Verse 68, blessed be the Lord.
God of Israel, who have visited, redeemed his
people and has raised up a horn of
salvation for us in the house of his
servant, David, as he spake by the mouth
of his Holy prophets would have been since
the world began that we should be saved
from our enemies.
Now, these are the promises of the new
covenant that we should be saved from our
enemies and from the hand of all them
that hate us to perform the mercy promise
to our fathers and to remember his Holy
covenant, the oath, which he swore to our
father, Abraham, that he would grant unto us
that we'd be delivered out of the hand
of our enemies might serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all the
days of our life.
Look at it to serve him in righteousness
and holiness without fear all the days of
our life.
Now, think about that for a minute.
God said he's remembering his covenant.
Look at me, please.
When man was just a thought in the
heart of God long before the world was
ever created, the blessed Trinity, God father, God's
son, and God the Holy Ghost covenant with
each other to plan and put in place
a fail-safe commitment, a fail-safe agreement,
a fail-safe contract between themselves.
Not with man at the time.
That would come to those who were united
to Christ.
But there was a fail-safe plan in
the very councils of the heavenlies.
An incredible plan was devised.
So incredible when you see it.
You're not going to be swayed by every
wind and wave of doctrine.
You'll not be swayed by your feelings anymore.
You'll have a foundation and the devil doesn't
want you to understand covenant because he knows
it's going to be the end of your
fear and your guilt.
And it's going to be a security for
you like you have never known or understood
before.
The plan of salvation that was devised in
heaven long before the world was created, when
man was just a thought in the heart
of God, the plan of redemption was made.
And that plan of redemption was not just
an exit plan.
Should the devil defeat and ruin God's creation?
It was not.
I heard a young preacher saying, with all
pathos and tears in his eyes, he said,
God looked down over the balcony of heaven
and he saw the devil deceiving Adam, his
perfect creation.
And he turned to his son and said,
we've got problems.
What are we going to do?
And Jesus, his son said, well, Father, I'll
go and I'll atone for sin when you're
ready.
And he said, God hurried and sent him
to the cross and he quickly died, bloodless,
all humanity be lost.
That's nonsense.
Absolute dewy nonsense.
The new covenant was ordered in all things
ensured before the world was made.
In this mutual covenant between God, Father, Son,
and the Holy Ghost, it was agreed that
there would be a plan.
Christ was the center of the plan, but
that plan would never be, no created being
would ever believe, would ever bring themselves to
accept it.
It was so full of grace and love
and mercy, no one could accept it.
So they had to be taught.
The old covenant was given to bring man
to believe the blessings of the new.
Man could never believe that God could just
so love him and forgive him.
That he would take his sins, that God
himself would take the sins, that God would
become man.
You see, at the time, Jesus was a
spirit.
He did not have as a body, yet
Jesus said, I've prepared for you a body.
In fact, Paul the apostle said, he's the
express image of the invisible God.
We pictured Jesus as a man walking around
in the councils of heaven.
He was an invisible spirit, just as the
Father, the same essence, God, Father, God, Son,
Holy Ghost, Spirit.
But all personalities, all with minds, divine minds.
And the plan was this, that the Holy
Spirit would move under the old covenant upon
certain men, and they would write, and they
would reveal what was devised in their council
before the world began.
And it was all of love.
The Holy Ghost would be the missionary of
love to come down and try to convince
men they were loved.
No matter how they failed him, no matter
how they sinned against him, the Holy Ghost
would come down eventually and set up his
power base within the human body.
Oh, glory to God.
He would send a prophet before the new
covenant to prepare the hearts of the people.
You know that to be John the Baptist.
Now, we know now that as the God
has revealed it in the scripture, that this
was all pre-planned.
It was all in the council of God,
many, many eons before the world was created.
And this, and this galaxy put in place.
Jesus would come as the first of the
new humanity.
He would be given a body.
He would be incarnate in man, and he
would take the sins of the whole world,
and he would atone for those sins.
He would be the beginning of a new
humanity that was drawn into him a mystical
body.
He would never fear this man.
Jesus would never have to fear the devil.
He would not have to have his own
mind or his own will.
He'd just do the will of his heavenly
Father, and that was agreed.
These were terms that were agreed upon.
I've preached that before, but there were terms
between the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost.
This is revealed now here to Zacharias.
God is revealing by the Holy Spirit what
had been predetermined.
Blessed be the Lord God, for he's raised
up a horn.
That means an atonement for salvation for us,
that we may be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate
us.
An oath he swore to thy Father Abraham
that he would grant to us that we
being delivered out of the hand of the
enemy.
Who's the enemy?
The devil himself and all the demons of
hell.
Delivered out of their hands that we might
serve him without fear.
In holiness, righteousness before him all the days
of our life.
Now these are promises just almost too incredible
to believe.
You know the rest of the promises of
the new covenant in Hebrews 8 chapter.
He said I'm going to put my laws
in your heart.
He said you're going to see and hear
things that some of the teachers have been
to seminars for years will never know or
understand.
I'm going to reveal them to babes.
I'm going to reveal myself and babes.
There are some of you sitting here now
that have never had a secular education, but
you know more about Jesus than any seminary
president, because you've been walking with him and
talking.
The Holy Ghost has revealed him to you.
He said I'm going to be almighty God
to you just as I was to Abraham.
You see all the promises of the old
covenant were encompassed in the new and many
new ones were added.
Wonderful promises beyond comprehension.
He God says I'm going to be merciful
to your sins.
I'm going to forgive and then I'm going
to forget them.
All these wonderful promises.
Every promise in the book is a covenant
promise.
All planned before the world was made.
Hallelujah.
You still coming with me?
I'm asking you now are you enjoying the
provisions and promises of the new covenant?
Let me ask you are you living without
fear all your days in righteousness and holy
before the Lord?
Not your own but his?
A few amens.
I'm not painting the new covenant walk as
one without suffering and trouble.
It rains on the just and the unjust
and many of the afflictions of the righteous,
but I'm saying if your life is filled
with fear and dread and there's no power
to resist the enemy, there's no growing strength
in you, no drawing near to the Lord,
then you're not walking a covenant.
You're living far beneath your privileges and you're
like those starving lepers right within reach of
all the provisions that they need.
Zacchaeus said God has remembered his covenant.
Didn't mean that he forgot it.
God said I remember he said I remember
this is the time this is the moment
in history that is to go into effect
and that's what Zacharias is saying.
The new covenant is coming into effect.
God has remembered it from the foundation of
the world.
The Lord desires for us to lay hold
of the covenant.
I read Isaiah 56 4.
Choose the things that please me and take
hold of my covenant.
Take hold of it.
If you've not entered the new covenant and
walking in its power, if you have not
really wanted to understand it, then I would
hope the question you have in your mind
now is how can I lay hold of
the covenant?
How can I do it?
How can I come into the covenant?
How can I walk in that power?
I totally agree disagree with the hyper-Calvinist
who say there are no conditions to the
covenants of God, especially the new covenant.
Their teaching is that God does it all.
Even the faith that is necessary has to
come from God, that he has to instill
the faith and you can do nothing but
wait until God acts.
I'm telling you that there are conditions to
the covenant.
This covenant has nothing to do with lukewarm
Christians who just want to stay pale.
Nothing at all.
Forget it.
Don't even go another.
Just drop out at this point.
If you don't have a heart for God,
if you don't want to change your ways,
if you don't want to walk before him
in righteousness, not in striving, but if you
don't want this wonderful gift of the righteousness
of Jesus Christ, which alone will stand before
the Father, this covenant is a vehicle.
It is something God has given to us
in the way of promises to enable the
thirsting, hungering heart to come into fullness.
There's nothing to do with the double-minded.
It has nothing to do with those who
want to hold on to their sins.
It's for those who are sick of their
sins, sick of temptation, falling, sick of all
of the worldly ways and sick of their
striving.
It's only for those.
Now, let me show you what I believe
are the conditions of coming into the new
covenant.
First of all, there has to be an
absolute final renunciation of all confidence in the
flesh to please God.
Total renouncing of all human power, effort, willpower,
whatever it may be, to try to merit
something in the eyes of God.
You cannot come into new covenant.
You will never understand it until you have
come to this place where you realize that
with all of your promises, God has said,
I don't care how sorry you are.
I don't care how long your prayers are.
I don't care how many promises you make.
I don't care how you sweat.
I don't care what you do to try
to cut off things in your own power
and strength.
God says you're going to renounce it because
it doesn't stand.
It has no merit.
It has no meaning to me.
I don't accept it.
When I was a boy, we had little
toy lead soldiers.
Now, some of you over 60, some of
you men will understand what I'm talking about.
You got a big bar of lead, and
there was a little smelter, and you had
little molds, and you made your soldiers, and
then you painted them.
I had a whole army, little toy men
and little toy women.
I always put them in the back.
They're feeding me soldiers.
But you see, I was God.
I could move them, and smash them, and
make them victorious.
I could do anything.
And you know, that's a concept a lot
of people have of God, that we are
his toys, that he created these little men
and women to move them about, and little
battles and struggles, and smash anybody he wanted
to smash, and promote anybody he wanted to
promote.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, folks.
God help us to get that concept out
of our mind.
We've got to understand that man is his
highest creation, the highest expression of his love
that God could possibly give.
We are an expression of his love.
You know, I used to think God made
us just to love him.
Yes, yes, but we are an expression of
his giving love, God's own love that he
gave, that he gave, he gave.
I stand before you as an expression of
the love of God, and you sit before
me as a great expression of the love
of God.
I don't care how mean you are, you're
still an expression of the love of God.
It says of Jesus in Matthew 13, 35,
he taught by parables that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.
I will utter things which have been kept
secret from the foundation of the earth.
You know what the word is saying?
Jesus, everything I tell you now is coming
out of the eternal counsel before the world
was created.
What I'm telling you now is what was
devised in this counsel in heaven.
I speak you words that come to me
before the foundation of the world.
Every word he spoke was covenant.
Every word he spoke was predetermined in those
counsels in heaven.
How sure this is, what a firm foundation.
The Lord wasn't shooting from his hip, he
wasn't making it as up as he goes.
Folks, it's all in divine order.
The world may look like it's spinning apart,
but everything God is in control.
No surprises.
He saw it all, he sees it all,
he knows it all.
I don't believe in the limited foreknowledge of
God.
Hallelujah.
Oh, to have been there and be privy
of that counsel and glory before the world
was begun.
When the Godhead said, now how are we
going to make this humanity understand our love?
And I'm sure it came from the Son.
He said, I'll grow up before you's a
tender plant, Father, and I will come to
them as a bridegroom.
See, the covenant is all about love.
How else could God express his love but
by marriage?
He said, I'll come as a bridegroom searching
for a bride.
They'll understand that because they get married, they're
going to be getting married and there will
be love, there'll be affection.
They will understand that.
Folks, Paul the Apostle didn't concoct this concept
of a bride and the church being one
as a husband and a wife.
He didn't concoct this doctrine in his own
mind about a bride adorned for husband.
He didn't concoct any of this great truth
that was devised in the eternal counsels of
God about him being our husband.
In fact, the scripture says, thy maker is
thy husband.
The Lord of hosts is his name.
That's covenant language right out of the counsels
of heaven.
Turn, O backsliding children, and say to the
Lord, for I am married to you.
Thou wilt take one of a city and
two of a family, and I'll bring you
unto Zion.
And what about the Song of Solomon?
Remember, God said in the eternal counsels of
glory, He said, the Holy Spirit, you will
move upon men.
Holy Spirit agreed, I will move upon men
and I will give them the mind of
the Father, and this is the mind of
the Father.
Song of Solomon is God trying to help
you understand the new covenant.
Thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my
spouse.
He's talking about the bride of Christ, those
who are in Christ.
Thou has ravished my heart with one of
your eyes, with one chain of your neck.
How fair is thy love, my sister, my
spouse.
How much better is your love to me
than wine?
God's speaking all through the Bible, old and
new.
I love you.
Christ comes to prove that love of God.
The Holy Ghost comes to bring it to
the mind and the soul and make it
reality.
And I want you to know that in
the counsels of heaven, every contingency was considered.
Every contingency.
I tell you, the divine mind could miss
nothing.
What if the bride strays?
What if one of the members of this
bridehood just leaves the flock and goes?
And Jesus said, I'll go after him, Father,
and I'll find that one who strays and
I'll put him in my arms tenderly.
I won't rebuke him, that lamb.
I won't chastise it.
I won't beat it.
I'll bring it back and restore it to
the lamb.
What if my servants, my ministers, fall into
sin and they're besotted by their sins and
they're in despair?
And what if they are bound by habits
and chains?
And Jesus said, I'll go, Father.
I'll release them from their prisons.
I'll break every chain.
I'll be responsible.
There's nothing that is going on in your
life that God and the Holy Ghost and
His Son did not take into consideration.
God's not surprised by anything going on in
your life and mine.
He knew it, and so it all.
But what if the bridehood is tempted by
fiery temptations and they fall and commit diverse
kinds of sins, besetting sins?
Will they be cut off?
And it's Jesus who, according to what we
know in Scripture now, said, I'll be merciful
to their sins and iniquities.
That's what the covenant says.
They will not be cut off.
I'll be patient, long-suffering, tender-hearted, forgiving.
I will be a reconciler, Father.
I will reconcile them to you.
I'll bring back all for full restoration who
turn to me in hunger.
Those who repent, come to me.
I will not cast out.
I'll not bruise a bruised reed.
I'll not quench a smoking flax.
Wherever there's a spark of love, I'll fan
it into a fire.
I will quicken the faint-hearted.
I will ransom them from the power of
the enemy.
I'll break all the dominion of sin.
Folks, it's an absolute dishonor to God in
His covenant to think that we're cut off
from God by every single offense.
We are not cut off from God.
We are not in His disfavor just because
we fall into some kind of failure before
God.
Now, if we persist in that, we turn
away from all the work of the Holy
Spirit and His wooings and His callings, and
we willingly, forcefully drive the Holy Ghost out
of our hearts, then we have broken covenant.
But God's covenant is not fickle.
It doesn't rest on every ebb and flow
and tide of our feelings.
His love is unconditional.
Unconditional love.
Now, folks, there was one stipulation God made
in the covenant that was not negotiable.
Now, I want you to listen closely now.
God would accept no...
This was determined before the council, before the
world was begun.
Jesus, my son, this is something that can't
be negotiated.
This is something that is final.
I will accept no other righteousness but yours.
Yours alone.
You live the perfect life.
You fulfill the old covenant.
You fulfill the law.
And then when I bring you back to
glory, I'm going to look only at you.
There'll be no other man in my presence.
No other man that I honor.
There'll be no access to me but through
you.
There will be no good works that any
man on the face of the earth that
can do.
No good works.
No amount of praying.
None of these will bring any merit.
The only merit you can bring to my
throne is your merit.
No other blood but your blood.
No other sacrifice but you.
The prophesied one, the seed of Abraham, the
son of David.
No other man.
Folks, there's one man in glory and only
one man.
And you and I come into the covenant.
The covenant was made with Christ, the Father
and the Holy Ghost.
The only way you and I are in
it by faith.
We are the seed.
God said, everything I give to you, I
will give to your seed.
I promise to you and your seed, which
is his children.
Are you a child of Jesus?
Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ?
Folks, every promise in the book is, every
promise of the covenant is yours if you're
in the covenant.
The Lord says, I will accept no one's
righteousness.
I don't care if they sweat and try
and plead and promise.
It's all filthy rags.
I won't accept it.
Until you come to the end of that,
until you get sick and tired of trying
in your own strength, until you get fed
up with all of the failed promises, sin,
confess, sin, confess, guilt, fear, and trying to
struggle and finally give up and said, there
is no hope.
There is hope.
There is a way out.
It's the new covenant.
He said, well, then where's the power?
I need to overcome sin and temptation.
Where's the power?
Well, remember there was a third party to
this council, this covenant, and it was agreed
upon by the Trinity and it was a
mission the Holy Ghost gladly received.
God said, I will give you as the
power.
Folks, it is the Holy Ghost in us
that is the power of the living God,
all power over all sin, all power over
human powers, devil's powers, principalities and powers.
All of it is in the power of
the Holy Ghost.
That's why he said, pray that you receive
the Holy Ghost.
He comes in and sets up his power
base here in this temple, but he cannot
do his work until you've given up your
work.
And that's why many don't have the power
and they're not walking in the power of
the covenant because they're still trying to do
the work of the Holy Ghost and you
can't do it.
You get along with God in a secret
closet and said, Lord, I'm sick and tired
of all these broken promises.
I'm sick and tired of trying and sweating
and not getting anywhere.
I last a week, a month, and I'm
right back where I was before.
And you finally say, oh God, I cast
myself under the hands and the power of
the Holy Ghost.
And I believe it.
It may be that I have to say
like David, I've not yet seen it.
I've not yet experienced in fullness, but you
made me a covenant and I stand on
it.
I'll live and die on it.
If there's any failure still in my life,
I go to the covenant.
I go to the Holy Ghost and I
said, it's been promised that I through the
Holy Ghost do mortify the sins of my
flesh.
I shall live.
The Holy Ghost has come to kill and
mortify the power of sin in our lives,
but he's got to be acknowledged.
The Holy Ghost was promised for this reason.
As for me, this is my covenant.
Sayeth the Lord, my spirit that is upon
thee.
He's speaking to his son.
This is what he said.
This was told to him in that council
meeting before the world was beginning.
He said, son, my spirit's upon you.
My words, which I put in your mouth,
shall not depart out of your mouth, nor
out of the mouth of your seed.
Seed, sayeth the Lord, from henceforth and forevermore.
I will not take away my Holy Spirit.
I know what is needed.
The Father said, Holy Ghost, you go and
you take up residence and you be the
power of the covenant.
Hallelujah.
The Holy Ghost inclines us to obedience.
He prompts us.
He reminds us.
He's always there speaking and doing when he
finds a willing heart to obey his inclination
and his desires and his whispers.
Then he acts.
How he does it, I don't know.
He's got a million ways beyond my thoughts
and how to do it.
Hallelujah.
Now, folks, if you find all these blessings
hard to believe, all this great love of
God that way back then he would have
devised this wonderful plan just to keep you,
just to assure you, just to give you
confidence and not to be afraid all your
life so you can serve him in righteousness
and with no fear whatsoever because of the
provisions that he has made.
If you find that hard to believe, let
me tell you a true story.
Some of you have heard me tell in
part, but let me tell you the rest
of the story.
I have a young minister friend.
A number of years ago, his wife went
bad, really bad, out into gross sins.
She started partying and she would go to
bars and get drunk.
This man wept and he grieved because he
truly loved his wife so dear to him.
He's a godly man.
Finally, she got so bad he'd have to
go out, especially Saturday nights before Sunday service,
and tour the town trying to find her
in bars.
And he'd find his wife sometimes in the
gutter, beaten and bruised, drunk, didn't even know
where she was.
And he'd pick her up, take her home,
and wash her and clean her up and
have his daughter babysit her while he went
to church and preached under that burden.
Drugs.
And for about two years, it just got
worse.
She was raped, beaten.
She sold her body in prostitution.
Her whole body was marked.
And one day he called me, called my
wife and I.
We were in Texas at the time.
And he said, Pastor Dave, my wife's been
missing a whole week and I'm such a
disappointment.
I can't find her.
And he said, I'm at the end of
my rope.
I said, look, I'm going to FedEx you
a ticket and I want you to come
to our house.
We had a little trailer for missionaries there,
a trailer home.
And he flew in.
We picked him up at Dallas airport.
What a broken man.
He said, I can't find her, brother Dave.
He said, I love her.
He told me all about it.
And I knew her.
I'd known her when she had seemed to
be so on fire for God and such
a wonderful woman, a wonderful wife.
He said, I can't find her.
And he spent a week just praying and
weeping before the Lord.
And toward the end of the week, he
got a call.
He'd left our number with one of his
associates.
It was from his wife and she was
weeping.
She was on the street.
She said, please come and get me.
He went and got her.
I gave him around two tickets and they
came back.
And my wife's here this morning.
She remembered it well.
I've never seen such a mess of a
human.
She was covered from head to foot with
bruises.
She was bleeding.
They'd put some patches on her.
Her hair was matted.
He had literally picked her up.
And in fact, he had to carry her
out of the airplane into our car.
And he went in and we, wife and
I went into the trailer where he sent
her down.
He went and got towels, hot towels and
started bathing her.
And with loving care, he started pushing her
hair back.
He asked Gwen for a comb, started combing
her hair.
And I'm looking at this man and I'm
saying to myself, I can't do that.
I could never do that.
I couldn't accept a woman that's just been
manhandled and raped and beaten and drunk and
living on the streets.
Filthy mess of humanity.
And there he is, tears rolling down his
cheeks.
And he said, honey, I love you.
I love you.
My wife and I wept.
I just said, God, I don't have that
kind of love.
Now, folks, I'm talking about just human love.
And I want you to know that the
next week, the strength started to come back
to that woman.
Our headquarters at the time was on a
200-acre ranch.
We watched them watching the fields hand in
hand.
And I watched that man bring love, healing
to that wife, how he embraced her, how
he forgave her, how he wrapped his arms
around her.
And I watched her just blossom.
That love drove out all the horribleness.
And they prayed together through the power of
the Holy Spirit.
That woman was totally, absolutely healed within two
weeks.
You could have known her.
She was another woman.
The beauty of Christ came upon her.
And, folks, that woman became a great wife,
a woman who stood beside her preacher husband
in prison work.
We supported them.
We have all these years, and he just
died two years ago, young man.
But she still has reports.
She's carrying on that ministry, and that's been
some 20 years now.
Now, folks, that's human love.
How much more does our heavenly Father love
us?
I don't care how beaten you are.
I don't care how bloodied you are by
sin.
I'll be spotted by it.
He said, I'm coming after you.
He said, I'll never let you go.
He's not willing to let anyone perish.
Now, there's one other, in closing, there is
one other requirement, condition to coming into the
new covenant.
And if you'll come into this now, your
life can be changed.
There has to be an affectionate response to
the willing of Christ.
There has to be an affectionate response to
the willing of Christ.
Now, listen closely before I close.
Don't turn, but in Hosea, the second chapter,
you find God has just discovered the lewdness,
the terrible lewdness of His people.
Tremendous discovery.
God just said He discovered it.
And He begins to judge them.
And He, first of all, He takes all
their joy and mirth away from them.
And then He dries up all their fields
and everything withers.
There's no fruit anywhere.
And the people are in a sad condition.
But suddenly, the heart of God is moved.
And God looks at these people, these lewd,
unfaithful people.
And you know what He says?
Now, therefore, behold, I'm going to allure her
and bring her into the wilderness and speak
comfortably to her.
And that word will entice.
She may not want to come, but I'm
going to entice her.
I'm going to take her to the wilderness.
I'm going to restore her.
He's talking to people, His own people who
had become lewd.
They were under His judgment.
And God says, now, that's enough.
I'm going to allure my bride now into
the wilderness.
She's forsaken me, and I'm going to lure
her back, and I'm going to speak comfortably,
and I'm going to heal her.
Now, folks, if you want to know the
response, the affectionate response that God wants, I
can't explain it, but it's been already explained
clearly in the word of God.
You want to respond to the Lord in
the same way He's responding.
He has come to you with love.
Absolutely, He's come to us.
Now, you have got to respond in like
an affectionate love.
Folks, the covenant is all about affection.
God's affection for us, our affection for Him.
That's affection.
Folks, you can't serve God until you're convinced
He loves you.
You can't serve, you can't come into covenant
unless you're absolutely convinced by His word that
He loves you.
Now, the expression of love that God wants
is fully explained, and with this I close
in the book of Solomon, Song of Solomon.
Now, I want you to turn there, and
I'm just going to give you three words
that I believe in the heart of the
Song of Solomon, and it's the response God
is looking for to bring you into the
power of the covenant.
Come, seek, and yearn for a come unto
me.
In other words, He's giving me your quality
time.
He says, how can you say that you
love me if you won't even spend time
with me?
I want to get to know you, and
I want you to get to know me.
And He said, I have a garden, and
there's an apple tree.
And He said, if you'll come and sit
under that apple tree, I'll come and minister
to you under that apple tree.
You'll find that apple tree mentioned two or
three places in the Song of Solomon in
His garden.
That's a secret place.
That's communion.
How can you say you love Jesus, and
you want to have all of these blessings
of the new covenant, and you're not even
willing to give Him an hour a day
of your time?
You're not willing to fast, not willing to
ever show affection to Him.
You won't come?
Come.
He said, just come.
Come to me.
Come to my garden.
Come to communion.
And secondly, He said, seek me.
In fact, the Song of Solomon says God
hides Himself from His beloved.
Those who really want Him, He will hide
Himself for a moment, wanting you to come
after Him.
He goes to His garden, and He hides,
and the scripture says, who is this that
cometh from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?
Leaning.
She's been seeking, and she's found Him.
Now she's leaning on Him.
How can you lean on Him when you're
not even near Him?
Leaning on Jesus.
He said, I want you to lean on
my covenant.
I want you to lean on my promise.
I want you to just lean on my
love.
Come seek.
Then He said, yearn.
Folks, you've got to have a yearning heart.
If God's given me anything, I know, if
I don't have anything else, I know He's
given me a yearning heart.
I get so hungry to be with Him.
If I, even when I go on a,
on a, I'm leaving next Sunday night for
three and a half weeks.
I think I'm preaching 25 times in that,
in May, to ministers conferences in France, and
the Balkans, and Romania, and Poland.
And I, if, if, if my team's around,
or others around, I just have to get
away, find some place to get alone with
Him, because I know I can't preach.
I know I'm not worth being a husband.
I'm miserable without that time with Him, that
yearning.
My beloved put His hand on the door,
and my bowels were moved for Him.
He said, my, He said, my innermost being,
all He did was put His hand on
the door, and I knew He was there,
and my bowels moved within me.
That's affection.
Do you love Him this morning?
You want to walk in the power of
the new covenant?
Then you have got to move out of
the old covenant.
The old covenant has done its work with
this.
I close.
It's done its work when you say, I
can't do it in my own strength.
Lord, I come to You.
I cast myself into Your loving arms.
And folks, that's what faith is all about.
It's a leap.
You leap out of the old covenant.
You leap out of Your works.
You leap out of everything.
So I pass that by.
I'm coming to You, Jesus.
I am simply going to trust Your Word.
I have cast my life on this covenant.
I've cast my life on His great love
for me.
Hallelujah.
When I've sinned, when I've failed Him, I
run to His love.
I run to His promise of forgiveness.
And I have a repentant heart, and He
brings great restoration.
Will you stand, please?
Folks, I've been meditating while you were singing,
and here's what the Holy Spirit whispered to
my heart.
Up in the balcony and floor and in
the annexes.
This is D-Day for many of you.
The Lord brought you here.
You're here on this day to hear this
particular message, because you have to be delivered.
Deliverance Day is today.
Don't walk out without taking advantage of the
work and the moving and the wooing of
the Holy Spirit.
What I said as a condition of covenant
is there has to be a response to
the wooing, to reaching into your heart by
the Holy Ghost to change you.
And there are many here.
Now, listen closely, because I know the Spirit
of God's on me.
I'm not trying to work anything up.
We don't do that in this church.
But there are many of you standing here.
In all honesty, I have to say I
am not a free person.
I'm not a free man.
I'm not a free woman.
I am bound.
There's something that has my heart, and I
don't want it.
I hate it, and I want to be
free.
Now, if you don't hate it, and you
don't want to be free, the best thing
you could do then is to ask God
to give you that.
But I can't help you right now.
The only one that I can help, the
only one I believe the Holy Spirit can
really help right now, are those who are
responding to his call and his wooing.
Now, God clearly told you that he's made
provision for your obedience.
Everything he demands of you, he's given power
to comply.
He's given you a remedy for every failure
in your life.
And he'll reveal that to you when you
take a step and say, Lord, I repent.
There has to be repentance.
And if you're here, the only problem walking
out on the wooing of the Holy Spirit
becomes more and more difficult, because the heart
begins to harden.
So finally, the wooing, doesn't matter how strong
the wooing is, it can't pierce.
A hard heart, according to Hebrews, is a
heart with a shield on it.
And your shield goes up and says some
other time, well, that's not for me.
If you have a besetting sin, if you're
not really free in your spirit and you're
battling, I don't know what it is.
Nobody needs to know.
No one will ask you.
I want you, if the Holy Spirit's dealing
with you.
Now, don't move unless the Spirit of God
has touched you and you know there's a
stirring in your heart and the wooing.
While I was preaching, there was something happening
in you because the truth was struggling to
set you free.
Don't fight the truth.
Up in the balcony, you go to either
side.
Up in the annex, I want you to
just move forward to the screen.
One of our pastors be there, and you
move just right out of the crowd, right
to the screen.
And we're going to take you into a
room where we'll pray for you.
Here in the main auditorium, up in the
balcony, go to the stairs on either side.
And I'm going to ask God, by the
power of the Holy Spirit, to break every
chain and that this is your D-Day,
this is your deliverance day, that you walk
out of this church with a freedom and
a joy like you have never had or
that you once had when you knew you
were right with God.
Oh, it's a love call.
He's not pushing you.
He's coming after you with His wonderful love
and saying, Today, today, if you've never been
saved, if you've never known Jesus, come with
these that are coming from all over the
building.
Up in the balcony, God's calling many of
you up there.
You may be here for the first time.
You may have been coming to this church.
You obey the Holy Spirit as we sing
it.
This is the conclusion of the tape.