...for Christians who have a bad day, who
have bad days.
You know what it says here, a message
for Christians who have bad days, not day,
but bad days.
That's what it says in my notes here.
Lord, you're going to talk to us about
growing up tonight.
You're going to talk to us about some
adult things as children.
And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you have
your mind made known to us.
Lord, I don't have anything of mine.
Bring just your mind.
I pray, Holy Spirit, you touch me and
anoint me.
Oh God, prepare our ears to hear.
Open our eyes and give us hearts to
understand.
Because without the Holy Spirit, we can't understand
a word that I say, and I can't
understand a word I preach.
...dependent upon you, absolutely wholly dependent on you.
So we turn it all into your hands.
Lord, give me the strength.
Give me your anointing, I pray in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
Normal Christianity is not a matter of clear
sailing.
Have you heard that, have you learned that
yet?
No matter how holy you may be, no
matter how righteous you may be, you're going
to have some bad days.
In fact, the holier you are, sometimes the
more excruciating those days are, very painful.
I want you to know I don't serve
a good time God.
It's only with me when things are going
well and when I'm in a bad situation,
he doesn't sneak off and say, well, when
you work it out, I'll be back.
He never leaves, he never forsakes.
Paul said, we have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power may
be of God and not of us.
Now, that Greek word there for earthen is
frail clay.
We have this treasure in frail clay.
Now, frail clay, the treasure here, by the
way, is the knowledge of the presence of
Jesus Christ.
We have this great knowledge, this great presence
of Jesus Christ in a frail vessel, and
that means weak, easily broken, and easily tempted.
Easily broken vessels.
Now, we all suffer what the Bible calls
infirmities.
In fact, Paul mentioned Timothy's often infirmities.
Timothy was often sick.
He was physically sick.
And there are many, many Christians whose bad
days have to do with their frailty.
They have a very frail constitution.
They're sick.
Some of you listening to me right now,
you wake up in the morning and the
pain is there.
Some of you live with pain.
Some of you have never known a day
for months, maybe years without pain.
And there are many, many Christians who go
through terrible days of suffering.
It's a time of infirmity.
We're not speaking about that.
There are other infirmities that are just as
difficult, more difficult to handle, and those are
infirmities of the mind.
I'm not talking about mental illness.
I'm talking about those things that grip our
mind.
You can go to bed at night feeling
happy.
You can go to bed all is well
with you and wake up in the morning
and there's a cloud of the blaws hanging
over you.
You don't know where they came from.
You don't know what it is.
But there's just a cloud of gloom hanging
over you.
You try to figure it out.
You don't know what it is.
Others of you live with guilt.
You can't shake it.
It goes back somewhere.
I don't know how long.
It could be a result of sin that's
still in your life.
And if there's sin, God will let the
guilt hang in until you deal with it
through the power of the Holy Ghost.
It's a wonderful gift of God when there
is guilt because of sin.
Some of you have condemnation.
Others have feelings of rejection.
You've never been able to live with you.
You get up someday and somebody said something
the day before.
You heard something or you feel something.
We say we don't live by feelings, but
we live in feelings.
We have feelings and they're going to affect
your outlook on life.
It's the way you respond.
Now, I don't know what you're bad.
I don't know what causes your bad days
when you wake up and you just have
a I'm not talking about a bad hair
day.
It's just you just have to at the
end.
I have had a bad day.
This has been an awful day.
This has been terrible.
Some of you have to stop maybe and
think about it.
I hope you have this Mother's Day.
I hope you're having a good day for
many.
This is a very difficult day.
Mother's Day is a hard day, one of
the hardest days in the year, because either
your mother is gone.
Maybe she died not being a Christian.
It could be so many, many things.
Some of you that are on drugs or
come out of drug life or alcoholism and
you don't remember a good day with your
parents at all or your mother, especially, and
it's a hard day.
For others, it's Christmas because they have no
family.
I don't I can't describe what it is.
Let me tell you what a bad day
is for me.
For example, I don't I've often wondered if
other ministers especially have the kind of day
that I have.
My bad days happen in my study along
with my Bible with my God.
Those those sometimes are I have to tell
you are my most difficult times when I
opened this book and I feel so ignorant.
I feel so incapable of comprehending and digging
out the truth.
I read the stories and the messages of
men that lived 300 years ago.
Some of my favorite authors are the Puritans
and John Owens and Sibbes and Manson and
all these men.
And I read these were men who were
not supposed to have been in an enlightened
age and knowledge is supposed to be on
the increase.
And here I am in my mid 60s
and and I'm reading men that were in
their 40s and they are speaking things that
I've never seen or heard.
And my bad day is going into this
and spending three and four days just reading
and say, well, I don't even remember half
the stuff you teach me.
I can't even remember.
I've got to sit for a mind.
I have to sit sometime and plead with
God and the Holy Ghost for hours and
hours to get a word to bring to
you.
And I don't know how many others of
you feel this way or have ever gone
through that.
It's a very, very difficult thing to to
to spend maybe four or five hours in
this book.
And I'm saying, look, I'm not I'm not
hearing it.
I want to hear it.
And there's a sense that you're you're before
this great reservoir.
And there's so much out there.
You can't reach it.
You can't comprehend it.
You you you know that there's such an
ocean of truth.
I have stood.
I looked out my window and I said,
Lord, I don't care what anybody else has.
They could have they can have every piece
of furniture.
They can have my car.
They can have everything I possess.
If you just give me truth.
Just let me understand.
Let me see.
Let me know you.
There's something so far out there and we
have known and touched so little of it.
And you can't enjoy God any further than
your faith.
And you say, God, I thought I believed.
I've tried and I love your word.
I'm not living in sin, but I'm so
blind.
I'm so ignorant.
You say, well, brother, what can you stand
here and preach every Sunday?
Yes.
And I tell you, I go to the
salt mine and I dig.
I heard a preacher one day.
He said he was talking to another preacher.
Boy, I got three servants today.
Come so easy for me.
It just flows.
So, Lord, of course, I heard him preach
and I wasn't discouraged anymore.
We see that for me that that's I
have to say, Lord, first, I pray, Lord,
Holy Ghost.
Is there anything standing between you and me?
I want it clear.
I don't want anything.
I'll tell you, folks, that's where you want
to pray.
If there's anything there, take it to the
Holy Ghost.
And if there he'll show you, if not,
just start praising the Lord.
Don't try to invent something.
But you see, the only answer I get
from God is that this treasure is in
an earthen vessel and that the glory may
be to God.
And he keeps us humble.
This is one of the ways this is
probably my thorn in the flesh.
One way to keep me humble.
Folks, you may think that as a pastor
of this church that I stand here and
I know so much about God and it's
so easy to stand and give you a
message.
No, I tell you honestly, I have a
hard time memorizing the minor prophets and where
they are.
Oh, come on now.
Where's Haggai?
I have memorized, memorized.
I can't memorize verses.
I have a bad memory.
And to me, that's a bad day.
That's a difficult, difficult day for a young
man who called me last week.
He had the worst day of his life.
God, the young man, broken, tearfully said, I
don't know what to do.
A thought hit me today and I can't
shake it.
There's no God.
I don't know where the thought came from,
but I'm shocked and I'm hurt.
I don't want to believe like this.
I don't want to hurt like this.
I have this fight, this thing in my
mind.
I thought I can't shake it.
There's no God.
He's weeping.
He said, where'd it come from?
I assured him, said, son, just be still.
Don't worry about this because this is the,
this is, this goes back to the beginning
of time.
It's the devil's number one trick with young
people, especially.
He'll come to you.
My 19 year old son, he was 18
at the time.
Gary came in years ago when he was
just a teenager.
I'll never forget it.
I'd seen he was having a rough time
and I'd go in this room and he's
crying.
And I said, what is it?
And he's laying down.
He said, I want to hurt you dad,
but I don't believe there's a God.
Now this boy was called to preach and
I, and I, I tell you, it broke
my heart.
At that time, I didn't have the spiritual
insight that I believe God has given to
me.
Of course, Gary wrote it out because I
said, you're going to stand still, Gary.
You're not going to argue with the devil.
You're not going to try to reason with
them because you can't believe that there is
a God through human reasoning.
It's a work of faith only.
You can't reason God into existence and you
can't persuade your mind that there's a God
through reason.
You can't get somebody's book about creation or
anything else.
That's not going to persuade you.
I said, you're going to ride out this
storm and just trust Jesus.
The best you know how you're going to
ride it out.
This is a trick.
This has been instilled in your mind by
the devil himself.
Don't argue with the devil.
Don't try to do anything, but stand still
until the storm passes.
If you don't move and you just stand
and say, God, I'm having a problem trying
to figure this out, but I'm asking your
Holy spirit to come and hold me still.
I saw God hold my son still.
Of course, he's pastoring today on fire for
God.
And as I just told this young man
to stand still, he said, past, I'm going
to do just that.
I'm going to stand still.
I saw him this afternoon and he's on
fire.
The thought, the crisis has passed.
His bad day is gone.
Folks, these bad days often happen because the
devil implants thoughts in our minds.
He, he can come and plant a thought
of, uh, in your mind that God is
not faithful, that God does not answer your
prayer.
And he can tell you how many days
and weeks and months and years you prayed
about something and seen nothing happen.
And he'll come at you and bombard your
mind with lies about God, about his faithfulness,
about his ability or willingness to answer prayer.
You don't fight that.
You don't reason by it.
You stand still and see the salvation of
the Lord and get into this book and
get your faith out of this book and
look at God's history of faithfulness to the
children of Israel and to all of our
fathers have gone by as we heard so
ably this morning.
Hallelujah.
I got a letter this past week from
an assembly.
God passed his wife.
Her husband died four years ago.
She had, I think, four or five children.
They're all grown now, married well.
She said, brother Dave, my husband was a
powerful preacher.
He loved his family.
He was, he, he, he was faithful to
his children and he had a heart for
people.
They had a problem.
He said, she said he had an adulterous
spirit.
He was an adulterer.
He said we had to, he had to
resign four churches, one affair after another with
women in the churches.
And she said, I can't tell you how
many times I was advised to leave him.
But she said, pastor Dave, I have been
in the word and on my face for
many, many years.
I have been a seeker after God and
I know how God hates divorce.
And I just decided to hold on.
She said, brother, I have had bad years.
She said, I can only remember a few
years in all those years.
He died at 62.
So they were married probably some 40 years
and, and the children are grown.
And she said, I can't tell you how
many times I wanted to quit.
I said, there's no use to this.
This man gets up and preaches like a
house on fire.
This man moves the hearts of people, but
he's an adulterer.
She said, I hope he died in grace.
She didn't even know whether the man died
right.
But she said, I've got to testify, brother
Dave.
She said all my children, because I had
a promise the whole time, every time I
thought I should give in every time people
would tell me that I was foolish to
stay with this man and take all of
this hurt and all this abuse.
She said, God made me a promise that
if I would just hold on and seek
his face, he would honor me in the
end.
He said, she said, brother, I've got to
tell you, God has honored me.
All four of my children are married to
Christians, all have good jobs.
I've got grandchildren who love me.
She said, I am honored and revered in
my church.
I'm called everywhere to speak to women's groups,
to young wives who are abandoning their husbands
at the slightest provocation.
And she said, God has honored me.
Wasn't a bad day.
It was a bad life.
But God, she said, I, I wanted toward
the end of his statement.
She said, I am so blessed and so
blessed.
I am so fulfilled.
She closes.
She said, Christ is proven all sufficient for
my life.
The saintly Paul had bad days, days of
testing.
And one of them took place in Macedonia.
He said in Macedonia, our flesh had no
rest, but we were troubled on every side.
Without we're fighting.
So within were fears.
It didn't say fear, fears.
Mark that down inside of me.
Paul said, no, Paul was not a Superman.
Paul hurt.
You can't tell me this man didn't hurt.
When churches he founded, wouldn't even talk to
him and gossip about him and turn against
him and tell everyone in Asia he said
was against him.
These are all churches he founded.
Gave his life blood.
He said, the more I love, the less
I'd be loved.
This man hurt.
This man had awful days that he said,
I am filled with comfort.
I'm exceeding joyful in all my tribulation because
God comforted those that are cast down.
What is God going to do to you
when you have these awful days where doubts
and fears, you may even be saying things
that you never thought you could say in
your heart or think things about God.
What does God, your heavenly father do?
Does he spank you?
Does he chase in you?
Does he judge you?
Because you're having these kind of trials and
you're going through these most difficult times.
Paul, the apostle said he comforted.
He comforted those that are cast down.
Hallelujah.
Are you sitting in this meeting tonight?
Really cast down.
You're going through something in your life.
You're having a bad day or a series
of days.
Just a bad season in your life.
The scripture said, Blessed be God, even the
father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father
of mercies and the God of all comfort,
who comforted all who comfort us in all
our tribulations.
Now, I looked at the Greek word there.
He comforts all of his children in their
infirmities and in their tribulation.
He comforts.
He doesn't come to accuse.
He doesn't come to whip you.
He doesn't come to abuse you.
He comes to comfort you.
And the word comfort used there means to
draw close, to call one close.
This amazing thing about our heavenly father, when
you're going through this and feeling very unspiritual
and very immature in Christ, thinking to yourself,
I should have learned enough.
I have heard so many messages.
I have been so many years walking with
God.
I should have passed this point.
But when you come to that point of
discouragement and you're saying to, especially if you've
been a teacher or a preacher of the
gospel, and these times come, the Lord says,
those are the times I call you closer
to myself.
Now, let me tell you, in all honesty,
I look back over my life and I
tell you from the depths of my heart,
the only times I have grown in the
Lord have been in my difficult times.
I don't grow in times not to my
knowledge.
There's the natural growth of those, have the
increase of the growth of the Holy Spirit
that is natural.
There's always that increase.
But it's that which I'm conscious of only
comes when I've been in some very difficult
times and I've had to be totally dependent
on the Lord.
And I know that there's no way I
can do it myself.
I've had to learn to trust Him.
God will put us in situations where there
is nothing else to do but trust or
to throw it all overboard and harden your
heart.
Glory to Jesus.
So although we have bad days and they're
going to be inevitable for, especially those who
are new in the Lord, listen to me,
please, they should become less and less frequent
as the knowledge of who you are in
Christ increases.
There should be fewer of these days and
they should be less intense.
And there should come a time when the
enemy comes in for an hour or two
that you have the resources to deal with
it.
Now, I told you before that when you're
going through a hard time, God comes in
by His Spirit, immediately He rushes into comfort.
If you allow Him, He's always there to
comfort you.
Because you're His child and He cares about
you.
Now, it may be because of frail health,
doubt, fear, despair, depression.
It keeps coming more frequently.
And I'm telling you, folks, listen closely.
If these things are happening to you more
frequently, you're having more and more of these
days that you can't seem to shake it
off.
And the depression keeps coming on and the
guilt and the fear hangs on.
You're in need of some real spiritual help.
Because this, if you allow it to continue,
can turn to a hardness of heart.
And I want to show you some of
the Scripture that will help you tonight and
I hope it will bring victory to you.
Paul makes it very clear that it's possible
to come out of childish bondage.
Now, many of these bad days that we
get are a result of our reaction to
situations in our life and reacting childishly.
Now, a child pouts.
A child has short interest spans.
A child can be laughing one minute and
screaming the next.
And this is what we often do when
we're going through a trial.
We are very childish in our reaction and
those childish reactions result in depression and guilt
and fear and all these other things.
In spite of our tantrums, I've had four
children, 11 grandchildren, and I've seen enough tantrums
in my life.
I've seen a lot of childish stuff, but
never in any tantrum, never in any pouting
session, no matter what my children went through,
I never stopped loving them.
I never wrote them off.
I never disowned them.
And sometimes we go through difficult times and
we pout and we put on a fleshly
tantrum.
Oh God, this way you want to act?
Why should I pray?
I'll read this Bible and I go through
it.
And you know, we put on these little
petty tantrums.
God, how long?
How long do I have to pray before
you end?
I don't see a sign of anything.
God, you're not doing anything.
That was a tantrum Moses put on.
I haven't seen you call me.
I haven't seen you do anything.
God said, wait till tomorrow.
You'll see what I'm going to do.
Now, listen, even though we know that our
heavenly father loves us through every childish response,
he has something better for us.
He has absolutely something better for us.
His great desire for us is that we
lay hold of the knowledge of who we
are in Christ and what he has provided
for us.
Some of you really have not yet come
in to the place where you will lay
hold of your inheritance.
I want you to go with me to
Galatians 4 and nail it down.
Galatians, the fourth chapter.
I want to talk to you about how
to come out these bad days.
Galatians, the fourth chapter.
I want everybody having a bad day, say
amen.
Oh my goodness.
I don't think you heard.
I think you said amen automatically.
Because you people say amen to everything.
I could give my age and people say
amen in this church.
Verse one, Galatians, fourth chapter, verse one.
Now I say that the heir, as long
as he's a child, differs nothing from a
servant, though he be Lord of all.
Now look at me, please.
Under the Roman tradition, a child was placed
in the hands of a tutor up to
the years of eight years of age.
The parents paid the tutor and then from
eight to 25, they're in the hands of
a governor, took care, especially the wealthy.
Paul is talking about an adopt, a father,
wealthy man who's adopted a child.
And he's taken this adopted child to school
and placed in school under tutor.
This tutor has one student and he tutors
until he's eight years of age.
At eight years of age, he turns him
over to a financial guardian and that guardian
takes care of him until he's 25 years
of age.
And all this time, he's an heir to
a fortune.
But the Bible said the heir, as long
as he's a child, differs nothing from a
servant, though he be Lord of all.
Now, let's talk about this child becoming 25
years of age, coming to full age, a
full age.
The apostle Paul, verse six.
Let's go down to verse two and three.
But he's under tutors and governors until the
time appointed of the father.
Even so, we, when we were children, were
in bondage under the elements of the world.
Now, look at me, please.
Paul speaking, first of all, about the ministry
of the law.
He's saying under the Old Testament, under the
law, we were in school.
The believers that were in school, they were
being taught.
But he said there comes a time when
the schooling ends and you move in then
to taking place as an heir, as a
son.
You're a servant right now because you are
in school.
You are a servant of the tutor.
You're a servant of the governor.
This boy until he's 25 years old couldn't
touch his inheritance.
He had no power to control his life.
He was told when to go and when
to come, do this, do that.
He was under the law.
Now, that's what he's talking about first.
But he's also talking about believers today in
this generation, us.
He said when you're a child, you're childish
in your thinking when you were a child
and you have not laid hold of your
inheritance.
He said you're under bondage.
You're under bondage by legalism, laws that you
established for yourself.
Most of us as Christians believe that if
we could just get the victory over this
one or two things, most of us think
we're about 98% holy.
And we got this little 2% thing
we got to deal with.
And God, if I just get this 2
% settled, if I can just make you
enough promises or get my teeth, bite the
bullet, if there's something I can do and
get rid of this 2%, I'll be a
saint.
I will have made it.
He said you're still under bondage.
You still don't see that.
You're not a servant.
You're not a slave anymore.
You're Lord of all things.
You own everything your father owns.
Your father adopted.
You loved you and he put you to
school.
Do you prepare you for something?
He said, no, no.
Some people say, well, our inheritance is eternal
life.
Folks goes beyond that.
God sent the Holy Ghost to give us
the earnest of it, the ability to tap
into that wealth.
Now here on Earth.
Now, if you're going to tell me that
this inheritance is gold and silver and material
blessings, that's blasphemy.
That's blasphemy.
Because if God did that, he's planning covetousness
in our heart and he's leading us right
to hell because that's what happened when he
did it in the Old Testament.
Just when wax fat and forgot God.
Let you forget him by blessing you with
material things only.
That's not what it.
Oh, God takes care of his children.
Yes, he does.
He's promised you never have to beg for
food.
He's going to take care of all of
his children.
But he says, if you're going to stay
in this childishness, can you imagine this son?
It's time.
The fullness of time came.
That's when Jesus came and died on the
cross.
The fullness of time.
The inheritance was made known.
He got the notice.
His governor, his tutor, everything.
You're an heir now.
Please understand that you graduate now.
You go now and you don't need a
governor to tell you how to spend money.
You don't need your governor to tell you
when and where to go.
No one else is taking care of this.
You're coming into maturity now.
Go and claim your inheritance.
And he doesn't believe it.
No, we're talking about a God who comes
and comforts us when we have difficult times.
Now, what good is it for this father
to go to this 25-year-old boy
now and say, son, everything's going to be
all right.
And he comforts him.
That's not what God is all about.
Not just to comfort you when you're still
in bondage.
The father is going to say, son, when
are you going to take your place at
my side?
When are you coming into my house?
When are you going to come and lay
hold of the resources?
Folks, 95% of God's people live far
beneath their privileges.
They're living beneath their privileges.
I live beneath mine.
You live beneath your privileges.
I don't think any of us have ever
really laid hold of this promise.
Verse 4, but when the fullness of the
time was come, God sent forth his son
made of a woman made under the law
to redeem that which were under the law
that we might receive the adoption of sons.
And because we are sons, God has sent
forth the spirit of his son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
Verse 7, listen.
Therefore, thou art no more a servant, but
a son.
And if a son, then heir of God
through Christ.
Would you look at Galatians 3, verse 26.
For ye are all the children of God
by faith in Christ Jesus.
Look at me now.
If you had faith in Christ Jesus, come
on, raise your hand.
I have faith.
I have a child of God.
If you believe that Jesus Christ is your
Lord and Savior, let me read it again,
folks.
It's in your Bibles.
I don't have a special edition.
Verse 26, for ye are all the children
of God by faith in Jesus Christ.
I go back down now to chapter 4,
chapter, verse 7.
Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but
a son.
And if a son, then heir of God
through Christ.
You're his child.
You are no longer a servant.
Now, you serve as a volunteer, but that
is not your position now.
That may be an occupation that you choose.
But you are a son of the living
God, and because you are a son, you're
an heir of all that God placed in
Jesus Christ.
God gave all of his glory, all of
his power, all of his resources, and put
them in Jesus Christ, for in him is
the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And he said, now you're an heir to
everything that is in Christ Jesus.
It all is yours.
Folks, I'm seeing something clearer and clearer every
day, that this world that you see around
us is not the real world.
This is an apparition.
The real world is in the Spirit.
Folks, Jesus doesn't live on this earth.
He's gone to the Father.
He's seated at the right hand.
He's a man in glory.
He's God, but he's also a man.
If he walked into this building and walked
on this stage, you could see him.
He would have a face.
He would have ears and nose, mouth.
He would look just like us.
He's a man, and he's in glory at
the right hand of the Father.
And I want to tell you something.
The real inheritance, the real thing that I
want more than anything else is to be
with him where he is.
He has seated us in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus.
And our brother spoke it well this afternoon
about the stuff, the things that, the only
thing that, most of this, bad days many
of us have have to do with our
stuff.
We're afraid of losing stuff.
We buy a house so it has a
garage so we can store our stuff.
You ever try to move?
Stuff, stuff, stuff, everywhere is stuff.
And we're afraid of losing stuff.
He said such affection on things above.
The Holy Ghost comes down to draw us
out of this world and bring us into
our position, the spiritual position that he's put
us with Christ in a heavenly place above
the things of this world.
Folks, when you begin to draw closer to
Jesus, you're getting further and further away from
the things of this world.
You're getting away.
There's no such thing in a man who
had, who is spiritually minded, who's moving out
of this world.
You know, I hear, I've heard preachers use
a cliche mockingly.
Oh, he's so heavenly minded, he's no spiritual
good.
I mean, he's so spiritually minded, he's no
earthly good.
You ever heard that?
He's so spiritually minded, he's no earthly good.
What a foolish statement.
What absolute foolishness.
The only way you're ever prepared to be
living on this earth, God's way is to
be spiritually minded.
There's no other way you can survive with
the days that are coming.
I was yesterday in one of the newspapers.
It said lifeboat practice on Wall Street.
They're practicing what they call lifeboat training.
Now, how to bail out in the ugly
crisis that's coming.
The whole page, it's the most incredible thing
I've seen, far beyond anything I've been prophesying
and preaching.
And I see all these things coming, but
you know something?
The more you obey what the Lord said,
set your affection on things above, not on
the things of the world.
The less this news means to you, the
less these reports mean to you.
They have no meaning whatsoever after a while.
They have no meaning.
Folks, I was walking down a country road
this past week and just praying.
And that scripture came to me.
Life is just a vapor, just a vapor.
And it's God.
And we're worrying about our bad days.
What God wants you to do if you
have a bad day, first of all, you're
going to be convinced that he's a heavenly
father.
And you may sit here today and say,
brother, I just can't help it.
I am not spiritually mature enough to deal
with this.
But my bad day has to do with
the fact that I have a bad situation
in my job that causes stress and I
get sick.
Yesterday's newspaper said 41% of all Americans
now are sick daily because of stress on
their jobs.
Almost 50% are physically sick because of
the stress on their job.
And I want you to know, my God
has all the resources.
Now, these are spiritual resources.
But they're all according to the riches of
God in Christ Jesus.
There's the riches of his wisdom we heard
about.
There's the wisdom of his knowledge, the wisdom
of his grace.
And didn't he say, my God shall supply
all your need according to the riches of
God in Christ Jesus.
That tells me that a loving heavenly father.
I believe that God works with his children
on the premise of affection.
You cannot make it in these last days
unless you know you won't make it through
your bad days unless you're absolutely convinced that
he affectionately loves you.
There's an affection in his heart.
We've been hearing that all day.
This keeps me more than anything else.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt
he loves me.
I am so convinced that I literally, when
I'm in prayer and he said, if you
draw near to me, I'll draw near to
you.
I just keep drawing near and worship and
praise.
I've literally felt his arms around me.
You heard my son stand here.
He said, you may laugh, but he said,
I had Jesus kiss me on the cheek.
My son just loved Jesus all his heart.
And he said, I'm just, I was loving
on Jesus.
And he said, Jesus planned a kiss.
He said it was a spiritual experience.
But it was just like embracing, getting so
close to his heart.
Folks, that's what it's going to take in
these last days.
But first of all, I'm telling you, be
absolutely confident that he's affectionately loving you.
He has a great affection in his heart.
He's not mad at you.
That he is concerned about all of these
things.
Now in Greek, the word, I want to
show this to you.
My God should supply all you need.
This is Philippians 4.19. All you need
according to his riches in glory by Christ
Jesus.
I'm going to close in just a minute.
That word there, need, means to handle all
business, all that is lacking, all that's necessary.
He didn't promise you to fulfill all your
dreams.
He didn't promise to fulfill all of your
wants.
You know, I want this, I want that.
Best thing God can do is knock all
that out of us and purify our desires.
And he said, he didn't even say needs.
He said, I'm going to supply all your
need.
Singular, not plural.
I'm going to supply all your need because
it's one.
It's single.
It's Christ.
It is Jesus.
Because he alone satisfies.
Bill Gates is the richest man in the
world.
So many billions, he can't count them now.
Almost literally.
But every billionaire, if you just hold on
long enough and listen, they'll talk to you
about nothing.
They have bringing them any joy or any
satisfaction whatsoever.
There's no joy in it whatsoever.
Howard Hughes, one of the billionaires who died,
died with eight inch fingernails.
He died with not a friend or eight
people at his funeral.
In his confession, when he died, he said,
nothing I've owned, nothing I've had, nothing I've
possessed has ever given me a moment of
joy, but made me miserable.
He died in misery, died in pain.
You say, Brother Wilkson, what's that have to
do with me?
I'm stressed out.
I have bills that I can't pay.
I wake up in the morning looking at
the future and I have this gloom hanging
over me.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
Others of you say I'm in a living
condition that's hopeless and it just burdened me
down.
I'm living in a marriage situation that's beyond
hope.
Let me read you a letter in closing.
May he help you.
This woman said, Pastor David, in 1989, my
husband lost a good job that was so
important to him.
He worked for the U.S. Army in
Germany.
He was fired by a commander who brought
in his own people.
It was a tragedy for my husband.
He lost all self-esteem as well as
his good income.
He's never recovered.
Even though he's employed, his salary is less
than one half of what he's making.
Now the responsibility is falling on me to
be the primary breadwinner.
A few weeks ago, I had a meeting
one Friday night, but I had 45 minutes
after work to lay down and rest.
I was looking for something to read and
the Lord led me to a box of
papers that I had kept.
I pulled out one of your old sermons,
a place called Wit's End, April 24th, 1995.
As I read it, the Holy Spirit ministered
to me that that is exactly where I
am.
I'm at my Wit's End.
I'm going to be retiring from the service
myself and the worries keep piling on.
We're drowning in financial difficulties.
I can't get my husband's attention.
He's like an ostrich that put his head
in the sand and you just hope the
problems will go away.
God showed me through your message that I've
turned in anger against my husband.
I've been depending on him.
I've been depending on the flesh and I
need to turn to Jesus alone as my
only hope, as the only one who can
provide for me and bring me out of
these problems.
I see now my husband can never bring
me out.
I read the message with assurance that God
was with me at my Wit's End.
Later that evening, I went to the meeting
and one of the speakers at the meeting,
who's a friend of mine, shared with her
from her heart how God brought her out
of a financial difficulty that she and her
husband had gone through.
She'd been obedient in sharing her embarrassing experiences.
God meant it all for me.
And afterwards, I shared with her about reading
your message on Wit's End, not knowing that
she even knew of you and how God
used your message to talk and minister to
me.
The following week, I received a package from
her.
Inside was a copy of your message, right
song, wrong side, dated May 11, 1990.
How awesome.
I called Karen.
She told me she would send other messages.
She said, Pastor David, I'm not through my
trial yet.
It's very hard.
When I look down the road, I see
potential disaster being hemmed in like the children
of Israel.
But God has shown me that I have
doubted his love for me.
I've doubted his faithfulness to provide for me.
I've also realized, as you've taught, that I've
been good at suppressing my fear and that
I've never dealt a death blow to my
doubts.
I've never dealt a death blow to my
doubts.
Now I want to put an end to
my doubts.
I'm going to choose to praise God for
loving me, for his provisions, though I don't
see them yet.
Please pray for me.
My prayer is that Jesus, the author and
perfecter of my faith, will heal my doubt,
give me the gift of faith to trust
him completely.
I pray that he'll give me a song
to sing on this side of the victory.
I want so to pass this test.
I want to sing the right song on
the right side, a testimony of God's grace
and to his faithfulness.
Now we're getting so many letters like this
from around the country, from people whose faith
is growing.
They have seen God faithful and they believe
like I do, and many of us, that
hard times are coming, but the Lord's going
to see us through.
And if this is what you're going through,
you're going to have to come to a
place where you say, Jesus, I have to
cast all my care upon you now.
You said that I'm an heir to the
riches of God in Christ Jesus, and the
riches of God in Christ Jesus include all
my physical needs.
I believe God for that.
Will you stand?
Folks, one last thing I want to say
to you.
I don't know what you're going through, but
I do know what we're all going to
go through.
Some very powerful testing times.
A little simple song we sing, turn your
eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in his wonderful face, and the
things of the world grow strangely dim in
the light of his glory and grace.
Hallelujah.
Are you afraid?
There's nothing to fear.
Nothing to fear.
Hallelujah.
Now, if you're going to take your place
as an heir of God, whenever these things,
you wake up in the morning, these things
come at you, and the spirit tries to
fall on you and just lay inside and
bring you down in your emotions, tell yourself,
Christ, my savior, is my inheritance, and him
is fullness of joy, peace, wisdom, and grace,
and all that I need.
And you just start cozying up to Jesus
and start looking to him.
I find myself doing that every hour of
the day anymore, all the waking hours.
Saying, Lord, I don't want to be attached
to anything on this earth now.
Nothing.
I don't want anything to take my attention
away from you.
Folks, you, that's possible on your job.
That's possible on the way to work, on
the way back.
It's possible.
Turn off the television.
Turn everything off.
Get alone with him.
Start drawing closer and closer to the heart
of Jesus, and you'll see the changes.
Then you'll have your husband, your wife, you'll
have others come up to you and say,
what's happened to you?
You have that look of peace.
Brother Carter talked about how God had brought
him into that peace.
He has brought me into that peace, and
God's no respecter of persons.
He wants you to go through your day
with peace, no matter what you're going through,
and rest in the Holy Ghost, so that
those bad moments, they're only moments, and you're
dealing with them by the power of the
Holy Spirit.
You're dealing with them by saying, I am
not a child under bondage anymore.
I may not have the victory yet, but
I hate my sin, and God said the
Holy Ghost in me will enable me, and
he's going to bring me through the victory,
and I'm not going to pout and put
on a childish tantrum, and I'm not going
to accuse God of an unfaithfulness.
Lord Jesus, I'm going to trust you.
And the more you trust him, folks, there's
only one way, and it's by faith, no
other way.
You cannot approach anything of God.
You cannot receive anything.
You cannot reach any point of maturity in
him other than faith.
What else do you have to give him?
The fruit of your lips and your faith.
Heavenly Father, I pray this evening that you
bring encouragement to our hearts, that we'll not
be afraid, and that we will be able,
we will have the tools, we'll have the
ability to deal with these moments that come
to us of discouragement and being downcast.
And as David, we can say, he encouraged
himself in the Lord.
Help us, Lord, every time we get up
in the morning now to encourage ourselves.
God, you're going to see me through this
day.
God, you're going to see me through my
financial difficulty.
You're going to see me through this because
you're my father, and no loving father would
ever let his child down.
You will not let me down because you
love me.
Glory be to God.
Now, I'm going to give an invitation for
those that are going through not a difficult
day or hard day.
I'm not talking about the past 24 hours.
I'm talking about a season you're going through.
I don't care if it's been days or
weeks.
There's confusion.
You are not confident in God's will in
your life.
And little by little, you're being disturbed in
your spirit.
The total peace of Christ has not been
yours lately.
And you've been, your nest is being stirred.
And I'm speaking in the spirit now very
clearly to a number of you standing here
right now.
It's not that you're mad at God.
You just wonder.
Lord, I am confused.
He wants to clear all that confusion before
you walk out of this church tonight.
If I've described you in any way, just
get out of your seat and come and
stand here.
I'll pray with you.
And let's believe the Lord.
But come in faith.
Please, don't come hoping.
God will become believing and trusting.
God will see you through this and deliver
you tonight, right now in this church, in
this service.
Wherever you're at, all through, up in the
balcony, go to the stairs on either side.
Now, for you that have come forward, listen
closely, please.
When I have a difficult time and I
go to Jesus, and the first thing he
tells me, is what I believe he wants
to tell you tonight.
You have no reason to be afraid.
None at all.
You have no reason whatsoever to be afraid
because I'm your God.
I'm your Lord.
And I love you.
And if God loves you, he truly loves
you, no matter what you're going through.
He's saying, because of my love, because I
am God, you have nothing to be afraid
of.
Nothing.
And so, I've always said, if God didn't
give you the fear, why'd you put up
with it?
You're not put up with it if God
didn't give it to you.
You don't need to endure it.
Say, Lord, I give you these fears.
I give you all my fear.
Fear is a terrible, tormenting thing.
You don't have to be afraid.
Look at me now.
Folks, get it in your mind now.
I don't care what you've done.
I don't care what you've said.
You're here now because you want him.
He's not mad at you.
I want you to say this.
God is not mad at me.
My Father loves me.
You have nothing to be afraid of.
Heavenly Father, I don't have enough words.
I don't have words in my vocabulary.
To reach into the hearts of these people
who've come sincerely to you.
I don't have to beg you.
I don't have to scream at you.
The Holy Spirit, I'm asking you to come
down now and do a work in the
heart of everyone who has responded to you.
Not to me.
Not even to this invitation, but to your
cry.
To the call of the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, I'm asking you now to change
lives.
So that suddenly the light goes on.
I am loved.
He is my Father.
I believe Jesus Christ is Lord.
He is my Lord.
I'm a child of God.
I have inherited everything I need to live
above fear.
To live above the power of sin.
God in Christ Jesus living in me has
enabled me to have everything I need.
If I'll just trust that.
If I will just believe it.
Now Holy Spirit, make that simplicity.
Known and experienced in the hearts of everybody
who came now.
I ask you to take the darkness.
Lord, smite the darkness.
Let the light of the gospel.
Let the light of the love of Jesus
come in.
You loved us so much you gave your
own son.
You said you're a loving father.
You have affection.
Put your arms around these women that hurt.
Put your arms around the men that are
coming right now.
Lord, embrace them and say you are loved.
Deeply loved.
Now confess your sins and believe on me
and trust me now that I will take
you through every battle and every trial.
I want everybody came forward and pray this
with me.
Jesus, I acknowledge you as my Lord and
Savior.
I receive by faith the cleansing and forgiveness
of all my sins.
Open my heart now and ask you Jesus
to take my doubts and all my fears,
my guilt, my condemnation.
Remove it from my life.
Oh Jesus, embrace me with your love.
Father, help me to know and to understand
and never forget that you love me.
I love you for that Lord and I
thank you for it and I give you
my praise.
Now just tell them thanks in your own
way.
Just say thank you Jesus.
I give you thanks.
I praise you.
I return now to give you thanks.
Hallelujah.
Remember the story I told you that wife
who endured a husband who cheated on her
all her life?
A preacher?
And yet the Lord took her through.
The same God who took her through is
going to take you through.
The same God who's seen me through all
these years is going to take you through.
The same God that's seen my wife through
25 operations, six for cancer, going to see
you through.
He's no respective person.
He's going to see you through.
Hallelujah.
I want you to turn around and shake
hands with five or six and say God's
going to see me through or God's going
to see you through.
God's going to take care of things.
Whatever God tells you, God's going to take
care of it.
God's going to take care of it.