Jesus, I need your help.
I need the touch of God.
I thank you for the anointing.
I thank you, Lord, that when the invitation
is given, young married couples especially will come
down this aisle, make a full surrender to
Christ.
Young people, all those in this building tonight,
O Lord, who will fall under the touch
of God's conviction, in Christ's name I pray.
Amen.
There are exactly three references in the Bible
to the word muzzle.
The first being in Deuteronomy 25.4. You're
very familiar with it.
Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the
ox that treadeth out the corn.
Now God's humanitarian law had made provision, made
provision that the oxen that were treading at
the treadmill should not have their mouth muzzled
so that they could partake of the corn
they were treading.
The oxen was allowed to eat the corn
he was treading.
God's humanitarian law makes it possible because the
labor is worthy of his hire, whether it's
a human being or one of God's animal
kingdoms.
Paul the Apostle, reading this Old Testament truth,
moved on by the Holy Spirit, brought to
the attention of the church world one of
the most marvelous revelations ever given to mankind.
This revelation has been so, has meant so
much to my ministry and to my life.
I want to take time tonight and share
it in as much depth as I possibly
can and make it very, very simple and
clear for the young people.
Paul the Apostle, as was his habit, went
into the Old Testament and animated these Old
Testament truths and made them applicable to his,
to everyday life and especially to the New
Testament church.
Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians, the 9th
chapter, the 9th verse, for it is written
in the law of Moses, he's speaking of
Deuteronomy 25, verse 4, thou shalt not muzzle
the mouth of the ox that treaded out
the corn.
Let God take care for oxen, or safety
it all together for our sake.
What Paul is trying to say now is,
has God recorded this truth in the Old
Testament just to tell us how concerned he
is about taking care of oxen?
Has this been written only to demonstrate God's
care for the animal kingdom?
Or is there a greater truth?
Is God trying to say something to me?
Is he trying to say something to you
about the way I live, about the way
I minister, the way I exist, the meaning
of life itself?
Is there something hidden here?
Paul elaborates, or says it all together for
our sake.
Paul was convinced, there is only one reason
this is recorded, all together there's no doubt
about it, Paul says, I am convinced this
truth is mine, it is ours.
God is saying something.
For our sake, no doubt, no doubt this
is written, that he that plows should plow
in hope.
Now see this immediately takes it away from
this aspect of giving the priest some more
money, or just having to deal with finances.
If we speak if only of muscling the
minister, after all this truth, we miss the
greatest part of the truth that God's trying
to reveal to us.
He that plows should plow in hope, and
that he that thresheth in hope should be
partaker of his hope.
Let me make it applicable first to the
Sunday school teacher, to every Christian worker, if
you're going to work without any hope of
results, you have the wrong motivation.
Every man who ever tries to do anything
for God should expect to have results.
I'm sick and tired of hearing people say,
well I'm doing wrong because God told me.
I don't do anything anymore unless I believe,
and I'm convinced, and I've told myself until
I believe with all my heart, God is
in it, and God is going to bring
glory to his name, and there will be
results.
If you teach your Sunday school class without
any hope of changing the life patterns of
those people you testify to, if you stand
there with an emptiness and a helplessness, as
if to say, I'm just being obedient to
the Lord, but I don't anticipate any results,
you have the wrong motivation.
He that plows should plow in hope, he
that plows should be a partaker of this
hope.
You should taste it, you should experience it
before you preach it.
And how many empty testimonies there are in
the church, falling dead from the lips of
people who've never experienced the life itself.
I have ministers come to New York from
all over the world.
I have most educated intellectual ministers, some of
them with many degrees.
They want to go out and see our
street rallies, and they are absolutely horrified when
I ask them to give a testimony at
the microphone before a group of gang kids
and drug addicts.
They say, well Reverend, these boys will do
a good enough job, but I always force
them into it, because I want them to
see something.
I want them to see that you can't
preach anything you haven't first lived.
That you have an experience that isn't alive
in your own soul.
And I had one very well-known minister
go down to Coney Island with us, he
took the microphone, he thought he was really
going to tell them how to find Jesus.
His words didn't get past the microphone, they
fell right in front of him.
The crowd began to walk away left and
right, and we saw we were losing the
crowd, the man thought we had enough dignity
and purpose to get away from the microphone
and turn over to one of my boys.
This boy, he dropped out of ninth grade.
He took the microphone, and I'll tell you
in less than two minutes the crowd came
back again, and they stood there in rapt
attention to this boy, as articulate as he
could possibly be, but in very simple terms
began to explain what he had felt and
witnessed in his own heart.
And that gentleman stood there just shaking his
head, and the man was startled at what
had happened.
He couldn't get through.
You know, later he testified to me, he
said, well Wilson, that's one of the greatest
lessons I've ever learned.
He said, that boy preached what he had
experienced.
He said, I've been preaching theory, theory, just
something I have learned.
Now let's go on.
See, the word muzzle means to fasten or
cover over the mouth to prevent biting, eating,
or speaking, to prevent action.
The Bible says, thou shalt not muzzle the
mouth of the ox.
Now, you and I are the oxen when
Jesus said, take my yoke upon you and
learn of me.
My yoke is easy, my burden is light.
He made all of us a type of
oxen.
My yoke is easy.
Oxen wear yoke.
And he made it very, very clear that
we are laborers together as oxen in a
vineyard, and that no one who ministers in
his vineyard should allow themselves to be bound.
Now, I want to talk about bondage tonight.
I want to talk about muzzled people, those
who are fastened, those who cannot be active
for God, not only Christian workers.
I want to talk tonight very, very clearly
to those who are wanting to work for
the Lord.
I want to talk to young people who
want to be used of God.
I want to talk about those who are
bound in fear and anxiety.
I want to talk about a muzzled ministry.
We go to the 25th chapter of Matthew
for a tragic story of a muzzled Christian.
You recall the story in the 25th chapter
of Matthew of three servants who are called
by a master, and they were granted talent.
One was given five with instructions to invest
it, and upon the master's return, they would
be invited for the activities, and they would
have to give an account.
Another was given two talents with the same
instructions, and another was given one talent.
And I want to focus attention on this
one talent servant, because one-third of all
Christianity falls in this category if Bible statistics
are true.
Thirty-three and third percent of all Christian
people will stand before God's judgment, bound, fruitless,
and helpless as this one talent servant.
And most of us have been given but
one talent, and that is a innate desire
to know and do the will of God.
Now follow me very closely, please.
This is not a sermon I'm preaching tonight.
This is a message that flows out of
my innermost being, because it changed and revolutionized
my life.
Listen very closely.
The master returns, and the master of this
parable is our master.
These were all Christians.
They were all servants of the master.
And on his sudden return, he calls for
an accounting.
The man who had been given five talents
per servant returns with a doubled investment, well
-adjusted, happy, pleased.
He was not a sad worker.
He'd been productive and faithful, and he'd brought
his fees to lay at the master's feet.
The gentleman to be given two had doubled
his investment, well-adjusted, happy, a great relationship
with the master, confidence and trust and peace
and rest.
And he'd worked as an animated Christian, productive
and well-adjusted and happy and normal.
In fact, you can carry a great burden
and be normal.
Did you know that?
You don't have to be a mystic to
be used of God.
You don't have to have freakish hours of
prayer.
You don't have to be way out somewhere
to have the touch of God in your
life.
I think most of the most, I think
the most productive Christians of all time have
been well-adjusted, happy people who know what
it is to weep and to laugh and
enjoy the full orbit of all of the
feelings that God has given to mankind.
But now standing before the master is the
one talent servant.
Here's the muzzled Christian.
I want to list for you tonight for
your consideration the three tragic steps that lead
to being muzzled, to being bound, fruitless.
And I'm going to tell you something, friends.
I can't conceive of anything more tragic than
to stand before God with no fruit, having
accomplished nothing, having just survived, having just existed
as a Christian.
I don't know anything more tragic than that
in my way of thinking.
But here he stands.
Listen to the three tragic steps that led
to his muzzled ministry, the three tragic steps
that lead to the binding of every one
of God's children, if they allow it.
Step number one, a wrong relationship with the
Lord.
Now listen to this man as he stands
before the master.
Here's his confession.
The same confession that the other two had
made.
Lord, I knew thee.
See, they all knew him.
They were all in close relationship.
They were all his servants.
They knew the master.
They had worked for him.
They were under his employ.
This is the type of the Christian, not
the sinner.
Lord, I knew thee.
But now look, look very closely at his
relationship.
The other two had a happy relationship.
The master was easy to work for.
They were well adjusted.
They were pleased.
They were productive.
But here he stands now, and in his
own mind, he has concocted a relationship with
the master that has so perverted his ministry,
that is so bound him, he has to
burn it out.
Lord, I knew thee.
Thou art a hard man.
Now friends, this is the very trick the
devil uses against those who are spirit filled.
He'll not try to tempt you on morals.
He'll not try to get you to go
out and taste the hidden sweets of the
world.
He won't try to have you gavel around
in the con game.
He won't try to get you to cheat
your fellow man.
He won't get you to gossip about your
pastor and the church activity.
He's more subtle than that when it comes
to the spirit filled life.
He uses an attack far more subtle.
If he cannot get you to turn your
back on your loving master, he will sneak
into your life and pervert your image of
the heavenly father until he who has loved
you and saved you from sin and degradation,
suddenly begins to appear in your heart, in
your mind, in your life as a hard
driving taskmaster who is there to cut you
off at every little failure.
There is a sculptor in Mexico who sculpted
his image of God and God had a
baseball bat in his hand.
This was his picture of the heavenly father.
He was going around hitting people over the
head, getting them to submit themselves, seeking obedience
by hitting them over the head with a
baseball bat.
Now friends, we have a lot of Christians
who have fallen prey to this trick of
the devil.
They come to church and worship, but their
worship, their activity and everything else is under
a pail of bondage.
They do not have the right relationship with
the heavenly father.
They do not cry Abba father.
They do not see him as one who
loves.
They do not see him as one of
tenderness and compassion and pity.
They stand there or they exist in the
Christian activity in the Christian world with a
picture of a heavenly father with a sword
in his hand, going around cutting off all
of the wrongdoers, going around bringing condemnation, striking
fear at the heart of every wrongdoer.
And there are a lot of people, friends,
that have been saved for years.
I get around and I've met some people
that have been converted for years who have
never really come into a right relationship with
the heavenly father.
Their relationship is one of looking at him
as a hard, difficult father.
This happens to deserve it.
Thou art a hard man.
Isn't it significant that the other two did
not testify to this?
And you can never be useful to God's
kingdom.
You can never be productive and fruitful if
you serve the Lord only because of your
concept of one who will judge you if
you do not be, if you are not
obedient.
How many people are there doing things for
God in the church, working in Sunday school,
not out of their love for the Lord,
but out of their fear of God and
nothing else?
The only motivation is that if I don't
do it, God may judge me.
God has never intended that Christian people, young
people for that matter, and listen, I'm going
to preach about it tomorrow night at Melody
Land, God willing, called Teen Terror.
And I've been shocked to find out, and
I've been interviewing hundreds of young people, asking
what their three major fears were.
I'm going to preach about it tomorrow night.
First of all, there's the fear of being
left out, the fear of being tied down,
and then there's the fear of hell.
Now that's a healthy thing, but friends, along
with that fear of hell is the fear
that so many young people have from various
denominations, and I've been shocked at it, how
many young people have been coming to the
altar in our crusades and standing there, and
even after they say, Jesus, come into my
heart, and they cry, they look up and
they say, I'm scared to death of God.
I'm frightened.
Now the scripture said the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and don't
you forget that.
It's the beginning.
It is not the premise upon which we
stand.
It is the beginning.
Perfect love passes out all fear, and that's
the second step that leads to a muscle
of ministry, a fear complex.
Thou art a hard man, so I was
afraid.
Now wherever you got your fear, you didn't
get it from God, so why put up
with it?
Because the scripture said, I have not given
you the spirit of fear, but of love
and power and a sound mind, and I
think I've already elaborated on one of the
four little words that I quote all day
long.
I quoted on the airplane.
I quoted it before I came in here
tonight.
I think four of the greatest words in
the English language, four of the greatest words
that David ever preached.
I will fear no evil.
I used to think that, you know, I'd
hear, when I was a young man, my
dad was a priest, and granddad, preachers get
together, and I always had my ear up
the door when my dad had bands in
the stand.
They'd talk till midnight, one or two o
'clock, like preachers do, you know, about the
things of God, of course, and I'd stand
up, and I'd listen, and I'd hear all
these stories about men who'd been used of
God, and they'd reach a certain peak, and
then they'd fail, and I used to think
there was a ladder that you'd climb, and
there was a rung on that ladder that
looked all right, but it had a crack,
and as soon as you hit it down,
you went, and so I said, Lord, when
I was a young preacher, I want to
just go up to that rung, and then
I want to sniff it out, and then
I'll know it's that, and then I'll just
stop right there, and it was that fear
of failing God because of an amount of
success in a ministry that finally you just
couldn't, it would overcome you, it would take
you over, and brothers and sisters, the fear
of pride is evil.
I will not fear it.
How many fearful Christians and friends, I don't
care how long you've walked with God, how
much you've taught faith and positive action, this
is going to be your constant battle, overcoming
the subtle fears of the enemy that come
in to bind us and muzzle us.
Every Bible school I go to, when I
give the invitation, I preach along these lines,
the altars are filled because right in our
Bible schools, we have young people who want
to be used of God, but they fight
constant daily fear.
It's a constant battle of fear.
I have young boys that used to be
drug addicts and alcoholics, and they sit in
Bible school, and the enemy brings in their
past and paints a picture of their past
and all these fears.
Well, maybe I'll revert, or maybe my past
will haunt me.
Someone will dig it out after God blesses
me, and all kinds of fears.
Listen, I could write a book on all
the different colors and brands of fear that
people whisper into my ear, the kind of
fear they battle.
Some of them seem so insignificant, but they
become so big to that individual.
I was working in New York City for
almost eight months, when this whole thing came
upon me in this most subtle fashion, and
it came about in a way that I
never expected right at the height of my
going to New York City.
I was going in every weekend, driving 300
miles one way, coming back tired, would walk
the streets for three days.
Come home on Saturday and preach all day
Sunday, and I'd cry and pray, and I
would weep.
I walked the streets of New York three
and four o'clock in the morning.
I had an old Chevrolet automobile, and I
didn't have money for motels or hotels, so
I'd put a shirt up.
I'd roll the window down, put a shirt
over there and roll it up.
That was my curtain there, and get another
sweater or something and make a curtain over
here, and even when it was cold, I'd
turn on the car heater and fill it
up with gas.
It was easier to buy gas in a
hotel, and I'd go to sleep three or
four o'clock in the morning, and I'd
sleep in these streets in this little car,
and I had really given myself to the
ministry that I felt God had called me
to.
You know, it's the same thing.
I walked those streets, and I dealt with
prostitution.
Nobody tried to touch me.
Not once was I ever tempted by the
elements of New York City.
I walked through Times Square.
I walked through hell itself, and not one
time.
The fear of God, the marvelous presence of
the Lord everywhere I went, I felt like
I was full of divine destiny.
I moved on a destined pattern.
I'd walk the streets knowing that I felt
as though the Lord himself was right there.
Every move that I made, God led me.
You read my book.
God led me as though the angel of
the Lord stood right there.
It was the most glorious time of my
life.
I moved as though I was just on
a divine pattern.
I was just a vessel.
All I had to do was just go.
The Lord whispered in my ear, so to
speak, every move.
I was in another world, a world that
was practical, and yet it was a world
so divinely led of God, and it was
in the middle of this.
Listen closely.
Right in the middle, when I was living
what I felt was the most glorious spirit
-filled life that I'd ever experienced, the resurrecting
joy of the Lord, everything that I needed
and wanted.
I thought, Lord, you just keep me in
this way.
You just keep me yielded, and friends, I
would drive to New York City, and I
can take you to spots along the Pennsylvania
Turnpike and Route 22.
Even today, when I drive past, I've got
to stop my car and go up in
the woods because I'd drive down the road,
and the Lord was so real in the
car.
I knew I was so called of God.
I knew the Lord was so real.
I'd have to break down.
I couldn't drive.
I'd pull off the car off the side
of the road.
I'd run up the hill so I'd get
away from the traffic, and I'd just fall
on my face before God, and I can
take you to a place on Route 22.
There's a big old oak tree there, and
I remember one day coming down, and it's
though the Lord himself.
You talk about Jacob wrestling with the Lord
or his angel.
I wrestled with the Lord and the glory
and the presence of God.
I didn't see the buildings in New York
City anymore.
All I could see were hungry souls, and
they were being saved.
Many, many were being saved.
God was working.
I played an organ also.
We pulled into the pastor's road just in
time to see an ambulance pull away.
I hadn't met the pastor yet.
Sirens, wailing, off it went.
When we pulled into the driveway, we saw
a woman standing there wringing her hands, an
apron.
I introduced myself.
She was one of the parishioners from the
pastor's church, and she said, Rev. Wilkins, there's
been a tragedy.
Please go to the hospital immediately.
She gave me instructions.
Jim and I went to the hospital.
It was an hour or so later.
On the third floor, walking down the hall,
I saw a man standing in the hall,
weeping, and I surmised it was the pastor.
I introduced myself.
He said, David, come in the room.
He said, I want you to see what's
happened.
He was sobbing.
His room was an oxygen tent.
A little child, I think the child was
three years old, and the wife had thrown
herself across the bed, and she was sobbing,
and her whole body just shaking and faltering.
I looked inside the oxygen tent, and the
little child's head was all out of shape,
almost 80-page tire marks right down over
her face.
Her eyes were swollen shut.
I said, what in the world?
Who did that?
Who is this?
The pastor said, she's mine, my baby.
He ran out of the room and went
in the hall and said, what happened?
He said, just before you came, just an
hour and a half ago, he said, I
was rushing to get my car to go
to conduct a man's funeral.
He said, and I didn't know she's under
the back wheel, and I got in his
car, started up, and I backed right over
her head.
He said, my God.
He said, if she dies, that's all I've
got.
I said, how could it have happened?
I was going out to work for the
Lord.
I was going out to conduct a funeral.
She was playing under the wheel.
I went into the room and unzipped the
oxygen tent, laid hands on the child, and
prayed.
The child regained consciousness.
They called the doctor, and he looked her
over, and he said, I think she'll be
all right.
It was getting late, and it was time
for us to prepare her for the service,
so the doctor suggested the pastor and I
go, and the wife could stay, so we
went back to the house.
It was about 6 30.
Close to the 7, I was dressing.
I heard a telephone ring.
Jimmy was downstairs.
We were on the second floor.
I was in one room, the pastor in
another.
He was putting on his tie, and I
could hear Jimmy cry, oh my God, no.
I rushed downstairs, and Jimmy said, Brother Wilkerson,
the baby died.
You're to tell the pastor, and I sat
down on that stair.
The body went upstairs, and suddenly, I don't
know how it happened or where it came
from, but the enemy began to suggest to
me, you see, he was out working for
the Lord.
He was doing everything within his power, but
there must be sin in his life.
Something has happened, and God has said judgment.
This is the judgment of God, but I
said, God, how could you let him kill
his own baby, and suddenly this image of
a father that I could not understand.
I couldn't understand it.
I said, well, Lord, I've been working for
you too, and I've got three children.
What about them?
I had two at the time.
No, it was three.
Jerry also.
I rushed upstairs.
I went into his room.
I said, Pastor, the call was about the
baby.
He didn't want to face the truth.
I think he knew.
He said, What's wrong with your baby?
It's not mine.
It's Jerry's.
He's gone.
He dropped his hands, and he stood there
for quite a long time, and they let
out blood currents, saying, My God, I killed
my doll.
I killed my baby.
He ran to the window, I think with
an intent to jump out and end it
all.
I tackled him, and Jimmy got him on
his legs, and we just laid on top
of him.
He was crying out to God, pouring his
heart out, but you know, something was happening
inside.
A fear, a horrible fear gripped my heart.
This is what happens when you fail God,
when you don't obey him.
The first thing, I wonder where he's failed.
Where's the sin in his life?
You know, friends, I stayed next three days.
We canceled the meetings, of course, and I
stayed to help.
I wish you could have been there at
the funeral.
Could have made the last impression on you
that it made on me, and I still
relive it.
I walked into that funeral parlor, and I
looked at those sober persons sitting around, just
shaking their heads, unable to understand it.
Nobody knew what was in my heart, but
when I approached that casket, looked at that
wall of flowers, and a little cat and
a beautiful little child with the pink print
dress and white shoes, and they still hadn't
been able to get those tire marks off
her face, and I looked at the passers
-by.
They just sat there with their eyes closed
in another world, and I asked the pastor
to go with me in the next room.
I said, pastor, what have you done?
He said, why?
He said, David, don't talk to me.
He said, don't even suggest anything.
He said, I'm too broken up, and I'll
tell you something.
I was trying to find an answer to
my own sin.
I was trying to satisfy something in my
own heart.
He said, I haven't failed God, if that's
what you're thinking.
He said, I don't understand this.
He said, we're the best of friends now,
and he understood why I made that question,
and I understand it now.
It took me almost a year to find
out later before, when I saw him at
a meeting, and he saw me.
We ran and went in the room and
had a good cry, and he told me
the whole story of how he had planned
to leave the ministry, and it was this
that really had saved his ministry, and God
has blessed him properly.
He's one of the finest ministers in the
country today.
He's a very successful church.
He's a real man of God, and I
love him dearly, but you know, I left
that place, and I went back to my
house some 300 miles away.
I wasn't even going to the driveway.
I was scared to go in the driveway.
I went inside.
My wife was used to my being away,
of course, but we had two children.
She was expecting a third.
This is what it was, and she said,
I walked inside, and I gathered Bonnie and
Debbie's arms, and I remember before I even
said a word to her, I said, Honey,
I said to myself, as I bobbed my
head, Lord, I'll go to New York City
every week.
I'll walk the streets.
I'll give you my life.
I'll work my fingers to the bone, but
don't touch one of my children.
Don't touch one of them.
As you know, my wife was expecting at
the time, I recall now, and I had
been going back and forth to New York
City, and leaving her there to carry on
the burdens of the work, because I had
this obsession to go to New York, and
I entered in from that day on.
I got in the car the next day,
and I headed for New York City, and
this time as I walked, there was no
joy.
As I rode to New York City, the
joy of the Lord had departed.
Now, I was on a mission, and the
enemy had succeeded in painting in my mind
a picture of a judgy, wrathful, vengeful Heavenly
Father who was ready to cut me down,
or take one of my children, or do
personal bodily damage to me for my own
good, and cut me down to pie, and
stick me into obedience.
If he had to whip me into obedience,
but I said, Lord, I don't have to
be whipped.
I'll go willingly.
You know, you don't say those things in
so many words, but these are those subtle
thoughts that go through your mind, and I
walked the streets more than ever, and this
time I was a driven, obsessed man.
I came home from New York City.
I would come back, and I wouldn't smile.
I didn't smile for the next three months.
Anyone who cracked a joke, I walked out
of the room.
I said, God doesn't allow any joking.
My wife didn't know I was her husband
for three and a half months.
My children were unattended.
I was totally sold out to God.
Oh, I loved him with all my heart.
I loved him more than ever, but I
couldn't understand what had happened.
God now was a hard master.
I had a ministry of fear and of
bondage.
I was working hard.
I was working harder than ever.
I was losing weight.
I went down to 115 pounds.
I came home near the end of three
and a half months, and my wife wasn't
there to meet me.
I heard somebody crying and screaming in the
bedroom.
I went in, and she was laying on
the bed, raving incoherently.
I thought she'd lost her mind, and I
stood over her, and I watched her writhing
in pain.
She didn't even know I was in the
room, and I stood there looking on her,
and a scripture came to me.
A man who neglects his own household is
worse than an infidel and is denied to
faith.
I heard a scream in my ear, You're
an infidel.
I laid hands on her.
I was praying.
I laid hands on her, and I prayed
for her, and she fell asleep.
I whispered.
She didn't hear it, but I said, Honey,
give me just one more night.
I'm going to have it out with Bud
tonight, or I've got to quit preaching.
I can't go to New York again.
I'll have to give it up.
I said, I'm crushed under the burden.
I'm weighted down.
I can't even move, and I'm doing this,
and I told her just before I left.
You can imagine telling a woman who's expecting,
If I don't go to New York, the
baby could be born crippled, so I went
off to New York City again.
That was before this episode.
I left that bedroom, and I went into
my little study.
I remember putting a green rug on the
floor, and I began to pour my heart
out to God.
I said, Oh God, I can't take it
anymore.
It's so heavy.
The burden is heavy, and suddenly a black
inkiness filled that room, and I heard a
still small voice instructing me to stand up.
Now friends, I'm not a mystic, and I
don't hear voices, but there are times in
great crises when God's trying to work something
in my ministry that God speaks clearly, and
the enemy speaks too.
We've got to watch.
We've got to call the spirits, and I
heard this voice say, Stand up.
I want to talk to you, and then
it came at me with all the fury
of hell itself.
You're a publicity seeker.
The only reason you're going to New York
is trying to be another Billy Graham.
You want a name for yourself.
You're not interested in drug addicts and gangs.
All you want is the headlines.
All you want is the publicity.
You're a dirty filthy minded.
You're no good.
How can God ever use you?
Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
And I fell on my knees, and I
said, Oh God, after months of all these
trips and everything, and I thought my heart
was laid, and now this is what you
think of me, and suddenly a scripture came
to me.
Try the spirits to see if they're God's,
and another scripture came immediately.
If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Suddenly I remembered that if any man sin,
there is an advocate, and I stood up,
and I said, Lord, I don't know what
this is.
I can't understand what's happening in my life.
I don't know what's happening in my relationship
with you, but I can't take it anymore.
Even if I am all these things, cleanse
me, forgive me, and the moment I said
that, that spirit began to curse, and I
knew it was the enemy.
I knew it was the accuser that stood
before God, tried to accuse me before the
Heavenly Father that I was not worthy, that
God was too hard.
The enemy had painted that picture in my
mind.
I have lost my pure relationship with the
Father.
You know, suddenly, and I hadn't laughed in
four months, I began to laugh, and I
began to laugh at the top of my
voice, and I could, the Lord said, David,
you said your burden is getting heavy, then
it's your burden, it's not mine, because mine
is easy, my burden is easy, my yoke
is light.
He said, when you get my burden, it
won't weigh you down.
You'll be happy, you'll be well-adjusted, you'll
do just as much.
Now I'm going to show you something, and
the scriptures began to pour just like the
Lord had a dart, shooting all my balloons
down, and I hadn't given my children attention
for four months, and it was three o
'clock in the morning now, and I remember
going into the girl's room, the bunk beds,
and I got Debbie out of the top
bunk, and I just held her, walked out
in the living room area, walking back and
forth, just hugging her and loving her and
trying to make up for all the time
I'd lost, because now it seemed so different,
and she was fast asleep, but so far
from my affection, she held on like a
wire.
Subconsciously, she was holding on to dear love,
and I stepped in the middle of the
living room, and I suddenly, an impulse, drop
her on the floor, right now, just drop
her, let her go, and I was horrified,
and I grabbed her, I would never let
her go, she's my girl, and I love
her.
The Lord said, you're my son, whatever gave
you the idea I'd ever drop you, whatever
gave you the idea that I would ever
let go of my love that I have
for you, as much as you love her,
I'm your heavenly father, I love you in
a more pure love than you could ever
love little Debbie, does she run every time,
is she afraid of you, oh no no,
you ever touch her, except for her own
good, would you ever do her any harm,
would you ever take anything from her, unless
it was for her own good, are you
an honest father, what kind of relationship do
you have with her, I said nothing would
I do for her, except for her good,
I love her, I can feel my love
going out, my whole heart in love to
little Debbie, and suddenly the Lord began to
speak to my heart, and if God marks
iniquities among us who could stand, the Lord
remembers our frame, He knows that we're but
dust, and I laid her down, and I
danced all over the house, singing and shouting
and praising God, and I went over and
woke up to Gwen, I said honey, it's
all over, I'm not mad at God, and
he's not mad at me anymore, everything's all
right, and you know what I did, I
ran all over the house crying, Abba father,
Abba father, the spirit of the Lord had
me cry father, and I'm going to tell
you something friend, the past six years I
have loved him, and he's loved me, I've
not been mad at him, he's not mad
at me, everything is fine, and I'm going
to tell you something friend, there are very
few Christian people who've learned this lesson, that
God loves with all of his being, I
don't care how you feel God, I don't
care how weak you are, I don't care
how fair you are, I don't care how
much temptation you go through, God loves you,
oh, he's loved, I'm no better than I
ever was, but I have a relationship, what
kind of relationship do you have with the
father, I will fear, I said every day,
I will fear, what kind of evil, no
evil, Christians running around scared to death, looking
for demons on every rock, the wicked one
comes and touches me, no he has nothing
in me, that brings me to
the third tragic step, the lack of vision,
he said so I hit it, you know
what he's trying to say, at least I
didn't steal it, I didn't borrow it, I
didn't ask for it, at least I held
on to the end, and he was afraid
of competition, he's afraid if he went out
to the one with five cows, come on
and outside him, now bidding, procrastinating, putting it
off, you know it's shocking how many Christian
people, especially young people, who think they can
just float through life without ever obeying God
and his call, I had a girl last
night at Edmonton, come into the perm, sat
there at this price, and I said did
you come forward to accept Christ, he says
no, I can't, I said why, she said
because of that, and she held up a
ring, I said well who is this, well
he's a married man, he's left his wife,
but he's a Catholic, and he can't marry
me, and it's all mixed up, and I
can't give him up, I want the Lord,
but I can't give it up, she says
I've been putting it off, and putting it
off, and she said I felt real conviction
tonight, she said evangelist Lauren Fox was up
here a year ago, and he got me
on a conviction, I should have done it
then, and now you've got me on a
conviction, I should do it now, but she
said I'll just have to put it off,
so she'll bury it, her decision will be
buried, see, Adam said himself, this talent, this
man hid his talent, but you can't hide
from the call and the touch of God,
and from the obligation, I'll tell you something,
this church and this pastor didn't choose to
sponsor the rallies at Melody Land, that was
a divine call of God, God placed that
burden here, there are dozens of churches, stronger
churches, bigger churches all over Los Angeles, God
could have chosen anyone, God chooses, the deacon
board, the trustees, and everyone involved in this
church, you can either bury it, or you
can invest it, use it to the glory
of God, and I know how I feel,
if there were ever a time that I
heard just one little sound, one little ripple
of anyone saying well we just can't afford
it, then my friend, you are partaker of
one who buries the very talent and the
vision that God lays at your disposal, what
about all those that God has talked to
about your life and about what he wants
you to do, have you become insensitive to
what God wants you to do because you've
not had the vision that he wants for
you, so I hid it in the earth,
a fear of risking, a fear of getting
too involved in the work of the Holy
Spirit, a lot of people say that they
like to come to a church like this
because you know there's freedom, nice choir, everybody
sings joyfully, makes them feel real good, but
they don't want to get too close, a
doctor took me out the other day to
show me this big camp and everything, he
said you know, he said I really enjoy
that, then he's speaking of our two things,
that's really something, I said you're coming out,
he said no I don't think I'm going
to make it, he got too much, he
got a little too close, he couldn't take
it, friends I want to tell you in
closing tonight that it is absolutely imperative that
you break that muzzle and break it tonight,
there are people that should hear right now
the sound of my voice that are all
muzzled, bound and you'll never be able to
be used of God in the position you're
in right now, that relationship you have with
the Lord is not one of true love,
you haven't caught the vision, the right relationship
and there's fear that has you bound and
I suppose with this I'm going to close
right now, if I were able to come
and talk to you personally, invite you into
the office here and have just a five
-minute conference, there are young married couples here
whose marriages have been wrecked and ruined because
there's bonding, oh yeah, nobody would know the
tragedy, nobody knows the tragedy, nobody knows the
turmoil of some souls that are sitting here
right now, nobody knows what is happening in
the lives of some young people here right
now and it amazes me that so few
young people especially are getting out of Jesus
what God intended that we get out of
him, he brings such glorious joy and peace
and I know something I believe I work
for God as much as anybody else, I
feel like I'm doing more for the Lord
now than I did when I had that
bondage and fear and it's such a sinful
thing to get rid of that bondage and
fear, you have to take the initiative, you
have to say I want out of this,
I'm bound, I'm muzzled, I'm not in the
right terms with God, I'm not in the
right relationship with the Lord, I know that
and some of you sitting here now know
that with every part of your being, you
know that your relationship with God is not
right, you know that you don't have the
right relationship with the Lord and you know
there's fear and bondage in your life, I
know tonight, I know so clearly that the
Lord is speaking to some people here right
now about that bondage in your life with
God, he's crushed, he's bound.