...message is one of the Times Square Church
Pulpit series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
Other tapes are available by writing, World Challenge,
P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or
calling 903-963-8626.
None of these messages are copyrighted, and you
are welcome to make copies for free distribution
to friends.
Folks, there's a full gospel.
It's not all joy, it's not all peace,
it's not all happiness, it's not all victory.
There comes a time when God has to
show us His heart, and part of His
heart is the grief He has against sin
in His church among His own people.
And I want to talk about sharing that
grief tonight.
See, things have already gotten very quiet.
Lord, I would never be able to understand
why You put me here tonight with this
particular message I don't know.
I had no way of knowing who's here.
I don't know who's here.
I don't know who walked in here tonight
from another city or from this town, and
Lord, I pray that You help me now
to forget all of that and do what
You told me to do.
Lord, at this church we've learned to hear
Your voice.
We've learned to hear Your correction.
We've learned to hear reproof.
We've learned to hear about victory and joy
and the overcoming life.
All of these wonderful things, but O God,
speak clearly to our hearts tonight.
I ask that You sanctify me, that You
speak clearly to my heart.
Lord, let me be under the blood, the
precious blood of the Lamb, so that the
word I speak comes from the heart of
God.
Lord, I can't invent this kind of message.
I can't bring this out of my own
gut or my own feelings.
Lord, this has to be born in Your
heart, and I pray, Lord, that this church
receive it tonight.
Lord, it's not reproof.
It's a word from God's heart, but Lord
Jesus speak to us.
If we need reproof, reprove us, because we
love Your Word.
We delight in Your Word, so help us.
Sanctify me now.
Give us ears that are sanctified to hear
what the Holy Spirit is saying, and we
will rejoice in Your faithfulness tonight.
In Jesus' name, amen.
I'm convinced, convinced, totally convinced, the only way
that a Christian and a believer can enjoy
the fullness of joy, true joy, I mean
the joy that comes from the heart of
God, the only way you can know that
is to have it on a foundation of
understanding and knowing the grief of God's heart.
Now, let me tell you, I can go
to any church at any time, and I
can hear wonderful singing.
I can hear hand clapping, but there's a
certain sound.
There's not true joy.
There's not true Holy Ghost joy, lasting joy,
the kind that the Holy Ghost gives to
a body, unless that congregation shares the heart
of God in His grief.
Out of that understanding His grief, knowing His
grief, and entering into that grief comes the
true joy and victory of the Holy Ghost.
In the days of Noah, God saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the hearts
of his heart was evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that He'd made
man on the earth, and it grieved him
at his heart.
And the word there in Hebrews, it cut
him, it hurt him, it pained him, it
cut him to the heart.
He saw the wickedness of man.
It was the wickedness of man that grieved,
and cut, and hurt, and bruised the heart
of God.
Isaiah said of Jesus Christ, He is a
man of sorrows, and He's acquainted with grief.
Oh yes, He was the spotless Son of
God, but this man, Christ Jesus, wept.
He understood the heart of His Father.
He knew what godly grief was.
Surely He has borne our griefs, and He
has carried our sorrows.
Isaiah 53, 4.
Jesus Christ carried the grief of His Father.
He entered into the very hurt and pain
of His heavenly Father.
If you go through the Old and New
Testament, you'll find that men who really knew
God, really knew His heart, they were really
intimate with Him, understood what grief was all
about.
You find this in David in the Old
Testament.
Here's a man who really knew what true
joy was.
He rejoiced in Jehovah as few other men
in all the Scripture, but he was born
out of his great grief for the transgressions
he saw in the Lord's people.
Now David wasn't perfect, but he had a
repentant heart, and through that repentance, through that
intimacy with his heavenly Father, God shared his
heart.
And what he saw was not just through
his eyes, he saw through the eyes of
the Holy Spirit.
Folks, you can't grieve over the sin that's
in the church, or in the world, or
in your own heart until you see it
through the eyes of the Lord.
You can't come to Jesus and just say,
well, I want to be free from my
sins so I can have joy, peace, and
eternal life.
You'll never get victory over sin until you
see your sin in the eyes of God
and the grief it causes His heart.
You have to have His grief against sin,
period.
Not just against your failure, personal failure, but
the whole body of sin.
David said, I beheld the transgressors and I
was grieved.
He said, I was watching what's happening among
God's people, and it grieved my heart because
they were not keeping Your Word, Lord.
They weren't abiding by Your Word.
Do not I hate them, O Lord, that
hate Thee?
And am I not grieved with those who
rise up against Thee?
David learned to hate what God hated and
to love what God loved.
And what God detested, David said, I will
detest.
The prophet Amos cried out against those who
are at ease in Zion.
Now here's a man who knew what it
was to grieve for sin.
I want you to go to Amos, the
sixth chapter with me, if you will, please,
in the Old Testament.
The prophet Amos.
And for the new believers, if you get
to Jonah, turn left a few chapters, a
few books, and if you're in Joel, just
keep turning right there.
It's in the middle there.
Amos, the sixth chapter.
Beloved, I think this is probably the one
message the church doesn't want to hear, but
needs more than any other message on the
face of the earth today.
Because we're, folks, before, as soon as you
get there, look this way, please.
I know what the Holy Spirit's been saying
to my heart, prophetically, that the Church of
Jesus Christ is in a transition period right
now.
We're behind, we're between the Eli ministry of
compromise and mixture, about to enter into the
Samuel company ministry of those whose words never
fall to the ground because they are in
prayer and shut in with God.
We're in a transition between a corrupt, adulterous
ministry and church full of mixture.
And we're right in that transition period.
And in that transition period, the denominational church,
the church body that has lost the touch
of God, is going to be moved out
of the picture.
And God's going to bring in a whole
new way of doing things before He comes.
And everything in the Old Testament is a
type and shadow of what He's going to
do in the last days.
And God began to open my eyes on
that this past week, and even sitting here
before I got up to preach, God began
to speak to my heart about the transition,
began to open my eyes to see why
the devil would bring in a laugh and
revival when God is calling for a revival
of grief.
Because the enemy knows that the transition is
taking place.
A transition is in place and every time
that transition has happened, the devil has come
in with a counterfeit.
He's always moved in with something to try
to hinder that work.
Beloved, the call of the Holy Ghost today
is grief over sin in the house of
God.
Anybody can grieve over the sins outside.
Anybody can grieve over the murder rate, and
the homosexuality, and the drug addiction, and the
murder.
And we can grieve over the little Megan
girl that was killed.
We can grieve over those that were killed
in these explosions.
That should be.
We should all grieve over these things.
But I'm talking about God's grief over His
people, over His church.
Read with me, just follow me, Amos 6,
verse 6, verses.
Woe to them that are eased in Zion,
and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which
are named chief of the nations to whom
the house of Israel came.
Skip to verse 3.
Ye that put far away the evil day,
and cause the seed of violence to come
near, that lie upon beds of ivory, and
stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the
lambs out of the flock, and the calves
out of the midst of the stall, and
chant to the sound of the violin, and
invent to themselves instruments of music like David.
They drink wine in bowls, and they anoint
themselves with the chief ointments, but they are
not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
Here's Amos looking at a society that's about
to be destroyed.
Judgment is about to come on the house
of God.
God's about to deal with His church, and
all the leaders, all the religious leaders, and
all of the people that called themselves by
the name of Jehovah.
Here they are in ivory couches, drinking out
of their wine bowls, and singing, inventing new
ways to entertain themselves.
It was a mixture, an absolute mixture.
He said, you ought to be grieving because
judgment is at the door.
You ought to be weeping at what you
see around you.
You're not weeping, you're not grieving.
You're playing games, you're in entertainment, you've lost
the touch of God, and he's screaming, he's
crying here.
He said, you're not grieved.
You are not grieved for the affliction of
Joseph.
The affliction of Joseph was the inroad of
sin, and compromise, and mixture in the house
of God.
He said, I don't find anybody grieving.
I don't find anybody.
Everybody's laughing, everybody's playing, everybody's in entertainment.
He said, why are you not grieving?
Why are you not weeping?
The word here for grief is sickened.
Why are you not heart sick, he's saying.
It's the Hebrew word.
The sin and wrong of God's people is
not sickening your heart.
It doesn't disgust you anymore, because you become
blinded by the good life.
You have all these material things now, and
you don't have your concern that you once
had.
The greatest detriment to the burden of Jesus
Christ and the grief of God is our
modern blessings.
All the good things.
Now folks, God wants to give them to
us if he can trust them with us,
and the truth is that he can't trust
many of us with his me included.
The more I have seen the blessing of
God, the more material things that I am
blessed with, the harder it gets to keep
that burden.
I have to stay on my knees like
it did this past week, get along with
God, and just walk and cry and scream.
Oh God, break my heart.
Don't let me get addicted to the easy
life.
Nehemiah was grieved because he understood something that
nobody else understood.
And folks, when you're set in with God,
and you bear his heart, and you know
his mind, you're going to understand things that
few others understand.
And God will reveal the hideousness of sin,
what Paul called the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
I want you to go to Nehemiah, turn
left for new believers, all the way back
past Saul.
And just before you get to Job, Nestor,
Nehemiah, I want you to go to the
13th chapter of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah was grieved because he understood the evil
that it infiltrated the house of God.
Beloved, let me tell you something, look this
way, I don't think, I don't, I don't
think I understand, I don't think there are
a handful of people on in this nation
that understand the depths of corruption, the depths
of sin that has crept in to the
house of God, the mixture of entertainment, the
mixture of the world, the inroads of divorce,
adultery, fornication, homosexuality.
I had a few dear black pastors tell
me, some of their churches, they can't understand
it, that homosexuals are taking over the whole
music department, moving in, moving in on all
sides, and the pastors are stepping by afraid
to say anything about it or do anything
about it.
I don't think we begin to comprehend what
has happened.
Nehemiah saw what was happening.
I want you to read with me the
verse 9 chapter 13, verses of chapter 13
of Nehemiah.
On that day they read in the book
of Moses in the audience of the people,
therein was found written that the Ammonite and
the Moabite should not come into the congregation
of God forever.
God said no mixture, no idolatry, nothing of
this world, no Ammonite, no heathen, nothing of
this world is to come and be mixed
in my house.
Number two, because they met not the children
of Israel with bread and with water, but
hired Balaam against them that he should curse
them, howbeit our God turned the curse into
a blessing.
Now it came to pass when they had
heard the law that they separated from Israel
all the mixed multitude.
You see when when you are really walking
according to the Word of the Living God,
you will not permit sin in your life
or you will not allow it if you're
a minister in the house of God.
It came to pass when they heard the
law they separated from Israel all the mixed
multitude.
God says no mixture in my house.
Verse four, and before this Elias the priest
having the oversight of the chamber of the
house of our God was allied with Tobiah
and had prepared for him a great chamber
where a fourth time they laid the meat
offerings and frankincense and the vessels and the
tithes of the corn, the new wine so
forth.
Verse six, but in all this time was
I not in Jerusalem.
Verse seven, and I came to Jerusalem and
I understood the evil.
Look at me now, look at those words,
I understood the evil.
Beloved, I want God to help me understand
the evil that is in his house and
I'll show you why in just a minute
why it's important to understand.
I understood the evil that Elias did for
Tobiah in preparing him a chamber in the
courts of the house of God and it
grieved me sore, it grieved me sore.
Therefore I cast forth all the household stuff
of Tobiah out of the chambers, then I
commanded they cleanse the chambers, then thither brought
I again the vessels of the house of
God to meet offering the frankincense.
Now let me tell you the importance of
what I've just read to you.
Elias is the high priest and his name
means unity through compromise.
Anything goes, just keep the peace.
Folks you can join some Pentecostal churches, Baptist
churches, evangelical churches, any kind of person in
your life you can join because the church
that's not walking in the Holy Ghost accepts
anybody.
Anything goes.
Unity through compromise and that's what the ecumenical
movement has become.
It's unity, everything's unity.
Compromise doctrine, compromise anything just in the sake
of love.
It's called a love, I call it a
love trap.
Unity through compromise and this high priest who
wanted unity through at any price through compromise
brought into the house of God.
First of all he took all of the
wine and the oil out of this big
room where it's being reserved and used for
the purpose of the sanctified priest.
He moves that all out.
That represents the true Word of God and
the true anointing of the Holy Ghost and
he moved it out and he brings in,
he brings in Tobiah whose name means prosperity,
pleasure, good life.
Can you figure it out?
Can you see what's happening in American churches
in the past 15 years where the prosperity
message has come in?
The church moved out the convicting preaching of
the Word of God, moved out to prayer
meetings and the waiting on the Lord and
the preaching against sin and now it's sake
of unity, compromise, in comes the gospel of
prosperity and the good life.
Come to Jesus and get rich.
You know we preach the blessing of God
here upon those who walk in humility but
we've always said the blessing of God begins
with the spiritual truth, the spiritual things, the
spiritual riches in Christ Jesus.
See this is, this was a new thing
in God's past.
There was a corrupt ministry now in league
with paganism.
The people began to yearn for prosperity and
for the good life and all now they
forget, they forget there's no more grief for
sin.
There's compromise and mixture in his house.
Elisha the priest having the other side of
the chamber of the house of God was
allied with Tobiah.
He was allied with him.
He was in cahoots.
They were joined together.
Nehemiah understood this evil that was going on
and it was all sponsored by a ministry
that was soft on sin and I came
to Jerusalem and I understood the evil that
they did for Tobiah in preparing him a
chamber in the courts of the house of
God and it grieved me sore.
He said it tore my heart apart, the
grief of God.
He was not acting on some legalistic impulse.
He was seeing through God's eyes and he's
feeling God's eyes.
God's looking down and he feels the grief
of God.
God's looking at his church and he sees
such foolishness.
He sees such wickedness.
He sees his own servants serving now just
for what they can get.
There's no weeping.
There's no brokenness.
Everybody is light and frivolous and it sickens
Nehemiah because Nehemiah had been shut in with
God and he'd heard the heart of God
and he shared his grief.
Paul had that ministry.
He looked over the backsliding of God's people
and he warned for many are walking of
whom I told you so often and I
tell you now even with weeping that they
have become the enemies of the cross of
Christ whose end is destruction, whose God is
their belly, whose glory is their shame, who
mind earthly things.
He's talking about the church and the word
weeping here in grief is a loud sobbing,
a piercing sobbing cry out of a broken
heart, a piercing cry out of a broken
heart.
He said I tell you with my heart
breaking I cry.
Their God's at their bellies now.
Their glory's in their shame.
Their minds are on earthly things now.
They don't seek me anymore like they used
to.
Nehemiah's just a vessel intimate with God.
He comes forth with this and it wasn't
a silent despair.
A lot of people have silent despair.
A lot of people are resigned.
They sigh with that resignation.
Oh God, isn't it awful.
But so the Apostle Paul, he said I
cried to the church.
I screamed a piercing cry.
The minister of grief was Samuel's ministry.
Now folks, I'm going to tell you there
is a minister of grief and God gives
it to certain ones.
I don't know how he chooses it's a
wonderful calling but God has a minister.
He's called the Samuel company and they're very
rare.
Oh to God that he allowed me to
be a part of that company.
Here's a young man called to that not
his own grief or grief of humanity but
the deep unfathomable grief of the heart of
God.
You see God was grieved over the backsliding
in Shiloh.
Here's an Eli ministry.
Here's a man the Bible says a trembles
for the ark of God.
He trembles at the ark of God but
he's trembling at tradition.
It was just tradition because that ark had
no, didn't have enough spiritual meaning to him
to give him a voice against sin.
He's got two sons are committing adultery, committing
fornication right at the tabernacle gate.
Two sons who represent a backslidden ministry who
can't cry out against sin because of the
wickedness of their own heart.
A corrupt ministry and God is about to
remove his hand from Shiloh.
There's a transition about to take place.
A new ministry is coming in after the
heart of God.
A righteous ministry is coming now from the
heart of God and God's about to bypass
this fat backslidden, easy on sin generation.
He's about to move it away.
Here's a man who trembles for the ark,
goes out and fights God's battles but he
has no power, he has no authority, he
has no discernment whatsoever.
God's about to do a new thing and
he has no idea, no concept of it
even happening.
He doesn't even know what's about to take
place.
Totally blind to what God's saying and what
God is doing.
He only had a token hatred for sin.
The Bible makes it very clear that, in
fact, God sent to Eli an unnamed prophet
and he said, you honor your sons above
me to make yourself fat with the chiefest
of all the offerings.
You know the only thing that this man
could say to his sons?
He knew that his sons were committing fornication.
He knew that they were sons of Belial.
The Bible says they didn't know the Lord.
Can you imagine this?
They are ministering in the house of God.
They are offering the sacrifices.
In other words, they're standing in the pulpit
and the Bible said they didn't even know
the Lord, didn't even know Him.
They were filthy and they were still ministering
the things of God.
They don't know the heart of God and,
folks, God is going to do away with
that ministry.
But the Eli ministry that God's dealing with
today, this soft on sin generation of ministers.
Now, I'm not painting every minister with that,
but I'm talking about the denominations today.
Listen, this is all the protest this man
could offer.
Name my sons.
It's no good report that I hear you
make the Lord's people to transgression.
Naughty, naughty.
Too bad.
You shouldn't do that.
It's not nice.
That's the candy-cotton preaching coming from many
pulpits today.
Folks, that's not nice.
It doesn't look good.
No anointing, no holy unction, no fear and
dread of a holy God.
And that's why we have a church today
that's become sensual, worldly and self-serving, because
they've made themselves fat with the chiefest of
the offerings of Israel.
You know why Eli couldn't reprove his sons?
Because when the offering was brought to the
door of the tabernacle and the animal was
slain, a portion of that went into a
seething pot, a big boiling pot, and there
was the three-pronged hook, a long snickered
three-pronged hook, and after it was soddened
or cooked, boiled, the boiled meat would be
brought out.
Whatever came out on the three-pronged prong
went into the priest, onto the priest's table
that belonged to the priest.
That was their portion.
But you see, these young men didn't want
sodden flesh.
They didn't want boiled meat.
They didn't want the bad cuts.
What they were doing at the temple gate,
they were cutting out the filet mignon.
This is the truth.
They cut out the filet mignon, and this
was going right on to Eli's table, and
that's how he got fat.
He deals with his sons, no more filet
mignon.
You see, this is what happens when you
get into it, when churches and ministries get
into that trap, and they build magnificent buildings,
and the budget goes higher and higher.
Who would take a strong man of God
to stand in the pulpit and point out
to some big money giver in the church
that just gave a million dollars, and he
knows that that man's living in adultery, to
point a finger to him, not in public,
but go to him and say, John, you're
living in sin.
We can't endure that.
I can't have you on my deacon board
anymore.
I don't care if you gave a million
dollars.
You're living in sin.
I'm here to help you, but it can't
go on.
The ministry that's been soft on sin has
lost its discernment.
Here's a godly woman by the name of
Hannah.
She's weeping bitterly in the house of God
at Silo, because you see, when a church
dispensation is in transition, the new thing God's
going to do is birthed in weeping.
There's always a Hannah.
There's a cry of a Hannah, and she
is at the altar daily, crying out, because
God's birthing a new movement.
His birth in the womb of this crying,
weeping woman, not some laughing saint.
I tell you to your face, I abhor.
I abhor this foolish laughing and
mockery of a holy God that's about to
bring something new to his church.
It is going to be born out of
the womb of a weeping church.
Oh God, forgive us.
She's in the spirit.
Now Hannah, she's faking her heart.
Only her lips moved.
No silliness.
This is the end of side one.
You may now turn the tape over.
Only her lips moved, but her voice was
not heard.
Therefore Eli thought she was drunk.
You talk about losing discernment.
Didn't even know that God was birthing some
new work.
How blind can we be?
She's in the spirit, conversing with God under
divine unction, and this man doesn't even know
what's happening.
He's standing on the threshold of a profound
new work of God that's going to affect
Israel's future.
He's so out of touch with God, he
thinks his flesh.
Eli doesn't know it, but he's become so
indulgent, so comfortable, so steeped in cold traditionalism.
He doesn't have the slightest hint that God's
about to do away with his ministry.
He's out of touch with God.
He has no fresh word to give the
people.
He's facing a people consumed with lust, addicted,
that they've become agents of Satan and blind
to the impending judgments are about to fall.
Folks, when God's about to do something, there's
a reflection of his heart.
According to his eternal purposes, he brings forth
a weeping, broken-hearted ministry, and then he
brings out of that a ministry.
He brings out ministers of the gospel that
are going to be his true voice in
a time of spiritual declension.
This company is going to be made up
of women who care for nothing of tradition.
They're not going to promote denominational things.
It's not going to come through any denomination,
believe me.
It is not going to come through any
system at all.
God had to go outside the system and
find a Samuel outside of the denomination, outside
of the church.
He found this young, broken-hearted young man,
and he hears from God.
He's been shut in with the Lord, and
God speaks.
God told Samuel he's going to judge this
old house, this old way.
For I have told him I will judge
his house forever.
He's speaking now.
God's speaking to Samuel about the Eli ministry.
I've told him that I will judge his
house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth
because his sons made themselves vile, and he
restrained them not.
He restrained them not.
He was afraid to deal with sin.
Folks, there's a day of judgment coming when
every minister of the gospel goes to stand
before the judgment seat and give an account.
I know that more than anything else.
I have to stand one day and give
an account, not of my own life, but
of my preaching.
I've preached to you and Brother Carter's preaching
this pulpit, the covenant.
We've preached the priesthood of Christ.
We've preached the security of those who walk
in faith before God.
We've talked about the blessedness of the blood.
We've covered just about everything that can be
covered in this pulpit, but I tell you
now that we must not forget, never forget,
God's grief against sin in his house and
in our own lives, and that God raises
up ministers of the gospel to remind us,
and that's a sign of his faithfulness to
anybody, any church body.
That's faithfulness.
I wouldn't want to go to a church
where there wasn't a word that convicted me.
I want to go to God's house and
be convicted of everything in my life that's
unlike Jesus Christ.
I don't want to hear some preacher whisper
sweet reassurances that God loves me.
I know that, but I don't want somebody
to tell me God loves me in my
sin.
I want to, God does love me in
my sin, but I don't want him to
tell me it's okay.
I don't even want to intimate that.
I want to have conviction of the Holy
Spirit, then know how through the power of
the Holy Ghost to find victory, hallelujah.
We don't have that grief of God in
our pulpits today.
Now, the scripture says Samuel told, speak of
Eli, Samuel told him everything and hid nothing
from him.
This is what the Holy Spirit did with
me about the reason I didn't want to
preach this tonight, and the Lord said, well,
are you going to tell him everything?
Will you tell him everything?
Not just part of my gospel, but the
whole gospel, and I said, yes, I will,
because the message of the Samuel company is
not a pleasant message sometimes.
The Bible said Samuel feared to tell Eli
the vision, and originally he trembled or he
grieved because of what he'd seen and heard,
because he's got to go to what represents
the picture of godliness and dignity and righteousness.
Here's an old man of God that's walked
for years with God, and he knows that
judgment is coming.
He's got to stand up.
He's got to protest, and folks, when the
Samuel company comes, you will know that your
church or this church is in transition and
coming in.
It's moving out of the Eli ministry into
the Samuel ministry.
You and I will know we're getting there
when this protest against sin in your heart
and against the church, in the church of
Jesus Christ, becomes more than a sigh, but
a loud protest, no matter what happens, no
matter what the consequences of protest.
The Lord said to Samuel, behold, I will
do a thing in Israel at which both
ears of everyone who hears it shall tingle.
He said, I'm going to do something that's
going to make the people won't believe it.
They're going to look at my house and
say, why, why would God do that?
Why would so many ministers be moved out
of the way?
Why would God be doing this to his
church, to his people?
They don't understand it.
He said, it's going to cause their ears
to tingle, but God says, I'm moving.
I'm going to do what I promised to
do in the last days, hallelujah, through the
pouring out of the Holy Ghost.
God is going to sanctify his church.
He's going to sanctify his pulpit.
And to the very end of his ministry,
Samuel bore this grief of God over his
people.
Remember when Israel began to lust for a
king, they wanted to be just like all
the nations, and that's the reason we have
what we have in our churches today, because
we want to be just like the world,
just like the world.
And listen to Samuel.
He falls on his knees.
He's grieved.
God shares his grief with him, and he's
speaking for God now.
Here's all of Israel gathered together.
They're clamoring.
They're not totally dependent on God anymore.
And folks, that's what happens when sin enters
the church.
It takes away, robs it of its faith.
The church no longer is intimate with Christ,
no longer dependent wholly on God, dependent on
the Holy Spirit, but running around with schemes
and plans and dreams and networking and strategizing
and committee meetings, trying in the flesh and
sweat, trying to make it rather than depend
on God, Almighty God.
When Abraham was covenant, when God made covenant
with Abraham, he didn't tell him what he's
going to do.
He just said, Abraham, I'm God Almighty.
He didn't tell him what he was going
to do.
He just said, I'm God Almighty.
That's all you need, to trust that I'm
Almighty God.
He said, well then what will my reward
be seeing that I don't have a son?
He said, I will be your reward.
The church doesn't need anything else, but God
Almighty on His throne.
You don't need any more than that.
Glory to God.
Victory over sin, God Almighty.
I am God Almighty.
I'm your reward.
I'm everything you need.
You don't have to turn anywhere else, but
now they're turning to a king.
And the Lord said to Samuel, hearken to
the voice of the people and all they
send to thee, for they have not rejected
thee, but they have rejected me, that I
should not reign over them.
Now therefore, hearken unto the voice, albeit yet,
listen to this, protest solemnly unto them and
show them the manner of the king that
shall reign over them.
He said, you've got to make a protest.
Beloved, when the Samuel company is where it
should be and coming into its fullness, you
will hear that protest, solemn protest against the
mixture, against the sin and the corruption and
the individual speaking in the pulpit and in
the pew.
There'll be this protest.
That's the mark of the Samuel company that
comes forth weeping, comes forth to do, to
bring Israel into a new realm of holiness
and victory.
It's going to come right in the midst
of this clamor to be like the world,
to have a king that we may be
just as other nations.
Now let me close with this.
A call to grief is really a call
to rejoicing.
I started out by saying you can't know
true joy until you know the heart of
God and his grief.
And those who sob over sin in the
church are often called doomsayers and doomsdayers.
I used to be called upon by the
Lord to prophesy so much before I came
to this church.
And I got weary of hearing it everywhere,
even among the assemblies of God and letters
and calls from ministers.
And they said, Dave Wilkinson never smiles.
He's so negative.
He's the big doomsday, morose, sad preacher.
He's getting old before his time.
Well, they don't know me.
They don't know any preacher that's called to
prophesy.
They don't know that though you carry that
burden, the grief of God, and I have
to acknowledge I don't have it like I
did.
I'm praying diligently, God, don't let me get
away from that.
Don't let, don't let any blessing, don't let
anything of this good life rob me of
that brokenness and that grief of the heart
of God against sin so that I can
stand in the pulpit and I can preach
it in love and authority and stand at
the very gates of hell and say to
those in Times Square Church, turn around.
God knows where you're at.
He loves you.
Turn around, forsake your sin and get back.
Pastor Carter and I've been called to set
up church right at the gates of hell.
We're right outside those gates.
We've got the Word of God in our
hands.
We've been on our knees and we're going
to stand here and tell you what's wrong
and we're going to bless you, yes, but
we're also going to tell you about the
grief of God against sin.
But when we truly repented, we come into
that grief fully.
Those who grieve with God are given by
God as a gift the true joy of
Jehovah, the joy of Jehovah.
Hallelujah.
Even in the most evil days, they know
that God is going to honor them with
his presence if they are willing to accept
his grief.
You'll know the presence of God like you've
never known before and you can say with
Habakkuk, though all else fails, my heart is
going to rejoice in God alone.
Let me read it to you.
I'm reading it from Helen Sparrow's original Hebrew.
Although the fig tree shall not fruit, neither
shall be any provision on the vines.
The produce of the olive shall fail.
The fruits will not yield subsistence.
The flocks shall be cut off from the
field.
Neither shall there be any herd in the
stalls.
Yet will I leap for joy in Jehovah.
I'll exult in the God of my salvation
because Jehovah has now become my strength.
Will you stand please?
Jehovah has become my strength.
I will joy in the Lord even though
I know his grief.
Hallelujah.
Glory be to God.
Hmm.
Now beloved, this is not the kind of
message that will make you want to shout
right now.
I'll tell you when you'll shout.
When God, when you say, I've heard a
message tonight, and I don't want it to
go in one ear and out the other.
If you will go home tonight before you
go to bed, and I'll do the same,
don't forget it.
And just get alone with the Lord and
thank him for all his blessings.
He delights in blessing you.
There's no problem with that.
But say, oh God, have my blessings, has
a good life robbed me of your heart?
Do I see things happening around me even
in the church that don't bother me anymore,
and it just rolls off my back?
Am I unconcerned now?
And all I want is to hear a
good word from the Lord, from me, my
family, and my friends.
I just want the input of God speaking
encouragement to me all the time.
Yes, he does encourage.
We preach a lot of encouragement from this
Pope, and you've heard a lot of it
today.
But oh God, I don't want to be
able to sin in my life without grieving
over it.
I want to feel your grief for it,
and I want obey you, and I want
victory over sin, not because the good feeling
and the peace I get from it, but
because I know it brings joy to your
heart.
And Lord, when I see what's happening to
the church body today, you folks, if you
and I are where we should be in
intimacy with Jesus, it's impossible to be intimate
with Jesus without sharing his grief.
Impossible.
You tell me you know the heart of
Jesus, then you're going to grieve over the
sin in the church.
You're going to grieve.
But folks, you should be in a place,
every one of us, that we could go
to any meeting anywhere on the face of
the earth and deserve immediately the spirit of
that meeting.
You should be able to deserve whether the
joy is genuine that comes from brokenness and
weeping, or whether it's that hollow laughter that
comes from not being willing to pay the
price, being shut in with God, and seeking
his face, and feeling his grief against sin.
You should be able in this church to
detect anyone who stands in this pulpit, whether
they have the touch of God and they've
come from a broken spirit and a contrite
heart.
That's one of the reasons Pastor Carter is
one of my favorite preachers, because I hear
the brokenness.
The first time I was attracted to this
ministry, God's given to Pastor Conlon, is because
of a message when a cry becomes a
prayer.
I heard a cry.
I heard a broken heart.
I want that broken heart, and folks, we
need that.
We need that brokenness, and then when we
have that, that's why I believe we have
so many that have entered into that.
That's why I believe there's such a genuine
joy in this church.
We have people come and sit here and
say, I've never experienced, never seen such joy
in all my life.
Folks, that joy is birthed in the womb
of a broken heart and a contrite spirit
before God.
Now, here's my invitation to you tonight.
I got a little loud here, didn't I?
I'm sorry, but you know, I don't look
like it.
If you're standing here now, up in the
balcony on the main floor, for that matter,
choir, anybody, you say, Pastor David, I don't,
I don't have the grief.
All I wanted was happiness.
Folks, genuine happiness will not break forth in
you.
Genuine joy, the kind that can't be taken
from you.
It'll last till Jesus comes to see you
through any kind of situation through this that
I'm preaching about tonight.
If you, if you, if you're like me,
I've acknowledged before I preach this, I've been
confessing all afternoon, oh God, I used to
walk this city just weeping and crying and
broken.
You can't produce that, but you have to
get diligent before God and go alone with
Him and say, God, don't let me get
away.
Don't let the good life, don't let all
your blessings, some of you guys from Timothy
house, you're on the street, you were, you
were messed up and everything else, and from
Sarah house, and God begins to bless you
and begin to do things, open your mind
and give you health and strength and everything
else.
Thank God for all that.
Give Him thanks, but say, oh God, give
me a burden for those just like me
out on the streets.
Don't let me forget to grieve over those
that are still bound by sin.
Folks, that's, we're not going to be on
the streets, we're not going to be soul
witnesses, we're not going to be winning souls
until we bear God's grief for the sin
over the lost, and we will not pray
for the church as we should, not just
this church, but the whole church body until
we grieve over the sin that we all
know is there.
I'm going to just open the altar because
that's all I know to do tonight.
If God spoke in your heart tonight and
said, Brother Dave, I want God to break
my heart, I want God to give me
a true grief for sin, and then I
want to know the true joy that comes
from a totally repentant heart.
If you've got a sin in your life,
if you've got a habit that's still hanging
on, it's just latched itself on you, so
Brother Dave, I want to be free.
Come and join these now.
If you don't know Jesus, if you're not
saved, if you're backslidden, come with these that
are coming down the aisle right now.
I know God wants to do a good
work in your heart tonight.
In your Holy Spirit now, you've not come
to condemn us, you've come to stir us,
to stir our hearts.
Lord, for your church, for your people, for
this church, for our own hearts, Lord, that
there would be nothing in our lives unlike
you, that we become more Christ-like in
all our ways, but oh God, share your
heart with us.
I want everybody that wants to share the
heart of Jesus.
Look at me, all of you that came
forward here right now, I'm not asking you
to try to work something up, to try
to force tears, or to try to force
some kind of a feeling.
There's nobody here calling you to act sad
and put on a long face, but there
has to be some cry inside, something deep
inside your heart, down, down in the innermost
of your being, that says, oh God, I
don't want anything in this world to rob
me of hearing your voice and knowing what
you feel.
I want to feel what you feel and
speak what you speak, and I want to
move with you, Lord.
I want to be, I want to know,
I want to be a vessel that can
be used of God.
You don't have to be some great evangelist.
If you would just get alone, if you'd
spend quality time, and those that are praying
it, in your prayer time, why don't you
just look up to the Lord and say,
Lord Jesus, I want to know your heart.
Show me, show me, give me, and I
tell you, if you begin to pray for
his church, just begin to pray for his
church.
Begin to pray for the church of Jesus
Christ, and as you do, he will open
your eyes and your understanding, and God will
move on your heart, and the Holy Ghost
is the one who does the melting.
He's the one who does the breaking.
You can't force it, but I do know
it.
I'm speaking just for myself.
When I face the truth, and I'm convicted
by that truth, I go to God.
I say, I don't care what it takes.
I'll put everything aside, Lord.
I'm going to have this out with you.
I don't want to get cold in my
heart.
I don't want to get backslidden in my
heart.
I don't want materialism to overtake my life.
I don't want the things of this world,
all the good things you've given to me,
oh God, to make me comfortable and fat
spiritually like Eli.
I want to be a Samuel.
I want to be hearing your voice.
I want to come out of the womb
of tears and brokenness.
That's why every one of you standing here
in this church tonight, because this church was
born in the womb of brokenness and tears.
For months and months, in a little secret
closet, a green carpet stained with tears, and
God wants to birth something new in your
life, giving you a brokenness.
Oh, what God can do with a broken
heart and a contrite spirit.
God, that's what we're talking about tonight.
God, give me a broken heart and a
contrite spirit.
Thank you for your blessings.
God's not trying to condemn you of that,
but say, oh God, don't let it rob
me.
Don't let it take away from me your
heart.
Lift up your hands.
Pray it with me.
Jesus, thank you for your blessings.
Thank you for Christ.
Father, thank you for Jesus and for sending
the Holy Ghost.
Now forgive me for forgetting what you have
done.
Open my eyes and my understanding.
Don't let me get cold.
Break my heart.
Melt my spirit.
Keep me humble and broken before your word.
Cleanse me, Jesus.
I give you everything in my heart.
I give you my sins.
I give you my unbelief.
Lord, hold me.
Embrace me.
Talk to me.
Show me your heart.
I want to know who you are.
I want to know what you feel.
I don't want to live for myself.
I want to live for you, Jesus.
I want to weep with you.
I don't want to rejoice with you.
I want to do it your way, Lord.
I want to thank you right now.
Just give him thanks and give him praise.
This is the conclusion of the tape.