This message is one of the Times Square
Pulpit series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
Other tapes are available by writing to World
Challenge, PO Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or
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...in the congregation.
So I really start searching my heart.
And it was all week long.
I finally didn't know what to entitle this
message, but what God first told me, I'm
going after something in you.
So that's what we're going to preach about.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, You are going after something.
You want us.
You love us so much.
You're digging down deep.
Oh Holy Spirit, I stand here now as
your servant, one of the shepherds of this
flock, and I pray that you give us
power and authority over every evil spirit, every
wild spirit, everything that's unlike you.
I take the dominion, the authority of the
name of Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory.
Lord, I pray the message tonight will have
the unction, the anointing, that it will pierce
and convict and it will heal and encourage.
Lord Jesus, we thank you that we don't
have to be afraid when we sit under
the Word because our hearts are open.
Truly open to you.
Hallelujah.
Now Lord, dig down deep.
Go to the very depths of our soul
tonight.
Lord, we are honestly hungry for your truth.
Lord, we tremble at your Word.
We really tremble at your Word.
Holy Spirit, come on man, anoint me.
Give me strength.
The power of Jesus Christ, the anointing of
the Holy Ghost.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
Many great lessons can be learned by studying
the history of Israel.
You know that.
And they're examples to us, the Bible said,
upon whom the ends of the world are
come.
There are examples.
Now, for 23 years, Jeremiah stood before Israel
and said, God's going to judge you and
you're going into captivity to Babylon for 70
years.
70 years.
And I want you to listen to their
response to this prophet.
I want you to go to 2 Chronicles
36 and we're going to start reading at
the 14th verse.
Now remember, for 23 years, this message has
been preached.
A lot of people say, well, Brother Wookson,
you wrote a book, The Vision.
There are a number of things they haven't
fulfilled yet.
Here's a man who prophesied for 23 years
and nobody would listen.
23 years, this message went out and here's
their response.
Moreover, all the chief of the priests...
Verse 14.
Moreover...
This is 2 Chronicles 36 chapter.
Moreover, all the chief of the priests and
the people transgressed very much after all the
abominations of the heathen and polluted the house
of the Lord which He had hallowed in
Jerusalem.
And the Lord God of their fathers sent
to them by His messengers rising up early
betimes and sending because He had compassion on
His people and on His dwelling place.
But they mocked the messengers of God.
That's especially Jeremiah.
In fact, they had four prophets.
They had Haggai, they had Zechariah, and they
had Ezra and Nehemiah.
They mocked the messengers of God and despised
His words and misused His prophets until the
wrath of the Lord rose against His people
till there was none...
till there was no remedy.
Therefore He brought upon them the king of
the Chaldees who slew their young men with
a sword in the house of their sanctuary
and had no compassion upon young men or
maiden, old man, or him that stooped for
age.
He gave them all into His hand.
And all the vessels of the house of
God great and small and the treasures of
the house of the Lord all them He
brought to Babylon.
And they burnt the house of God.
They break down the wall of Jerusalem and
burn all the palaces thereof with fire and
destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.
And them that had escaped from the sword
carried He away to Babylon where they were
servants to Him and His sons until the
reign of the kingdom of Persia.
Let me stop right there.
This is their answer.
They turned down the prophets and they did
go into exile for 70 years.
For 70 years they're in exile.
And when the 70 years are fulfilled and
I'm going to go through it very fast
to set the stage.
After 70 years the prophet Daniel stood up
and he began to prophesy among the people.
And in 2 Chronicles 36 22 and 23
you find out that at the end of
70 years God's always on time.
I'll tell you folks God has a time
clock.
He never misses a moment.
Every judgment, everything God does is on His
calendar and on His clock and He never
misses a beat.
At the end of 70 years, verse 22.
Now in the first year of Cyrus king
of Persia this is the end of the
70 years that the word of the Lord
spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be
accomplished the Lord stirred up the spirit of
Cyrus king of Persia.
He made a proclamation throughout all of His
kingdom and put it also in writing and
said Cyrus king of Persia all the kingdoms
of the earth hath the Lord God of
heaven given me and He hath charged me
to build Him a house in Jerusalem which
is in Judah.
Who is there among you of all the
people?
The Lord His God be with you and
let Him go up.
Now this invitation was to everybody.
He invited all the Jews that had been
assimilated in Babylon for 70 years to go
on up to the land.
But the majority of the Jews adapted to
the way of the Babylonians they went to
their idolatry and they sought after the easy
life in Babylon and they rejected the word
come out of her my people that you
may not be partakers of her sins that
you receive not of her plagues.
Cyrus declared who is there among you?
Let Him go up.
God had stirred His heart just on time.
Now every generation has had the spirit of
God stirring up a remnant.
God has always had a remnant from cover
to cover in this book and we I
believe are in the last remnant.
But God that remnant is not some special
people who are super saints.
When I talk about a remnant I talk
about a people wholly devoted to Jesus Christ
who are walking in His righteousness who have
been detached from this world wholly given to
the heart of Christ and the Lord has
always had a remnant.
He stirs up this remnant and I'll tell
you I believe this stirring is happening right
now it's happening in China it's happening in
Eastern Europe and all the communist countries.
In fact today the leadership of Russia including
Gorbachev has almost come to the conclusion that
glasnost and perestroika has failed and it's torn
apart the Russian Empire.
It's a confession.
And how could that happen?
God is stirring up hearts.
God is moving things apart.
He's torn down the iron curtain the bamboo
in China comes down next because God is
stirring up.
The Holy Spirit is making a proclamation those
among you this day who have been stirred
in your heart go out of Babylon get
out of that go into the fullness of
Jesus Christ you'll be revived and you'll be
restored.
And this was the message.
There's a revival coming there's a restoration a
true restoration of a holy remnant but you
have to get out of Babylon.
Now this restoration that we're going to flip
the page to Ezra and we're going to
study the book of Ezra tonight and I'm
not I'm going to try to just hit
the high points but all what precious lessons
there are in this book of Ezra.
I believe Ezra, Nehemiah are the books of
restoration and revival.
All right, let me start with some of
the lessons that I see and want to
share with you.
Now, you know that 42,360 people only
represented the remnant.
Out of all of those 70 years and
they had large families I don't know how
many there were left in Babylon but the
scripture says that only a holy seed of
remnant left Babylon.
They had something in their hearts yet.
Now this is a new generation many of
the old generation have died off.
This is a new generation they've heard their
fathers talk about it.
There's still a few princes left.
There are a few who saw the glory
of a former time a former temple in
Jerusalem.
And 42,360 people head for Jerusalem.
They head back to Judah and Jerusalem.
What a picture!
Now listen, here's the first lesson.
They were delivered out of Babylon into a
scene of ruin.
That must have been quite a sight.
42,360 people approaching Judah.
They come to the border of Judah and
these people have been delivered.
They're out of Babylon.
They have a heart for God.
And in fact, these people had to pray
that God protect them from the robbers and
the thieves that were hiding behind all the
roads and all the bushes.
And they were not attacked.
They believed God for protection.
And they entered the land and Judah is
in ruin.
There's famine.
The wells are covered and dry.
The walls are down everywhere.
The houses are abandoned.
And the only ones there are the Samaritans
a mixed group from various lands that the
kings of the empire had taken out Israel
and put in others who later became the
Samaritans.
Called the Samaritans.
And there was nothing left when they came
into Judah.
It was ruin everywhere.
There were no houses to be occupied.
The vineyards were dead.
The limbs were dry.
The fields were unplowed.
There were no seeds.
The trees were ruined.
There was nothing but ruin everywhere they looked.
But the hard spot, wait till we get
to Jerusalem.
And what a sight it must have been
when that remnant approached, came over the hill
and looked at a city of ruin.
There's nothing there.
The walls are down.
The walls are laying crumbled.
The temple, that once glorious temple is leveled
to the ground.
The palaces, everything Solomon built is gone.
The walls are gone.
The wells are dry.
Total ruin.
Can you imagine the people and all the
children looking around and they're walking in the
piles of sifting sand and ruin.
Everywhere they look there's ruin.
And can you just hear some of them
say, we have been delivered from Babylon for
this?
We're brought into a scene of ruin.
Now I tell you folks, there's a great
truth that's going to bear witness to many
of you in this place tonight.
What happened when God called you out of
a Babylonian system?
You were in a Babylonian church system maybe.
You were in a system where there was
corruption.
The Lord stirred your heart.
And God told you that there's a remnant
He's raising up in the land.
And God began to attach you to the
true body of Jesus Christ.
And the first place the Holy Ghost will
take you when you leave Babylon is to
a scene of ruin.
He'll open your eyes.
He'll give you discernment.
And you'll see in the church, you'll see
in the religious system ruin like you never
saw before.
You never saw it before because your eyes
weren't open.
You were still in Babylon.
It's when you leave Babylon that God opens
your eyes.
And then you begin to see all of
the ruin that you never saw before.
You see the hype.
You see the entertainment.
You see the stinking professionalism in the house
of God.
You see sleepy, lazy Christians you never saw
before.
You look inside your own heart and you
see filth you never saw before.
You see ruin.
When God first began to stir my heart
a number of years ago, I was a
part of that system.
And I'm not knocking any church.
It's a whole worldly system that's crept into
every church.
All around the world.
And when I first got so excited about
Jesus, He began to have me look inside.
He took me to my Jerusalem.
And He took me to that temple that
had fallen.
This is the temple.
And I saw the ruin in this temple.
You see the people saying, there was a
time there was a temple here.
And there was such glory they couldn't even
stand to minister.
It's all gone.
It's dead.
It's dry.
It's empty.
You can go to many churches and say
that the glory of the Lord used to
be in this denomination.
The glory of the Lord used to be
with His people.
He's departed.
Now there's nothing but ruin.
The walls are down.
The demon powers are in.
You see the ruin.
When I first came into a closer walk
with Jesus.
And I said, I'm not going to preach
sermons anymore.
I want to know the heart of Jesus.
And I began to seek the Lord.
I took a year off and began to
pray and seek God.
And folks, I thought, well, now that I've
been delivered and God really delivered me from
many of my freshly ways.
I'm still working and He's going to dig
tonight while I'm preaching.
But I tell you what, I thought, man,
everybody be excited.
I was seeing things and you go and
talk to some people out there, they don't
know what you're talking about.
And there were many people in Jerusalem I
know that day said, this is hopeless.
This is hopeless.
There's no hope.
And many of those people, in fact, the
majority of them evidently took off and did
their own little thing.
They went out and built their own little
houses and they said, I don't want to
be a part of any body anymore.
I don't want to be a part of
this thing.
There's too much ruin.
There's too much death.
There's destruction everywhere.
Some of these remnant souls started to go
it alone.
They went off.
And they started building their own houses and
putting up their own roofs.
And God sent Haggai, the prophet, and he
had a stinging rebuke.
They had been sent there to build something.
The remnant was to rise up and build.
Now they're off.
Everyone's out building their own house.
No one's touching Jerusalem.
The foundation is still there.
They've given up too much ruin.
The prophet Haggai comes along, Haggai 1, 4,
and says, is it time for you, O
ye, to dwell in your roofed houses, and
this my house lie waste?
You see, God doesn't deliver us out of
a Babylonian system for us to go and
do it alone and give up on the
true church.
He doesn't allow you to go out with
your little family, your few little friends, and
start your own little thing over here and
forget the whole body of Jesus Christ, the
body that's in China and Africa and India,
all united at the head through Jesus.
Jesus the head.
You've got to see the church.
There is a true church.
It's not an organized church.
It's the invisible body of Jesus on this
earth.
Pure and precious.
Haggai said, you run every man to his
own house, while my house lies in waste.
You see, the Lord Jesus is building a
house right now.
He's building one right here in New York
City.
He's going to do it as in the
past with a holy remnant, willing to work
and clean up the mess.
Did you hear what I said?
Willing to work and clean up the mess.
Go you to the mountain, bring wood, and
build my house, and I'll be glorified, saith
the Lord.
There comes a time you have to get
your eyes off the ruin and get your
eyes on what God's eternal purpose is.
You know, Zerubbabel could have walked all through
there, day after day, week after week, month
after month, with his hands behind him in
despair, saying the ruin, the ruin, it's awful.
It's hopeless, it's hopeless.
And folks, I came to that place almost.
God spared me.
I saw so much ruin, preached so much
about the ruin, and I'll never stop talking
about the backsliding and the compromise in the
house of God.
But there comes a time you can't just
preach about the ruins.
You have to get out of that, quit
talking about it, quit thinking about it, and
get into the heart of Jesus about what
he wants to do in building a new
body, a true church of Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
You know, they looked around and they began
to dig and start to come back to
the house of God and think of God's
purpose for them, and God sent them a
message.
He said, Be strong and work, all ye
people of the land, for I am with
you.
This is Haggai 2, 3 to 9.
Just listen.
Who is left among you that saw this
house in her first glory?
And how do you see it now?
Is it not in your eyes in comparison
of it as nothing?
But once more I will shake the heavens
and the earth.
I will fill this house with glory.
The glory of the latter house shall be
greater than of the former, saith the Lord.
Now, the prophet Haggai is not talking about
that second temple being built there.
That's not it.
The prophets, even Jesus said, speaking of our
days since his time, since the birth of
Jesus, this wonderful hour of grace, he said
the prophets yearn to see what you see
and what you hear.
They would love to have your discernment.
They would like to know what you know.
All of their lifetime they were looking in
trying to figure out what is God saying.
They prophesied to this generation.
Haggai didn't know he was talking about another
house.
He's talking about the house that Jesus is
building.
This latter house, this Jesus house with him
at the head is going to have greater
glory than every preceding house.
That which is built on Jesus Christ the
solid rock.
He said I'm going to shake everything and
be shaken.
And I'll fill this house with glory and
the glory of the latter house will be
greater than of the former, said the Lord.
Hallelujah.
He was prophesying to us.
Now, first thing they do is to build
an altar in the midst of all the
rubbish and the ruin.
Go to Ezra 3, please.
Third chapter of Ezra.
Now remember, the land is full of violence,
robbers and thieves hiding everywhere.
There are ominous threats on all sides.
Ezra 3, 1 to 7 When the seventh
month was come and the children of Israel
were in the cities the people gathered themselves
together as one man in Jerusalem.
Then stood up Jeshua, the son of and
his brethren, the priest.
Skip over to verse 3 And they set
up the altar upon his bases, or the
foundation for fear was upon them because of
the people of those countries, and they offered
burnt offerings thereunto the Lord, even burnt offerings
morning and night.
There was something happened Look at me, please.
These people had been busy doing their own
thing.
And God says No, I want to do
something corporately.
I want to do something with the body.
And he put it in their heart all
of them to return to the city of
Jerusalem, and they came from all of their
settlements, and they gathered here in Jerusalem now.
And they set up the altar, for fear
was upon them because of the people.
Drop everything, and get to the altar with
the child of the Holy Ghost.
Drop everything, and get to the altar.
Now, the altar, you know, represents the place
where the Lord's presence is manifested.
It's the assembly of true believers who corporately
say, I give my body to you as
a living sacrifice.
Beloved, God cannot reach his eternal purpose if
everybody's going out, doing his own thing and
not seeing the connection, one with another, those
who have the same mind of Christ.
He's trying to bring a people together, who
think the same way in Christ, who speak
the same language, and it's all Christ.
He's building a people on that.
And he couldn't do anything it would continue
to lie in ruins until they all came,
and there was a cry in their heart.
Drop everything, get to the altar.
And brother, sister, if that's not in your
heart, you won't understand what I'm saying.
If your interest come before the interest of
the body of Jesus, now this church, this
is a theater, there's no magic in this
theater, no spiritual power in this theater, only
what we have within us.
We could be worshiping out in Central Park,
there'd be just as much power.
So God's not looking at buildings, per se,
physical buildings.
He's looking at these bodies of ours.
But when we get together, when a true
people who have a heart set on the
Lord, they're tired of hype and entertainment and
foolishness and they want God to cleanse them
and sanctify them, and they believe God's word
that it's possible to live an overcoming life
in these last days, amidst all the ruin.
But you see, it'll never happen until there's
an attachment to this altar, until there's a
willingness to build this altar.
And I'll tell you what God has done
right in the middle of the ruin and
the trash and the rubbish of Times Square.
He has had a people to raise up
an altar.
They have dropped everything.
I'll tell you what, when I came to
New York City, I'd tell you, and I
know it for all the other pastors and
staff, we dropped everything.
We dropped our schedules, we dropped any attachment
to any other call or any other place
or any other people, because God said, go.
I'll tell you what, I've been in this
city you know, 27 years before, and well
30 years now, but I saw 27 years
of ruin, and God said, let's go build
an altar where the presence of the Lord
Jesus can be manifested.
These people knew if they built the altar,
the blood would be shed, and they knew
there was shelter in the blood.
And the Lord said to us, go, raise
up an altar where people can gather and
worship.
They said they did it because of the
fear of the people around them.
And they didn't build a fortress, they built
an altar.
We don't need a fortress mentality.
We have a few preachers in this town,
in this city, Pentecostal preachers, running around with
guns on their hips, and guns underneath their
thing, and bodyguards.
They're building fortresses.
Why would I want a fortress?
Why would I want a gun when I've
got an angel walking with me?
That's silly.
And it's a lack of faith.
None of these preachers ever planned, no matter
how wicked and violent and desperate this city
gets, none of these pastors ever intend to
carry a gun.
Now I'm not going to preach against your
guns and rifles.
Probably not.
But you see, the Lord has a message
for people who put their own interests first
rather than the house of God.
And I'll tell you what, the surest evidence
of being a part of the Holy Remnant
in this last day, the surest evidence is
this urgency to drop everything and go with
God's people to the altar.
I don't mean this down here, but I
mean this is the whole body, this is
the altar.
This is where the Lord's presence is manifested.
He manifests through holy people.
Separated people.
He manifests His presence.
I want to come here more than anything
else.
I want to be here to be with
this body because there's fear, anxiety all around
us, and there's shelter here at the blood.
The precious blood of the Lamb.
Because we have this corporate confidence in the
Lord Jesus Christ that He's going to keep
us.
And we've had hundreds of people tell us
as soon as you walk in the doors,
out of the wickedness and the ruin outside,
there's a peace in here.
Just an absolute peace.
The Lord has shed forth His light in
His presence in this house.
But Haggai says to you, consider your ways.
You've sown much, but you bring in little.
You eat, but you don't have enough.
You drink, but you're never filled.
You clothe yourself, but you're never warm.
And you put your wages into a bag
with holes in it.
You look for much, and it comes to
little.
And what you do bring in, I blow
on it.
Because you run to your own houses, and
you leave my house in waste.
See what happens when you don't put God
first?
See what happens when you don't put His
house and His work and His body first?
And what is the body of Jesus?
It's you.
It's me.
We are the body of Christ, and He's
the head.
We are the visible body of Christ on
this.
The only Christ anybody's going to see is
what there is in you and me.
It's the reflection of Jesus in us.
We're not little Christ.
He is the Christ.
We're reflections of the Christ.
We reflect His glory.
But He said, if you don't, and you're
going to put your own interest first, what's
going to happen to you, you're going to
sow a lot, and you're going to bring
in little, you're going to eat and never
have enough, and you're going to drink and
not be filled.
This is spiritually.
You'll close and never be warm, and you're
going to put your wages into a bag
with holes in it.
Some of you have that bag.
You've got a big hole in your bag.
Everything you put in there disappears.
I'm not talking about unpaid bills.
There's a deep principle here in the Word
of God.
It said, you look for much, and it
comes to little.
When you bring it in, I just blow
upon it, and because you run to your
own house, you leave my house in waste.
This also teaches us, the altar teaches us,
another distinguishing mark of the Holy Remnant is
a growing desire to worship, to truly worship.
Oh, everything that God's been doing in this
church.
This is the one thing I value as
much as anything, and it's that growing desire
for people just to sit in His presence
and worship.
After this service tonight, we're going to do
just that.
After the altar call and everything, we're just
going to worship.
Sometimes we're here 15 minutes, half an hour.
Sometimes we've been here a whole hour just
worshiping in the Lord.
But that's the distinguishing mark of a remnant
people.
They have this desire to worship.
They don't want to come and just be
spoon-fed.
They don't want to be entertained.
They want to worship.
They love the Word, and they tremble at
it, but they want to lift their hands
and their heart, and they truly are worshipers.
The remnant are worshipers.
True worshipers.
Alright, the second lesson I want you to
see.
God sent His remnant, a precious reviving.
I know I'll show you how it comes.
Go to Ezra the 6th chapter, please.
Ezra the 6th chapter.
Are you getting any of this yet?
Well, I'm going to keep hitting it until
you get something.
Ezra 6th chapter, verses 15 and 16.
And this house was finished on the third
day of the month, Adar, which was in
the sixth year of the reign of Darius
the king.
And the children of Israel, the priests and
the Levites, and the rest of the children
of the captivity, kept the dedication of this
house of God with what?
With joy.
Hallelujah.
Now look at me, please.
There are two things that accompany all true
restoration revival.
Number one, a grief and bliss over sin.
And secondly, that is followed by a great
outpouring of joy sent directly from God.
God baptizes a people with joy once they
repent and have a total grief in their
heart and a bliss over sin.
You'll see it in this chapter so clear.
Oh, there came a revival of repentance.
The people had mixed themselves.
The holy seed had been mixed.
Go to Ezra, ninth chapter, please, and I'll
show it to you.
Ninth chapter of Ezra.
I'm going to read the first four verses.
Now when these things were done, the princes
came to me saying, the people of Israel
and the priests, the Levites, have not separated
themselves from the lands, doing according to their
abominations, even the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites,
Moabites, Egyptians, and the Amorites.
For they have taken of their daughters for
themselves and their sons so that the holy
seed have mixed or mingled themselves with the
people of those lands.
Yea, the hand of the princes and rulers
have been chief in this trespass.
And when I heard this thing, I wrapped
my garment and my mantle, and I plucked
off the hair of my head and of
my beard, and I sat down astonished or
confounded.
And then were assembled unto me everyone that
trembled at the words of the God of
Israel, because of the transgression of those that
had been carried away.
And I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice.
Now listen closely.
Ezra, by the Spirit of God, was shown
the reason for all the ruin.
He was shown the reason.
God said, the reason this city lies in
ruins, the reason all of this happened is
because there was sin.
There was a mixture.
The holy seed was mixed with the world
and its system.
And judgment came as a result of it.
Now I want you to know something, folks.
Verse 5 and 8, read it with me.
And at the evening sacrifice I rose up
from my heaviness and wrapped my garment and
my mantle, and I fell upon my knees
and spread out my hands unto the Lord
my God.
And I said, O my God, I'm ashamed
and blushed to lift up my face to
Thee.
My God, for our iniquities are increased over
our head.
Our trespass is grown up into the heavens.
Since the day of our fathers, since we've
been in a great trespass to this day,
for our iniquities, have we, our kings, our
priests, been delivered into the hand of the
kings of the land, to the sword, to
captivity, to...
This is the end of side 1.
You may now turn the tape over to
side 2.
...face as it is this day.
And now, for a little space, grace has
been showed from the Lord our God to
leave us a remnant to escape, and to
give us a nail in His holy place,
that our God may lighten our eyes and
give us a little reviving in our bondage.
Now listen to me, please.
God says I'm going to give you a
little space, a little time to repent.
I think New American Standard says for a
brief time, grace will be shown.
Grace has been shown.
God comes to a place of ruin, devastation,
and He says this loud and clear.
Listen to it, please.
He said, I'm going to give you a
little time, a little space.
And I believe this is the reason America
has not gone down yet.
God said, I'm going to give you a
little time, a little space to look at
your sins.
Brother and sister, I'm alarmed when I see
that America, instead of turning to ...
doing away with abortion, we are turning the
other way.
Even in the conservatives now, they're turning.
The courts are turning all over the country,
back, demanding abortion.
And when I see the trend, and I
see the space and the time God has
given us, we're in our eighth year of
prosperity.
Eighth year of unrivaled prosperity.
And we all know the shoe's about to
drop, and you wonder why.
And I think this explains, too, why God's
pulling down the Iron Curtain.
He's going to have a short period of
time with special grace.
A time for reviving.
I honestly believe with all my heart that
this thing that's happening now won't last more
than two or three years.
I don't know.
It's going to be a short time.
I would hope it could last more, said
the Lord Terry.
I don't know how long it will last,
but He has opened the door, and there's
a little space.
He's going to give you space and time
to repent.
And in that space and time, the prophet
Ezra is saying the reason we've been spoiled
and plundered and suffering like we have is
because we've sinned against our God.
We've sinned, but now we have a little
time.
He's given us a little space.
I tell you with all my heart, I
have in me a sense right now, I've
had it ever since we came to this
city, that God's doing a quick work.
He's doing a work.
He's given time and space.
This church in Times Square could not have
happened any other time.
In His space and in His time and
in His providence and in His timing, God
told us, go to New York City, find
and raise up a remnant, encourage them, build
them up in Christ, and warn of coming
judgments.
Brother, sister, I see a remnant coming together,
not just in this church, but in other
churches.
You see it in China now.
You see it all over America.
There's a stirring.
It's not a big stirring, but there's a
stirring among many pastors.
They're beginning to preach holiness and righteousness.
There's a hunger in the land this past
two months.
Listen to me now.
We have had in our Texas office 85
,000 people write to us asking to receive
our messages.
That's on top of another quarter million on
top of that already receiving them.
There's a hunger they express like I've never
heard in all the 30 years of ministry.
There's a cry for holiness and righteousness.
I just, I received a call from a
very well-known evangelist this past week, having
a worldwide convention, said, Brother Dave, could you
come in for two days and just preach
holiness and repentance?
He said, we're all beginning to see that
the church must have time of repentance.
Well, folks, that is not the message of
this church.
This message is Christ.
But you can't get there but through repentance.
But you see, there's a little reviving.
I don't see some world-sweeping revival that's
going to sweep millions into the kingdom of
God.
I see a little space and just what
he says here, and a little reviving in
our bondage.
Hallelujah.
A little time to leave a remnant.
Now, where there's genuine repentance, God himself sends
joy.
Look at chapter, go back to Ezra 6,
and look at this with me, please.
Ezra 6, 21.
Ezra 6, 21 and 22.
And the, here's what happens when you repent
and you lay down your sin.
And the children of Israel, which were come
again out of captivity, and all such as
had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness
of the heathen of the land, to seek
the Lord God of Israel.
There's repentance.
They separated from the filthiness of the heathen
to seek the Lord God of Israel.
Did he?
They kept the feast of unleavened bread seven
days with joy, for the Lord had made
them joyful.
Who did it?
The Lord made them joyful and turned the
heart of the king of Syria unto them
to strengthen their hands in the work of
the house of God, the God of Israel.
There it is.
Repentance brings joy.
People come to this church and they wonder
why all the clapping, why all the singing,
why all the happiness?
Because it's inevitable when you truly repent and
you do what they did.
They laid down their sins and they cried
out to God and saw Him with all
their hearts.
God himself sends joy.
You don't have to pump it up.
You don't have to work it up.
I've been in churches where the pastor will
say it's pretty good and he'll turn to
his music director and say, can you liven
this up a little bit?
I've heard that over and over.
Can't you liven this up?
You don't have to liven anything up.
The Holy Ghost comes down and he brings
the spirit of joy.
Hallelujah.
I've never been more joyful than when the
Lord is purged and cleansed.
And I can look Jesus in the eye
and say thank you Lord for your precious
forgiveness.
Alright, now I get to the heart of
my message and I'm not going to preach
a long time.
Give me just 10-15 minutes more.
I'm going to take 10-15 minutes more.
Now here's my point.
Here's where God's heading with us tonight.
Listen closely please.
Here's a revived, repentant, joyful remnant who still
have a single tie to the world.
And God in his mercy, he's just so
loving, so full of loving kindness, so long
suffering.
In his long suffering, he bore with these
people, with this one thing that was left,
the one thing that God's after.
And it's a thing God's going to go
after tonight.
There were 99% separated from the heathen
around them, but there was a single tie
to the world remaining.
That single tie you'll find in the 10th
chapter.
That single tie.
Strange wives.
We're going to talk about your strange wife.
Seriously.
Ezra 10.
Now when Ezra had prayed, when he had
confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the
house of God, there assembled unto him out
of Israel a very great congregation of men
and women and children, for the people wept
very sore.
And Shekiniah, the son of Jehiel, one of
the sons of Elam, answered and said unto
Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and
have taken strange wives of the people of
the land.
Yet now there's hope in Israel concerning this
thing.
Now therefore let us make a covenant with
our God to put away all the wives,
and such as are born of them according
to the counsel of my Lord, and of
those that tremble at the commandment of our
God.
Let it be done according to the law.
Arise, for this matter belongs unto thee.
We also will be of good courage, and
do it.
Then arose Ezra, and made the chief priests,
the Levites and all of Israel, to swear
that they would do according to this word,
and they swear.
Now look at me and follow me very
closely now please.
God up to this point has been very,
very patient.
Now look at them.
They've come out of Babylon, they've been delivered,
they've had faith for all the promises of
God.
I mean God fulfilled all the will of,
in answer to their faith, He protected them.
But I'll tell you, there was one thing
still remaining.
They were going through all of these religious
exercises, they had their hearts full of joy
that God had given to them, and God
says, now that I've brought you out of
Babylon, now that I've delivered you, and now
that I see that you want to go
on with me, and now that I've put
my joy in your heart, and I've been
very patient with you, now I want to
get to the bottom.
Now I want to lay the axe to
the root.
I want to lay the axe to the
root.
You see, these men had been going to
the religious services, they had been going about
their duties arm in arm with alien wives.
Alien wives.
Now I want you to, you know, this
idea of getting rid of these wives and
the children and sending them home, I read
a liberal scholar yesterday, he said, this chapter,
this episode in Ezra, of breaking up the
families is abominable.
He said, that's terrible.
He couldn't understand why God would want these
families to be broken up.
But I want to show you the mercy
of God in that, first of all, before
we go any further.
Now remember, those heathen wives had no promise
of eternal life, the only hope they had
was to live more time here on earth
and enjoy what they have here, that's all
they have.
That's about what the world has out there.
All they have is a little more time.
So, if they had stayed married, I'll show
you, they would have been destroyed along with
Israel.
Their lives would have been destroyed by sending
them home.
At least they got what they could enjoy,
a little more time.
I believe it was an act of mercy,
there's no question about it, but God was
acting to keep intact His eternal purpose and
that's a holy seed that's unmixed with this
world.
Untied to this world.
Now, with all my heart, I believe God
put this inside of me and burned it
in me to bring to you tonight.
And I'm going to ask Him right now,
the Holy Spirit, to give you a hearing
ear and give me a voice of unction
to preach it.
And I want you to follow me as
I try to share with you what the
Holy Spirit put in my heart.
He knows that there's something in you, a
form of compromise that could destroy you.
He's not out arbitrarily just to keep digging
and digging and digging because He enjoys it.
No, God wants to bring you into a
place where there's freedom.
The whole idea of God ministering to us
with life and with reproof, loving reproof.
And sometimes He said, whom He loves, He
chastens.
And the purpose of the chasing and all
of this grinding and working on us, this
casting us into the refining fires is to
get out the filth and the dirt to
bring a pure body into the heart of
Jesus.
But I want to talk about that thing,
that strange wife.
Now, strange wife can be interpreted, anything that's
alien in you in relation to the work
of God.
In other words, anything that's out of character
with the work of the Holy Spirit.
Bob Phillips calls it the tracks of the
Holy Spirit.
That strange wife is that one thing in
you.
Your strange wife or my strange wife is
that one thing in us that God has
still not gotten to.
And I'll tell you what, He began to
tell me over and over again, I heard
it all week, and only till Friday night,
late at night, I didn't see it.
Because what I had been doing, making a
list.
I'd been making a list.
I said, well, Lord, what is that thing
you're after?
Could it be adultery?
Do we have people in the church that,
in spite of all of our preaching, are
still slipping around in adultery?
Is it fornication?
Do we have people still rushing out of
a meeting where the Holy Ghost comes down,
and the presence of Jesus is so alive,
and they walk out just dripping with the
oil of the Holy Ghost, and go in
and turn the knob, and sit and watch
filth that comes right out of hell.
Is that it, Lord?
Could it be that we have some people
in the body that are making friends with
the enemies of God?
In other words, they're too cozy with the
world?
Is it friendship with the world?
And I started listing all these things.
I kept searching my heart, and I couldn't
find it.
I kept looking.
I said, oh, God, search me, try me,
see if there's been any wicked thing.
You told me you were trying to get
at something in me.
What is it?
And I got so desperate, I just threw
myself before God, and I said, oh, God,
what are you saying?
I know you're saying something to me and
to the church tonight.
What is it?
God said, I want to show you what
is behind it.
God said, I'm not after the fruit of
disobedience.
I want to get to the root of
it, and I want to play the axe
to the root and cut it off.
You see, I was talking about the fruit
of disobedience.
Adultery, fornication, lust, smoking, drinking, cursing, all of
these things I could name.
Those are the fruits of rebellion and disobedience.
But there's a root to it.
There's a spirit behind it.
And Bob started on it.
I love how the Holy Ghost works.
Bob's last point this morning was that there's
a spirit behind these things, and he stopped.
Because God wanted to continue that, and God
set the foundation forth this morning, if you
were here.
Behind it all is a spirit.
And the thing that God is after is
that spirit that is in many of us
yet.
It's a spirit behind it.
Why is it that these men in Israel,
listen closely, why is it that in spite
of the fact that they had four prophets
screaming in their ears, they had Daniel giving
them a stinging rebuke before they went out
of Babylon.
Daniel said, We have sinned.
We've done wickedly.
We've departed from His precepts.
That's why we've been confused.
Neither have we obeyed the voice of the
Lord our God to walk in His laws,
which He set before us by His service
to the prophets.
They had these words of Daniel burning in
their ears.
We have not believed His word.
We've not accepted His word.
They had in their possession the law of
Moses.
They carried it with them everywhere they went.
In fact, the scripture says they had completely
ignored Deuteronomy 11, 18, and they had Deuteronomy.
You shall lay up these my words in
your heart and in your soul and bind
them for a sign upon your hand that
they may be frontless before your eyes.
God said, I want you to tell your
children, your grandchildren, I want you to repeat
it over and over again.
I want you to tell them what I
do.
I'll bless them if they obey me, but
I want you to tell them what I'll
do if they disobey me.
They believed that one part.
They believed everything about the blessings, and that's
where the prosperity gospel has taken many in
the church today.
It's a one-sided faith.
They have faith to believe in the blessings,
but they don't have faith to believe in
the righteous judgments of God.
Now, folks, there's a faith that goes with
that.
There's nothing could have been more clear in
the law that they had.
They quoted it.
I mean, they must have had discussion after
discussion after discussion.
They talked it.
They preached it.
They knew it by heart.
And here it was.
In fact, I'm quoting it to you just
as they had it.
Word for word, this is what Israel had
with them.
This is the law they carried.
When the Lord thy God shall bring you
into the land, you shall make no covenant
with them, you shall show no mercy to
them, neither shall you make marriages with them,
for they will turn away your sons from
following me, that they might serve other gods.
So the anger of the Lord be kindled
against you and destroy you suddenly.
Listen.
I read to you just a moment ago
of Ezra when he found out that these
princes and priests, the whole people had been
carried away by this compromise.
And I believe when Ezra, and this is
only speculation, but I believe this is all
my heart.
I believe that when Ezra was pulling out
his beard and his hair and he's on
his face weeping and all the people that
trembled at the word of God, I believe
the word that made them tremble.
I believe he was quoting this.
I believe he was crying these very words,
Deuteronomy 7, 1-4.
I believe he was saying this.
Lest the Lord destroy you suddenly.
I believe he was crying it at the
top of his voice.
He'd stand and walk among the people preaching
that message.
He was preaching this very thing.
He said, you know it.
You know it's wrong.
That thing is wrong.
You have been delivered.
You're not in Babylon.
You've been forgiven.
I've been patient with you.
I've put my joy in your heart, but
now I want to get to the root
of this because I can't build on this
thing.
I can't build on a people until they
get this out.
How do they sin in the face of
such a clear warning?
The same way that we sin in the
face of all the clear warnings because we
have a full revelation now, more than they
had and we still sin against it.
That's why preachers can commit adultery along with
congregations.
That's why people continue doing it because they
really don't believe in the righteous judgments of
God.
And that spirit is a spirit of unbelief
regarding the righteous judgments of God.
They don't believe God means what he says.
And I'll tell you Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, Haggai,
Zechariah, they came with this message.
Yes, God's promised to bless if we obey.
And I get sick and tired of hearing
people say that's an Old Testament message.
As if God was a God of mercy
in the New Testament and not a God
of mercy in the Old Testament.
God was just as merciful in this Old
Testament as he is in the New.
He never changes.
He's a God of mercy, but he's also
a God of righteousness.
He's never changed.
He said I'm the Lord that God and
I change not.
In fact all of this, he brings this
kind of a message because of his great
mercy and love.
Isn't it amazing?
Delivered, forgiven, blessed, full of joy.
Yet they're careless, frivolous, they're not serious because
they're hugging something in their life yet they're
hugging it.
I don't know what it is.
It could be covetousness.
It could be materialism.
It could be lust.
It could be almost any of these things.
They're still hugging it.
But what's the reason?
Why is it still being hugged?
Why is it still being clutched?
Why does it still have the heart?
Why?
Bottom line.
These men had faith to be protected, led,
guided, blessed, joy.
And when it came to hear about what
God would do if you don't deal with
that thing, well, I can't believe God's that
way.
He's a God of love.
God would never do that.
Wipe us out.
Suddenly we've been in 70 years of oppressing
and bondage.
I can't serve a God like that.
We have invented a God of pablum.
Candy cotton.
A God who takes a brush and dips
it in the blood of His own Son
and just wipes everything out, no matter where
your heart is, no matter where your will
is, do as you please, just claim the
blood.
No, that's not what my Bible teaches.
No, He's going after a spirit.
He's going after a spirit of unbelief.
And I'll tell you what.
The day that hit me a number of
years ago, I have never been the same.
I have never ever been the same.
The moment God spoke to me one day,
I don't even remember where I was.
And I was reading about what God does
to those who flaunt in His face after
all of His mercies, His loving kindness, and
His blessings, and His goodness, and His deliverances.
And yet they continue in their sins, and
then it suddenly hit me what God said
He would do.
And the fear of God came on me.
The fear of the Lord.
I began to tremble at His Word, and
I began to believe not only the blessings,
I started believing the curses.
I started believing it all, and I began
to tremble at the Word of God.
And that's why I don't go when I
go to a...
into a motel.
I don't go and turn on some R
-rated movie.
When I'm in a bookstore, I don't stand
there and look at those R-rated or
X-rated pictures, because there's a fear of
God on me.
There's a holy fear of God on me.
God means what He says.
He said, set no wicked thing before your
eyes.
How many, how many believe truly?
Brother, please.
Hold still for just a moment.
I love you very much, but please hold
still.
This message has to come.
Listen.
How many of you re-believe what He
said?
You shall bring no abomination into your house.
You shall abhor it, lest you become cursed
with it.
We don't believe that.
And that's why we still have millions of
Christians sitting around watching dirty movies or going
to theaters and watching stuff that's made right
out of hell.
They don't believe that, lest thou become cursed
just like it.
You become abomination just like it.
Don't you know that there's a spirit in
those things that'll leap right on you?
You open up and you go, and that
spirit there will leap on you.
He said, you'll become just like it.
We don't believe that.
That's why we sin.
That's why we don't deal with many of
these things in our life.
Well, we hear so much about the God
of love.
We hear so much about grace, but it's
grace that leads us to repentance.
Hallelujah.
I'm not mad at anybody.
Just the devil.
Amen.
I want you to listen.
If you disobey my words, my anger will
be kindled against you.
You'll be destroyed suddenly.
You see, we have Christians who don't believe
that they're under judgment.
They don't believe this.
I know for a fact that many Christians
today are under divine judgment.
You say, what kind of judgment?
Well, I just read it to you.
Confusion of face.
Sowing much but reaping little.
Bag with holes in it.
Never satisfied.
Nothing turns out right.
Calamity.
Spiritual famine.
Relationships going sour.
No sense of the Lord's presence.
I'm not about to tell you that all
suffering and affliction means that there's sin in
your life.
Not at all.
Because many of the afflictions are righteous, but
the Lord delivers them out of them all.
It rains on the just and on the
unjust.
The Bible talks about fiery trials sent to
try us.
He said, don't think it's some strange thing
that's come to you, but it's common to
all.
But you see, those who really love the
Lord, when the trouble, the testing, and the
trial comes, they hear a holy thunder from
God that Brother Phillips preached about once.
You hear that thunder in your soul, and
there's a prophetic word that comes and it
fingers something in our heart.
You see, the root of all of this,
you've got to hear it, the root of
it all is an unbelief in the righteous
judgments of a holy God.
Beloved, if we really believed what he says,
what fellowship hath light with darkness?
What fellowship hath Christ with the sons of
Belial?
He said, I can't be your father.
You can't be my son or daughter until
you separate.
How many believe that?
You can't be your father.
He can't lead you directly until you come
out of the world.
We don't believe.
We have people, we've got churches that'd be
just excited about you growing up, mixing the
world, and becoming a big star somewhere, even
if you were in some R-rated movie.
We don't stand for that here in this
church because we're going to, I'll tell you
what, I'm going to close in just a
minute.
I do more weeping over one thing all
week.
I'll tell you there's a fear of God
in my heart, but I'll tell you one
thing and I fear more than anything else.
This is the one greatest godly fear in
my heart.
I have to stand as do all the
pastors of this church.
I have to stand before the judgment seat
of Christ one day.
And that hit me again this Friday night.
And it hit me again last night.
Boy, it hit me last night.
Oh God, the reason I want you to
get down deep here into my heart and
the hearts of the people tonight and to
see that they're doing these things because they
don't believe you will judge.
And a lot of them don't know that
the troubles they're having is because they've not
dealt with that unbelief.
And you and I have got to believe
God means every word he says and tremble
at this book.
Those people heard the word of God and
they fell on their face and they trembled
and they said, we'll do it.
Now God's patient.
It took a long time for them to
get up, but they had made up their
mind.
We're going to do it.
And they started.
It hit me last night and I said,
Jesus, I'm going to have to stand before
you on that day and I've got to
look you in the face.
And I've got to answer to those to
whom I preach.
Have I preached the truth?
Have I preached the full gospel?
We're going to have to stand before one
day and present you who made this church
your home.
We've got to have you at our side
and as we stand before the throne one
by one you stand before Jesus.
We're there as shepherds, as under shepherds.
And we have to answer.
Now that's an awesome responsibility.
And if you take, I don't think a
man can be a true shepherd unless he
weeps over that and grieves over it.
And that's what drives me to my knees
and say, oh God, I don't want to
entertain the people and that's what drives all
these other men to their face before God.
We're not trying to just dig and find
sin.
We're trying to get to the root of
all unbelief and a true faith in this
word, all of it, that God needs what
he says.
And that thing, that unbelief in his righteous
judgments, God wants to pluck it out and
give you a trembling, a holy trembling for
his word.
I tremble at just speaking about it tonight.
I tremble from head to toe.
You know what Daniel said?
And I'm going to close in a moment.
Therefore the Lord watched upon the evil.
In New American Standard it said the Lord
kept the calamity in store and then he
brought it upon us for the Lord our
God is righteous in all of his works
which he doeth for we obeyed not his
voice.
You know what he said?
He said God judged us, but he was
righteous in doing it.
He was righteous in doing it because he
kept it up.
He kept it in store.
He held it back.
He held it in store.
All of these things that could have happened
to us, God held them back, waiting patiently,
patiently.
He said we disobeyed so God brought it
all down upon us.
I've been on both sides of the fence.
I've experienced the righteous judgments of God.
I don't want to fall under that hand
anymore.
I want Jesus to put the light on,
turn the light on in my heart.
I want to show Jesus exposed every hidden
thing.
I want no hidden agenda.
I want no secret thing in my life.
I want you to be able to walk
into any place that my wife and I
live.
If you are a house cleaners and you
could go through that house, you'd see nothing
but what would glorify Jesus Christ.
I want you to go in my automobile
and there's nothing hidden anywhere.
No cigarettes, nothing hidden.
There are no sex books.
I want you to be able to look
me in the eye and every pastor in
this church look in the eye and say
I see Jesus.
And I hear a word that digs in
my heart and convicts me of my sin.
And I want that unbelief out of me
and I want to tremble at the word
of God.
Then I can stand before Jesus on that
judgment day and say Lord, thank you.
Thank you for digging so deep.
Thank you for the ax to the root
because you're trying to build a people.
Hallelujah.
Stand with me please.
This is the conclusion of the tape.