This 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.
The righteous are on trial.
Oh, yes.
Do you want me to repeat that?
The righteous are on trial.
You had better believe it.
The righteous are on trial.
I want you to go to Psalms, the
11th chapter, if you will, please.
Psalm, 11th chapter.
I want to read just two verses.
Psalms, 11.
Verses 4 and 5.
Psalms, 11.
The Lord is in his holy temple.
The Lord's throne is in heaven.
His eyes behold.
His eyelids try.
The children of men.
The Lord tryeth.
Who?
The righteous.
But the wicked and him that loveth violence,
his soul hateth.
Let's pray.
Father, your church, the body of Christ, is
in great crisis.
There is trouble.
There is testing.
There is trial as never before in history.
Lord, you've taken every church age through great
turmoil, testing.
The waters and the fires of testing have
been with us for many centuries.
But, oh God, in the last days, you've
made it clear that it's going to be
intensified.
And there are people here tonight, Christians, who
don't understand what they're going through.
Great testing.
Great trial.
Great temptations.
Great afflictions.
Lord, give us an understanding tonight.
Show us what it's all about so that
we'll not be tossed by it, we'll not
be overwhelmed by it.
That we will be in the knowledge of
the Holy Ghost.
Holy Spirit, open it to us.
Help us to understand.
Lord, we need you.
We need you tonight to make this understandable
to us.
Give us an understanding by the power of
the Holy Spirit, I pray.
In Jesus' name, anoint me.
Amen.
You know, we have nearly 800,000 people
on our mailing list, and so we get
thousands of letters every week.
Let me read to you just a little
sampling of what we're hearing from all over
the United States.
A dear sister wrote this week, Two years
ago, while tending my business, I fell and
broke my leg.
One month later, I was hit head-on
by a motorist and left me in a
wheelchair with another broken leg and a crushed
knee.
And I've not been able to collect any
insurance from the person's insurance company.
In other words, the one who hit her
in a head-on collision.
I had to give up my business, as
I could no longer run it.
Six months later, I found I had ovarian
cancer.
I've been in chemotherapy for a year and
two months, but the cancer still rages on.
I look around at other Christians, and I
find so many that are suffering untold illnesses,
especially cancer and other hardships.
I'm part of an intercessory prayer group.
Brother Dave, she asked, what's happening to the
body of Christ?
She belongs to an intercessory prayer group and
prays for others, even though she's in such
great need.
And this was her question at the end
of her letter.
Pastor Dave, what's happening to the body of
Christ?
We get letters from pastors' wives now from
all over the world.
Pastors' wives who beseech us to pray for
their pastor husbands.
Their husbands who are ministering the word and
ready to give up the ministry, ready to
quit, all over the United States.
The letters are pitiful.
One lady wrote this week.
She said, my husband is disillusioned, absolutely disillusioned.
People in this area do not want to
hear the straight gospel, and so many are
going to these churches preaching false doctrines.
My husband is totally disillusioned by all the
foolishness in the church and can't find a
congregation that will accept his preaching.
He wonders now, because he's on the shelf,
if God is even hearing and answering his
prayers anymore.
He won't be consoled by me.
He's beyond being consoled.
In fact, he's been so discouraged in his
last pulpit that he stood and started reading
the sermons of dead men of God of
past years.
Just reading his sermons, so dead and so
empty and so dry.
Here's a letter from a farmer's wife.
I think it was in Iowa.
And she said, Pastor David, for nearly 25
years now, we have been serving God faithfully.
We've raised our children for the Lord, one
in the ministry, one preparing for the ministry.
We've been baptized with the Holy Ghost for
years.
But lately, my husband and I feel the
Lord is not answering our prayers anymore.
My husband feels like a total failure.
He won't let me help him.
He's so down.
We are in a financial crisis.
We may lose our farm.
We've been farming for 25 years.
Our farm business has been subject to stuff
beyond our control, like the weather, good crops,
yields, production.
And all of these things are beyond our
human effort.
And God has to do it miraculously.
But we feel now that God doesn't seem
to be answering our prayers.
We're falling behind.
Without a miracle, we may have to sell
our farm to our creditors.
And, folks, letters are pouring into our office
now from all over the United States.
These are godly people who are going through
severe, overwhelming trials.
They are being tested financially, physically, mentally, and
every other way, going through fires and sickness
and financial difficulties, family troubles.
And, folks, I have been sending out newsletters
now for 25 years or more, almost 27
years.
And in 27 years, I can tell you
it has never been as intense as it
is now.
These letters are overwhelming.
I have to stop reading after a while.
My wife reads for hours and hours all
day long.
But I have to pull back.
I can hardly handle it.
The problems are absolutely mind-boggling.
The intensity.
Now, let me ask you, as you sit
in this congregation tonight, are you not being
tested more now than you've ever been tested
in your life?
Are you not seeing things that are so
intense, so overwhelming, you wonder how, outside of
God's miracle power, that you can ever get
out of it?
Troubles and tests.
And, by the way, folks, if you are
not, as I say, it won't take long.
It will come.
You are going to go into the fire.
You're going to go into the deep waters.
You're going to go into stuff that's over
your head that you don't understand.
You're going to have troubles on all sides.
You're going to be tested in your body,
in your spirit, in your mind.
You're going to be tested in your family.
You're going to be tested on the job.
You're going to be tested even in the
house of God.
You're going to be tested.
Your marriage, if you're married, is going to
be tested.
Your livelihood, everything is going to be tested.
We are going into a time of great
testing.
Now, we know from Revelation 3.10 that
the Word predicts that in the last days
there's going to be a time of great
testing, a great, it's called an hour of
tribulation to all mankind.
But God has promised to deliver us out
of that great tribulation or the last of
that great time of affliction upon the earth.
In fact, you read Revelation 3.10, and
that's what the promise is.
Clear as can be.
I will keep you from that hour of
temptation that will fall upon the whole earth.
Now, some believe we'll go through a part
of the tribulation.
Some believe we'll go through it all.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about a time when the wrath
of God is falling on the earth.
We're going to be delivered from the wrath
of God.
But in the meantime, you and I, as
Christians, as righteous men and women, we are
going to be tested more and more as
the day of the Lord approaches.
The closer we get to the coming of
the Lord, the closer we get to the
end of time, the more intense the fires
will be, the deeper the waters.
Folks, don't let it scare you because God
has a purpose in it all.
God has a reason, and we want you
to understand that reason tonight.
In Psalms 11.4, I've just read to
you that God is right now in His
holy temple.
He is sitting on His throne, and His
eyelids are trying.
The sons of men, His eyelids are trying.
Now, in the original Hebrew, it really means
a sharp, piercing glance.
He has a penetrating look into the depths
of the heart, such as a ray that
pierces an object, gets right into the depth
of it.
Nothing can hinder this X-ray that goes
through right to the heart of things.
And really, in the Hebrew, it means God
is squinting His eyes for a more concentrated
look into the heart.
You know, when you look at something, you're
looking at it and you squint your eye?
This is what it means.
God is squinting His eye and looking down
deep into your heart.
He's going to test you until everything that's
unlike Him is going to come to the
surface and come out.
He's going to put you in the fire
so that all that is unlike Him, all
that is evil, is going to come to
the surface, and He can scrape it off,
and He wants nothing left in you in
the last days but pure gold.
He's going to put you in the fire,
He said.
He's going to put us.
It's the Lord.
It's not the devil.
It's the Lord.
He's the one who's going to do the
trying.
He's the one who's doing the testing.
You don't understand right now that God, and
this ought to comfort your heart, that God
has His eye on you.
His eye is not only on you.
He's got His best eye.
He's squinting.
He is looking deep into your heart like
a man who's got one of those little
jewel magnifiers and looking deep into your heart.
If you love the Lord, that ought to
be a wonderful encouragement to you because the
Lord knows where you're at.
He knows what you're doing.
He's not forgotten you.
He knows every difficulty, every trouble that you're
going through.
For thine eyes are open upon all the
ways of the sons of men to give
everyone according to his ways and according to
the fruit of his doings.
Jeremiah 32, 19.
Another scripture.
For the ways of man are before the
eyes of the Lord, and He pondereth all
his goings.
In other words, God is looking right at
you and He is considering every move you
make, every thought that you think.
Now folks, God monitors it all.
We sometimes sit around and we just talk
flippantly, but you know God is monitoring every
thought, every word, and every deed.
He's keeping a record.
How many believe that?
He is keeping a record.
I think it pays us to watch our
tongues.
The eyes of the Lord are in every
place, beholding the evil and the good.
And you know this one.
The eyes of the Lord run to and
fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself
strong on behalf of those who love Him.
The eyes of the Lord are upon the
righteous, and His ears are open to their
cry.
And I read to you here, look again
in chapter 11, verse 5.
The Lord trieth the righteous.
But why?
Why does the Lord try His own children?
Folks, it all has to do with faith.
Everything we're talking about now is a trial
of your faith.
Now, the key to understanding the great trials
that you and I are facing, or going
to face, you've got to go to 1
Peter to understand it.
1 Peter, the first chapter.
Turn there with me, please.
I'm going to ask the Holy Ghost to
open your eyes and your understanding as to
why you're going through what you're going through.
Now, folks, beloved, would you look this way
for just a minute?
Before I go any further, I want to
know in the balcony, and here on the
main floor, and even behind me here in
the choir, and staff, and everything else, how
many of you, in all honesty, say, Brother
Wilkinson, what you say is true.
I have this past year, especially, I am
facing the greatest troubles, trials, and testings in
my whole Christian experience.
Would you raise your hand, please?
I just want to make sure I'm on
the right track here before I go any
further.
All right.
Amen.
If you didn't have your hands up...
Yeah, buy the tape.
The Lord does not want any of us
to be ignorant of what we're going through
because he doesn't tease his children.
He gets no pleasure out of hurting us.
But he has a very clear, good reason
why he takes us through these things.
The sufferings, and the pain, and the sorrow,
and the afflictions, God has a reason.
And he showed this to me, and folks,
it will so ease your spirit, it will
encourage your heart when you know that, first
of all, that God is allowing it, God
is taking you into the fire, and he's
taking you into the deep waters because he
has a divine purpose, there's an eternal purpose
in what he is doing.
Many, many are going to hear this message
on tape, just like the farmers in Iowa,
and Montana, and all the Midwest that are
losing their farms, and people all over the
United States who write to us and send
prayer requests.
Many, many write for our message and they're
going to hear this on tape.
And my message to them is the same
thing, that God wants them to understand why
this is happening.
It's not just a happenstance.
It's not a fluke.
God has a purpose, and if you can
see that purpose, it'll hold you steady.
Let's go to that purpose.
1 Peter, the first chapter, beginning to read,
verse 5, Who are kept by the power
of God, through what?
Through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed
in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be
you're in heaviness, through manifold temptations, that the
trial of your faith, being much more precious
than of gold that perisheth, though it be
tried with fire, might be found under praise
and honor and glory at the appearing of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now folks, look at me.
It is absolutely vital that you understand what
is being said here, because it fully explains
why God is allowing you to go through
what you're experiencing right now.
It is vital for you to get this.
And here's what the scripture is saying in
1 Peter 5, 6, 7, and 8.
It's a full explanation.
God is saying a time of shaking is
coming.
You know what the scripture says.
God said, I'm going to shake everything that
can be shaken.
So the only thing left standing is that
which cannot be shaken.
What is it that cannot be shaken?
He's looking for an unshakable faith.
Faith.
This whole thing has to do with faith.
Everything you're going through, everything, is a trial
of your faith.
Now get that and understand that.
If you don't get that, you will never
comprehend what you're going through.
God says wickedness is going to bring on
chaos.
There will be calamity.
Violence is going to rock and shake the
nations.
Evil men are going to wax worse and
worse, become vicious.
Morals are going to crumble and vanish.
All of mankind is going to fear and
tremble.
Men's hearts are going to fail them for
fear of seeing those things coming on the
earth.
You know all of these scriptural prophecies.
It will seem as though no one has
answers.
Everything will be hopeless.
This is a day and age when no
one seems to have an answer for the
world situation, the crises that come upon us
hour by hour.
And this is what the Lord is saying.
He said, in this hour, just before I
come in the last days, when everything is
shaken, when men have no hope, when people
are crumbling and being crushed by the pressures
all around them, the stress and the anxiety
and the depression, God says, I have a
people that are in the fire right now
being trained and I am going to reveal
them in the last hour.
And that's what I read to who are
being kept right now through the power of
faith.
God says, I'm testing their faith.
Right now, I'm keeping them.
I've got them in deep trouble.
I've got them in deep waters now.
I've got them in fires.
I am bringing forth a people out of
those fires and out of those waters to
be manifested before the whole world as testimonies
of the saving, keeping power in the most
difficult times.
Dark times are coming.
Hopeless times are coming.
Where are they going to turn to?
You think they're going to turn to our
leaders?
Not when our presidential advisors are advising our
presidents and our leaders out of the boudoirs
of prostitutes.
You think the world is going to trust
their leadership anymore?
Where are people going to turn to?
Where are people going to get their hope?
Not from television evangelists who've been muckracking around
for money and proclaiming the gospel to be
a rich man's gospel.
Where are they going to turn to?
They'll not be turning to healing evangelists in
their healing lines anymore.
I'm not putting that down, but that's not
where the answer is going to be.
It's not going to be in big-time
evangelists or big-time preachers.
They are going to have to have people
like themselves who've been through their kind of
troubles and their kind of trials and being
desperate, and they've come through it, and they're
like a rock of Gibraltar, and they're standing
unmoved and unshaken because their faith has been
tested.
That's what he's saying here, through faith unto
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time.
God says, I'm going to reveal.
I'm going to manifest my children at the
last hour.
And oh, thank God I believe that with
everything in my being.
I stand before you totally convinced that right
here in New York City, the greatest testimony
is going to be people out of this
church and other churches that have been absolutely
tested as nobody else has been tested.
They've had it harder than anybody.
They have gone through the fires and the
deep waters, and they have not given up
their faith.
Their faith is unshakeable.
And the Lord says, all right, you've been
through it, and I'm going to bring you
out as a testimony.
I'm going to reveal you to your neighbors.
I'm going to reveal you on the job.
I'm going to reveal you in New York
City or wherever you are, in the farms
of Iowa.
Everywhere, God is going to have a people
that come marching out like the Hebrew children
out of the fiery furnace as a testimony
to the king and all of the heathen
of that time.
They said, your God is our God now.
I've got to quit pounding this.
The pulpit is getting weak.
To be revealed in the last time, kept
by faith.
Oh, hallelujah.
Tried by fire, wherein you greatly rejoice, though
now for a season, if need be, you're
in heaviness.
I used to wonder, how in the world
do you rejoice when you're heavy?
In heaviness.
He said, though you're in heaviness for a
season, you're going to rejoice.
How can you rejoice?
Well, the Lord began to show me.
You can rejoice when you know that God's
doing something in me.
I'm in this for a purpose.
God's working something in me.
God's trying to make me a man of
faith.
He's trying to make you a woman of
faith.
He's trying to make you a testimony to
the whole world.
It's not going to be anymore going around
quoting a few scriptures and shooting your scriptures
at somebody and giving a little testimony.
That's not it.
It's not going to be that.
People are going to look at you and
they see what you're going through and it
doesn't shake you.
You're still praising God.
You're still speaking faith.
You're not talking doubt and fear and unbelief.
They say, that's what I want.
Whatever keeps you, I want it to keep
me.
Because everybody around is going to be caving
in.
Everybody's going to be crumbling.
Everybody's going to be crushed.
And there you stand.
Much more precious than gold, though tried with
fire, may be found under praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
The Lord said, at my coming, I have
to have a people.
I have to have a people be a
praise and glory to my saving, keeping power.
Hallelujah.
Glory to God.
Now, believe it or not, or accept it
or not, you've been chosen to be tested.
I'm going to tell you now, if you're
going through, if you're being tested by fire,
that's a calling.
God's called you.
God wouldn't do this.
He wouldn't allow it unless he looked down
and saw something in you.
He's not going to waste time with anybody.
God doesn't waste time.
God doesn't waste effort.
And he saw something in you.
And he said, I know that this sister
is going to come forth as gold.
And I'm going to put her in the
fire.
And I'm going to let her feel the
pain of the folks.
Fire hurts.
Fire is painful.
Try sticking your finger in it and see.
It's painful.
It hurts.
The suffering.
There is suffering.
Physical suffering.
Pain.
Some of you, dear sisters, are going through
great pain.
Like this sister who wrote that she's taking
chemotherapy, and she's still having cancer, but she's
still going to prayer meetings, still interceding.
Her faith is going to come out of
it strong.
What a testimony she is.
She said, the question was asked, what's happening
to the body of Christ?
I'll tell you what's happening to the body
of Christ.
The Lord has looked out on the body
of Christ, and he's seen some.
He's seen a host of people saying, You,
sir, you, I'm going to put you in
the fire, because I know that you're going
to come out as my testimony.
And toward the coming of the Lord in
the last days, you're going to praise and
honor and glory to my name.
I'm going to take you in it.
I'm going to bring you out of it.
You're going to shine forth.
You're going to be a man of faith.
You're going to be a woman of faith.
I can trust you.
I've called you.
You have been called to suffering.
Now, folks, that is absolutely contrary to the
prosperity gospel that says you don't have to
suffer.
Well, that means you don't have a testimony
either.
You're not going to be used in the
last day other than to accumulate your goods,
which are all going to burn anyhow.
All going to burn.
That Mercedes is going to burn.
It's going to burn.
That big house is going to burn.
But my faith is going to be gold.
No fire can touch it.
Nothing can touch my faith.
We marvel at the unbelief of the Israelites
in the wilderness, don't we?
We see them doubting God.
On ten different testings, they doubt God.
And, folks, if you read Psalm 78, don't
turn there now, but Psalm 78 is one
of the saddest chapters in all the Bible.
It is frightening to see what God had
tended for these people very clearly.
In fact, the chapter begins with this.
He established the testimony in Jacob that the
generation to come might know what he's saying.
Here was God's plan.
God says, I'm going to take a people
who are really the smallest people, the smallest
nation on earth, and I'm going to take
them to myself.
I'm going to take them into a wilderness
where they're totally dependent on me.
There's no shopping malls.
There's no water.
There's no food.
There's nothing but sand.
I'm going to put them out in no
place, nowhere where they have to be totally
dependent on me.
And I'm going to teach them to trust
me so that I will have a testimony
for every succeeding generation.
I can point back and say, no matter
what you go through, here's a people who
proved me.
God said, I'm going to prove them.
And that's what he did.
He took them to the Red Sea to
prove them, and they failed in their faith
there.
They said, you brought us out here to
kill us, O God, accusing Moses of bringing
them out to slaughter them.
They go to the waters of Marah, and
again they murmured, they complained.
God was testing these.
I'm going to let them suffer a little
pain.
I'm going to let them suffer hunger.
Let them suffer thirst.
And there was some suffering involved to it.
But God was trying to build faith.
He was trying to build a people that
would come through all of these troubles and
all these trials, and there would be not
only this written word here, but there would
be living testimonies, living epistles of His power
to save and keep in any generation so
that we wouldn't be reading Psalm 78, they
failed, they failed, they failed, they failed.
In fact, let me read it.
It says, their spirit was not steadfast with
God.
They forgot His miracles.
They tempted God.
They murmured.
They complained.
They believed not in God.
They trusted not in His salvation.
They believed not His wondrous works.
They grieved Him in the wilderness.
They limited the Holy One of Israel.
They provoked Him.
They kept not His testimony.
They refused to be that testimony for all
other generations.
And by the way, all of their children
go into the Promised Land with no testimony
behind them.
All they had was the testimony of unbelief
and what their fathers' lives, their mothers' and
fathers' lives really said by the way they
lived was that God can't keep you, God
can't see you through, that God fails His
children.
That was the testimony they got from their
parents.
And God had intended that they be a
testimony to their children, their grandchildren, and their
great-great-grandchildren, and a testimony to us
today.
This is the end of side one.
You may continue.
We're standing in this year, 1996, and talking
from Psalm 78 about their failures.
We should be reading about they came to
the waters and they trusted God and the
waters opened.
They went to the bitter waters of Meril
and they said, Our God who opened the
Red Sea can heal these waters.
And we would have been reading one story
after another and our faith would have been
encouraged.
What will happen with us when Jesus says,
Will I find faith when I return on
the earth?
So God, once again, is taking a people
through the deep waters and into the wilderness
where the only thing that's going to see
us through is total dependence on Him, where
we don't try to figure it out ourselves,
is total dependence on Him.
I'd better move on.
I thought I only had a 30-minute
message here.
I think I've got a little longer one
here.
I'll tell you what I want to do.
Let me ask you, do you, you take
this to your own heart, do you want
to be that testimony in these last days?
Do you want to be a testimony?
Would you like to be one who comes
out of the fires and you didn't cave
in, you didn't murmur, you didn't complain, you
didn't gripe, but you were able to say,
Live or die, I'm the Lord's.
Though He slay me, yet will I trust
Him.
I'm not going to give up.
How about you fellows, you former drug addicts,
alcoholics, here in the front from Timothy House.
You want to be a testimony to your
family and to all those junkies that you
used to run with, that God's able to
keep you no matter what, no matter how
discouraged you get, no matter how many lies
the devil comes throwing at you, you're going
to stand?
How many?
Raise your hand, wave it at me right
now.
Say, brother, that's what I want.
Same over here, Sarah House.
How about it?
Amen.
Well, let me give you something to encourage
your faith.
Boy, I saw this and it just really
blessed me.
Go to Psalms 89.
Psalms 89.
I'm going to read two scriptures.
And boy, when I saw this, it just
blew me away spiritually to the joy of
the Lord.
Now, you won't understand it when you first
read it perhaps, but when we explain it
to you, you'll understand how this is one
of the greatest encouragements to faith in all
the Bible.
What a great encouragement to your faith so
that it will hold you during your storm
and during your trial.
Verse 9 and 10.
Thou rulest the raging of the sea, when
the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.
Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces.
Now, folks, that is one of the most
powerful incentives of faith in all the Word
of God.
It's one of the most powerful.
Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces as one
that is slain.
Thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong
arm.
All right?
Look at me, please.
The Bible makes it very, very clear.
God rules the raging of the sea when
the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.
According to the psalmist, He commands, that's God
commands, and He raises the stormy wind which
lifteth the waves thereof.
Now, look at me, please.
When you read of these waves, you're talking
about a storm.
God raises a storm.
Are you in a storm?
God raises the storm, the Bible says.
And He speaks the Word, and He stills
the waters.
He lifts them, and He lowers them.
God sits king of the flood.
He sits the king of the flood.
Even when the devil brings his floods, the
flood of iniquity, the flood of passion, or
of lust, or desires of the flesh.
When these things come in like a flood,
the Spirit of the Lord raises up a
standard, the Bible says.
But He rules the floods.
He rules the seas.
The Bible talks about those at the wit's
end, because, let me read it to you.
They are at the wit's end.
Then they cry to the Lord in their
trouble, and He brings them out of their
distresses.
He's talking about sailors at sea, and the
waves, and the storm that suddenly is upon
them.
The Scripture says, Thou rulest the raging of
the sea, when the waves thereof arise, Thou
stillest them.
A few weeks ago, or a week ago
when Hurricane Edward came and hit the East
Coast, we were looking out of our window.
We faced the East River, where the boats
are in there, and this huge cruise ship.
I think there are over 2,000 people
that can go on that particular cruise boat.
Huge, it's like a city.
And it was pulling out, and on radio
they were warning that the hurricane was coming,
and this big ship's heading for the Caribbean,
right into the hurricane.
And they're pulling out last week, and I
turned to Gwen and I said, This is
stupid.
This is crazy.
That's going to be a trip through hell.
They're going to be right in the middle
of the hurricane.
And sure enough, the next day, 24 hours
later, the headlines on the daily news, Cruise
to Hell.
There were 70 foot waves hitting that boat.
The boat was listing, people were sleeping in
the halls and screaming.
In fact, some of the rich people were
offering their fortune to have somebody come in
a helicopter and get them off.
They were offering everything they had.
If you'll just get us to land.
And they came back and they said it
was a living hell.
Who would go into a hurricane?
You and me.
Yes.
And the boat begins to list, and we're
shaking.
Oh God, that's enough.
Anything, get me out.
Come on.
The worst thing is that none of the
captains or anybody running the boat knew I
speak English, so they couldn't say anything to
the people to comfort them.
You wouldn't get me on one of those
cruise ships where I don't like to fly,
but I don't like to cruise worse than
I don't like to fly.
But see, your faith is put into that
hurricane, into that storm.
And God's seeking a people who are going
to rejoice and not complain and rest in
his love and just rest.
God, you're king of this flood.
You brought me in here.
I'm not going down.
It may look like I'm going down, but
I'm going to hold steady.
I am going to believe you to bring
me out of this hurricane.
Folks, I'm not even talking about a storm.
This is a big storm.
And some of you are in that right
now.
Oh, hallelujah.
Do you understand that he rules the waters
and the tossing and the turning?
He's ruler of it all.
Shouldn't that bring faith?
Shouldn't that encourage our faith?
Whatever I'm going through, God knows all about
it.
He rules.
He rules the tossings and turnings in my
life.
He rules it all.
And he knows when to still it.
He knows when to calm the storm.
He speaks to the storm and he brings
the calm.
But he won't do it until he accomplishes
his purpose.
Until he sees that you're willing to trust
him.
You just lay back in his arms, say,
Lord, I am his.
And when you come to that place, then
he's going to calm the storm.
When he's accomplished that faith in you that
he's looking for, it's going to cease.
Now, here's the good part.
He says, next, he says, Thou hast broken
Rahab in pieces.
Now, here's the wonderful.
Rahab here is an epitaph for Egypt.
But more than that, the Hebrew word that
is used here, listen closely, it means monster,
wild beast, Leviathan, and the dragon.
Well, who in the world is that?
Who's the dragon?
Who's the monster?
Who's Leviathan in the scripture?
The devil himself.
And what this is, it also infers the
monster problems, the monster lust, the monster sins.
Now, folks, what is actually being said here
in Hebrew, Jehovah has smashed to pieces the
power of the monster dragon and is fatally
smitten every one of his enemies.
Now, folks, let me tell you something.
For a number of weeks now, I've been
preaching that there are besetting sins, there are
bosom sins that are ingrained.
It can be drug addiction, it can be
alcoholism, it can be sexual sins and gambling,
and all of these things.
It can be covetousness.
We talked even about eating habits that people
just absolutely absorb by food or are possessed
by food.
And we have been telling you that you
cannot humanly, on your own power, through your
own will, conquer those sins.
Now, God doesn't bypass your will.
No, we have a free will.
God doesn't bypass your will.
But our will, if we leave it to
itself, without the infusion of the Holy Ghost
and the empowerment of the Holy Ghost, the
flesh will choose for it.
The will will follow the flesh.
It will choose what is comfortable, what it's
attached to.
That's why our sins are called members of
the body.
They become like members.
And that's why He said, if I offend
you, pluck it out.
If your hand offends you, cut it off.
Because our sins, our bosom sins, become like
a member of our body.
That's why He said we have to deal
with these members of the body.
But your will, you do not have the
will.
You do not have the strength and the
human power.
And I would go home sometimes, and I
even ran this by Pastor Carter once, and
said, am I a little too easy when
I say this has to be supernatural power
that breaks down the dragon, breaks those monster
sins?
Lord, am I taking away people's personal responsibility?
Maybe people relax and say, well, I've got
a problem, and if God has to do
it, I'll just sit here and wait for
Him to do it.
Now, I'm going to tell you now, God
will not do it without you.
He will do it, but He won't do
it without you.
He won't do it without the cooperation of
your will.
You have to want to be delivered.
You have to hate your sin.
You have to say, I don't want this
in my life.
I want freedom in my life, and I
want to be pleasing unto the Lord.
And my part is to hate my sin,
and my part is to cry out to
God.
My part is to never make peace with
my sin.
If I make peace with it, it means
I'm ready to live with it, and I
want this, and I want Jesus too.
Now, I'm not preaching to you guys.
I'm preaching to the whole congregation.
Now, hear me please.
When I read this, it's incontrovertible.
Here is the absolute proof that it has
to be a supernatural work of the Holy
Spirit working upon our human will.
I will to be free.
I want to be free, and I cry
out to God, Oh God, send the Holy
Ghost.
Send your power.
God, your power has to break Rahab to
pieces.
Lord, you're the one who has to scatter
all my enemies.
Every demon power coming against me, I can't
chase them.
I'm no match for the devil.
You chase all of these enemies out of
my life.
Chase them out.
Lord, you smash that monster sin.
You smash that dragon in my life.
Hallelujah.
Who broke Rahab to pieces?
Rahab?
Thou has broken Rahab in pieces as one
that is slain.
Thou has scattered thine enemies with thy strong
arm.
Oh, hallelujah.
Remember what I tell you, don't be afraid
of sin.
Don't be afraid of it.
Hate it, but don't be afraid of it.
Don't be afraid it's going to kill you
or overwhelm you.
Know God has a strong arm.
You belong to him and God's going to
smash, going to bring his hammer down on
that sin.
Hallelujah.
Now, two more minutes.
I have to give you a warning before
I close.
Unbelief, when you're in a trial and things
are hard, and you begin to complain, you
begin to murmur, you begin to doubt, there's
unbelief.
I want to tell you, that's not only
painful to God, but it's deadly to you
and me.
It's a deadly thing to keep questioning God,
to keep doubting, and every time we get
down and the testing gets a little stiff,
we begin to question God.
In our mind, Lord, are you even hearing
my prayer anymore?
God, where are you?
God, that's enough.
We go on and on and on.
We don't stop.
Now, folks, the children of Israel did that.
And God, in Psalms, look at Psalm 78.
You should go there before closing.
Psalm 78.
And take this warning from the Holy Spirit,
lovingly.
A loving warning from the Holy Spirit, that
we've got to stop our murmuring and our
complaining, before it becomes a deadly thing in
our lives, can destroy us.
Psalm 78, beginning to read verse 54, 78,
verse 54 beginning to read, He brought them
to the border of a sanctuary, even to
this mountain, which his right hand had purchased.
He cast out the heathen also before them.
By the way, who's doing this?
God's doing it.
They're not doing it.
God's doing it.
They are literally on the front lines, but
God is empowering them to do it.
He cast out the heathen also before them,
and divided them in inheritance by line, and
made the tribes of Israel to dwell in
their tents.
Yet they tempted and provoked the Most High
God.
They kept not his testimonies, but they turned
back.
They dealt unfaithfully like their fathers.
They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
They provoked him to anger with their high
places, and moved him to jealousy with their
graven images.
When God heard this, now see, it didn't
when he saw it, when he heard it,
something they were saying.
It's unbelief.
It's talking fear, and doubt, and questioning God.
When God heard this, he was wroth, or
angry, and greatly abhorred Israel, means he rejected
Israel, so that he forsook the tabernacle of
Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men,
delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory
into the enemy's hands.
He gave his people over also to the
sword, and was wroth with an inheritance.
Look at me please.
Folks, God has told me in no uncertain
terms.
He tells me lovingly, he's my father, and
I'm his son, and he loves me.
But God is saying, David, if you don't
want to destroy your life, if you don't
want to be turned over to the hands
of the enemy, I'm asking you now to
stop your complaining, stop your murmuring.
If you're going to trust me, it's going
to affect your language.
You can't say, I trust the Lord, and
talk unbelief.
You're going to stand still now, and see
the salvation of the Lord.
Don't anger your heavenly father.
Don't anger him, time and time again.
Folks, I've been looking over some of the
messages I've preached in the last eight years
in this church.
This afternoon, I looked over some I've been
preaching.
I preached faith, faith.
I've been preaching, don't doubt God, and yet,
I've not fully practiced what I preached.
But God has put my back to the
wall and said, David, you're going to trust
me.
I want you to be a testimony these
last days.
I've got to have your testimony.
It's not just in the pulpit.
Your testimony is your walk of faith.
Hallelujah.
Will you stand, please?
Will you stand?
Do you understand, before we leave this service
tonight, even before we give an invitation, that
you've been called to what you're going through?
How many will accept that and raise your
hand?
Say, I have been called to my suffering.
I've been called to the furnace.
I accept my calling.
Hallelujah.
Now, I'm going to ask you for another
show of how many in this church will
say, God, by your grace, by your grace,
stop my everlasting bellyaching and complaining and my
murmuring.
God, take it out right now.
Lord, we come to you to be delivered
from this.
Deliver us, oh God.
Deliver your people from murmuring and complaining and
questioning you.
Oh, God.
Hallelujah.
Do you believe God's going to answer your
prayer?
Oh, yes, he is.
Hallelujah.
You say, oh, brother, I've been in so
long, I want out.
He knows when to bring you out.
When you start shutting up and begin to
talk faith, and I'm not talking about silly
faith, I'm talking about, God, I know you
have the power.
I know you love me.
You're not going to hurt me.
You're going to see me through.
Hallelujah.
God, you're going to see me through.
I trust you.
Speak it.
Let everybody see it around you.
Let there be a joy of the Lord
in your heart.
Let's say, God, no matter what it is,
you are going to see me through.
Hasn't he brought you this far?
Haven't you come this far by faith?
Trusting in the Lord?
You would be dead.
You'd be on the streets.
God brought you through.
Let's pray.
Holy Spirit, there are those hearing me now
who have really been overwhelmed and crushed and
fear has laid hold of their heart.
There's such a fear in them.
Oh, God, I'm asking you to deliver them
from this fear.
I'm asking you, Lord, to stir up faith.
God, let them turn to your word.
Let them cry out to you.
Oh, God, forgive my unbelief.
Forgive my unbelief.
Take it away.
Hallelujah.
Now, there's some in the balcony here on
the main floor that really need to walk
down this aisle tonight because you've come to
the place recently.
You've been through so much.
You've come to the place recently where you've
questioned whether God is even hearing you anymore.
You've almost been convinced that God's not answering
your prayer because it's been a long time.
You haven't seen evidence of it yet.
But it's made you just a little angry
at God perhaps.
Some of you, I think, may have a
grudge against the Lord.
Bring that grudge to this altar and leave
it here.
Leave it.
Bring your unbelief and leave it here.
Follow these that are coming now.
From the balcony, just go to the stairs
on either side and come down any aisle.
That's it.
The Lord's here tonight to set you free.
He wants to inflame your faith.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Whatever you're going through, you've got to learn
this, please.
God is at work in me.
God's doing this.
When you stop and say that, it changes
everything.
God's doing something in me.
God's looking for something.
He's taking me through something.
Oh, God, don't let me fail.
Strengthen my faith.
Let me come through it trusting, speaking confidence
in the Lord.
Let me read to you just what the
Lord gave me for you right now, you
that came forward.
In the day when I cried, thou answered
me and strengthened me with strength in my
soul.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you will revive me.
You'll stretch forth your hand against the wrath
of my enemies and your right hand shall
save me.
The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.
Thy mercy, O Lord, endures forever.
Forsake not the work of thy hands, thine
own hands.
Let me read this to you.
I will lift up my eyes unto the
hills and whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord which made
heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be
moved.
He that keepeth thee will not sleep.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel will not slumber
nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper.
The Lord is thy shade.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil.
He shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and
coming in from this time forth even forever.
He says, I'm going to preserve your faith.
Hallelujah.
Didn't he tell Peter, the devil's trying to
sift you, he's asked for you, but I
prayed for you that your faith fail not.
Jesus is praying for you right now.
God, don't let my faith fail.
Lift up your hands to the Lord right
now.
Pray that, Lord, don't let my faith fail.
Forgive my unbelief.
Ask God to forgive your unbelief right now.
God, forgive my unbelief.
Forgive my words of doubt and fear and
murmuring and complaining.
Forgive me, Lord.
I've done this before your face.
A faithful God, I have murmured, I've questioned,
I've doubted.
God, forgive me.
Folks, ask God's forgiveness right now.
We've got to be forgiven of this.
Lord, produce faith in our hearts now.
Hallelujah.
Just tell him you believe, Lord, you're faithful,
you're going to see me through.
God's going to see me through.
God, see me through.
Hallelujah.
If there's sin in your heart, confess it
right now, Lord.
I confess my sins.
If you're coming back to Jesus, just yield
your spirit and heart to Him right now
by faith.
He's faithful and just to forgive you and
cleanse you of all unrighteousness.
I want everybody in this house to raise
your hands and thank God for His faithfulness.
Even in our unbelief, He deals with us
in love.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Lord.
Deliver us, Lord.
Deliver us from all unbelief that we be
a trusting people.
A trusting people.
Hallelujah.
Glory be to God.
Hallelujah.
This is the conclusion of the tape.