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Psalm 38.
And thank you, musicians, choir, staff, all of
you, and elders.
God gave us some wonderful, wonderful elders.
Great men of God who have great wisdom.
And they stand with Pastor Carter and I.
And we thank you, gentlemen.
God bless you.
Psalm 38, if you will, please.
My message tonight is entitled The Heaviness of
Sin.
The Heaviness of Sin.
I have a sense in me that the
Lord's taking me back to the kind of
preaching that this church was established on that
has to do with old-time repentance.
And I find myself being led more and
more to preach against the inroads of sin
and repentance.
The Heaviness of Sin.
Psalm 38, first five verses, please.
O Lord, David is speaking, Rebuke me not
in thy wrath, Neither chasten me in thy
hot displeasure, For thine arrows stick fast in
me, And thy hand presseth me sore.
There is no soundness in my flesh Because
of thine anger, Neither is there any rest
in my bones Because of my sin.
For my iniquities are gone over my head
As a heavy burden.
They're too heavy for me.
That's my message.
The Heaviness of Sin.
My sin is too heavy for me.
My wounds stink and are corrupt Because of
my foolishness.
Next verse.
I am troubled, I am bowed down, Great
I go mourning all the day.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you give me
now your mind and your unction and your
anointing because I can't deliver this message in
my own strength and in my own power
but by faith.
Now I take your authority, Jesus, over every
prince of poverty and power of darkness, every
spirit of iniquity that would try to hinder
the flowing of the word of God into
the hearts that need it tonight.
Lord, I need this message and everyone in
this building needs it.
And I pray, Lord, you speak supernaturally into
our hearts.
Lord, we love you with a passion.
We're here, Lord, for no other reason than
to bring a body into the fullness of
Christ and one day present them to you,
Lord.
I have to answer one day as I
stand at the judgment seat.
I have to answer first of all to
live what I preach.
But oh, what a trembling that causes me.
And Lord Jesus, I pray now that you
send your arrows and break through every wall
that we've erected and let the word find
its mark, I pray.
Bring healing in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now after David committed adultery with Bathsheba and
had her husband murdered, he wrote in his
time of penitence, he wrote four Psalms.
If you want to check this later, Psalm
6, Psalm 32, Psalm 51, and Psalm 38,
the chapter that I'm focusing on tonight.
He wrote these after the fall and after
his repentance.
And here in Psalm 38, David is smitten
by his tender conscience and he cries out
to God in verse 2, Your arrows pierce
me deeply.
Your hand presses me down.
You see, this comes right after Nathan, the
prophet, has exposed David's sin.
Now the whole country is talking about it.
David is living out the shame caused by
his sin.
I think the thing that sends terror in
David's soul is what Nathan told him about
his sin.
You cause the enemies of God to rejoice.
Folks, that more than anything else sends the
greatest fear into my heart that I could
ever fail God and bring shame on His
name so that the enemies of God would
mock.
I would rather die than to have that
happen.
And what David must have gone through now,
his sin is now exposed to the whole
world.
And he's living out, he's hearing the cry
of so many, how the mighty are falling,
David's dead, ruined, he's gone, his reputation, his
influence, it's all over, and they were gloating
in it, even those who supposedly were his
friends.
Now a number of Bible scholars believe that
it was during this time of David's weakness
that Absalom saw fit to rise up against
him.
Now, the rebellion had not yet been full
-blown, but evidently David was aware of it.
Reports probably came to him that there was
a plot by his son Absalom to overthrow
his government.
And I think that's why he said this
in verses 11 and 12, My loved ones
and my friends stand aloof from my plague,
and my relatives stand afar off.
I think he's speaking of his own sons.
Those who also seek my life lay snares
for me.
Those who seek my hurt speak of destruction,
and they're planning deception all the day long.
He knew there was deception, and yet he
can't speak out about it because he's laboring
under the burden and the shame of his
own sin.
Now, for an entire year, David lived with
a hidden sin.
David lived with something, a sin that was
not confessed, it was covered.
He was covering his sin for a whole
year.
The Bible clearly says in Proverbs, He that
covereth his sins shall not prosper, but he
that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have
mercy.
Now, when it says shall not prosper, it's
not talking about physical prosperity.
He will not prosper in his health.
He'll not prosper in his emotion.
He'll not prosper in his knowledge of God
or his walk with God or his everyday
life.
He will not prosper.
There's going to be a curse.
There's going to be shame.
And for a whole year, David lives under
this.
At first, only he knew it and his
military commander, Joab.
Only two people knew this.
And then God supernaturally reveals it to a
prophet, Nathan.
Three people know it now.
And Nathan has been to David.
And I wonder if part of David's terror
is that he's not told by Sheba, our
husband died.
Have you ever thought about that?
When did he tell her?
Did she know instinctively that David had a
part in having her husband murdered?
Or did David just live under this tension
for a whole year?
Did she not know this until later when
it was all out?
Did she hear it when the rest of
Israel heard it?
Was this what he carried for a whole
year?
That caused such emotional, physical, spiritual pain to
David that we'll see described here in just
a moment.
How true the Bible is.
Be sure your sin will find you out.
Be sure.
Be absolutely sure.
That is the principle of God.
Your sin will find you out.
It will come out.
It's going to be made public.
Here in Psalm 38, it's now out in
the open and nothing is hidden.
And David's confessing, my iniquities have gone over
my head like a heavy burden.
They're too heavy for me.
You see, by the time Nathan got to
David, he was already at the end of
the rope.
He had already been crossed by the burden
of this secret sin.
Oh, my friend, there is no greater burden
for a Christian to bear than that of
the heavy load of a hidden, covered sin.
No other burden that a Christian could bear
than that which is hidden, unforsaken, and unconfessed.
David is already saying to himself, what my
sin has done to me, what it's done
to my physical body, it's done to my
family, to my country.
It's too much to handle.
It's too heavy.
Moses once described sin like this, the pleasures
of sin for a season.
And oh, what a short season that pleasure
is.
Often it's a night.
Often it's a few hours of forbidden pleasure.
It could be a week.
It could be a month.
It could be a fortation.
It can be a secret affair.
It can be drugs.
It can be alcohol.
It can be any of these things that
he...
Moses said, there are pleasures in sin, but
for such a short season.
And then comes the heaviness.
Then comes the effect on the body, the
health, and the family.
The word heaviness here in Hebrew means burdensome.
It also means the potential to dull your
senses.
It dulls conviction.
It dulls the ability to understand and hear
the Word.
The first thing you lose when you hide
your sin is your discernment, your spiritual discernment.
You can't see.
You can't hear.
For he that cut off of his sins
shall not prosper.
Did God still love David through all of
this?
Yes, He did.
Was God angry with David?
Yes, He was.
Does God love you even when you are
in sin, when there is hidden sin in
your life?
Yes.
Does it anger God?
Oh, yes, it does.
Does God discipline?
Oh, yes, He does.
Because you see now, David's a very sick
man.
His body is plagued.
The Hebrew suggests it's a very serious case
of ulcers.
What a toll it took on his physical
body.
Now, we know from the life of Job
that not all sickness is caused by sin.
Some of those who are the holiest, godliest
people on earth suffer more than anybody else.
Job is a very perfect example.
But just as surely as you can get
sick and die from drinking at the Lord's
table unworthily, he said, for this reason, because
of hidden sin, I believe, because of that
which is not forsaken, not dealt with, many
among you are sick.
And the apostles said even have died as
a result of it.
And just as surely as that can happen,
what an awesome, awful toll sin took on
David.
He's listing here in this chapter the toll
physically, emotionally on his body, his family, his
nation.
And there's not a person here in this
service, behind me, before me, anywhere.
There's not one person in this building.
There's not experience.
If you love the Lord, if you really
have a heart for Jesus, if you really
believe you're His child and you have sinned
against God or you have fallen into a
sin or you have a covered sin or
a hidden sin or a besetting sin that's
not been dealt with, I tell you, you
have gone through this same thing.
I've been there.
I know what it's about.
Years ago in my young pastoral life, I've
known what this is.
Not speaking of adultery.
Don't try to figure out what my sin
is.
You've got enough problems with your own.
You listen to what David said about the
toll of his sin on his life, the
emotional, physical, spiritual toll on his life.
He begins in verse 3, There's no soundness
in my flesh.
In other words, I have brought upon myself
a continual fear that I can't deal with.
In Hebrew, it suggests my mind and body
is consumed by a fear of God's wrath
and displeasure on me.
I wake up every morning knowing that I've
sinned against the Lord.
I've got something hidden in my heart.
I have something attached to itself.
I have a cancer in my soul.
And I wake up every morning and there's
no soundness.
There's no sense of wholeness.
There's a sense of a dark, foreboding cloud
that hangs over my head.
I tell you, if you love Jesus, if
He's your Savior, if He's the Blessed One
in your life, and you have sinned, you
know the grief it causes Him.
You cannot wake up with peace.
You cannot wake up with a quiet, joyful
spirit.
There's no soundness, He said, in my flesh.
In my mind, my mind is constantly aware
that I have sinned against God and I
have hidden it.
He goes on to say, There is no
health in my bones because of my sin.
Now, bones here should be translated, my body.
Have you ever used this expression?
I do more and more as I age.
I have a hard time getting these bones
out of bed in the morning.
That's my body.
He said, There's no health in my body
because of my sin.
He said, my sin is literally affecting my
health.
It's affecting my physical health.
David said in those other penitent psalms, for
example, in the sixth chapter, sixth psalm, verse
two, Have mercy on me, O Lord, for
I am weak.
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are
being troubled.
My soul is also greatly troubled.
In the other penitent psalm, in 32.3,
When I kept silence, in other words, when
I hid my sin, my bones grew old
through my groaning all the day long.
There's a groaning.
It wasn't a voice.
There's something groaning and moaning in him.
I am living in sin.
I am grieving the spirit of the living
God.
And he said, I groan and it's affecting
my body.
It's affecting my health.
Verse, chapter, you know that penitent psalm, the
51st psalm, verse eight, Make me hear joy
and gladness that the bones that you've broken
may start rejoicing.
He said, I can't carry this anymore, Lord.
There's no rejoicing in me anymore.
Not real rejoicing.
Oh, I can put it on, but it's
not a true rejoicing.
For your David's body is racked with fear
and trouble and foreboding.
He goes on.
He said, My loins are filled with a
loathsome disease.
There's no soundness in my flesh.
And the loins here in Hebrews represent strength
and confidence.
And this loathsome disease in Hebrews is shrinking,
a drying up.
And what he's saying, my, literally, my strength,
my physical, mental, spiritual strength is shrinking.
Folks, we have millions of shrinking saints who
are literally shrinking, who once had a touch
of God, who knew how to pray.
They don't pray anymore.
They're shrinking.
They don't see God.
They go to church for an hour or
two.
They can spend hours in sports, hours in
their hobbies, hours in everything else, and give
God a lousy hour.
I told you, and I want to repeat
it.
The night that Princess Diana was buried, Holy
Spirit woke me in the middle of the
night and spoke to my inner man and
said, David, tonight goes down in the books
of heaven, in the book of judgment.
It's one of the greatest nights of judgment
in the history of mankind.
I said, what do you mean, Lord?
He said, it's because millions of my people
who have never spent 15 minutes a day
seeking my face, never been up for an
hour with the Word of the Lord, got
up at 2, 3, 4 o'clock and
sat for four hours watching television, watching a
princess die, and not even an hour for
the King of Kings and the Lord of
Lords.
I'm not condemning you for doing that.
I'm not saying that's wrong.
The wrong, the sin is, is that you
had that time and yet you didn't have
the time.
You have not given the time to the
Lord, not an equal time to Him.
And when the books are opened, God will
remind millions of Christians who have abandoned and
neglected Him days on end.
The prophet said, you have neglected the Lord
days on end.
See, you don't have to be a drug
addict, alcoholic, prostitute or having a secret affair.
All you have to do is ignore Him.
All you have to do is have all
your time for yourself.
Never open this book.
Never draw life.
And shrink.
Shrink.
Till you become a spiritual midget talking like
a giant.
David goes on, my wounds stink and they're
corrupt because of my foolishness.
He said, this has been nothing but foolishness
and because of my foolishness there's a stench
to my character.
I once stood for something.
When people heard my name, they honored God.
There was something about my character.
Folks, there's something about people that walk close
to Jesus that even the worst sinners have
to acknowledge.
And David said, they acknowledged me.
And what he's saying now, this wound among
this foolishness has caused a stench to my
character, my name.
They call me, they sing, now the drunkards
sing about me.
I'm the song of drunkards.
And he's not grieving about his name because
he said, my name was identified with his.
There was an awesome beauty to holiness and
there was a beauty to my name.
And now he said, there's a stench because
of my foolishness.
He said, I'm a troubled man.
I'm bowed down greatly.
I go mourning all the day long.
He says, I'm getting up every morning troubled,
bowed down with fear and guilt.
I'm not a free man.
I go about my days.
I go about my work without peace.
And in the Hebrew, it means a dark
amber colored heavy sadness.
How do you get up in the morning?
Is the joy of the Lord there?
Is there a song in your heart?
This is the day the Lord has made.
I will be glad and rejoice in it.
Or is that moaning, groaning of the Holy
Ghost in you because he loves you, because
God loves you.
The hound of heaven is there in the
morning.
The hound of heaven.
Talk about groanings that can't be uttered.
I'm a feeble and sore broken man.
Verse 8, I have roared by reason of
the disquietness of my heart.
He said, I moan because there's something roaring
in me.
There's a roar in my heart.
And what is that roaring?
It's the roaring of a lost peace.
He lost his rest in God.
You see, it's getting heavier and heavier.
Every statement he makes, David's looking back and
he's trying to describe the heaviness on him.
What the cost of my sin.
He's already been exposed.
He's already through.
He seemed the light at the end of
the tunnel, but now he's looking back and
he's looking back for you and for me,
for our sake.
Saying, you don't have to go the way
I went.
I'm feeble and sore broken because I've lost
the favor of God.
Oh, beloved, when you lose the favor and
the blessing of God, what an awful cloud
of darkness results.
Then he said, as for the light of
mine eyes, it's completely gone now.
The light of my eyes.
Sin cost me my discernment, my reputation.
It's affected my family, my friends, my health.
But he said, it's one thing to lose
your health.
It's another thing to lose your reputation.
And it's a sad thing to have the
enemies rejoice.
And he said, oh, the worst thing of
all, I've lost his light.
I've lost the sense of his presence.
I've lost it.
Folks, I'm weeping inside because while I'm talking
to you, I'm thinking about some evangelist friends
of mine who are well known.
And I was their speaker so often, and
I ate with them, and I talked with
them, and I ministered to them, and they
ministered to me.
And I've been in a car for an
hour to a man who had won millions
of souls and listened in unbelief and terror
to a man who had lost his light.
And one of our repentance conferences, a well
-known evangelist from years ago, and I told
you about it here, all the years he
was on television, known all over the United
States and around the world.
This is years ago.
The whole time, he had the hidden sin
of homosexuality.
And he came to one of our repentance
conferences, and his wife had to lead him
around.
He was about 70 at the time.
And I'd heard all about him, never met
him.
He was very famous when I was a
younger man.
His wife led him up to me.
She had to literally lead him.
He put his hand out like this, like
a dead fish.
I picked it up.
He said, Hello, David.
The light was gone.
There was no light.
There was nothing.
He was a dead man.
Dead.
I fear God.
I lost my light.
Folks, you can lose your reputation, you can
lose your health because of this, and you
can lose all that, but God help you
when you lose the light.
When you can sit in the house of
God and not be affected by it, when
you can sit in God's house, no amount
of preaching can touch your heart anymore, and
you go off and find some little candy
-cotton preacher who will minister to the lust
of your heart.
Because he lost his spiritual light, he lost
his right to rebuke and reproach sin in
others.
Listen to him.
But I, as a deaf man, heard not,
thus I was a man that heareth not,
in whose mouth there is no reproof.
Now remember what Paul said to Timothy, to
minister to you, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort
with all longsuffering.
But the one who hides his sin has
this thundering message in his soul.
You who say, Do not commit adultery, do
you commit adultery?
For the name of God is blasphemed among
the Gentiles because of you.
In other words, are you teaching others how
to live, and yet you have the hidden,
covered thing in your own life?
He said, You have blasphemed my name.
Oh, God.
You blaspheme my name.
What a heavy burden David carried that whole
year.
How costly.
And listen to David's heart cry.
I am ready, verse 17, I am ready
to halt.
In Hebrew it means fall.
I'm about to take a fall.
My sorrow is continually before me.
Now, you can look at this picture of
David I've just painted to you, and you
say, How can this sweet psalmist, how can
a man after God's heart, a man who
so knew the Lord, how could the devil
wind up doing such a trip on him?
Well, let me tell you, it wasn't the
devil who put a trip on him, it
was God.
It wasn't the devil who made sin so
heavy, it was God.
God is the one who makes your sin
so heavy you can't bear it until you
be driven back to the cross.
You see, only a righteous man, only a
righteous person can be affected like this by
sin.
Let me tell you something.
If you sit here now and say, Oh,
Brother David, you are coming down something in
my heart I have hidden.
I hope you never stand in front of
me and have to tell me what it
is.
Let me tell you something.
If you're here tonight, you say, Brother David,
you're describing what I'm going through.
Let me tell you, only a righteous person
could feel what David felt.
Only a righteous person.
If you're going through that, that is the
loving mercy of God causing your sin to
weigh you down and bring you down to
the depths until you see the exceeding sinfulness
of sin and then you see sin as
He sees it.
He is bringing you to the place He
brought David.
David said, I'm about to fall, but my
sorrow is ever before me.
And that is the whole secret of this
whole story now.
He had to grant me sorrow.
In Lamentations, the prophet cries out, I'm the
man who has seen affliction by the rod
of his wrath.
He has led me and made me walk
in darkness and not in light.
This is talking about the past sins.
He has aged my flesh and my skin.
He has broken my bones.
He has besieged me.
He has hedged me in so that I
cannot get out.
He has made my chain heavy.
He has broke my way with hewn stones.
God has made my chain heavy.
God Himself allows the chaos, the terrifying results,
the ruin to bring an open confession and
produce a deep repentance and a willingness to
bring it all out to the throne of
God in the open so that then we
can cast aside every weight.
Now here's a man who's committed adultery.
Here's a man who has had a soldier
murdered so he could bed down his wife.
A man who already had five wives.
A man who brought shame on Israel, on
his heavenly father.
A man who hid his horrible sin for
a whole year.
A man who came to the brink of
total ruin and yet God says he's a
man after my own heart.
You say, how can that be?
I'll tell you why.
Here it is.
For I will declare my iniquity and I
will be sorry for my sin.
I will freely confess my sin.
I am truly repentant.
Forsake me, O Lord.
Take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Oh, David had a crying heart, a repentant
heart.
He's not telling this to man.
He's telling it to God.
Against thee and thee only, Lord, have I
sinned and done this evil in your sight.
I acknowledge to you, my Lord, that I
have transgressed.
Create in me a clean heart.
You see, on the brink of a fall,
just before he's about to fall, he cries
out to God and humbles himself and says,
Oh, God, I've had enough.
I can't carry this.
It's too heavy for me.
Are you at that place or are you
at the brink?
You're about to say, if I go on
another day, another week, I'm going to fall.
Oh, God humbled him.
God, bring a godly sorrow in my heart
for my sin.
And it's that cry that God's looking for.
Oh, how he rushes.
God has never in the history of salvation,
never in the history of mankind turned down
the cry of a sincere heart.
Never.
Now, my message tonight goes beyond the experiences
of David and the focus of my message
goes on even beyond the high cost of
sin.
Because I want to focus for a little
while on another kind of Christian.
I want to talk about those who call
themselves Christians and cannot relate in any way
to Psalm 38.
They can't relate to anything I've said.
They don't know what this is all about.
I don't understand sin, grieving you, bringing you
down in health and emotionally and spiritually and
affecting everything around you.
Some people don't understand a word of that.
Call themselves Christians.
Say they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because, you see, the Christian who doesn't take
his sins seriously, who thinks it's a triviality,
is in very dangerous condition.
Far more dangerous condition than David was at
any point in his transgression.
Now, here is the point of my whole
message.
And God, this past week, just shook my
soul with it.
You see, there's hope for David because this
man feels the arrows of the heart.
He doesn't have any walls.
His conscience has not been crusted by rejections
of the truth.
The arrows of God easily pierced his soul.
And he felt the pain of it.
But there are many who can sit in
messages like this and feel no pain when
the arrows come, like this afternoon, under the
preaching of Pastor Carter.
And every time the arrows come, the arrows
are just shunted off because the conscience is
crusted.
Can't pierce the armor of the walls that
have been set up.
And the sin is taken, like, oh, it's
just a little thing.
I'm doing quite well with the Lord.
There's just one little thing and one little
problem in my life.
It's a little thing.
I received a letter this past week from
a sister that really got my attention.
I read many of the letters with Gwen
that come from all over the world.
She said, Pastor David, I'm really scared.
I've served the Lord for a number of
years now, but in recent years, I've been
drifting away.
I've been cold toward the Lord.
I'm going just through the motions.
I have no burden for lost souls.
I have no burden for the work of
the Lord anymore.
I have no urgency to pray.
I seldom pick up the word.
A spiritual dullness has overtaken me.
But what scares me more than anything else
is what's happening to me.
And she said, I am scared that I'm
not scared.
I'm scared that this doesn't bother me.
I thought about that.
Taking sin so lightly.
How many are there right now that you've
made peace with your sin?
That bosom sin has become so comfortable now
you don't even think about it.
It's just something you do.
The pornography.
How many of you go and rent a
video and you are being entertained as our
pastor preach.
Pastor Carter, you're being entertained by the sins
of others.
Which makes you far more guilty than those
who made the pornographic stuff in the first
place, because you're being entertained by their sins.
And you take it lightly.
Now, let me give you an illustration in
that don't turn up in an eighth chapter
of Ezekiel.
There's an amazing, amazing story of 70 elders
of Israel coming to visit the prophet Ezekiel
to get a word from the Lord.
And they come as God's servants.
Now, remember, they are in the service of
the temple.
These are priests and these seven priest elders
come.
They're priests and elders and they come to
Ezekiel to worship the Lord.
It's a worship service and to hear the
word of the Lord.
It's a preaching worship service.
And they come very piously.
And Ezekiel said, as I sat in my
house with the elders of Judah sitting before
me, suddenly there came a fiery appearance and
a man in brightness, the color of amber.
Now, these 70 elders have hidden sin in
their life.
They are going through all of the temple
ministry.
They are killing the lambs.
They are at the laver washing their hands.
They go into the holy place.
They have the incense.
They're going through all this and nobody knows
about it.
Outward, everything looks pious and holy.
But these men belong to a secret society
of sun worshiping.
These men have a bevy of prostitutes in
the temple, weeping for Tammuz, the god of
fertility and a part of the worship was
acts of prostitution even with the priest.
And these men are full of lust.
These men have secret sin and they're coming
piously before the man of God.
And suddenly God appears.
The glory of God comes into the room.
In fact, the prophet says, and behold the
glory of the Lord.
The God of Israel was there.
I want you to notice how Ezekiel is
impacted by the glory of God.
He is lifted by the very locks of
a hair.
This is not actually happening literally.
It's a vision.
And right in the room, God's going to
pick him up and hang him right over
the temple and expose everything that's in their
minds because when the spirit of the Lord
came, Ezekiel, the man of God, walking in
righteousness, gets a vision of the terror of
sin.
He gets a vision of the power of
the abominations in God's house and the hidden
things in the heart of man.
Folks, when the glory of God comes, it
comes to expose sin.
It comes to expose every hidden thing in
our life.
And that's the way we're to respond like
Ezekiel did.
His eyes are suddenly open.
And Lord, I'm going to show you abomination
after abomination.
I'm going to show you sin as I
see it.
And he is literally suspended between heaven and
earth.
And he said, look, these men are putting
up walls.
They're putting up walls.
They're not moved.
The glory of God's in the room and
they're not moved.
They're sitting there comfortable.
They're not listening.
They're not hearing.
They're saying everything's all right.
It's just a little thing.
We worship Jehovah.
We got this little thing on the side.
Totally unmoved.
They have covered their sin and the glory
of God is in the room and it
doesn't touch them.
Amazing.
Honey, sit down.
Would you sit down, please?
Would you please sit down?
We'll minister to you after the service, honey.
Listen, God says to the prophet, look, they're
putting up walls.
I'm going to cut a hole right into
their minds now and their imagination.
I'm going to show you.
He said, dig into their minds, dig into
their hearts.
I'm going to show you what's in their
mind.
And he said when he dug through, he
saw creeping things in all the walls of
their imagination, an abominable beast.
Those are demonic strongholds, demonic beast in the
house of God in the ministry.
Folks, I believe more people going to go
to hell by false preachers than any drug
pushers or anything else.
I think ungodly preaching will send more people
to hell than any of any other force
on Earth.
God, oh, what a wailing and weeping on
judgment day when ungodly preachers unmoved by the
gospel, hiding secret sin and living, living absolutely
in lust and fornication and all kinds of
foolishness stand before a holy God given over
to their sins.
Ezekiel sees right into their hearts and he
said, let me show you the great abominations
in my house.
The imaginations filled with all kinds of creeping
things, abominable beast.
They were weeping for Tammuz.
If Ezekiel lived today and the Holy Ghost
suspended him above this church and above all
the churches and above our spiritual minds and
our imaginations, I wonder what he'd see.
I wonder what would be revealed to him
of the deeper abominations and the covetousness, the
unforgiveness, the neglecting of a holy God and
giving him so little of our life and
time.
And here, listen to this.
God said, let me tell you, Ezekiel, why
these men can sit in the presence of
my holiness and be unmoved.
He said, is it a light in the
Hebrews trivial?
Is it a light trivial thing to the
house of Judah?
To commit these abominations which they commit here,
they have put the branch to their nose.
He said, Ezekiel, you know why they're unmoved?
They don't see sin like I do to
them.
It's just the thing.
It's a light thing.
They're taking it.
They're not taking their sin seriously.
They're not taking it seriously.
He said, is this a light thing to
you?
To commit abomination?
And this is just a joke to you?
You're not going to deal with this?
And he said, not only that, they put
the twig to the nose.
Now, a number of Bible scholars have said
that this was a sign of contempt.
They would pick up a twig, break it
off, put it under the nose and twist
and just flip it.
In other words, here's to you.
Well, we threw the twig away and we
use the thumb.
It's called thumb in the nose.
God says, when you take your sin light,
you thumb in your nose at me.
You are thumbing your nose at me.
You not only neglect me, you're thumbing your
nose.
You're putting the twig to your nose.
For they say the Lord does not see.
Nobody knows.
It's all hidden.
Oh, not for long.
Not for long.
But you see these priests, they're not like
David.
They're not burdened down with the heaviness of
sin.
The load of sin was light to them.
There's no smiting conviction.
There's no loss of strength.
There's no physical or emotional pain.
They're not troubled.
There's no fear, no guilt, no ulcers, no
inner roaring, no moaning over sin.
They're deceived by what Moses called a false
piece.
You've heard Pastor Carter and myself talk about
it.
And here it is that they bless themselves
in their hearts saying, I shall have peace,
though I walk in the imagination or stubbornness
of my own heart to add drunkenness to
thirst.
In other words, there's no difference between a
drunkard and me.
There's no what it is.
There's no distinguishing between good and evil.
They've lost all ability to distinguish between.
They can't tell the difference between thirst and
drunkenness.
And he said, they say, I have peace,
I have peace, though I walk in the
stubbornness of my own heart.
Oh, there is a peace.
It's a false peace.
It's a judicial judgment of God.
It's a peace that comes upon those who
God knows will never again ever want to
repent and turn to the Lord.
Let me ask you in closing.
How heavy is your sin?
You say, oh, Brother David, I can't carry
the load anymore.
That's good.
That's the cry of a righteous soul.
Oh, God, I'm sick of my sin.
I am so tired of it.
But folks, if it's not making you sick,
if it's not making you weary, if it's
not making you heavy burden, then God help
you.
God help you.
I want if there's sin in my life,
I want God to so put his hand
make it so heavy on me.
I can't last another day until I go
to the throne.
For David, now the hiding's all over.
The sin is out in the open and
he's seeing light not the end of the
tunnel.
And listen to his triumphant cry.
I acknowledge my sin to you, Lord.
In my iniquity, I'm not hidden anymore.
I said I will confess my transgression to
the Lord.
And you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
You now are my hiding place.
You shall preserve me from trouble.
You will surround me with songs of deliverance.
Shout for joy all you upright in heart.
Oh, you get your shout back.
Hallelujah.
You get your joy back.
How?
I said I brought it out to you,
Lord.
You don't have to get up and announce
it publicly.
You go to the throne of God.
You go to the secret closet.
So, God, here I am.
I want you to cause me to hate
this, to see it as you see it,
oh God.
And I want you to know that I
don't want to carry this anymore.
Casting all your care, all your burden, cast
aside the weight.
He's there waiting.
Hallelujah.
You know, one last closing thought.
Remember when the prodigal son ran away?
What a horrible condition.
He actually had wanted his dad dead.
It's the only way he could have got
his inheritance.
But since he couldn't wish his dad dead
with all, not only if he tried to
plot his death, but he had to have
his dad dead to everything.
And what a spirit of murder, a spirit
of hate and rebellion and sin.
He goes out and waste everything.
And then he comes back.
And when you picture that heavenly, you picture
that earthly father, the type of Christ, going
out running to him and falling upon him
and kissing his neck and saying, welcome home.
Welcome home.
My cry to you right now, my plea
to you as a servant of the Lord
and as a shepherd here in this church,
that you not walk out tonight with anything
hidden in your life.
For he that covers his sin shall not
prosper, but he that confesses and forsaketh his
sins shall have mercy.
Mercy, the tender, loving mercy of the Lord.
He's waiting to kiss your neck, put a
new robe on you, clothe you, bring you
to a feast of joy and a shout
of victory.
Hallelujah.
I want you to stand.
Hallelujah.
A thought just hit me because I've been
looking out over the crowd and I'm recognizing
some of your faces.
Faces that I love.
Faces of friends.
And I'm thinking of how many times I've
stood in this pulpit and ministered to you
from my gut, my heart.
Loud, soft, tears, joy.
Every way possible.
And yet a deep sadness in my heart
because you're still not hearing me.
And I walk out that door tonight not
really moved, not really convicted.
When I was standing here, I was picturing
myself on judgment day before the judgment seat
of the great white throne judgment when I
have to be one of those who indict
you.
To remind you of every message.
What an awful thought to have to stand
before some dear friends that I've loved and
ministered to and poured my heart out on
judgment day.
And I'm not trying to be smaltzy because
that doesn't save anybody.
Because I try to scare you.
You just scare the last ten minutes and
then you get mad at me.
But the truth is the pain I feel
already that I'm going to have, Pastor Carter,
I know we'll have when we stand before
you on judgment day.
I said, why didn't you listen?
What was it that kept you?
Why didn't you move toward God?
What did it take?
What was wrong?
I walk home every night from this church
when I preach, I walk home every night
shaking my head.
And thinking of people, looking at faces of
people that should have been down here crying
out, Oh God!
Get it into my heart!
Oh God!
Don't let me lose this truth before I
go totally spiritually blind and can never be
reached.
Because you see, if you come to this
church and you hear all this truth and
you get all this light and you sit
against that light, oh, the judgment on Hitler
is nothing compared to what you face.
Because he didn't have the light.
Oh, that's a painful thought, painful feeling I
get.
I'm not trying to be dramatic.
There are visitors here from all over the
United States.
God sent you here tonight.
You're not here by accident.
You're not standing here in front of me
right now by accident.
God had a divine appointment.
I didn't know he was going to be
here.
I didn't know anything about you.
But God did.
And he spoke directly to your heart.
Now, you either shake it off.
You don't even have to come down to
this altar, but you have to make a
decision before the Holy Ghost, right?
Now, God, I'm going to change my life.
There's going to be a change.
I'm not going to be the same man
or the same woman I walk out of
this building.
I'm going to change by your grace.
God, I want this word to go in
my heart and I want it to change
me.
Oh, God will come rushing to your side.
God will strengthen you.
He'll change you.
He'll give you back your first love.
Heavenly Father, I'm not as concerned about the
wages of sin and the cost of sin
as much as I am of those who
have taken sin so lightly and who just
shake off the conviction.
God, what a dangerous place.
I pray that you awaken hearts tonight.
Oh, Holy Ghost, come.
Patient Lord, long-suffering Jesus, come and minister
now life and hope for those who say,
my sin has been carried long enough.
I can't carry it anymore.
If you're tired of carrying your sin, just
get out of your seat and come and
bring it to the altar right here now.
Just bring it here.
Say, Lord, I want you to make me
ready tonight to lay down everything hidden secret
in my life.
Nobody needs to know what it is.
You take it to the Lord up in
the balcony.
Go to the stairs on either side and
come down in the aisle.
A lot of people are coming.
So you don't have to be ashamed.
Don't be ashamed.
Get it settled.
Get it settled right now.
You don't need any mood music.
You let the Holy Ghost.
That's the true repentance.
Don't come unless you're ready to repent of
it.
Until you're ready to say, Oh, God, I
want to see my sin as you see
it.
It's not a trivial thing.
It's not a light thing.
It can damn my soul.
Jesus, help me.
Hallelujah.
He's always looking for a heart cry.
Oh, God, I have to have help.
I've had enough of this.
I'm ready to come to you.
But you're going to have to give me
your strength.
You've convicted me of my sin.
And listen to me.
This is powerful.
This is good for you.
If you listen, the same Holy Ghost convicts
you as the same Holy Ghost that has
the power for you.
You can say if I'm being convicted, that
means he's going to give me power.
He would have convicted you without being willing
to give you the power also to live
above the power of sin.
Hallelujah.
I want you to lift your hands to
the Lord.
Scriptures I would never lift holy hands.
They're made holy only through the righteousness of
Jesus.
And I want a gut cry, a cry
of repentance.
Come on.
In your own words, repent.
You name your own sin quietly before the
Lord.
Lord, I see this as sin.
It's not a light thing.
It can damn my soul.
I don't want to cover it.
I don't want to hide it anymore.
Lord, I bring it out to the open.
Come on.
Confess it before the Lord.
An open confession of sin, a total repentance
of your heart.
Lord, blot out my transgressions.
Blot out my sins for I've sinned against
you, Lord, and I've done this evil in
your sight.
Oh God, I will not hide my sin.
Holy Ghost, come and expose and heal.
Hallelujah.
Open up your heart right now to him.
Lord, I come to be healed of my
sin.
Smite it, O Lord, by your Holy Ghost
conviction.
Smite it, O God.
Now I want you to pray this prayer
from your heart.
Jesus, I've sinned against you, against my Heavenly
Father.
Forgive me, O Lord.
I repent of my sin.
It is not a light thing.
My load is heavy, and I come to
you, Father, to confess my sin.
I bring it out to the open.
Deal with it, Holy Ghost.
Turn the light on.
Let me see it as you see it,
and let me turn from it.
Let me confess it and forsake it through
the power of the Holy Ghost.
Sanctify me, Lord Jesus, by the Spirit of
the living God.
I thank you, Lord.
Do you promise to forgive me if I
truly repent and turn from my wicked ways
and trust in your grace and your blood?
Thank you, Jesus.
Now just give him thanks.
I give you thanks, O Lord.
I give you thanks.
You see, we're not saying to you just
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shall be saved.
That's only part of it.
He says if we confess our sins and
turn from our wicked ways, there has to
be confession.
There has to be repentance, total repentance.
And folks, it has to be a turning
to the Lord, turning away, saying, O God,
I want to turn away from my wicked
ways.
I want to turn to you with all
my heart, renewing me a right spirit, renewing
me my faith, renewing me a first love
for you, Jesus.
And that's not going to happen until you
ask him.
And I'll tell you what, sometimes God won't
do it until you take the first step.
You draw nigh to me and I'll draw
nigh to you.
You take the first step and say, I'll
discipline myself and get into this.
Get into the song, read five chapters every
day and mark.
You see this Bible marked from page to
page?
Mark it.
And I told you, if you have a
Bible you're afraid to mark, give it away
and get one that you can mark.
Get the right one.
Mark it and let the Holy Ghost talk
to you through his word.
Here's where your faith comes.
Here's where your strength will come from.
Hallelujah.
And here's where the Holy Ghost will convict
you even more deeply.
You say, Oh, I was smitten by conviction.
Oh, listen.
It's like peeling an onion.
You get the first peeling off and say,
boy, that's okay.
And he keeps peeling and peeling and peeling
and a lot of tears go with it
sometimes.
You say, Lord, peel my onion until you
get down to the black stone and take
the stone out and heal my soul once
and for all.
Hallelujah.
Glory be to God.
This is the conclusion of the tape.