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.
This is the second in a series on
understanding your temptations.
Last Sunday night, or last Sunday, I spoke
on I Will Fear No Evil.
And you said, Pastor, why are you dealing
in three services now on those who are
bound by sin and those who are facing
temptations?
Let me tell you why.
This city above every city has myriads of
temptations and trials.
And you people from other parts of the
country, you may have a very difficult city
too, but if you've been in this city
even for a couple of days and walk
the streets, you see what we're up against
in this city, everywhere you turn.
But there's something I see in the body
of Christ all over the United States and
around the world.
When people are tempted and they fall into
sin, they have a tendency just to give
up and quit on the Lord.
And God is trying in this church to
establish a people who will not be thrown
by the difficulties.
I had a young man come to me
this afternoon after I had preached this morning
on understanding the temptations, and he said, Well,
I have so many temptations, I thought I
was so evil that the Lord couldn't rescue
me.
And I was about to give up.
I thought, I really am different than the
other Christians, and I just can't seem to
get victory over some of these things.
And I was about to give up and
he said, I was rescued this morning by
the word of the Lord and by the
Holy Spirit.
And that's why God brings forth these words.
Now, this is the second I preached this
morning on understanding your temptations.
And I'm going to give you the second
part of that, and I'm entitling it Laying
Hold of the Tender Mercies of God.
Laying Hold of the Tender Mercies of God.
And I'm going to give you really the
foundation key.
We'll go over some of these other points
that we talked about.
If you remember in my message, I Will
Fear No Evil, the example from Timothy House
and the young ladies from Sarah House, those
delivered from life-controlling habits and sins, what
did we tell you?
The first step to victory over sin was
I will fear no evil.
Not to be afraid that the sin is
too embedded or too strong, but with the
help of the Holy Ghost, you can defeat
the enemy.
Not to be afraid, David said, I will
fear no evil, for thou art with me.
How many remember that?
Do you remember that?
All right.
Then we said, secondly, that when you're bound
by a besetting sin, that you cannot deliver
yourself.
Self-will, self-power does not give you
total healing.
You may be able to subdue it.
You may keep it under wraps, so to
speak, for a while, but it will explode
again.
It will come out again.
And that it has to be the supernatural
work of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the one who sanctifies
us.
We are made right by faith, justified in
the eyes of God.
Then the Holy Ghost is sent and infused
in us, and He has the power over
all the power of the enemy.
Remember that now.
And then thirdly, we told you that He
delivers from sin little by little.
There's not usually one great deliverance.
And we told you the reason God took
the children of Israel into the promised land
little by little so they'd not be devoured
by beasts.
And we took the beasts to be, remember,
an arrogant spirit, a judgmental spirit, because I've
got sudden deliverance and you haven't.
And it's a lack of compassion.
It causes a hardness in many people.
And the Lord says, I'll not let you
be devoured by pride and arrogance.
I'm going to take you in little by
little so you learn to trust me daily.
We came to that.
Then this morning, we added something else.
We told you that every temptation that comes
to you, God has a purpose in it.
He allows it.
No demon, no power of the enemy can
touch us without the permission of the Lord
Himself.
We have a wall of fire around us,
and Jesus is the glory therein.
And the only way the devil can get
to us is if the Lord lets the
wall down, as He did with Job.
The devil, remember, said you've got a wall
around him.
Put the wall down, let me at him.
And remember, we preached this morning what Jesus
said to Simon.
Simon, the devil has asked for permission to
sift you as wheat.
And we say that was an invitation to
get up out in an open field on
a one-to-one combat.
Temptation is a one-to-one combat.
The devil trying to sift you so that
he can say, look, there's nothing of value.
It's all chaff.
They have no faith, and all temptation is
a battle for your faith.
Then we told you this morning, remember, you
never listen to the lies of the devil.
In fact, whatever the devil tells you, you
believe the opposite, the very opposite of that.
If the devil says you're not going to
make it, you know you're going to make
it because he's a liar.
If the devil says there's no hope, you
know you've got a lot of hope.
If he says you're going down, you know
you're going up.
You believe just the opposite of what the
devil tells you.
Do you understand that now?
All right, having laid that foundation, let's go
on now, laying hold of the tender mercies
of the Lord.
I want to bring to your attention now
the most important of all secrets of how
to overcome sin and temptation, how to endure
temptation.
Now, remember we told you what Jesus, what
the Scripture says, Lord, so there's no temptation
taking you but such as common to all
men, that God will with the temptation make
a way of escape.
He didn't stop there.
He didn't say you're suddenly going to be
out of it.
That you may be able to bear it,
and in the Greek that means you may
be able to hold up under the pressure
of it.
And so many of you are still battling
a mind battle.
Anybody here that's been on drugs, alcohol, gambling,
any habit whatsoever, lust.
It can be covetousness, greed, pride, whatever it
is.
Sometimes those things hold on.
You have a heart that's in love with
Jesus.
You want to serve Him with all your
heart, but you're still battling this mind habit.
As anyone who's been on drugs, as any
one of these fellows in the front rows
been delivered from drugs and alcohol and other
things, and they'll tell you that the mind
habit is the real habit, that which is
in the mind.
And that's where the Holy Ghost works most
powerfully.
Hallelujah.
Now, complete deliverance from the power of sin
depends on understanding and laying hold of the
tender mercies of God.
And until you know and understand and lay
hold and take into your heart the knowledge
of the tender mercy of God for you,
all of these other principles won't work.
This has to be the foundation upon which
you build your faith.
You have to be totally convinced, absolutely convinced
by hearing the word of God and putting
it deep into your heart that I am
totally loved by a Savior who's full of
tender mercy and grace to my heart.
Hallelujah.
Believe it or not, there are multitudes in
the Church of Jesus Christ today who are
literally scared to death of the word grace.
They are fearful of any mention of loving
mercy or grace.
Now, there are two main reasons for that.
First of all, there are some who have
been raised in a legalistic atmosphere.
That's all they've known.
It's been absolute legalism from the time they
first got saved.
And they have attended a church where they
were afraid to preach grace because they were
afraid it would produce compromise.
They were afraid that it would literally lead
to sin.
Now, folks, there are many churches today where
there is no preaching against sin whatsoever.
Absolutely no preaching against sin.
The people in the congregation will praise the
Lord.
They smoke, they drink, they carouse.
I'll never forget the height of the charismatic
movement, especially in California.
And we had Team Challenge.
Boys would come to my crusades out there.
And I took them once to a charismatic
convention.
And all these, one of the charismatics who's
been speaking in tongues and praising the Lord,
are out there with their beer and their
alcohol and they're all drinking.
And my guys come running in and say,
what's going on out there?
We've been delivered that stuff and they're just
doing it.
My guys were absolutely shocked and appalled.
And they said, well, Dave, you preach deliverance
from that stuff, don't you?
What kind of an example is this?
And by the way, some of you dear
parents that are lecturing your kids about smoking
pot, do you drink?
And it's like the two women I heard
about sitting in the kitchen and they are
smoking cigarettes and they have a glass of
wine.
And they're talking about all the teenagers on
their block that are blowing pot.
And one lady said, it is awful that
these kids are smoking that pot stuff.
It's not the grace I'm talking about.
Not the grace that gives license to sin.
And there's some people literally have been in
churches where they heard so much grace preaching
and they have seen the looseness of the
congregation and they have seen that it has
almost created the license for sin.
In many cases it has because there's not
been the preaching of true grace.
Others have read Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example.
His message on cheap grace shook the church
body.
I read that and I said, oh God,
never let me preach cheap grace.
You could attend this church if you've been
here a number of years.
A number of years ago, right on this
stage here at Times Square Church, I preached
a hard message, a very hard message against
sin.
And there was very little, if I remember,
very little grace or mercy in it.
When I stepped back here about 10 feet
and I collapsed.
And folks, I laid here for 45 minutes
and nobody left.
I thought everybody had left.
I was out of it for a while.
I was literally paralyzed by the Holy Spirit.
And here's what paralyzed me.
He that justifieth the wicked and he that
condemneth the just, even they both are abominations
of the Lord.
I said, oh God, am I guilty of
condemning the just?
Was I too hard?
And then God began to show me the
line that I dare not cross.
I cannot under any circumstance justify the wicked.
I can't stand here and preach any kind
of a message that will make people comfortable
in their sins.
And then I can't cross over here and
condemn the righteous and make them feel guilty
by taking something that should be grace and
hope and taking away their hope.
And the fear of God, the righteous fear
of God came on me.
And folks, from that day to this, I've
always been aware when I stand in the
pulpit not to cross that line.
And I don't want to cross it today.
You can hear whatever you want to hear
out of this message.
If your heart is bent on sin, it's
just like those who heard Paul the Apostle
preach.
Some of them thought that he was excusing
sin.
He said, God forbid.
Well, see what's in your heart will determine
how you hear my message today.
And I learned powerfully that I cannot preach
a false or cheap grace.
Now, in Proverbs 3, 7, we read, Fear
the Lord and depart from evil.
Let me give you some of these very
quickly.
Proverbs 8, 13, The fear of the Lord
is to hate evil.
Proverbs 16, 6, By the fear of the
Lord men depart from evil.
I heard a sister say, I am kept
clean by the fear of God.
She said, I fear hell.
I fear losing my salvation.
I fear I might miss heaven.
She said, you better believe it's the fear
of God that holds me from my sins.
She said, every day I get up, that
fear turns in me.
I live every waking hour with this fear
hanging over my head.
I dare not fail God.
I must please God.
And she said, I am kept by fear.
The only problem is that woman never has
known in 20 years one day of joy.
She's never known peace.
She's never known the rest.
In fact, by her own confession, she said,
Sir, I have never really known the love
of God.
I know nothing about His compassion and love.
She's lived for 20 years under this burden.
She's heard somebody say, and she's misread these
scriptures, the fear of the Lord is the
way to conquer sin.
And folks, there was a time I preached
so hard, you'd have thought you're at Mount
Sinai.
You could hear the thunder.
I took people to Mount Sinai, and I
left them there many times.
Now, I don't take it back because my
heart was right, and God used every one
of those messages.
God used them powerfully.
Lives were changed because my heart was sincere
and I was open for God.
And I always went to the pulpit on
the anointing and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
But at Mount Sinai, the people saw the
lightning.
They heard the roaring thunder, the piercing sound
of God's supernal trumpet.
They saw the mountain on fire.
They saw the smoke ascending to heaven.
And the Bible says they feared greatly.
You talk about fear.
There was a fear on them that, folks,
within 40 days, that fear was gone.
Within 40 days, they're dancing around a golden
calf saying, Where is this man?
They didn't even call him by his name.
They turned to idolatry, ready to go back
to Egypt.
The fear of God did not keep them
from their iniquity, did not keep them from
rebellion.
Not the kind of fear that most people
talk about and think about.
It's called servile fear.
Servile fear means the character of a slave
who obeys only by fear of judgment.
Only the fear of hell.
Only the fear of exposure.
Let me tell you something, folks.
Exposure, by the way, to sin never heals
anybody.
Never.
I've known some well-known pastors in this
country who've been exposed for sin, and for
a while it worked, and then a year
later they were right back at their same
old sin because exposure never heals anything.
Now, there are people who are convinced the
only way they can stay away from habituating
sin, the only way they can get rid
of seductive temptation, for example, is to have
this servile fear of God.
If I don't do this, or if I
go another step this way, I'm going to
be damned, I'm going to lose my soul,
and God's going to get mad at me
and throw me into an everlasting fire.
And I want you to know, folks, that
that kind of fear will not long keep
you from your iniquities.
It will not give you victory over temptations.
Remember God opening in Israel, or rather in
the wilderness?
We've got Dathan and Abiram rise up against
Moses in total rebellion.
The earth opens and swallows both families, all
the children, all the belongings.
Two hundred and fifty princes, those who are
considered the most godly and respected in the
camps, rose up also in rebellion.
Fireballs from heaven came down and consumed them.
Literally, the people ran in fear.
Fear covered the camp.
If you're going to tell me that that
kind of fear is the fear of God,
where people run in panic and they have
a dread of a holy God only, then
I'm going to tell you it doesn't work.
Because the very next day, these people came.
The fear did nothing to them.
In fact, they came in their rebellion and
said to Moses, You have murdered the godliest
people.
You've killed all the holy people of Israel.
That kind of servile fear did no good
whatsoever.
Remember, what about Israel standing before Samuel demanding
a king?
Samuel said, You asked for a king when
the Lord was your king.
And your wickedness is great what you have
done in asking for a king.
These people had committed a terrible sin.
God told Samuel, They didn't turn against you,
Samuel.
They turned against me.
And God was angry, the scripture says.
God was angry with these people.
And it was wheat harvest.
And Samuel prayed.
And folks, a storm broke out in Israel
and Judah at that time, during harvest time.
The thunder literally shook the earth.
The lightning was the most frightening they had
ever seen.
It was a supernatural storm that anything they
could have conceived, the wheat harvest, evidently is
destroyed.
And the people trembled.
They turned to Moses and said, Pray for
us.
They were full of the fear, the servile
fear of God.
But it didn't change anything.
They still wanted Saul.
And the next day they started marching to
Saul's orders.
That kind of fear did not keep them
from iniquity.
It did not save them from their sins.
There's a proper righteous fear of God.
And this proper righteous fear of God is
the kind that keeps men and women from
their iniquities.
Folks, I remember when I was a young
preacher.
And like every young preacher, trying to find
my place.
And going through all kinds of, I'm not
talking about moral temptations, but temptations to go
this way or compromise with what I believe
God was calling me to do.
And not accept the call of God to
New York, for example.
Some of these things that came against me
as a young person.
And I would get up and preach messages.
The only way to get victory over sin
is to have such a fear of God
in you, a dread of God.
The only problem was, what I was preaching
wasn't working for me.
It wasn't working at all until I had
to get deadly honest with God.
Lord, there's something wrong with my concept of
the fear of God.
And let me tell you now, and listen
closely.
You cannot have a righteous, true fear and
reverence of God until you have a full
revelation of His tender mercies.
You have to first know that He loves
you.
Remember the Lord distributing talents to His servants?
The one He gave ten, another five, another
He gave one.
Remember the one who got the one talent?
He said, I knew you, master, but you're
a hard man.
So I was afraid.
And what did that fear do?
Did that make Him productive?
Did that make Him a good servant, a
filthful servant?
No, it paralyzed Him.
It paralyzed Him.
He doesn't even have the grace to invest,
to put it there where it could just
gain interest, whether He went out and tried
to make something of it or not.
Fear absolutely paralyzed the servant.
And I'm telling you, my Bible says, fear
has torment.
And that is not the kind of fear
God wants His children to walk under, where
you're just afraid.
It's like God is the sort of, what
was it, do you call it?
Anyhow, the sword that hangs over the head,
and that any moment it's going to fall,
make your first wrong move, and God's going
to get you.
And folks, we have Christians living under that
kind of terror.
I mean, they've never entered into the peace
of knowing the tender mercies of Jesus Christ
for them.
They've never walked in the security of that
love.
Many of you sitting here right now, listen,
in the balcony and all around this auditorium,
you that are standing in the back, all
over this place, many of you have never
known the tender mercies of the Lord, and
having not known them, you don't know how
to claim them, you don't know how to
appropriate them into your life.
And that's what I want to bring to
you by God's grace here today.
The true fear of God comes out of
knowing and experiencing the tender mercies of the
Lord.
When you fully understand His tender mercy toward
you, your greatest fear will be that you
become ungrateful, and that you would do disgrace
to that love.
For example, a woman confessed about having an
affair.
She said she was seduced into an affair
with a man.
She said, I didn't want it.
I don't know how it happened.
I have a husband who adores me, treats
me like a queen.
We get along fine.
And she said, I don't, I can't begin
to tell how this happened.
I cheated on my husband.
I was seduced and I gave in, and
she said, I was so condemned, I went
to my husband, I told him all about
it, and he forgave me.
He's that kind of a man.
And she said, let me tell you what
I've been through.
What I've been through every day waking up
and looking at the grief in his eyes.
He's totally forgiven me, but the grief.
And she said, I live in constant fear
that I have so sinned against your love
that I could lose it.
The most precious thing I've ever had, this
man has done nothing against me, never hurt
me, done everything and forgiven me, and I
sinned against that love.
And she said, the fear that I have
now, and I live with it constantly, is
that I have so grieved him that somewhere
down along the line I'm going to lose
that love.
The one thing that means more to me
than anything.
Now, folks, you don't have to ever fear
losing the love of God.
But this is what I'm talking about.
The real fear of God is that I
am so loved, He has done so much,
He has opened His arms, He's forgiven me
in everything that I've done, I've confessed my
sins, He's forgiven me, He's wiped it clean,
He's never held it against me, is that
you could ever bring disgrace upon that kind
of tender mercy and love for you.
That's where the fear is.
The fear that I would not be grateful
for that love, that I would not live
according to that love.
Not the fear of losing it, but you
say, I don't want to grieve Him who
is my most intimate friend.
I don't want to grieve Him who loves
me and gave His life for me.
I don't want to hurt Him.
I don't want to grieve Him.
Those who are really righteous before God, those
who walk in true holiness, that's their one
concern in life.
I love Him so and I don't want
to ever grieve that love.
I don't ever want to cheat on that
love.
I don't want to be seduced away from
Him.
Because He's never hurt me, He's done me
nothing but good.
Hallelujah.
You beginning to understand that?
That's not servile fear.
That's the true fear of God, by which
men are delivered from their sins.
Now, let me teach you something about God's
tender mercies, alright?
Go to Psalm 21 with me, if you
will please.
We're going to go through some psalms here
to show you something of the tender mercies
of the Lord.
Psalm 21.
Do you have it?
Alright, first three verses.
I'm reading from King James.
Now, if you have anything but the King
James, it may not read like we're going
to read.
That's why I recommend, if you want to
hear, if you come to hear me preach,
bring your King James Bible with you, okay?
Do you know, I read in a paper
yesterday in the New York Times, there are
now 400, listen to me, 400 different interpretations
of the Bible now.
And you know what they titled it?
It's all about addition to the Bible.
You know what they entitled it?
Babble of tongues.
Babble.
That drives me right back to this book.
King James.
Having said that, let's go to it.
The King shall joy in thy strength, O
Lord, and in thy salvation, how greatly shall
he rejoice.
Thou has given him his heart's desire, and
is not withholding the request of his lips.
Shabbat.
For thou preventest him with the blessings of
goodness.
Thou settest a cloud of pure gold on
his head.
Now, look at verse three.
For thou preventest him with the blessings of
goodness.
That has nothing to do with our English
word to hinder or stop.
This is a new word.
I want you to understand.
We're going to learn something now.
For thou preventest him with the blessings of
goodness.
Now, I want you to go to Psalm
59.
Verse 9 and 10.
Because of his strength will I wait upon
thee, for God is my defense.
For the God of my mercy shall what?
Prevent me.
God shall let me see my desire upon
my enemies.
There's the word again, prevent.
Now, I want you to go with me
to Psalm 79.
Psalm 79, verse 8.
Do you have it?
Oh, remember not against us formal iniquities.
Let thy tender mercies speedily what?
Prevent us, for we are brought very low.
Now, follow me closely, please.
The word prevent here, the Lord has prevented
me with his blessings.
He's prevented me with his tender mercies.
What that means in Hebrew, you'll find it
also the same meaning in the references to
this.
In fact, you'll find a number of references
to this preventing mercy of God.
Preventing tender mercies of God.
That word prevent means to anticipate and to
perceive action.
In other words, it's not just that God
is a rewarder of those who diligently seek
him, but he's a rewarder of those who
have fulfilled no conditions also, who have done
nothing to merit it.
In other words, he perceives, he anticipates, and
he blesses you before you ever do anything
good or righteous.
Just because he loves.
He prevents.
In other words, he anticipates.
He moves in before you fulfill any kind
of obligation.
You remember, for example, the two conditions of
salvation.
What?
Repentance and faith.
Isn't that correct?
Repentance and faith.
Again, you'll hear David say, I said I
will turn from my transgressions and the Lord
heard me and forgave me.
This is the end of side one.
You may now turn the tape over to
side two.
God had already forgiven him.
God prevented.
In other words, God anticipated it and God
moved in before the conditions were met.
He moves in.
He has such grace.
He has such love for his people.
He surprises us.
These are what I call Holy Ghost surprisals
of love.
About how to get out of our besetting
sins.
He says, Oh God, how do I do
that?
Let thy tender mercies speedily prevent me.
God anticipate my victory.
Anticipate that I love you.
And move in now and give me the
mercies.
Because in the Hebrew it says, because I'm
totally exhausted.
I'm exhausted.
Lord, I'm exhausted trying to figure this thing
out.
I'm exhausted trying to do it on myself.
God, come and give me grace and mercy.
Love me out of this.
Hallelujah.
The preventing tender mercies of the Lord.
Hallelujah.
You go back all the way to the
beginning, back to Adam.
When Adam sinned and mankind sinned in Adam.
It was not Adam who went after the
Lord for a savior.
It was God himself who came down and
said, Your heel is going to break the
serpent's head.
That meant the Messiah will come.
It was a preventing grace and mercy of
the Lord.
God offered to a man who was in
the belly of rebellion.
Hadn't yet repented.
Hadn't turned to the Lord.
And God came in that rebellion and says,
I'm going to send you a savior.
That's preventing grace.
That's preventing love and mercy.
Zacchaeus climbs up in a tree into the
crowd.
He's just another multitude of people trying to
stretch their neck to get a vision.
Just one glimpse of the Savior.
And Zacchaeus is not crying out.
He's not yet said, half my goods will
I give to the poor.
He's made no move whatsoever.
He's just standing there as a curious man.
And suddenly the preventing mercy of Jesus says,
Zacchaeus come down.
I have to be at your house today.
That was a preventing grace of God.
The repentance came after the grace.
It came after the preventing mercies of the
Lord.
Paul, Saul was a blasphemer.
He was a murderer.
In fact, by his own confession, I was
a blasphemer.
And I was a persecutor.
But I've sent mercy.
When did he get mercy from the Lord?
When did he get the revelation of who
Jesus was?
Was he on his knees at the time
repenting?
No, he was on horseback, ready to enslave
and murder God's people.
What happened?
A surprise.
A surprise of grace and mercy and loving
kindness.
The Lord knocks him off his horse.
Grace.
The Lord shines so bright before him, he's
blinded.
Grace.
Mercy.
The preventing mercy.
The anticipating mercy.
God knew he was going to take this
man.
God anticipated it.
Hallelujah.
What about the lost sheep?
That lost sheep didn't go out there and
groan and cry.
There's no evidence that that lost sheep tried
his way back to the shepherd.
The story is that the shepherd went out
after the lost sheep, took it in his
arms and brought him back.
It was the preventing love and mercy of
the Lord Jesus Christ that anticipates, that acts
before there was any action.
That acts before your confession.
It also acts even in your disobedience.
What was Paul but a disobedient man?
Remember Moses?
He's called to God and God says, Moses,
I want you to go and deliver my
people out of Egypt.
He said, well, go find somebody else.
I don't know how to talk.
And the Bible said that God was angry
with Moses.
Now, what he really deserved, what you and
I often deserved, that was outright rebellion.
God was angry.
There's no chiding from the Lord.
There's no rebuke from heaven.
Aaron's walking toward Moses and God's preventing grace.
He says, wait a minute, there's your brother,
Aaron.
He talks good.
You talk to him, he'll talk to Pharaoh.
God said, it's not complicated.
I'm going to love you out of this
mess.
How many times you and I deserved a
real spanking?
You and I deserve to be torn apart
because of our rebellion?
And rather than spank you, rather than to
correct you, rather than judge you, he surprises
you by embracing you and doing something wonderful
for you and you stand back.
I don't deserve that.
Of course you don't.
You never will.
One of us do.
How many times has he surprised you?
I'm surprised every day.
Lord, how did you do that?
Why did you do that?
I don't deserve it, Lord.
The Lord says, I know you don't.
It's my mercy.
It's my love for you.
I'm trying to show you something the Lord
says.
Hallelujah.
It shall come to pass that before they
call, I will answer.
And while they're yet speaking, I will hear.
Hallelujah.
Now the whole point of this message is
this.
If our God loves us so much that
he delights in surprising us with his tender
mercies, how much more is he going to
love you and see you through when you're
in the thick of a battle?
If he takes the time, can you imagine?
God who runs the whole universe stops and
says, I'm going to take Billy down here.
And he's having a hard time.
But I'm just going to bless him.
He doesn't have much faith right now.
I'm going to do something nice for him.
I'm going to bless him.
I'm going to save his wife and family.
He hasn't been praying for his wife and
family.
He's discouraged.
And the Lord comes down and he does
something beautiful.
He does something marvelous.
That's the preventing love of God.
The preventing mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
When David committed adultery, he's under the shame
and sorrow of it all.
You know what he did?
He didn't go and pout.
Folks, there comes a time, yes, we're to
repent of our sins and we're to be
sorry.
There has to be a godly sorrow.
But folks, if you continue to mourn for
sin that's already forgiven, that is blasphemy before
a holy God.
That's to say, I asked him to forgive
me and I told people, I believe he
forgave me, but I'm still in mourning.
You're mourning over what?
Sins that are already sprinkled?
Already cleansed?
That's a disgrace on the Lord's power to
forgive and cleanse.
Believe it when you go to the sprinkling
of the blood.
Believe that you're justified.
Don't allow the devil to put those lies
in your mind.
Hallelujah.
Stand on it.
David appealed to the loving mercies of God.
He's been exposed by Nathan now, and David
immediately appeals to the tender mercies of God.
He said, Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude
of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Where is the blotting out of the transgressions?
According to his tender mercies.
Get that in your mind.
That'll stand against all the onslaughts of the
devil.
By his tender mercies, my sins will be
blotted out.
I appeal to the mercy of God.
And folks, when you're in the worst battle,
you're in the worst struggle, the devil's trying
to tell you you're going to fall and
that you're filthy, you're not going to make
it, run to the mercies of God.
Appeal to the tender mercies of God.
According to your tender mercies, O God, deliver
me.
Hallelujah.
David, oh, by the way, you know, I
read a statement by a sailor.
He said in fair weather, sailors turn to
their oars and their sails.
But when the storm hits, he turns to
his anchor.
He turns to his anchor.
Because when you're in a storm, you have
to anchor that boat so you won't be
tossed against the rocks.
Folks, when everything's fine, you depend on your
oars.
Your oars are going to work your way
out of this.
Oh, but God allow a storm where nothing
but an anchor is going to hold you.
And that anchor is the tender mercies of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm anchored in his mercy.
Hallelujah.
David fully trusted in God's love and mercy
toward him, who redeemeth thy life from destruction,
who clowneth thee with loving kindness and tender
mercies.
David said the Lord is gracious.
He's full of compassion.
He's slow to anger, of great mercy.
The Lord is good to all.
His tender mercies are over all his works.
You know what Jesus said?
Not one sparrow shall fall to the ground
without your father.
It doesn't say without your father knowing it,
but without your father.
In other words, he's right there.
And a sparrow falls, and the Bible said,
you are worth more value than many sparrows.
You know what Jesus is saying?
Look, I've told you that my tender mercies
are over all my works.
That includes nature.
That includes plants.
That includes animals.
Do you know that Jesus loves animals?
That he cares?
He feeds all these animals.
They're in his care.
I don't care.
Look at the straggliest dog you ever saw.
God said that he cares.
And not a sparrow falls to the ground
without him.
If you believe that, how in the world
can you conceive that he would leave you
when you fall to the ground?
He said, no, I love you.
My tender mercies are over all my works.
You're the handiwork.
My work and my tender mercies are over
all my work.
I'm going to close in just a moment.
But I want to tell you about a
man I knew in Texas.
He was a friend of mine.
He's what you call a perfectionist.
Anybody know what that means?
I mean struggle and struggle to do everything
perfect and right.
This man drove himself.
He'd been driving himself for years.
He was in his mid-40s when I
met him.
Absolute perfectionist.
His wife told me, said, David, the reason
he's a perfectionist is that he could never
please his father.
Never once when he grew up did his
father ever tell him he did anything right.
He was always told that's wrong, stupid, you
don't know how to do anything right.
And he grew up with this idea that
he had to please his father.
And his father never did compliment him.
And this man lived under, in fact, it
caused such depression.
He was, I think, was taking lithium.
I don't know what other drugs he was
taking.
Deep, deep depression.
And one of his other friends brought him
to me once.
He was thinking of suicide.
I counseled and counseled that poor man.
I tried everything, but he had this drive
in him.
It had to be just perfect.
Driven.
He took a shotgun, went into the bedroom
and pulled the trigger and killed himself.
And I've never forgotten it.
Never forgotten that drive he had to please
his father.
And, you know, we have a lot of
Christian perfectionists.
They have the idea they can never please
their heavenly father.
They are living under constant condemnation and guilt
and fear, struggling.
Somehow, I've got to please my father.
If I don't do right, and we're always
trying to get it right, get it right,
get it right.
We're doing it in our own strength and
doing it in our own power.
You know how that grieves the heavenly father?
Because he's not that kind of a heavenly
father.
Our heavenly father, my Bible said he's pleased
with his children.
He delights in his children.
And you can't do it right anyhow.
You come through that which Jesus did right
before the father.
You stand before the father totally accepted in
Christ and his work on the cross.
Hallelujah.
So quit trying in your own strength.
And come to him today before you leave
this church building.
And come to him and say, Father, I
appeal to the tender mercies of my Lord
and my God.
I accept your love today.
And whatever I'm going through, Lord, I know
you're going through it with me.
And, Lord, I anticipate your blessings.
You're going to love me out of every
mess the devil tries to bring into my
life.
Every bit of confusion, every bit of hurt.
Lord, I want to be held by your
love.
I want to tell you this now.
Look me in the eye.
God's not mad at anybody here today.
He's not mad at you.
He's your father.
He's your Lord.
Don't tell me he didn't love you when
he died for you and died for me
and gave his life.
And, folks, that's been the greatest blessing in
my life.
The day the Lord brought me into the
promised land.
He got me out of my wilderness of
fear and anxiety and depression and everything else.
He brought me out when he brought me
in to the knowledge of his tender, loving
kindness and mercy.
He said to his loving kindness, there's no
end.
And he loves you.
I don't care what you're going through.
Jesus is loving you.
He's, in fact, never loved you more than
he does now in your struggle.
Oh, when my children are suffering or my
grandchildren, I am there and oh how my
heart goes out.
I will do anything humanly possible within my
power to ease that pain and to help
them advise in this thinking.
And if we who are earthly know how
to give good gifts to our children, how
much more our heavenly father.
So, once and for all, eject out of
your mind, put out of your mind once
and for all that God is angry with
you.
And turn to him in love and repentance
and say, oh, Jesus, forgive me for doubting
you.
Forgive me for thinking you're a hard man.
Forgive me for my trying to be perfect
before you in my own righteousness and strength.
And turn to him now and accept his
everlasting love.
Will you stand?
Hallelujah.
If you believe Jesus loves you on the
spot where you are, whatever you're going through,
raise both hands.
Now just thank him while you have your
hands up.
Just thank him.
Lord, thank you, Jesus, for your everlasting love.
Thank you for your tender mercies to my
soul.
Thank you, Jesus.
Hallelujah.
They're everlasting.
Now, heavenly father, there are people hearing me
now, people that are hearing me now, your
people, people who love you.
But, Lord, they're in despair and they're hurting
because the enemy is trying to persuade them
that they can't get back to your love,
so that you're angry with them.
And, Lord, despair and discouragement has set in.
Oh, God, deliver them from that today.
And, Lord, some of them are already running
from you because they feel that they have
sinned too grievously against you and that it's
not possible to be forgiven.
Oh, Lord, nothing is impossible with you.
There's nothing that cannot be forgiven.
You will forgive, Lord, the hardest of hearts.
You'll forgive, Lord, those who turn to you
in simple childlike repentance.
If you're here in the building, you say,
Pastor David, I have been that one that's
been struggling to please the father, and I've
never felt like I could please him as
I should.
Folks, that's spiritual suicide.
Ask God to deliver from you today.
Get out of your seat and come here
now, and let's pray for deliverance right now.
That's a bondage.
God wants to deliver you from that bondage.
Give me your hand.
God's going to do something miraculous for you.
Jesus, the devil's trying to kill this man.
Jesus, I'm asking you to transform him.
He becomes a man of God beginning today.
Lord, you've seen this man, and he's wanted
you.
There's something happened to him when he was
a child.
Lord Jesus, you're going to wipe that away,
and you're going to give him power and
strength and make him a man of God.
Thank you, Jesus.
God bless you, son.
God bless you.
Hallelujah.
Wonderful Jesus.
Wonderful Savior.
Why did you come up?
Did you come up here to say, Jesus,
when I walk out of this building, I'm
not going to be the same person that
came in this building.
I'm going to believe that you're going to
see me through.
I'm going to trust in your love and
your mercy.
I will repent.
I will turn to the Lord.
Listen, the most important thing you can give
is what I told this young man who
told me this afternoon he felt like giving
up.
The one thing God wants more than anything
else besides your faith is precious time, quality
time with him.
If you just keep clinging to Jesus and
keep running back to him and going to
him and talking to him, I mean, learn
to talk to him.
You talk to your friends.
You talk to others.
You can talk to Jesus.
Friend to friend.
He's your friend.
Talk to him as a friend.
Go to him and say, Lord, I'm having
a problem.
Now you hold me.
I know you love me, and I'm going
to trust that love right now.
See me through.
Show me what to do.
Show me how to do it.
God will talk to you.
Jesus will talk to you.
He'll become very close to you if you'll
draw close.
He said, you draw nigh to me, I'll
draw nigh to you.
Hallelujah.
You know why you're down here now?
That's that preventing love of Jesus.
You haven't even prayed yet, have you, and
yet the Lord's loving you.
He's here right now convicting you.
The Holy Ghost is here upon you now.
You haven't even said a word yet.
Now let's go to that wonderful preventing love
of Jesus and believe him now to give
us a wonderful presence of his grace and
love.
Would you pray this prayer with me right
now?
And if you need it from your heart,
it'll be the beginning of something very, very
lasting and real.
Pray this with me loud and clear.
Jesus, I have nothing to offer you but
my unbelief, my failure, and my sins.
But I want Jesus to trust you.
I want to give you my heart.
I want you to help me, Jesus, to
believe in you, to see me through every
hard time, every temptation.
Oh, Lord Jesus, help me to remember when
I'm being tempted and when I fall that
you still love me.
You're merciful.
You have pity for me.
And you're going to see me through.
I confess I need you.
I confess my sins.
Come, Lord Jesus, with your great love.
Let me know you love me.
Let me feel your love.
And help me to love others as you've
loved me.
Now, I'm going to pray for you.
Heavenly Father, I heard what these have said
as they stand before your holy presence.
But, oh, Lord Jesus, I'm asking that the
Holy Spirit come now to finish the work
you said you would complete, the work that
you have begun.
Complete it, Lord, now by a revelation of
who Jesus is.
Lord, let this message be lost.
Don't let this be seed planted on shallow
ground.
Let this be seed planted in good soil.
Prepare the soil.
Let it be heard.
Oh, God, remind them next week, tomorrow even,
even before this day is over, when the
enemy comes in with lies, when there are
all kinds of temptations thrown at us from
the pits of hell, that we will remember
that we are loved and that God, our
Lord, is going to stand with us.
Hallelujah.
This is the conclusion of the tape.