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.
Hebrews, the fourth chapter, if you will, please.
Hebrews, the fourth chapter.
Our message tonight is entitled, People Grace.
People Grace.
Let's go to verses 14 through 16, if
you will, please.
Hebrews, the fourth chapter, 14.
Getting to verse 14.
Seeing then that we have a great high
priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus
the Son of God, let us hold fast
our profession.
For we have not a high priest which
cannot be touched with the feelings of our
infirmities, but was in all points tempted as
we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne
of grace, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need.
Read aloud with me verse 16, please, if
you have King James especially.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne
of grace, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need.
Now, Lord, you know I love you, and
you know this people love you.
And we need to hear from heaven.
Lord, we need to hear a word that
quickens our spirits.
We can't quicken our own spirits.
We can't bring life out of some kind
of death that is set into our own
hearts by the season or by our feelings.
And Lord, we don't live by feelings, we
live by faith.
And we pray, Holy Spirit, that you come
down now in a very special way.
And Lord, take the word and mold us
and shape us.
Lord, it is more and more evident to
me that it is truth alone that sets
people free.
Lord, in times of difficulty and trouble and
calamity and strife, only our confidence in your
word, only the knowledge of the word, and
only the inworking of that word can give
life and strength and sustenance.
Now, Lord, anoint me.
You've cleansed my heart.
We come through the blood of Jesus.
We come through grace.
Now, Lord Jesus, take what little I have
and multiply it to your honor and to
your glory, I pray.
In Jesus' name, amen.
We've just read that we have a great
high priest.
He's touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
And that word in Greek, touched, means sympathy
resulting from experiencing the same kind of pain.
He is touched because he's been there.
There's nothing that you and I experience that
he has not experienced in one way or
another.
He is touched with the feelings of our
infirmities.
In other words, he sympathizes with us having
been there, having done that, having tasted it,
having experienced it, so he knows exactly how
to administer comfort.
Our high priest has been personally touched by
every conceivable kind of calamity, every kind of
discipline, every kind of trouble that has befallen
any of us.
Our deepest pains, confusion, our cups of disparities
tasted it all.
And he says, let us therefore come boldly.
In other words, because I'm touched, because I've
been there, because I know what you're going
through, I want you to come boldly to
the throne of grace, that you may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in the
time of need.
I want to talk to you about finding
this grace, finding grace in the time of
need.
Now, we obtain mercy, but we find grace.
One is a gift, and then the other
is something that we find.
And I'll show you, hopefully, how we find
that.
Now, I've heard all the definitions of grace.
Now, please excuse me if I don't preach
like I usually do.
I'm gaining back my strength, but still voiced
a little weak.
But if you believe that, I just might
get excited.
I don't know.
I've heard all the definitions of grace, you
know, unmerited favor and special love and goodness
of God.
But this past week, when I was in
Virginia, in Charlottesville, where my daughter's daughter, our
granddaughter, Tiffany, 11 years old, was being operated
for brain tumor, and they told us it
was malignant.
Before we got the word and were waiting,
it didn't matter to me what the theological
meaning of grace was.
For me, grace was just a cry in
my heart, Oh, God, help us, help Gwen,
help me, help Debbie, help Bonnie, help all
of us, our family, to receive the word
without panic, with the trust of the Lord,
knowing that he does all things right.
Just grace to endure.
It was just, Lord, it's a strength.
It's something I need now because, you know,
this is the eighth time I heard it,
you know, malignant.
And in that special time of waiting, my
cry, Lord, you told me to come to
the throne of grace to receive mercy and
grace in the time of need.
And I know I've obtained that mercy.
You've saved me.
I know the saving power and the mercy
our whole family does.
But now, Lord, we had seen panic all
through the place.
Every word that comes, people just falling apart
and some screaming and yelling when they get
the report.
So I said, God, grace, just that peace
to be a testimony to people.
God, give us inner strength to face what
we're going to hear.
And let us have the peace of God.
That was what grace meant to me, because
it had come up so suddenly, because just
a week before we heard that, in fact,
a day before we got the news, we
were in the dining room and I turned
to Gwyneth and said, You know, life is
so fragile.
Any day we could get a call would
change your whole life.
That call came the next day.
And it did change.
It keeps changing our lives.
But you see, life is very, very fragile.
And then suddenly comes a torrent of bad
news.
Brain tumor, large one, malignant, one of the
worst kinds and possibly metastasizing.
But, you know, I was driven to the
book of Job and I was reading the
book of Job.
Here's a godly man with a close knit
family like ours, a very close knit family.
He had daily prayer, the Bible said.
He had an altar, so he had family
altar every day.
And even when his children were not present,
he sacrificed for them, the Scripture says, in
case they sinned and cursed God in their
hearts.
Now, here's a righteous man who had no
idea what was to come.
He had no idea of this incredible thing
that was happening in heaven between Satan and
God regarding himself.
And this very righteous man, in one day,
three servants come.
In fact, I want you to turn to
Job, the first chapter.
And I want you to picture this before
we go any further, if you will, please.
And, you know, it's amazing how comforting Job
becomes when you're going through a trial.
I hadn't read it as diligently as I've
been reading it in the past week.
But Job, the first chapter, verse 13, beginning
to read.
There was a day when his sons and
daughters.
Now, remember, he had three daughters and seven
sons.
There were ten children.
There was a day.
Folks, all this happened in one day.
There was a day when his sons and
his daughters were eating and drinking wine in
their eldest brother's house.
There came a messenger unto Job and said,
the oxen were plowing, the asses feeding beside
them.
The Sabians fell upon them, took them away.
They have slain thy servants with the edge
of the sword, and I only am escaped
alone to tell you.
While he was yet speaking.
Now, this is within a 24 hour period.
While he was yet speaking, there came also
another.
He said, the fire of God has fallen
from heaven, has burned up the sheep, the
servants, and consumed them.
And I only am escaped alone to tell
thee.
Now, remember, Job's wife is hearing this.
A fire from God has fallen from heaven,
burned up the sheep.
In other words, God did it, she's saying.
And while he was yet speaking, there came
also another and said, the Chaldeans made out
three bands and fell upon the camels and
carried them away.
And slain the servants with the edge of
the sword, and I only am escaped alone
to tell thee.
And while he was yet speaking, there came
also another and said, thy sons and thy
daughters were eating and drinking wine in their
eldest brother's house.
Behold, there came a great wind from the
wilderness, a cyclone, in other words, and smote
the four corners of the house, and it
fell upon the young men, and they're all
dead.
And I only am escaped alone to tell
thee.
Then Job arose and went to rent his
mantle, shaved his head, and fell down upon
the ground and worshipped.
He said, naked came I out of my
mother's womb, naked shall I return.
The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away,
blessed be the name of the Lord.
And in all of this Job sinned not,
nor church God foolishly.
You see, when a sudden calamity comes, as
we see in this picture, I see only
two alternatives.
The only two alternatives as a Christian.
I've seen these two alternatives among Christians.
One alternative was taken by Job's wife and
one by Job himself.
Now, in a single day, this calamity strikes.
Every servant is gone, every dear handmaiden of
Job's wife.
You know, he had a very large entourage
of people who worked for him with him
in the household, and people had become very
close to you, and they had all been
gone.
And not only all of those close people
who worked with Job and his wife, and
all the dear ones they'd learned to love
and appreciate over the years, they're all gone.
And the word, Job's wife, I'm sure, can't
comprehend it.
But when finally the word comes, a cyclone
came, and all ten of your children are
gone, they're dead.
At that very moment, Job's wife died.
There was an inner death.
She literally died because she was living, but
yet she was dead.
If you lost ten children in one day,
and everything else is gone, everything is gone
in one day, it might be that you
would be at that place, too, that's called,
they refuse comfort.
She refused to be comforted.
She refused to be consoled.
She literally died.
We know that because very shortly later, Job
is stricken from head to toe with boils,
and he's sitting in an ash heap with
a piece of broken pottery, scraping his boils.
This woman, you see, I don't blame this
woman.
And you're going to see the grace of
God in this, so incredible grace of God.
And she sees her husband in such a
condition that three of his so-called friends,
his best friends, came.
They didn't even recognize him.
They didn't recognize him.
It was such an awful sight.
They sat for seven days nearby, just weeping,
looking at him and weeping, sorrowing.
They couldn't look at him.
And this dead woman, this woman is so
full of grief.
This woman is so taken back.
Everything's gone.
No chance of a grandchild again.
No chance of laughter or joy again in
her life.
Sleepless nights and wishing she were dead.
And then she looks at her husband, and
she remembers the words, the fire of God
has fallen from heaven and is consumed.
The fire of God has fallen.
And she goes to her husband.
Here's a man, the Bible said, who's in
great grief, great grief.
He's not charging God foolishly, but he's wishing
he were dead.
Or you read his chapter, he said, oh,
I curse the day I was born.
Oh, that I had died in the womb.
Oh, that I had died so that I
could escape this kind of confusion, this awful
thing that has happened that I don't understand.
Because the Lord had told him, he said,
it's not because of your iniquity.
And your prayer is pure.
He was told his prayer was pure and
that this was not because of iniquity in
his heart.
And he is in need of comfort.
His friends are over here looking at him
in despair and weeping.
And here comes his wife face to face.
And she says these words to Job.
She said, do you still hold on to
your integrity?
Now, she's inferring two things.
She said, first of all, Job, what horrible
sin are you hiding in your life?
Are you trying to tell me you're a
man of integrity?
What did you do that's brought down this
terrible thing on our life?
What sin have you committed?
Is it adultery?
Have you looked at maids?
And I believe that's what she was inferring.
Because later, in a chapter two later, you
hear Job say, I have not, my eyes
have not looked upon a maiden.
And so here she is accusing him because
she is so in despair.
Job, I can't figure this out.
It says God, that man said God sent
a fire from heaven.
And the second inference is, is this how
your God treats righteous people?
We've had daily prayer.
We've had altar services.
We pray daily with our children.
We have blessed the poor.
We have done everything righteously.
You are known as the most righteous man
on the face of the earth.
And God has confirmed that.
Job, do you still say that we are
righteous people?
Because if we're righteous people, why did God
take everything from us?
Why would God rob us of that which
is most precious to us?
Do you still hold your integrity?
Well, I'll tell you, it's a battle with
the enemy when tragedy strikes your family or
many of you who have gone through that.
And there's been some kind of a sudden
thing, or maybe you buried a child or
you buried a husband or buried a wife.
And you know what it's like, how the
devil comes and accuses you and blaming you.
How terrible a battle Gwen has fought after
her five operations of cancer and then her
two daughters with cancer.
And feeling the guilt the enemy tried to
place on her.
You passed it down to your children.
She had to fight that with even Tiffany.
And in the room I told the doctor,
I wanted to hear this because I knew
what was going on in Gwen's mind.
I passed it down now to my granddaughter.
And the doctor said exactly what I wanted
to hear.
He said, no, this has nothing to do
with the gene pool.
This is something that is not inherited.
And I know Gwen was relieved when she
heard that.
But you know, here's a woman completely now,
a dead, absolutely dead woman.
What a cutting, awful thing when she said,
Job, curse God and die.
In other words, I'm already dead.
I've already cursed him.
What else is there left?
Better we die and be with our children.
Curse God and die.
I remember telling this story.
I was flying last year.
I believe it was home from Florida.
And a young lady was sitting next to
me.
And I noticed her sobbing quietly.
And I turned and said, can I help
you?
I'm a minister.
I see you crying.
She said, I can't believe in your God.
I said, what do you mean?
She said, I just came from my father's
funeral.
I live in New York, but I just
flew down here.
My dad was the most giving person you
could ever meet.
He helped the poor.
He gave.
He was a pure.
He was a good man.
Not a Christian, just a good man.
And she says, I can't understand.
My dad suddenly was taken, just taken from
me.
I can't accept a God who kills good
fathers.
Folks, there's not much I could say to
her.
I tried, but I couldn't get through to
her.
And she's now angry at God.
She took the alternative that Job's wife took.
And folks, that happens sometimes.
When you begin to blame God, you can
spin off.
You can spin off into a despair.
You can be alive and still be dead.
The most horrible alternative you can take when
anything comes suddenly to your home.
When there's a calamity or there's a situation
that strikes sudden illness.
And Sister Catherine's here from the Bible school.
They're two wonderful girls, two sisters in the
school.
They have a third sister.
And it's a godly family.
Godly family.
And dad and mom were visiting at the
school about six weeks ago, four or five
weeks ago.
And they got a telephone call.
The third daughter was suddenly killed in a
car accident.
But, you know, the peace of God came
over those people.
The amazing thing is she'd had a struggle
finding her place in the Lord.
And they prayed and prayed for her.
And she had just wholeheartedly turned to the
Lord the week before and had just signed
up to come to the Bible school.
And the Lord gave a revelation to those
parents that God had a plan.
A special plan.
Brought her into the kingdom of God and
saved her.
He knew everything.
There's a piece.
I tried to call them today because I
wanted to get a little more of the
story for this.
And you say, when you preach like this
or talk like this, you scare me.
A calamity might happen to me.
I might lose one of my children or
thing.
You know, Job said, the thing I feared
came upon me.
Well, folks, what came upon Job had nothing
to do with his fear.
Nothing whatsoever.
God had a plan all along.
So don't fret about that.
Don't think about that whatsoever.
That has nothing to do with what I'm
talking about.
But Job chose the right alternative.
Job trusted in God in the midst of
his grief and his overwhelming sorrow.
He said, though you slay me, Lord, yet
I'm going to trust you.
He was saying, yes, I'm grieving.
Yes, I'm hurting.
It's very great that the grief I'm going
through.
Yes, he wished he were dead at this
time.
He couldn't sleep.
Yes, the pain was unbearable.
And he longed for death.
But yet he says, in effect, even if
these boils take me to the grave, I
am not going to give up in my
confidence that God knows what he's doing.
I will not give up my confidence in
God.
In God I trust.
Though he slay me even.
I don't know, understand this, anything about it.
But if that happens to me, yet I
believe him and trust him.
Now, I've experienced grief at times that I
said like David, oh, that I had wings.
And come on, you've said that.
I'll bet everybody in this house has said
that at one time.
Oh, that I had wings like a dove
that I could escape this windy tempest.
I wish sometimes I had wings and I
could just fly away into some quiet desert
and not hear one sound of grief or
pain.
But folks, that's not life.
That's not reality.
But I've never experienced this depth of what
Job went through.
I've never experienced that kind of thing where
I wished I were dead.
A sister from Arkansas wrote, we lost a
daughter to cancer.
She was five years old.
And now our son is undergoing major surgery
for lung cancer.
They've just found 50 tumors in his lung.
I've been filled with anger and doubt for
some time now, but especially lately.
But this recently got your latest newsletter, Brother
Davis, entitled, You don't have to understand your
afflictions, you've got grace.
Folks, God was preparing me.
If you remember in the last five weeks,
I've preached three messages about suffering.
And he was preparing my own heart.
She said, when I read that, oh, the
precious timing of the Lord.
God has given me relief, and now I'm
praying to understand the grace of God you
speak about.
The grace of God.
I'm trying to understand that.
She said, now I have peace, and I'm
beginning to understand about the grace of God.
You go into any hospital, you walk the
halls, like I did recently, and you see
these two alternatives.
You see Christians, and most of them are
Christians.
Down there, just about everybody's a Baptist or
Pentecostal.
That's the Bible Belt.
And you walk across one room, and they've
just got word of some little girl who
had just spun out of.
She looked like she was three or four
years old and just spun out.
And she was just spouting foolishness.
She just spun out mentally.
And then you go to another room, and
you see somebody that's just gotten word the
doctor's in, and the horrible sense of despair
and anger at God.
Always blaming God.
Immediately, why did God do this?
And they're going up and down the halls.
Why, why, why?
They brought that little boy in that had
fallen 21 stairs with a head trauma.
And they're all sitting on the floor outside
there.
And I never saw such despair and the
feeling.
What kind of God is this that allowed
our baby to fall 21 stairs?
And then you go into Tiffy's room where
Grandma and Grandpa are Christians, and you feel
the peace of God.
There's no blaming of God.
There's a wonderful peace and a quiet.
Because, you see, there are only two alternatives.
You either blame God, you get mad at
God, and you keep asking why.
Or you say, Lord, I know that whatever
you do, you have the grace, you have
the strength, you have the power, you have
everything that we need to sustain us.
And that sustaining power is there.
And we saw in every room where there
was a true believer who's resting in the
word of the Lord.
Peace like a river.
Incredible, incredible peace.
You see, you have that choice.
You have to make that choice.
You have to make it quickly.
Otherwise, you spin out into a dark bottomless
pit of bitterness and unbelief and anger at
a loving Heavenly Father.
You see, God allows people when they're going
through troubles to grieve.
He allows the people to cry and to
hurt.
That's all a part of the process of
healing.
But he says, you're invited boldly to the
throne of grace to obtain mercy and to
find grace to help in the time of
need.
Now, let me ask you, how does God
dispense His grace?
How does He give it out?
You see, I don't want to know this
just theologically.
I don't want to just read that and
say, hey, the Bible says, come boldly to
the throne of grace and receive mercy and
find grace to help in time of need.
How do I get that grace into my
body?
How do I get it into my heart
when I'm hurting?
How do I get that grace?
What kind of reaction am I expecting?
What is the grace of God when it's
dispensed to me?
And how do I get it?
I know it says His grace is sufficient
to every need.
I want to talk to you about what
the Lord has shown me in this process.
There are two ways that I have personally
experienced the dispensing of a grace into my
heart and hopefully through Dad into the whole
family.
And I hope this brings peace and comfort
to your heart.
First of all, he dispenses spiritual revelation in
times of testing and calamity that you could
never known in good times.
He dispenses spiritual revelation that you could never
understand, though be given to you in good
times.
You search the scriptures and you'll find that's
the principle all through the word of God.
The greatest revelations of the word of God
came to men when they're in times of
testing, trouble and calamity.
Take the three years that John, the beloved,
laid in the bosom of Jesus.
Three years, so close.
These were good times of peace and joy
and understanding and rest.
But only a small measure of revelation came
to John.
And all those three years meaning comfortably where
there was no trouble, there was no testing,
there were no trials.
It was not till he was driven in
chains out of Ephesus and he is dragged
to a barren island in Patmos and put
in hard labor at prison.
It was there with no family, no friends
and isolated in hard labor that he got
the revelation we call the book of Revelation.
The revelation of Jesus Christ didn't come leaning
on the bosom of Jesus.
It came to him when he was in
his lowest, darkest hour.
In that darkness, the light of Jesus and
the light of the Holy Ghost came to
that man.
He saw Jesus.
He'd never seen him before.
Let me tell you how he saw Jesus.
And this is the revelation that has to
come to every hurting person.
This is the revelation I want my family
to see.
It's the revelation I want Roger and Debbie
to see.
And I want all my children who are
in pain to see.
Debbie and Roger will be hearing this in
a day or two because we'll send this
message to them and it's a message I
want them to hear.
Because you see, when Jesus appeared to John
in the isle of Patmos, he had known
him as a son of man, but now
he sees him as a son of God.
He appears to his God and he says,
John, don't be afraid because John is on
his face now.
And he lifts him up and he shows
him in his hands a set of keys.
And he says to John, he said, be
not afraid.
I'm he that liveth.
I was dead.
Behold, I'm alive forevermore.
Amen.
And I have the keys of hell and
death.
I have them.
And I want you to know, I want
the devil to know, and I want Debbie
and Roger, I want everybody to know that
the devil can't kill me.
He can't kill my wife.
He can't kill any of my children until
God says time and place.
He holds the keys to life and death.
Job said the Lord gives and the Lord
taketh away.
And if God turns the key, he has
a reason.
No one dies who knows Jesus one minute
before time or one minute after time.
God has a timetable and only Jesus has
the power.
Hallelujah.
And this is the revelation that God begins
to show first.
This is what brings such peace to my
heart.
And it should bring that whoever hears this
tape anywhere, suffering, calamity, anything that's happened in
your family.
I want you to know you've got to
see Jesus, son of God, standing before you,
holding the keys in his hands and said,
don't be afraid.
This is peace.
Glory to God.
Well, that sets my heart at peace because
I know that that he controls it all.
Everything's under control because he has the keys
in his hands.
Hallelujah.
A troubled minister wrote to me this past
week.
I said, Pastor Dave, 15 years ago, my
wife had breast cancer.
Recently, she's been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
They tell me she may have to be
placed in a hospice.
For 40 years, we've been involved in God's
work.
And the question that haunts me was all
of this labor in vain.
Does it not count for anything?
Those 40 years, doesn't God give you a
break?
In other words, for 40 years, don't you
get some kind of a break?
And what I'd really like to answer that
man is that in his darkest hour here
and his hurt, his pain.
In fact, he told me, he said in
closing, he said, I'm almost tempted at times
to turn to the prosperity faith gospel.
They don't seem to have the problems.
But he said, I know that's not my
answer.
And my answer to that man is that
in that hurt and in the grief, God
can bring to him the greatest revelation he's
ever known of Christ.
And he if he if he would just
sit still in the presence of God and
turn to him and not to his fears
and wait upon the Lord, he will see
and understand things he's never saw.
I have to tell you, folks, I honestly
don't remember any revelation I've gotten in my
good times.
If I've had any revelation at all, it
has always come through suffering.
It's come through pain.
And the tears and what I've written has
been tear stained.
The lessons that we learned, the revelation of
Jesus, I've learned more about Jesus and his
grace and his love and his care, his
majesty, his power.
And testing times than I've ever learned before.
You see, the Bible says when Israel was
was was prosperous and everything was good, they
waxed fat and they forgot the Lord.
Wonderful weaning power there is in suffering, it
weans you from the world and you begin
to see that none of these things matter,
that that that everything around you is just
a mirage.
And the only reality is Christ.
The only reality is eternity.
You see that.
And it brings a peace to your heart.
What about Jacob in the 32nd chapter of
Genesis?
You find Jacob caught between two forces.
He is just labored for 20 years to
lay for Laban, his uncle.
And he's been cheated 10 times.
And he says it's enough.
And he runs with his family and they
take off without telling Laban.
And Laban comes from the east after him
with a small army.
And thereafter, Rachel, remember, had taken their little
idols.
Now, it's not because she's an idol worshiper.
Those little idols represented who got the inheritance.
Usually went to the eldest.
And she was after after that.
She didn't want to lose her inheritance.
And Jacob has just God had to warn
Laban.
Laban was going to kill him.
Laban was after him.
And God had to speak to him in
a dream not to touch him.
But he had just established an altar there,
a covenant so that Laban would not come
across that line toward him again.
And here from the West comes Esau with
400 men ready to kill him.
And he's caught in the middle.
And it's his darkest hour in his life.
He's about he thinks to lose everything.
And he has an encounter with the Lord.
This wrestling match that we know so much
about.
But out of that, the Bible says, and
Jacob called the name of the place Peniel.
For I have seen God face to face
and my life has been preserved.
The greatest revelation in his life came in
his darkest hour.
You find that all through the Bible.
You find it of Job.
Here it is late at lowest point.
He's endured pain and slander, rejection of his
best friends.
He's lost everything.
It's his darkest hour.
And suddenly God appears to him in a
whirlwind, takes him into the cosmos, takes him
into the depths of the sea, talks to
him about creation, shows him things that no
man has ever seen about God and his
majesty.
He sees things that no man ever had
seen on earth before.
He comes out of it saying, I know
now God can do anything.
I'll not question your judgment, O God.
I've heard thee by the hearing of the
ear.
But now my eyes see you.
Now my eyes see you.
You can hear preaching.
You can hear tapes.
You can hear everything about how you're just
how you're to endure trial and temptation.
And you can say, I'm I'm well prepared.
I've heard so many sermons on it.
But folks, when it comes, it's different.
Oh, I've preached thousands of sermons about how
to handle hard times.
But you see, when you go into it,
something wonderful happens when you simply trust.
No questions.
You see, I just written that article.
You don't need to understand your hard times.
You've got grace.
You don't have to ask why.
Now, that was easy to preach here.
It was one of the easiest.
I went home and said, I know it's
so easy to preach.
But then suddenly the gospel you preach, you
want to know that it works.
I would tell you, I'd look in the
eye for the greatest piece of God I've
known and tell you it works.
It works.
We're not preaching something out of a book.
Preaching something revealed from the throne room of
God that keeps you in hard times.
Folks, no matter what's ahead, no matter what
you're going to face in your family, job,
house, career, apartment.
Folks, God has everything under control.
He loves us.
There is nothing to fear.
Absolutely nothing to fear.
And in those times, I told Pastor Carter,
years ago, I was one of those evangelists
traveling around the country preaching to thousands.
And the Lord told me to take time
off.
I was too busy, too busy to pray
and seek God.
So we went out, bought a farm, and
we bought five trailers and lived in these
trailers.
That's all.
We had no homes and just five trailers.
Our staff was in trailers.
And it was the best year in our
life, living in trailers.
It's amazing how God can simplify our lives
and make us happier than we've ever been
before.
I'm saying that just to comfort those who
are afraid of the future.
Number two.
Oh, by the way, there may be some
of you here tonight say, well, Brother Lucasen,
I'd rather bypass the revelation.
I want God to fix everything.
I don't want to go through this.
You take the revelation.
But let me tell you, the revelation doesn't
come for your sake alone.
It comes that you may be a grace
giver, that out of the comfort you received,
what you have learned, you can be the
salvation of people that would have given up
on Christ and have been accusing God until
their dying day.
And you can come and they'll say, well,
how do you know?
Secondly, I won't preach much longer.
He dispenses his grace through people.
And here I come to the theme of
my message.
He dispenses his grace through his body here
on earth.
And I'm calling it people grace.
Not that any of us possess the grace,
but we are channels and dispensers of that
grace.
Ephesians 4, 7.
But unto every one of us is given
grace according to the measure of the gift
of Christ.
In other words, if you've been seeking God,
if you're a praying man or woman, you
have a reservoir of grace.
You have grace stored up in you to
give to others.
That's what it is.
It's a gift.
It's impossible for a praying man or woman
to stay angry at God.
It's impossible for a praying man or woman
to continue in grief all of their life.
It's impossible because of the comfort and consolation
of his grace.
That when you are a seeker after God,
this is very clear.
Every one of us is given grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Paul said, I was made a minister according
to the gift of the grace of God
given unto me.
Now listen, this grace was given to me
that I should preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ.
And then he tells the Philippians, he said,
all of you are partakers of my grace.
He said, you're partakers of my grace.
And he's saying a very profound thing.
What Paul is saying, I go to the
throne of grace to obtain mercy, that I
may be a merciful preacher to you in
your trials.
And I've gone to a stone to find
grace on your behalf, that I may be
a dispenser of that love and help you
in the time of need.
Now read that verse again, come to the
throne of grace to receive mercy and grace.
It doesn't say for you.
Now, of course it means for you.
I've gone to him, I've received grace, I
go to him.
But it's not just that I go to
him to receive grace for myself.
He said that you may find grace to
help in the time of need.
Whose time of need?
Not only yours, but every brother and sister
in Christ.
That I receive grace for others, I become
a dispenser of grace.
Now, of course, God at times has used
angels, but God almost always uses people.
We are grace givers.
We're supposed to be grace givers.
Paul said, you're all partakers of something God
has done in me.
God, I went to his throne, I received
my mercy, and I received a merciful, or
I asked God to make me a merciful
preacher.
So that I wouldn't come judgmental on you,
and I would not put you under bondage
and under the law.
That's why Paul was a grace preacher.
That's why he was so merciful.
That's why he wept with those who grieved,
and that's why this man had such compassion.
Because God, he had obtained mercy.
He had obtained it through prayer, and God
had made him a merciful person to others.
And then he said, I went to find
grace for you.
I went to the throne of grace for
you.
Come boldly to his throne of grace to
find grace to help in the time of
need.
1 Peter 4, 9, and 10.
Use hospitality one to another, as every man
has received the gift.
Even so, minister the same one to another,
as good stewards of the manifold grace of
God.
As just dispensers of the grace of God.
I have to ask myself when I read
that, have I been a good steward of
the grace of God?
Have I spent all my time praying for
my own grace, for my own grief, for
my own pain?
And I came up short.
I wonder how many in this congregation, this
dominion, have come up short.
So concerned about your own hurt, and your
own need, and your own problems, your own
financial problems, and your own marriage, or whatever
it may be, that you have not been
able to reach out and seek grace for
others.
Last week, while I was in the hospital,
I saw this people grace in action.
The Bible said God gives grace to the
humble.
You see, Roger and Debbie had joined a
wonderful church, the Church of God in Charlottesville,
Virginia.
A wonderful godly pastor and his wife.
And we sat back and watched grace coming
from all directions.
We saw people bringing food to their house,
and we saw...
Tiffy didn't want flowers, I said she liked
little stuffed animals, and a room full of
stuffed animals coming from every direction, and the
saints of God saying, we don't want to
bother, we just want to pray, and just
coming outside the room and praying, and seeing
a support group of people around, and just
grace coming from all sides.
I experienced grace when I came home, and
Pastor Carter had left a message on the
answering machine.
Brother Dave, we love you, and this church
is fasting and praying for Tiffany, and for
you, and Gwen.
It was grace.
It was dispensed grace.
The day before yesterday, walking the street, feeling
such grief and pain, and Pastor Neil passes,
and he says, Brother Dave, you are so
loved.
So was Gwen.
This church prays for you.
My spirit was lifted because there was grace
coming from people.
It was grace.
I saw it, and especially at the hospital,
Debbie and Roger and I were in a
side room, a waiting room, talking about Tiffy,
and what the doctor had said, and a
woman walked in, and she heard some of
our conversation.
Then she looked so sad, and I said,
why are you here?
And she said, I have a 15-year
-old son here.
His liver, a few weeks ago, stopped functioning,
and if he doesn't get a liver transplant,
he won't live long.
Just a few weeks.
And I said, could we pray for you?
And Debbie was sitting over here, and this
woman was sitting over here, and I was
over here, and I started to pray.
And halfway through my prayer, I stopped because
I heard a commotion.
I quit praying, and I opened my eyes,
and Debbie had moved over to her chair.
It was a double chair.
And they were embraced, weeping, patting each other
on the back, praying for one another.
And Debbie was praying for this woman out
of her hurt.
You see, it was grace.
That's grace.
That's people grace.
That's not Debbie saying, well, I'm hurting.
I have nothing to give to you.
It's Debbie learning something that she could have
never learned in any other way.
Yes, I'm hurting, but she's hurting.
Her child is at the point of death
outside of a miracle.
And out of their hurt, they ministered to
one another.
It was grace, people grace.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Let me close with this.
Let me tell you what this is doing
in my heart.
It's put in me a desperate cry that
God give me a gift of mercy and
grace for others who are hurting.
Because I would really want to be a
grace giver.
Because I was reading through the book of
Job this week, and I became deeply troubled
by what his so-called friends did to
him.
And reading it, I wrote all over.
You can see it right here.
It's cruel.
How cruel?
Awful.
I got almost angry.
Because you know what these men were saying
to Job?
I'll read what they were saying.
God had told him in Job 16, 17,
not for any injustice of your hand, your
prayer is pure.
But then, here's what they said to Job.
Job, if you were pure and upright, surely
by now, God would await for you and
make your habitation prosperous.
Chapter 8, verse 6.
They said, you forgot God.
You're a hypocrite.
Verse 11, 2 and 3.
You're full of talk, Job.
You're full of lies.
Another.
You're getting even less than your sin deserves,
Job.
How cruel.
When I, last month, my newsletter was that
one I just told you about.
You don't have to understand your difficulties, your
troubles.
You have grace.
I got some letters back that really hurt.
Please remove me from your mailing list, Mr.
Wilkerson.
You don't understand your afflictions because you have
no faith.
We want nothing to do with your kind
of gospel.
You should have had power over the devil
and those afflictions.
And these letters, they identified themselves as being
with the prosperity faith gospel and named their
ministers.
And these letters said, if you had any
faith at all, you would understand.
You don't understand because you don't have faith
and that's why you're suffering.
And one woman said, I'll have nothing to
do with your kind of suffering.
Now, folks, I'm not angry at those people
because I know they're deluded and I know
the time's going to come.
They're all going to face a problem.
They're going to face a calamity and they're
going to take the course that Job's wife
took, curse God and die because they have
no inner resources.
And it's going to be a dangerous time.
And so I'm not angry at that.
But what it did for me, I said,
oh God, anything that I say that is
not of grace, if it's not Christlike, if
it's not merciful, it's not of God.
It has...
when people suffering and if you...
Folks, the worst thing, the worst curse that
can come upon a Christian is to revel
and be pleased when your enemy is suffering.
When somebody's done you wrong and they suffer
and there's some satisfaction you get in it.
What a terrible thing.
Or to accuse people you don't have faith.
When Debbie had her first cancer, she went
to one of those kind of churches.
They asked her to leave.
Said, we don't want you here in this
church.
Those were the very words because you're not
a testimony to the power of God because
of her cancer.
And what that does in me and what
it is is, oh God, make me merciful.
God, give me a merciful heart.
Help me to be a grace giver.
Help me be...
Let me experience this people grace.
Folks, if you want to really understand, with
this I close, the fullness of God's grace.
Because Job held his confidence in God and
because he still believed in all of his
hard times, God gave...
He was a grace giver to his own
wife.
God in His mercy forgave her.
If you had been there when you saw
that woman, if you stood by Job when
that woman cursed him or said, curse God
and die, and looked at him and you
saw her eyes, there was no life in
her eyes, and you would say, never again
will there be laughter in her life.
Never again will she smile.
Never again will there be joy in her
life.
She's dead.
She's going to just float.
She's just going to die and fade away.
That was what you would have thought.
But folks, the mercy of God.
God restored everything to Job and his wife.
It wasn't too much longer when laughter and
joy came to the house.
A little girl was born to that same
woman and they named her Jemima.
And you know what that means?
Soft, loving little dove.
You talk about the grace of God.
Here's a woman who said, curse God and
die.
And God gives her a loving little dove.
She bore two other daughters and seven more
sons.
Job lived 140 more years.
Oh, she smiled.
She laughed again.
There was joy in that household.
All the memories were still there.
She never forgot the past.
But all the joy that there was and
the mercy.
He lived 140 years.
And the Bible says he saw his sons,
his sons' sons, even to four generations.
Four generations.
Weeping endures for a night.
Joy comes in the morning.
Hallelujah.
Don't you love him?
Let's stand.
Hallelujah.
Heavenly Father, my family is not the only
one hurting here tonight.
You're not interested in just my family.
You're interested in everyone in this place and
everyone hearing this message.
Your heart of love goes out.
You're saying, I understand.
Just trust me.
I'm going to see you through and I'll
not fail you.
Hallelujah.
Lord, I pray, first of all, for every
hurting person in this congregation.
Somebody here, Lord, that doesn't understand what they're
going through and they've been asking, why God,
why?
Lord, I'm asking you to take that why
out of their heart and replace it with
a praise, with a thank you, Jesus, for
your grace.
And Lord, I pray you raise up grace
givers all around them with people grace.
The grace of God shown through loving saints.
Lord, show us ways that we can talk
to people.
Show us ways that we can show that
grace.
Lord, open doors.
Help us when we find out somebody's in
the hospital or somebody's going through to contact
them.
Lord, just a note, a card, a letter,
a call, just a handshake, a hug.
Lord, that woman in that room, whose son
needed a liver.
She didn't need a sermon.
She didn't even need my prayer.
She needed a hug.
She needed to be hugged.
God put a hug in our hearts.
I thank you for the hugs that we
have felt from your body.
Lord, people who say, I am fasting and
praying, and they really do.
It's not just talk.
That spiritual hug is life-giving.
Lord Jesus, there are so many that are
hurting here tonight, and especially during Christmas season.
Lord Pastor Carter told me that they've been
praying against that spirit, and you've given us
a breakthrough on it.
And we pray, Lord, that in this service
tonight, before we leave this place, if it
takes just five minutes, oh God, lift the
burden, lift the pain and the grief and
the sorrow, and bring joy to the hearts.
Hallelujah.
Lord, joy returns.
There will come joy.
Joy.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Now, if you're here tonight, and you're hurting,
I don't even know how to give this
kind of altar call, but while I was
preaching tonight, you're saying, Brother Wolfson, in some
way you explained me.
I'm hurting, and I've been asking God why.
And I'll tell you, if you have any
anger toward the Lord at all, you don't
want to admit it, but there's something inside.
God, why?
You're just peeved.
You're saying, God, I don't understand this.
You don't want to get mad at God,
but that's really what happens if you don't
deal with it.
Why don't you come and let me pray
for you tonight.
Let's ask God to heal you.
If you don't know Jesus, if you're not
saved, if you're backslidden, come for healing tonight.
Up in the balcony, go to the stairs,
and even in the annex.
Go to the lobby, and they'll tell you
how to get down.
Just come and see me here, and I'll
pray for you right here.
All of this audience.
The healer is here tonight.
Jesus the healer is here.
The sustainer.
And He wants you to face this Christmas
season with peace in your heart.
No turmoil, no strife.
And especially if you're asking God why.
Come and settle that question here tonight as
they sing.
We'll wait for you.
Up in the balcony, come to the stairs
on the other side, down in the aisle.
And in the annex, come and meet me
here.
We'll wait for you.
Look this way.
I want you to feel in your heart.
I want you to experience in your heart
all that came forward.
The tremendous love Jesus has for you.
You've got to be persuaded He loves you.
That He's not mad at you.
And no matter what you have said in
the past, if you stand here now, and
say, Lord, you know I said it out
of hurt, I said it out of pain,
I got mad at you.
Or I said things I shouldn't have said,
and I thought things that I shouldn't have
thought.
Oh, God's big enough, merciful enough to forgive
you right now.
And put faith in your heart.
And give you peace and rest as you
walk out of this place right now.
But first of all, you've got to confess
to Him right now your unbelief and your
doubt.
Folks, I want to tell you something.
It's easy to...
Unbelief comes naturally.
Faith doesn't come naturally.
Unbelief and doubt just...
That's your first reaction.
You lose a job, or somebody turns against
you.
You know, here's a man that was so
downcast his girlfriend left and took up with
another young man the day before yesterday near
14th Street and shot his former girlfriend and
her new boyfriend out of anger.
That's where anger ends.
It goes to despair.
Lay down anger, lay down despair tonight and
say, Jesus, I believe Your Word and I'm
going to trust You.
That's all that He asks.
That you lean on Him and trust Him.
And when you're hurting, and when you're in
pain or in grief, you run to Him,
just run to Him and say, Father, loving
Father, call Him what He is.
He's a loving Father.
He's a caring Father.
And I know You care for me.
I know You love me, but I'm hurting
and I need help.
And He said He would be there.
He'll send the Holy Ghost to comfort you
and strengthen you.
Now, let me pray for you.
Heavenly Father, I come against every lying spirit,
every evil spirit that comes from the pits
of hell to delude and to deceive and
to bring despair and hurt and pain upon
God's people.
And even those that have come that are
returning to You, Lord Jesus, that have been
running from You, how the enemies tried to
destroy them.
Lord Jesus, I believe right now that You're
bringing peace.
Lord, we command every evil spirit and every
lying spirit to depart in Jesus' name.
We take Your authority, Father, over all of
those fears, over all of these abject spirits,
this feeling of despair and despondency.
And, oh, God, depression.
That You drive it out in Jesus' name.
Drive it out of the hearts.
Lord, we receive Your love.
I want us to sing that, Lord, I
receive Your love.
And I'd like this congregation to have just
a little love feast before we close here,
that we receive the love.
How many times you've said, I love You,
Jesus, but how many times have you said,
Lord, I receive Your love?
This is the conclusion of the message.