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...test of an upright man, the protest of
an upright man.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for the Living
Word.
I thank you for the truth that sets
men free.
Lord, I pray for the anointing of the
Holy Spirit this morning that my mind be
quickened by the power of the Spirit of
the Living God.
And I pray, Lord, that the Word of
the Lord grip our hearts, dig deep into
us, O God, and help us to understand
the ways of the Lord.
O Holy Spirit, we're wholly dependent upon you.
We acknowledge you in this house.
There is no church without the manifest presence
of Jesus.
We thank you for manifesting your presence.
And now, Lord, we make room for the
Word of the Lord.
We love your Word.
We honor it.
Now, help us to live by it, we
pray.
In Jesus' name, amen.
I received a letter this week from a
man who probably would boast that he's a
very upright man.
And he said, Dear Mr. Wilkerson, what's happened
to you?
You used to preach so powerfully against sin.
You were a real hellfire preacher.
But you've gone soft on sin lately.
Your message on Jubilee provided people with a
license to sin.
You are offering comfort to compromises instead of
conviction.
Brother Dave, get back to preaching holiness.
I don't sin.
No one has to sin.
There's no sin in me.
And he went on with a lot of
bitterness about the hardness lately of my preaching.
On the first place, the man's proud and
bitter attitude to sin.
And secondly, the Bible said if we say
we have not sinned, we make him a
liar and his word is not in us.
For God said all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God.
But there is one thing I fear probably
more than anything else in preaching.
And that is that I never condemn the
righteous and I never comfort the wicked.
In fact, I tremble at this verse.
He that justifieth the wicked and he that
condemneth the just both are an abomination to
the Lord.
A true man of God, if he's going
to preach the gospel, has to show the
people their iniquities.
He has to name sin as it is.
He has to point it out.
He has to show people the difference between
the holy and the profane.
And by God's grace, I believe he's helped
me to do that over the years since
I've been preaching.
But I'm a fraud.
I'm a total fraud if I don't bring
forth to the congregation the wonderful mercies and
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I would be a fraud.
In Luke 15, if you'll turn there, please,
and leave your Bible open on your lap.
I'll go in and out of this chapter
with you and talk about the protest of
an upright man.
You see, here's another protest by a man
who boasted that he was upright.
Now, we're going to talk about the prodigal
son.
Now, prodigal simply means wasteful and reckless.
Here's a reckless young man.
Now, folks, in the story of the prodigal
son, the father of this story is our
Father.
It's God Himself.
And if that be true, then these two
sons represent two kinds of Christians, two different
camps of those who follow Christ in two
different manners.
Now, the first misuses the grace of God,
and the second misunderstands the grace of God.
Equally are sinful.
To misuse and despise the grace of God
and not to understand and appreciate it and
deny it to others is equally a sin.
The younger son comes to his father and
he asks for his inheritance, the earnest of
his inheritance.
Now, what he got from his father did
not diminish the wealth of his father.
He got just a portion of his wealth.
In fact, both sons had a portion divided
unto them.
Now, this story has no meaning whatsoever to
the church of Jesus Christ unless we understand
that the riches these young men receive are
the riches of the glory of God in
Christ Jesus, His grace, His mercy, His compassion.
Otherwise, this story has no meaning.
It's just a story of a runaway kid
and perhaps a little bit a story of
how the father offers such free grace.
But if it's to apply to me and
apply to the church of Jesus Christ, we've
got to understand when this young man or
these young men say the young man goes
and the younger son says give me what
is coming to me, I want my blessings.
This represents a kind of Christian that we
see in the church today who is always
claiming his rights.
I want everything more that you have for
me.
He glories in a message of mercy and
grace and he endows himself, he fills his
mind with every scripture there is about the
grace of God.
He loves to hear the story of the
shepherd who goes out and finds the lost
sheep and the lost coin because it relates
so well to him and gives him such
comfort and he builds his, for a lack
of a better term, his stash of grace.
He gathers together all that he can get.
Lord, I want everything you have coming to
me.
Now, that's good, that's fine.
We are to receive the message of grace.
This young man has gone to the heavenly
father.
He's a type of a Christian that says
Lord, I want everything you have for me.
A lot of these people want heaven now.
They want every material, physical blessing that they
believe they have a right to.
This is what happens.
This young man, I believe, is a type
of a Christian who really intends, this young
man really never intended to run away at
first.
In fact, it was quite a while before
he left.
He stayed a while at his father's house,
no doubt wanting to invest it and work
hand in hand with his father, be intimate
with him and have his father be very,
very proud of his achievements.
But you see, he really didn't want a
long-standing relationship with his father.
He didn't want intimacy.
There was something in him of worldliness and
pleasure and it began to attract him.
And he gathers up all his blessings and
he heads off to a far country.
Now, this may shock you, but I really
believe this younger son represents a whole camp
of people in the church of Jesus Christ
I call the Bless Me Club.
All they are wanting are the blessings of
the Heavenly Father, but they don't want the
intimacy and the price of intimacy.
They really don't want to walk with God.
They don't really want to hear anything about
sacrifice and the cost of going all the
way with the Lord.
You know, you find this same kind of
follower in Deuteronomy 32.
God had blessed Israel mightily with increase in
the fields.
He made them suck honey out of the
rock, oil out of a flinty stone.
He blessed them with butter and milk and
sheep and flocks of cattle, wheat and houses
and lands and vineyards.
But Jezreel, or Israel, grew fat and kicked.
Then he forsook God, which made him and
lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation, getting
all the blessings and then taking off.
This boy, not many days later, took his
portion, took his journey into a far country
and wasted his substance with riotous living.
There's a New Testament scripture that defines what
this boy did in terms that we understand.
These are clouds, Jude said, without water, blown
about by the wind, turning the grace of
God into lasciviousness.
Getting all the messages of grace, all the
scriptures of grace, all the teachings of grace
and saying, I am secure now.
I know I'm saved.
I know I have a merciful, loving father.
I know that he's going to find me.
He's the shepherd who goes for the lost
sheep.
If I'm not lost, he's coming after me.
And they have this conceptual thing of an
easy grace.
The prodigal son sits in this church this
morning.
He may be right next to you.
The prodigal daughter.
Now, please don't look to the right or
the left or behind you.
Could be the seat in which you're sitting.
Could be in a choir.
This is the son or the daughter who,
according to Ephesians 1, 11, is received in
inheritance.
And like the prodigal son, they give the
father thanks for making them partakers of the
inheritance of the saints of light.
Thank you, Lord, for this inheritance of grace
and mercy and all these blessings you've given
to me.
They've received what the Bible calls the earnest
of their inheritance.
They've been blessed with all heavenly blessings in
high places.
They've been supplied abundantly with the truth of
grace and mercy.
And what happens in this church as you
sit here week after week and you have
given to you message after message of the
mercy of God, your glory in it.
Isn't it wonderful the Lord loves me?
Isn't it wonderful he so freely forgives us
when we fall and when we fail?
We have preached that with power.
We've preached that with tears.
We've preached mercy.
We've preached grace.
We've preached his loving kindness.
We've preached justification, mortification, sanctification.
We've preached all these doctrines.
And they all center on the grace of
God through Jesus Christ.
But what happens after having heaped up this
inheritance?
This son gets his blessing.
He stays a while, and then he heads
off to satisfy some lust in his heart,
a wonder lust, a lust, a spirit of
worldliness.
I'm convinced that there are many Christians who
cannot handle the message of grace and the
blessings of grace.
They can't handle it.
It burns a hole in their flesh.
This young man had this wealth, and it's
burning a hole in his pocket, and he
heads out to the world.
And there are some people, Paul makes it
clear, that cannot.
They do despite to the grace of God.
They cannot handle it.
It appears to them to be a license
to sin.
That's why he said, should we sin that
grace may abound?
He said, oh, God forbid that this message
should burn a hole in your flesh, and
that you should go out and do despite
to this mercy and grace message.
They head off now as this prodigal son
to some forbidden place.
It could be somebody sitting here this morning.
You go out and begin to waste your
grace on life as living.
Your lust can carry you to the bed
of a fornicator, can carry you deeper into
homosexuality, lesbianism, can take you back somewhere to
a pusher, and you stick a needle in
your vein again, and you start coke.
It can be gambling.
It can be almost anything.
And then after you have visited the bed
of the prostitute or the fornicator, you go
back to your room to use a little
stash of grace.
They say, oh, there's plenty of it.
I've got enough.
I can handle it.
And this young man leaves.
He says, I can handle it.
I don't intend to go out into the
world.
I don't intend to do anything.
And if I do fall, I have all,
I've got this stash behind me.
I've got an all-sufficient grace.
And so this young man goes to the
bed of the harlot.
He goes out in parties, and he goes
back, and he keeps spending and spending his
grace.
Now, I know you haven't heard it preached
like this before in the prodigal son, but
this is how God showed it to me.
Look at that son of God running around
with an ungodly crowd, doing wicked things, running
from God, following desperate into deeper and deeper
sin until everything is gone, is depleted.
There are Christians today that are perverting and
squandering the grace of God.
Titus 2, 11, 12, for the grace that
bringeth salvation has appeared to all men, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we
should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this
present world.
That is what God intends the message of
grace to produce.
Holiness, godliness, righteousness, a holy fear of the
Lord.
That's what grace God intended to produce in
our lives.
But you see, the moment we try to
cover up sin by appealing to grace, we
do despite to that message.
Let me say it again.
The moment we try to cover up sin
by appealing to the grace of God, in
other words, I know I've sinned.
And rather than to be heartfelt repentance, rather
than giving it up, rather than asking the
Holy Ghost to give you the power to
overcome, and trusting the Holy Spirit to do
the work in you, I know that I've
failed and I'm not quite ready to give
it up, but I know that if Jesus
comes tonight, I'm ready because I'm truly saved
and I have the grace of God in
my life.
And thank God, I don't care how far
down I get, He's going to find me,
because I heard the preacher say that, that
He never gives up.
He won't give up on me.
And so having this little stash of grace,
having this message of grace, they go out
and do despite.
Rather than to use it to turn to
godliness and holiness and righteousness, they go out
into the world.
And we have people in this church sitting
here now that come week after week doing
despite to the grace of God, because you've
heard it and you've taken comfort when I've
preached it, when Brother Carter's preached it, you
have taken such comfort from it, you've been
able to convince yourself that you can go
out and live like the world, live like
the devil, and still have grace cover you,
without repentance, without turning from your sin.
I'm telling you that's impossible.
I'm telling you that's not scripture.
I'm telling you you're on dangerous ground.
Keep in mind, his father still had all
that he needed.
His father was not depleted of all his
wealth.
I don't care how a man wastes his
grace.
I don't care how he squanders grace.
It does not deplete God's grace.
It's not that God doesn't have all the
grace that we need, no matter how down
we get in sin.
But there has to be a time when
you come to your senses as this young
man did.
Because the time is going to come when
you're going to wind up alone and in
a spiritual famine where the spirit of God
is no longer moving on you, you have
no spiritual life, you don't hear a word
that's being preached, because there's a hardness setting
in now because of your sin.
And this is exactly what happens when the
young prodigal winds up in a pigsty, starving.
And I've seen that spiritual starvation.
I've seen people who once had such marvelous
testimony of grace and mercy, and now they're
just skeletons, spiritual skeletons.
They have no spiritual life left in them
whatsoever.
Verses 17 and 18, chapter...
Let's see, what chapter did I give you?
Luke 15?
Yes, okay, I want you to go to
verses 17 and 18 with me, please.
Let's start at verse 14.
And when he'd spent all their rows of
mighty famine in the land, and he began
to be in want.
Boy, that's the man who has squandered his
supply of grace.
Now, that's a perverted supply of grace.
That is not the true grace of God.
It's what he's turned the grace of God
into, lasciviousness.
And he went and joined himself to a
citizen of that country, and he sent him
into the fields to feed swine.
And he would fain have filled his belly
with the husk that the swine did eat,
and no man gave unto him.
And when he came to himself, he said,
How many hired servants of my father's have
bred enough in despair, and I perish with
hunger.
I will rise and go to my father,
and I will say unto him, Father, I
have sinned against heaven and before thee.
Now, look at me, please.
I have used the statement that repentance is
simply turning around and going the other direction,
but I must apologize that it's only half
the truth.
It's not only a matter of repenting to
God, turning around and going back to him,
but it's going back with this confession, God,
I've made a mess of my life.
I can't handle it.
This young man thought he could handle it.
He thought that he could take a maze
of this world, and he could take the
grace of God and mix it.
And it won't work.
You have to come to the Lord when
you have sinned, and you can't get victory
over your sin, and you wind up in
a pigsty somewhere.
You have got to come to the Holy
Ghost.
You've got to come to the cross of
Jesus Christ.
You've got to say, Oh, Lord, I have
messed up.
I am not in control.
I can't handle my life.
I can't govern anything because I have ended
up in a mess.
And that's what repentance is.
It's turning around from the world and going
back to the Heavenly Father and saying, Lord,
I can't govern my life anymore.
I submit to your government.
I will be your servant.
That means I will be under your governorship.
You will govern my life.
You will tell me what to do and
how to do it.
I'm tired of making a mess of my
life.
Repentance is just that.
I give up trying to run my life.
I can't do it.
And not a person in here that has
the skill and the wisdom to run your
life.
You're running into the ditch all the time.
Oh, hallelujah.
That's what walking in the Spirit is, simply
giving over control of your life and the
government to the Holy Spirit.
Hallelujah.
When he says, I can't handle it.
I'm no match for my lust.
That's when God begins to do a very,
very special work of restoration.
Verse 20 to 24.
Verse 19, I'm no more worthy to be
called the son.
Make me as one of the hired servants.
Put me under your government.
And he arose and came to his father.
But when he was yet a great way
off, his father saw him and had compassion,
ran and fell on his neck and kissed
him.
The son said unto him, Father, I've sinned
against heaven and in thy sight.
I'm no more worthy to be called thy
son.
But the father said to his servant, bring
forth the best robe and put it on
him and put a ring on his hand
and shoes on his feet and bring hither
the fatted calf and kill it, let us
eat and be merry.
For my son was dead and is alive
again.
He was lost and is found.
And they began to be merry.
Hallelujah.
When he was yet a far off, his
father falls upon him, kisses his neck, and
he kills the fatted calf.
Of course, you know, there's that picture of
them in the father's house, fully restored, not
as a servant but as a son, now
under the governorship of his father, willing to
submit.
Now he's interested in intimacy.
He's interested.
He has lost all interest in the world
and the things of this world, and he's
ready now to settle at the father's feet
and to do as he's commanded.
And they have a party.
I mean, it's a merry, wonderful time, feasting
around the lamb.
Now, you know who the lamb is, don't
you, that we eat of and partake of?
That's Christ.
That's Jesus Christ.
It's a wonderful scene, total restoration, wonderful scene.
It's a feast.
But there's an upright man looking in the
window who's protesting the whole affair.
He's looking in the window, and he's angry,
and he's growing angrier by the moment because
he's upright.
For many years, he's never transgressed any commandment.
He's served his father with absolute diligence.
He's upright according to the law.
He's scrupulously clean, and he looks in that
window.
Now, what the eldest son saw when he
looked in the window was one of the
greatest expressions of God's grace ever shown mankind,
absolute glorious picture of grace, that a man
can repent no matter how low he gets
and simply give up the government of his
own life and come to the heavenly Father.
And the heavenly Father doesn't ask a question.
He doesn't lecture him.
He embraces him, puts a new robe on
his back, brings him into the feast.
That's reconciliation.
That's the heart of God.
This elder brother didn't know the heart of
God, served Him with sweat, served Him with
all kinds of human effort, and didn't even
know the Father, didn't know His heart.
And he looks in the window, and he
protests.
He's angry.
He's saying, in essence, I have no part
of this cheap grace, easy grace.
This man lives like the devil.
He squanders everything.
He's brought shame on the family, wicked, vile
sinner, and he walks home like a hero.
I don't see his tears.
Maybe he'll fall next week and go back
again.
Have you ever heard it in the church?
I just heard it in the letter I
read to you.
No, Lucas, you're preaching cheap grace.
You're telling sinners they just repent, and suddenly
everything is okay.
God wipes out the past, and they're in
the favor and blessing of God, and suddenly
at the feast, yes, yes.
That's exactly what the Bible says, because there
has been true repentance and humility and brokenness.
Now, see, the younger son misused grace, but
this man misunderstands grace.
He didn't know the heart of the father.
He could not accept unconditional love from the
father simply because he was born his son.
He was trying to prove or earn the
love and favor of his father.
He's saying, Father, what he's saying, I don't
feel love.
I don't feel like feasting.
I don't feel very happy.
I'm under a burden because I have worked
so hard to please you, and you have
never shown me this kind of love.
The legalist has a very difficult time in
putting away the flesh.
My flesh rebels every time I have to
put it aside because I want to perform
for God.
I want to be able to sit back
and say, I earned this.
I worked for this peace.
I have really prayed and fasted and done
everything to get the victory, and I have
worked and worked until I finally made it.
And then I have to push that whole
thing aside because it's a stench in God's
nostrils because I'm trying to earn favor and
I'm trying to come into his presence and
be accepted on my own merits and my
own works.
And it doesn't.
That is absolutely what God calls filthy rags.
Your flesh will protest.
It will cry out with everything in its
spirit.
It will cry out against this matter of
whole dependence on the Lord, of trusting in
his mercy and grace and coming in simple
childlike repentance and then believing the Lord to
wipe the slate clean, then trusting him to
give you the power and the wisdom and
the authority to live an overcoming holy life
through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Now, I picture the younger son seeing his
older son looking at the window, frowning at
him.
And in my own thinking, I believe I
know the heart of that young man because
it's the heart of repentance.
Through repentance, we'd say, brother, I don't know
why you're frowning because really you should be
in my place.
You don't know how much I admire you
for your discipline and your faithfulness to the
Father.
You never went out and sinned like I
did.
You have the better testimony because you've been
faithful.
And here's the young brother looking in, said,
I wish I could have fellowship with you.
I know I don't deserve this.
You know, I'm sure this young man had
to endure years of pain with this elder
brother protesting his deliverance and his restoration, saying,
you didn't pay the price that I paid.
I don't want anything to do with your
easy grace.
I don't want anything to do with that
message.
I'm going the way of holiness.
I'm going the way of separation.
And folks, some of the meanest people in
the world, and I know some of the
most judgmental, bitter, hard people are those who
say, I want nothing to do with that
kind of message.
The acceptance of a people to come right
out of sin, out of drugs and alcohol,
and suddenly be transformed into the favor of
God.
Where are their years of sacrifice?
I had a pastor once from Russia who'd
spent a number of years in jail.
Came to the United States.
In fact, he visited his church once.
And he frowned all through the service.
And after the service, I asked him, I
said, Pastor, what's wrong?
He said, I don't understand how you people
have a right to clap and be happy.
They've not been to prison.
They haven't paid the price.
He said, the only way to come to
that kind of victory is through suffering.
Human suffering.
That is not Scripture.
You come through the unmerited grace of God.
The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
God forbid that anybody that's fallen into sin,
into adultery and fornication, or homosexuality, whatever it
is, from this church, and they fall into
sin, and you know about it, you hear
about it, and then you see them come
and repent.
God forbid that you should back away and
say, no, no, no, I don't have anything
to do with that.
It's too cheap.
It was too quick.
Give them a year or two.
Give them three years.
Let's test to make sure she's going to
make it.
No, no, no, no.
That's the protest of the elder.
The protest of the upright man.
But that uprightness, folks, is human uprightness and
a very stench in the nostrils of God.
Let me tell you the point of this
whole story.
Grace is freely bestowed on those who have
died to self-worth and self-effort.
Even the father testifies, I rejoice for this.
My son was dead.
Now he's alive.
He was lost and now he's found.
He was dead to his own efforts, dead
to trying to ever please his father and
his own.
He knows now he can never do it.
He knows that he has to depend wholly
on the love and the grace of his
father.
But you see, the elder never had a
sense of his lostness.
No, until you until you understand how lost
you are, how hopeless it is to try
to bridge the gap.
There's a gap.
There's a gulf between us and God.
You can't bridge it and your works.
You can't bridge it and promises.
You can't bridge it by any kind of
self-effort.
Oh, yes, you'll work for God.
You'll you'll strive in the spirit.
Yes, there's sacrifice involved.
But it's only after you've been secured and
know your acceptance in the in the love
of the father through nothing but the merit
of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Nothing else.
No other plea.
The cross alone bridge the gulf.
You can get to God only through Jesus
Christ and his sacrifice.
You can't jump that gulf.
You can't get over it.
But this elder brother never had a sense
of his lostness.
Listen to him.
I've been faithful.
I've served you.
I've done this.
I've done that.
There's no sense of being lost.
In fact, he said, I thank God I'm
like anybody else.
He's a Pharisee.
Oh, folks, you can come to church and
stick up your nose and look at some
drug addicts and others around you.
And those that come deep and said, well,
bless God, I never had to do.
I've never been in that.
I've never touched anything iniquity.
Well, your pride is worse than the worst
drug.
Take heed when you think you stand.
Lest you fall.
God, make this church a church that doesn't
judge, that we preach and believe reconciliation.
We preach and believe reconciliation.
Hallelujah.
I'm not going to preach anymore.
I want us to stand.
Many of you that are visiting here may
be on my mailing list and receive these
messages.
Close to 800,000 people receive those now.
And Gwen's here.
And I verify that she spends days all
day reading letters.
Until late last night, we were reading letters
that come from all over the world.
And if I had to line up my
preaching to what I hear, I wouldn't know
what to preach.
Because half the people here say you're too
soft.
And over here, others say you're too hard.
And there's such a confusion about the grace
and mercy of God.
My next message is entitled, What's going to
happen to the church when preachers quit preaching
against sin?
I'm going to show you what's going to
happen and what is happening.
But I want you to know with everything
in my heart, you cannot know Jesus in
his fullness.
You cannot come into the glory of intimacy
with him until you're fully convinced that he
loves you.
And that once you repent of your sins
with everything in your heart and you go
to him and turn over your life to
him to be governed by the Holy Spirit.
It's that simple.
He rushes in with all the grace and
mercy that you will ever need.
But you've also got you must know, you
must know if you don't know anything, that
you can't take that wonderful message out and
go and abuse it and sin.
And they come back and say, everything's all
right.
It's not because it displeases him.
It's a despite to his love and his
mercy and his grace.
That the Holy Spirit's here this morning.
And if you have if you've been squandering
your grace, if you've done despite to the
grace of God, you said, Brother Wolfson, I
testify that I'm saved.
I testify.
But you see, there are so many doctors
going around now that that are excusing sin,
really excusing sin.
I didn't excuse him this morning, but I
told you there's a way out.
And I know God wants to do something
special in many hearts.
Some of you that walked in here today
for the first time, God's dealing with you
because something's been happening.
You've been drifting.
You're not where you once were.
And I'm speaking prophetically now, speaking under the
anointing of the Holy Spirit, mightily hearing from
his heart.
And some of you walked into this church.
You were warmed by what you felt.
You were drawn a little closer to the
Lord.
But you're really not where you should be.
Something in this world has your heart.
I don't know if it's television and some
of this filth that you might be watching.
I don't know if it's just materialism.
I don't know what it is that's getting
your heart and joy.
But you are not in all honesty where
you were with the Lord.
And you are not seeking his faith.
You're not praying.
You're not reading your word.
You're not into his word.
You are not really living in that intimacy.
Oh, you're still an upright person.
But you don't have that wonderful drawing wooing
spirit of the Holy Ghost drawing in the
secret closet.
You are not showing that grace of God.
But little by little, there's a deterioration in
your spirit and your walk with the Lord.
And that's what this message is all about.
And I want you as the spirit of
God moves.
Now, I want you to get out of
your seat and make an honest confession.
Nobody will put a mic under your face
and say something stupid or foolish to you.
You come because the spirit of God draws
you.
This is life and death in this church.
We're not here to entertain anybody.
This is the word of the living God.
And if your heart has grown a little
colder, you've been drifting.
You say, Brother Dave, I'm not where I
should be with the Lord at all.
Up in the balcony, go to the stairs
on either side and come down any aisle.
Downstairs, the lower rotunda on television, you come
up the stairs and come down the aisle.
If you're under here, wherever you see a
video wall.
Come on.
Backstage, wherever you are, come right now and
make a confession before the Lord.
Lord, I've come.
I want to put my life under your
government.
I want to be under the control of
the Holy Ghost.
I can't handle it myself.
Get out of your seat and come humble
yourself before the Lord.
Now, if you will, please.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
And if you're willing to commit, oh God,
I don't want to squander your grace.
I don't want to misuse your grace.
Follow these that are coming.
If you're not saved, if you don't know
the Lord, come with these that are coming
right now.
Amen.
A number have responded, but I still have
the tugging of the Holy Ghost in my
heart.
And it's not just for this church, but
I feel strongly it has to do with
those who are visiting here this morning.
You had a divine appointment.
The Holy Spirit brought you here today specifically
to awaken your heart, to bring you back
to your first love, so that you walk
out of here saying, oh God, thank you.
Thank you for putting a knife in my
conscience.
And I'll tell you why.
To me, honestly, for some of you, it's
life and death.
I don't believe in begging people.
It has to be the work of the
Holy Spirit.
We're going to sing it one more time
because I still feel it up in the
balcony and all over this house.
The conviction of the Holy Ghost saying today,
come on back, repent, make it right.
Come back to your first love and I'll
give you true grace.
I'll give you honest Holy Ghost mercy, the
mercy of Jesus Christ.
We sing it again wherever you're at.
Get into the aisle if you can.
Destruction before we pray.
There has to be, if you came forward
honestly, there has to be a cry in
your heart right now.
And it's a prayer, it's a cry that
says, oh God, I've messed up and I
keep messing up and I keep excusing myself.
Either accusing or excusing myself.
And the Lord says, no, no excuses now,
because I have all that you need.
I have all the resources you need to
live an overcoming life.
If you will honestly confess before him and
open up your heart.
Now, look at me, please.
I promise you on the authority of this
word that if you humble yourself before him
and repent of your self-centeredness and of
trying to do it in your own strength
and just come to him like a child
right now, the Holy Spirit will come forth
in you as never before with life giving
strength.
He will empower you.
The Lord will cleanse you.
There has to be an honest confession.
Now, I want you to follow this prayer
with me.
This prayer in itself will do it unless
your heart is in it, unless you're mixing
it with faith.
But if there's faith in your heart and
you mean it this morning, the best you
know how you come to him.
He said, I'll no wise cast you out.
No wise.
I know there are people don't believe in
altar calls.
They don't believe that.
But I believe that when the Holy Ghost
convicts you, he expects you to respond.
And we I have seen thousands and thousands
come to an altar call.
They've been living for God for years.
I responded to all the call years ago
and for over 60 years now, I've been
serving the Lord.
So don't tell me all the calls don't
work.
I know they work.
It worked for Nikki Cruz.
It worked for gang members.
It's worked for almost everybody that's on this
stage.
So let them say what they want about
an altar call.
You're here in a process.
The Holy Ghost approves.
I want you to pray this prayer with
me now.
Holy Spirit, I acknowledge before you that I've
messed up my own life by my own
decisions.
I've sinned against you, Lord, and I come
to repent.
I repent of my coldness and my lukewarmness
and my drifting.
I don't want to drift anymore.
Now, lift up your hands.
Bible said it would mean everyone of the
audience and pray this prayer with me.
Jesus, I come now.
I return to you to my love for
you.
I need you, Jesus.
I acknowledge my helplessness.
I give you my heart.
Cleanse me.
Purge me of all iniquity.
Here I am, Jesus.
I place myself under the government and the
rulership of the Holy Ghost.
Jesus, be the Lord of my life.
I thank you now for your mercy and
your grace and your wonderful love and your
tenderness to me.
And I thank you for it.
And I give you praise.
Now, in your own words, I want you
to just thank him right now for his
grace and his mercy and his love.
Lord, I give you thanks.
You are merciful, Lord.
You are loving.
You are kind.
Now, Lord, we take your authority of relying
spirit of Satan, all principalities and powers of
darkness that would come to try to rob
and to steal the word of the Lord.
God, let the word fall in good soil
this morning and let it take root and
bring forth much fruit.
I thank you, Jesus, for the work of
the Holy Spirit.
God, this word and this message and this
service will not last, will not take root
unless by faith now, Lord, we lay hold
of it and say, Holy Spirit, I believe
you now.
I trust you to see me through.
Glory be to God.
Wonderful, Jesus.
We give you thanks, Lord.
We give you praise.
Hallelujah.
Lord, I'm so glad that you love me.
I'm so glad you love this people.
So glad I can represent you as a
God of love and mercy and everlasting grace.
Hallelujah.
Amen.
Turn around, say again, five people, just say
grace to you, grace to you, mercy to
you, grace and mercy of God to you
right now.
Praise.
Amen.
Rejoice in the Lord now.
If there's repentance, there should be rejoicing in
your heart.
Let us rejoice.
This is the conclusion of the tape.