A monkey on the mind.
Narcotic addicts, such as these boys who have
just testified, describe their habit as a monkey
on the back.
Ask any drug addict about his habit and
he said, I've got a monkey on my
back.
This refers to a parable that drug addicts
talk about.
This is the parable of a man who
was walking in the jungle.
As he walked through the jungle he saw
a cute little monkey playing on a tree.
And he thought he was intrigued by this
little monkey.
He began to play with it.
He gave it a banana.
In gratitude the monkey crawled on his shoulder,
put his long arms around his neck and
hung on his back.
At first the man thought it was kind
of smart, it was kind of fun.
He was playing with the monkey.
Tried to shake him off and he wouldn't
go.
He had to feed the monkey.
And in the next few days the monkey
would leave.
He carried it everywhere he went and he
had to feed it and it got bigger.
And in just a short time, as the
parable among narcotic addicts goes, this little cute
monkey became a furry, ugly, small gorilla.
It began to take the food.
It began to weigh him down.
He would try to shake it.
He couldn't move.
That thing had latched itself onto his neck
and held on and was clutching at his
throat.
And as the drug addict's parable on the
street, as we know it goes, finally this
little ape became a full-sized gorilla.
And it was bigger than the man and
weighed him down.
His strength was gone.
He couldn't shake it.
And under the sheer weight of the burden
of this little cute monkey that grew into
a great gorilla, he crushed under the lobe
and fell prostrate.
And only when he fell on his back
did the ape walk away and leave him
a broken body.
And this is why drug addicts claim that
they have a monkey on their back.
This is a perfect illustration of how sin
begins.
And it all starts with a playful little
puff on a marijuana stick, a harmless scoop
ball, a harmless sniff of heroin into the
nostrils.
But if that first step is fed with
the second and third step, the little monkey
climbs on the back and stays for life
and books the individual, and there's no way
out, they claim, except overdose or suicide.
But I'm not going to preach tonight about
a monkey on your back.
I want to talk about a monkey on
your mind.
You may never have the monkey of drugs
or alcohol on your back, but you are
in just as much trouble if you have
a monkey of evil thoughts hooked onto your
mind and you can't shake them off.
Addicts are not concerned about their physical habits.
They can kick that cold turkey, as we
call it, instantaneous withdrawal without any medication.
And they can kick that in three days
or two weeks at the most.
And their body no longer needs narcotics, they
don't need drugs.
They can go to a hospital and withdraw
through medication.
And when they walk out on the street,
they don't need, their body does not need
another fix.
They go to prison and locked up for
six months, and they walk out physically clean.
There is no need to shoot narcotics.
The physical monkey is gone off the back.
But the moment they get out in the
fresh air, the moment they set foot outside,
they find out that the monkey on the
mind is still there, and so they call
it a mind habit.
There's two parts to this problem.
The physical can be kicked quickly, but they
claim the mind habit stays for life.
This is a revelation to me.
It should be a revelation to you that
the greatest problems of our nature is not
that which is physical, but that which is
in the mind.
And I want to talk about your mind
tonight.
I want to talk about those thoughts who,
like little animals, little monkeys, as this parable
illustrates, begin to grow on us until they
overwhelm us and drive our life, our spiritual
life, completely from us.
Now then, there are not many teenagers that
I speak to here tonight who are bothered
about thoughts of drugs or alcohol.
But you may be fighting a battle in
your mind tonight that is just as dangerous
and just as vicious as that which an
addict or a prostitute fights.
Every sin, every habit, every crime, every sex
act begins in the mind, and it starts
as a simple little thought.
And if you don't feed that little thought,
and as Billy Graham says, you can't stop
the birds from flying over your head, but
you don't have to let them make a
nest in your head.
You can't stop those evil thoughts sometime to
come rushing by because of the things that
happen to us in life.
But it is another thing.
And if you don't play with it, if
you don't toy with it, it will leave
you alone.
It won't call on board.
It won't latch itself to your mind.
But if you feed it, if you toy
with it, if you play with it, that
little monkey, that little thought is going to
grow until it finally obsesses you, until it
drives you, until you are totally preoccupied with
it, whether it be sex, whether it be
any of these things I mentioned.
It will control your very life.
It will drive you to act out your
thoughts.
And this is when we have what we
call the sin of the flesh.
And I want to do some plain talking
tonight about teenage mind habits.
And don't ever forget, my young people friends,
young persons, God considers mind habits just as
sinful as physical habits of the flesh.
And you can act like an angel on
the outside and perhaps even look like one,
and your friends think you're one, but you
can be a beast in your mind.
Jesus was and Jesus is a mind reader.
In Matthew, the ninth chapter, the first four
verses, the story is told of Jesus passing
through his hometown of Nazareth, and they brought
a man to him, sick with the pulse,
and he was shaking from head to toe.
And Jesus looked at the poor, dejected man
and he said, My friend, be cheerful, cheer
up, thy sins are forgiven.
And standing around were some scribes and Pharisees,
and they thought to themselves, this man is
a blasphemer.
They didn't say a word.
But the Bible says in Jesus, listen to
it, turned to them and said, Why do
you think evil in your minds?
Why do you think evil in your hearts?
They hadn't said a word.
Jesus healed the man and he went on
his way.
But I want you to listen to me.
I believe that Jesus is still a mind
reader.
I believe that he is here right now
where two or three are gathered together in
his midst.
That's where he is.
And I believe he's reading your mind right
now.
I believe he knows your very thoughts.
The Bible says, For the Lord searches all
hearts and understands all imaginations of the thoughts.
The Bible says, No thought can be withheld
from God, in Job 42.
In Psalms 94.11 the Bible says, The
Lord knows the thoughts of men that they
are vanity.
The Bible in Matthew 15.19 says that
evil thoughts can be classified in four different
classifications.
And these come right down to where every
teenager lives.
Listen to Matthew, the 19th chapter and the
15th verse.
For out of the heart, which is the
mind, for out of the heart of the
mind proceed evil thoughts.
And now the Bible categorizes these evil thoughts.
Murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
These are the things that defile a person.
All right, let's talk about the first classification
of mind habits.
The first classification the Bible mentions is thoughts
of hatred.
And the Bible calls this murder.
God in his word describes hatred as an
act of aggressive murder.
Here's the scripture, 1 John 3.15. Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer.
And you know that no murderer hath eternal
life abiding in his heart.
A man who hateth his brother is a
murderer.
There are too many teenagers today who are
cultivating a bit of hatred in their heart
toward parents.
I didn't say a lot of them, I
said too many.
Often there appears to be a reason why
some teenagers have learned to despise their parents.
And have allowed these kind of thoughts to
hook onto their mind.
Usually it's a result of divorce, a father
and mother who fight or drink.
And this kind of hatred cost the minister's
wife her life two weeks ago.
A young 15-year-old preacher's son blamed
his mother for driving the father out of
the house.
He went away, he divorced that wife.
The young man blamed his mother for it.
And for three months he began to see
inwardly these thoughts, my mother's to blame.
My mother's to blame.
And one day, two weeks ago, in a
fit of loneliness, this preacher's son.
And I can give you the name and
address.
Picked a butcher knife up, went in the
bedroom and thrust it through her stomach.
He killed her.
And he was asked why.
Because he had cultivated feelings of hatred toward
his mother.
Too often hatred for parents is a result
of discipline.
Mother and dad say you're going to be
in at such and such an hour.
And this is disagreeable.
You want to set your own standard perhaps.
And I know that when I was a
teenager, those feelings of resentment, it wasn't hatred.
I know I loved my father and mother.
But when my dad laid the law down,
I could feel those thoughts of resentment come
to me.
And I know, I know, there are many,
many mothers who have died of broken hearts.
And I've had mothers who have written to
me cheerful letters of how their teenagers have
learned to despise them.
How their teenagers disobey.
And how their teenagers show no love and
no respect.
And feelings of hatred have come to their
hearts.
Teenager, the worst kind of feeling you could
have, the worst kind of thought, is a
thought of resentment against your parents because they
try to do the best they can and
discipline your life.
These are little monkeys.
They're hooked on the mind.
I want you to follow me very closely
tonight because I feel this message is so
important to you.
The second classification, the Bible says, is evil
sex thoughts.
Evil sex thoughts.
I want to talk very plainly.
And you know already that I have been
very, very careful when I approach such an
important subject as this.
I have never talked on things that involve
sex or morality without fear and trembling.
And this is the most sensitive part of
any message I have ever preached.
Because all sex habits and acts begin in
the mind.
He that looketh upon a woman to lust
after her has already committed adultery with her
in his heart.
Now follow me.
This is the biggest monkey ever to hook
itself on a teenage mind today.
Today there's a flood of pornography, nudity, and
loose moral suggestions that are beginning to create
imaginations in the minds of our youth that
they find almost impossible to shake off.
You know that all sexual immorality begins in
the mind and these are the kinds of
thoughts who enter the mind through the eye
gate.
And I want to let you know right
now that all lust of the mind begins
with looking.
Lust begins with looking.
I want to talk about looking at adult
type films, movies.
I think it's tragic that on Broadway and
other places that I've been where they describe
a film and they say for adults only
and I looked at the line of people
who were lined up and the majority of
them are under 19 years of age.
And any film today that advertises adults only
is guaranteed a teenage audience.
Never have we had such immorality in films.
Teenager, there's only one reason.
I'm not going to preach against theater going.
I'm not preaching against movies.
I'm not a fuddy-duddy preacher trying to
set some standards for you that would be
from my own personal observation or doctrine.
But I know because I've been in the
gutter with these kids and I know I've
walked in some of the worst hell holes
in the world.
I deal with some of the lowest scum
on the earth.
As far as morality, I've seen and talked
to young people who come from the best
homes who are groveling like serpents in the
gutter because they decided that there was nothing
wrong in sitting in a theater and baptizing
their minds with pictures and filling their imaginations
with those scenes that suggest fornication, adultery, and
nudity and all of these things that bring
down the downfall of proper thinking.
Lustful looking, these nude type magazines today in
our newsstands, teenager, it's not difficult for you
to find something to feed this little monkey.
There's all kinds of fruit available right at
the tip of your fingers.
You can walk to any newsstand today in
the smallest town in America and you can
pick up magazines that 10 years ago would
have been banned, but they're not banned anymore.
And you can take those books, you can
take those pictures and take them home and
feast your mind on it.
And I had a boy come to one
of my rallies recently, shaking from head to
foot.
He came to the altar and he said,
David, I'm about to lose my mind.
He said, I don't know how it happened,
but he said, I started just like so
many of the kids in my class.
Everything else was pushed out of my mind.
I was totally preoccupied.
He said, David, I live right across the
street here.
My dad's a deacon.
He said, would you please wait here for
15 minutes?
I don't feel I'll ever get the victory
in my life.
I don't ever feel that my mind is
going to be free anymore.
I'm never going to be able to think
straight until I go get a shopping bag
and fill it with those books and bring
it to you and ask you to burn.
No one tells you to do that but
the Holy Spirit.
But you cannot find freedom.
You cannot find release if you've got a
monkey on your mind driving out every other
thought, driving out that which is decent and
pure and clean.
And there is not a teenager in this
auditorium tonight that does not need this message.
Looking upon another person with lustful eyes, the
Scripture says, is most dangerous of all.
Just look and lull and lust and you
have committed fornication, the Bible says.
God says you don't need to physically contact.
You need no physical contact to commit sin.
As far as that which is immoral, all
you have to do is to look to
lull and to lust.
Hear me, I have seen that look when
I first went to New York City fresh
out of the country.
It crushed my heart to walk down the
street and see men whose eyes were so
full of lust, like craven, driven animals.
I think that bothered me more than anything
I first saw in New York City.
And then when I walked into my first
gang hideout with the Grand Gangsters Incorporated in
135th Street, and I walked down there, got
into the gang hideout and stood up there
trembling trying to preach my little message and
looked around at all those kids.
They had been there dancing, interpretive dances.
There was no bodily contact and I saw
only five minutes of it and I never
want to see it again.
To see the eyes, to see the lust
that so consumed their very beings.
They were burning infernals of lust through the
eyes.
Their minds were totally saturated with one evil
thought.
It had possessed their mind, body and soul.
And I've seen that look on the dance
floor.
I've seen it a thousand times.
When I've walked into dance floors to pass
out chicken tracks that I've printed and passed
out my book on lust and love and
interviewed literally hundreds of teenagers on dance floors
and I say, why are you here?
Oh, I'm here for the exercise.
And then I look at their eyes.
I look in their eyes and I know
they're not there for exercise.
I know why they're on the dance floor.
I know what is happening in the hearts
of the mind.
I've seen it a thousand times.
No matter how you justify it.
No matter how you try to set yourself
free from it.
There's only one reason you stand there gazing
with lust in your eyes.
Because you have it in your mind.
There's a monkey on your mind.
And I don't care what you call me
teenager.
I don't care what any preacher would say
this kind of preaching represents.
I don't believe that God is pleased with
young people who allow themselves to be placed
in an inferno of hell with lust and
passion on every side and stand on a
dance floor with loud music that urges them
on and then their eyes begin to open
and long and lust.
The Bible says that is sin.
You can't be a Christian and live that
kind of life.
Evil sex thoughts grow the fastest.
They are the hardest to get rid of
and they're the most dangerous of all.
And I preach like this because I know
these kinds of thoughts will overpower you very
quickly.
The third classification of mind habits, thoughts of
theft and dishonesty.
The Bible says and theft and false witness.
The Bible calls dishonesty false witness.
There are two kinds of stealing going on
in America today.
And I call it sophisticated stealing and unsophisticated
stealing.
The unsophisticated teenager begins to go into the
five and dime store during lunch hour and
starts stealing ballpoint pens.
And then of course he graduates as he
feeds his mind on how easy it is
and this thought returns to him.
And then of course it becomes hubcaps.
And then of course tires and eventually automobiles.
And 64% of all auto theft last
year were by teenagers.
64% of all auto thefts in America
were teenagers.
That was released today, those figures.
But the majority of teenagers such as we
have here would never be as crude as
to steal a hubcap or to steal a
ballpoint pen from a five and dime.
Would never be so crude as to steal
an automobile.
Theirs is more sophisticated.
What would you call it when you steal
answers for tests in school and cheat?
What do you call it when you lie
and deceive parents or teachers or yourself or
God?
We are living in a society that is
fast becoming the most dishonest society of any
generation in history.
We have payola today.
We have wheeling and dealing and influence peddling.
We've got what we call the white lie
society.
We have bribing, shortcuts, half-truths, false witness,
an outright shameless lie.
But that doesn't make it right because it's
becoming a wayward society.
And there's a saying in the world today
that you're alright as long as you don't
get caught.
But oh young person hear me please.
These kinds of thoughts, the thoughts that are
dishonest, the thoughts of thievery, whether it be
stealing an answer for a test, God sees
it.
God sees it and this is the beginning
of cultivating thoughts more dangerous.
These are just little monkeys on the mind.
And I pass last but not least to
the fourth classification and I think the most
important that I could talk to you about
tonight.
And those are thoughts of blasphemy.
Thoughts of blasphemy.
The Bible says all manner of sin and
blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.
But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall
not be forgiven unto men.
Blasphemy is done in the mind.
Blasphemy is a matter of a thought life.
In plain words I could break it down.
The most simple definition I can give you
of blasphemy is to refuse and to reject
the claims of God on your mind and
soul.
Blasphemy is to deny his word and to
deny his name.
Jesus said he stands outside the door of
your mind or your heart and he knocks.
He says if any man opens I will
come in and I will communicate with him.
Jesus stands at the door of your mind
right now and he says I want to
put my mind in you.
Paul said let the mind of Christ be
in you.
You don't have the power to control your
thought life and there are many, many teenagers
here whose thoughts have run away with them.
Now they've overpowered you already.
There is only one way to bring your
thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Jesus
Christ and that is to come to him
in simple faith and say Jesus I open
my mind.
And when somebody says I've taken Jesus into
my heart it has to include the mind.
There has to be an understanding as to
why you've come.
Not just because you feel good but because
you think right.
You think right you've got to count the
cost.
I don't think any teenager should get up
here tonight and come forward unless you come
because you want God to put a new
mind in you and a new heart.
You want God to drive out those thoughts
of blasphemy.
And listen all over the United States and
Canada now the Holy Spirit is falling on
groups of teenagers like this and never before
in the history of this nation, never before
in the history of the world has there
been such deep conviction because the Bible says
in the last days sayeth the Lord I
will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.
And Ms. Coleman has been talking about how
the Holy Spirit has been talking to her
heart also about how this would spread what
is happening here in this arena, in this
auditorium, it's happening in Vancouver, in Toronto, in
Los Angeles, in New York City, in cities
now all over the United States teenagers by
the thousands are gathering just like you in
crusades and the same Spirit that you feel
and sense here right now is the same
Spirit of God that's falling because the Lord
Himself is calling out the people, young people
and saying come.
And listen, when the Holy Spirit speaks to
you just like He did to these two
boys over here when they were paralyzed by
conviction that is the work of the Holy
Spirit and to reject that is to blaspheme,
that is blasphemy to reject the Holy Spirit,
to reject the Holy Spirit and I know
just as sure as my name is David
Wilkerson just as sure as I sense God
taking my lips and speaking to me right
now to your heart it was though God
Himself were here beseeching you by the living
mercies of God He speaks to your heart
and He says this is your night I'm
gonna speak plainly to you I'm gonna convict
you of the thoughts you've been thinking those
evil sex thoughts I'm gonna convict you of
all of those other thoughts of hatred those
thoughts that have been consuming your mind and
driving everything else I'm gonna convict you of
it and I'm gonna tell you it's wrong
but then I'm gonna knock at the door
of your heart one more time I'm gonna
give you one more chance to repent and
get it out of your heart teenager that
time has come