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
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to friends.
Praise his name.
Advise this church, you know we never tried
to sell anything from this pulpit.
Not interested in making money, but the New
Covenant book, New Covenant Unveiled is available.
We've had so many say it has changed
my life, brought such freedom and rest in
my soul.
Those are available now here at the church
and also to our mailing list.
We have been talking about the names of
God.
You know we've been telling you that the
names of God, he is Jehovah, but he
has revealed himself in his character through various
Hebrew names.
I'm dealing with only Hebrew names right now,
and this is the seventh in a series.
These are like rays of a diamond, various
revelations of his character and his nature.
And this morning we're dealing with Jehovah Sidkenu,
or Sidkenu as some pronounce it, the Lord,
our righteousness.
The spelling should be on the screen.
Is it there?
All right.
And for our deaf class over here also.
Turn with me to Jeremiah 23, if you
will, please.
Jeremiah 23rd chapter.
I'm very glad you're here this morning.
Oh, come on.
I'd rather be here than a hospital, I
assure you.
Jeremiah 23 verses 5 and 6, please.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that
I will raise unto David a righteous branch,
and a king shall reign and prosper, and
shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
In his days, Judah shall be saved, and
Israel shall dwell safely.
And this is his name whereby he shall
be called the Lord, our righteousness, or Jehovah
Sidkenu.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus.
Jesus is our Jehovah.
Jesus is our righteousness.
And Lord, we pray that you open our
ears and our understanding.
Lord, sanctify my body, my lips, my mind,
and everything that by which and through which
your word goes forth this morning.
We acknowledge you.
You are the object.
You're the source.
You're all in all.
Jesus, we exalt you.
It's all about Christ, our Lord.
We pray that you will show us what
it means to walk in your righteousness, what
it is to have your righteousness and not
our own.
We thank you for what you've revealed in
your word, and we pray that you give
us ears to hear.
In Christ's name, amen.
Jeremiah began prophesying in the 13th year of
King Josiah.
Now, Josiah was a very righteous king, the
Bible said, who did not turn to the
right or the left.
And he set his heart to bring a
spiritual awakening to Israel.
And it was a wonderful fellowship that Jeremiah
must have had with this young king, because
their hearts were akin to seeing God stir
and awaken Israel.
He started this great revival and a crusade
to stamp out all iniquity in Israel.
The scripture says that the king called a
special meeting of all the princes and the
elders and the Levites.
And the Bible said the king made a
covenant before them and the Lord to walk
after the Lord and to keep all his
commandments with all their hearts and all their
soul.
And all the people stood to the covenant.
The Bible says Josiah waged a war against
idolatry.
He burned down the temples of Baal.
He destroyed all of their priesthood.
He destroyed the high places where God's backslidden
people were worshiping the sun.
He defiled that Moloch God where so many
babies had been offered as human sacrifices.
He destroyed the male houses of prostitution, removed
the sodomites from the land.
And the scripture says that he destroyed also
all of the temples that Solomon had built
to the false gods.
He also destroyed the false gods set up
by Jeroboam and Dan and Bethel.
This was a legislated move toward wiping out
iniquity in Israel.
Remember that for 52 years under King Manasseh
and his son Ammon, Israel had been so
into such degradation.
Bible said that Manasseh caused Israel to sin
more than any other king on the face
of the earth.
And the Bible said because of his bloodshed
of innocence, the killing of babies, the destruction
of so many innocent people in the bloodshed.
God said, I will not forgive anyone who
thinks that God is going to forgive America.
I don't care how many, I don't care
how many revival meetings we have.
I don't care what kind of awakenings God
gave a 40 year hiatus.
But he said, I will not turn away.
I will not forgive bloodshed of innocence.
He will not forgive America for its bloodshed.
I don't care how many prayers you pray.
I don't care how many fall on their
knees.
This was a great revival wiping out all
of the institutions of iniquity.
And yet God said, I will not forgive
it.
And after Manasseh dies, the judgment came upon
Israel and Judah.
Now, after 52 years of iniquity, the nation
down in the very pits of hell and
corruption, God raises up this righteous king.
And Jeremiah must have rejoiced as he saw
those houses of prostitution burning.
He must have raised his hands and praised
God as he saw all of these vile
temples going up in smoke.
The idolatrous priesthood wiped out.
What a rejoicing it was when he saw
the armies of God, the armies of Israel
led by a righteous king, just stamp that
iron God, that belly God, that had consumed
so many of those babies in its red
hot belly.
What a rejoicing as he saw that idol
stomped to powder.
What a time it must have been.
And to live in a time now where
righteousness is ruling and reigning in the land
and the masses are talking about God and
Jeremiah must have been ecstatic.
What a day for him.
Perhaps now all of these things that he
talked about and all the hope that he
had offered to Israel, he was now seeing
it.
But the prophet's hope was soon shattered.
Very shortly, righteousness though being legislated, being enforced
by the king's army.
I want you to know folks that true
righteousness cannot be legislated.
We have the idea that if we would
put a born-again preacher, I mean a
born-again president in the White House, we've
had that before.
If we could elect a born-again Congress
and if we could make laws that would
outrule pornography, outrule internet sex and outlaw all
of this, that we would have a revival.
Folks, been there, done that.
Didn't work.
Because unless the heart is changed, the hearts
of the people were not with him.
The hearts of the priest.
In fact, into the 13th year, Jeremiah, the
scripture said, was howling against the backslidden priesthood.
He was howling against the backslidden people, saying,
amend your ways or God is going to
send judgment.
He was preaching that in the middle of
revival, a pseudo revival in the land.
Great experiment to try to bring about a
righteousness by the hand and skill of man.
Self-righteousness is what it became.
And this experiment absolutely failed, the scripture says.
For 19 years, even into the reign of
Jehoiakim, for 19 years, Jeremiah goes up and
down the land and he says, don't you
understand that this has to be something that
God does in your heart.
It can't be something that just affects the
outward man.
There has to be a change of the
heart.
You can be righteous on the outside.
You can take a stand against blatant homosexuality.
You can take a stand against the sins
of the nation.
I was reading about a pastor in this
city in the 1920s who was a moral
crusader.
Moral crusader in every sin.
And he was in the headlines.
I saw some of the headlines.
In fact, you can read about it in
today's New York Times.
Or yesterday's paper in Daily News, I'm sorry.
And this great moral preacher they found had
the Ku Klux Klan center in his church.
Legislating holiness, crying out about sins of the
nation and everything, and yet into the Ku
Klux Klan.
For 19 years, he said, repent, amend your
ways, because the Lord is about to make
this temple like shallow in this city like
a curse.
Josiah passes from the scene of this revival,
dies immediately.
Not in years, but in months and days,
the revival.
And all this pent-up sensuality that had
been covered by this self-righteousness now bursts
forth in the land and they give themselves
completely to iniquity.
You see, self-induced righteousness gives you no
power over the devil.
When you try to present to God your
own righteousness of good works and deeds, it
makes you a coward before the powers of
hell.
Absolute coward.
The Bible said the righteous are as bold
as the line, but it has to be
the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
I can imagine the conversations Jeremiah must have
had with the Lord.
Something probably like this, Lord, what went wrong?
We had a man of God on the
throne?
He had righteous men around him?
He had an army that did his bidding?
We stamped out sodomy?
We stamped out all of the false gods
and bales and priesthood of wickedness and adultery?
He said we had everything going.
People were talking righteous, everything.
What happened?
Where is the revival?
Why did it die?
Are we doomed, Lord?
And he's looking in the future.
Are we doomed to revivals that just fade
and die?
Are we doomed to a righteousness that fades
away like a vapor?
And in his despair, he saw the revival
just fade.
He saw the people turn from their so
-called righteousness to absolute iniquity, worse than in
the times of Manasseh.
And he's in despair.
He's looking to the future and thinking, God,
will there ever be a righteous people?
Will there ever be a time when there
will be a king on the throne who
brings forth a righteousness that doesn't die like
this one did?
And in the middle of that crisis, he
spoke to him here in the 23rd chapter.
Behold, he said to Jeremiah, the days are
coming, saith the Lord, that I will raise
up unto David a righteous branch, a king
shall reign and prosper, shall execute judgment and
justice in the earth.
And in his days, Judah shall be saved.
Israel shall dwell safely.
And this is name whereby he shall be
called the Lord, our righteousness.
Yes, Jeremiah, there will be a king one
day on a throne.
He will rule a people and he will
bring forth a gifted righteousness that will not
fade.
It will be eternal.
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold,
the man who comes is the name branch.
That's the Zechariah 6, 12 to 13.
And he shall grow up in his place
and he shall build the temple of the
Lord and shall bear the glory.
And he shall sit and rule upon his
throne.
He is the son of David, the scripture
says.
And all who will trust in him shall
dwell safely.
Hallelujah.
This is a righteousness that comes from God
himself.
It is not legislated.
It is not forced on man.
It can't be done by human effort.
God has allowed this failure to stand before
us, to show us the futility of self
-righteousness and trying to bring something to God
out of our own skill, our good deeds,
our good works.
It's a stench in his nostrils.
That's why he allowed it to die.
Surely, Jeremiah must have thought, Lord, will I
be alive when that happens?
Lord, will I see this?
Will I experience that kind of righteousness?
The unfading righteousness of God himself, gifted and
given, that his name shall be he who
bears witness, he who deals righteousness to his
people.
And that's what it really means in the
Hebrew.
He who deals righteousness to his people, who
gives his righteousness to his people.
I don't know if the Lord told him
it's far in the distance.
I don't know whether he ever expected, but
I do know that you and I live
in that day right now.
We are living.
We have that king.
The branch is alive and well today, and
he has given us his righteousness.
This righteousness is ours today.
And the apostle Paul tells us that the
prophets were witnesses to this kind of righteousness
that is not by the works of man's
hands, but by faith in what God has
promised.
Romans 3.21 says, But now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested or
revealed, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is
by faith of Jesus Christ unto and upon
all them that believe.
Now in the Greek here, the witness means
one who's experienced and bears testimony to his
truth.
And he said the law and the prophets
bear witness.
God never just throws the truth out without
bearing witnesses.
He's always got two or three witnesses.
And he said the prophets are witnesses.
They experienced this.
They had a taste of it, a foretaste,
so they could prophesy about what was coming.
Isaiah was one of those witnesses.
You know this story well.
This revelation of Jehovah said, He faced Jehovah.
So can you face to face?
Remember, after five chapters of prophecies, speaking of
righteousness and holiness, he stands before God's throne
and he sees him high and lifted up.
He's in vision now and he sees the
father lifted high.
And he hears the angels and the seraphim
singing, Holy, holy, holy.
The seraphims have covered their face with their
wings, covered their eyes because of the brilliance
of his glory.
And in the presence of that utter righteousness,
that utter purity, that brilliance and glory, this
man who'd been preaching, this man who'd been
faithful is driven to his face.
And he can't look at the glory.
And he cries out, Woe is me.
I'm lost.
I'm undone.
I'm a man of unclean lips.
Now, the man with the unclean lips was
the leper who had the rag under his
lower lip so he could run around saying,
I'm clean and clean.
Isaiah says, I'm a leper.
I am a leper.
Folks, we're all lepers outside of Jesus Christ.
We are lepers and we've got to acknowledge
it.
Now, I want you to look at this
man on his face.
He's in the presence of the utter holiness
of God in his righteousness.
And he has nothing to offer.
What does this man have?
Because, you see, Isaiah is the condition you
and I are in, even though we may
have had years serving the Lord in some
capacity and done our best to be righteous
or preach or prophesy.
When you come into the utter presence of
his holiness, everything is exposed, everything hidden.
That's the power of his holiness.
And he's driven to his face, I am
lost, I'm undone.
This is Isaiah.
You read the first chapter of Isaiah and
see his heart against sin.
There's nothing more profound in all scripture than
the first chapter of Isaiah.
And when he talks about the corruption of
the church and God's people from head to
toe, and now he's before the utter holiness
of God in his righteousness, and he's driven
to his face.
And what can he offer?
Folks, you look at Isaiah because that's what
God is trying to show us.
He said, these prophets were witnesses to this
kind of righteousness.
And he is our witness, along with Jeremiah,
along with Ezekiel, and all of the minor
prophets.
Every one of them had this vision, one
way or another.
How does Isaiah come and stand before his
presence now?
What can he offer the Lord?
Does he go to him and say, Lord,
I'll do better, I'll make promises.
You see, we do that, we make God
promises.
Try me one more time.
And he's crying, Lord, I'm unclean, I'm undone.
I'm a dead man in the sight of
your presence.
I have nothing to give you.
I have nothing to offer in my flesh.
I've tried, but here I am.
I am a total failure.
I'm a leper.
And how does he come into God's presence?
How does he get approved?
What does he have to offer?
There's nothing.
And unless the throne makes a move, unless
God takes the initiative, he continues in his
uncleanness because he has nothing in his flesh.
He has no power.
He has nothing to give.
Folks, you and I have nothing to bring.
We have no claim.
There's no good thing in our flesh.
There is nothing good.
I don't care how good you think you
are.
You are no good.
The Bible says in your flesh.
So quit sticking up your nose at other
Christians.
You know the story.
God takes the initiative.
He commissions an angel to take a fire
with a pair of tongs from the altar
before him.
That consuming fire of his holiness.
That altar is Jesus.
That fire is his sacrifice.
And the Bible makes it very clear that
that angel said, open your mouth.
He opened his mouth, put out his tongue.
The angels put that hot coal in his
lips.
He said, lo, this has touched my lips.
Your iniquity is taken away.
Your sin is gone.
It's purged.
All by the initiative of the father.
And all he had to offer him was
an acknowledgement.
I can't do it.
I'm nothing.
That's true repentance.
That's acknowledging, Lord, if I'm ever going to
be holy, you have to make me holy.
If I'm ever going to amount to anything
in your sight, and the only way I
can get into your presence is through Jesus
and his sacrifice.
Jesus, put that hot coal of fire on
my lips.
Sanctify me through your blood.
No other hope.
No other way.
God has to take the initiative.
And he's the witness to this kind of
holiness that we're talking about.
Righteousness that is given by faith.
Hallelujah.
Cleansing, purging came from the throne.
He did nothing that acknowledges helplessness.
Now, this brings me to the question, how
do I get that kind of righteousness in
me?
How do I get God to impute or
give to my credit, credit to me his
righteousness?
See, his righteousness is not dealt out to
everyone who cries, Lord, Lord.
Not at all.
You've got to come his way.
And he makes it very clear how you
come.
The first requirement, listen very closely, please.
A total repudiation of all efforts to establish
your own righteousness by your human abilities.
Abandonment of all hope of becoming holy by
good works, good thoughts, good deeds.
You have to once and for all say,
I cannot, there is no hope in my
flesh.
I have to repudiate every effort of my
human ability until I am endued with the
Holy Spirit.
And he has done a work in me.
And by his spirit, we mortify the deeds
of the flesh.
That's what the Bible said.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the
deeds, the sinful flesh is brought under mortification
and destroyed, the scripture says.
Paul's heart went out to his Jewish people.
It broke his heart.
He watched in pain as they struggled so
hard to please God and be righteous.
He said, I pray that they may be
saved.
But he watched, Paul said, I see how
hard, I bear record, he said, to their
efforts.
I bear record.
He said that they're very zealous for God.
These people are very sincere.
They had to keep the moral law.
That's the Ten Commandments.
He watched as they struggled in their human
effort not to commit adultery and not to
covet and to love their neighbor.
He watched them struggle with no supernatural power,
with no Holy Spirit within them to enable
them to do what the law commanded.
And he watched them struggle.
Not only, folks, I want to tell you,
they studied the Torah from morning to night.
They had 613 rules imposed by the Pharisees,
613.
Can you imagine taking inventory at the end
of each day?
Folks, you had to be a scholar to
understand what was required just to keep the
Sabbath.
How far you could go.
And if a Gentile tried to shake hands
with you or your garment brushed his, you
had to go and cleanse it.
I mean, at the end of the day,
take an inventory.
And if they failed in one point of
the law, nothing but despair.
And if they had a good day and
they kept it, they boasted.
I'm something.
That's what the flesh does.
The Bible said it can't be by the
law because you just boast that it's your
righteousness.
It's not his.
He's not going to let you do that.
And Paul watched these people struggle.
Paul said, they are ignorant of God's righteousness.
In other words, they have no knowledge.
Now, folks, that shouldn't have been because they
had the knowledge very same scriptures.
I'm reading you.
They had the Pentateuch.
They had Moses.
They had the prophets.
They had Jeremiah.
They had the revelation that we're speaking of
now.
They read the very same scripture.
I just gave you the Lord shall be
our righteousness.
Jehovah's attend you.
They had it.
Paul said this word went throughout the whole
known world.
This gospel we preach.
But he said they were willingly ignorant.
They were willingly ignorant.
He said, therefore, they go about to establish
their own righteousness, having not submitted unto the
righteousness of God.
Now, folks, these people were deadly sincere.
These were not flakes.
These were not insincere people.
They were sincere people.
They wanted to be holy.
They wanted God's favor and blessing.
It kept them up at nights.
They prayed their long prayers.
Folks, if you go to the mountains of
Tibet and you watch those Buddhist priest spending
all day long, get two, three hours of
sleep and you listen to their moaning groans
that echo over the hillside, you see them
spinning their prayer wheels.
You look at their faces and see how
deadly sincere they are.
You go to India and some of those
dark foreboding temples there and lined up on
both sides where they walk through, you see
these big prayer wheels with prayers written on
them.
And you see them going spinning this wheel
and this wheel spinning 50 wheels.
And they honestly believe they're so sincere that
they're trying to please God and that every
time those wheels spin, that prayers are being
imputed to their righteousness, their imputed righteousness in
their guts.
They are sincere, but they are ignorant of
how to receive God's righteousness.
You go to the shrines in Canada and
you see thousands of people, especially in the
summer times, walking on their hands and knees,
crawling up these stairs, these huge mountain of
stairs going up and kiss a statue.
And they leave pleased because they feel they've
done something righteous and God is pleased.
And all the way home, they may travel
back to Florida or fly to France or
wherever it may be.
And they have this sense, I have done
something that God has received.
When God says, it's a stench in my
nostrils because they don't know the righteousness of
God.
So they go about trying to establish their
own kind of righteousness.
You show me a Christian who's indulging in
sin.
He or she doesn't want to give it
up.
And I'll show you someone who doesn't want
to submit to the righteousness of Christ because
of the cost.
They know that the Holy Ghost is a
consuming fire.
They know that if they open themselves and
submit to the righteousness of God, which is
in Christ Jesus, they know that this righteousness,
this holiness of God demands full surrender, full
disclosure of every secret and hidden thing in
the heart.
But you see, they want to go that
way.
They don't want that bosom sin to be
exposed.
I received a letter from a Jewish man,
married man.
And he said, Mr. Wilkerson, he's on my
mailing list.
He said, I'm married, but I have fallen
in love with a wonderful Christian woman who's
also married.
And she is so full of Christ and
she provokes me to do good.
And he said, since neither of us love
our mates, don't you think God would be
pleased because we are soul mates that we
should leave our mates and get married?
And you answered the letter for me, you
remember?
You wrote it this week, the answer.
That was a good answer you gave.
I got to thinking, this is a Christian
woman that provokes a man to righteousness.
You see, she'll not submit to the righteousness
of God because she's got a soul mate.
That's the biggest pile of baloney I have
ever heard in my lifetime.
Soul mates.
That that happens.
Soul mates.
If you're married, you've got a soul mate
that's not your husband or your wife.
That's the devil.
That's not God.
You've got a demonic mate, not a soul
mate.
This is the end of sight.
Can you imagine this woman, though?
She knows she hears the word.
She knows you're not to be unequally yoked
with believers in the first place.
She knows that God hates divorce.
She knows the consequences.
But because I feel so right with him
and I feel righteous when I'm speaking to
him, it's got to be all right.
In Greek, this word establishing one's own righteousness
is simply this.
This is the meaning of it.
Taking a stand on one's own concept of
righteousness and bringing it to God.
Taking a stand.
In other words, you develop your own theology.
And when you refuse to submit, the first
thing you do is lower God's standards.
You lower them just underneath your sin.
Now, you'll still judge everybody else's, but you'll
lower the bar just to include yours.
Christians bound by sin under its dominion, who
are addicted and refusing deliverance, develop what I
call a righteousness of illusion.
Their sin has so deceived them.
They can live in adultery.
They can live unmarried.
They can commit fornication.
They can sit in front of a television,
sit and listen to watch R-rated, X
-rated movies and just saturate their mind with
all kinds of filth.
Commit fornication, mix with vile sinners, then come
to God's house, praise the Lord, convince that
they're righteous.
I'll tell you, Jeremiah has a searing word
on that seventh chapter.
Go to Jeremiah 7 now, please.
I have an idea the amens are going
to fade.
Jeremiah 7, beginning of verse 8.
Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot
profit.
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely,
burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other
gods whom you know not?
Then come and stand before me in this
house, which is called by my name.
In fact, in Hebrew it says, in a
house in which my name is being revealed.
And say, we are delivered to do these
abominations.
Is this house, which is called by my
name, become a den of robbers in your
eyes?
Behold, even I have seen it, saith the
Lord.
But go you now unto my place, which
was in Shiloh, where I set my name
at the first, and see what I did
to it for the wickedness of my people
Israel.
That's where God left Shiloh and wrote Ichabod
over its doors.
The glory of the Lord has departed.
You come to my house with your sins,
trying to avoid your punishment, trying to appease
me with your uplifted hands, in other words.
These people were committing adultery, living double lives,
given to idolatry.
Then they come to God's house saying, we
are delivered to do all these abominations.
Now, let me give you the explanation of
that in Hebrew, please.
We have a good reason, a good explanation
for doing these things.
We can't help it.
It's fate.
It's the way God made us.
You hear that from the homosexual community?
We can't help it.
This is our fate.
We have homosexual churches now that dance the
night away, promiscuous sex among the congregation, and
they come and say, raise their hands and
praise the God in the Metropolitan Community churches
and say, that's our fate.
We can't help it.
We come to God's house.
God made us this way.
Did you hear?
I can't believe how low we have sunk.
A man who has been indicted for armed
robbery, did you hear about the defense?
Prozac.
The doctor prescribed Prozac to me.
Before I took Prozac, I was a wonderful
gentleman, never even thought of robbery, but now
he's robbing banks because of Prozac.
I can't help it.
Prozac did it.
My doctor did it.
They're going to sue the doctor.
Hmm.
You hear this all over America now.
My dad was an alcoholic.
It's genetic.
It's in my genes.
That's why I'm an alcoholic.
I can't help it.
It's my fate.
Society has convinced multitudes that even violence is
genetic.
You can't help being violent.
You get some kid that's violent, you know,
kill somebody.
Well, it's in his genes.
A pastor was exposed a few years ago,
multiple affairs, sexual affairs in his church.
And he calls the board together.
And he said, gentlemen, you're going to have
to have compassion on me because God does.
He said, just so happens that God made
me a very energetic man with a lot
of energy.
And he said, I want you to know
that I'm a very intense man and I
have great needs beyond other men.
And he said, I know God has compassion
on me.
He knows that this is the way he
made me.
So I just have to live with it.
Well, thank God those people knew more than
to be duped by such foolishness.
And he was on his way out the
next hour.
If you continue your sin, you live a
double life and you hide your secret lust
and sin and you just excuse it.
You have no intention of seeking deliverance.
You'll end up doing three things.
Number one, you will lower God's standard to
excuse your sin.
Secondly, you'll try to present to God a
self-righteousness that you have conceived and concocted
of your own.
And third, you're going to pervert the message
of grace.
You're going to do injustice to what God
says about mercy, turn it into lasciviousness.
You see, people hear this message.
They'll hear the covenant that we preach.
They hear these wonderful names of God and
how God says, I'll take the initiative and
it's a wonderful thing.
And they'll hear this scripture.
For example, Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him as righteousness.
And to us also, it shall be imputed
if we believe on him that raised up
Jesus from the dead.
In other words, Abraham believed God and God
gifted him with his righteousness as a result.
Therefore, I believe God.
I believe in Jesus.
Therefore, I am and I have the righteousness
of God.
I have the righteousness of Christ.
I believe in Jesus.
The Bible says they that believe shall be
made righteous in Him just as Abraham was.
Now, let me give you...
I'm going to blow that to smithereens.
And let me give you the Lord's definition
of His righteousness and how it is imputed
or credited to our account.
Abraham, scripture says, staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief.
He was strong in faith, giving glory to
God, being fully persuaded that what he had
promised he was able to perform.
And therefore, or because of this, it was
imputed or credited to him for righteousness.
He staggered not at the promise of God.
Doesn't say promises, but at the promise of
God through unbelief.
He did not stagger.
Jesus, the righteousness of the Lord, Jehovah said,
can you, is imparted only to those who
fully believe the promise, the same promise that
God made to Abraham.
Abraham's faith, listen closely, was linked to a
specific promise.
It was not linked to the general promises
that God's made to all of society.
It was linked and focused to a particular
promise.
That promise had to do with the son
that would be given to him.
And that son would be the progenitor of
a nation and a seed, which would be
the Messiah, the savior of the world, who
would deliver men and women from their sins
so they could live all of their days
without fear.
Jesus said, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced
and was glad in it.
Why did Abraham want a son?
Because he was lonely?
No, he had a whole, I mean, he
had people everywhere.
Did he want a son just so he
could dote upon him?
No, he had a revelation.
He saw Christ.
He saw my day, Jesus said.
And he rejoiced in it.
And why did he rejoice?
According to Luke 1.72, it's because a
Deliverer who is coming to the world, who
would bring his righteousness.
And he would give it to his people.
And he would deliver them from their sins.
This faith of Abraham is linked to one
promise.
You can believe in Jehovah-Jireh and still
be a devil.
We have all kinds of people in the
country today running around full of covetousness and
saying, I believe every promise in the book
that God will bless and prosper me.
And they live like the devil.
You can believe in Jehovah-Jireh.
You can believe in many of the names
of God and still go to hell.
But you can't believe in Jehovah-Jireh without
being changed.
And you can't have this revelation until you
link it to the faith of Abraham.
The Bible said, it's the faith of Abraham
that is focused on the seed, which is
Christ.
He has raised up a horn of salvation
for us.
He will deliver us out of the hand
of our enemies, that we may serve him
without fear in holiness and righteousness all the
days of our life.
The object of Abraham's faith is this promise
that he did not stagger at.
God has promised to deliver us from the
power of Satan, to cast out fear, to
endure people with power to live righteous and
holy all their days.
Now, to Abraham and his seed where the
promise is made, he said not to seeds
as of many, but as to one seed,
and that seed is Christ.
That seed of Abraham is Christ.
He never got his eyes off the seed.
That's why when he takes his son up
to the mountain, you remember he told his
servant to wait here, said, we're coming back.
He knew.
He fully intended to kill his son, but
he knew that Christ was coming from that
son.
He knew the deliverance from sin and righteousness
to be imputed to a whole world was
coming through that son.
So he knew God had to raise him
from the dead.
The Bible said two things happen under Abraham's
faith.
First of all, you believe in resurrection.
God raises you from the dead.
You may be dead here this morning, not
feel anything.
You may be so backslidden.
You have nothing to feel.
You're dead in your sins, but you've got
to say, Holy Ghost, stir me.
You've got to believe in resurrection power.
That's exactly why he was accounted to the
righteous.
They believe God can raise the dead.
And he also believed that God counted things
as happening as though they hadn't happened.
Takes those things that are not as though
they are.
He looks at you and you say, well,
I've tried.
I've prayed, I've fasted, I've done everything right,
but I still fail.
I don't feel righteous.
Oh, but God sees something.
You've got your faith fixed on the sea.
You've got your faith fixed on this Christ
who can deliver from the power and iniquity
of sin.
And that's what you want.
You're hungry and thirsting after righteousness.
You'll never understand Jehovah said, can you with
you without a hunger and a thirst after
rights?
If you if you've got something in your
life, you want to hold on to forget
it, forget it.
This was not a passive belief in benevolent
promises to all mankind.
It was a faith in a single promise.
Hallelujah.
It's a faith that's focused on this specific
promise.
It's not scattered gun faith.
It's faith that God has promised to keep
us from falling.
It's faith in the victory of the overcoming
cross.
Faith that he has defeated all demonic powers
that come against me.
Faith that he's going to infuse his Holy
Ghost in me and he's going to give
me the power and authority that I need
to keep every commandment and to walk in
righteousness and holiness, not to my own strength,
not to my own power, but because this
is what I hunger and thirst after.
If you're sitting here right now, I don't
care what kind of sin weakness is in
your heart.
If your heart's reaching, so God, I want
to be righteous in your sight.
I don't want sin to lay hold of
me.
God, I want this thing broken in my
life.
And you call out on his name.
Jehovah said, can you believe that with your
heart?
You focus on that promise.
God has promised to break the power of
sin in my life.
And you hold to that.
And even though you may be surprised by
sin, even though you may fail at times,
that's not your heart.
Your heart is set on deliverance.
And God said, if that's your spirit, if
that's where you're at, the things that are
not now, in other words, the things you
don't see yet, I see is done.
I see you righteous, holy in my sight,
even through all your struggles, through all, I
know your heart.
You're going to come running to me.
You're not going to trust that you're going
to try to give me something that I
can't take of your flesh.
And he says, come back to me now
by faith, because you're righteous in my sight.
You have nothing of your own, and you
know that.
You've come to that revelation.
Hallelujah.
Glory to God.
Turn now before I close to Ezekiel 37.
Boy, I've got so much more, but I
just can't.
Give it all here now.
So let's just go to Ezekiel 37.
We go to verse 24.
First, Ezekiel 37, 24.
David, my servant shall be king over them.
Who is that?
David's long been dead.
He's talking about the son.
Are you talking about Christ and David or
Christ?
My servant shall be king over them.
They all shall have one shepherd.
They shall also walk in my judgments and
observe my statutes and do them.
Verse 23.
Neither shall they defile themselves anymore with their
idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with
any of their transgressions.
Boy, here it is.
But I will, I will save them out
of all their dwelling places wherein they have
sinned and will cleanse them.
So shall they be my people, and I'll
be their God.
You know what he's saying?
Look at me, please.
He said, I've been watching.
I know, I know every time you walk
into a R-rated movie, I know where
you go into a dirty theater.
I've been every time you rented a dirty
movie and brought it into your house and
your dwelling place where you've committed your iniquity.
I know when you have been in this
hidden dwelling place and everything you've done.
But he said, now because you hunger and
thirst after righteousness, you want to know my
heart.
You want to be free and delivered from
the hold of sin.
You want the Holy Ghost to go into
your heart and search every hidden area because
you've come to that place and you know
you can't do it.
You're trusting me for it.
He said, I'm going to set you so
free that none of these dwelling places are
going to bother you again.
You can walk past any theater.
You can walk past any bar and you
won't be tempted anymore.
I heard a man in this church once
say, I'm saved, delivered from alcohol.
But he said, every time I go past
the bar, I can taste it.
God said, I'm going to save you out
of all your dwelling places wherein you have
sinned.
He said, I'm going to take it out
of this dwelling place.
I'm going to revamp it.
I'm going to redo it by my power.
Hallelujah.
I'm going to save you from the house
of adultery, from the place of pornography.
Hallelujah.
Oh, glory to God.
Hallelujah.
Why is he my righteousness?
Not because I've worked for it or earned
it.
But because I have hungered and thirsted after
it.
And because I have a heart that's open
before him.
Says, oh God, I want you to deal
with this.
It's brought me nothing but death and despair.
But you raise people from the dead.
Raise me up.
You may not feel anything.
Maybe you came here so hardened by your
sin.
Bible said, it's deceitful and hardens your heart.
That may be you.
But if you'll just cry out to him
now, there has to be a cry.
You have that power to cry.
That may be the only authority and power
you have.
But you can cry out.
I want you to cry out this morning,
Lord.
I want deliverance.
I want freedom.
Saints, balcony, main floor, and then the annexes
watching on screen.
Listen closely, please.
Stand.
But listen closely.
Please don't leave.
We're not finished.
I know some of your visitors may have
to catch a plane or something.
We understand that.
But if you can stay, just remain in
your seat for a few moments.
The Lord spoke to me about this invitation
I want to give.
We don't just preach and dismiss.
We give you an opportunity to respond to
working and moving of the Holy Spirit.
The pastors of this church have been very
concerned about this body.
It may just be a handful.
But it's something I believe the Holy Spirit
has revealed.
The need for cleansing.
The need for us to get honest that
you can't just sit for week after week
and hear the gospel and not let it
change you.
Otherwise, it's hardening your heart.
But I want you to know that he
is so anxious to do a work in
your heart and to take that hidden thing
and just like this side did, grind it
to powder, wash it away.
And if you're here this morning in this
service and you say, Pastor David, I need
a change in my life.
I need a miracle.
I need a cleansing.
I want nothing in my life.
Nothing that's dark.
God says, I want truth in the inner
man.
And I wonder if Jesus comes today, if
you could stand before him rejoicing in his
righteousness truthfully.
You're not righteous just because you say, I
am the righteousness of Christ.
You don't say that just because you make
a statement.
You have the faith of Abraham.
You believe that he is your deliverer and
you want deliverance.
And you're going to seek deliverance his way.
You come and say, Lord, I open my
heart to you.
And I promise you, you take that step.
We don't try it.
We don't number anybody up here.
We're not trying to build numbers at the
altar.
But we sure don't want you to leave
the way you came in.
If there's anything that hinders the free flow
of the Holy Spirit, these things hinder communion
with the Lord.
They hinder it.
God wants perfect communion with you.
He wants to speak to your heart.
He wants to work in your family.
He wants to work in your home and
your marriage.
Please come wherever you're at.
Don't block the eyes of people.
Please come.
And in the annex, please go forward.
Not in front of the screen or block
the screen, but between the screens.
Would you just go forward between the screens?
I'll pray for you.
And then we'll have one of our staff
over there to give you direction for further
ministry after my prayer.
But I'd like to pray for you.
My prayer can't do anything unless your heart's
ready.
And you really want God to do something
in your heart.
Up in the balcony, go to the stairs
and come down any aisle.
Bring your pocketbook and your belongings with you.
Don't leave them there.
You're at Times Square.
All right.
Lord bless you.
Wherever you're at, you feel the pulling and
tug of the Holy Spirit.
You respond.
Please move in close.
Make room for those that are coming.
But to you that are here, and in
the annex, I want you to know the
Lord's more willing to give than you are
to receive.
The Bible said He's anxious to forgive.
He's anxious to forgive you.
God's not mad at you.
He's very patient with us.
He's been very patient with you in understanding.
Folks, church, even those who have not come
forward, listen to my heart for just a
minute.
I know we all go through great struggles.
We go through temptations and trials.
All of us.
Even ministers are not immune to that.
I am not immune to that.
To have the enemy come and just try
to attack from all sides, and especially bring
discouragement, despair, and depression, and fear of the
future.
So many things that he throws at us.
But there has to be a rest.
God has to give us a rest.
And He wants to do that for all
of us.
First of all, He wants the sin question
settled.
And if all you do is get honest
with the Lord, and say, I'm not going
to hide this.
I know where I'm at, Lord.
You know it, and I won't.
You can't hide it.
He knows all about it.
So you bring everything out into the open,
and say, Holy Spirit, come now.
Shine your light.
I pray that every day when I'm alone
with the Lord.
Lord, go into every crevice of my heart,
every room.
Shine your light.
Expose everything.
Lord, if there's something I don't even know
about, expose it to me so I can
pray about it and give it to you.
He'll do it.
He'll show you because He's so anxious for
a communion.
He wants nothing to hinder that.
If you're willing to open your heart to
Him, will you pray this prayer with me
right now?
Lord Jesus.
I want nothing hidden in my life.
I want to expose it to myself.
Let me see it.
I confess everything, Lord, that's in my heart
that's unlike you.
Put the hot coal on my lips.
Burn away by the word of God all
that is unlike Christ.
I trust in the finished work of Jesus
and the power of His blood to cleanse
me of all unrighteousness.
Oh God, I want to be honest inside.
I want a truthful heart.
No hidden thing in me.
No secret sin.
I give it to you, Jesus.
Now, Holy Ghost, come.
Give me power to resist the enemy.
Kill and destroy this thing that holds its
power over me.
I believe your word that you're my Savior.
You said, I will save you.
I will deliver you.
The power is all yours, Lord.
I acknowledge I'm undone.
I am a person of unclean lips.
But I come to you in that condition
and ask you to come to me, Jesus,
by grace and set me free.
Purge me.
Now, I want you to just raise your
hands and thank God that He'll do what
He promised to do in your heart.
Just give Him thanks.
I give you praise.
I give you thanks, Jesus.
I give you thanks.
In the annex, they'll give you directions to
go to a prayer room for further counseling
or help in prayer.
Here in the main auditorium, all of you
that come forward right now, I want you
to believe God.
Father, I believe you now and I trust
you that there's going to be absolute joy
in God's house now because we have yielded.
We have yielded to the word of God.
We're submitting to your righteousness, Lord, not our
own.
But we submit to the righteousness of Christ
by faith.
Will you believe God right now that the
Lord sees done what you think isn't done?
He sees you righteous, though you don't think
you're righteous because you have followed His instructions.
You've come His way now.
Glory be to God.
I want you, before you leave this house,
what are you singing here?
What more, what more can he do?
I'd like you to, when I was preaching,
I told you Isaiah was a witness to
this righteousness by faith.
I want everybody here that loves Jesus to
be a witness of this faith.
Hallelujah.
Now you can say, Christ is my righteousness.
Shake hands with about 10 people.
Say, just say that.
Christ is my right.
Jesus is my righteousness.
God bless you.
Christ is my righteousness.
This is the conclusion of the message.