I have no sound here whatsoever, please.
I have no monitor.
Okay, now that's fine.
But I don't know if you heard my
son.
It's a wonder I wasn't electrocuted here with
all these wires that they have on me.
We want to welcome you to this gathering.
And I don't know about you, but I
came to receive a touch from the Lord.
And we've been looking forward to being with
you in this gathering.
There's been a lot of prayer up.
It's been on the Internet and people all
over the world have been praying.
You know, people are concerned about this country,
concerned about it, praying for it.
This country has sent missionaries all over the
world.
And God's people, everywhere we go, they're saying,
what is the condition of the church?
And my Bible says the gates of hell
shall never prevail against the church of Jesus
Christ.
This is not about the Wilkerson family, not
at all.
This is about Jesus.
It's not about me, it's not about anyone
else.
It's about the Lord.
If you will, I would like to introduce
a lady that probably has had as much
prayer as anyone in the United States.
I mean, many of you that are on
a mailing list have been praying for my
wife, Gwen.
Honey, wherever you're at, I think you're where
you stand, please.
This side, Gwen, right over here.
God bless you, honey.
I have four children in the ministry.
I have two sons in the ministry.
And Gary will be ministering with me all
through this gathering.
Gary has actually pastored longer than I have.
And everywhere I go, people, even bishops come
to me and say, Brother Dave, you're a
fairly good preacher, but we relate more to
your son.
And that makes me feel real good.
He has pioneered churches, and he really speaks
to the heart of pastors.
He knows the pain, the suffering, the good
things, the hard things.
And he ministers under tremendous anointing of the
Holy Spirit.
Gary, will you stand, please?
He will be ministering tomorrow here.
And on Sunday, in another auditorium near here,
it seats 3,000 in the theater.
My other son, Greg, is going to be
holding a youth conference expecting 3,000 young
people on Sunday afternoon.
Greg, where are you?
This is my other son, Greg.
God bless you.
Greg.
Now, those introductions have been made.
We're here.
Now, in our church, we very seldom go
to the microphone.
The Lord told me if I wanted to
see His Spirit move in New York City,
that we had to have communion every week
and that we had to stay away from
the microphone and let the Holy Spirit take
charge.
So, in all of these meetings, at the
evening meetings especially, we'll have a full hour
of praise and worship, and then we will
have the preaching.
That's all we're here for.
We didn't bring any books.
The only tapes that we will be making
available are the tapes of the preaching itself,
and that'll be made available toward the close
of the meetings.
I've been to meetings, and I got a
little weary of so much merchandising, and I
just felt, we felt we would like, and
we do this overseas.
We prayed in the finances for this before
we came, and many of you here have
already helped and given toward that.
And so, we could just focus on giving
as a part of worship.
We believe in that very much, and if
you want to give, we won't say no.
I promise you that.
But we're here to hear the Word of
the Lord.
I want to speak tonight about running the
right race, running the right race.
Now, conclusion of the service tonight, we're going
to have the ensemble come back, and we're
going to have a time of praise.
We're going to praise the Lord, and we're
going to just give God glory in a
very special way here tonight.
Running the right race.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the power
of the Holy Spirit.
We thank you for being with us tonight
in this house.
We thank you for those that have come
from around the United States and other parts
of the world tonight, and for this gathering.
And Lord, we can't do anything without you.
We need the special unction anointing of the
Holy Spirit.
Lord, who am I to say anything to
pastors?
Lord, I want you to speak through me.
Let me be just a vessel.
Bless Gary and bless me as we minister
now.
Lord, you've told me that this would be
a time of healing, that many have come
hurt and bruised.
Some are going through a testing time of
their life, and this would be an encounter
with you, Lord, that you would speak lovingly
to our hearts, and you would minister to
us, and we would leave this place unlike
the way we came.
There would be a change.
There would be something deep.
Now, Lord, we hear that in conferences all
over, and we're not trying to be something
special or do something special.
It's just that we're hungrier, Lord, than we've
ever been.
We're needier than we've ever been.
Holy Ghost, I'm saying, if you don't come,
this is just another meeting.
Come, Holy Spirit, give us ears to hear
what the Spirit has to say.
God, speak.
We want to hear from heaven.
We don't want to hear anything else but
from the throne of God.
Oh, Holy Spirit, you have to open our
ears.
You have to give us ears to hear
what the Spirit has to say.
Lord, help us to run the right race,
to be on the right course, and to
hear the right word.
I pray in Christ's name.
Amen.
Paul tells us that life is a race,
and he said we're to run that race
to win.
He said, so run that you may obtain,
or in other words, that you may win
the race.
Now, there's nothing sinful about winning a race.
In fact, Paul the Apostle said, I run
not with uncertainty, but to obtain the prize
that's set before me.
But before you go after the prize, you'd
better understand the race.
If I were to ask almost everyone in
this house, what race are you running?
You would say, I'm running the right race.
Now, the older I get, the more I
begin to comprehend that there are two races
that Christians run.
There is the spirit race, and there's the
flesh race.
And if I were to ask you what
race you're in, you'd say, well, of course,
I'm going after the prize that is Jesus
Christ and Him crucified.
But you see, there are two races, and
there are two prizes.
The spirit race, the prize, of course, Paul
said, is Jesus Christ.
The other race is the race of the
flesh, and the prize is success.
And this is the race of the majority
I see all over the world are racing
today for success.
Paul said, all run, but one receives the
prize.
One wins.
When he says one wins, he's talking about
a corporate body, a holy remnant of believers
who have set their heart on Jesus Christ.
He is not just first.
He's everything.
He's not on some totem pole.
He's not one out of ten.
He's the only thing.
It's the focus of life itself.
He is the prize, and there are people
that are seeking that and seeking that alone.
That I may win Christ, Paul said, not
that I may be successful.
Now, let me speak to you first about
this pursuit of success, this flesh race.
Paul said, this is the race that ends
in shipwreck.
And I tell you, after traveling all over
the world in the last two years, over
50,000 pastors, Gary and I have seen
it all over the world.
We've seen the shipwreck of pastors and their
wives and ministries that have gone into the
race of the flesh.
Paul said, I keep my body or my
flesh under, and I bring it into subjection,
lest by any means when I preach to
others, I myself become a castaway.
A castaway is someone who survived a shipwreck
and left adrift on an ocean.
And he's moving, he's alive, but he is
just adrift.
He doesn't know where he's going.
He has no direction.
And Paul the apostle said, I bring my
flesh under, lest I find myself in the
wrong race, running the wrong course.
If you could see in the spirit, this
race, this flesh race, if you could just
see the course, you would find people lying
on the sides of this race course, exhausted,
worn out, because the pursuit of worldly success
or success among your peers, trying to find
self-worth out of accomplishing something, building something
for God, something people can see, that race
is exhausting because it never ends.
Because you put a stake out here and
say, if I can reach this goal, you
could be a pastor and say, if I
could reach this 300, I'd be satisfied.
But then you put the stake 500 and
then 1,000 and 2,000.
And finally, you want the mega and find
there's no end.
It's exhausting because it's the wrong course and
it's the wrong prize.
Let me give you some examples.
The Lord used me to found Teen Challenge
some 40 years ago for drug and alcohol
rehabilitation, drug addicts, alcoholics.
There are now over 500 of those centers
worldwide.
And to God be the glory for what
he's done.
Everywhere we go, we meet the leaders, we
meet the staff.
But I have been so grieved over what
I've seen in some of the majority, the
vast majority of all of these drug centers
around the world, the leaders are godly men
and women that truly love the Lord.
They are humble, they're broken.
And I've seen many of them start out
so humble and so broken.
They got saved at one of the centers,
the Lord healed them of drugs and alcohol.
And they go to Bible school and they
graduate and they come back or they go
to another city and start a drug center.
And I've watched these humble men get so
busy, get so busy witnessing, counseling until they
have no time for their families.
They have no time to pray.
They're not seeking God.
And when that happens, they open themselves up
and they become a prey to the enemy.
And I've watched young men who did nothing
but pray and seek the face of God
for direction.
They had to pray with the boys and
the young ladies and men that came into
the programs.
They prayed even for food money.
They prayed for money to pay the electric
bill.
And so broken, so humble.
And many of them were like my sons
and daughters in the spirit.
And I've watched them, they go to conferences,
they go to meetings of the leadership and
staff.
This is all over the world.
And the shipwrecks that I have seen been
astounding and heartbreaking because they started out so
humble and so broken, but because they were
not seeking God, they were so busy.
You can get so busy working for Jesus,
you forget who he is.
You can get so busy doing for him.
And I see pastors and Christian workers running,
running, busy, busy.
They're not praying.
They're not seeking God.
And they open themselves up to this flesh
race and they go to a conference.
And this is the way it goes.
Hey, brother, what's God doing in your place?
How many guys do you have?
Do you have a girls program?
We've got a girls program.
You have a girls program?
Well, no, no, we don't have a girls
program, but I got 50 guys and we're
starting a children's program for little kids that
are on pot and before they're getting hooked
on heroin.
And how many buildings you have?
What's your income?
And another brother said, you got any new
ideas on how we can raise money?
And the guys that have the big centers,
some of them I've seen just come in
like the Pope.
I mean, it was such a, I'm not
calling the Pope prophet, I'm saying like, I
am somebody.
And the poor guys that have 10 or
12 in their center and they're struggling for
finances, go home and they're frustrated because they
say, I must be doing something wrong.
I don't have it right because everything I
do doesn't turn out right.
I must not have it because I can't
even hold what I've got.
And they put pressure on everybody around them.
All their staff members are running because now
they want to, they have, they're infected with
this flesh race that somehow I have to
produce something to show somebody.
So they'll say, what a great pastor or
what a great leader.
What a great work.
What a man of God that happens in
pastorates.
I get letters from wonderful men of God.
They're saying, I'm not seeing fruit.
I'm not seeing God move.
And one after another said, there's got to
be more to it than this.
And the most heartbreaking thing we've seen traveling
all over the world.
It's, we have preached in every conference about
quitting the ministry about pastors that came.
I was in Moscow a number of years
ago and it started in Moscow about four
or five years ago.
They came from Siberia, came from everywhere.
And out of 1500 pastors, I said, how
many of you have made up your mind?
This is their last meeting, your last conference,
you're going home and resign the ministry.
225 to 250 came forward.
It was going to be their last meeting.
They're quitting the ministry.
We were in a South American country, not
too long ago, not many months ago out
of 4,000 pastors.
How many of you have been actually contemplating
quitting the minister and over a thousand pastors
came forward.
And it's all over the United States, all
around the world quitting because they say, I
am not seeing fruit.
I'm not seeing the results.
Now, God is not against success.
He that plows should plow on hope.
The scripture says, you're a businessman.
You should invest.
You should grow as the Holy Spirit leads
you, as God leads you.
If you have a job, you're to do
the same thing.
If you're in the ministry, yes, God, God
has made provision for, for fruit.
And yes, a man is satisfied when he
knows that he's walking in the spirit and
the message that he preaches is touching hearts.
And he knows he's moving and walking in
the power of the Holy Spirit.
See, the sin is seeking success through compromise,
seeking success through compromise.
Folks, let me tell you, you compromise one
iota of the scripture.
You compromise one iota of the revealed word
of God, and you're moving into the wrong
race.
You're moving into the flesh.
One compromise with the word of the living
God.
Now, the day of Pentecost, you know very
well, the early church, they preached without compromise.
The power of God came upon these men.
They speak, they spoke with such conviction that
men's hearts, men and women were pricked, the
Bible said.
They were convicted and fell on their face
and cried, what should we do to be
saved?
In the early church, they preached repentance, resurrection,
holiness, atonement through the blood of Christ.
They were not embarrassed by the scars of
the cross.
Those who lied to the Holy Ghost dropped
dead.
They preached healing.
They preached healing for the sick.
They believed the blind could see.
They believed the lame could walk.
They believed the deaf could hear because it
was the word of God.
It was written and they believed what was
written and there was no compromise on the
word of God.
But by the time you get to Galatians,
you see compromise creeping into the church.
Peter goes to Antioch and he's preaching to
Gentiles.
And when he's there, he eats and he
drinks and fellowships with the Gentiles.
And then the Jewish delegation of Jewish believers
from Jerusalem who were part of the circumcision
crowd, they believed and I don't know how
Peter and those who were pillars in the
church could endure it except that they still
did not have this full revelation that Paul
had received because they believed that according to
their scripture that you had to be circumcised
as well as believe in Jesus Christ to
be saved.
You had to be circumcised.
The circumcision group came down to Antioch and
as they Peter had been fellowshipping with the
Gentiles and when the Jews came and they
were having dinner, he moved away.
He got up from the table of the
Gentiles and went over with the Jews.
I mean, it had to have been an
embarrassing moment for Paul and for all of
the Gentiles because Peter, he acted just like
a Gentile.
He was one of them.
And here comes the group from Jerusalem and
they still believe that you do not fellowship
with a Gentile and you especially don't eat
with them.
Peter gets up, leaves the Gentile table, goes
to the Jewish table because the scripture says,
because he withdrew fearing them that which are
of the circumcision.
He didn't want to embarrass.
He didn't want to offend the Jews.
And Paul, the apostle was, there was this
something in his spirit rose up and he
rebuked Peter openly before both Jew and Gentile.
He called it dissimulation.
It's another word for compromise, being afraid to
offend.
Paul said, you're not ministering uprightly according to
the truth of the gospel.
Peter, you and the circumcision people are compromising
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This is wrong.
And what Pete, what Paul is saying to
Peter now, Peter loved Paul.
He knew he was one of the great
soul winners of the church.
He knew all about Peter walking the streets
and people were healed on just falling under
a shadow.
He knew about him going to the lame
man at the temple gate and the man
jumps.
He's been lame from childhood and he leaps.
He loved this man, but he says, I
will not compromise the gospel.
Not one iota.
I will not move.
And in an act of love, he goes
to Peter and actually what he's saying to
get to the issue of what Paul said,
look, Peter, this is wrong.
This is not the gospel that saved you.
This is not what you preached at Pentecost.
Something's happened, Peter.
Something's come into your message.
This is compromise.
This is not how you got filled with
the Holy ghost.
This is another gospel.
This is not right.
This is not what's safe.
You're not preaching what you once preached.
And there are thousands and thousands of pastors
around the world are not preaching the message
that saved them.
It's not the message that filled them with
the Holy ghost.
It's a compromised message.
It's a, they are Fred afraid to offend
people.
In fact, they build their churches on this
very con very concept.
What do you want?
We don't want to offend you.
Peter embraced those who were offended over the
gospel of the cross of Jesus Christ, because
the cross of Jesus Christ demands that you
don't glory in the flesh, that you glory
only in the cross of Jesus Christ and
his shed blood.
Do you understand the song we sang about
the blood tonight?
The blood that's never lost its power cannot
be mentioned in many Bible churches and even
charismatic churches today.
It can't even be mentioned because the blood
has been removed.
You would not dare say what Jesus said,
eat my flesh and drink my blood because
that's barbaric folks.
I'm not preaching an anger, but I'm saying
that even the secular world now here in
the United States, they are trying to tear
the word of God.
They're not breaking the constitution.
They're mocking and breaking the word of God.
God helped the man that compromises to get
a crowd, to build a church and get
more people into the seats.
Folks, you can build a big church.
You can build a mega church.
You can do all of that.
Now, folks, I know men that pastor large
churches, 10,000 people tell us we run
seven or 8,000 in New York City,
a mega church.
And I know many godly, godly men preaching
a straight gospel.
But I read and hear so much today
that's 95% gospel and 5% of
absolute compromise that grieves the Holy Spirit and
how grave the Holy Spirit must be now.
A young evangelist singer came to me heartbroken,
been to a Bible church of about 10
,000.
And while this evangelist was singing, the spirit
of the Lord fell in this church that
had never seen it, never touched the glory.
And people begin to weep all over the
church.
And a few started coming up and kneeling
at the front of the church, just broken.
The pastor met with his staff the next
day and this came back, the evangelist came
to me heartbroken about it.
And the pastor said, never again in this
church will we allow this to happen.
Never.
He said, we are not here to offend
people.
Paul, the apostle said, I'm amazed that you
so quickly deserted him who called you by
the grace of Christ to a different gospel.
Some are distorting the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Friends, let me tell you something.
I thank God for praise.
I thank God where people clap their hands
and worship the Lord.
Folks, sometimes we've seen in Times Square Church
and I've seen it other places.
We were in Zambia in one of our
recent gatherings and we saw the Shekinah Glory.
The Shekinah Glory, I'd never seen it in
this fashion where the praise of God kept
going up and up.
I've been in meetings where it would peak
out, but this was just going up and
up until during that pastors were coming to
the microphone and confessing sins and bishops were
confessing sins and right into the microphone while
people were praising God.
God inhabits the praises of his people.
We thank God for that.
But where the presence of the Lord is,
there's a weightiness, a weight, an awe, a
reverence.
There's no lightness.
There's no joking.
There's no foolishness.
There's a weightiness to the presence of God.
But the Holy Spirit will not come to
a meeting where there's lightness, where there's no
awe, there's no respect for the word of
God.
He'll not come to you.
He won't come to me.
He won't come to the house.
Folks, I've told our people in Times Square,
if we don't have the manifest presence of
Jesus in all of our meetings, we'll shut
the door because we don't have church.
The only thing it makes church is the
presence of the Lord.
Otherwise, it's just a meeting.
But the Lord will not come where there's
lightness about holy things, ridiculing the old paths
that have proven so faithful, so powerful over
the years.
And where pastors on their screens show segments
of the latest movies, and in those movies,
Christ often is cursed and ridiculed.
And yet, here's a little segment that best
illustrates the sermon.
Folks, what an abomination before a holy God.
I don't want to answer for that kind
of lightness and foolishness.
I don't want to stand before a holy
God and answer for that.
When I speak of giving sinners, God will
not come where there's a watered-down gospel,
non-offensive.
I speak of pastors who remove all the
singing and preaching of Christ's blood.
In the Balkans, I won't name the country,
but in one of the Balkan countries, I
felt led to preach to pastors 60 years
of old, age and over.
And I'm saying, God needs you.
And I kept, I don't know why the
Lord had just given me that message that
day.
And I was preaching.
I noticed older pastors were weeping.
And I said, I want everybody, 60 and
over pastors and wives, come up here and
let me pray for you.
And they filled the whole front.
And one of the bishops came to me
and he said, brother, you don't know how
timely that message is because all through this
country now, it's going through the Balkans.
There's a new doctrine.
There's a new thing among young pastors.
We don't need anybody over 60.
We don't want their ways.
God's doing a new thing.
We don't need old pastors anymore.
That is from the pits of hell.
That is from the pit of hell itself.
And I'm not saying that just because I'm
73 and gray haired.
No, no, no, no.
I'm saying that is not a new thing.
Now, let me speak to you about the
right path, the right course, the right race.
And Jesus said, that's a narrow course and
few there are that are on it.
Why does the other flesh road and many
are running that race?
If you're going to run this race for
the prize, the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus, you're going to go to Peniel.
Peniel is where Jacob wrestled with, with the
Lord.
Jacob later said, I saw God face to
face.
He said, this was God.
Now God's a spirit.
You can't wrestle with the spirit.
There's such a thing as the often he's,
he's appeared in various forms to all through
the old Testament.
I don't know what form he appeared in,
but, but Jacob said it was the Lord
who wrestled with him.
It's 20, 20 years since he has supplanted
his brother Esau to supplant means to remove
someone from a place of authority or inheritance
and move into that place.
Yourself supplant means to remove one and move
and take in, take the place.
It's been 20 years since he's been at
Bethel.
That's where he put a rock.
Remember it had traveled at least 60 miles
and he's now tired.
And he evidently he was, had a camel
had been racing in a camel.
Uh, you couldn't go 60 miles by foot.
And he put Apollo, Apollo rocks there, and
he puts his blankets probably against the rocks
and he falls asleep.
And you remember the dream there is the
Lord high and lifted up.
And there's a ladder angels ascending and descending
on that ladder.
And folks, he's fresh from his sin.
He's fresh from his deception.
It's just been a short time that he's
been there, but the Lord forgives him because
the Lord sees something in this man.
He is forgiven or the Lord would not
have shown him an open heaven.
Now for 20 years, this man goes walking
in the flesh.
Remember what he said, if you bless me,
just bless me, uh, prosper.
And Lord, I'm going to be good to
you.
I'm going to give you 10%.
I'm going to give you tips.
You see, God doesn't expect so much of
the young man, the new convert, the young
pastor full of zeal and, and just doesn't
have the history with God of pain and
suffering.
So God doesn't expect that much, but you
see, he's 20 years from that.
And for 20 years, he's been scheming.
He's been working in the flesh to be
successful.
This man wanted more than anything else to
be independently free.
He wanted to be wealthy.
He just didn't want folks.
I've met pastors like that.
Their one goal in life is to be
independent financially so that they can give their
full time to Jesus.
They say, and I've seen men go into
oil.
I've seen them go into real estate.
I've seen them to go other places.
They're going to make enough money.
So they're going, they don't have to be
attend on a church.
They don't have to depend on anybody.
They're going to be free.
And I've seen them get their money and
forget the ministry and forget what they started
for.
Jacob is now at Peniel, which means the
face of God.
And that's, what's going to take you.
If you're going to run this race for
the prize of high calling God in Christ
Jesus, you're going to come face to face
with the Lord.
And he's going to deal with your heart
like he wouldn't be dealt with at Bethel.
You're not young in the faith now.
You've had experience.
You have a history with the Lord and
he brings you to this place.
I'm not talking theology.
I'm not talking from what I've read from
the Puritans or any other old time or
young or any other writer on the face
of the earth.
It's something that I've learned in my 73
years and 50 years of ministry that God
expects more out of a tour Christian worker
or pastor.
He requires more of you.
And God loved this man.
He said, I'm not going to let you
walk in your flesh anymore.
I'm not going to let you face your
own plans and your own dreams anymore.
And he brings them to this place.
And the Bible says he was left all
alone.
You see, he, in his flesh, he devised
a plan.
The Lord told him to go back to
his home and God said, I'll be with
you.
I'll protect you.
But see an army of 400 Esau's coming
with army of 400 toward him.
And he receives this word and rather than
fall in his face then and believe God
and say, I'm going to stand in his
promise.
He devises a plan.
He divides his group, his family into two
groups.
The least loved go first Leah and her
children and a whole arm, a whole herd
of cattle and camels and donkeys and milk
cows and sheep and goats.
And he's going to bribe his brother.
He's he's going to do it his way.
See, he's not dependent.
He's an independent man.
And God says, yes, when you're young, I'll
let you have a, I'll let you have
a bit of independence, but I'm going to
bring you one day.
If you don't learn your lesson, I'm going
to bring you to a place where everything's
out of your control.
There's nothing you can do.
And he can't do anything now.
He can't control the situation where he's still
trying.
He sends Leah out and he leaves a
long, a great distance between them and sends
his beloved Rachel and Joseph and her entourage
falling with another group of sheep and donkeys.
And what he said, if Leah gets killed,
right?
Rachel can see it and flee and maybe
get saved.
The Bible said he's left alone.
And if you're a man or woman of
God, you're going to come to Peniel.
You're going to come to a place when
you're all alone, where your family can't help
you.
No ministry can help you.
Nobody can help you because God has your
back against the wall because he says, I'm
going to show you what you've become.
I want to show you what's in your
heart.
I want to show you the flesh because
you thought that you were doing so well,
but I want to show you how you
have gotten off on the wrong race.
I want to show you the flesh that
you're walking in.
There wrestled a man with him until the
breaking of the day.
Please let me remind you that at this
moment alone, he doesn't say one word about
the danger he's in now.
His focus has changed.
There's not one word about Esau.
There's not a word about the tragedy that
he thinks is about to come.
He's not even trying to save his own
skin now.
There's a whole new focus in his praying.
God has brought him to this crisis.
God brought him to this crisis.
God said, you go, and God interrupts the
trip.
And he said, no, we're going to have
an interlude.
We're going to have an encounter, Jacob.
And suddenly the wrestler turns to him and
said, what's your name?
He said, Jacob.
And in the Hebrew, he's saying, supplant her.
Now, folks, he's not talking about supplanting Jacob.
God's not trying to get him to say,
well, I supplanted my brother.
No, the Lord's saying, Jacob, you supplanted me.
You removed me from being Lord.
You didn't consult me.
You've not been consulting me at all.
You just go and make your own decisions.
And you can't do that anymore because I
am, I am raising you up in the
inheritance of the fathers.
And this is really, this is through which
the Messiah is going to come.
He said, this is not, I'm not going
to allow this because I love you.
So he brings him this place and Jacob
has to see now what's in his heart.
Folks, if you don't know what I'm talking
about, I don't know what kind of history
you have with the Lord, where God brings
you to a place where you have to
look at your heart and when your flesh
will rise up and every evil thing you've
done, every failure you've ever made, everything in
your life that's been unlike Christ to your
husband, to your wife, if there has been
adultery or fornication or pornography or everything's in
your past, even though it's been under the
blood.
And even though the scripture said you to
forget those things behind that will be replayed
and replayed.
He will, this, the flesh will talk about
things like the Lord's not answering your prayer.
You fast and you pray and you don't
see the results.
The enemy will come in question about the
reality of God and the reality of prayer.
He will come to you, the flesh will
come and Satan uses the flesh to condemn
you and bring a volume of guilt upon
you like you've never known until you go
home and say to your wife or your
husbands, if you were a preacher, if you've
been preaching, that was horrible.
I don't even know.
And see, Jacob says, well, you asked my
name.
I'm asking your name.
Who are you?
What's your name?
You see what he's saying after all these
years, I don't think I know you.
I don't know where I stand with you.
You tell me to go this way.
You give me a promise.
You give me a direction and you tell
me what you're going to do.
And here I am in the middle of
this and I don't see it.
In fact, I see nothing but a battle.
I see nothing but a struggle because you
see, God is at work.
It's the Holy Spirit.
And if you're here tonight and you're going
through a struggle like that and you're saying,
I don't know, God's passing me by.
I see others blessed, but I'm not being
blessed.
I don't see fruit or you have prayed
and you sought God and you don't see
it.
And you're at the point right now where
you feel like you're a failure and even
thoughts of quitting and going into something else.
Folks, this is the work of the Holy
Spirit.
That's not the work of the devil.
It's the work of God working in your
spirit and trying to bring you to another
place.
And God said, you have supplanted me folks.
You're not walking in the spirit and I'm
not walking in the spirit.
I don't even know the Holy Ghost until
God is in charge and tell everything in
my life.
Everything is under the direction and the government
of the Holy Ghost.
Because when God changed his name to Israel,
the root word is God governs.
God is in control.
And I wish I could have learned that
when I was a younger preacher, that I
would take everything to the Lord in prayer
about my marriage, my children, name them, pray
for them, believe God for them, but to
believe that the Holy Ghost is leading my
life.
I presume it's getting quiet because the Holy
Spirit is speaking to us.
I go home sometimes when I preach and
I say, honey, everything was so quiet.
I don't know if they got it or
not.
It's probably what I'm going to say tonight.
He says, tell me your name, please.
Jacob asked the wrestler, what's your name?
God wouldn't answer him.
He didn't give him the name because you
see his name was linked to Jacob because
it says God governs.
And God just says, you have prevailed, Jacob.
You have prevailed.
You know, we get the idea that he
wrestled the Lord to the ground or he
just outlasted the Lord or the Lord.
You can't imagine the Lord would lose strength,
do you?
Who's going to defeat the Lord?
If you really look at this and see
what's happening here, the Lord says, would you
leave me alone, please?
Why would he say that?
Because he'd already, the first thing the Lord
did was cripple him.
He crippled his flesh.
He put his hip out of joint.
This man couldn't walk.
How does a man fight?
This is a man who is crippled and
he's hanging on and all he can do
is hang on.
Folks, I've been there when I have been
crippled in my flesh, where I've been defeated
in my flesh.
And all I could do is hold on
to Jesus.
And that's all you can do.
You cling to Jesus.
You'll hold on to him.
No matter how crippled your flesh may be.
I know one thing.
Jesus is alive.
I'm going to hold on to him.
You say, oh, brother Dave, I don't know
what you're talking about.
All these things that come up from your
past and all the feelings of faith.
What did Paul, the apostle say?
He says, Christ Jesus came to save sinners
of whom I am the chief, not I
was the chief, but I am the chief.
But for the grace of God, I couldn't
even face God, but for his mercy and
his grace.
We were in Argentina.
I think it was the pastor comes up
heartbroken.
He and his wife in prison ministry and
so discouraged, ready to quit.
We felt so sorry.
And Gary was praying with them.
And I was listening.
Somebody 20 years ago had given what they
said a word.
You're going to be such a success.
You're going to win a multitude.
You're just going to go from prison to
prison.
Gave him this long word.
He didn't get it from the Holy ghost.
He got it from a man.
And you know, now that's 20 years ago
on, he said, I don't have anything.
My ministry is a total failure.
Nothing of my so-called prophecy has happened.
And now he he's doubting everything.
We prayed for him and God healed him.
God healed him because now you see he's
face to face with what looks like failure
and the Holy spirit came.
And now the man made himself a promise
and we heard it from his lips from
now on.
I'm not looking for numbers.
I'm not looking for success.
I want to minister to Jesus.
I want to minister to him.
And out of that ministry to him, he
can do with me what he please as
a prince, you power with God and you
have power with man.
How did he, what were, what was that
power?
What is the power with God and with
man with this?
I close it's dependency.
When I become totally dependent on the Holy
spirit, I don't make a move.
I don't go, I don't speak this.
I talk to him.
You see, Jesus said, I don't do anything
on my own.
What I see in here from my father,
that's what I say.
And that's what I do.
And God has promised that walk for every
one of us.
It's the only safeguard of walking the flesh
walk.
It's the only walk.
Listen to the scripture God gave me just
before coming to the service.
We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty.
We don't walk in craftiness.
We don't handle the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth, commend ourselves
to every man's conscience and the sight of
God, we preach truth.
He's saying that cuts to the conscience folks,
what the Holy spirit has instructed me to
do this evening.
And this is the opening night of this
gathering is that we would make a pledge
in our hearts that no matter what the
cost, we will not give what I owe
to into pleasing men or to compromise the
word of God.
We will not compromise the word of God.
Hallelujah.
Will you stand?
Everybody stand please.