I didn't anticipate preaching what I'm going to
preach now.
In fact, I didn't want to preach it.
I just didn't.
I said, Lord, I want to just go
down to Alabama and bless everybody.
I want people to get happy because I've
been called by God.
I'm not a prophet, never claimed to be
a prophet, but I've been led of the
Lord to prophesy occasionally and to speak a
strong message, and I didn't want to preach
this, and I had something else chosen, but
the Holy Spirit said no.
I want to talk about sin.
Now, please, no clapping.
There's something just stirring, brewing in my heart,
and I can't get away from it, so
we're going to talk about the touch of
God, the touch of God.
Father, I will obey You, but if I'm
going to obey You, I am asking You
have to help me to speak this with
mercy and with great compassion.
Lord, I need this as much as any
minister, any one minister or otherwise who's here
tonight, this morning, this afternoon, and I pray,
Lord, that You give me grace, and Lord,
speak from heaven, speak from Your throne.
Oh, God, people don't want to go just
to meetings anymore.
We've had too many meetings.
There are too many things going on.
There's so much confusion.
We've got to have You speak right into
our hearts.
Oh, God, give us open hearts.
Let us not put this off, but deal
with us with Your love.
God, You mean what You say.
Lord, You're not a grandfather who just dotes
on his children or grandchildren.
You're a father who has a word that's
been given in love, but You expect us
to abide by it, and I pray, Lord,
You speak to every heart that's open, and
God, cleanse me, sanctify me that what I
speak comes from Your heart.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
How does God deal with a world in
chaos?
Folks, what's it going to take when everything
is spinning out of control, when the laws
are being changed?
We see a United States of Europe developing
now.
We see everything in Bible prophecy coming to
critical mass, and you look around and you
see the gay agenda.
You see and hear things that 20 years
ago you couldn't believe possible.
Where I live now, a governor in New
Jersey, right across the river from New York,
acknowledges that he's been living a double life
and he's resigning because of a gay love
affair.
Things that I would never anticipated in my
lifetime hearing publicly.
And we see this race toward destruction, and
in the past 10 years, the evangelical Protestant
churches have lost 10 percent.
Ten percent fewer people now, in fact, I
believe it's in the last eight years, and
the church numbers among evangelicals that are claiming
that in just about 15 years now the
evangelicals will be a minority in the United
States, mostly through immigration.
And you see, now for us in immigration,
we have 103 nationalities in our church, and
we thrive on immigration because many of them
that come in are godly Christians, and they
come from all nations of the world, and
they add something wonderful to our church.
So I'm not even making a statement on
that, but when I look at the conditions,
I say, God, what's it going to take?
Then you go into church history, and you
see God's plan.
God didn't send angels.
He didn't send armies from heaven.
He touched men.
He touched women, ordinary people, not supermen, not
super people.
He takes men that were unknown, people that
didn't have much of themselves of skill.
Now occasionally you'll find an educated Paul, but
even Paul said he had to unlearn everything
he'd learned in the schools of the Pharisees.
He had to count it all done, and
God had to start over with him, make
him nothing before he could use him.
So what is God's plan for the United
States?
What's the plan for your town, for your
area?
What's the answer on the mission field?
It's God taking young people, God taking young
people like we have here, and touching them,
and changing them.
And God, the scripture said, when Israel backslid
time and again, the Lord would raise up
Jeroboam, Bedan, Jephthah, Samuel, and delivered you out
of the hand of your enemy on every
side, and you dwelt safely.
God said, I took men.
I took women, and I stirred their hearts,
and I called them.
And there are certain things I called them
to do, and when they obeyed me, I
touched them.
I raised them up.
I stirred nations.
I stirred people.
I brought kings to their knees because of
men that I could speak to, men who
I touched through the power of my spirit.
God always uses men.
They were God-touched men.
Now you can abort the call of God
like Saul did.
God said, I have plans for you, Saul.
I want to give you an everlasting kingdom.
And you can abort that by getting into
the flesh and getting away from God's plan
and the touch of God.
He's certainly a man who was filled with
the Holy Spirit and touch, and he aborted
that.
What does God expect of me if I
want his touch?
I meet pastors who don't want to be
touched.
Let me tell you honestly, straight up front,
I meet pastors of even small churches, 70,
80 people that they like to hunt, they
like to fish, and they don't want too
many people to pastor.
I've met many like that.
Now, if you're here like that, and you
don't want God to use you, you don't
want the touch of God, forget what I'm
going to say the rest of this message.
It's not for you.
But see, I have this one chance now
to unburden my heart.
You came from all over the United States
and around the world, so there's no time
for playing games.
I'm going to tell you straight from God's
heart, because God's dealt with me.
I know what it's like to pastor a
little church in a country or hillside.
I know what it's like to sit in
front of 80 to 100 people week after
week after week, the same people, same complaints,
same elders pushing me on all sides.
And I know what it's like to stand
in the pulpit and say, if this is
all there is to Pentecost, I don't want
it.
If all it is is sitting within four
walls and talking in tongues, you can have
it.
I don't want it.
And I said, God, if I can't see
souls saved, and I can't get my people
to witness, then you've got to start in
me.
And God said, you want my hand on
you?
You want to be touched?
Then you get on your face.
And that's the first call you receive.
If you're going to be touched by God,
God will call you to the mountain to
pray.
We had a mountain, a hillside by our
parsonage up on the hill.
And I got tired.
I got weary.
I said, Lord, I'm not going to spend
the rest of my life.
Now there's not God calls pastors and pastors
to small churches, to large.
It has nothing to do with the size
of a church.
It has to do with the man's heart.
Am I satisfied to spend the rest of
my life getting sermons and beating my head
every week to bring something to the pulpit
on Sunday or whenever it is?
And I'm going to get up sometimes to
just wing it?
Or when people come to the church, am
I going to be a man who stands
there and I have been on my face
and I've heard from heaven when people sit
in that congregation, they know they've heard from
God.
They know this man hasn't been out just
golfing.
This man hasn't been out just playing.
This man's been shut in with God and
he comes with the Holy fire in his
guts and his soul.
And I had a little place up on
the hill.
God said, David, you better give me the
prayer and seek my face.
And there was something came on me.
There has to come this sense of I
can't live like this.
I can't live and be a dead man.
God, something has to happen or your Bible
isn't true.
God, you made promises and they're either workable.
They're my promises or they're no promises at
all.
And I'd rather dig a ditch and go
on empty hearted and just going through a
dead routine, bearing and bearing and fellowshipping.
And I told my people, our people in
Times Square church, I said, no, if you
want me just to play ball games with
you and come and just fellowship with you,
that's one thing.
But I'm going to be a man of
God and your kids are going to get
to heaven.
They're not going to go to hell under
our watch.
I have to be alone with God.
I have to be a man of prayer.
I'm not here just to fellowship with you.
I'm not here to have supper with you
or play ball games with you.
I'm here to come to the pulpit from
the throne room of God.
So your kids are convicted of their sins
and every friend that you bring to this
church will come under the conviction of the
Holy Ghost and get saved.
I was a little town of 1800 people.
I said, God, I am tired of this.
And I would go up in that hillside
and I began to pray.
I went out in the woods and I
told my wife, if somebody comes blow the
horn, I'll come out.
And for a summer every day with my
Bible up there.
Yes, I did my, my work.
But you see, when you pray and seek
God, you can do more one hour under
the anointing of the Holy Ghost than you
can do a whole week without praying.
And by the way, God takes care of
a lot of those calls before they ever
get to the throne, to the phone before
you.
He'll take care of a lot of these
things that won't eventuate in a big problem.
He solves them.
Folks, it got to the place where almost
every page in my Bible was marked, not
speaking.
I began to weep before God because you
see, when you pray, God called Moses to
the mountain.
He said, the Lord came, the Bible said
the Lord came down on Mount Sinai at
the top of the mountain.
The Lord called Moses up to the top
of the mountain.
See, the mountain represents prayer being shut in
with God.
And the Bible said that Moses went up
and the people stood afar off.
Moses drew near to the Lord.
And I began to draw near to the
Lord.
Let me tell you straight out pastors don't
pray.
You know who told me that?
One of the greatest prophets who ever lived
on this earth, Leonard Ravenhill.
Well, Revival Terry's wrote many books.
He died in his late seventies, a real
prophet of God.
And he died partially of a broken heart
because he saw the declension in the ministry.
And he spoke in one of my conferences
and he said, preachers just don't pray.
They're so busy.
They don't pray anymore.
Now that's not an indictment against everybody.
Many of you here have been praying and
seeking God, but he said, they get so
busy.
They don't pray anymore.
And I remember seeking God for months.
My wife will tell you what the changes
that happened to me.
And one day I went to church and
the spirit of God came on me and
I fell prostrate and I fell under the
seat.
And I just began to weep and wail
before God.
It was a burden of the Lord.
And I didn't know what it was about.
And it's been told in the cross and
switch, but I went home after service.
I said, I don't know what's happening to
me.
I don't know if I'm having a breakdown,
but I can't stop weeping.
There's something going on.
God's trying to say something and I don't
know what it is.
And that very next day I picked up
Life Magazine and there's a picture of seven
boys indicted for murder.
And the Lord said, that's what it's all
about.
And that was the story of the cross
and switch, but God sent me out.
He called me out of that city and
put me in New York city to minister
to the Lord.
But folks, I can tell you now, if
I had not obeyed that call to go
up to the mountain, may I tell you
honestly, I'd be backslidden.
I have four children in ministry.
They would have been all divorced.
I would have probably been divorced because just
before that time we were having some difficulty
in our marriage and it was all my
fault because I wasn't seeking God.
I wasn't praying.
I'd become a mechanical preacher, sitting watching television
for hours because of my frustration.
Of course, you know, this story, television went
out and you see, God said,
pray.
And that's the call of the Holy Spirit
here.
And this is what God spoke to me.
There has to be something of the Holy
Spirit, get a hold of your heart today
and speak to you and talk to you
about your prayer life.
There are no shortcuts.
You can go to all of these conference.
You can buy all these books and folks,
it's not going to work.
It's not going to change your heart.
Why should we have a meeting and give
you all kinds of books on how to
do church, do all of these things.
If your heart's not right with God, if
you're not been seeking God, what are you
doing?
Now, Moses is a busy man at this
time.
How would you like to have the biggest
congregation in the world in all of history?
Eventually he winds up with at least 2
million people in his congregation.
And he's so busy, his brother-in-law
Jethro comes to him, he said, this is
wrong.
You're to go be with God and you
hear from God, you come and tell us
what to do.
You tell the people what to do.
You go here with God, you go be
with God on the mountain.
Be thou for the people Godward, let others
be appointed to bear the burdens of the
people.
And Moses went up to the Lord and
he drew near to where God was.
He drew near to where God was.
But see, he was not the only one
called.
God said, I want you to bring your
brother with you.
I want you to bring Aaron.
I want you to bring his sons Nadab
and Abihu.
And I want you to bring the 70
elders.
And they go halfway up the mountain and
I call that halfway camp.
They were called to come up with Moses,
to be alone with God.
Now God knew what was in their hearts.
These are all ministers of the Lord.
These were all anointed.
See, Aaron is going to go soon.
The tabernacle has not been built yet, but
see, God knows that he's going to have
to go into the Holy of Holies.
And he knows he's going to have to
be a pure man.
He knows that God, he could, he would
be stricken dead if he goes in the
way he is now.
And God loves this man.
He says, I want to use you.
You're going to go in the Holy of
Holies.
You're going to know something of my presence.
Very few men know I'm going to use
you in a way you can't conceive, but
I can't use you with what is in
your heart now.
So he calls them halfway up the mountain.
He calls Nadab and Abihu because these are
his priests.
And he knows that they're committing adultery and
fornication.
He knows what they're doing at the very
gate of the sacrifice, at the very gate
of the sacrifice.
He knows what's in their heart, but he's
still patient and he loves these men.
He knows the 70 elders are not under
authority because they're the same elders that later
are going to rebel and say, you're not
the only holy one.
We're just as holy as you are.
And God calls these men like he's calling
us today.
He calls us halfway up the mountain and
suddenly God appears.
Now this has to be a theophany because
God is a spirit and he comes down
in some kind of manifestation.
He comes walking down a Sapphire road and
he seats them and he feasts with them.
And once you get this picture, please, how
would you like to be present at the
utter holiness of almighty God?
How would you like to see a God
of such mercy who loved you so much?
He came from heaven literally and sat with
you and ministered to you and loved you
in spite of the adultery, in spite of
the sin, in spite of what is in
Aaron's heart of jealousy from his brother and
these men not being under authority and God
in his love saying, look, I'm going to
expose you to my holiness.
I'm going to bring you now into my
presence.
And I tell you on authority of the
Holy Spirit, I would to God someone when
I was a young preacher would preach what
I'm preaching to you.
How many tears I could have saved, how
much guilt and bondage I could have avoided.
If somebody who came and looked me in
the eye and said, God loves you.
And I was exposed to the holiness of
God and tell us, oh God, I'm a
sinner.
Oh God, I've got a problem in my
life.
I'm speaking to some right now who are
hooked on pornography.
You're hooked.
You went out of curiosity and you said,
I'm not going to hook.
I'm just curious.
No, no, no.
You see, once you get on that track,
you almost can't get out of a miracle.
You have to have this moment that you're
having right now, a moment of love when
nobody's condemning you.
Nobody is saying shame on you, but the
Holy Spirit is coming and say now because
I love you, I'm bringing you into a
moment, a moment.
I'm bringing you to a place of utter
holiness where all mighty Holy God says, I
love you and I want to use you,
but I can't use you with what's in
your heart.
And if you go on, you're going to
die in it.
One young leader of one of our centers
got hooked on pornography, lost the anointing, lost
his touch.
I brought him into our home for two
or three days with his wife.
He had forced his wife to watch the
filth with her, with him.
And she said, no, because it's killing me.
It's destroying me.
And I saw him leave the ministry and
marry a witch, lose the anointing.
God calls them up halfway and he deals
with him in love.
The scripture says, and God said to Moses,
come up, you, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, the 70
elders of Israel worship afar off.
Moses alone shall come near.
Lord, they shall not come near.
Neither shall the people go up with him.
Why couldn't they go to the top of
the mountain?
Why couldn't they go to the glory cloud?
God had to walk away.
And he said, Moses, don't let them come
near me because they're not hearing the given.
They're not hearing me now.
For six days, Moses told them, wait for
me.
Moses anticipated coming back very soon.
No doubt.
Here's the promise they had been given.
These men had been given it.
He says, I will sanctify the tabernacle, the
congregation and the altar.
I will sanctify also both Aaron, his sons
to minister to me in the priest office
and to the elders.
He said, I will make you priest unto
me and a holy nation.
These were promises.
God said, I'm going to use you.
I have plans for you.
I have an anointing for you.
I have a touch for you.
I'm going to bring you into my holiness.
I'm going to speak to you.
I want you to yield.
He calls Moses aside up the mountain.
Come, he said to the others, worship afar.
Come not near me.
Cannot come up to the top of the
mountain.
Only Moses shall come.
They saw the God of Israel under his
feet, a paved work of sapphire stone.
And upon the nobles of the children of
Israel, he laid not his hands.
Moses went up to the mount of God
and he said to the elders, carry here
till I come again unto you.
Evidently they had supplies there.
They were to wait.
I don't know who left the camp first.
I would suggest Nadab and Abihu had to
go back to their fornication.
I don't know who's going to go home
to your secret affair or go home to
pornography.
I don't know who's going to go home.
You say, President, are you preaching this in
a minister conference?
Yes, because I'm led by the Holy Spirit
to do so.
Nadab and Abihu go back to their horrible
sin.
And I think the 70 elders probably followed
because they picked up a chance.
This is our chance.
Where is Moses?
We don't know what's happened to this man.
They bring that report back.
We don't know what happened to him.
And we're just as holy and they take
leadership.
And there's Aaron who goes back to the
golden calf.
And a man evidently had a sense of
sensuality in him because he allows them or
perhaps instructs them to strip naked and dance
around the calf.
Only Moses goes up to the top of
the mountain.
You see, everyone here this afternoon at one
time knew what it is to pray.
You know what it is to have a
time.
You had a time every day.
Nothing could stop you.
And you were called to pray.
You were called to seek God and for
a time you did.
I believe Nadab and Abihu once were fine
young men who had a touch of God.
Now thank God for Aaron.
God got a hold of that man's heart
and he finally did end up in the
Holy of Holies.
The 70 elders evidently died in the upraising
of Korah.
Nadab and Abihu, you know, they brought in
strange fire and God smote them dead.
But you see, God called you to pray.
What happened?
You got busy.
You have time to shop.
You have time for friends.
You have time for everything and you say,
I'm too busy to pray.
Pastor, if you're not going to pray, don't.
I suggest getting a secular job.
I say it kindly.
I was with the pastor and his wife.
They asked me, in fact, the pastor's wife
asked to have lunch or supper with my
wife and I.
And when we sat down, we hardly gotten
into the meal and she said, honey, will
you tell him now?
I said, oh no, another confession of adultery.
I didn't want to hear it.
She said, if you don't tell him, I'm
going to tell him.
And he started haltingly.
He said, I pastor of a church, a
thousand people.
He said, brother, have you preached on prayer?
He said, I have to confess.
I have not prayed once in one year.
He said, I know how to do it.
And his wife was a woman of prayer
who'd been praying for him.
He bowed his head.
He said, I know how to do it.
Successful.
Oh, you can do it.
If you're a CEO, if you've got the
skill, if you've got the charisma, you can
do it.
You can build a church of 20,000,
but one day you're going to stand before
God.
And more people are going to hell through
many of our churches than anybody in bar
rooms, right through our churches because you've been
cheated.
There's another call not just to come up,
but to come out halfway up the mountain,
halfway to a touch of God.
And they turn aside.
I want to talk to you now about
this, this call to come out at this
time.
Israel remembers in chaos, sin had broken out
in the camp.
And because of their sin, because of the
fornication, the adultery, and because of the, they
were worshiping their little gods, Rempha, and the
other little gold mice they brought out of,
out of Egypt.
They'd hidden them in their tents.
And now this broke out in the camp
and the glory departed.
The glory absolutely departed from the camp.
And Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it
outside the camp, far off from the camp
and called it the tabernacle of the congregation.
This is actually his prayer tent.
This was where he adjudicated and, and settled
this major disputes.
And it came to pass that everyone which
sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle
of the congregation.
See, God's presence had been lifted from the
camp.
Have you ever been in a church where
the glory of the Lord's departed?
Have you ever been around a man or
woman of God that you once knew but
touched by God and the anointing is gone?
I remember a pastor coming to, an evangelist
coming to one of our conferences a number
of years ago.
This man had been known by television.
He's not a modern one.
This is way back.
He was popular 30 years ago.
And he came to my meeting and his
wife introduced him.
I had never met him.
I knew his name.
When I was a young man, he was
television popular and everything, but sin had brought
him down.
And I went to shake hands with him.
And this is what he gave me, a
dead fish.
And I looked in his eyes.
There was no one there.
I was sitting in a room, pastor's room
one day.
There was a knock on the door and
the secretary spoke into the passage and he
said, well, come in brother Dave's here.
He came in.
I didn't recognize the man.
He was all crippled up, sad looking man.
And his pastor after he left said, do
you know who he is?
And he named, he was one of the
great healing evangelists.
He said, sin brought him down.
It was something he had in his life
and he wouldn't let go.
You see, God left the camp.
Folks, if I don't have the anointing, if
I don't have the presence of the Lord,
and God is so patient, he's so loving
and he will endure so much, but there
comes a time when God says, wait, I
have dealt with you in love.
I've dealt with you in mercy.
And now I have to, I have to
lift this anointing.
That's saying God walks away from you.
His spirit will always call, he will always
urge, he's patient, he's loving, he's kind.
But there comes a time the issue is
the anointing.
The issue is, is God going to use
you anymore?
Is he going to use me?
And God says, Moses, you get out of
the place of defilement.
This camp is defiled.
This place is defiled.
Oh, I've been to churches and folks, may
I tell you that we have over 600
,000 people on our mailing list around the
world.
I think that may be close to the
amount right now.
The number one complaint, many of you here
are on my mailing list.
The number one complaint is I can't find
a church where there's anointing, where I can
feel the presence of God, where I hear
a word from heaven.
Number one complaint by the thousands over a
period of a year.
God said, if you're going to be used,
and here's what God is saying.
He's saying that to us here this afternoon.
If you want to be anointed, if you
want God to use you, you've got to
come to the mountain.
You begin to seek me with all your
heart.
You give me time.
My wife knows when I go into my
secret place, no one, no one can get
through, even if the president calls.
And his office did call.
And the answer is always the same.
He's talking to the Father.
There should be no one able to interrupt
you or intercept you.
Folks, I've not arrived yet.
I'm so short on what I want to
see, not just in time with the Lord,
but the intensity, the hunger and the thirsting.
Because once you hunger and thirst after God,
it's like a snowball.
It keeps creating more hunger and more thirst
for the Lord.
But you see, until Moses gets out of
the place of defilement, and God will not
use me, he will not use you if
you're in the place of defilement.
He had to get outside the camp.
The Bible said far off from the camp
is what the scripture says.
Came to pass as Moses entered into the
tabernacle of the cloudy pillar, descended and stood
at the door of his tent, and the
Lord talked with Moses.
You see, the Lord takes the pillar, the
cloud in his presence, and he moves it
over top of Moses' tent.
Here's a man without defilement.
Here's a man who seeks God's face.
Here's a man with no other plan but
to go to God and seek him for
direction and plead for his people.
And the glory of the Lord, the presence
of God comes on top of his tent.
And the Bible says, and it came to
pass that everyone which sought the Lord went
out to the tabernacle of the congregation which
was outside the camp.
Everyone that stood at the door of the
tent and they were hungering after God, they
went outside the camp.
They left everything.
They left everybody.
They didn't go out to be entertained.
They didn't go out for any other reason.
They're not worried about being offended by anybody.
They're hungry.
They want the glory.
They want the presence of the Lord.
They want meaning in their life.
And it's outside the camp with one man
that's been shut in with God.
One man out of the place of defilement.
And they go out there, and let me
tell you, you want to build a church,
sir?
You want God to use you in your
work, whatever it may be?
You may be in the office, whatever.
You want to be a witness?
You want God to use you?
Then you begin to seek God and you
get out of the place of defilement.
And folks, those that came out there were
hungry for God.
I don't want a church full of curiosity
seekers.
I want a church full of hungry people
that want God willing to go outside the
camp.
You say that's Old Testament theology.
Well, let me give you a New Testament
in closing.
Know you're not that you're the temple of
God.
The Spirit of God dwells in you.
If any man defile the temple of God,
him shall God destroy.
For the temple of God is holy, which
temple you are.
Nobody has been blessed with the patience of
God more than I have.
He's been patient with me.
I'm not to put a burden on you
that I wouldn't bear myself.
This is born out of dealings in my
own heart.
And please don't try to figure out how
I failed God.
You'll be thinking of adultery, you'll be thinking
of everything else.
Not an adulterer, but folks, there are things
in our lives that so block and hinder
the work of God.
God uses men.
With this, I'm drawing to a close.
Could you tell me if any other day
in your history, in your time, I don't
care how old or young you may be,
do you know of any other time when
God so needs men that are touched?
Men that are shut in with God?
Men who say, oh God, I just can't
sit and watch this filth anymore.
God, I can't bring these videos into my
house that curse the name of Christ.
I can't do that anymore.
I can't do it.
I can't let my eyes and my thoughts
run rampant.
Lord, I want you to bring everything under
control of the Holy Spirit.
Will you stand?
Lord, I'm asking you if I've been merciful
enough.