Hallelujah.
It's all about you, Jesus.
You promised you would come, and you have
come to these meetings.
Where you sit, just raise your hands and
love Him.
Just raise your hands and love Him.
The Lord is here.
Oh, Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Oh, Jesus.
Help us.
Hallelujah.
May I talk to you for a few
moments as a father, just
a heart-to-heart talk, because God's been
dealing with me in a simple little story
from the Bible, the prodigal.
I don't have any notes for this.
I don't have a sermon.
There's four little words from the Holy Spirit.
I want to talk to you about alienation
first.
You see, when you talk about the prodigal
son, we picture a sinner.
We picture a young man that has a
yearning to go out in the world and
spend himself in lust and sin, and we
picture him as the drug addict, the alcoholic.
If it's a female, the prostitute, someone going
out, giving themselves to sin and lust in
the world, and winds up in alienation from
the Father.
But what if we're missing the greater meaning?
Yes, it has to do with sinners.
It has to do with backsliders coming back
to Jesus, coming back to the love of
the Father.
But suppose we're missing the deeper meaning.
Suppose he's a pastor.
Suppose he's the Christian sitting here now that
somehow developed a concept of a hard father.
You know, the man who hid his talents
said, I knew you, you were a hard
man, so I hid.
He ran from his responsibilities.
What if it's somebody whose inheritance is salvation?
That's all of our inheritance.
And suppose it's a pastor sitting here.
Suppose it's the pastor of Times Square Church,
because this is how the Holy Spirit has
been dealing with me.
Suppose we're missing the greater truth in the
revelation of a grieving father who is giving
this story, the whole story, having to do
with unbelief.
Unbelief.
If you're going to totem pole sins, don't
talk just about drinking, alcoholism, drugs, sensuality, pornography.
Don't talk about that because the number one
sin in the face of God is unbelief.
Unbelief.
And you talk about eating the husk.
You talk about spending your life in riotous
living.
What could be more riotous?
What could more be a husk than fear,
self-pity, unbelief, the fear of man, fear
of a heavenly father, never having somehow...
This man that I see got so discouraged,
he could not, in spite of all of
the reassurances from his father, in spite of
everything the father said and revealed of himself
to this young man, he could not really
believe and trust in the love of his
father.
And he developed this hard feeling in his
heart toward his father.
There's a hardness and there's an unbelief.
He cannot believe and trust in that.
And when that happens, everything in the father's
house becomes a task.
Everything becomes unbearable because we're not living in
the gracious love of God.
And there are many here, and I've felt
the hurt of the heavenly father here today,
of those that are here and you're alienated.
You see, this boy is still under the
love of his father.
He's reconciled.
He can come at any time.
The alienation is self-inflicted.
God's not mad at father.
He's not mad at him.
He walked out and said, all I need
is mine here.
And all I really want to do is
get to heaven at the end.
And you see, you can be sitting here
as a pastor right now and be totally
alienated from the love of God.
You've heard it.
You may have even preached it, but you
can't bring yourself to believe that God truly
loves you, that God truly has embraced you,
that you are to him everything in the
world.
You're his love.
You're the very desire of his heart.
And he rejoices over you.
Could that be that I can be a
pastor of a church and successful and still
not know the fullness of his love?
I've been there for years, never feeling truly
loved by God, trying to work so hard
to please him.
And then when it gets so hard and
you don't feel like you're pleasing him, there's
something inside says, I can't go like this.
I just, I want to be saved.
Yes.
I'm not going to, in my heart will
be for him, but I can't, I just
can't sense his love.
And that alienation comes.
And there's another word is called access.
This is the simplest little talk I've ever
had in my life.
But you see this boy has access.
The Bible says we have access to the
father through Jesus Christ, his son.
But you see, even though we have access
to the father and what Jesus is talking
about is the same access that he had
with his father.
You see, he had times when he prayed,
he'd go to the mountain, he'd get alone.
Yes.
There are times that you have to go
in the secret closet.
You have to pour your heart out to
God.
You have to be, be intense.
And you have to be like the woman
who said, I'll not let you go.
You can wrestle with God.
There are times for that, but you see,
there's access into the throne room.
There's access into the very presence of God.
And you have to get up one day
and say, he has promised me access.
We have access to the father.
And what that means to me that any
time of the day, even though yes, there
are, I should have a time when I'm
alone with God, I seek him with all
my heart.
I intercede.
But I come out of that with a
relationship.
I come out of that with a peace
in my heart that I can speak to
him at any time, because if I am
in Christ Jesus, if I am seated in
Christ and this body of mine is the
temple of the Holy ghost, then he's available
to me all waking hours and even guarding
my sleep thoughts, my subconscious mind.
I can pray that God cover my subconscious
mind because I have access to the father.
But this boy has to come from his
point of alienation and he has to say,
I have access.
So he gets up and he goes to
the father knowing that he has access.
He's no doubt heard that his father has
been looking for him.
His father has sent word out and he
grieves over you.
He wants you.
And I don't think anything grieves the heart
of the Lord more than our unbelief.
And somewhere a measure of faith comes into
his heart.
I have access.
I can go to the father.
We will never conquer this sense of alienation
until we lay hold by faith of our
access to the father.
See, even though Jesus went alone to pray
with the father, he didn't have to run
away to a secret closet.
He didn't have to go a mountain top
when he's face to face with the devil,
when he's face to face with the lame
and the blind and the halt of the
Pharisee, there was an instant word that came.
And that's what access is all about, that
finally you come in, you know that there's
a place of communion.
And he's going back to a place of
communion.
He's lost communion.
He's lost that closeness with his father.
Folks, has it ever dawned on you the
meaning of access, that the father desires of
us this constant faith that no matter what
I face at any hour of the day,
no matter what comes against me, that I
can hear from the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit in me will speak and
guide me and give me a word.
But that requires faith.
And we have unbelief in our hearts.
We don't believe God speaks to us like
he did to the apostles, that he did
in the early church.
We don't believe that the Lord can speak
and say to a man, there's a brother
named Saul, and he's at a street called
straight, and he knows your name, and all
the details and the addresses and everything that
God spoke because of access.
I believe that more and more at my
age.
Total dependency on this access that we have
with the heavenly father and that the Holy
Spirit abides.
Folks, if you're going to say that we're
seated at the right hand of the father,
where is that?
I don't have to go into the heavens.
I don't have to go off this earth.
My Bible says, I'll manifest myself in you.
God, the father, God, the son, the Holy
Ghost lives and abides right here.
He's available at any time.
And I believe that God is bringing the
church, the place where men and women step
out by faith and lay hold of their
access with God.
There's another word called acceptance.
You see this, this young man gets up
and he leaves the point of alienation and
he is on the road of access.
And the father, you know, the story comes
and embraces him and kisses him.
Not one pointed finger, not one word of
rebuke, not one word of, I told you
so, not one word, not one word of
about his sins, no rebuke, but a tearful
father embracing an unbelieving son.
And you see, you can have access and
you can know it and you, you can
go to God and you can say, Lord,
thank you for embracing me.
Thank you for forgiveness.
But folks, some people go that far and
they go no further.
If all you have is you have moved
away from the unbeaten.
See, we compartmentalize our, our faith.
We'll have faith in this compartment for salvation,
maybe over here for healing.
And folks, some people never, even pastors never
get beyond heaven and forgiveness.
But until you know you're accepted, you're still
in unbelief until you take advantage of your
acceptance.
Now he stands outside the father's house and
the father says, no, he's standing out.
I'm unworthy.
You don't know what I've done.
I've sinned against light.
I've sinned against, I've sinned against such truth.
I'm not worthy.
I've come to be your servant.
I'm not coming in the house.
Of course, you know, the robe of righteousness
was put on him and his ministry was
restored because that's the gospel of peace.
He has new shoes in.
But the Lord, the father says that's not
enough.
You have to believe that you're accepted, accepted
in the beloved, that there's no controversy.
And the Lord says, no, I'm not going
to have you as my servant.
You're my son.
You've always been my son.
You were a son when you were in
the worst unbelief.
And now that you're coming, I'm going to
ask you to take the ultimate step of
faith.
Now, I want you to believe that I
have accepted you.
There is no controversy.
You are truly loved.
But I want you in the house.
And not only do I want you in
the house, I'm going to have a festival.
And folks, there's not one out of a
hundred believers ever get to the festival.
And that's a spirit of rejoicing.
And so the father says, no, kill the
padded calf, get the orchestra.
We're going to sing and we're going to
dance, because I have accepted.
And he is not in acceptance till he's
in the house, convinced of his father's love,
till the joy begins to flow.
And you, do you really believe that you're
accepted before the father, accepted in the beloved?
For years, I labored under this.
I think sometimes in my early days, especially
my messages got very hard because I was
going through something with the Lord, trying to
find that place of acceptance to the father.
Forgiven, believing in forgiveness.
But you see, the real issue of unbelief
is my relationship with the father, how I
view God.
I can preach about his attributes.
I can preach marvelous about what he has
done in giving salvation to the world.
I've preached to drug addicts and alcoholics, the
love of God.
I've been on street corners around the world
and told them how much God loved them.
I would kneel with Nikki Cruz and Israel
and all these boys and weep and pray
with them saying, God loves you, even though
they had done everything, including murder some of
these drug addicts for years.
And they go home and feel unloved.
And so God, I'll work my fingers to
the bone.
I'll do anything.
But it's this sense of never having come
into this glory of acceptance.
But there's another word.
And even though I believe I'm accepted, there's
another word, it's called appropriation.
And that's when the father says, now, remember
that everything I have is yours.
Now take advantage of it.
Appropriate.
I want you to rejoice now.
I want you to forget your past.
I'm not going to dig it up.
I'm not going to let anybody expose you.
If you will come now in acceptance and
cast aside your unbelief.
And folks, that's what the Holy Spirit told
me to do today to come against this
unbelief that I am accepted in this unbelief
that hinders us from appropriating the fullness of
God and the blessings of Jesus Christ.
So we walk around, we walk around and
say like, David, why am I cast down?
You don't say that now because David didn't
have a crucified Savior.
He saw him in the future.
But we have a crucified, risen Father.
And we are accepted as much as, listen
to me now, as much as the Father
accepts Christ as Son.
I am accepted in the same power and
majesty.
God only sees one man now.
He doesn't see but one man.
And this was the covenant that God made.
There will be one man.
I'll send a Redeemer and I will see
one man and his seed.
And we are the seed of Christ and
we are in Jesus Christ.
We are, our position is in Christ.
That's what God views of us.
When the blood has come and I'm accepted
by that blood, I'm accepted by that blood.
I'm bled and I appropriate that by faith.
I'm telling you that God sees me just
as he sees his own Son.
Righteous, holy, unblameable, not by any works that
I've done, but I have appropriated by faith
the promises of God.
God doesn't want you to leave this meeting
with the unbelief and the fear, and the
fear of man.
He wants you to leave this place with
that steady, quiet faith.
And when I say rejoice, it's getting up
in the morning and suddenly feeling a sense
of unworthiness come upon you, a sense of
despair, or a sense of depression, or the
blues.
And there's no reason for it.
You don't know where it came from.
But folks, there's such a thing as appropriation
where you appropriate by faith and say, there
is no controversy.
I am in Christ.
I don't have to take this.
I don't have to prove anything to anybody.
No, folks, the end result of appropriating the
fullness of Christ and all of his promises
and believing in our acceptance is that you
get up and say, I don't have to
prove anything to anybody.
I am his and he is mine.
I am seated with Christ in a heavenly
place.
And my Bible said he sings over his
people.
He rejoices over his people.
And what I'm talking about in appropriation is
a spirit of rejoicing that you allow to
spring forth by faith.
And that spirit of rejoicing will cast out
every downcast spirit, everything that comes out of
your flesh or out of hell.
The only antidote I know, the only victory
is to stand up and say, I rejoice
in you, Jesus.
I glorify your name.
You start worshiping him and rejoice in the
Lord.
He said, rejoice and be glad.
And the only reason we don't have this
spirit of rejoicing is because of unbelief.
37th Psalm, there's a scripture that says we
rejoice because we trust him.
If I'm not rejoicing, it's because of unbelief.
Now, we've talked a little bit about pornography.
We've talked about prayerlessness.
We've talked about some of these things.
But now this, before I close at the
heart of the issue, it's unbelief.
Now, folks, I've not arrived, but I've got
the secret now.
I know, I know I have access.
I know I'm no longer alienated from his
love.
I walk from day, every waking hour, I
walk in the love of God.
I have to remind myself about it.
The enemy will come and attack that.
That's one thing he wants you to jettison.
Get out of your life.
This sense of being totally loved by the
heavenly father and that Jesus Christ abides is
the essence, the love.
This is my last statement to you.
The evidence of faith is rest, quiet, unassuming,
reassuring, childlike faith.
I want you to stand.
Lord, speak to us.
Help us to be honest.
Lord, I was the prodigal son even though
I was a pastor because I