August 25, 2025 • 54 mins
Preached at pastors' conference in Auckland New Zealand, November 2005; ©2005 World Challenge, Inc.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thank you so much. I'm embarrassed. I can only speak
one language. I could say aloha to you. With that,
we go too far, I don't think, or I could
say good day too. Just before I speak, I want
to introduce someone to you. For the past four years
(00:25):
or so, three for me and then five for this
young lady, and my father and a team of others
have been developing these and leading these pastors conferences all
around the world, somewhere over thirty may be close to
forty now different nations, with twelve more in the works
right now. When I say into the works, that means
(00:46):
this woman is emailing all over the world, taking phone
calls all over the world, writing letters, planning conferences, finding venues,
gathering people, meeting with leaders from different denominations, some who
have never even talked to each other before, someone didn't
even like each other. And they're meeting in rooms together
now and praying together and planning conferences together. And then
(01:06):
they have these conferences. We've had probably I don't know
thirty forty fifty pastors and leaders attend these conferences in
these past few years. Lives have been changed, and behind
the scenes, you know, it's oftentimes it's it's those out
front get more credit, but it's behind the scenes people
that really have accomplished a lot. And I think when
(01:29):
we're standing having this woman will have a sort of
a you know, cut in front of the line type thing.
You know, hey, come on right up here. And not
only that, Bettina Mariak, who has been doing all this
work for us, also happens to have a birthday today.
So so today she turns thirty and I'm going to
(01:54):
repent right after him then for a line, but I'd
like Bettina to come. Beatina. I don't know if you
have any word of greeting or anything, or just like
the wave at least, but if not, there's a microphone
here if you'd like to reread. This is Patina. Happy birthday,
(02:15):
Betina to you. I won't sing it, but I'll say
it to you warmly. We love you and appreciate you.
She has some business to conduct, so we'll let her
her be on her way to get ready for the
next twelve nations. We're going to okay, thank you, Beatina.
She's in the midst of planning a conference in Jerusalem,
(02:38):
gathering bishops and leaders and key leaders from nations all
over the world for a convocation in Israel in June,
so I might want to take a look at that.
A lot of that information is on our website at
World Challenge dot org or David Wilkerson dot org and
you can find out about that. You can even actually
(02:58):
register for that conference. That's not an announcement. We're not
trying to recruit people. We just want whoever want, whoever
God wants to send there. But that's just to help
you find a place to get a little bit more
information if you'd like to do so. Amen, And then Jesus,
thank you for the word. We pray you'd speak to
our hearts in Jesus name. Amen, Luke. Chapter five, I
(03:19):
want to talk of there's three sessions today and our
dad will be here just a moment, and there's gonna
be a time of rejoicing. But I want us to
dig deep one more time? Can we do that? Can
we go down to the well, to the deeper parts
of our heart one more time and just say, God,
is there is there something more you want to dig at?
Is there something more you want to get to? The
get to the roots, to the core. The dig the
(03:41):
deeper he digs, the deeper our roots go. The deeper
our roots go, the wider the tree that, as he
says in I believe it's in Mark the fourth chapter,
that the birds of the air come and sit in
his branches, and it provides shade for many. The deeper
the roots, the more provision for many. And God wants
to use you to be a provider for many in
(04:01):
this nation, provider of the Gospel, provider of a way
of deliverance, provider a way of freedom. Amen. And so
our roots have to dig deep. We'll begin in Luke.
Iwan turns to a couple verses Luke chapter five, verse seventeen.
One day, as he speaking of Jesus was teaching, Pharisees
and teachers of the law who had come from every
(04:22):
village in Galilee, and from Judea and from Jerusalem, were
sitting there, stopped there just for a moment. Look at me,
if you would. This is one of Jesus' first pastor's conferences.
I don't know if he had a Beatina he had
know he had a John the Baptist. And he goes
into this village and he gathers together religious leaders, teachers,
(04:45):
people who led the community of the Hebrews into the
things of God, and he calls them together into this house,
and the place is jam packed with leaders from various nations,
from villages all over Galilea, Judea, and even the big
city Auckland. I mean, excuse me, Jerusalem. They drew together
(05:09):
from all over the place, and they were sitting there
in this next phrase kind of throws me off a
little bit, and says, and the power of the Lord
was present for him to heal the sick. I don't
know what type of sick were there. Oftentimes when Jesus
gathered a crowd together, it was people on stretchers, it
was people who were bleeding, it was people who were blind,
(05:33):
who were deaf. There's no indication that this was the
type of crowd that was there. As a matter of fact,
this type of crowd would have probably seemed quite whole,
walking in upright, looking quite bright eyed, clearly speaking, confident
in their leadership, abilities to be like a politician as
(05:56):
well as a preacher. It wouldn't seem like the that
would be the most needed thing in some ways, maybe
at least not physically. Maybe it wasn't a physical need
that they had. Maybe the presidence of the Lord was
there to heal their sick hearts. But there was a problem.
We find this problem if you turn maybe one other
(06:16):
passage of scripture. Matthew chapter nine, Matthew chapter nine, verse nine.
Matthew nine, verse nine. I don't hear any pages turning.
Are you guys? Bring your bibles? There we go Matthew nine,
verse nine. As Jesus went from there, he saw a
man named Matthew sitting at the tax collectors with follow me,
(06:39):
he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
And while Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many
tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him. And
when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why
does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Again,
if you look at me, we'd see here this is
a very different kind of meeting. This is the opposite
(07:00):
of a pastor's conference. This is a gathering where, boy,
you sure do need the presence of the Lord to heal.
But it doesn't mention in this setting that the presence
of the Lord was there to heal. In this setting,
Jesus seems to actually encourage these who came in their brokenness,
who came in their sense of something's missing, that came
with a deep, deep sense of need. I need a change.
(07:23):
I need to be a different person. And Jesus sees
that and he says in verse twelve. On hearing this,
Jesus said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor,
but the sick. Go and learn what this means. Leave
here and learn what this means means to realize you
(07:43):
need a doctor, to realize that you're sick. I'm a Christian.
I've been a Christian since I was probably four years old.
I don't remember not being a Christian. I love people
who have these testimonies that they were like twenty years
on drugs and gang leaders and alcoholics and they had
this powerful change. But I kind of like my testimony
(08:05):
as well. I just always remember Jesus being present. I
don't remember a time where he wasn't. And in that
there can be a sometimes a self satisfying sense of contentment.
I'm glad that I'm not sick and I can be
a really good Christian. I can't, oh boy, I can.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Have seasons of divine ecstasy where I walk around speaking
almost in King James English and amazed.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
At and reading scripture and thinking. When Paul wrote about
the Fruit of the Spirit or one Printings thirteen, he
was probably thinking about me. Because love is perfect, and
love is kind like me, and love is gentle like me.
I'm not like one of those others that need all
(09:02):
that help. And I can get so enamored by my
own good Christianity that that I want to walk around
and say. You know, I start thinking people look at
my mother and say, blessed art thou among women, And
(09:23):
just now, at the time I'm thinking those things, I
lay my head down at night on the pillow, and
all of a sudden, I remember something somebody said to me,
a little bit of a cutting remark, a slight insult.
They probably didn't even mean to insult me, but it
just I started being suspicious. Hmm, maybe that was an insult.
(09:44):
And the King James English kicks in again, but this
time with a different type of motivation. Thou perverst in
wicked generation? How long shall I bear with thee and
a righteous indignation? I'm not really righteous. Sinful indignation gets
in my heart and I get all mad and I
(10:05):
just say, I can't believe people are like this and
the church is a mess. And boy, I tell you
what these people in my you know, It's like my
teenage son said that I just I absolutely love the church,
just the people in it that I can't stand. And
I lay my head on the pillow at night, and
I just and all of a sudden, I begin to wrestle,
and I sense anger stirring up in my soul. And
(10:28):
then then I get up out of bed and I think,
I'm just so frustrated. I can't sleep. I turned the
TV on, and sometimes they have these commercials on TV
where there'll be women in bikinis. I'm woo and before long,
I'm lusting, and before long I'm angry, and I'm full
of lust, and I'm full of pride and I and
I'm laying my head down in bed and I'm just
(10:52):
I'm not a good Christian anymore? Am I What happened?
I have this propensity to be an amazing believer and
do wonderful things God, and the same time I have
these vast contradictions in me that have this ability to
so quickly be removed from the mark, so quickly be
full of the flesh and Carnal Jesus has this pastor's
(11:15):
conference in Luke, and he's calling leaders together because they
don't know that they're sick, and they don't know that
the presence of the Lord is there to heal them.
You see, it's when we're self righteous and so confident
in our holiness, confidence that we have it all together,
confidence that we don't need repentance, Confidence that there's no
spiritual strongholds in our life. Confident that we have finally
(11:40):
won the victory that were whole, that we're well, that
we don't need a physician any longer. We no longer
need the doctor. That's when people began to wander. My
heart is bent on backsliding, isn't yours? If you don't
know it yet, if you don't feel it yet, just
trust the word, because that's what the Bible says. Our
(12:00):
hearts are bent on backsliding. In other words, there's a
natural inclination within us that works against the spirit. The
Bible says it clearly. The spirit wrestles against the flesh,
the flesh against the spirit, and the bend the gravity
of our soul inclines ourselves towards a pulling away back
towards carnal, fleshly selfish ways of living. It's a sickness.
(12:24):
It's called being. I call it being soul sick, being
sick on the inside, not a physical sickness, and not
a sickness that's almost like a rebellious I shake an
angry fist at God. I don't want to serve God.
I want to free myself to sin. I'm talking about
good people who really love Jesus, pastors, leaders, teachers, intercessors,
(12:49):
the evangelists, disciplers, people who love God with all their
heart and are just concerned because they see some things
on the inside. They just go that that just doesn't
seem like that should be there anymore. It's just for
too long. Now. Aren't I supposed to be free? Am
(13:09):
I still supposed to be struggling? Is there still supposed
to be strongholds that seem to cling to me? Are
there supposed to be habits of my life? Oh? Sometimes
when we get religious, the habits change. We no longer
shoot a needle of heroin into our arm. We no
longer drink fosters or guin us till we're laying on
the street. We no longer lie steal cheat. But I've
(13:34):
seen in the ministry a whole new set of sins
that Satan seems to introduce to the heart. Do you
hear me? A whole new set of sins Pride, arrogance, manipulation,
a utilitarian use of people to meet your own ends.
Pastors who lead congregations just to phil kew so that
(13:56):
they could go to the leader's conference and say, my
church has grown from two hundred to three. Angry leaders
who at the drop of a hat will rebuke people
with a spirit that is vile. That manipulators who are
trying to move people. Gossips who just slightly because a
(14:16):
sister in the church might pray a little longer than you,
and a word will come out of your mouth. Oh yes,
but did you know she prays a lot? But did
you know in her own home, her own teenage daughter
is rebellious and is and and we need to pray
for her, right, we always add the little and will
pray for her, which seems to justify the gossip we've
(14:39):
just spewed out. It's there's a there's a soul sickness.
So you hear me describing a little bit of my
own life. I sound righteous at times, and I sound
holy times when I go to sleep at night, and
I have days where I'm just angry and frustrated and
using people and manipulating people and gossiping about people, and
being jealous of those who are better at spiritual things
than me. And you and you look at me and go, well,
(15:01):
then why are you preaching here today? I should be
preaching instead. Not really, because you're just as sick as
I am. Yeah, I don't know why you're laughing. You're sick.
We really are sick. I read an article. It's about
a philosopher named William James. I don't know if he
(15:24):
was a Christian or not, but it seem seems to
think he understood a little bit about Christendom, if not
Christ himself. He says this, there are two kinds of
religious temperaments, the healthy minded and the sick souls. Healthy
minded people always have a sense that all of that,
all in them, is right, and all in the world
is right, and that God is always on their side.
(15:46):
They are happy campers. Do you use the war campers here?
When you when you get a trailer and you put
it on the campground, They are happy campers, and they
don't ask a lot of questions. They tend not to
see the evil that lurks and reason eyes within them
or around them or in the world. On the other hand,
sick souls view the world sometimes as a dark, complicated
(16:08):
place where evil lurks within them and they live with
few certainties. You to think that this philosopher, William James
would have thought that the healthy minded way was the
preferable way because it sounds better, it sounds more christian
like in some ways. But not only does James consider
(16:28):
himself to be soul sick, he thought, and he says
in this article that these soul sick people probably represent
a more authentic type of searching, of hunger, of relationship
with God. Now, please please don't hear me say something
that I'm not saying. I'm not saying let's walk around
sick and defeated and lifeless and just stuck in a
(16:51):
habit of sin and not getting out. What I am
saying is that when we realize we are soul sick,
that is, when we depend on an outside source of help,
of life, of deliverance. It's when we realize we are
weak that we depend on the strong coming in for us.
It's when we realize that we are poor that we
(17:11):
find someone rich to come and provide our needs. For us.
Self dependency is stripped upon the fact and the reality
that we ourselves are a vessel in great need of
being filled by an outside source. Otherwise we are contained
with our own self sufficiency. Two brothers saying, Amen, thank you.
(17:39):
Being soul sick. It's a biblical concept. It's not always good,
but it's but it's something that seems to stir us
to the good. That's a weird philosophy when we think,
when I am weak, I am strong. When I'm poor,
I am rich. Because if when you're you're strong, then
(18:02):
are you still weak? Because you're strong now if you're rich.
That if you're poor and you become rich, then you're rich,
then are you still poor? I remember my wife was
sick one time and and we were in the hospital,
and my mother in law at that particular season her
life was into a particular form of teaching that was
(18:22):
like you had to be careful not to say anything
negative or it will happen. And so I said, she said,
how's how's Kelly doing. I said, she's feeling weak. Ooh,
don't say that, I said. She said, say she's strong,
and I said, well, yeah, because because when she's weak
in herself, she's strong. See either she's strong, I said,
But if we say she's strong, then will she be weak?
(18:48):
And I get confused. I'm not so really, I don't
know whether Christians are weak or strong. I don't know
if Christians are rich or poor. And you can help
me out if you want to. After the conference, you
can have an another all my permitting, just for me
if you want, because because there's certain things I'm still
(19:09):
wrestling with, certain things I want to know. But here's
for me. All I can do is tell you my
experience is when I start feeling strong, when I start
feeling rich, when I start feeling I have it all together,
my world crumbles. But when I feel weak and poor
and soul sick, I feel a source of strength from
(19:30):
outside of me, from the King of kings, from the
Lord of Lords, that fills inside of me that I
guess there is a richness, there is a strength, but
it's not mine. It's based on the fact that I
realize that I am weak and I need him, desperately
need him. And God sometimes seems to promote or provoke
(19:50):
a soul sickness. Please don't hear me saying he gives
people diseases or he makes people sin. But he makes
us aware of our desperate need for him. Elijah. Do
you remember how Elijah after he got he went He
won the big fight against the Pagans, and he seems
to have gone home. I am a winner. I have
(20:10):
defeated all the profits of bail. I have. I have.
My life has been filled with value and crowd pleasing events.
I'm a winner. But when he goes home and he
sits by a river and there's no longer a cloud,
a crowd to applause him, or an enemy to defeat,
that makes him feel good inside. It seems that he's
(20:33):
lacking yesterday's vigor and vitality. And he sits by this
river and he's depressed, and he's fearful, and he's discouraged.
And God says, this is a man with like passions.
And you may say to yourself, and I may say
to myself, sometimes I don't like those passions. I love
(20:54):
the I love the victory over the profits of bail.
I don't don't like to go back to my cave
and an introspection, wonder if I'm all right do it?
What's what's happening inside me? Why do I still struggle
with things? Why do I why do I still get jealous?
I will sit in conferences where there's three or four
(21:16):
different speakers, and I'll start off with another speaker that's
speaking before me, and I'll say, oh Lord, bless him, Lord,
pour out your spirit on him. And I'll start preaching,
Oh yes, God, you're moving on and this is mighty.
And then man, people are starting to shout and scream
and say amen, and and he's bringing out inside I've
never heard before. And I'm starting to say, maybe not
so much. God, you know, save a little for me,
(21:39):
if you would, and that, and I, you know, and
I and I'll go and I'm like Elijah, there's this
there's this propensity to be good at certain times and
then go to the cave and and not be good.
I was speaking at a conference about three months ago,
and afterwards, it was, it was, it was real a blessing.
(22:02):
Five or six of the leaders came up to me
and said, they patted me on the back, said, praise God,
we're so glad that you're here. We've heard of your dad.
We didn't know you, but they were glad you came
because you ministered to this. And the next guy said
that text on this and that point on that, and
they were just you know, when you get a compliment,
it's a general compliment. Nice job, that's nice, but when
they say specific things this message this is not a hint,
(22:24):
by the way, okay, this message about that, it touched me.
And I was just, man, I was getting built up
and I was encouraged. And the last guy just says,
can I speak to you moment? He pulls me aside
and says, I think some of the things you said
were really harmful to our church here in this nation.
And I think the thing you said about so and
so really will distract us from going on. We're called
(22:46):
to that, and you were speaking against that and it
did harm here. And I went back to the hotel
room that night and I was still kind of thinking, like, wow,
it was, you know, sad that guy said that, But
you know, generally it was a good conference and everybody
seemed to be encouraging and they're patting me on the back.
I lay my head on the pillow at night. Let
me give you a guys, what do you think I
was thinking about? The one the one negative? I mean
(23:13):
the whole the whole audience clapped, you know, the whole
audience said, praise God. The leaders pat me on the back,
said bless you. Job well done. One guy says I
didn't like it, and I'm laying there. I can't believe
that guy didn't like this man? Who does he think
he is? What? And then I started having self doubt.
(23:35):
Well maybe he's right, and what did I say? Yeah
I said that and this that, well that seems right
and then oh no, he's just he was just mean,
that was miserable. I can't believe he said that to me.
I just I'm so upset. God, what you know got?
I wish you to put an angel between me and him?
I don't know what. And I just said, okay, lord,
I just I give it to you. I just I
(23:57):
rolled my burdens off onto you, and I rolled this
guy off onto because he was so mean. He just
he said this about me and he said and for hours,
literally like probably two hours, I was trying to fall
asleep and I couldn't sleep because of this one thing.
I'm a sick man. I have Elijah like passions. Sometimes
(24:22):
I can call fire from heaven. Sometimes I can defeat
the prophets of Mail. And sometimes I can go back
to my cave and be filled with anger and self
doubt and lust and fear. And sometimes I can get
up to preach and be more concerned about what people
think of me than I do pleasing Jesus. I have
all kinds of mixed things within me, and the Bible
is full of this. We don't like to talk about
(24:43):
these things. We like to just always talk about victory, victory, victory,
But sometimes we need to realize we are desperate for God.
Without him, we're lost without him, We're hopeless without him,
We're back in our old ways. Immediately, I can't go
a day without Jesus and I start acting up. And
the Bible is full of it. The guys who wrote Psalms,
(25:04):
David and Asaph and all these other ones that I
can't pronounce their names, all of these guys we're writing
like if a psychologist or a psychiatrist got hold of
these guys and they said these things in a counseling session,
they would start giving them prozac and tranquilizers. And because
(25:26):
they would sound almost near suicidal. Oh that I are
wings that I could just fly away, and the council
would says, so did your father leave you at an
early age? Where are you? God? How long, oh Lord,
(25:51):
how long my soul was downcast within me? My mother
in law would have rebuked him long ago. The things
have changed their heart. She's as sweet as can be.
And I say that without my wife of n being here.
I say that because I truly mean that I love her.
(26:14):
The minor prophets, they weren't called minor because they were smaller,
or because they or because they played a lesser role,
or or they weren't categorized minor because they complained more.
But they But when you read the prophets and the
minor prophets, you read some guys who were just Oh God,
(26:36):
my soul is torn within me, My heart is wretched mass.
You know, why have you allowed enemies to triumph all
kinds of things that just confess the troubles of their
the troubled nature of their heart, the troubled condition of
their their people, and the control trouble condition of their nation.
(26:58):
They just sounded like you don't, America, we have this phrase.
You probably have it here too. Some people see the
glass half full, and some people see the glass half empty.
These guys seem like there's no glass. What glass? What water?
If these guys are soul sick, then sign me up
(27:19):
for what they have. I want these like passions because
I have been discovering that it's out of my desperation
for God. It's out of my sense of I can't
survive without you God. Without you, I'll just be religious.
I'll just put on it. I'll just be a good
Christian speaking in King James English. I'll just quote Bible passages.
(27:41):
I'll just do good deeds, but my heart won't be changed.
I have to maintain a mount mentality. Yes, that I'm
saved and I'm sanctified, I'm filled with the spirit, and
I have faith, and I have joy, and I am
an overcomer in Christ because of Christ, not because of
myself myself. I have to realize that there's this still,
(28:03):
this nature that works within me. And the more I
identify that nature, that sick soul nature that still wrestles
to gain prevalence in me, the more I can clearly
identify that it's there, the more I can confess it
quickly and turn it over to the Lord and not
have to spend two hours in a hotel room with
my head on the pillow saying, I can't believe that
(28:23):
guy insulted me. I can really let the sickness of
my soul come to this place where these religious leaders
that came to Jesus, and it says the spirit of
the Lord was there to heal them. And the reason
they weren't healed is because they didn't know they were sick,
(28:45):
except for one man that he couldn't even fit into
the pastor's conference and they had to cut a hole
in the roof and they let him down through there,
and he was so sick he couldn't even move. He
was paralyzed, and Jesus touches him. I think Jesus must
have been saying, Oh, it's good. There's finally somebody in
this room who realizes they're sick. So much so they're
(29:05):
so desperate they're tearing holes in roofs just to get in.
I wonder what like the Pharisee that owned that house
was thinking this guy's being healed. He said, yeah, you're here,
but they look at who's going to fix the roof?
And uh, this man realized he was sick, and Jesus was, oh,
bless you Father. You sent me someone who realizes their
(29:27):
need for me. And they cling to me and they
and they make a way to get to me. They're
so desperate they tear through roofs. They're so desperate, they
fight through crowds. They're so desperate they get for their
friends to commit vandalism just to get to Jesus. Whatever
it takes to get to Jesus. That's how sick I am.
(29:47):
I need to get to Jesus. That's how sick you are.
You need to get to Jesus. Have I insulted you
enough yet? This morning? You're sick, but your whole as
well because of Christ. You're sick but you're well. You're
poor but you're rich. You're weak but you're strong. It
(30:10):
seems to be a contradiction, doesn't it. I don't understand
the contradictions of the Bible. I just obey them. My
Sunday school teacher, when I was probably seven eight years old,
said I will give a half a dollar to everybody
who can name anybody that can name a contradiction in
the Bible. And I don't know why. My brain works
this way. But from an early age, I've been curious
(30:32):
about certain things. And I immediately raised my hand. I said,
the Bible says something about like if you live by
the sword, you'll die by the sword. But then Jesus
told Peter to go pick up a sword. And she said,
that's not a contradiction. Sit down. I said, sorry, this
sounds like one to me. It's like, don't pick up
(30:52):
a sword. Pick up a sword. That's if it's not
a contradiction. It's confusing. And I didn't get my money. Yeah,
we have a lot of we have a lot of
happy campers. It's what William James called them, happy campers.
(31:13):
I see him a lot on U see him a
lot on American television they uh, And I'm not putting
down Christian television, but it just a good portion of
Christian television in America is is run by happy campers,
always smiling, They always have it all together. They they
(31:37):
are very healthy minded, they have an amazing life. Everything
they do is successful. Uh. They seem to preach that
God is the owner of a big camper village. And
if you say the right things and smile the right
way and confess the right things and believe the right things,
and and send them money that you can. They don't
(32:02):
call it money, they call it they call it seeds.
And they must have like big farms in this camper
village because they're always asking for seeds. And they say,
send us seed money, and we will plant it in
the ground and it will it will bring forth a
hundredfold harvest. But they never send it back to you
after it grows. They they say, your your benefit will
(32:26):
come from another source. And then I actually heard a
testimony one time my great aunt passed away. I sent
in one hundred dollars, and my great aunt passed away
the next day, and she sent me one thousand dollars
in her will. Praise God, answer prayer. God killed your
aunt and gave you money. Now this is a testimony.
(32:50):
This is a testimony. I sent you ten dollars. My
hand died. Hallelujah. Yeah. But on the other side, the
the admitted soul sick, the ones ah, you don't see
(33:12):
them very often. They sometimes they're they're not on TV
because they're not positive enough. Sometimes it's hard to draw
an audience when you're asking questions rather than telling everything.
It's going to be fine, and you don't have to struggle,
and you don't have to have trouble in your life.
(33:33):
They're not the kind of people that have have Christian slogans.
They tend to ask questions and tend to look deep
into their heart and tend to be almost prophetic in
the nature where it's it's not always fun to be
around a profit. The profits are usually if you know,
have you ever taken a gift test where they have
(33:55):
these tests and you can kind of help identify your gifts.
Prophets usually don't give themselves a high score. Run. Are
you the life of the party? You know? Yes? The
happy campers seem to have this ability to have these
certain phrases and to be able to to move a
crowd with these phrases, particularly in in New York City
(34:19):
where there's there's different ethnic groups who are very some
of them very lovingly and passionately emotional, and you can
really move a crowd. I have seen people just say
something like I can get up there and tell my
tell a certain congregation, you know we're more than conquerors
through Christ go yeah, But somebody else can get up there. Man.
They know how to they know how to work it
we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus, through sprinklings.
(34:42):
And I was like, well, you know, shouting and screaming,
I just said that. I said the exact same thing.
Some are some of these happy campers are so skilled
that during the they they say almost anything. A new
(35:04):
day is dawning, A new day is dawning. I say
to you, hallowejah, a new day is dawning. And basically
what they've said is sort of like you know from Annie,
like you know the sun will come up tomorrow. Bet
your bottom dollar. But everybody's on their feet cheering. What
are they cheering about? It's the same truth, but it's
(35:25):
I don't know. I guess you have to learn to
say it in an emotional way that stirs crowds, to
get people to clap hands and see that. That's the
whole Happer Camper Village, not not saying being emotional is
wrong or being stirred in your heart if you naturally
have that inclination, if you're a shouder, when you preach, brother,
you shout, you do what God has given you to do,
but never in a form of trying to put on something,
(35:50):
trying to be to invite others into the happy camp
as are calling it the happy camper village where you
can sow your seeds and get rewards and get returns.
But it's just not something's missing in that happy camphor village.
Very little repentance, very little awareness, very little of what
(36:10):
Paul said, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.
Now that that'll produce a lot of confidence. In a
congregation where your pastor says, hey, why don't you guys
check whether you're saved or not? He seems to say
things that just don't you know, you just don't want
to say. Then when you're in leadership, you don't want
to be careful, Paul, why are you talking like that?
(36:34):
Some people in this this sort of who don't think
they're soul sick. People who don't. Here's what I've discovered.
People who don't think they're soul sick always think that
everybody else is sick. People who are soul sick very
rarely are judgmental. They see somebody else struggling and they say,
(36:58):
I know it's like to struggle, and I want to
bury your burden up to Jesus with you. But people
who don't think of their own need, of their own
lacking of their own fleshly nature that strives within them.
They tend to be judgmental and critical, and sometimes they
even tend to be worse than their leaders. I have
(37:22):
heard tender hearted, broken, tear stained eyed prophets speak to people,
and people take that message of God is going to judge,
but they don't have the broken, tenderhearted, tear stained eyes.
(37:42):
And so they now are getting up and they're saying
the same message the prophets saying, eucef. They're saying it
now in a different spirit, and they're going around and saying,
I'm right, but you're wrong. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong,
you're dying, You're going to hell. You'll be judged for sure.
And only those who are in their small circle who
believe like exactly that they believe, are the ones who
are going to be accepted by God in the inner circle.
(38:07):
And sometimes the disciples of the prophets, so to speak,
become the ones who don't have the broken and tender heart.
This actually happened to Martin Luther. There was a season
in his life where the persecution was so strong against
him that he had to some of the people that
(38:28):
were protecting him feigned his death. They told others that, oh, sorry,
we know you wanted Martin to come to Rome, but
he's dead. And so all the people in Rome and
those who were persecuted and thought he was dead. But
his own disciples thought he was dead as well. And
so some of his key leaders, some of the guys
(38:49):
that he was discipling, so to speak, in training and
this way of faith and this whole new way of living,
started preaching his message, but in a different way, not
with the brokenness, not with the the not with the
hours of heart wrenching falling on his face before God.
They just went out and said, these people are bad,
(39:11):
and these people are bad, and these people are evil,
and we should a matter of fact, we should. His
closest followers ended up saying, Martin Luther before he died,
that he wasn't even dead. So first of all, they lied,
Martin Luther told me that we should take up arms.
And some of his closest followers became advocates, thinking that
(39:33):
Martin was no longer in the scene, and they took
his message of reformation and turned it into a physical
try to turn it into a physical revolution because they
didn't know that they were sick. They were no longer concentrating,
and like Martin Luther was, Oh wretched man that I am.
Oh my heart. Now, please don't hear me say that
(39:54):
we don't preach against other sins. But but I tried
to learn to preach against other sins, not so much
using the word you, but using the word us. That
we have sinned against God, that we have turned from Him,
that we have our hearts bent on backsliding. God looks
(40:17):
at our broken hearts and he invites us, whether we
be a paralytic on a cot being pulled down through
a roof, or whether we be a religious leader. He says,
the spirit of the Lord is here to heal. And
he doesn't leave us lost in a sense of wallowing
of Oh I'm so defeated and I'm always messing up.
(40:39):
He lets us recognize that. So he brings the remedy
to that. This is the whole and I'll close with this,
This is the whole creation story. God in eternity decides
to Genesis chapter one to make these words a reality.
In the beginning, God Creator, Creator creates creation. God Literally,
(41:05):
what God was doing was this may sound strange to you.
He was inventing existence. Now he existed, but in a
far different way than we know existence. If you look
at the Dictionary, under the word existence, it says that
which is measurable in time and space. It is it
is this wide and this tall, and it is in
this place, and it has this element to it, and
(41:27):
it exists in this setting at this time. It has
a beginning and an end. It's measurable. That's existence. And
some people, some Christians, spend their whole life trying to
help people, like in wrestling with here does God exist?
If you look at the Book of Genesis, there's not
(41:50):
a whole lot in there about sort of like ten
proofs that God exists. It just kind of takes it
for granted. Did you notice that just surely exists. But
when a atheist comes up to me and says, I
don't even need to know God exists, I don't really
argue with him too much because I basically say, well, yeah, actually,
you may be right, and then they look at me
(42:11):
really strange. I says, the way we measure existence, maybe
he doesn't exist that way. Because if we measure existence
by a beginning and end, God has no beginning, and
he has no end. If we measure existence by something
measurable in time and space, God has no time, he
has no space. He's boundless. So the way we think
of existence is basically, a God who is bigger than
(42:34):
we can imagine, creates something that we can imagine, not
only imagine, we can exist in existence. So here's my
take on it. God created existence as we know it.
So God exists, but he actually more than exists. So
I never wrestle with the fact that God exists. I
wrestle with trying to tell people he's more than existence itself.
(42:54):
He is in all, and through all, and even above all,
more than all. But just before God created existence, there
there was a there was a slight. I won't call
it a problem or but there was something had to
be faced. If he was going to create existence, if
it was absolutely totally perfect, what would it be just
(43:19):
more of himself? Just if he created something that had
nothing in it that was lesser than himself or different
than himself, it would just be more of himself, which
you know is impossible, right because God has no bounds anyway,
so there's no need to create more of himself because
he's all his self that he can be something like that. Right,
(43:40):
you're still following me. So, so God is creating the
existence as we know it, but it has to be
different than him. So he has to take a chance. Okay,
I'm going to create an existence, but it's gonna be
it's gonna be good, but not as good as me.
It's gonna be great, but it's not gonna be absolutely
(44:03):
totally perfect. And so he's getting ready to create this existence,
and what does he have to do. He has to say,
there's gonna be something. There's gonna be a potential in
this for a flaw, not that God creates evil. If
I go into a chemistry class today and there's this
(44:23):
chemical that's good and this chemical that's good, it's fine,
but the teacher says, if you mix them together, it's
gonna explode and the whole classroom will blow up. So
don't do that. And if I do that, do we
say that the chemistry teacher is evil or that he
created evil? No, we say that I took two good
things and mixed them and made evil out of them.
God knew that when he created existence, that man was
(44:45):
gonna have the potential to take certain things. Take a tree,
take an emotion, take a relationship and mix it the
wrong way and turn it to evil. So and yet
God wants to create this man, this woman, this guard
and he wants to have fellowship. But he knows it's
not going to be perfect like him. So here's what
he does. He says, these people are going to be
(45:06):
soul sick. I'm going to create them, and I'm going
to take a risk of them. The crash of man,
the fall of man's is a is a high risk
factor in this scenario. But he does something. First, you
have to go to the end of the book of
the Bible to understand the beginning. You have to go
(45:26):
to Revelation to understand Genesis. And in Revelation that doesn't
say too so clearly, so beautifully, so powerfully that before
the foundations of the world, what were the foundations the
foundations for Genesis one to one, one two, formless void
water spirit hovering over the surface of the deed before
that foundation was even made, Before that was even made,
(45:49):
Boble says in Revelation, before the foundations of the earth,
the lamb of God was slain. The Lamb of God
was slain before the foundations of the world. And I
say all that I went through that whole science deally
there just to tell you to help us understand that, yes,
God understood we wouldn't be perfect like him. But He's
(46:11):
made a remedy. He's made a way for us. He's
made a way for Christian leaders to come together and say, yes,
my life is not perfect, my life is not all
that I want it to be, and I'm hungry and
I'm desperate for it to change. But it's the realization
of our need that drives us to the remedy. It's
the realization that we are not God, we are lesser
(46:32):
than God. That was Lucifer's fall. He no longer realized
he had a need. He now became a happy camper,
and pride entered his heart and he fell. And about
the time we start thinking I'm the perfect pastor, the
perfect leader, and pride will come in, and arrogance will
come in, and anger over other people not being perfect,
(46:53):
and judgmentalism, all kinds of things will come into the
heart and will be a fall. Pride comes before a fall.
What I'm saying to you today, I pray is for
me and for you and for us a warning against
pride that we've got it all together and that we
can speak well and lead well and do all these things,
and start realizing we can do all those things without
even God being in the mix. So from one soul
(47:17):
sick brother to another soul sick brother and sister, I
say to you, God made away in our sickness. He
made a remedy even before we got sick, and alls
we have to do is just keep coming to that cross,
say oh, this is the lamb, this is the lamb
slain for me. And I come to Jesus, to the
(47:37):
pastors conference saying I need the blood applied every day.
I need the cleansing, I need the washing. I need
the holiness of God. I need the moving of the spirit.
I need the conviction of sin. I don't need to
get resaved. I just need every day for the washing
of the water of the word, for the renewing. I
(48:00):
don't know. Maybe New Zealand is like a real You
have a special dispensation of grace and holiness, and you
don't struggle with any of these things. I guess not. Huh.
So I invite you to wrestle. I invite you to
ask questions. I invite you to examine your heart. I
(48:25):
invite you to dig deeper, because if you do something,
I'll close with this. I really will, I promise. If
I'm sitting up on the stage and I'm praying for
this other preacher and I say, God, bless him, and
then he gets and he's preaching too good, and I
say stop blessing him, and I get jealous. Okay, that's
(48:47):
a sin, that's oh God, I'm jealous. But there's another sin.
Why am I jealous? Well, because I think he's good
and maybe i'm not. Well. Why do I think he's
good and I'm not because well, maybe I think God
planned the whole thing wrong. He got messed up. He
should have made me better in him not quite so good.
So there's a deeper sin than jealousy. I don't even
(49:08):
believe God is good. I don't trust God's design. But
I can even ask questions, why don't I trust God's design? Well,
because I think maybe I have a better way, my
way of being me better, and then not so good
is a better way, So I'm better than Wow. I
don't need to repent just of jealousy. I need to
repent if I think I'm better than God. It's dangerous
(49:30):
to start thinking about your life because it takes you
to deeper waters. It takes you to a deeper because
you know what you're gonna eventually do is you're gonna
get to the core. Larry Krab, a biblical writer, feature
says that most of us just look at the tip
of the iceberg with our sins, and we just see this.
(49:52):
We see the surface things that come out, a little
bit of anger, a little bit of pride, But none
of very few of us examined why was I pride for?
Why was I angry? Why am I jealous? Why do
I gossip? Why is there lust? Why is their fear?
What do I fear? And it's a journey that Lord
will take us on that takes us to sometimes a
difficult place, but it takes us to a good place
(50:14):
because now repentance is getting down to the core. You're
not just I'll quote a good New Zealand or Winki Prattney.
You're not just cutting off the blade of the grass.
You're pulling the root of it out. And that's what
God's after, the root of our soul sickness. Father, I
pray in the name of Jesus, that you would get
to the root. The word radical itself, Lord is you've
(50:36):
shown me in the definition it's a The word radical
means to get it to the root, to pull up
the root of an issue. And we want radical repentance
in our life, Jesus, because we're desperate for you. We're
desperate for you, Jesus. We are without you, we're sick
without you, We're needy. But we give you thanks, Jesus.
We're not closing this message off with sort of hopeless
(50:57):
despair self examination. We're saying we we can't examine our hearts.
We can look deep in see the problems of our
life because we know there's a remedy already made even
before the foundations of the earth. The lamb of God
was slain on our behalf, and the blood of Jesus
Christ that was poured out on the cross is applied
(51:18):
to us. And we are free, and we are clean,
and we are holy in Christ Jesus, not in our
own strength, our own resources. We know we are desperately
in need of you every day, Jesus, so we give
you thanks. Would you stand with me now, and you
might just want to take a moment to say God, please,
just quietly you're saying, God, please get to the root,
dig deep, to the roots of the issues of my heart.
(51:44):
I think if we could accomplish here this morning, just
the fact that we're going to give God access to
the deepest, darkest places of our heart. We're not going
to hide from the Lord anymore because he sees anyway.
If we can get to this morning, just to the
fact that saying God, I'm willing to to let you
examine my heart deeper than you ever have before. I'm
willing to even ask questions of not just forgive me
(52:06):
of jealousy, but why am I jealous? Jesus. There's there's
there's this propensity we have towards backsliding, towards letting the
flesh right raise up and whin the when the day.
But we thank you Jesus, that when the enemy comes
in like a flood, the Lord raises up a standard
against it. We thank you God, that you are more
(52:28):
than a victorious in all things. God. We thank you
that then you make your people more than conquerors, that
we have victory in Christ, Jesus, that we truly are wash,
that we truly are made whole in ourselves. We're sick
and needy, but we come to the source of cleansing.
We come to the pastor's conference and say, Jesus, it's
not just a paralytic on a stretcher. To me, I'm
(52:50):
the one who needs the spirit of the Lord being
present here in this room to heal me. And I
pray right now, Lord, you would heal some of the
some of the visible actions of sin, the anger that
some ministers might have, the fear that some might have,
the jealousy that some might have, the lust that some
might have, the pride, all of these issues that there
(53:10):
seems to be a root in all of us. Satan
knows where to attack us. There's this one place in
our armor that seems open. I pray that as these
brothers and sisters see that particular place, that Holy Spirit,
you would not only wash that and cleanse that and
heal that. Your spirit is here to set people free
in liberty. But not only you would heal that which
is seen, but you would go into the into the
(53:31):
innermost being of the heart, where springs of living water
are called to flow. But sometimes they're blocked because there's
muddy waters existing from what Jeremiah called broken cisterns cleanse
the deeper parts of our heart. We pray Jesus that
at the core there might be a true holiness, not
a performance of holiness, but a true holiness that springs
eternal from our heart. And we give you thanks. Amen. Amen,
(53:56):
do your sense the spirit is here to heal. I
do I sense it. I ans You're here, Jesus, to heal,
not just physically, but heal the issues of our heart.
Thank you, Jesus, oh God, I have for one am
so thankful because and I know these people are thankful too,
because you have made us once again. We have been
(54:17):
aware many times, but it's a constant need to be reminded.
We need to be reminded God. Without you, we are
nothing in Jesus name, Amen,
Thank you so much. I'm embarrassed. I can only speak
one language. I could say aloha to you. With that,
we go too far, I don't think, or I could
say good day too. Just before I speak, I want
to introduce someone to you. For the past four years
(00:25):
or so, three for me and then five for this
young lady, and my father and a team of others
have been developing these and leading these pastors conferences all
around the world, somewhere over thirty may be close to
forty now different nations, with twelve more in the works
right now. When I say into the works, that means
(00:46):
this woman is emailing all over the world, taking phone
calls all over the world, writing letters, planning conferences, finding venues,
gathering people, meeting with leaders from different denominations, some who
have never even talked to each other before, someone didn't
even like each other. And they're meeting in rooms together
now and praying together and planning conferences together. And then
(01:06):
they have these conferences. We've had probably I don't know
thirty forty fifty pastors and leaders attend these conferences in
these past few years. Lives have been changed, and behind
the scenes, you know, it's oftentimes it's it's those out
front get more credit, but it's behind the scenes people
that really have accomplished a lot. And I think when
(01:29):
we're standing having this woman will have a sort of
a you know, cut in front of the line type thing.
You know, hey, come on right up here. And not
only that, Bettina Mariak, who has been doing all this
work for us, also happens to have a birthday today.
So so today she turns thirty and I'm going to
(01:54):
repent right after him then for a line, but I'd
like Bettina to come. Beatina. I don't know if you
have any word of greeting or anything, or just like
the wave at least, but if not, there's a microphone
here if you'd like to reread. This is Patina. Happy birthday,
(02:15):
Betina to you. I won't sing it, but I'll say
it to you warmly. We love you and appreciate you.
She has some business to conduct, so we'll let her
her be on her way to get ready for the
next twelve nations. We're going to okay, thank you, Beatina.
She's in the midst of planning a conference in Jerusalem,
(02:38):
gathering bishops and leaders and key leaders from nations all
over the world for a convocation in Israel in June,
so I might want to take a look at that.
A lot of that information is on our website at
World Challenge dot org or David Wilkerson dot org and
you can find out about that. You can even actually
(02:58):
register for that conference. That's not an announcement. We're not
trying to recruit people. We just want whoever want, whoever
God wants to send there. But that's just to help
you find a place to get a little bit more
information if you'd like to do so. Amen, And then Jesus,
thank you for the word. We pray you'd speak to
our hearts in Jesus name. Amen, Luke. Chapter five, I
(03:19):
want to talk of there's three sessions today and our
dad will be here just a moment, and there's gonna
be a time of rejoicing. But I want us to
dig deep one more time? Can we do that? Can
we go down to the well, to the deeper parts
of our heart one more time and just say, God,
is there is there something more you want to dig at?
Is there something more you want to get to? The
get to the roots, to the core. The dig the
(03:41):
deeper he digs, the deeper our roots go. The deeper
our roots go, the wider the tree that, as he
says in I believe it's in Mark the fourth chapter,
that the birds of the air come and sit in
his branches, and it provides shade for many. The deeper
the roots, the more provision for many. And God wants
to use you to be a provider for many in
(04:01):
this nation, provider of the Gospel, provider of a way
of deliverance, provider a way of freedom. Amen. And so
our roots have to dig deep. We'll begin in Luke.
Iwan turns to a couple verses Luke chapter five, verse seventeen.
One day, as he speaking of Jesus was teaching, Pharisees
and teachers of the law who had come from every
(04:22):
village in Galilee, and from Judea and from Jerusalem, were
sitting there, stopped there just for a moment. Look at me,
if you would. This is one of Jesus' first pastor's conferences.
I don't know if he had a Beatina he had
know he had a John the Baptist. And he goes
into this village and he gathers together religious leaders, teachers,
(04:45):
people who led the community of the Hebrews into the
things of God, and he calls them together into this house,
and the place is jam packed with leaders from various nations,
from villages all over Galilea, Judea, and even the big
city Auckland. I mean, excuse me, Jerusalem. They drew together
(05:09):
from all over the place, and they were sitting there
in this next phrase kind of throws me off a
little bit, and says, and the power of the Lord
was present for him to heal the sick. I don't
know what type of sick were there. Oftentimes when Jesus
gathered a crowd together, it was people on stretchers, it
was people who were bleeding, it was people who were blind,
(05:33):
who were deaf. There's no indication that this was the
type of crowd that was there. As a matter of fact,
this type of crowd would have probably seemed quite whole,
walking in upright, looking quite bright eyed, clearly speaking, confident
in their leadership, abilities to be like a politician as
(05:56):
well as a preacher. It wouldn't seem like the that
would be the most needed thing in some ways, maybe
at least not physically. Maybe it wasn't a physical need
that they had. Maybe the presidence of the Lord was
there to heal their sick hearts. But there was a problem.
We find this problem if you turn maybe one other
(06:16):
passage of scripture. Matthew chapter nine, Matthew chapter nine, verse nine.
Matthew nine, verse nine. I don't hear any pages turning.
Are you guys? Bring your bibles? There we go Matthew nine,
verse nine. As Jesus went from there, he saw a
man named Matthew sitting at the tax collectors with follow me,
(06:39):
he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
And while Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many
tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him. And
when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why
does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Again,
if you look at me, we'd see here this is
a very different kind of meeting. This is the opposite
(07:00):
of a pastor's conference. This is a gathering where, boy,
you sure do need the presence of the Lord to heal.
But it doesn't mention in this setting that the presence
of the Lord was there to heal. In this setting,
Jesus seems to actually encourage these who came in their brokenness,
who came in their sense of something's missing, that came
with a deep, deep sense of need. I need a change.
(07:23):
I need to be a different person. And Jesus sees
that and he says in verse twelve. On hearing this,
Jesus said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor,
but the sick. Go and learn what this means. Leave
here and learn what this means means to realize you
(07:43):
need a doctor, to realize that you're sick. I'm a Christian.
I've been a Christian since I was probably four years old.
I don't remember not being a Christian. I love people
who have these testimonies that they were like twenty years
on drugs and gang leaders and alcoholics and they had
this powerful change. But I kind of like my testimony
(08:05):
as well. I just always remember Jesus being present. I
don't remember a time where he wasn't. And in that
there can be a sometimes a self satisfying sense of contentment.
I'm glad that I'm not sick and I can be
a really good Christian. I can't, oh boy, I can.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Have seasons of divine ecstasy where I walk around speaking
almost in King James English and amazed.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
At and reading scripture and thinking. When Paul wrote about
the Fruit of the Spirit or one Printings thirteen, he
was probably thinking about me. Because love is perfect, and
love is kind like me, and love is gentle like me.
I'm not like one of those others that need all
(09:02):
that help. And I can get so enamored by my
own good Christianity that that I want to walk around
and say. You know, I start thinking people look at
my mother and say, blessed art thou among women, And
(09:23):
just now, at the time I'm thinking those things, I
lay my head down at night on the pillow, and
all of a sudden, I remember something somebody said to me,
a little bit of a cutting remark, a slight insult.
They probably didn't even mean to insult me, but it
just I started being suspicious. Hmm, maybe that was an insult.
(09:44):
And the King James English kicks in again, but this
time with a different type of motivation. Thou perverst in
wicked generation? How long shall I bear with thee and
a righteous indignation? I'm not really righteous. Sinful indignation gets
in my heart and I get all mad and I
(10:05):
just say, I can't believe people are like this and
the church is a mess. And boy, I tell you
what these people in my you know, It's like my
teenage son said that I just I absolutely love the church,
just the people in it that I can't stand. And
I lay my head on the pillow at night, and
I just and all of a sudden, I begin to wrestle,
and I sense anger stirring up in my soul. And
(10:28):
then then I get up out of bed and I think,
I'm just so frustrated. I can't sleep. I turned the
TV on, and sometimes they have these commercials on TV
where there'll be women in bikinis. I'm woo and before long,
I'm lusting, and before long I'm angry, and I'm full
of lust, and I'm full of pride and I and
I'm laying my head down in bed and I'm just
(10:52):
I'm not a good Christian anymore? Am I What happened?
I have this propensity to be an amazing believer and
do wonderful things God, and the same time I have
these vast contradictions in me that have this ability to
so quickly be removed from the mark, so quickly be
full of the flesh and Carnal Jesus has this pastor's
(11:15):
conference in Luke, and he's calling leaders together because they
don't know that they're sick, and they don't know that
the presence of the Lord is there to heal them.
You see, it's when we're self righteous and so confident
in our holiness, confidence that we have it all together,
confidence that we don't need repentance, Confidence that there's no
spiritual strongholds in our life. Confident that we have finally
(11:40):
won the victory that were whole, that we're well, that
we don't need a physician any longer. We no longer
need the doctor. That's when people began to wander. My
heart is bent on backsliding, isn't yours? If you don't
know it yet, if you don't feel it yet, just
trust the word, because that's what the Bible says. Our
(12:00):
hearts are bent on backsliding. In other words, there's a
natural inclination within us that works against the spirit. The
Bible says it clearly. The spirit wrestles against the flesh,
the flesh against the spirit, and the bend the gravity
of our soul inclines ourselves towards a pulling away back
towards carnal, fleshly selfish ways of living. It's a sickness.
(12:24):
It's called being. I call it being soul sick, being
sick on the inside, not a physical sickness, and not
a sickness that's almost like a rebellious I shake an
angry fist at God. I don't want to serve God.
I want to free myself to sin. I'm talking about
good people who really love Jesus, pastors, leaders, teachers, intercessors,
(12:49):
the evangelists, disciplers, people who love God with all their
heart and are just concerned because they see some things
on the inside. They just go that that just doesn't
seem like that should be there anymore. It's just for
too long. Now. Aren't I supposed to be free? Am
(13:09):
I still supposed to be struggling? Is there still supposed
to be strongholds that seem to cling to me? Are
there supposed to be habits of my life? Oh? Sometimes
when we get religious, the habits change. We no longer
shoot a needle of heroin into our arm. We no
longer drink fosters or guin us till we're laying on
the street. We no longer lie steal cheat. But I've
(13:34):
seen in the ministry a whole new set of sins
that Satan seems to introduce to the heart. Do you
hear me? A whole new set of sins Pride, arrogance, manipulation,
a utilitarian use of people to meet your own ends.
Pastors who lead congregations just to phil kew so that
(13:56):
they could go to the leader's conference and say, my
church has grown from two hundred to three. Angry leaders
who at the drop of a hat will rebuke people
with a spirit that is vile. That manipulators who are
trying to move people. Gossips who just slightly because a
(14:16):
sister in the church might pray a little longer than you,
and a word will come out of your mouth. Oh yes,
but did you know she prays a lot? But did
you know in her own home, her own teenage daughter
is rebellious and is and and we need to pray
for her, right, we always add the little and will
pray for her, which seems to justify the gossip we've
(14:39):
just spewed out. It's there's a there's a soul sickness.
So you hear me describing a little bit of my
own life. I sound righteous at times, and I sound
holy times when I go to sleep at night, and
I have days where I'm just angry and frustrated and
using people and manipulating people and gossiping about people, and
being jealous of those who are better at spiritual things
than me. And you and you look at me and go, well,
(15:01):
then why are you preaching here today? I should be
preaching instead. Not really, because you're just as sick as
I am. Yeah, I don't know why you're laughing. You're sick.
We really are sick. I read an article. It's about
a philosopher named William James. I don't know if he
(15:24):
was a Christian or not, but it seem seems to
think he understood a little bit about Christendom, if not
Christ himself. He says this, there are two kinds of
religious temperaments, the healthy minded and the sick souls. Healthy
minded people always have a sense that all of that,
all in them, is right, and all in the world
is right, and that God is always on their side.
(15:46):
They are happy campers. Do you use the war campers here?
When you when you get a trailer and you put
it on the campground, They are happy campers, and they
don't ask a lot of questions. They tend not to
see the evil that lurks and reason eyes within them
or around them or in the world. On the other hand,
sick souls view the world sometimes as a dark, complicated
(16:08):
place where evil lurks within them and they live with
few certainties. You to think that this philosopher, William James
would have thought that the healthy minded way was the
preferable way because it sounds better, it sounds more christian
like in some ways. But not only does James consider
(16:28):
himself to be soul sick, he thought, and he says
in this article that these soul sick people probably represent
a more authentic type of searching, of hunger, of relationship
with God. Now, please please don't hear me say something
that I'm not saying. I'm not saying let's walk around
sick and defeated and lifeless and just stuck in a
(16:51):
habit of sin and not getting out. What I am
saying is that when we realize we are soul sick,
that is, when we depend on an outside source of help,
of life, of deliverance. It's when we realize we are
weak that we depend on the strong coming in for us.
It's when we realize that we are poor that we
(17:11):
find someone rich to come and provide our needs. For us.
Self dependency is stripped upon the fact and the reality
that we ourselves are a vessel in great need of
being filled by an outside source. Otherwise we are contained
with our own self sufficiency. Two brothers saying, Amen, thank you.
(17:39):
Being soul sick. It's a biblical concept. It's not always good,
but it's but it's something that seems to stir us
to the good. That's a weird philosophy when we think,
when I am weak, I am strong. When I'm poor,
I am rich. Because if when you're you're strong, then
(18:02):
are you still weak? Because you're strong now if you're rich.
That if you're poor and you become rich, then you're rich,
then are you still poor? I remember my wife was
sick one time and and we were in the hospital,
and my mother in law at that particular season her
life was into a particular form of teaching that was
(18:22):
like you had to be careful not to say anything
negative or it will happen. And so I said, she said,
how's how's Kelly doing. I said, she's feeling weak. Ooh,
don't say that, I said. She said, say she's strong,
and I said, well, yeah, because because when she's weak
in herself, she's strong. See either she's strong, I said,
But if we say she's strong, then will she be weak?
(18:48):
And I get confused. I'm not so really, I don't
know whether Christians are weak or strong. I don't know
if Christians are rich or poor. And you can help
me out if you want to. After the conference, you
can have an another all my permitting, just for me
if you want, because because there's certain things I'm still
(19:09):
wrestling with, certain things I want to know. But here's
for me. All I can do is tell you my
experience is when I start feeling strong, when I start
feeling rich, when I start feeling I have it all together,
my world crumbles. But when I feel weak and poor
and soul sick, I feel a source of strength from
(19:30):
outside of me, from the King of kings, from the
Lord of Lords, that fills inside of me that I
guess there is a richness, there is a strength, but
it's not mine. It's based on the fact that I
realize that I am weak and I need him, desperately
need him. And God sometimes seems to promote or provoke
(19:50):
a soul sickness. Please don't hear me saying he gives
people diseases or he makes people sin. But he makes
us aware of our desperate need for him. Elijah. Do
you remember how Elijah after he got he went He
won the big fight against the Pagans, and he seems
to have gone home. I am a winner. I have
(20:10):
defeated all the profits of bail. I have. I have.
My life has been filled with value and crowd pleasing events.
I'm a winner. But when he goes home and he
sits by a river and there's no longer a cloud,
a crowd to applause him, or an enemy to defeat,
that makes him feel good inside. It seems that he's
(20:33):
lacking yesterday's vigor and vitality. And he sits by this
river and he's depressed, and he's fearful, and he's discouraged.
And God says, this is a man with like passions.
And you may say to yourself, and I may say
to myself, sometimes I don't like those passions. I love
(20:54):
the I love the victory over the profits of bail.
I don't don't like to go back to my cave
and an introspection, wonder if I'm all right do it?
What's what's happening inside me? Why do I still struggle
with things? Why do I why do I still get jealous?
I will sit in conferences where there's three or four
(21:16):
different speakers, and I'll start off with another speaker that's
speaking before me, and I'll say, oh Lord, bless him, Lord,
pour out your spirit on him. And I'll start preaching,
Oh yes, God, you're moving on and this is mighty.
And then man, people are starting to shout and scream
and say amen, and and he's bringing out inside I've
never heard before. And I'm starting to say, maybe not
so much. God, you know, save a little for me,
(21:39):
if you would, and that, and I, you know, and
I and I'll go and I'm like Elijah, there's this
there's this propensity to be good at certain times and
then go to the cave and and not be good.
I was speaking at a conference about three months ago,
and afterwards, it was, it was, it was real a blessing.
(22:02):
Five or six of the leaders came up to me
and said, they patted me on the back, said, praise God,
we're so glad that you're here. We've heard of your dad.
We didn't know you, but they were glad you came
because you ministered to this. And the next guy said
that text on this and that point on that, and
they were just you know, when you get a compliment,
it's a general compliment. Nice job, that's nice, but when
they say specific things this message this is not a hint,
(22:24):
by the way, okay, this message about that, it touched me.
And I was just, man, I was getting built up
and I was encouraged. And the last guy just says,
can I speak to you moment? He pulls me aside
and says, I think some of the things you said
were really harmful to our church here in this nation.
And I think the thing you said about so and
so really will distract us from going on. We're called
(22:46):
to that, and you were speaking against that and it
did harm here. And I went back to the hotel
room that night and I was still kind of thinking, like, wow,
it was, you know, sad that guy said that, But
you know, generally it was a good conference and everybody
seemed to be encouraging and they're patting me on the back.
I lay my head on the pillow at night. Let
me give you a guys, what do you think I
was thinking about? The one the one negative? I mean
(23:13):
the whole the whole audience clapped, you know, the whole
audience said, praise God. The leaders pat me on the back,
said bless you. Job well done. One guy says I
didn't like it, and I'm laying there. I can't believe
that guy didn't like this man? Who does he think
he is? What? And then I started having self doubt.
(23:35):
Well maybe he's right, and what did I say? Yeah
I said that and this that, well that seems right
and then oh no, he's just he was just mean,
that was miserable. I can't believe he said that to me.
I just I'm so upset. God, what you know got?
I wish you to put an angel between me and him?
I don't know what. And I just said, okay, lord,
I just I give it to you. I just I
(23:57):
rolled my burdens off onto you, and I rolled this
guy off onto because he was so mean. He just
he said this about me and he said and for hours,
literally like probably two hours, I was trying to fall
asleep and I couldn't sleep because of this one thing.
I'm a sick man. I have Elijah like passions. Sometimes
(24:22):
I can call fire from heaven. Sometimes I can defeat
the prophets of Mail. And sometimes I can go back
to my cave and be filled with anger and self
doubt and lust and fear. And sometimes I can get
up to preach and be more concerned about what people
think of me than I do pleasing Jesus. I have
all kinds of mixed things within me, and the Bible
is full of this. We don't like to talk about
(24:43):
these things. We like to just always talk about victory, victory, victory,
But sometimes we need to realize we are desperate for God.
Without him, we're lost without him, We're hopeless without him,
We're back in our old ways. Immediately, I can't go
a day without Jesus and I start acting up. And
the Bible is full of it. The guys who wrote Psalms,
(25:04):
David and Asaph and all these other ones that I
can't pronounce their names, all of these guys we're writing
like if a psychologist or a psychiatrist got hold of
these guys and they said these things in a counseling session,
they would start giving them prozac and tranquilizers. And because
(25:26):
they would sound almost near suicidal. Oh that I are
wings that I could just fly away, and the council
would says, so did your father leave you at an
early age? Where are you? God? How long, oh Lord,
(25:51):
how long my soul was downcast within me? My mother
in law would have rebuked him long ago. The things
have changed their heart. She's as sweet as can be.
And I say that without my wife of n being here.
I say that because I truly mean that I love her.
(26:14):
The minor prophets, they weren't called minor because they were smaller,
or because they or because they played a lesser role,
or or they weren't categorized minor because they complained more.
But they But when you read the prophets and the
minor prophets, you read some guys who were just Oh God,
(26:36):
my soul is torn within me, My heart is wretched mass.
You know, why have you allowed enemies to triumph all
kinds of things that just confess the troubles of their
the troubled nature of their heart, the troubled condition of
their their people, and the control trouble condition of their nation.
(26:58):
They just sounded like you don't, America, we have this phrase.
You probably have it here too. Some people see the
glass half full, and some people see the glass half empty.
These guys seem like there's no glass. What glass? What water?
If these guys are soul sick, then sign me up
(27:19):
for what they have. I want these like passions because
I have been discovering that it's out of my desperation
for God. It's out of my sense of I can't
survive without you God. Without you, I'll just be religious.
I'll just put on it. I'll just be a good
Christian speaking in King James English. I'll just quote Bible passages.
(27:41):
I'll just do good deeds, but my heart won't be changed.
I have to maintain a mount mentality. Yes, that I'm
saved and I'm sanctified, I'm filled with the spirit, and
I have faith, and I have joy, and I am
an overcomer in Christ because of Christ, not because of
myself myself. I have to realize that there's this still,
(28:03):
this nature that works within me. And the more I
identify that nature, that sick soul nature that still wrestles
to gain prevalence in me, the more I can clearly
identify that it's there, the more I can confess it
quickly and turn it over to the Lord and not
have to spend two hours in a hotel room with
my head on the pillow saying, I can't believe that
(28:23):
guy insulted me. I can really let the sickness of
my soul come to this place where these religious leaders
that came to Jesus, and it says the spirit of
the Lord was there to heal them. And the reason
they weren't healed is because they didn't know they were sick,
(28:45):
except for one man that he couldn't even fit into
the pastor's conference and they had to cut a hole
in the roof and they let him down through there,
and he was so sick he couldn't even move. He
was paralyzed, and Jesus touches him. I think Jesus must
have been saying, Oh, it's good. There's finally somebody in
this room who realizes they're sick. So much so they're
(29:05):
so desperate they're tearing holes in roofs just to get in.
I wonder what like the Pharisee that owned that house
was thinking this guy's being healed. He said, yeah, you're here,
but they look at who's going to fix the roof?
And uh, this man realized he was sick, and Jesus was, oh,
bless you Father. You sent me someone who realizes their
(29:27):
need for me. And they cling to me and they
and they make a way to get to me. They're
so desperate they tear through roofs. They're so desperate, they
fight through crowds. They're so desperate they get for their
friends to commit vandalism just to get to Jesus. Whatever
it takes to get to Jesus. That's how sick I am.
(29:47):
I need to get to Jesus. That's how sick you are.
You need to get to Jesus. Have I insulted you
enough yet? This morning? You're sick, but your whole as
well because of Christ. You're sick but you're well. You're
poor but you're rich. You're weak but you're strong. It
(30:10):
seems to be a contradiction, doesn't it. I don't understand
the contradictions of the Bible. I just obey them. My
Sunday school teacher, when I was probably seven eight years old,
said I will give a half a dollar to everybody
who can name anybody that can name a contradiction in
the Bible. And I don't know why. My brain works
this way. But from an early age, I've been curious
(30:32):
about certain things. And I immediately raised my hand. I said,
the Bible says something about like if you live by
the sword, you'll die by the sword. But then Jesus
told Peter to go pick up a sword. And she said,
that's not a contradiction. Sit down. I said, sorry, this
sounds like one to me. It's like, don't pick up
(30:52):
a sword. Pick up a sword. That's if it's not
a contradiction. It's confusing. And I didn't get my money. Yeah,
we have a lot of we have a lot of
happy campers. It's what William James called them, happy campers.
(31:13):
I see him a lot on U see him a
lot on American television they uh, And I'm not putting
down Christian television, but it just a good portion of
Christian television in America is is run by happy campers,
always smiling, They always have it all together. They they
(31:37):
are very healthy minded, they have an amazing life. Everything
they do is successful. Uh. They seem to preach that
God is the owner of a big camper village. And
if you say the right things and smile the right
way and confess the right things and believe the right things,
and and send them money that you can. They don't
(32:02):
call it money, they call it they call it seeds.
And they must have like big farms in this camper
village because they're always asking for seeds. And they say,
send us seed money, and we will plant it in
the ground and it will it will bring forth a
hundredfold harvest. But they never send it back to you
after it grows. They they say, your your benefit will
(32:26):
come from another source. And then I actually heard a
testimony one time my great aunt passed away. I sent
in one hundred dollars, and my great aunt passed away
the next day, and she sent me one thousand dollars
in her will. Praise God, answer prayer. God killed your
aunt and gave you money. Now this is a testimony.
(32:50):
This is a testimony. I sent you ten dollars. My
hand died. Hallelujah. Yeah. But on the other side, the
the admitted soul sick, the ones ah, you don't see
(33:12):
them very often. They sometimes they're they're not on TV
because they're not positive enough. Sometimes it's hard to draw
an audience when you're asking questions rather than telling everything.
It's going to be fine, and you don't have to struggle,
and you don't have to have trouble in your life.
(33:33):
They're not the kind of people that have have Christian slogans.
They tend to ask questions and tend to look deep
into their heart and tend to be almost prophetic in
the nature where it's it's not always fun to be
around a profit. The profits are usually if you know,
have you ever taken a gift test where they have
(33:55):
these tests and you can kind of help identify your gifts.
Prophets usually don't give themselves a high score. Run. Are
you the life of the party? You know? Yes? The
happy campers seem to have this ability to have these
certain phrases and to be able to to move a
crowd with these phrases, particularly in in New York City
(34:19):
where there's there's different ethnic groups who are very some
of them very lovingly and passionately emotional, and you can
really move a crowd. I have seen people just say
something like I can get up there and tell my
tell a certain congregation, you know we're more than conquerors
through Christ go yeah, But somebody else can get up there. Man.
They know how to they know how to work it
we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus, through sprinklings.
(34:42):
And I was like, well, you know, shouting and screaming,
I just said that. I said the exact same thing.
Some are some of these happy campers are so skilled
that during the they they say almost anything. A new
(35:04):
day is dawning, A new day is dawning. I say
to you, hallowejah, a new day is dawning. And basically
what they've said is sort of like you know from Annie,
like you know the sun will come up tomorrow. Bet
your bottom dollar. But everybody's on their feet cheering. What
are they cheering about? It's the same truth, but it's
(35:25):
I don't know. I guess you have to learn to
say it in an emotional way that stirs crowds, to
get people to clap hands and see that. That's the
whole Happer Camper Village, not not saying being emotional is
wrong or being stirred in your heart if you naturally
have that inclination, if you're a shouder, when you preach, brother,
you shout, you do what God has given you to do,
but never in a form of trying to put on something,
(35:50):
trying to be to invite others into the happy camp
as are calling it the happy camper village where you
can sow your seeds and get rewards and get returns.
But it's just not something's missing in that happy camphor village.
Very little repentance, very little awareness, very little of what
(36:10):
Paul said, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.
Now that that'll produce a lot of confidence. In a
congregation where your pastor says, hey, why don't you guys
check whether you're saved or not? He seems to say
things that just don't you know, you just don't want
to say. Then when you're in leadership, you don't want
to be careful, Paul, why are you talking like that?
(36:34):
Some people in this this sort of who don't think
they're soul sick. People who don't. Here's what I've discovered.
People who don't think they're soul sick always think that
everybody else is sick. People who are soul sick very
rarely are judgmental. They see somebody else struggling and they say,
(36:58):
I know it's like to struggle, and I want to
bury your burden up to Jesus with you. But people
who don't think of their own need, of their own
lacking of their own fleshly nature that strives within them.
They tend to be judgmental and critical, and sometimes they
even tend to be worse than their leaders. I have
(37:22):
heard tender hearted, broken, tear stained eyed prophets speak to people,
and people take that message of God is going to judge,
but they don't have the broken, tenderhearted, tear stained eyes.
(37:42):
And so they now are getting up and they're saying
the same message the prophets saying, eucef. They're saying it
now in a different spirit, and they're going around and saying,
I'm right, but you're wrong. You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong,
you're dying, You're going to hell. You'll be judged for sure.
And only those who are in their small circle who
believe like exactly that they believe, are the ones who
are going to be accepted by God in the inner circle.
(38:07):
And sometimes the disciples of the prophets, so to speak,
become the ones who don't have the broken and tender heart.
This actually happened to Martin Luther. There was a season
in his life where the persecution was so strong against
him that he had to some of the people that
(38:28):
were protecting him feigned his death. They told others that, oh, sorry,
we know you wanted Martin to come to Rome, but
he's dead. And so all the people in Rome and
those who were persecuted and thought he was dead. But
his own disciples thought he was dead as well. And
so some of his key leaders, some of the guys
(38:49):
that he was discipling, so to speak, in training and
this way of faith and this whole new way of living,
started preaching his message, but in a different way, not
with the brokenness, not with the the not with the
hours of heart wrenching falling on his face before God.
They just went out and said, these people are bad,
(39:11):
and these people are bad, and these people are evil,
and we should a matter of fact, we should. His
closest followers ended up saying, Martin Luther before he died,
that he wasn't even dead. So first of all, they lied,
Martin Luther told me that we should take up arms.
And some of his closest followers became advocates, thinking that
(39:33):
Martin was no longer in the scene, and they took
his message of reformation and turned it into a physical
try to turn it into a physical revolution because they
didn't know that they were sick. They were no longer concentrating,
and like Martin Luther was, Oh wretched man that I am.
Oh my heart. Now, please don't hear me say that
(39:54):
we don't preach against other sins. But but I tried
to learn to preach against other sins, not so much
using the word you, but using the word us. That
we have sinned against God, that we have turned from Him,
that we have our hearts bent on backsliding. God looks
(40:17):
at our broken hearts and he invites us, whether we
be a paralytic on a cot being pulled down through
a roof, or whether we be a religious leader. He says,
the spirit of the Lord is here to heal. And
he doesn't leave us lost in a sense of wallowing
of Oh I'm so defeated and I'm always messing up.
(40:39):
He lets us recognize that. So he brings the remedy
to that. This is the whole and I'll close with this,
This is the whole creation story. God in eternity decides
to Genesis chapter one to make these words a reality.
In the beginning, God Creator, Creator creates creation. God Literally,
(41:05):
what God was doing was this may sound strange to you.
He was inventing existence. Now he existed, but in a
far different way than we know existence. If you look
at the Dictionary, under the word existence, it says that
which is measurable in time and space. It is it
is this wide and this tall, and it is in
this place, and it has this element to it, and
(41:27):
it exists in this setting at this time. It has
a beginning and an end. It's measurable. That's existence. And
some people, some Christians, spend their whole life trying to
help people, like in wrestling with here does God exist?
If you look at the Book of Genesis, there's not
(41:50):
a whole lot in there about sort of like ten
proofs that God exists. It just kind of takes it
for granted. Did you notice that just surely exists. But
when a atheist comes up to me and says, I
don't even need to know God exists, I don't really
argue with him too much because I basically say, well, yeah, actually,
you may be right, and then they look at me
(42:11):
really strange. I says, the way we measure existence, maybe
he doesn't exist that way. Because if we measure existence
by a beginning and end, God has no beginning, and
he has no end. If we measure existence by something
measurable in time and space, God has no time, he
has no space. He's boundless. So the way we think
of existence is basically, a God who is bigger than
(42:34):
we can imagine, creates something that we can imagine, not
only imagine, we can exist in existence. So here's my
take on it. God created existence as we know it.
So God exists, but he actually more than exists. So
I never wrestle with the fact that God exists. I
wrestle with trying to tell people he's more than existence itself.
(42:54):
He is in all, and through all, and even above all,
more than all. But just before God created existence, there
there was a there was a slight. I won't call
it a problem or but there was something had to
be faced. If he was going to create existence, if
it was absolutely totally perfect, what would it be just
(43:19):
more of himself? Just if he created something that had
nothing in it that was lesser than himself or different
than himself, it would just be more of himself, which
you know is impossible, right because God has no bounds anyway,
so there's no need to create more of himself because
he's all his self that he can be something like that. Right,
(43:40):
you're still following me. So, so God is creating the
existence as we know it, but it has to be
different than him. So he has to take a chance. Okay,
I'm going to create an existence, but it's gonna be
it's gonna be good, but not as good as me.
It's gonna be great, but it's not gonna be absolutely
(44:03):
totally perfect. And so he's getting ready to create this existence,
and what does he have to do. He has to say,
there's gonna be something. There's gonna be a potential in
this for a flaw, not that God creates evil. If
I go into a chemistry class today and there's this
(44:23):
chemical that's good and this chemical that's good, it's fine,
but the teacher says, if you mix them together, it's
gonna explode and the whole classroom will blow up. So
don't do that. And if I do that, do we
say that the chemistry teacher is evil or that he
created evil? No, we say that I took two good
things and mixed them and made evil out of them.
God knew that when he created existence, that man was
(44:45):
gonna have the potential to take certain things. Take a tree,
take an emotion, take a relationship and mix it the
wrong way and turn it to evil. So and yet
God wants to create this man, this woman, this guard
and he wants to have fellowship. But he knows it's
not going to be perfect like him. So here's what
he does. He says, these people are going to be
(45:06):
soul sick. I'm going to create them, and I'm going
to take a risk of them. The crash of man,
the fall of man's is a is a high risk
factor in this scenario. But he does something. First, you
have to go to the end of the book of
the Bible to understand the beginning. You have to go
(45:26):
to Revelation to understand Genesis. And in Revelation that doesn't
say too so clearly, so beautifully, so powerfully that before
the foundations of the world, what were the foundations the
foundations for Genesis one to one, one two, formless void
water spirit hovering over the surface of the deed before
that foundation was even made, Before that was even made,
(45:49):
Boble says in Revelation, before the foundations of the earth,
the lamb of God was slain. The Lamb of God
was slain before the foundations of the world. And I
say all that I went through that whole science deally
there just to tell you to help us understand that, yes,
God understood we wouldn't be perfect like him. But He's
(46:11):
made a remedy. He's made a way for us. He's
made a way for Christian leaders to come together and say, yes,
my life is not perfect, my life is not all
that I want it to be, and I'm hungry and
I'm desperate for it to change. But it's the realization
of our need that drives us to the remedy. It's
the realization that we are not God, we are lesser
(46:32):
than God. That was Lucifer's fall. He no longer realized
he had a need. He now became a happy camper,
and pride entered his heart and he fell. And about
the time we start thinking I'm the perfect pastor, the
perfect leader, and pride will come in, and arrogance will
come in, and anger over other people not being perfect,
(46:53):
and judgmentalism, all kinds of things will come into the
heart and will be a fall. Pride comes before a fall.
What I'm saying to you today, I pray is for
me and for you and for us a warning against
pride that we've got it all together and that we
can speak well and lead well and do all these things,
and start realizing we can do all those things without
even God being in the mix. So from one soul
(47:17):
sick brother to another soul sick brother and sister, I
say to you, God made away in our sickness. He
made a remedy even before we got sick, and alls
we have to do is just keep coming to that cross,
say oh, this is the lamb, this is the lamb
slain for me. And I come to Jesus, to the
(47:37):
pastors conference saying I need the blood applied every day.
I need the cleansing, I need the washing. I need
the holiness of God. I need the moving of the spirit.
I need the conviction of sin. I don't need to
get resaved. I just need every day for the washing
of the water of the word, for the renewing. I
(48:00):
don't know. Maybe New Zealand is like a real You
have a special dispensation of grace and holiness, and you
don't struggle with any of these things. I guess not. Huh.
So I invite you to wrestle. I invite you to
ask questions. I invite you to examine your heart. I
(48:25):
invite you to dig deeper, because if you do something,
I'll close with this. I really will, I promise. If
I'm sitting up on the stage and I'm praying for
this other preacher and I say, God, bless him, and
then he gets and he's preaching too good, and I
say stop blessing him, and I get jealous. Okay, that's
(48:47):
a sin, that's oh God, I'm jealous. But there's another sin.
Why am I jealous? Well, because I think he's good
and maybe i'm not. Well. Why do I think he's
good and I'm not because well, maybe I think God
planned the whole thing wrong. He got messed up. He
should have made me better in him not quite so good.
So there's a deeper sin than jealousy. I don't even
(49:08):
believe God is good. I don't trust God's design. But
I can even ask questions, why don't I trust God's design? Well,
because I think maybe I have a better way, my
way of being me better, and then not so good
is a better way, So I'm better than Wow. I
don't need to repent just of jealousy. I need to
repent if I think I'm better than God. It's dangerous
(49:30):
to start thinking about your life because it takes you
to deeper waters. It takes you to a deeper because
you know what you're gonna eventually do is you're gonna
get to the core. Larry Krab, a biblical writer, feature
says that most of us just look at the tip
of the iceberg with our sins, and we just see this.
(49:52):
We see the surface things that come out, a little
bit of anger, a little bit of pride, But none
of very few of us examined why was I pride for?
Why was I angry? Why am I jealous? Why do
I gossip? Why is there lust? Why is their fear?
What do I fear? And it's a journey that Lord
will take us on that takes us to sometimes a
difficult place, but it takes us to a good place
(50:14):
because now repentance is getting down to the core. You're
not just I'll quote a good New Zealand or Winki Prattney.
You're not just cutting off the blade of the grass.
You're pulling the root of it out. And that's what
God's after, the root of our soul sickness. Father, I
pray in the name of Jesus, that you would get
to the root. The word radical itself, Lord is you've
(50:36):
shown me in the definition it's a The word radical
means to get it to the root, to pull up
the root of an issue. And we want radical repentance
in our life, Jesus, because we're desperate for you. We're
desperate for you, Jesus. We are without you, we're sick
without you, We're needy. But we give you thanks, Jesus.
We're not closing this message off with sort of hopeless
(50:57):
despair self examination. We're saying we we can't examine our hearts.
We can look deep in see the problems of our
life because we know there's a remedy already made even
before the foundations of the earth. The lamb of God
was slain on our behalf, and the blood of Jesus
Christ that was poured out on the cross is applied
(51:18):
to us. And we are free, and we are clean,
and we are holy in Christ Jesus, not in our
own strength, our own resources. We know we are desperately
in need of you every day, Jesus, so we give
you thanks. Would you stand with me now, and you
might just want to take a moment to say God, please,
just quietly you're saying, God, please get to the root,
dig deep, to the roots of the issues of my heart.
(51:44):
I think if we could accomplish here this morning, just
the fact that we're going to give God access to
the deepest, darkest places of our heart. We're not going
to hide from the Lord anymore because he sees anyway.
If we can get to this morning, just to the
fact that saying God, I'm willing to to let you
examine my heart deeper than you ever have before. I'm
willing to even ask questions of not just forgive me
(52:06):
of jealousy, but why am I jealous? Jesus. There's there's
there's this propensity we have towards backsliding, towards letting the
flesh right raise up and whin the when the day.
But we thank you Jesus, that when the enemy comes
in like a flood, the Lord raises up a standard
against it. We thank you God, that you are more
(52:28):
than a victorious in all things. God. We thank you
that then you make your people more than conquerors, that
we have victory in Christ, Jesus, that we truly are wash,
that we truly are made whole in ourselves. We're sick
and needy, but we come to the source of cleansing.
We come to the pastor's conference and say, Jesus, it's
not just a paralytic on a stretcher. To me, I'm
(52:50):
the one who needs the spirit of the Lord being
present here in this room to heal me. And I
pray right now, Lord, you would heal some of the
some of the visible actions of sin, the anger that
some ministers might have, the fear that some might have,
the jealousy that some might have, the lust that some
might have, the pride, all of these issues that there
(53:10):
seems to be a root in all of us. Satan
knows where to attack us. There's this one place in
our armor that seems open. I pray that as these
brothers and sisters see that particular place, that Holy Spirit,
you would not only wash that and cleanse that and
heal that. Your spirit is here to set people free
in liberty. But not only you would heal that which
is seen, but you would go into the into the
(53:31):
innermost being of the heart, where springs of living water
are called to flow. But sometimes they're blocked because there's
muddy waters existing from what Jeremiah called broken cisterns cleanse
the deeper parts of our heart. We pray Jesus that
at the core there might be a true holiness, not
a performance of holiness, but a true holiness that springs
eternal from our heart. And we give you thanks. Amen. Amen,
(53:56):
do your sense the spirit is here to heal. I
do I sense it. I ans You're here, Jesus, to heal,
not just physically, but heal the issues of our heart.
Thank you, Jesus, oh God, I have for one am
so thankful because and I know these people are thankful too,
because you have made us once again. We have been
(54:17):
aware many times, but it's a constant need to be reminded.
We need to be reminded God. Without you, we are
nothing in Jesus name, Amen,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.