I Almost Slipped

The word that you planted in my heart this day, I thank you Lord for the truth that sets men free. I thank you Lord for the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost and Lord we pray that you come now with a clear pure word of heaven. Lord I believe you gave me this from your heart. You gave this to me from your heart. I couldn't see it in the flesh. There's no way I could ever see this in my own power. Lord it's the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon your word tonight that we need. Sanctify us Lord in our preaching. Sanctify us in our hearing. Let the word of the Lord find its mark and bring healing and power and authority in our lives over all the power of the enemy. Lord we don't roll over to the devil. Lord we stand on the victory of the cross and we believe Lord that we have power wisdom and authority in the name of Jesus and we take it liberally and with freedom in Christ's name. We fear no enemy. Hallelujah. For thou oh Lord are conqueror over all things. Glory be to God. Go to Psalm 73 please. Psalm 73. My message tonight, I almost slipped. I almost slipped. I called my wife last night and told her I'm going to preach and she said what? You what? I said I almost slipped. Psalm 73. Now don't look at me so curiously. I'm talking about you really. And me and all of us. In fact folks, I want you to listen very clearly to the word of the spirit tonight. It's vital, absolutely vital that we hear it with the heart and you need to be praying right now. God help me to receive it. I almost slipped. Reading verse one, Psalm 73. There's two verses before we go on. Truly God is good to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me my feet were almost gone. My steps had well nigh slipped. I almost slipped. Now look at me please. The Holy Spirit's prompted me tonight to bring a solemn warning to the body of Jesus Christ. This message of course goes out in newsletter and it goes out in tape all over the world. So I'm preaching a message to the body of Christ to all who hear it. And the warning is simply this. There's a sin that is raging in the church of Jesus Christ right now that is bringing so much shipwreck to pastors, evangelists, missionaries, teachers, and lay people all over the United States and around the world. This particular sin is causing Christians to slip on the right hand and on the left. And even here in Times Square Church tonight there are dear Christ loving people who attend this church. You've already started to slip on a particular sin that I'm going to expose here tonight. It's an incredible awful sin that has been ruining and destruction to the body of Jesus Christ. The sin that I speak of right now is so dangerous because it is not really considered to be a major sin. It is underestimated. The danger of it has never been calculated. And yet while I stand here now it's infecting multitudes and multitudes. Absolutely shocking when we understand the full extent of it. This is not what I would call sins, a sin of the flesh. We're not talking about the sin of flesh such as adultery, fornication, gambling, cheating, drugs, alcohol, lust, and promiscuity, and homosexuality, alcoholism. We're not even talking about some of those sins of the mind such as covetousness, and anger, and rebellion, those kinds of sins. And yet this sin is so dangerous it can cause all that. I'm not even talking about pride. I'm talking about something far far more dangerous, far more seductive than pride itself, which is the mother of many of our sins. But this sin when it's exposed when it's indulged in is capable of bringing on all of these other sins upon it and following it. Yesterday I was in my office and I heard a loud sobbing out in our reception area near my office. And I walked out to see my secretary Barbara consoling a young lady. She was just absolutely heartbroken and loud sobbed. She was almost unconsolable. And I said, what's happened? And Barbara said, Pastor Dave, she just got word. This young lady's 24 years old. She's in Nigeria. She's been coming to church for four years. Faithful, wonderful witness for Jesus from a Christian family. She had just gotten word that her father and mother had been killed in a car crash. And she was absolutely crushed. And she out of it through her sobs, we learned the story. She has six brothers and sisters, all of them under 17 years of age, her father, a doctor. The financial conditions are such that she was working here and sending money to help support and raise these children. And she said, I don't understand. She said, I've been so faithful to God. I paid my tithe. And she's a regular tither to this church. She's a giver. I really don't know how she makes it because she's only got temporary work. She's a temp. And she squeezes together enough to pay her rent, somehow enough to eat. And she pays her tithe. I think that's why she's able to squeeze it all together. And she said, Brother Dave, I've been sending money to Nigeria. I can't even fly there. I have no money to bury them. There's no insurance. There's nothing. And she said, Brother Dave, I don't understand. And she sat on the floor just sobbing her heart out for a moment. And she says, how can God allow this when I have given my whole heart? I serve him righteously. I love him with all of my heart. And then with tears streaming, I was like a little lost child. And she was worried, of course, about how her brothers and sisters would be supported now, how she gets there. And I knew that would be a problem. In fact, while I'm talking to you now, she's on an airplane going to Nigeria right now. God enabled us to do that and also to pay for the funeral for her parents. That wasn't a problem. I knew that. But it was tears stained eyes and just like a little child looked up and said, Brother Dave, why is it so hard to do right? Why is it so hard to do right? She said, this makes no sense to me. This absolutely makes no sense at all. Why is it? It seems to me that those who are most godly suffer the most. She said, why did God allow this to me? She said, Brother Wilkerson, I studied in Moscow. I came to New York. I've been here a number of years and I have suffered all of my life. I have had such suffering. And I thought I had all the suffering I could take. And now this. She said, I don't make sense. I don't understand. Why is it so hard to do right? I went back and sat in my office. I said, Lord, she's hurting so bad. And she thinks that you failed her deep in her heart. And in fact, she thought last night before it just went, she thought of suicide. And she said, sitting out there on the couch, she said, there's no purpose to living now. There's no, there's nothing to live for. And I went back and I said, Oh God, she's hurting so bad. And we can't seem to console her. We can't get through to her. And I don't know what to say. And Lord, the whole body of Jesus Christ has never yet dealt with this or understood why you allow suffering to godly people and they can't compute it. And I don't know what to tell her. I don't know what to say. I don't have words. How do I comfort her? And how do I reach out to a church body of people who are living righteously before God, trying to do everything to please the Lord and yet trouble upon trouble, plague upon plague, chastening after chastening, and all these things, these sudden calamities that come. And then the question is, why is it so hard to do right? And all day long walking through doing my work as a pastor, I was contemplating this and thinking about it. God, what, what do I tell her? What do I tell people who are suffering, who are Christians, who are giving their all? They don't understand their poverty. They don't understand the hardships. And I went to prayer. I went home last night and I poured my heart out to God. And I tell you, I went to him. I said, Father, your church is still in a quandary about their suffering. We have people in our church, like Paul, who can say, I've suffered the loss of all things that I may win Christ. And yet like Paul, the apostle, the more closer they get to Christ, the more problems, the more trouble seems to pile up on them. What I've got, I want an answer for myself. I want to be able to stand up with your wisdom and knowledge and talk about this. I was so shocked and surprised at the Lord's answer. It blew me away, literally. And after what the Holy Ghost spoke to me, what he said to me, I began to see something about grief and sorrow through God's eyes that I'd never seen through my own eyes. And unless you see in a time of grief and sorrow, unless you see it through God's eyes, and unless you see the danger of that moment and how you can slide into the sin that I'm exposing tonight, you can slide right into it and you can slide into an abyss of darkness and never get out like the children of Israel. They never got out of their sin. The very sin that I'm going to be talking to you about. And I began to see something about that precious 24-year-old girl. Now, you may think it cruel of me tonight, what I'm about to tell you, but the Lord spoke to my heart, David, she's in danger. And you've got to warn her. And you have got to go to my body. You've got to warn people who are in conditions like this, when sudden calamity and fear and trouble and poverty and all of these things pile up and the questions come, why is it so hard when I want to do right? Because you come to a brink of a terrible abyss. You come to a brink of a sin that is damning, so damning. You see human nature. I want to cry with her and the Bible said we're to cry with those who cry. I want to weep with those who weep. I understand there is a Christian and especially as a pastor and offer every word of comfort from the word of God that the Holy Ghost promised me to give. And I am to weep with those who weep and I'm to laugh with those who laugh and I am to be there as a nurse the best I know how. But there comes a time in the middle of that where you cannot allow the doubts to take root. You can't allow all the questions to go on because you see God understands that sudden outburst that comes when grief or calamity strikes us. He understands that outburst. Oh God, why? Because even Jesus on the cross didn't understand. He said, why God have you forsaken me? God understands that and you have to stand by and allow people. The Lord says you stand by and weep with them and stand by and wait until that grief works its way out until they allow the Holy Ghost to come and console them because the Holy Ghost is a consoler. He comforts, he cheers. That's what the Bible says. He comforts in the midst of all the sorrow. But you see, I began to see through God's eyes. He said, no, wait a minute, David. You have a heart, you pity and you think that your pity and your sharing of that grief is enough, but that's not enough. That's not enough. See it through my eyes and I want you to see through God's eyes tonight so that the next time you may be here tonight in much grief and sorrow that this will be a weapon in your hand that will keep you from this sin that damns your soul. Don't get in a hurry. We'll get to that sin. But you see when Jesus said, why have you forsaken me? He never looked, he never let that questioning take root. He allowed the Holy Spirit to come and comfort and console him. And then he said, oh my God, into your hands I commit. And that's why you have to come. There's no way out of grief. There's no way out of sorrow. There's no way out of your problem until you come to that place where you say, I will not allow this grief, this questioning to go on. I am grieved, I am hurt, but God's on the throne and this is enough. In Psalm 73 that we just read, a man named Asaph nearly fell into this sin. He said, I almost slipped. He's talking about slipping into this sin by his own confession. He said, I almost slipped. I almost took a fall. We just read it. As for me, my feet were almost gone. In other words, I almost fell. My steps had almost or well nigh slipped. Now Asaph is a chief singer and a Levite and he's a leader of King David's choral worshipers. Asaph also and his sons played cymbals and high praises to the Lord. There are 11 psalms that are attributed to Asaph and he's a co-worker with David and I take it that Asaph is a very close friend of David's. You could not be in the house of God and a Levite without being close to David because that's where he was all the time. He loved God and he loved God's house and this man Asaph we know is a pure-hearted man. Here's a man who knows that God is good. He has the right concept of the heavenly Father. He doesn't have a perverted view of the heavenly Father. He's not morose. He's not a person who is in depression. He says, my God's a good God and he is good to those who have a clean heart. In other words, God's been good to me because he gave me a clean heart. And he's a co-worker with David. Now why did he say, why did he confess, I almost slipped, I almost fell? Was it because he was so close to David and he watched every step David took? He had such confidence in his pastor, such confidence in his leader and yet he sees compromise in this man. He sees him committing adultery with Bathsheba. He watches David connive. He sees the lust that's in David, one wife after another. When God said don't have wives, he sees disobedience. Folks, David had a lot of problems in his life. And this pure-hearted man is walking with David. Was it because he was disillusioned because of the hypocrisy of someone who had a reputation of being so godly? Did he get disillusioned by his leadership? And he said, well my leaders have failed me. I'll tell you what, I've seen congregations when the pastor fails, the whole church fails. The church breaks up and people backslide and they say, well God didn't keep him, why would I ever believe God keep me? Folks, if you've got your eyes on the preacher and the preacher fails, you're going to fail. We're to honor those who preach the word. We're to honor them highly for their work's sake. But folks, if you are going to depend on the righteousness of a pastor and the holiness of a pastor and try to make that yours by rote or by identification is going to fail you, you have to have your own righteousness in Christ. Is this why Asaph is saying, hey look, I almost fell. Was it because David took a fall and David slipped and Asaph said in discouragement, that's enough, I can't handle this. No, that is not it at all. All right, you say brother David, what is the sin that Asaph is talking about? Here it is in one sentence and then we're going to open it up. Listen closely please, because the Holy Spirit wants this in your heart. It was the sin of making no sense of his suffering. The sin of making no sense of his suffering. Now that may not make sense to you now, but it will in just a moment. Asaph at this time is in the hot fires of affliction. He is facing great trouble in his life. He said he was plagued all day, chastened every morning. Verse 14, for all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning. And the Hebrew connotation of those two statements right there is simply this, expanded from the root words. Listen closely. Asaph was saying, I have been stricken violently with trouble. I'm beaten down every day. Every morning I wake up touched with sorrow, pain and grief. I feel I'm being punished. I'm in such trouble. It's painful even to talk about it. He said, I am plagued night and day. Every day I wake up, there's trouble on every side. He talks about it. He infers poverty because he looks at the riches of those around him who are wicked and then he looks at his poverty. He doesn't understand. Asaph considers all the trouble he's going through as a pure hearted believer. Then he looks around him at all the crowd of the wicked and the foolish. And he says, I struggle. I am strict in my walk with God. I do everything that's right. He's given me a pure heart. I sing and I praise and I play my tambourine in his house. I mean, my symbols, I praise God. I give my everything. And then he looks at this wicked crowd living without apparent pain, living high, enjoying life, fat with material blessings, having all that their eyes could ever want or need. And he cries that it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And this brings him to the brink of this sin of attributing God to unfaithfulness or unconcern. And basically what he's saying, does God keep books? Does God really see? You'll find that in verse 11. Is there any knowledge in the most high? Is there any knowledge in me? Is he taking notes of this? Is he seeing the disparity between the righteous who are doing right and suffering and the wicked going their own way and getting everything their heart desires? Have you seen that on your job? Have you? Have you ever wondered how your neighbor can afford such a car? And all the furniture? Have you ever wondered about all the blessings being heaped on people that live like devils? And you're sitting there trying to stretch your dollars. I was riding down West Side Highway a number of years ago with a man who'd been saved in our church. And Mr. Trump's great big yacht was parked there. And there was a helicopter on it. The attorney said, Pastor, I get so mad. He said, I get so angry. He has all of that and I have nothing. I'm sitting there thinking, you have nothing? He's got a piece of junk that's going to burn and you've got eternal life and you say I've got nothing? Did you hear his wife just spent five million dollars on her yacht and they call it a piece of junk? It won't even float. Save your money. Here's the sin. Verse three to nine. I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death. Their strength is firm. He said, look, I'm so weak. And they seem so strong. They're not weak like us, like me. They're not in trouble as other men. And what he's really saying, they're not in trouble like me. Neither are they plagued like other men, meaning me. Therefore, pride compassed them about as a chain. Violence covered them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness. They have more than their heart could wish. They're corrupt and speak wickedly concerning oppression. They speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens and their tongue walking through the earth. Look at me, folks. Asaph is going through a testing time. He has a period here right now in his thinking and in his mindset. I can't figure this out. I don't figure this walk with God at all. It's not making sense to me. And folks, if you're going to figure it out in a human sense, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't compute. It should be according to our human thinking that you give everything to God. You've got a clear path to glory. Nothing's in your way. No suffering, no trial. And we've got preachers in America trying to sell that. They need to sit down and talk with Asaph. He'd been there and back. Have you ever gotten up in a cloud hanging over your head every day? Come on now, in a time of testing or maybe in a time of apostasy or backsliding or coldness, and even in your best time with God, sometimes things that you say, Oh God, I know my heart. I know I'm walking the best I know how with you. And if there's anything in my heart, take it out. And you know that you have done everything according to the mind of God. Your heart is open. You're ready to be a living sacrifice to the Lord. And then your prayer is not answered. There's just no answer whatsoever. And then you wonder, God, why is it so hard? I remember, I think I told about it here a year or so ago. I was a year and a half ago. I was going through a trial and I was praying one night and I said, Oh God, you know my heart. You know I'm set on you. You know, there's nothing in this world I want. You know that I want only to please you. And I, I argued with him for 20 minutes about how good I was, you know, how faithful I was. And then I screamed at the top of my voice. I was in the neighborhood. God, why is it so hard to please you? I want to please you and I don't know how, and it's so hard. Have you ever prayed like that? Have you ever thought like that? You said no. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes. Now here's the point of danger. And this is where the slipping begins. Here's the break for fall into the abyss of doubt and unbelief. Verses 13 and 14. Verily, I have cleansed my heart in vain. I've washed my hands in innocency for all the day long. I've been plagued and chastened every morning. Asaph is so confused by his sufferings and his comparison to the easy life of the wicked around him. He nearly slips into a pit of absolute unbelief. He's ready to accuse God of forsaking him, of not being concerned about him, of abandoning him. And that's when you have to be careful when you're in a trial, in a test, or when there's calamity, or when you're in grief. I don't care how deep and hard that grief is. Humanity says, oh, just bleed with them. Yes, but God sees different because God is still in control. God is still on the throne. God is not forsaken. He said, I, I borrow your tears. Yes, I feel for you. I hurt for you. Yes, but I'm still God. I'm still on the throne. I have not abandoned you. I've not forsaken you. Hallelujah. Now, you, you may not be in Asaph's, Asaph's condition, Asaph's condition tonight. You, you may be in one of those spiritual highs. Everything going okay? Please enjoy it now. Thank God for it. But you see, you may know somebody else. And listen, this is dead serious. You may know somebody, a godly friend, relative, family member, church, somebody from the church, and they're so godly. And, and sudden calamity, trouble comes, and you say, why? So holy, they're so righteous. Like the young couple in their mid-thirties in, in, in a southern state. This, this man's faithful in the church, wonderful man of God, wonderful husband, loving father and, and husband, and, and never been sick a day in his life, and suddenly gets sick. And within a short time, he's dead. He leaves two children, a wife. She doesn't know what to do. And everybody around her, many of my friends even, couldn't understand. There was a question there. And, and they're, they're saying, this doesn't make sense. How would God allow that? Why would God allow that? Why is it so hard? You see, it may be somebody else. And you can have unbelief. You can fall into that pit. You can slide right into it. And he says, I almost slid into that pit. He, he's at this point right now. He said, I have cleansed my hands in vain. All of this sickness, all my Bible study, all my praying, all my fasting, all my digging in for God. It's been for nothing. It's been in vain. He goes through this now. He's being tested, like some of you being tested, maybe right now. Lord, sometimes I wonder if it pays. The more I try, the harder it gets. I got one amen right down here in the front. Oh, but you have to be careful at this moment. That is this horrible sin that damned all of Israel. It is unbelief. It is allowing those doubts to take root, those questions to dig in. And then suddenly you're hiding in that position. And then you stand up and say, no, I'm not going on. And Asaph came very close, he says, to falling and getting into a state of apostasy like the children of Israel. They never did. They died in the wilderness in their unbelief. 40 years of saying, it doesn't make sense. 40 years of saying it's too hard. And they died questioning God. And at the judgment day, they're still going to be saying it was too hard. What about this? And follow me very closely. Now, what about this? What do you do when all your plans and your dreams blow up in your face? You get a plan that you believe God's planet or dream that's planted by God in your heart, and you pray about it, you nourish it, and you go to the scripture and almost everything you read seems to encourage you in this dream, this plan that you have. And you feel so good about it. You make your plans, you go your way. And God seems to be blessing it for. And you say, finally, my prayers are being answered. I'm coming to the place now, finally, in my life where it's beginning to come together. And you've got this wonderful plan. You've got this wonderful dream. And you love the Lord, and you're walking with him. And you hear that still small voice, go, move ahead. And then all of a sudden, it blows up in your face. And it comes falling down and answers at your feet. And then the devil comes and says, aha, that's what you get for being so strict and walking so righteously before the Lord. Is that it? God allows you to be confused about his voice, does he? He leads you on, and then he drops you. He lets you see scriptures. He lets you hear voices. He gives you comfort. And then when you're ready to move in, finally, he abandons you. Talked to a young preacher recently right at that point. He said, I don't understand, Pastor Dave. I don't understand at all. This, I know there's no pride in my heart. I know there's nothing in my heart that's unlike Jesus. And I've prayed, and I've fasted, and God gave me this plan. And everything was going so fine. Then it suddenly just blew up overnight. It blew up. It's all gone. It's all gone. You know what I said? It wasn't, I didn't pity. I didn't sympathize. I had one word the Holy Ghost gave me. Don't let your faith be shaken. Don't lose your confidence in God. Let it all go. Let your dreams go. Let your plans go. God is still on his throne. Then the devil comes at that time and says, you can't hear God anymore. You've heard wrong so much already. Why would you trust any voice now? That's the trick of the devil, to never try to shut out what Jesus said, my sheep know my voice, they hear when I call. Now Asaph considered all these things, and then he concluded, finally said, this is all too painful for me. Folks, that's where I came to. Lord, I can't figure it out. It's too painful. So he said, I'm going to the sanctuary. I'm going to God's house. Hallelujah. When I thought of this, it was too painful for me, verse 16, verse 17, until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their end. He said, God says, I'm going to make sense out of this for you, Asaph. I'm going to talk sense to you. I'm going to explain something to you. And you know what the Lord said? He's sitting in God's house now and he's meditating. His heart's open now. He says, no, I'm not going, I'm not going to let the devil make me fall. I'm not going to slip into that abyss of unbelief. I'm going to, I'm going to go pray. I'm going to go talk to God. Folks, when that comes in, when the grief comes, when the temptation, the trial, get in the secret closet, don't get on the telephone, get along with God, cry your heart out to him, go to the sanctuary. He went to the sanctuary, said, then I understood. I can't make you understand. No preacher, no book, no tape is going to make you understand it all. But you get along with the father. He'll make you understand it all. Hallelujah. Boy, God's sure preaching to me tonight. He's preaching to me. Verse 18, surely God did set them in slippery places. Talking about the wicked, thou casteth them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation? It is a moment. They are utterly consumed with terrors as a dream when one awakens. So, oh Lord, when thou awakest, thou shall despise their image. He looked, you know, God's saying, you know what your problem in ASAP, you've been looking at the outward. You've been looking at the dream, that false dream, that bubble that they're all in. You're looking at the outside. He said, I'm going to tell you ASAP, that's a life of terror and dread. They're all living in terror. If you saw the heart behind all the wealth, behind all the facade, they are living in panic and terror. Leona Helmsley. Now, wait a minute. She's in the news today because she buried her billionaire husband who owns Empire State Building and a lot of real estate in the city. And she buried him today. And she told the press, you know what she told the press? She said today, or when he died two days ago, she said, my dream died yesterday. My dream died. Because you see all the billions, all the money, Empire State Building and all these can't give her one minute of consolation. And you know what's going to happen to the wicked all around you? And God's showing him and said, he's saying, look, that's not the real world. That's all of the false dream. That's just smoke screen. And all those people that look so happy, that are drinking and laughing, they go home and they cry. There's terror in their heart. They are full of dread. And he said, not only that, but they're going to have to stand me on the day of judgment. And I'm going to despise them at that day. Now you may feel despised, you may feel now, but when you stand before me, you're going to be embraced. You're going to be loved. He said, in fact, when God began to open his eyes, he said, my heart was grieving. I was pricked or convicted in my range of my heart. I got convicted because I was envious of that. That they're going to live for a few years in that dream world of panic and dread and then die in terror and have to face an almighty God and face an eternal hell. When I have the consolation of the Holy Ghost available to me, I have a heavenly father who cares about me no matter what I'm going through. And then when I stand before his throne, I hear well done, good and faithful servant enter into the joys of my father. Hallelujah. Asaph sees their dream bursting. Then he said, and also guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory whom have I in heaven, but the first none upon earth that I desire to on the now he's he's he's finally seeing the whole picture. Here's where it is. Here's where it is. Lord, there's nothing else in this earth, but you that matters, knowing you, loving you and trusting you come in what he's saying, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I was angry at you. I'm sorry. I accused you of being unfaithful. Who do I have, but you anyhow, you're in heaven and you're watching over me, my flesh and my heart faileth. In other words, I may falter. I may have weakness. I may have plague and chastening and trouble, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. He's the strength of my heart. He's rejoicing. Now he's come to rest. And then he, looking back, he said, I almost slipped. He said, I'm not the one who's slipping. God set them in slippery places. He says right here, God put them in slippery place. They're the ones that are slipping, not me. I'm holding on. Have you been slipping in your faith? This sin is unbelief. You say God can't keep you. You go through day after day, fearing that you're going to fall, that the devil's got more power than God who abides in you. That's unbelief. Get your eyes off people. Get your eyes off the rich. Get your eyes off the poor and get your eyes on your strength. He is my strength. Musicians, he's the strength of my, you know that he's the strength. Musicians, can we, can you come, will you stand please? He's the strength. Hallelujah. Question. Look at me, folks. Question. Are you going through a time of plaguing or chastening or hard times? Come on now. Don't put up your hand. I don't want anybody to think anything about you. It's between you and the Lord. Are you going through a very, very hard time in your life that you can't make sense of what's happening? You don't understand it. It seems so hard. That evokes question number two. Balcony to a floor. How are you handling it? How are you dealing with it? Is there a doubt? Do you have the slightest hesitation about God's faithfulness in your heart while you stand here now in this place? We can talk about cleaning up our lives. We can talk about, hey, I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't use drugs. I don't have any sexual problems in my life. And I don't look at dirty movies. You can list all of these things. If you've got unbelief, you're headed for hell. It's the most damning sin there is. If you have unbelief, you're not going to make it. There has to be something in you that cries out, oh God, I want to be delivered. If I'm starting to doubt you, I'm starting to slide. And the end of that slide is the pit itself of absolute apostasy and total fatal unbelief. The unbelief of Israel was fatal. It cost them everything. And unbelief, if it's not dealt with quickly, becomes so fatal, destroys their shipwreck all over. I have minister friends right now who are out of the ministry, mightily used of God, but it was not adultery that brought them down. It was not pornography that brought them down. It was this sense, God, I tried to do right, and you did me wrong. You didn't stand for me. You didn't protect me. You didn't guide me. You allowed the enemy to chew me up. And they're out. And many of them are not even saved today. They're not going to go to heaven. They're going to die and go to hell, because unbelief has consumed them and eaten up their souls. And this is serious business. And God's made it clear to me tonight that this has to be dealt with. Folks, God's been dealing with us about so many things. You might stand here and say, Brother Wilkinson, when does all this dealing with sin end? When the Holy Ghost is ready. When the Holy Ghost is ready. When he says enough is enough. That's for me. It's for all of us. We just walk with the Holy Spirit. But I don't know about you, but I don't want a shred of unbelief in my life. I want to trust God that he's my strength, no matter how weak I feel, no matter what I'm going through. There's got to be something to say, God, you're going to see me through. Live or die, I'm going to trust God. Live or die, I'm going to trust the Lord. Hallelujah. The Holy Spirit gripped your heart and he said to you, this is for you. This is for you. And if the Holy Spirit at the same time is asking you right now to deal with it, if he's fingered unbelief in your heart, don't go another minute with it. Don't allow it another minute. Now, the altar call tonight is only for those who are going through this deep, deep testing, this hard plaguing. You're in a plague. You're in the most difficult time of your life. And maybe your faith has been wavering. Wherever you're at, all over the house, come. If you're not right with God, if you if you've backslidden, if your heart's grown cold to the Lord, come with these who are coming right now, because the Lord wants to bring faith to your heart. He wants to remove, pluck out the roots. If you've been sliding, God wants to end that slide right now before you slide right into the abyss of unbelief and hardness. Amen. You come as the Spirit draws you. Hallelujah. You still come. The Spirit of the Lord's moving upon your heart. Obey him. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Holy Spirit. Blessed Holy Spirit. You that have come forward, you can still come while I'm talking. Look this way, please. Just listen to me for a moment. I want you to get one thing in your mind right now, please, before you say another thing or before you pray a prayer. Get this in your mind. God has a purpose for everything he does or allows. God has a purpose. And he doesn't always show us that purpose. Sometimes he allows us to be blinded to it so he would prove our faith. We have to walk in total blindness sometimes and just totally committed to the Lord. We have to just put it in his hands, saying, Lord, I don't understand this. But you say, Lord, it comes to place where I don't have to understand. I don't have to understand it anymore. Lord, I'm going to commit my life to you because I know that whatever you are allowing, whatever you're doing in my life, you have a purpose. You better believe it. You better believe it. If calamity, if death strikes at a home, you can believe with all my heart. I don't, you know, fatalism says what will be will be. No, we say God's will be done. God has a purpose. That's not fatalism. Fatalism puts it in the hands of fate. We put our lives in the hands of God, in the hands of a loving father who numbers the hairs of our head, who has wonderful thoughts toward us, who has a plan for our lives. And you have got to believe you've got to start your faith on that, build your faith on that. I don't understand this, but God must have some purpose. He has to have some plan in mind. And he does and say, God, I'll just walk one day at a time, trusting you, you, you, you show me what to do. You give me the wisdom. Listen to me, please get up every day, do as I do every day. I pray for wisdom to know how to go out through that day and to make the moves that I have to make. I pray in faith. He said, ask if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth generously to all men and holds back not he doesn't upbraid, but ask in faith, because if you have any unbelief or you waver, you don't get anything from God. I ask an absolute faith. God give me wisdom. He gives me the wisdom for that day. He doesn't give me wisdom for two days. He gives me wisdom every time I ask for it. And he'll give you the wisdom to know what to do. He doesn't have to send an angel. He sends wisdom and he'll give you the wisdom to know how to do it. He'll give the wisdom, how to get your bills and your house in order. He'll give you wisdom to how to make telephone calls to who and when he will give you wisdom. He uses, he uses his wisdom. If you will trust him and you ask in total confidence, I want you to pray this prayer with me right now. Jesus forgive my unbelief. Pluck the doubts out of my heart. Take it all away. Heavenly father. I know you're my God. You're faithful to me. I've been hurting. I've been in trouble, but I want to trust you. Forgive my unbelief. Release me from it. Oh Jesus, give me wisdom to know what to do. And how to act in my time of trouble. I will go to your sanctuary. I will go to prayer and I will seek your face that you may lead me and guide me. Jesus, I trust you to see me through. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Give him thanks in your own language, in your words. God, I thank you. I thank you, Jesus. I praise you, Jesus. I worship you, Lord.