The Man Who Missed Christ

The man who missed Christ. I want to show you this morning the most tragic man in history. He's not Judas, he's not Herod, he's not even a hater of God.

He's the son of David, he's a king in Jerusalem, and he's a type of the saddest, most pathetic man on earth. And you please hear me when I tell you that an Old Testament king, years before Bethlehem or Calvary, missed Jesus Christ. You say, how can a man miss Christ, centuries before he was born? You know that Christ is revealed all through the Old Testament.

In fact, that's the prime reason for it's been given. And I like what Arthur said, I see Jesus in everything. And when you get into the heavenlies, that's what happens.

The first thing you see Jesus, all through the Word. Remember Jesus on the road to Emmaus? He revealed himself to two of disciples about the truth of himself in the Old Testament, and beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scripture the things concerning himself. And from his own lips, Christ declared that he was to be found from Moses right through the prophets.

He said the children of Israel did eat the same spiritual food, they drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ, all through the Old Testament. Christ the rock was in the wilderness, he followed them, they ate and drank of his spiritual food. Solomon drank of the spiritual drink, and he ate the spiritual food.

And for a time, this king brought the beloved into his chambers, and he rejoiced in his intimacy and his love. Solomon had been to the Lord's banqueting house. He sat under his banner of love.

He had great wisdom, and in the spirit he touched the rose of Sharon. He'd been to the Valley of the Lilies, he touched him. He sat under the shadow with great delight.

He felt Christ under his head, and his right hand had embraced him. His greatest delight had been the sound of his beloved's voice. This is Solomon.

But there came a time when that beloved's voice was heard to say to him, Solomon, my beloved, rise up, my love, my friend, my fair one, and come away. My beloved, come with me. There's no mistaking the message, I see it so clear.

Solomon was hearing the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. A call to satisfy his soul with nothing but spiritual drink and spiritual bread. It was a call to go beyond his wisdom to a rapture in Christ.

To behold the love of his soul and be transformed in his inner man. It was a call to rid his vineyard of every little fox that was spoiling his vine. It was a call to his inner man to reach out into the deep.

To a spiritual green pastor of revelation. To behold the Lord high and lifted up. He was being called to a feeding ground among the lilies.

Solomon was told, turn, my beloved. Be thou like a roe or a young deer upon the mountains. Come and pant after your beloved as the deer pants for water on Mount Bethar.

Did Solomon hear the cry of the beloved? For a separated life, a life of total devotion? Is this man going to rise up and shake himself? And shake off everything that binds him to this earth? Is he going to escape to the mountain with God? Is he going to answer the high call to come away? Two times this man of God heard it, come away with me. Is he going to turn away from the queen of Sheba and sit at the feet of his beloved? Is he going to forsake all the good things God gave him? The applause, the center stage, the pomp, the wealth, and consider it all vanity and vexation? Is he going to rise to a high calling in Christ Jesus, his beloved? Is he going to recognize even the good things God gave him can blunt his vision and send him to hell? Is Solomon really ravished by the beloved? Is he going to stay up all night yearning after him? Is he going to get himself away to the mountain to hear the call? I don't know if there's a problem in this man's life. There's a controversy at the center.

He's a man full of lust. This man of God had a thousand little foxes in his vine eating away at the fruit. But King Solomon loved many strange women.

Of the nations which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go into them, and surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. But Solomon claimed unto these in love. God's not going to be mocked.

God will not be mocked. No matter that this man is a gifted man. Sometimes the most gifted preachers on earth are tricked by the smallest things.

He was trying to have the best of two worlds. He wanted to run off with his beloved for a time and then off to his little foxes. But the Bible says it came to pass.

When Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods. And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord.

There you have it in all of its ugliness. The beloved says, come away. And the scripture says, and he went not.

Let me show you what happens to a man who misses Christ. It's tragic. And these lessons should shake us to the spiritual marrow of our bone.

I've wept over this and I've cried because I've seen myself in it. And I thank God he rescued me before it was too late. God's saying something in this tragedy to us.

The first thing that happens to a man who misses the high calling of God in Christ, God stirs up his adversaries. And the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord his God of Israel, which had appeared to him twice. The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from his beloved.

This man was about to jeopardize everything God had given him. God was now his adversary. The kingdom was going to be rent from his hands and given to another.

And in essence, God was saying to Solomon, I'm not going to take away all of it at one time. I'm going to leave you just a shadow of what you once were. People won't see any difference outwardly.

The shell will still be there. It'll be intact, but inwardly you're going to disintegrate. You will know that I'm not working with you anymore.

You'll be aware that the anointing is lost. You're on your own, Solomon. You're going to hold your idol.

You've played with your sin. You want it. You can have it.

But you're going to lose the anointing in the process. And God lifts his hand from this servant. And from that day on, the hedge was down, and God stirred up his enemies to harass him.

And the Lord stirred up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. And then in verse 23 of 1 Kings 11, and God stirred him up another adversary, Razon, the son of Eliadah. It's a tragic mistake.

It's tragic to mistake the judgment on sin and chastisement for the work of Satan. It's wrong to blame the devil if God is behind it. Now I want you to see something here.

God still loved this man. But he stirred up these enemies. Satan was the tool, but God was the moving force behind it.

God was trying to bring his man to his senses and restore him to this intimacy to get him to the mountain. King Hadad, who for 20 years couldn't touch him, suddenly is awakened with a vendetta in his heart. Perhaps he doesn't even understand it.

He wakes up one morning and says, Who does this man think he is, claiming to be such a great man of God, living in splendor, people flocking to hear him, bringing him their gifts, treating him like a god? Let's get after him. Let's expose him. Let's find his weakness.

King Hadad goes after Solomon. For years, Razon dared not lift a voice against Solomon. He was silent.

But now, because the hedge was down, on a certain day, his spirit is strangely stirred in him. He calls his counselors, and they too feel the same strange urge in them. Why, he's not a man of God.

He's a politician. He's got the queen of Sheba's ear. World leaders flock to hear him, listen to his counsel.

Let's stir up trouble and make things hard on him. This man is now our target. Let's bring him down.

And then the worst blow of all came from his own household. The son of a servant lifted up his hand against the king. This was Jeroboam.

This was a young man that he had trained and he loved. He'd placed him over the house of Joseph. The young man stabbed him in the back, rebelled, turned against Solomon.

All this broke his heart. Now, please understand, it's possible to suffer for the sake of righteousness. It's possible to be persecuted for Christ's sake, to preach such a gospel so strong that all hell is raised up against it to silence it.

But much of what we're seeing today in the way of persecution against our ministries, I've seen it against mine when I finally got honest about it. Most of it that I attributed to Satan was God speaking to me. Because, you see, if a man of God won't humble himself and forsake the flesh and the world and his idols and sin, God has every right to raise up adversaries against him to bring him down.

If God's men won't lay aside their politics and get back to preaching the cross and allow the Holy Spirit to humble and purge them, God has every right to stir up the enemies to bring them back to the cross. This was a man of God we're talking about. The Lord had appeared to him twice.

He was mightily anointed. But now Solomon had to deal with God and not the devil. I'd much rather deal with the devil than God.

I'd rather fall in the devil's hand than fall in the hands of our holy God. But we're so blind we can't recognize God at work trying to ram the kingdom from disobedient servants, using adversaries to bring men of God to their spiritual senses, trying to put a stop to our sensuality and our compromise in our ministry. He's chastising those who've turned a deaf ear to the call of the Holy Spirit to a deeper life in Christ.

Now you may know of a righteous servant of God being chastised. He may be right now having all kinds of enemies stirred up. And I believe this is the kind of man I'm explaining right here now.

And this man is not seeking the spotlight. He's shot in with God and his message shows it. You see the devotion to Jesus Christ in him.

He's humble and spotless before the world. He becomes vulnerable. And you hear an awakened spirit for repentance.

And he lovingly presents the demands of the gospel. Satan goes after him physically, mentally, with every device in his arsenal. The press will crucify him.

Preachers will laugh and ridicule. But you know that man is pure in the eyes of God. You know it in your heart.

And God demands that you support him and pray for him. And the Lord's going to bring him to higher ground. And no enemy's going to touch him in the end.

No enemy! But here's another man of God. Here's another minister. He's under severe fire and persecution.

He's held up to ridicule. It seems like there's a conspiracy in the church to get him down, to hurt his ministry. One enemy lays off, another is raised.

He's accused. He's maligned. He's misquoted.

So he runs around looking for sympathy and love. And the applause from his friends keeps him temporarily encouraged. Because people will pat him on the back and say, Right on, brother.

Yet deep in his heart, there's a suspicion that God's behind it all. Somewhere he knows he's missed it. He's been too busy, too famous, too self-centered to hear the high call of God to go deeper in Christ.

And yet all the discerning Christians know it. They see what God's doing. They can tell it.

They can sense it. I can tell when a man preaches anymore. I can tell whether it's the devil or God.

Sure you can. If I'm being harassed by ungodly enemies, I'd better find out who sent them, God or the devil. And if they're sin in my life, I know who sent them.

I don't need to send out mail asking people to give me money to fight the devil. If God's against me. The second step downward is the loss of the beloved's presence.

And listen to this pitiful cry. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. My soul failed when he spake.

I sought him, but I could not find him again. I called him, but he gave me no answer. Isn't that pitiful for a man of God to pray like that? You begin to feel sorry for this man now because you still sense hunger and need for intimacy that he once knew, but this man's not willing to pay the price.

On one side he's still playing with his little foxes. He's lusting. And the other side he wants to continue his relationship with the beloved.

He comes stumbling out of his royal brothel, drunk on the wine of lust. And he walks the street saying, have you seen my beloved? Whether is he gone? Whether is he? And I see that all over the country. I have ministers feel the breaking in my heart.

And they know where I was. They know how hard I was. They know how I stood and tried to correct the whole church thinking that I was a prophet and I'm not a prophet.

But they saw the ugliness in me and they see the awakening. And they'll go out to lunch with me and you'll see the tears roll down their cheek. And they'll say, I'm in this big building program and I don't know why.

I was with the pastor recently in one of the biggest Pentecostal churches in America. He said, Brother David, I've built one of the biggest churches in this state. And I've wanted to reach this goal.

And I walked in here last night to kneel at the altar before the service to thank God for all the blessings. And he said, I felt prostrate. I realized that I was the biggest fool in this state because my goals were wrong.

I've not been touching God. I was doing this for myself. I tried to be the biggest church.

I'm so sick and tired of hearing of the fastest growing churches in America. It makes God vomit. He said, just to see the tear in your heart, Brother David, I want God.

He said, I go up and down and say, Lord, what happened? Where did I lose you? What happened? I used to pray. I used to stand in the pulpit and weep. My altars were filled and now I'm cold.

I'm preaching sermons. There's no life. I'm ministering death.

But you see now the substance is gone. It's just a shadow. The beloved behind the lattice.

All he sees him now is a shadow through the lattice beyond the window. Because you see the beloved will not be intimate with unfaithful lovers. He will not be intimate with unfaithful lovers.

No wonder Solomon lost the vision of his beloved. No wonder the Lord didn't answer when he called. No wonder loneliness and despair set in him.

He was lost now to his lust. He'd been given over to it. And this man.

Oh, you've been there. I've been there. This man through his tears.

Had an awful foreboding in him. He keeps being drawn back to his sin. Time and again and he's torn between these two loves.

And there's a tension in him. It's indulge, repent. Indulge, weep.

Indulge, regret. Indulge, hunger for God. Indulge, pray.

But always the flesh prevailing. This cry. One pastor said, Brother David, for five years I was living in adultery.

But I preached my greatest sermons because I was crying all the time. And the tension. Nobody got saved but I was preaching the broken heart because sin was prevailing in me.

I was being blessed because I was crying all the time. Tension in me. And I see Christians who miss the high calling of God in Christ because of their lust and their sin.

And inevitably they're always remorseful. The joy of the Lord is gone. Where they once spoke boldly, they now ask questions.

Because there's only a boldness in those who are pure. The pure as bold as a lion, the scripture says. You don't have any more boldness than your purity.

If you have no purity, you're always saying there's a lion out in the street. They talk about their spiritual hunger and their need to go deeper in Christ. But it's just a shadow.

You look at the wistful look on their face. And they say, yes, I really do love the Lord. I need Him.

But I just can't break away from this thing that has me. I just can't look you in the eye, Brother Dave. Last night, it broke my heart.

I heard more confessions of adultery from preachers I've heard in my life. I can think of nothing worse on earth than to lose the sense of Christ's presence. Can you? Is there anything worse that can happen to a man of God than to lose the sense of His presence? And you look back on this sad picture and wonder how such a blessed and gifted man can trade his good name, his place in history, his kingdom, just for the right to indulge his uncontrollable passions.

He gave it up. Pastor, if you don't deal with it today, if you didn't deal with it last night, if you don't deal with it, the time's going to come you'll give up your ministry, you'll give up your wife, your children, you'll give up everything you have to do what Solomon did. You'll give it all up.

Is this the same man of God who once stood before all of Israel and preached this message? Listen to what this man of God used to preach. The Lord God of Israel, there's no God like you. You keep covenant mercy with your servants that walk before you with all their heart.

And yet you're the one who shuts the heaven when the people sin against you. And when a man begins to know the plague in his own heart, if he shall call on the Lord, the Lord will forgive and restore him. But if a man sins and God is angry, if he returns with all his heart and soul, God will hear and forgive him.

Then the Lord will never forsake or leave him, and God will maintain the cause of that servant from that day on. Why couldn't he see the plague in his own heart now? He preached it! What a powerful preacher he'd been, what light had flooded his soul. But now Solomon missed, missed the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

He winds up, makes you cry to think of this gray-haired old saint. I thought of Brother Ravenhill last night when I was thinking of this message. Can you imagine Brother Ravenhill, this great saint and my neighbor, 77 years old, walking around after having lost the anointed, running around on a cane admonishing young people, flee youthful lust, seek the Lord while you're young, before the time comes when there's pleasure in nothing.

That's all he could preach. There's no pleasure, all is vanity, I lost it, I lost it. Finally, when a man won't go away with his beloved, he's left with nothing but empty dreams.

Having turned away from a heavenly vision, he became absorbed with an earthly vision. Solomon became a builder. A man who turns away from the high calling of Christ Jesus turns to his architect and his builder.

He spends all his time with his contractor now. You see, here's the tragedy in the church today. The carnal mind looked upon Solomon as a man of great vision, daring, adventurous spirit, doing big things for God.

This man's projects were mind-boggling. Here's a man, the Scripture said, who had no time to come away with his beloved, but he found time to build many great works. He was gripped with the passion to build magnificent buildings and pools and vineyards and gardens and orchards.

He built the greatest temple in the world. He spent 13 years building himself a magnificent palace. He designed the most unusual summer house in the forest of Lebanon.

He constructed a hall of judgment, fortresses, stone cities, chariot towns. He built new cities all around, distant lands, six miles east of Jerusalem at Ein Kerem. He designed and planted the greatest garden and orchard and magnificent parks in all of history.

The world's never seen anything like it before or since. He built reservoirs and pools and aqueducts to carry water to Jerusalem and to water his nurseries. He became a cattleman, breeding great herds of cattle, sheep, oxen, horses.

He had 1,400 chariots, 12,000 horsemen. Josephus said that his chariot drivers drove around with long, flowing hair, wore tunics of purple, and their hair was sprinkled with gold dust. What a sight as he went to his palaces of pleasure.

The Queen of Sheba lost her spirit. The spirit went out of her. She saw all this glamour.

He built a navy. He dabbled in gold and ivory and silver and clothes and lumber and spices and peacocks, exotic animals from around the world. He built himself a great tone of ivory and covered it with gold.

His drinking cups were gold. There was so much affluence, nobody kept account. He lavished jewelry on his wives and on his guests.

He hosted the greatest feast in history, private choirs and private orchestras, wine, music, dancing. The Queen of Sheba was breathless. She saw that royal cavalcade, all that magnificence and splendor, the bodyguards, the cavalrymen, his attendants.

And yet the Queen of Sheba had no way of knowing that Solomon was to become the loneliest, most disillusioned man in the kingdom. He was going to go through the motions toward the end. Every new building program, every new acquisition left him inwardly shattered and disenchanted.

He would go after this seeking satisfaction. It didn't satisfy him. Every success in the natural realm made him more self-reliant.

He was a man of determination. He kept being buoyed by his visible success. That breaks my heart that God can touch a man or He can touch a ministry denomination and anoint it and touch it with the Holy Spirit.

And then it loses the anointing. It gets bogged down in busyness and activity. And God says, I have to call my people now by another name.

He lifts His anointing. And that ministry goes on on its own momentum. And it mistakes the busyness for the anointing because they can take you and say, look at all the letters coming in.

Look at all the people running around. And they mistake busyness for the anointing. He felt self-confident and superior.

His influence was growing. But you see, when visible things are the attraction, the heart grows cold. He became a slave to the visible.

And for a short while, this man enjoyed all his building programs. He could say, my heart rejoiced in all my labor. He said, then one day I looked and all the work that my hands had wrought and all that I had accomplished and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit and there was no profit under the sun.

I started to hate my life. The work that I did became a grief to me and I was left in despair. Why can't we hear that? Why can't preachers understand that? Why don't we understand it? I've built, the last five years, five million dollars worth of buildings.

For what? To walk up a path one day, that dream ranch of mine with a hundred, herd of a hundred black Angus cattle, twelve lakes, beautiful homes and offices and a Bible school. My dream. So empty.

And dry. And disillusioned. And so what do you do? You call your architect and you build another building.

You build another dream. And when you do that, it makes you all the more empty and all the more vain and all the more disillusioned and you end up in despair. And one day God said, David, the only way for you out is to give it up.

Walk away from it. And I walked away from it. And I'm never going back.

I won't build a chicken coop. Please turn the tape over for the remaining part of this message. I'm not against building.

God has his builders. I want you to know that God has his builders. But the men of God build only out of need, not just to satisfy some ego scratching them.

Out of need. And now I can say since I've gone away with my beloved, I can say you can have this. You can have all the building projects.

Give me the revelation. Give me Jesus. I want to see his face.

Let me have him. Hallelujah. You can have it all.

I don't want it. How sad. Here's a man admired as a man of vision and drive.

The crowds are saying, Isn't he doing great things? They didn't know. Some of the major ministries in America call you on the telephone. They'll say, David, it's not just us being awakened.

There are many, many more. God's awakening all. And they say, You know, I'm building $10 million, $15 million.

And if I could, I'd walk away from it right now. Somebody could come in here because I'm so empty and I'm so dry. What happened? How did you walk away from? And what God will do, he'll come to you, pastor.

He'll come after you time and time again, say, I want you to come away. I'm your beloved. And he'll stir you.

You'll go away. You'll start. You'll go weeks.

I'm going to fast and pray, but you come back and you don't pay the price. You don't go all the way. And the Lord will allow you to do that so long.

And finally, he'll create a crisis in your life that you can't get out of. And information won't get you out. You're going to have to have a revelation from Jesus Christ.

He'll bring it down. He'll stir up your enemies until finally, you've got to run to the mountain. He'll bring you up.

He has to. He'll get you there because he loves you. And he created a crisis in my life.

Look, a little woman up here with seven operations for cancer and a daughter with cancer. I came to the place where I didn't care. My ministry didn't mean anything to me anymore.

Nothing. Until finally I said, Jesus, I want to see nothing more than Paul said. I want to know nothing among you.

Saving Jesus Christ and him crucified. Lord, if I can't have that, I don't want to preach the gospel. Let me dig a ditch.

I've been there. I know that sinking feeling, that sense of utility. When people say you're a man of vision, you're really doing things for God.

And I was spending time with my architect. I was pouring over plans for hours. And I said, I'm building for Jesus.

I wasn't building for Jesus. I was building for David Wilkerson and everybody knew it. God knew it.

How tragic to take our ego plans and say, I'm doing this for Jesus. One day, God said, David, you've been going the wrong way. Come away to the mountain, come to the Valley of the lilies.

I want to show you the rows of Sharon. Come on, embrace me. I'm going to satisfy you.

I'm going to satisfy you. Hallelujah. I'm going to take you into the third heaven with Paul.

I'm going to show you my glory, show you my face. And when you see that, you won't want anything else. I'll be everything to you.

I'll be full satisfaction, full joy. Now, you look at everything Solomon built, you'll discover he tried to recreate maturity, what he lost spiritually. Aqueducts and pools instead of living water.

Green pastures and the cool waters of Ein Kerem instead of the beloved's green pastures at Psalms 23. A gold-plated temple in Jerusalem instead of a spiritual temple of the Holy Ghost. His own cattle on a dozen hills rather than his cattle on a thousand hills.

Choirs of men rather than choirs of angels. A throne down here rather than a throne up there. The chariots of Solomon instead of the chariots of fire.

A palace here rather than a mansion there. Gold-paved streets in Jerusalem rather than gold-paved streets in the New Jerusalem. It's obvious that a man who loses touch with God tries to recreate with his hands what he loses in his soul.

Do you think that a real man of God has time in these last days to play with toys? To fulfill his earthly dreams, he said. I hear preachers say, fill out your dream. There is only one dream, it's Christ.

There's no other dream. Why are so many censure men of God bogged down in so many projects, massive projects, time-consuming dreams, running out every day to that building project, watching every brick go on brick when they ought to be going away with their beloved and standing in the pulpit saying, thus sayeth the Lord. Our congregations are crying for that.

Congregations are crying for men that can stand and feed their soul. And pastors, if you don't, they're so hungry they're going to go somewhere and get it. You'll lose them, they're going to go because God's doing a new thing in the land.

Now let's close and talk about Paul, the man who won Christ. Yea, doubtless I count all things but loss. For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I do count them but dung that I may win Christ.

Now like Solomon, Paul had two calls of the beloved to go away. Once on the road to Damascus and then at the house of Judas in Damascus when he received the Holy Ghost. Do you know that Paul could have gone forth right after that with his glorious testimony of his supernatural conversion? He could go out under the anointing of the Holy Ghost because weren't the fields white under harvest? Weren't people dying and going to hell? Can God spare His man to go away with the beloved? But Paul heard the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

How thrilling it would have been to hear Paul fresh from this great conversion, fresh from this anointing of the Holy Spirit. How comforting, how great to sit under that preaching. But Paul runs after his beloved instead to Arabia.

He was mad by all our evangelistic standards, all of our evangelical standards. This man is mad because he's just been awakened, he's just been anointed. God's doing something fresh in his life and he's running off to Arabia.

Souls were needing him. Fields are white to harvest. Instead, he goes into isolation.

He's leaving all the religious demands behind him. He's forgetting everything now. They're pressed toward a prize.

Arabia becomes the green pastures, the Valley of the Lilies, a banquet hall of love, a feast of living bread. It was in that desert of Arabia the rose of Sharon was shown to him in all of its glory. I'm on the third month of a one-year sabbatical.

And I'm not turned back because how many times God told me to go all the way and I'd go so far and back off and that's the trouble, Pastor, and you know it and everybody in this building. God will come to you and say, go all the way and we keep backing off. And I said, Lord, this one time I'm not backing off.

I don't know what it's going to cost you. I'll tell you one thing, I don't believe that you can really pastor a church of the Spirit anymore and have a real touch of God unless you're spending two full days alone. And don't tell me you don't have time.

That may cost you golfing on Thursday or something else, but if you don't have two full days shut in with God, and I mean all day long shut in with God, get away from that telephone and you get into the heavenlies with Christ Jesus. And you come into that pulpit, Pastor, with the anointing, having been to Arabia with Paul, having gone to the mountain. Somebody has to hear this call.

Come away, my beloved! Come away! Paul, there's an urgency in so many people, but I got sick and tired of having awakenings. I said, Lord, I don't want just an awakening anymore. I want to be ascended with Christ and seated at the right hand of the Father hidden in Christ Jesus.

Is there something in you that keeps saying to your heart there's got to be more than I have? There's got to be more. I'm finished. I look back.

I told Peter, Lord, I've wasted so much time and my prayer has been lately, God, just please give me enough time to make it right, make it up. I've wasted so much time. I've played so many games.

I've fooled with antique cars. Everybody told me you had to have a hobby. I didn't know that when you're in Christ you're so satisfied and filled that you don't need hobbies.

We're wasting time. I don't want to miss what God's doing. He's doing something all over the world.

There's a hunger, there's a thirst, there's an awakening. Never in all the history... I started preaching when I was just 14 years of age and I have never in all the years I've preached seen so many hungry preachers and those that come weeping and broken. It's amazing the hunger and the thirst.

That's not enough. That comes till you press in now and say, Lord, I'm going to deal with my sin. I lay this idle down.

I want the open heaven. I want to ascend to the throne. Do you stand here with a controversy raging in you yet? And this is sad.

This is really sad. That some of you have been all through this yet and you have not yet allowed the Holy Spirit to break you. That's the sad part.

Very sad. And I've had a grief in me all morning. I've been feeling a grief.

I thank God for so many preachers last night and ministers and others that felt the melting of the Spirit. But there's some of you who've sat all through this and you've still not dealt with the real issue. You've still not dealt with that one thing God's been talking to you about.

And you're wasting time. I'm just going to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you. If you feel don't move unless the Spirit moves you.

If you feel that there's a breaking, there's something you say, brother, I feel this remorse in me. I feel that I've been wasting time. I'm not the man or woman of God that I know He wants me to be.

I'm far, far from that. You can follow this wherever you are all over the auditorium. We can just turn this into a place of prayer this morning where you humble yourself before the Lord.

Oh, Holy Spirit, how gracious You've been. There's some men of God here. Lord, we're missing You.

If we don't deal with sin, we're going to miss it. Lord, don't take the anointing from us. Don't lift Your hand from us, Jesus.

We humble ourselves. Humble ourselves before You, Master. Hallelujah.

Call on the name of the Lord. Get honest with Him. Call on His name.

Lay it out before Him. Then let the Holy Spirit purge you. Hallelujah.

Lord, deal with every spirit that would disrupt that moving of Your conviction in our hearts. We really feel God wants to heal some hearts here. Man, if you've been through this so far and you haven't let God break you, let Him break you now.

Let Him break you. Humble yourself, Pastor, Deacon, whoever you may be. Humble yourself before the Lord.

Don't let me push you. Don't do it unless the Spirit tells you. But man, if He's talking to you, get it out.

Settle it right now. I'm not trying to build up numbers at this altar, but man, if you... Jesus, be glorified. Jesus, be magnified.

Holy God, You'll not be mocked by us anymore. Holy God, You'll not be mocked. God, give us a glimpse of Your presence.

Hallelujah. Lord, when You're present, You deal with sin. You humble us.

You break us. Oh, the awesome presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Come.

Manifest Yourself to us, Jesus.