We Have Each Turned to His Own Way

We have turned everyone to his own way. Isaiah 53, 6. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

On my way up here, on my bus coming from Texas, it took two days to drive up here, and I had two beautiful days with the Holy Spirit opening up the 14th chapter of Mark. And it's wonderful when you see a chapter and you read it, read it, and you don't see it, and then suddenly the Holy Spirit just opens it up to you. And I want to share it, and I know that I preach this in divine order.

In this powerful chapter, we've got a betrayal by Judas, we've got a denial by Peter, and we have a forsaking by all the disciples. We have three tragic stories in one chapter of how very close followers of Jesus failed him at the midnight hour. These three stories are not given to us just to tell a story.

These three stories are being repeated in the church of Jesus Christ. They're being repeated here because the spirit of Judas is in this house tonight, the spirit of Peter is here, and this forsaking spirit is in this house tonight. And I want God to use this chapter and the revelation of his spirit to show us how we've all turned every man to his own way.

All right? We have, first of all, the story of Judas and how he turned to his own way. Here's the question I want to ask you now. How can a man that was one of Christ's chosen disciples, a member of his inner circle, end up betraying his own Lord? The Bible says he called his twelve.

That includes Judas. He called him and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

Now, you've got to understand that Judas had received an anointing, that he was sent forth to heal the sick and cast out devils, and he did just that. Judas was a preacher of the gospel of the kingdom. Judas had been called by the Master.

He was one of his inner circle. He was a disciple, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had caused demon powers to flee.

This man had heard Christ teach the multitudes. But remember what Jesus said, they have eyes to see, but they don't see. They have ears to hear, but they don't hear.

But it's given unto you, Judas, Peter, James, John. It's given to you to understand. So his eyes were not blind, his ears were not heavy.

He saw and he heard and he understood. Jesus had said, it's given to you to understand what I say. He had heard him speak of the rich man of Lazarus.

He'd heard the Master cry out, beware of covetousness. Think of the parables this man heard Jesus teach, the prodigal son, the rich young ruler, the wicked husbandman. He was there when Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem, when people were taking palms and singing hosanna.

He was there. He was there when Christ fed the 4,000. He was there when Christ fed the 5,000.

He was there when Jesus walked on the water. He was there when Jesus said, be still, wind and wave, and to command over the forces of nature. He was there.

He walked and he talked with God in the flesh. Judas, in spite of all this, turned to his own way. There was something wrong in this disciple.

In the midst of all this, he was changing as a human being. He was changing as a minister of the gospel. There was something debauching his inner man.

There was something eating away at this man's spirit. Now, Jesus knew Judas had a problem when he called him, because Jesus knew all things. He read their minds when he called them.

He saw them under the tree. He saw them at their nets. Jesus knew what was in their hearts and their minds.

Jesus knew he had a secret lust in him when he called him. But you see, Jesus is willing that no man should perish. He was not preordained that Judas should fall.

He was not called as a devil, because the Bible pinpoints the very time the devil entered his heart. He was not called as a devil. He was not a devil to start with.

This was a miracle-working minister of the gospel of Christ. Judas started out with a very sincere heart. He was mightily used of God, but he became a demon-possessed man.

Because, you see, Judas had one besetting sin. He had a secret lust that he wouldn't let go. Now, for Judas, it was the love of money.

It was the love of silver, a lust for silver, a lust for gold. And on one black, horrible day of infamy, Judas makes a fatal decision. He gave himself over to his lust.

And I want you to listen to how cold and calculating this man has become now. This one who had been anointed, this one who had been casting out devils and healing the sick, listen to this now. It seems incredible.

This same man. Then Judas Iscariot went under the chief priest, and he said unto them, what would you give me if I deliver him to you? And they agreed to thirty pieces of silver. And from that time on, Judas sought an opportunity to betray him.

Now, I've read a lot of books that say, that try to justify Judas' acts in saying, well, he thought that the kingdom was going to be set up on earth, so he thought he'd put Christ under pressure and betray him, so he'd have to display his power. Oh no, there it is. It's cold and calculating.

What do you give me? What's he worth if I deliver him to you? This is mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling how a man who'd cast out devils, who'd healed the sick, who had heard all this unbelievable teaching from the very lips of God himself, because Christ was God in the flesh. How unbelievable.

And what is even more incredible, even after he had given himself over to his lust, the Lord speaks to him one last time. It's at the Passover, it's the Last Supper, and Jesus looks across the table at all of his disciples, and he said, I tell you tonight, one of you, one of you at this table is going to betray me. He'd dip his hands with me in the dish.

The saints have betrayed me. Then Jesus, then Judas, looked at the master and said, is it I? And Jesus said unto him, you've said it. Thou say'st it is what he said, you've said it.

What would you have done if Jesus would have looked right, looked you right in there? This is God looking in his eyes. And he says, you are the man. What's happened to this man? What happened to this man that he could look in the very eyes of God himself? Then entered Satan into Judas, one of the twelve, one of the great men of God, Satan entered his heart.

He had not entered to that point. Do you understand that Satan entered that man at the communion table, at a worship service, surrounded by holy men of God? Now what was the real sin of Judas? It goes beyond the love of money. And it was not the kiss in the garden.

In fact, it was not even the fact that he turned him over to the high priest and to the mob, because that was prophesied. If Judas had not done it, another would have done it. That was prophesied.

Judas did not have to be the man. And it was not the kiss, and it's not so much the betrayal. Here's the real sin of Judas.

Judas grew hard in the midst of so much light. Who could have had as much light and opportunity as Judas had? How can a man get hard? How can a man sell his soul to the devil, when he is hearing the gospel coming from the lips of God himself? While the Spirit of Almighty God is moving, while he sees miracles, he saw the dead raised. He saw the dumb talk.

He saw the ears unstopped. He saw the blind eyes opened. He saw the Son of God take control of nature itself.

He was there when he saw the multitudes being fed. He was one who picked up a basket. He had one of those baskets loaded down with the bread and the meat.

And here he is now, turning to his own way, turning hard. The Spirit of Judas is still in the Church of Jesus Christ today. And it's happening in the inner circle now, more and more.

It's happening to some of the best servants of God. Isn't it tragic that we in America today have probably more preaching coming at us than any generation? We have more light being shed on our society 12,000 times a day. Hear it now, 12,000 times a day the gospel is preached on radio in America, 12,000 sermons a day.

Turn on the television, you get Billy Graham, you get Oral Roberts, you get PTA, you get Centerville Club, you get all the local shows, you get it, you get it coming and you get it going. Some of you people sitting here tonight have heard enough gospel to save China. Oh, it's happening to ministers.

Even those who are in healing crusades. It's happening to associate pastors. It's happening to choir members.

It's happening to deacons. It's happening to those who are in the inner circle, who will do anything for Christ. They'll do anything for God.

Oh, they've been active for Him. They have been in the house of God. And what an awesome warning Jesus gave.

Many, many will come to me on that day saying, Lord, Lord, have we not cast out devils? Have we not healed the sick in your name? Have we not done mighty works? And Jesus will say, depart from me, you work of iniquity, I never knew you. He didn't say a small segment of society. He said a whole segment.

He said many, many. And when the Lord says many, many, you've got to believe it's a lot. Judas permitted this little idol he had to get out of control.

Now, it would have been different. To my thinking, it'd been different when Jesus said to Judas, thou art the man. And Judas knew he had a secret lust in him.

It would have been different if Judas would have knelt before the master and said, Master, it's true. I have betrayal in my heart. I have a lust in my heart.

I'm about to sell you out. And I don't know where it's come from. I don't know what's happened.

I'm overwhelmed. Oh, Jesus, reach out, touch me, help me, deliver me. There's a difference.

David said this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and delivered him from all of his sins. What is your secret lust? What is that idol in your life? It can be sports. I know a lot of young people are going to go straight to hell because at one time they had a love for Jesus.

It was so on fire. And now they've been so wrapped up in their sports, they have no time for God. They have no time for the church.

They have no time for the Bible. Their sports will push crates right out the door. Not only young people, a lot of men I know, they have no time for Jesus.

You can't get them 15 minutes in the secret closet to pray, but they'll spend all day long watching one football game after another. They have all kinds of time to go here, go there, spend any kind of money on their sports and on their hunting. What is your lust? It can be the almighty dollar, just like Judas.

Oh, how many men and women are going to be in hell, who for the sake of the almighty dollar have lost their soul? Some of you men sitting here right now, that dollar is squeezing Christ right out of your life. Now, a man has a right to a living wage. You have an obligation to care for your family and you should carry that concern, but not to the point that you become possessed with it.

And there's an obsession for getting ahead in life. And the spirit of covetousness takes over you and you have to want more and more. And some of you dear wives are going to drive your husband to the grave because you want more and more, and because everybody has it, you want it, and you're never satisfied with what we have.

We're never satisfied. I don't care what we get, we're never satisfied. We're greedy.

We have a spirit of covetousness on us. That's the spirit of Judas. What shall the prophet of man have he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? And that's what I have against this preaching of success.

And generally you're going to stop and think about this, because if success is good, more of it is better and all of it is best. And where are you going to stop? Because if you stop, you break down your theology. And you have to go for the whole world, you have to go for the whole ball of wax, and that's where you go after it, and success becomes your idol.

I think it's abomination in the sight of God. It could be a secret sin, something God's been talking to you about week after week and month after month. There's a love affair.

There's fornication. There's a sexual lust in you. There's another kind of lust that's in you, and God's been dealing with you time and time again.

And all outside, just like Judas, you go through all the motions, and nobody can tell it. Nobody can tell it at all. And yet that thing is eating away at you, and there's an inner corruption.

Now it's one thing when you see it and admit it and fall on your knees and say, oh God, I'm aware of this thing in my life. Oh God, I despise it, I hate it. And you call upon the name of the Lord.

And you walk softly, you walk tenderly before the Lord. And you know your weakness, you know your frailty. And you tremble at your sin.

And you call upon His name for deliverance. That's one thing, because I promise you, if you keep holding on and you keep believing, God's going to bring you out and set you free. But if you learn to live with it, and you play with it and flirt with it, and you begin to just say, well, I have to live with it.

Oh no, you don't live with it, it'll finally overpower you. And one day you will sell your very soul for that sin that you don't lay down, that idol that's in your life. And I tell you, I have come here tonight under the anointing of the Holy Ghost to say the Holy Spirit is putting His finger on all sin in our lives.

It must go, it must be forsaken. If you do not, you open your soul to demon possession. You will get a hard heart, and you will hear the words that Jesus said to Judas, woe to that man that betrays me, better he were never born.

Oh friend, better you died in childbirth, better you died in the crib, than to go along all these years, sitting under Holy Ghost preaching, covering the altar of the Lord with your tears, and then mistreating your wife, or cheating on your husband or your wife, or killing this secret sinner, this adulterer, this fornication in your life, or whatever that is, the love of money, the love of other things pressing in on you. He said, you cover my altar with tears, but he said, I'm not listening to you anymore, I've shut my ears to you. No folks, there is not one man, not woman in this building, not one of us here that can look Christ right in the eye and say, I am guiltless, I am guiltless.

I tell you, I spent so much of my time on my knees before the Lord. It was the great Alexander White, the great Scottish Presbyterian preacher. He said, he said of all people, he was one of the greatest preachers ever lived.

I love his books. And he said, there's no greater sinner than Alexander White. He said, if people only knew my heart, and how that man wept over his weakness, how that man cried and wept every time he looked in the mirror.

And if you want to quit judging people, just take a good honest look at yourself, take a good honest look at yourself. And I'm not putting you down, I'm not trying to be condescending and say, well, I preached to you from a point of supernatural, some kind of victory. No, I am of the flesh, and this, this treasures in earthen vessels.

But one thing I know, he's given me a broken heart over my sin, and that's what God wants out of you, lest you commit the sin of Judas. And you go hard right in the middle of the Holy Ghost conviction. You go hard in the midst of Holy Ghost preaching, while the Spirit of God is moving everywhere.

You sit there and harden your heart, because you won't lay your sin down. This was the sin of Judas. That's what makes you a betrayer of Jesus Christ.

If you're going to go to hell over this, move to Africa, move to China, you have a better chance. God said, I have more tolerance for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than I will for you. He said, woe to you, Capernaum, woe to you, Chorazin, if the mighty works that I've done in your midst, if they'd heard my teaching, Sodom would have repented.

Better to have been a homosexual in Sodom, trying to rape those angels, than to sit in a Holy Ghost church and hold on to your sins and go hard. God said, I have more tolerance for the Sodomites of Sodom than for you. God gave me a concept of hell a few weeks ago.

It wasn't a vision, just I'm seeing glimpses of it. If you and I, as human beings, sinner, if you died and went to hell with your carnal human mind, you couldn't understand hell. There'd be no torment that you could comprehend.

But just as sure as the Christian gets a new glorified body, you're going to get a new body called a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction. And this vessel of wrath is going to have a mind in it that is going to have full knowledge. It's going to be expanded.

The Christians in the kingdom of God are going to have a mind that understands the glory of God, the purity of God, the holiness and righteousness. We are going to understand. The Lord said, everyone's going to know me equally.

You're all going to know me. My law's going to be written in your heart. You won't have to ask.

You will have a revelation. You will understand eternity. You will understand the glory is never ending.

You'll understand eternal life. But the man, the sinner that goes to hell, is going to have an expanded consciousness. This is the one that never dies.

And sinner, when you die and go to hell, and you who claim to be Christians, and you persist in holding on to your sins, and you won't let the Holy Ghost work in your life and deal with and bring you to a place of victory. Oh, I get so tired of hearing sinners say, well, I'll take my chance. I'll just die and take my chance.

Not if you knew what was waiting for you. Not if you knew what hell was. Because when you go to hell, the first thing you get is a conscious, expanded consciousness, that you're going to be able to understand the righteousness of Jesus.

You're going to understand the fullness of the gospel. You're going to understand what heaven means. But more than that, you are going to understand what eternal damnation means.

Your mind is going to grasp the endlessness of your judgment and wrath. That soul that is in hell, that soul that's in hell, is going to understand that this abandonment from God, this rejection that I've been given, is never-ending. You, in your carnal human mind, can understand eternity now.

You can understand that God had no beginning, and God has no end. And don't try to stretch your mind you could lose it. Don't stretch your mind you can't understand it.

But in hell you'll understand it. The first thing you'll know is how endless and how hopeless your condition is. You have a mind that comprehends it.

And I'm asking God to give you a mind to comprehend right now the love of Jesus Christ, that he comes to you with this message like he has in the 14th chapter of Mark. And he says to every one of you that have walked with God, every one of you, taste into the Holy Ghost. Don't trample the cross.

Don't do despite to the grace of Jesus Christ. Confess and be forgiven and forsake your sins. The Holy Ghost is saying to everyone in this building, every Christian and every sinner in this building, come right before you leave this building.

If you do nothing else, cross the line and say, oh God, I want you to help me hate my sin. I want to lay it down. Every minister, every Christian worker, and if you don't, God's about to expose it anyhow.

God's just sent a whole flock of divine birds going to fly in the window and carry it to the four winds. I believe that every man or woman of God that doesn't deal with the sin in their lives is going to be exposed before Jesus comes. Be sure your sin will find you out.

First it's going to find you, and then your family, and the whole world, and everybody's going to know. He said he's going to reveal all the secrets of men's hearts and lives. Now we come to the second story.

This is the story of Peter. Peter turned to his own way. Who could imagine this great man of faith would deny his Lord? Peter walked on water.

He'd been on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was ready to build three tabernacles all by himself. He had boasted that he would never fail the Lord, though all others fail you, Lord, not I. And Jesus tried to warn Peter that he was a proud man.

He tried to warn him that he was unteachable. I tell you, Peter, this is Jesus speaking, I tell you, Peter, before this night is over, you will deny me three times. What would you have done if Jesus came to you sad-eyed and just tapped you at the heart, and he said, you're going to let me down.

Your faith is headed for shipwreck. You've got problems in your life. There's something wrong, Peter.

You're proud. And Peter was angered by it. Peter should have broken down.

He should have fallen at the feet of Jesus with a broken heart and said, oh, Master, you know all things. Do you see something in me that I don't know? Am I blind to something? Can that be true of me, Jesus? I wasn't aware of it. Oh, Master, he should have grabbed his feet and said, Master, reveal it.

Help me. Lay your hands upon me. Bring me out of it.

But no, Peter's a proud man of faith. He knows it all. He's unteachable.

But Peter spoke even more earnestly, and he said, Master, if I should die with you, I will never deny you. Have you ever heard these people have this supernatural faith all figured out? You can have cancer. I've had people.

You and your family can have cancer, Brother D, but I don't allow it in my house. Last time my wife was sick, she got 17,000 cards and letters from all over the world. And finally, I had to quit letting her read them.

I had my secretaries. Most of them, I just said, I can't let her read them because one out of three were condemning her or me, trying to tell her she had a lack of faith or sin in her life or she had a grudge in her life and that cancer had been allowed. You can reach drug addicts, Brother D, but you can't keep your wife from cancer.

Hmm. Vicious. See, these people are always vicious.

Always vicious because they have it all figured out. And they'd say, I know my rights. And that's what Jesus had tried to tell Peter.

I'm going to suffer. I'm going to suffer. I'm going to die.

Peter said, no, you're not. In other words, if you don't know your rights, Lord, I'll claim them for you. Oh, we have, no, Lord, you're going to confess it and you're going to get it.

Just, I don't want anything negative. Don't want anything negative. You ever heard of negative or positive confession? Let me give you the world's number one negative confession.

Curse God and die. Job's wife, but she still got the blessings of Job anyhow. Sarah laughed at God and she still got her baby.

You see, I, I quit the faith game a long time ago. I don't play that game. Now you have it.

Now you've done as if Jesus tiptoes around behind you. Ah, I caught you. I knew if I waited long enough, you'd say the wrong thing.

You don't get it. Now it's all over. I can't serve a God like that.

Look, Job, Job's wife had lost 10 kids. How would you like to stand in front of 10 caskets? Her husband had elephant tassels. That means his loins were dried and there was no future children in his loins as far as she could see at that time.

And she was angry. She was confused and God couldn't show her that this was a heavenly drama that her husband was caught up in. And so he was patient.

She came through it. You can get, you can get so down. You'll say things.

Oh, I remember when my wife was in to last year, my wife was in a psychiatric ward for six weeks and my other daughter had cancer. And I heard all these things coming at me from people where there's a lack of faith. There's this sin in your life.

And, and folks, I'd have lost my mind if the Lord hadn't revealed something to me. You see, he said, even though you don't believe, I remain faithful. You see, Lord showed me something.

I've got a 17 year old son and behind our house is a big wooded area. Suppose my son, Greg was walking back there and he gets caught in an old abandoned bear trap and he's bleeding. He goes, dad, help.

I don't stand there and analyze the quality or quantity of his faith and say, I wonder if he believes I'll come. I don't go up to my boy in that bear trap bleeding and hurting and say, Greg, do you believe I'm going to open that bear trap? Repeat after me three times. Daddy, I believe you're going to open that bear trap.

I'm not trying to be facetious, but you know what? I go to that bear trap because I'm his father. He's my son. And he called and I heard him and I loved him.

I answered because I love him. God answers his love for us. Oh, Peter though, he, you know, I don't care if everybody else doesn't have faith.

I've got it. Oh, how proud that makes people. Here is Peter with this kind of spirit.

And he's saying, master, I'm telling you, if I have to tell you again and again, he said he spoke even more earnestly. Not I, if everybody else fails, not I. Then who was the first to fail when the crisis came? Brother Peter. Now this proud, unteachable spirit is, I, as I see it, is the number one problem in the church of Jesus Christ right now.

This is the number one problem. We've got congregations now that will not take teaching that are becoming vicious, that will gossip about their preachers without any fear. There was a time people knew that the ground could swallow up and open them, open up and swallow them if they gossiped about the man of God.

I am shocked at the viciousness I see all over the country today. People are willing to just, I mean, the pastor gets up just as Jesus did before his disciple, the pastor before his disciples. After all, you're his disciples belonging to the Lord, but he's your shepherd.

And he stands up and he's saying you've got pride, you've got a problem, there's something needs to be dealt with, not me. Peter thought the Lord had to be talking about somebody else. I'm Peter, I'm the rock.

Pastors, I don't go to many churches anymore, I haven't been churches to preach, but I've been sitting out in the audience a lot of times and I've been preaching for 25 years and I have never in my life seen such pride and unteachableness in so many congregations today, so much so that when a church is without a pastor, there are many deacons who believe they've been anointed and they take over. I know one church waited a year before they got a pastor until every deacon got up there and gonna pastor the flock. Peter is in that judgment hall and he said, don't you know this man? He says no.

And the sin of Peter was not in swearing. Peter swore, but that was not his sin. And it wasn't so much that he was there with a spirit of rejection.

The thing that you and I don't really understand, when Peter said, I don't know the man, he was telling the truth. He said, I don't know him. I tell you now, I don't know him.

Now technically he may have been lying, but spiritually he was telling the truth, because he'd been so busy working with Jesus, working for Jesus, he missed the opportunity to get to know him. They didn't know him. There are a lot of Christians who don't know him.

Oh, they love the miracles. God wants you to know him. Oh, Paul said that I might know him.

Pastor, let's hear something else. One of my greatest griefs, and if I can preach them, we'll preach this way too, and I say it in love. One of my greatest griefs is that I meet so few ministers and evangelists who really know him.

Those are busy men, building buildings, building churches, and running and running and running. I talked to a pastor a few months ago of a large, large Assembly of God church. We're out to eat, and he said, David, I haven't prayed in a year.

Oh, he had, he had devotions every day. He read his Bible every day, but he really didn't seek God. I hear pastors talking about getting that prime property, and I think of all these buildings, and I'm not against buildings.

I'm not against expansion, but oh, there's so much running. There's so much busyness. That was the sin of Peter, that he got so busy working for his master, he robbed himself of the opportunity of really understanding and knowing his Lord.

And when God began to shake my life and began to deal with me, he showed me how far away I was from really knowing and understanding. And that's why tonight's my last crusade for four or five months. Now, I know pastors can't do that, but I remember talking to a dear pastor of a very, very large church with thousands of members less than a year ago, and he was so tired and weary and pushing and building, and I said, please take a month off.

You've got all those associate pastors. They can do without you. And I met with the deacons.

I said, sure, let him go, and I go to him. I said, go off for a month and shut yourself in with God. Refresh yourself and get to know him.

Stand in your pulpit now, for thus saith the Lord, so everybody in the house is moved to God. I'm not putting the ministry down. I love these ministers.

But I spent 20 years running, building. My altars were filled. I had as many as a thousand a night at the altars.

I've built in three years $5 million worth of buildings and headquarters and big staff, running all over the world. And then one day, God came to me. He said, I'm going to strip you down.

You've been working for me, but you don't even know me. And God shut it all down on me. And he's made time.

And if you really love him, he'll make time. He'll make time. Come on, not just pastors, but every one of us in this building right now.

This is the sin of Peter. We get to the place where we know it all. We don't need to be tired anymore.

We've walked with God so long, even ministers. I know ministers that have been in the ministry for 30 and 40 years, that are just repeating their old sermons. They haven't had anything for thousand years.

The Spirit would begin to move in our hearts again, that he would draw us. Don't even know the man. Now we come to the third group, and here's where the congregation is, moving away from the platform to you now.

They all forsook him and fled. They all forsook him and fled. Do you understand that even beloved John, Bartholomew, Matthew, they all forsook him and fled.

They all turned to their own way. Isaiah said, we hid our faces from him. We esteemed him not.

In other words, we really didn't give him credit for who he was. We didn't acknowledge him for who he really was. And you see the man coming into the garden, and they're leading their master away now.

It just blew the minds of these disciples, because these men that were dragging Jesus away were the same men that Jesus had driven out of the temple with cat and nine tails. He had stood in front of them and called them snakes and vipers, and they ran in fear. These were the same kind of people who tried to throw him off a cliff, and Jesus had disappeared from their midst.

And now, Jesus is saying, let it happen. When Peter cuts off the high priest, dear Malchus, here he says, let it happen. And if you read it in the original Greek, it says, just let this happen.

Let it happen. And Jesus let it happen. He was carried away like a common criminal.

And the disciples are saying, why didn't he call down that legion? Why doesn't he grab a cat and nine tail and call them snakes and drive away? Why doesn't he disappear again? You see, their master appeared weak now. He had told them, this night all of you shall be confused because of me. You're all going to be scattered like sheep.

I'm going to smite the shepherd. The shepherd's going to be smitten tonight. And they didn't understand it.

Oh, they saw it now. Everything was caving in. He was just a man now.

You say, if I had been there, I would have acknowledged him. I would have esteemed him right. I would have known he was the son of God.

I would have never forsaken him. Oh no, everyone, including me, everyone in this building, every pastor behind me, we would have all done the same thing because we are still doing it now. You look at that man being carried away, that man who rode the donkey, that man with not even a purse, that man with nothing but the clothes on his back.

That dear man who's being carried away by the mob, that's God. That's God. They're taking God away.

That's God in the flesh. But you'd never know it looking at him because he looks weak. There's no form of kindness.

There's no beauty. There's no strength at this time. He's weak.

He's frail. He's being given away as far as the eye can see. Oh, he could have called down a legion of angels.

He could have done anything. But where was a single disciple? Where was one single one of them could look at that scene and say, listen, he may look weak, but that's the son of God. That's God in the flesh, and that's what they didn't recognize, that that was God.

There's a little formula that we have misjudged that says that if any man confesses that Christ has come in the flesh, he's of the Spirit. No man can say he's come in the flesh, that Christ has come in the flesh, except the Spirit speak through him. Well, we're really not understanding that because even the devil does that.

I have all kinds of sinners that say, oh yeah, Jesus came in the flesh. That's not what it means. It means unless the Spirit reveals to you that that man who came in the flesh was God, he was God.

That was Almighty God who came in the flesh. Jesus was God in the flesh. Now here is where we're at now.

Please, if you didn't get anything else, get this with me, please. Please ask the Holy Spirit to make this real to you. We are right where those disciples were.

We have all turned to our own way. None of us has esteemed Him. We've never really acknowledged Him for who He is.

If you and I really believed that this Savior that we serve is truly God, if we really believed that the Creator of the universe abides in our hearts, if we really believed that the mind of Christ that is in us is the mind of God, we would not be fretting, we would not be working angles, we would not be trying to do things on our own power and strength, but the truth of the matter is we honestly do not believe in our hearts that God is in us, working in us, working things out through us. We don't believe that. Oh, we talk it, but we don't believe it.

These disciples spent three years talking about Him even before He left. Who do men say I am? And Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, but those were words. He didn't know it was God he was talking to.

Folks, we're in the presence of Almighty God. Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You've seen the Father.

Why, if you really believe that God lives in you, why do you not go into the secret closet and take your burden to Him in prayer? Like you said, when you enter the closet, shut the door and pray to the Father in secret, the Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly. Why don't you do that and then come out with confidence that you have prayed to God Himself, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, His ears open to the prayer, and the Bible says we know if He hears us, we have the petition we ask of Him. And if you really believe that, why do you go to the telephone and rehearse it to all your friends? Why do we have all these parachurch special ministries now in the house of God? Why do we have Christian psychologists and why do we have so many professional Christian counselors now? I'll tell you why.

There are not a handful of Christians anymore who really know how to get a hold of God and get a hold of Him by faith, saying, God is in my life, God's hearing my prayer. I had to deal with that in my life, finally. The sovereignty of Almighty God, that He abides in me.

I've got to believe that He's in this service right now, though I don't see Him. I've got to believe what He said, where we are gathered in His name, there He is. And I have to believe that in the eye of the Spirit, and you've got to believe that right now that God's involved in your life.

He's not forgotten your problems, He's not forgotten your sickness, He's not forgotten your family, He's not forgotten about your job, He's involved in every detail of your life. If He's numbered every hair on your head, God's involved. They all went fishing, they went back to the nets, or if they had believed that that was God, if they had remembered His words, He said, I'll go before you to Galilee.

Even when He was raised from the dead, they couldn't believe it. Have we learned anything? We've even got the story of how the disciples failed. That ought to be a lesson, and we still, even though we see all of this laid out before us, we still carry all these doubts and fears in our life.

That's why everybody's doing things their own way. Everybody's working out their own problems now. Just leave me alone, I'll figure it out.

How few people there are now, how few people who really, totally trust Him in all their ways. Can you examine your heart right now? That need that you have, that problem that's in your life, have you been fully trusting God, that He knows about it, that the steps of a righteous person are ordered by the Lord, that the angel of the Lord is camping around about you, and He's going to deliver you? Do you really believe that word? Do you stand on that now? Do you believe that God, the God of the whole universe, abides in you? Didn't He say, we will come and make our abode in you? He abides, He lives right here. What more do we need? What more do we need? Peter went out, and he broke.

He wept. He had provoked the Lord, he denied the Lord, but God broke him. I'll tell you what the Holy Spirit impressed upon me, and I'm going to ask Him to do it in just a few moments.

We need to be broken. Pastor, I don't know about you, but that's my prayer every day now, that He'll break me, that I can stand and preach and minister with a broken heart. I've told the Lord, if you thought Jacob wrestled with you, you haven't seen anything yet.

I'm going to wrestle, I'm going to hold on until God breaks me, and God kills every bit of the ego and the pride in the self. You'd be surprised what God will show you. He showed me so much, there's more than I can take about myself.

He's still showing it to me. He's beginning to break me. I love it.

He's beginning to reveal Himself through that breaking process. To this one, when I looked at him, they have a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and we need a breaking tonight. When's the last time you wept before the Lord? When's the last time you had a broken heart? When's the last time you were alone with Him, and allowed Him to reveal His power and His glory in your life? Is there a secret sin? Is there a lust that's taking over? Do you have to say like Peter? You see, it's not so much that Peter denied the Lord, he denied himself.

He denied himself the knowledge of his Master. It's what we deny ourselves that really is the sin. Jesus, the Bible says, And the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

And I couldn't close this message without telling you that no matter what your sin is, no matter how your faith has been shaken, no matter what you've been through, He invites you by His grace and mercy and love to come and say, Be healed, be healed. I'll give you freedom. I'll give you strength.

I'll renew your faith. Now, you may not understand it, you may not sense it, but I do, that the Word is coming now to be driven into your heart by the Holy Spirit, and He's going to demand a response from you. You know whether or not you're the person that I'm talking about tonight that's been unteachable, proud, harboring an idol in your heart, doing things your own way, a little angry at God because He hasn't answered your prayer, doubts that are beginning to sweep in and crush your heart.

Don't do it your way. We've turned every man to His own way. Come do it His way.

He said, My people have not known My ways. I want to know His way. His is the way of humility.

His is the way of repentance. His is the way of being taught. His is the way of saying, Oh, Jesus, if there's something I need to hear tonight from Brother Wilkerson, then teach me, show me.

If he said something and I'm not receiving it, then help me to receive it. That's knowing Jesus. That's going His way, saying, Teach me by the Holy Ghost.

Convict me. If I've been guilty, I want to apologize. I want to repent, and I want to get it out of my heart, and I want to be free with the Lord.

We really hope that this teaching has ministered to you and in some way drawn you closer to our Lord Jesus. Be sure to write if we can be of any help or provide you with any additional ministry tools.