The Necessary and the Good

Amen. While you're turning to Luke chapter 10, I just want to say that, um, if in the past, any of you have been spiritually speaking, eating at McDonald's, you're never going to want to go back there again. And I had noted when these conferences started that there were some people that had a hard time sitting for the length of time and under the word.

And I didn't understand it till I, it, I realized that they had been eating so much fast food, spiritually speaking, if you, you know, if you go out to a nice restaurant or you're going to go out to eat and you want to go to a nice restaurant, you know, where your kids want to go, where children want to go, where babes want to go fast food, but those who want me and to thank God for the meat. And I was so blessed as I was listening to Bob speak about that place. And, um, I was sitting there, Lord, should I share what, what's on my heart when I'd come here this morning to share? And the Lord said, yes, because some people need to know where they're at before they can realize where they need to go.

And so that place that Bob was talking about, I want to contrast it today. And so I read to you from Luke chapter 10, it says verse 38, Luke 10, 38. And now, as they were traveling along, he entered a certain village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

And she had a sister called Mary, who moreover was listening to the Lord's word seated at his feet, seated at his feet. I was wondering, but a Bob, when you were reading from Ephesians chapter one about all things being into subjection under his feet, I wonder if Mary knew that Ephesians, because that's what she was doing seated at his feet, but Martha was distracted with all her preparations. And she came to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.

But the Lord answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only a few things are necessary, really only one. For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her. I want to speak to you out of this on what I call a message.

I call the necessary and the good, the necessary and the good let's bow and ask the Lord to, to bless these words. Lord, we pray, praise you for the seed, the rich, pure seed that you are sowing in our hearts. Lord, we have been so challenged.

We have been so convicted. We have been so blessed. We have been so moved, but let us not coast from here on out the rest of this day, because we believe that the, that maybe in some hearts, the seed is still planted upon thorny ground and Lord, you want to take out some more thorns and you want to have a pure ground Lord.

We, we, and we also ask you that the, there would not go people from this conference who would lose this in a, in a, in a few days or a few weeks and everything would be back to where it was before, but let it be so rich and so penetrating that it would be yes, life changing, not to us just to say that as a cliche, but let it be, let it have happened as we sense it happening in our hearts, but Oh God, we want it to be a deep work, but Lord, clear out some more ground, show us some other areas. And knowing this word, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

The truth I'm going to share with you is very, a very basic in respect to what should our priorities be in the approach to Christian ministry. And in spite of the fact that it is very basic yet, I am the first to admit that this truth is yet in its infancy in my own life, when it ought to have been a part of me, all of my ministry, I think it was there. I know it was there in the beginning, but I lost it somewhere along the way.

And therefore this message is as much a revelation of my own heart as it is an attempt to reveal yours. And in respect to the truth that I want to share, I believe there are three classes of people that are here today. First, some of you are spiritual fathers.

You could just as well be my teacher because you learned the importance of the place Bob was talking about and the importance of the necessary in relationship to the good. Your priorities are on the right place. You hunger for God more than you desire to perform works of ministry.

And I remember when I began in the ministry, I always wanted to hang out with men who had that hunger for God because they made me hungry and they made me want to see God. But as I got into the ministry, I started to want to hang out with people who were doing great, had great visions and doing great deeds for the Lord. And because I wanted to be like that.

And now I find myself back at that place where I want to hang around men who make me hungry for God and make me feel even unholy that I need to go and draw closer to the Lord and deal with the things in my life. And some of you are those type of people. But there's a second group that are here, those who are still babes when it comes to doing the necessary things of ministry as compared to the better part that Jesus refers to.

And like me, there is too much of the spirit of Martha in you and not enough of Mary. And there's a third category, I fear, that may be in this room or you came to this conference this way. I pray to God you'll not leave it this way.

And it's those in whom the truth has not yet been born or it's just being born. It's part of what he's doing at this time. You have not and do not choose to spend the time you ought to be with the Lord because you are so busy doing things for the Lord or what you perceive to be for him.

In fact, some are obsessed with the necessary at the exclusion of the good part. And worse is to be involved in more non-essentials than essentials. And so let me explore this truth with you.

When I read this account of Mary and Martha, there's hardly been a time in my ministry when I didn't read that or heard preached that I wasn't convicted as Jesus taught, showing us the two different types of ministries represented in Mary and Martha. These is two beloved friends, the home of these sisters that he visited. It was a nearest place that he could call home.

And it was there in the house in Bethany that Jesus draws our attention to two expressions of ministry, two expressions of devotion. One is the waiter. One is waiting.

One stands and the other sits. The one is in a hurry. The other is not.

Jesus calls the one necessary. He calls the other good and good is translated also in others' translations as the better part or the best part of all. And I would have you know that Jesus is not setting one sister's actions against the other.

In referring to Martha's domestic concerns, Jesus is not denigrating her. He is not putting her down. He says what you have done is necessary.

This is not a comparison, but it is a contrast. It was a contrast between a service that was necessary, but in relationship to how Mary reacted to our Lord's visit in her home. It was not the better part of one's expression of love.

You see, Martha had found a place, but Mary had found a better place. Now, most things done in the ministry and for the cause of Christ falls into this category of the necessary. This is borne out in the scriptures.

For example, Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, 10 says, Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, also translated necessities for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong. And Paul frequently wrote to his younger ministers and he prepared them for the ministry by telling them, listen, you're going to go through a lot of necessities in the form of tasks and roles and responsibilities, inconveniences, pressures, tests and trials. Yes, you're going to go even through the fire, things that they never taught you.

If you like me, went to Bible school, things they never prepared me for. They never told me that was going to be like this. Necessities, 1 Peter 4, 10 says, Each of you should use whatever gift he has to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in various forms.

Titus 3, 14 says, And let our people also learn in good deeds to meet pressing needs. How many of you know about that? How many of you know about meeting pressing needs? That they may not be unfruitful. And this is exactly what Martha did in being hospitable to Jesus and her other guests.

And she is to be commended for such charity. And one of the qualifications of a pastor or bishop is that he'd be hospitable. And I believe this falls into the area of the necessary.

Apostle Paul was a model servant. He worked with his own hands as a part of what he felt was necessary so that he would not have to depend upon sending out newsletters or sending out appeals so they would not have to depend on anyone else financially for his support. And night and day, he was the example of servanthood.

Acts 20, 31, he said, In everything I showed you that working hard in this manner, you must keep, you must help the weak and remember the words of Jesus that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. And not even he's not only talking about money, he's talking about your time, your talents, giving of yourself. He even said this in Philippians 1, 24.

He said, I want to go and be with the Lord because that's the better place. That's where I want to be. He said, Yet to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.

Paul said, If he had his way, he'd rather be with the Lord. That's the better part. But for necessity's sake, at that particular time, he knew he had to remain to minister to them.

But his heart was in heaven. He was sitting in heavenly place all the time he was down there. He was still sitting in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

Hallelujah. And so the ministry is a constant challenge and commitment to fulfill the call. Of and to the necessary.

And if there's one outstanding teaching drilled into me in my early preparation for the ministry, it was to have a servant's heart and to be ready and willing to accept the smallest task in service for the Lord and for others. However, with some of those tasks, I had to be provoked to action in the very early beginning of my involvement in Teen Challenge, the founding days, the Holy Spirit taught me something very important about the necessary. And I learned the most practical lesson on what ministry means.

Now, I've just recently moved here to Texas and I am involved with World Challenge and our missions outreach around the world. But prior to that, I've lived in New York for 25 years and been a part of our ministry there and people who have read the cross and switchblade and they meet me and find out I'm working there as well. They asked me, well, how did you get your call? How did you get your call to New York? Well, mine came very simply.

Mine came on the telephone. I was a student in Bible school, saw what was going on, had visited New York and my wanted to join his fledgling organization. And I said yes, I prayed about it and said yes.

And so the call was a Macedonian call, come over and help. Some people's call is very dramatic, some people's are very simple. It's simply out of obedience.

And when I arrived in New York, I had the usual mixture of emotions, fear, excitement, anticipation, especially about going on the streets and ministering to the gangs. Because while student Bible school, I'd happened to have gone to New York one weekend, my sister and my brother-in-law said, hey, let's go to New York. Dave is preaching to some gangs in a boxing arena.

And I didn't know really anything was going on, but I got in the car and went. Just so happened, I went to two times with the second time I went, just so happened, went two different weekends, just so happened the second weekend that I went, it was a night that Nikki Cruz was converted. And so I had a preview, I had a taste of what would be in the future and having no idea at that time that God would have me be a part of it.

And so when I did physically arrive in New York with my Bible school diploma in hand, my theology books, my ministerial credentials and my sermons, brother Dave started preaching when he was 12, I started when I was 16 at his church, in fact, preached my first message. When I, when I went to Bible school, I had a hard time with Bible school because I thought Bible school needed me. And I thought I could preach better than anyone on the faculty, except one man, the principal.

And so I had sermons. I used to sell them, my outlines, I sold my outlines and father was a pastor and taught me how to outline. And I was going to tell you when I preached another sermon when I was 12 and I preached for 15 minutes and 3000 people, some there and about 300 came forward.

But I was preaching in my room and my imagination, greatest results I've ever had in my ministry. But I knew I was called to the ministry and so I arrived to begin my ministry. And needless to say, I also had a romantic and adventurous, glamorous and unrealistic expectation of what a ministry, especially this type of a ministry, what it should be, a ministry to troubled youth.

At the time of my arrival, brother Dave had written some evangelism literature for street kids. And, and even to this day, evangelism literature is very important to our outreach effort. And at that time he had been challenging church youth to get out of the four walls of a church building and get involved in what he called frontline evangelism.

Today, we call it street evangelism. And the orders for this literature began to pour into this little office in Staten Island, New York, brother Frank Reynolds, who was a national representative of teen challenges here today. He was our pastor of the church we went.

And in Staten Island, we had was the first headquarters of what was called in those days, teenage evangelism. And there was one track in particular that brother Dave wrote that was just catching on. It was called chicken and it spoke to the generation of the late fifties and early sixties.

And many people saw this track and began to order them. And so my brother had to set up a little shipping and mailing department in that office to handle those orders that were coming in. And guess who got the job? Yours truly.

Now, please understand that there is no task too small for a true servant of the Lord, but I was no servant at that point, just coming out of Bible school. I was called to the ministry, preaching and evangelizing and winning the world for Jesus. All those other important things in the ministry.

David put me in an office and day after day, I counted 50, a hundred, a thousand tracks. I wrapped them. I labeled them.

I prepared them for shipment. And I kept waiting for him to come in and say, Don, let's go on the streets. Occasionally we did, but my biggest venture out on the streets, however, was when I went to take the packages to the post office so somebody else could have the literature and they go out on the street and do it.

And I complained to the Lord. I said, is this the ministry? Is this necessary for me? And the more I complain, not to my brother, but to the Lord, the more the orders poured in, by the way, I'm, I'm, I'm writing a book called, and I'm not kidding you either. I'm writing a book called gaining weight.

W A I T the power of positive patients. And it's taken me 25 years to be ready to, to write it. But God was preparing back then.

And I wanted to go, but I could, I, I wasn't out there yet into my minister. I could only dream of going to minister in places like Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant and gangland turfs where the hell burners and Roman Lords and the Miao Miao's waited for me. And I remember weeks past, there was no change in my ministerial status.

And I went to prayer again about it matter. And I said, Lord, I'm willing to do what is necessary, but I'm also called to preach. And to begin my ministry.

And what I was really saying to the Lord was, how can you do this to me? How can you do this to me, Lord, with all, you know, all that I thought that I was at that point of time. But again, the Lord was not impressed. In fact, I, I got so desperate.

I said, Lord, you can't do this to me. I'm Dave Wilkerson's brother, but the Lord wasn't impressed. I don't know if, if he wasn't impressed who I was or who my brother was or both.

Yes, but in the midst of this struggle and prayer, the spirit, the Holy Spirit spoke distinctly to me. And he said, I've not called you to be successful as you count success, but I've called you to be faithful unto me and to be faithful to me is to be successful. And what the Lord was trying to do was to see if I was willing to accept the call of the necessary and to develop a servant's heart.

Was I willing to let him choose my ministry or was I trying to choose it for myself? And with this willing heart, the Lord promised me, according to Colossians 3, 23 and 24, that in whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord, rather than for men, for the Lord, rather than for men. And we've had ministers who've come to this conference. They've gotten delivered from a ministry to men and to other people, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the reward of inheritance.

It is the Lord Jesus Christ whom you serve. You've heard it over and again from this pulpit, the headship of Jesus Christ, whether it be in our devotion to him, our communion with him, or it be our ministry. It's the headship of Jesus.

And finally, I settled the matter in my heart. I said, yes, Lord, I'll do whatever is necessary. Now, in time, the rewards of faithfulness came to pass.

God gave me more and more necessities. David gave me more and more necessities. Not only the things difficult, but the things more enjoyable.

I went from counting tracts to passing them out, to seeing souls saved from reading them, and eventually into a leadership role in a growing, successful outreach and rehabilitation ministry that has spread around the world. And many of you are here today because of that vision as well, that you picked it up as I picked it up, as it was deposited from the Holy Spirit into Brother Dave's heart, and others of us have caught the vision of it. But as the work grew, the workload, my workload grew heavier.

But I can tell you this, that with all the reward of meeting necessities, I began more and more to neglect the most important thing and the better part of service unto the Lord. And I'd read about Mary, and what the Lord showed me is that I had a heart to be that, I had a desire to be that, but I wasn't being that. Oh, yes, I was, to a certain degree, yes, I was.

And other people would maybe even say that of me, but I knew in my heart I was not at the place that I wanted to be. You see, we are called not only to make choices between the sacred and the profane, between righteousness and unrighteousness, but Christ condemns another thing. Those who are too absorbed in external service, meeting legitimate necessities at the expense of choosing the good and better part of ministry, and that is sitting at the feet of Jesus at His place to know His heart and His mind and to minister unto Him.

Martha busied herself setting tables for the Lord. Mary chose the good part of sitting at the table of the Lord. It's not a choice between one or the other.

It's simply a contrast between them. And oh, how much time I've spent setting up gospel tables, tables that meet important needs, tables that physically and spiritually feed the hungry. And I believe the Lord was and is pleased with our willingness to set up and operate and invite the needy to such tables.

It is His clear command that we do so. Yet at the same time, the Lord was displeased because I did not participate in the good part of ministry with the same zeal, the same energy, the same time, the same desires. I kept giving God the leftovers of my time and energy, the necessities I should have done but not left the other undone.

You see, all the good works that we're involved in, whatever they might be, and we could turn this into a testimony meeting of many mighty works that you're involved in, that God's doing through your ministries and churches and programs and yet they do not constitute the better part of ministry. I do not mean and Jesus did not mean that necessities are not in other than themselves good things. But what is the first thing that God calls us to? It is to Him and before anything and everything we are called to abide in Him.

It is not, it is even before lost souls. It is before preaching. It is before church planting.

It is before ministry to addicts. And what brother Dave said on the first night, is it because he was praying and ministering to the heart of God that the ministry of the Holy Spirit was birthed through him to troubled youth and came as a result of that. And God is calling us in this conference to come back to that point.

And perhaps only the difference between us and you is that maybe we have arrived at it a little bit sooner than you but God's giving you an opportunity at this conference to come to that place. Hallelujah. And I believe I'm speaking to the hunger of some of your hearts when I say that.

And what I've learned is that all my joy, all my satisfaction, all of my motivation came out and from the ministry. And that leads to death and disappointment. If we do not like Mary, make our way to that special place to hear the voice of the Lord and sit in His presence.

Necessities are not the bread of life and the water of life. They cannot and should not completely satisfy our expressions of service. That's why when we gathered for prayer yesterday afternoon, Brother Dave came in and he said between lunchtime, he said, God just put it so heavy on my heart that there are people in this conference who are lost in service.

Oh, we don't mean lost for eternity but they could lead to that but lost in service in respect to your relationship to the Lord. And these can become distractions leading to worry and even prayers such as Martha when she says, Lord, do you not care that my brothers and sisters in Christ have left me alone to do all this serving? And in turn, this can lead to bitterness and burnout and being bothered about many things. And my brother Reynolds tells me, he said when he travels around, he knows that a man has reached burnout when he starts talking about my ministry, my ministry, my ministry.

And some of you, if God doesn't deliver you from your ministry, you will burn out in it. Believe me, Jesus says that when all of our service and ministry is said and done, there is really only one good thing and few there be that choose it. For Mary, it was listening to divine truth as it came to her in the person and words of Jesus.

She drank in that immortal truth as she sat at his feet and heard the word. This is a better part, the intrinsically precious, the invaluable thing that cannot be calculated as to value. That's what Jesus meant.

It is the only part of ministry which shall not be taken away. There is no power on earth that can touch it or harm it. And the prophecy has gone forth from here that we may lose, if there's an economic crisis in our land, we'll lose all of our programs and our buildings and so forth.

Our buildings decay, our programs may fall. The denomination may even take away what you have established, but what you get in Christ, what you get in the closet and in the inner court, and it's a place, in that place that brother Bob was talking about shall not, hallelujah, be taken away from you. Glory to God.

Nobody can take it away from you. Let him have your ministry. Let him have your ministry.

If it's a choice between that and having him and that place in him. As I look back over my ministry, I see too much of the character of Martha, not enough of Mary. And yet there was ample opportunity as I heard his call again and again come to me, come unto me, turn with me to John the sixth chapter.

And as you're turning there, there was a particular occasion in my leadership that the Lord wanted me and our ministry, me in particular, to give up, to let go of a certain department or phase of our ministry. It consisted of a lot of staff and effective outreach. I thought it was doing a good work for the Lord.

I was happy to have it a part of our organization. And I was deeply disturbed and offended when I'd been asked to let it go. Let it become a separate ministry apart from my leadership and oversight.

And so I set aside time to pray and fast for three days. And during that time, I received a word from the Lord out of John, the sixth chapter, very simple word. Again, verse 35, Jesus, of course, is contrasting the, the bread in the wilderness.

Verse 31, our fathers ate the man in the wilderness as it is written, he gave them bread out of heaven to eat. But Jesus said to them, verse 35, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger.

And he who believes on me shall never thirst. And then verse 50, this is the bread which came down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that comes down out of heaven.

If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread which also I give, I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. And over and over again, God just, that word, I am the bread of life came to me.

And yet to show you what the condition of my heart, at the same time I prayed, I said, now, Lord, thank you for that word. But what does that have to do with the decision I have to make? I did not understand what this had to do. And I concluded that, that program should contain, should remain.

And so it did at that time. And now some years later, it was this year ago, this January, we were having a little conference out near our office out at Lyndale. Some ministers said workers had come together and it was not planned this way, but it turned out to be a call to repent, a type of a call to repentance, a little gathering.

At least it especially was for me. And God began to do a number of things in my heart at that time. And one in particular, the Holy Spirit brought me back to that three-day prayer retreat.

And he brought me back to that word. And he said, now, he said, I'll show you what I was trying to tell you. And when I saw, when I saw it, I was so shocked and I was so humbled and still am and overwhelmed by my years of blindness.

And I have been in a period of ongoing repentance as a result of it. And what the Holy Spirit was trying to show me is that my ministry had become my bread. The reason that I was unable to let go of a necessity is that it had become an idol to me.

My satisfaction, my identity, my ego was centered in a thing, a good thing no less, but it was not centered in Christ and in the cross. And the Lord was just simply saying to me, son, you can let that go. That's not where you stand.

You don't stand on that. You don't eat off of that. I am the bread of life.

But now when I think of the blindness of my eyes to it, you know, I pray. And you know what's happened to me since then? Days after that, weeks after that, I would think about what the Holy Spirit had shown me about myself. And I'd ride in the car and I would weep or I would be in a motel room one time.

And it just began to, I didn't know why I was weeping. But then, and the Holy Spirit, the sin that has been before me is that the Holy Spirit showed me that even some of that motivation, there was flesh in my service. And I thank God, and I humbly say this, that he is changing me.

And I'm still involved. I'm involved in missions. And we're, as Brother Davis said, we're going to Poland and we're going to Hungary.

And now Africa has opened up and we have requests coming from Africa. We just opened a center in Guatemala. And I thank God for all that.

But I don't know what happened to you, but somewhere I crossed over. Somewhere something happened so that now those things don't matter to me as much. Oh, I get excited about them.

But I have put them in their proper place and now they flow out of having found a place in him. The better part of ministry. The better part of ministry.

Galatians 5.24 says, They that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lust. We must not only have nothing to do with sin. We need to discern whether our desires and the spiritual arena are works of the flesh, either prompted by our flesh or somebody else's flesh.

And most of all, we need to discern whether our virtues and visions and ventures for Christ are preventing our surrender to God. And to do so is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Now, some may have little empathy for a minister who battles sordid evil lust or who has fallen into immorality.

But lest any of us feel self-righteous, remember that the flesh can be in the sanctuary. It can be in the pew. It can be in the study.

It can be in a rehabilitation center. It can be out on the streets, even witnessing to lost souls if the motivation is wrong. This is flesh cloaked in the good works of a pastorate or evangelist or lay person or a street worker.

You see, it's the good that hates the best. And the higher you want to go in God, the more intense will be the opposition to Jesus Christ. The more you want to minister for him, the more the devil will come against you.

And oh, the Lord showed me this one time. Let me just share this with you. I was riding in a car one time with a young man who was all caught up in doctrine.

His was not. His was a service through doctrine. And he was heavy into the prophecies and so forth.

And as we were riding, he asked me, this was some years ago. And he asked me, he said, what do you think of your brother's book, The Vision? Well, at that time, so many things had already come to pass. I said, well, all you got to do is read the newspaper and see it's being fulfilled every day.

And he said, yeah, I agree. And he was so caught up in prophecies. But for some reason, I didn't know why.

I just turned to the young man. We had just come back from a jail service. And when he said that to me, I said, young man, you got to be careful.

If the devil can't get you to backslide, he'll get you to front slide. And he looked at me. He said, I've never heard that term before.

Would you please tell me what you're talking about? And I thought to myself, this is going to be interesting because I've never heard the term myself before either. And of course, the interpretation came. I said, look, if the devil sees, and I didn't know, I found out later, he'd been a drug addict and he had lived a pure life and he was clean from the Lord.

And I said, if the devil can't get you to go, he's going to get you to turn back away from him one direction or the other. If he can't get you to go back, he'll get you to go front. He'll get you to go into a truth and a teaching and you'll go so deep in it as some people have today.

They get so lost in a certain segment of the truth and they're cut off from the rest of the pie and the rest of the whole counsel of God that they are front sliding. Or even in my case with ministry, if the devil can't get you at your weak spot, he showed me that he'll get you at your strength and turn your strength into a weakness. And my strength had become necessities and a servanthood and wanting to serve the Lord and he attacked me at the point of my strength and he turned it into a weakness.

That's how slick he is. It is a good that hates the best. And the higher we go in the Lord, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ.

I say that again. Let me close. Let me take you to... Brother Bob talked about the good place, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time, but just let me end up here in Psalms 84.

Let me talk to you about the good part. Here it is again. Here it is again.

You see, all these messages, we don't sit down and say, who are you going to preach or what are you going to preach? The Holy Spirit just brings them together. How lovely are thy dwelling places. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Oh, Lord of hosts, my soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord. Now this, he's not talking about the fact that he has not been in the courts of the Lord.

He's talking about the fact, he said, my soul and even longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord. He's talking about that when he goes out to the necessities, even when he's involved in necessities, he still has a yearning in his heart for the courts. And the Lord showed me that.

And now I go out and I'm involved. I was at a meeting one time with people and I said, Lord, I don't want to be here. And the Lord says, that's all right.

This is my body. You're in the right place. But my heart was yearning to be in the courts of the Lord.

And I never want to lose that. Even when you're doing the necessities, you see, they don't become so absorbing to you because your heart is longing for the courts of the Lord. And if you have that longing, you're going to find a place there.

You're going to find a place. Some people have come to me and somebody came to me after the message I preached last time. He said, how do I get to that place? Well, it's in the heart.

And if it's in your heart, you'll find a place. I don't care. I don't care what you have to give up or change or whatever.

I was at a church and saw a pastor all involved in ministry. And I got up, I felt led to do this. I got up and took a special offering for him to go away for three days or a week, took him a nice offering.

Came out of mind and gave it to him. I didn't know what happened. I came back a year later and he said, you know, he said, I didn't go.

I didn't go. And you know what happened to me? He said, I got sick and I had to spend all that money in a hospital. Brother Dave was telling me he had the same thing happen to him.

It was at, you know, the place in California was on the platform, big church. Got up and said to the congregation, how many of you think your pastor ought to have a week off or two weeks off? I think it was two weeks. And they clapped.

I think they rose and they clapped and so forth. And they were ready to send him wherever he wanted to go. He said, I can't do it.

I can't do it. But I tell you when your soul longs and even yearns for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Look, it says the bird also has found a house and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thy altars.

Oh God of hosts, my King and my God. You know, Psalm says, go to the ant thou sluggard. The Proverbs says that.

Well, the Psalmist says, go to the bird, thou mighty sweater of religious business. You see, sparrows made their nest in the wall of Jerusalem near the golden gate. And the writer is saying that even birds have enough sense and loved to build nest in the sacred precincts.

How much more reason has the heart of a believer to find its home in the house of its God? The bird knows it has its nest, but my people do not know days on end. And you see, it's got to be the nest before the quest. And no one can properly fulfill their ministry or mission without first knowing their origins.

All of my springs are in you. The Psalmist says, the bird knows its origin. Do you know your origin? Do you know where you were appointed to the ministry? Verse four, how blessed are those who dwell in thy house.

They are ever praising thee. How blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are the highways to holiness. And I'm going to close with this.

Bob talked about it. That's also called a highway to holiness. Isaiah 35 and eight says, and a highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the highway of holiness.

The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way, who walks that way, who is inclined to go that way, whose heart yearns for the courts of the Lord, they'll just go that way. And fools will not enter, will not wander on it. You see, people who want a good part of the ministry have a heart that recognizes that the highway to Zion, to the dwelling place of God, to the nest, it is a place, but it's also a holy place.

Remember, Bob gave us a scripture. It says that the entire part of the mountain will be holy on the top of the mountain. It's a holy highway.

And note that it says here in this fifth verse, this answered a question for me that I've been struggling with. It says, in whose heart are the highways to Zion? Now, how many of you know that when you've traveled a road in your town or city long enough, you don't even notice the signs anymore? If somebody asks you, how do I get there? You can't tell them because when you've never been there, you got to go by the road signs. But you've been there so long that you know the city by heart.

You travel the roads by heart. And somebody else comes along, you try to describe it to them, they look strange at you and as if you don't know where you're at and you have to tell them, well, at least I ain't lost. It's in your heart.

And this is what? The call to repentance. You know, I see something beautiful is happening. I see something is beautiful happening in the body of Christ.

This call to repentance leads to this highway of holiness. That is a thing of the heart. And this is what all true holiness movements ought to be.

And God is raising up a new holiness movement. I don't even like to use that term, but he's doing a new work of holiness in the land. And if some people call it a movement, so be it.

But it's going to be a thing of the heart. And when some people come to a conference like this and they're turned off by preaching, the very term repentance turns them off. The very term holiness turns them off.

And the preaching of judgment. And they hear a man talking about television. Especially if some of you have come from my past.

In the earlier days of the Pentecostal holiness movement. And they say, well, I came out of that. And they come here and they hear talk about idols and television and otherwise.

And it reminds them of days gone by of other holiness movements and holiness churches and holiness preaching. Or some of you even know, if you've been in an inner city, you know some of the, what we call the legalistic churches. But I want to explain something here.

You see, there is a heart for and of holiness. And then there are the signs and symbols of holiness. And the Old Testament is full of the symbols of holiness.

Perhaps this is the reason that Old Testament preaching is resented, but it's because they don't understand what, and this is what Brother Bob has been teaching us so well. As showing that all of those things were far example and Jesus began to talk and he said, you heard this and that, but then he began to talk about the heart. You see, the holiness movement went wrong.

And if you're 40 years of age and older and have come from a Pentecostal holiness background, I thank God when I came along, I didn't have the hangups that some of my older family members, not my brother Dave, but I have a couple of sisters that had problems because they came out of this, the holiness movement. And the holiness movement went wrong when the highway of holiness started getting cluttered with the road signs of what is and is not holiness. And it ceased to be a thing of the heart and it became an external thing.

And different churches tried to outdo each other with the symbols of holiness. And one said, come on my highway because my highway is holier than your highway. And when you begin to preach only the externals and not the heart, and you try to approach it by the externals, then you'll be lining up and it'll be, who can outdo the other about what you're supposed to give up? And that's exactly what happened.

One said, my highway is cleaner. And so what we had was sign painters, sign waivers of holiness. They even put cops out on the highway of holiness to police it.

And anyone who did not have the appearance of holiness was given a ticket or shamed or put in jail or bondage. And brother Bob was talking to us about those virgins. These, there are people who will pick up even what we're doing here and we'll call it repentance, but it's not true.

It's the words of repentance, but it's not the heart of repentance. And there are people who will say that they are virgins, that they are pure. And that they are wearing white, but they are wearing whitewash.

It is the appearance of holiness, but it is false. It is whitewash. But God wants a thing of a heart.

And what happened in days gone by that we ended up with a people carrying in their body, not the dying of the Lord Jesus, that's true holiness, but the symbols of it. And those signs said, do not enter, do not touch. And do you know something? Do you know something? I've come to the conclusion that in many of those things that they told us, they were right.

They were right. For example, they had, they made the Sabbath holy. We have profaned it.

And there's a lot of things that we have. But what happened is that they lost the heart, they held onto the symbols and they required other people to adopt the symbols and with not the church, a change of heart. And so holiness standards grew out of the people originally with a pure heart, but eventually it became a work of holiness and necessity rather than a heart of holiness.

And when a good thing of righteousness becomes a legalistic necessity, it ceases to be a good thing. And it lays burdens on people that they cannot bear because it is not in their hearts to do so. And God is preparing a people of the heart.

And let me tell you something, when you get it in your heart, and by the way, some of you younger ministers and that are rebelling against the traditions of the church, you're rebelling against, you're wrong as well. You're rebelling. I, that was, what do I get on? I keep getting on that.

Talked about yesterday with a new legal, new anti-legalism becomes a new legalism. But let me tell you, when you have the thing of the heart, it is, it's more, it's far more demanding it's far more demanding than anything that we ever saw in days gone by. And when God gets your heart, he will have a standard for you.

And maybe it will not be exactly the same as the next man, but it will be for you. And you will have a sensitivity to know what is right for you. God will show you, you won't need a list of things to do.

But I want to tell you, you'll have a list and you'll start giving up things and it'll be a thing of the heart. And when the Holy Spirit does it, it will be lasting in your heart. It won't be that you have taken on what somebody else has taken on.

And if any of you have any leftover remnants of an old holy, holiness movement in your heart or rebellion in your heart, I pray that you'll be freed from it today. Hallelujah. Or if any of you are lost in ministry, I pray that you'll be free, free from that as well.

Praise the Lord. Let's stand together. Generate, but God put it there.

And that this means that we are not bound by the accident of flesh and blood. And a voice cries out to you tonight to turn back to the Father of spirits. And through him, he has given us his Son, that we