God's Character: Holy

God's Character: Holy - https://www.gotandem.com/public/messages/5807 via @goTandem

Psalms 91:1-16 KJV

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

FLOODED BY THE LOVE OF GOD by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

The Father loves you! It is at this point of understanding that multitudes of believers fail God. They are willing to be convicted of sin and failure, over and over again, but they will not allow the Holy Spirit to flood them with the love of the Father.

The legalist loves to live under conviction. He has never understood the love of God or allowed the Holy Spirit to minister that love to his soul.

We at Times Square Church have taught that the righteous person, the true lover of Jesus, loves reproof. He learns to welcome having the Holy Spirit expose all the hidden areas of sin and unbelief—because the more he deals with sin, the happier and freer he becomes.

The attitudes I see in response to my ministry newsletter messages vary. When I write a message that thunders with judgment, I get overwhelmingly approving responses. When I share about the sweetness and love of Jesus, I receive letters saying, "You are not preaching the truth anymore!" It is as though these people are saying, "If you are not reproving, then what you are saying cannot be the gospel."

Such believers have never entered into the great love-mission of the Holy Spirit. This is an area where you must learn to walk in the Spirit and not by feelings! Walking in the Spirit means allowing the Holy Spirit to do in you what He was sent to do. And that means allowing Him to flood your heart right now with the love of God! "Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).

Isaiah said, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem" (Isaiah 66:13). Isaiah was writing to a stubborn people of God who "went on frowardly [rebelliously] in the way of [their] heart" (Isaiah 57:17).

TOTAL TRUST IN CHRIST by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

When I speak of total trust in Christ, I mean not only His saving power but also His keeping power. We have to trust His Spirit to keep us and enable us to conform to Jesus' likeness.

Think about your own testimony. At one time you were cut off from God by wicked works. What good work did you do to make things right with Him? None! No one has ever been able to save himself.

Likewise, nobody has ever been able to make or keep himself holy. We are brought into Christ's holiness daily by faith alone, as we trust in what God's Word says: "As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy" (1 Peter 1:15).

"You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by your wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: if ye continue in the faith" (Colossians 1:21-23).

Note the phrase, "If ye continue in the faith." Jesus is saying, "Continue trusting in Me, living by faith. I will present you as clean, faultless, and holy before the Father."

There are no degrees of holiness, only degrees of maturity in Christ. It is foolish to measure yourself against someone you picture as being "holy." We are all measured by one standard: the holiness of Christ. If we are in Him, His holiness is ours in equal measure.

You must never again look at another Christian and say, "Oh, I wish I were as holy as he is." You may not have that person's discipline or his prayer life; you may struggle more often and make more mistakes than he does. But he is no more accepted by the Father than you are. You are to compare yourself to no one, because no one is loved more in the eyes of the Father than you!

Dear saint, put off all reliance on the flesh and make this declaration: "I claim my holiness, which is in Christ Jesus. I am part of His body and my Father sees me as holy because I abide in Him."

THE BURDEN OF PAIN by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

In one way of another, we all are hurting. Every person on earth carries his own burden of pain.

When you are deeply hurt, no one can shut down the inner fears and deepest agonies. The best of friends cannot understand the battle you are going through or the wounds inflicted upon you.

Is there a balm for a broken heart? Is there healing for those deep, inner hurts? Can the pieces be put back together and the heart be made even stronger? Yes! Absolutely yes! If not, then God's Word would be a hoax and God Himself would be a liar. That cannot be!

God did not promise you a painless way of life but He promised you "a way of escape." He promised to help you bear your pain. He promised strength to put you back on your feet when weakness makes you stagger.

Our loving Father said, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Your heavenly Father watches over you with an unwavering eye. Every move is monitored; every tear is bottled. He identifies with your pain and feels every hurt. He will not permit your hurt to deteriorate your mind. He will never allow you to drown in your tears and He promises to come, right on time, to wipe away those tears and give you joy for mourning.

Your have the ability to make your heart rejoice and be glad in the Lord. God's eye is on you—and He commands us to rise up and shake off all those fears that are causing doubt.

"The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry" (Psalm 34:15).

TO KNOW NOTHING BUT CHRIST by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

"In Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Men and women of God live within this very small circle; their very existence is wrapped up only in the interests of Christ.

To know nothing but Christ, there must be a continual flow of revelation from the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit knows the mind of God, if He searches the deep and hidden things of the Father, and if He is to be a well of living water springing up, then that well of flowing water must be a continual, never-ending revelation of Christ. It awaits every servant of the Lord who is willing to wait on the Lord—quietly, in faith believing, trusting the Holy Spirit to manifest the mind of God.

Today we need His infallible word—a true and living revelation. Samuel had that kind of word from God and all Israel knew it. When Samuel spoke of all the voices in the land, his own voice came through and not one word fell to the ground.

Today multitudes are trying to sift through all the voices to hear the clear word of God. Saints of God are getting weary of a barrage of voices, while finding only a few kernels of truth. Christ alone is the light! The whole world lies in darkness, and light alone dispels that darkness.

Paul said, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6).

You may be in a dark place right now. Your good works will not dispel that darkness and our preaching on social issues will not cut through it, either. All your personal experiences won't do it. I will go a step further—even binding the powers of darkness won't work without the light of Christ shining forth. All darkness vanishes in the light of God's glory reflected in the face of Jesus Christ! Let us study Christ alone in the secret closet. We serve the same God and are taught by the very same Holy Spirit as all others who have known Christ in fullness.

JESUS IS NEAR TO YOU by Gary Wilkerson | World Challenge

Are you facing a crisis that has driven you to your knees? Physical pain, financial turmoil, troubled marriage? Has your trial continued for so long that your spirit has sunk into despondency?

Multitudes of Christians face excruciating situations beyond their control and things seem hopeless. They've exhausted all their resources and pressed forward, believing that God will meet their need, but their situation has gone from bad to worse. The more they pray, the farther away God seems and they think He no longer cares.

If this describes you, I want to encourage you: Do not give up—Jesus is near to you. He desires not only to meet your need but to give you a breakthrough of faith. No matter how desperate your circumstance, He wants to infuse your spirit with this truth: "Jesus can still do this."

A scene in Mark's gospel addresses four types of fires that can confront our faith. The first is when sudden calamity befalls us; the second is when our trial has lasted a long time with no end in sight; the third is when circumstances grow continually worse; and the fourth is when we stop believing altogether.

Jairus was a devoted God-fearer in an immediate crisis. "A leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, pleading fervently with him. 'My little daughter is dying,' he said. 'Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live'" (Mark 5:22-23, NLT).

Imagine Jairus' desperation! His young daughter was deathly ill and when he learned that Jesus the healer was nearby, he decided, "I'll put my faith in Him." He ran to the Messiah, fell on his face and begged for a miracle: "Lord, unless You do this, I have no hope. Doctors can't help me. You must make my miracle happen."

Note the exact phrase Jairus uses in the verse above: "So she can live" (5:23). The word "can" denotes Jairus' faith in Christ's ability. He believed the Lord for the impossible, declaring, "Jesus, You can!" He knew that if Christ would just touch his daughter, she would be healed.

We know the rest of Jairus' story. Jesus told the entire household, "Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn't dead; she's only asleep" (Mark 5:39, NLT).

Your situation may look like it is beyond hope—but it isn't to Jesus. He raised Jairus' daughter from the dead, and He is ready to step into your situation with the same resurrection power!

TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD by Jim Cymbala | World Challenge

Over the last thirty years, more books have been written about marriage than in all the preceding 2,000 years of church history. But ask any pastor in America if there aren't proportionally more troubled marriages today than in any other era. We have all the how-to books and videos, but homes are still falling apart.

The couple that prays together stays together. I don't mean to be simplistic; there will be difficult moments in any marriage. But God's Word is true when it says, "Call upon me and I will help you. Just give Me a chance" (see Psalm 91:15)

The same holds true for parenting. We may own stacks of good books on child rearing and spending "quality time" with our children. Yet we have more problems with young people in the church today than at any previous time. This is not because we lack knowledge or how-to; it is because we have not cried out for the power and grace of God.

The writer to the Hebrews nails down the most central activity of all Christians: "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). It doesn't say, "Let us come to the sermon." We in America have made the sermon the centerpiece of the church, something God never intended. Preachers who are really doing their job get people to come to the throne of grace. That's the true source of grace and mercy.

To every preacher and every singer, God will someday ask, "Did you bring people to where the action could be found . . . at the throne of grace? If you just entertained them, if you just tickled their ears and gave them a warm, fuzzy moment, woe to you. At the throne of grace, I could have changed their lives."

God has chosen prayer as His channel of blessing. He has spread a table for us with every kind of wisdom, grace and strength because He knows exactly what we need. But the only way we can get it is to pull up to the table and taste and see that the Lord is good. Pulling up to that table is called the prayer of faith.

THE GREATEST DANGER by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

The greatest danger we all face is not being able to see Jesus in our troubles—instead, we see ghosts. In that peak moment of fear when the night is the blackest and the storm is the angriest, Jesus always draws near to us, to reveal Himself as the Lord of the flood, the Savior in the storms. "The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King forever" (Psalm 29:10).

In Matthew 14, Jesus ordered His disciples into a boat that was headed for a storm. The Bible says He constrained them to get into a ship. In other words, He insisted that they get into the ship even though it was headed for troubled waters; it would be tossed about like a bobbing cork. And where was Jesus? He was up in the mountains overlooking the sea, praying for them not to fail in the test He knew was coming.

Later He came to them, walking on the water (see Matthew 14:25). But not one disciple recognized Him! They did not expect to see Him out on the water in the middle of a storm. Never, ever did they expect Him to be with them or even near them in a tempest.

At least one disciple should have recognized what was happening and said, "Look, friends, Jesus said He would never leave us or forsake us. He sent us on this mission; we are in the center of His will. He said the steps of a righteous man are ordered by Him. Look again. That's our Lord! His is right here! We've never once been out of His sight!"

There was only one lesson to be learned—only one. It was a simple lesson, not some deep, mystical, earth-shattering one. Jesus wanted to be trusted as their Lord, in every storm of life. He simply wanted them to maintain their cheer and confidence, even in the blackest hours of trial. Just one simple but very important lesson!

"I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20).

THE REQUEST FOR FAITH by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" (Luke 17:5).

Jesus answered His disciples' request for faith in this way: "Which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? . . . So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do" (Luke 17:7-8, 10).

Christ is speaking here of us, His servants, and of God, our Master. He is telling us we are to feed God. You may wonder, "What kind of food are we supposed to bring to the Lord? What satisfies His hunger? How can we do this?"

The Bible tells us, "Without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Hebrews 11:6). Simply put, God's most delectable dish is faith. That's the food that pleases Him.

We see this illustrated throughout Scripture. When a centurion asked Jesus to heal his sick servant by merely speaking a word, Christ feasted on the man's vibrant faith. He replied, "Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel" (Matthew 8:10). Jesus was saying, "Here's a Gentile, an outsider, who's feeding My spirit. What a nourishing meal this man's faith is giving me." When the woman with the issue of blood (Luke 8:43-48) pressed through the crowd and touched His garment in faith, Jesus was immediately aware of her faith and she was healed. Her faith pleased Him.

I notice in Jesus' words in Luke 17:8 a blunt statement: "Make ready wherewith I may sup . . . and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken: and afterward thou shalt eat." He is saying, "You don't eat first, I do." In other words, we are not to consume our faith on our own interests and needs. Rather, our faith is meant to satisfy our Lord's hunger. 

WALKING WITH HIM by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

"By faith Enoch was translated" (Hebrews 11:5).

This is an incredible truth, almost beyond our comprehension. All of Enoch's faith was focused on the one great desire of his heart: to be with the Lord. Enoch could no longer bear to stand behind the veil—he just had to see the Lord—so God translated him in answer to his faith.

Our brother Enoch had no Bible, no songbook, no teacher, no indwelling Holy Spirit, no torn veil with access to the Holy of Holies. But he knew God!

"He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). How do we know Enoch believed that God was a rewarder? Because that is the only faith that pleases God—and we know that Enoch pleased Him! God is a remunerator, that is, one who pays well for faithfulness. How does the Lord reward His diligent ones?

Three important rewards come by believing God and walking with Him in faith:

1. The first reward is God's control of our lives. The person who neglects the Lord soon spins out of control as the devil moves in and takes over. If only he would fall in love with Jesus, walking and talking with Him! God would soon show this person that Satan has no real dominion over him and he would allow Christ to control him.
2. The second reward that comes by faith is having "pure light." When we walk with the Lord, we are rewarded with light, direction, discernment, revelation—a certain "knowing" that God gives us.
3. The third reward that comes with a walk of faith is protection from all our enemies. "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper" (Isaiah 54:17). In the original Hebrew, this verse is translated as: "No plan, no instrument of destruction, no satanic artillery shall push you or run over you, but it will be done away with."

WALKING PLEASINGLY BEFORE THE LORD by David Wilkerson | World Challenge

"Enoch walked with God" (Genesis 5:24). The original Hebrew meaning for walked implies that Enoch walked arm in arm with God, continually conversing with Him and growing closer to Him. Enoch lived 365 years—or, a "year" of years. In him we see a new kind of believer. The Lord was his very life—so much so that at the end of his life, he did not see death (see Hebrews 11:5).

Enoch learned to walk pleasingly before God in the midst of a wicked society. He was an ordinary man with all the same problems and burdens we carry, not a hermit hidden away in a wilderness cave, "hiding to be holy." He was involved in life with a wife, children, obligations and responsibilities.

"Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). We know from Hebrews that this verse speaks of Enoch's translation, the fact that he did not taste death. But it also means something deeper. The phrase "he was not" as used in Genesis 5 also means "he was not of this world." In his spirit and in his senses, Enoch was not a part of this wicked world. Each day as he walked with the Lord he became less attached to the things of the world. Like Paul, he died daily to this earth life and he was taken up in his spirit to a heavenly realm.

Yet, while he walked on Earth, Enoch undertook all his responsibilities but none of the demands of this life could keep him from his walk with God.

Hebrews 11:5 says clearly: "Before [Enoch's] translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." What was it about Enoch that pleased God so much? It was that his walk with God produced in him the kind of faith God loves.

These two verses cannot be separated: "Before [Enoch's] translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him" (Hebrews 11:5-6). We hear this latter verse often, but rarely in connection with the former. Yet, throughout the Bible and all of history those who walked closely with God became men and women of deep faith. If the Church is walking with God daily, communing with Him continually, the result will be a people full of faith—true faith that pleases God.

ESSENTIALS OF GRACE by Gary Wilkerson | World Challenge

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:8-10, ESV).

There are four essentials of grace for every follower of Jesus:

1. Grace is unassisted. We can't assist the work of Christ's grace without diluting or diminishing it.
2. Grace is unmerited. When we detect some unrighteousness in our lives, many of us think we have to pump up our grace again with good works. No—Christ's grace toward us is totally unmerited, never partially so.
3. Grace is unchanging. God's grace does not apply less on the days we pray less. It doesn't work that way. Even His warnings against sin are a sign of His loving grace.
4. Grace is unending. Neither the Father nor the Son will be unfaithful to the covenant they have made. It will last through eternity, never to be broken, so as we remain hidden in Christ, we remain in covenant with the Father—we are thus safe and secure.

Let me say this as well: I know the covenant that God made with His Son, Jesus, is deeper, stronger and more far reaching than any of us can grasp. Many Christians fall short of His glorious grace, our lives dominated by fear. When we make a mistake, we tell ourselves, "Oh, no, I've broken covenant with the Lord." Nothing could be more untrue. It is Jesus who is in covenant with the Father, not us!

This is the reason Christ had to become fully human, made like us. He completely fulfills the covenant on our behalf—and He invites us to partake of all its benefits. Through Him we are fully cleansed, fully at peace with God and abounding in His grace. We cannot add anything to His finished work—His grace is fully sufficient. It is our role to receive the glorious gift—and to walk in it with joy!