In this sermon, Pastor Carter preaches about the importance of surrendering to God and relying on His strength. He emphasizes the need to stop trying to figure things out and instead trust in God's plan. The sermon is based on Isaiah 30:18-19, which speaks about God's grace and His willingness to answer our cries. Pastor Carter encourages the congregation to have faith and rest in God's promises, even in the midst of trials and challenges.

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, Post Office Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or by calling 903-963-8626. None of these messages are copyrighted, and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends. For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength, and ye would not. But ye said, No. For we will flee upon horses, therefore shall ye flee. And we will ride upon the swift, therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one, at the rebuke of five shall ye flee, till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, as an ensign on a hill. And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you. And therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment. Blessed are they that wait for him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. Thou shalt weep no more. He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry. When he shall hear it, he will answer thee. When he hears your cry, he will answer thee. Hallelujah. We thank you, O God, for your precious Word. Your Word is our lamp, it's our strength. And I stand as the shepherd of this flock to humble myself before you, Jesus. And I ask for a special touch from heaven, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Let me speak as a shepherd does to his flock. Lord, I'm only one, but I ask you, Lord, to use this vessel this morning. Sanctify me, purge me, let me speak the pure, holy Word that will produce life. O God, we thank you for your presence here this morning. You were here since we opened the service, and you're going to be here all day. Now, Lord, apply the Word to our hearts. Holy Spirit, bring forth unction, bring forth an anointing. Let the Word heal us this morning. Let the Word strengthen us. Let the Word reprove us and rebuke us if it must, only to heal us, that you may be gracious unto us. I pray, Father, in Jesus' name, amen. Why God waits to answer. Now, I've read to you from Isaiah chapter 30. Don't turn there, but it goes back to chapter 29. This is during the reign of Hezekiah in Jerusalem and Judah. The prophet Isaiah is contemporary at this time along with the prophet Micah. These were the two prophets that spoke during these times. If you want to know how the times were during this period that we're discussing this morning, you read the whole book of Micah, and you get the picture of how Jerusalem and Judah are under judgment at this time. And Isaiah is sent by the Spirit of God to Jerusalem and the inhabitants there and God's people, and he's got a two-pronged message. First of all, he warns of a horrible warfare that was coming. And second, there was a promise of God's deliverance that they would simply trust and obey. The prophet Isaiah stands before God's people in Jerusalem, and he gives an awesome prophecy. He said, you're going to be going through a great test of faith, and this is all in the 29th chapter, and I'm paraphrasing. He said, there's looming before you a great test of faith. You're going to wake up one day, he said, and look out over the walls of Jerusalem. You're going to see the Assyrian army surrounding you, and he said, within one year it's going to happen. You see, God always warns his people. He always warns us. And the prophet Isaiah tearfully is standing before the people, and they're really being judged at this time for an apostasy. The city of God, the place of his anointing, where his fire fell on the altar, was going to come under an attack. They would be besieged, and there's going to be such a besiegement that there would be towers raised against them, where there would be bridges made so that they could go from their towers right to the top of the wall. They're going to be battering rams, battering the walls night and day to try to tear down the walls of security. These battering rams were going to be an attempt to crush every protecting wall. They were going to go through the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. The prophet said, your trial is going to become so heavy, you're going to be humbled to the very dust, you're going to lay prostrate, and the only strength you're going to have left when this battle is over is just a bare whisper. You're just going to be able to whisper. All your strength is going to be gone. Now folks, this sounds very familiar to me. It sounds like the same kind of warning the Holy Spirit has given to us in the New Testament. It's a warning that we as God's people in the last days are going to go through spiritual warfare, that the devil is going to come. You wake up one day, and you're surrounded by enemies. You wake up one day, and you find yourself in a battle for your life. You find the devil coming with his battering rams, and his towers, and bangs, and he hits, and everything out of hell comes against you. And there are people sitting among us here this morning in the balcony, main floor, around me, surrounding me, and you don't know who they are. I don't know, only the Holy Ghost does. He's the mind reader, and he knows exactly what you are going through this morning. He knew that all week, and he prepared a message for many of you. Some of you are visitors God sent you here this morning to deliver you, to bring you into new realm of discovery in the Spirit. He's going to help you this morning. If you just say right now, Holy Spirit, open my ears to hear. If you're sitting here this morning, and your mind is wondering, bring it to captivity, every thought and obedience of the Lord Jesus, because the Holy Spirit is faithful to his flock. He is faithful to his people. Folks, we serve a loving Heavenly Father who wants nothing more than to deliver his people. He's called a deliverer. He is a deliverer. That's what he has in mind for you this morning. Suddenly, some of you have been cast into the trial of your life. You're being tested in your faith. Well, some of you have been so overwhelmed, you've literally been crushed and humiliated, and you get up each day, and you wonder if you can go on. There's a doctor in this church, fine man of God, and just recently he was sued, and taking a stand for the Lord, and going through it, and he said, Brother Dave, every day I wake up, there's something new. There's something worse. There's always another evil report. I am being battered. I'm at my wit's end. I got a letter. You know, we receive thousands of letters from our mailing list that our messages are sent all over the United States and around the world. And this week, a letter came to me from a sister in the Midwest, and she said, Dear Brother David, I attend a Holy Ghost-filled church. I've grown more in the past two years than in all my past life, but for the past six months, I've been going through a fiery trial of my faith, and I don't think I can take much more. Why does everything have to be so hard? I have met the devil face to face, and it seems like he hits me in some different way every day. Every day, there's another evil report. He's been robbing me financially. He's trying to discourage me, so I'll quit. I've become so weary, it shows on my face and now in my attitude. Every day just brings more pressure. Why can't things settle down for a while? I bind Satan. I praise the Lord all times, but it seems to be to no avail. I know the word is true. I'm listening all day to godly tapes, but I can hardly make it through the day anymore. I'm so tired trying to be strong. I'm at my wit's end, and I really don't know what's happening. And we get letters like that from all over the world, people going through the test of their life. The prophet Isaiah sees this message from the Lord. He hears the voice of the Lord, and he said, even though I warned you of what's going through, even though I have warned you, I'm telling you that God, if you'll trust him, is going to bring you through miraculously. God is going to deliver you. You're going to be surrounded by armies. You're going to have battering rams battering at your walls. You're going to go through such a test. It's going to bring you finally prostrate on your face in the dust, where you can only whisper. But I'm telling you now, you don't have to do anything about it. You're going to just trust the Lord, and he's going to carry you through. And one day in his time, every enemy will be gone, and it'll be just like a bad dream that passes away. He gave in chapter 29, there are eight verses. The four first verses of chapter 29 are all woes, what you're going through. Folks, hasn't the Holy Spirit warned us that we're going to be in spiritual battles? Hasn't he warned us that we're going to go into a fiery furnace? He said, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing has happened to you. But he said, what's happening to you is common to all of God's people. But God will in his own time, in his way, make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Even though he warns us, he said, in the last days, we'll be persecuted. We will be tried. And just when you think your strength is going to fail, when you're lowest, when all seems hopeless, at the peak of your crisis, Bible says, God will take over. You read Isaiah 29, verses 5 to 8. And oh, what tremendous promises are given here. Moreover, the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, the multitude of the terrible ones. In fact, in Hebrew, those very important people who come against you shall be as chaff that passeth away. It shall be as an instant, suddenly. Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire, and the multitude of those that come against Jerusalem, her Ariel, even all that fight against her and her munitions, and that have distressed her shall be as a dream and a night vision. And here's a wonderful promise. God says, the multitude of your enemies shall become like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless, like the chaff shall blow away. The Lord will visit upon your enemies, is what he's saying, with thunder, with earthquake, with great noise, with storm and tempest, and a devouring fire. And you know what the prophet is saying? Very suddenly. When you think it's hopeless, when you think you can't go another step, suddenly, suddenly, the Lord shall come with thunder, and lightning, and earthquake. The Assyrians who have schemed to destroy you will themselves be put to shame, and that's all through chapter 29, and also the first part of chapter 30. He said they're going to wake up into a delusion. They're going to have empty souls. The devil's plans and schemes will fade away like a bad dream. God will lift you up out of the despair, and everyone who's come against you, who has warred against you, shall be consumed with his voice. They will no longer distress you, and the dream will pass, and you will come into his glory, and you will come into the increase of bread, the scripture says. Your bread will be increased. It means the blessing of God. Folks, we today have even greater promises than they had. Scripture makes it very, very clear that we live in a time of greater promises. For he has obtained a more excellent ministry by how much more he is the mediator of a better covenant, which is established upon better promises. We have all the promises Jerusalem had, and we have all the promises of the New Testament. Yes, God has warned you. He has warned me. He's warned us all that there are times that come that are going to test the very righteous, and I'm going to tell you, and I want you to hear me well. The more righteous you are, the closer you walk to Jesus, the hungrier you are for him, the more you seek his face, the more you are going to be tried, and tempted, and tested as no other Christian. Dear sister on our mailing list, send us this note. Dear Brother David, I feel led of the Lord to send you these encouraging words from Brother Frangipani's book, The Three Battlegrounds, and I want to read just a paragraph, and here's what it said. In these closing moments of this age, the Lord will have a people whose purpose for living is only to please God with their lives. Do you know there are people like that? Their only purpose for living is to please God. Do you know the price that kind of person is going to pay? In them, God finds his own reward for creating man. They become his worshipers. Oh, thank God for worshipers. If you are a true worshiper, watch out. They are on earth only to please God, and when he is pleased, they are pleased. The Lord takes them farther and through more pain and more conflicts than other men. Outwardly, these people seem to be smitten of God and afflicted, yet to God they are his beloved. When they are crushed like the petals of a flower, they exude worship, the fragrance of which is so beautiful and rare that angels weep in quiet at their surrender. One would think that God would protect these who worship. He would guard them in such a way that they would not be marred or broken. Instead, they are marred and broken more than any other men. Indeed, the Lord seems pleased to crush them, putting them to grief, for in the midst of the physical and emotional pain, their loyalty to Jesus Christ grows purer and more perfect. In the face of persecution, their love and worship toward God becomes all-consuming. Folks, that's the purpose of suffering. That's the purpose of being tried, that God may bring us to a place of sweetness, a place of rest, that we can come to this, he said, in quietness and confidence shall be your security, that you're secure because you have been tested of the Lord and you didn't murmur, you didn't complain, you didn't quit, but you grew in Christ. It produced the nature of Christ. It produced the beauty of Jesus in you. That's why some of you are going through it. You can't understand it, but Pastor Dave, never have I loved him more. I've studied, I've wept, I've cried, I've prayed, I walked circumspectly before God. Why am I going through the trial that I'm going through? Some of it is financial for some of you, some of it's children, some of it's family, some of it's physical. I don't know what you're going through today. Is it your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your children? Is it just your own physical pain? What is it you're going through? I don't know, but he does. But he said that's common. That is not to be considered something unusual. And if God doesn't deliver you immediately, I can tell you one thing, he'll give you all the grace you need to see it through. There was a persistent woman who cried night and day for justice and a vengeance. She kept coming to the judge. And the judge said, because she bothers me, I'll answer. But the Lord Jesus himself, and shall not God avenge or protect his own elect, which cry unto him night and day, though he bear long with them. I tell you, this is Jesus speaking. Jesus, I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth. God said, make sure you understand that the Lord will fight your battles. The Lord will do it. Now, beloved, Jesus was the fulfillment given to all the prophets of the promise. You read about the promise all through the Old Testament. That was Jesus. That was the Messiah coming. It was given to all the prophets. I want you to go to Luke, please, the first chapter of Luke. Really, something could give you great encouragement. It's one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Luke 1, beginning to read verse 68. You should read this every week or every time you're downcast. Luke, first chapter. Luke 1, beginning to read verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. This is Zachariah speaking. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. Who is that power of salvation, that horn? Jesus Christ, our Lord. Hallelujah. As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of how many? All that hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him. How long? All the days of our life without fear. All the days of our life, God dealing with your enemies in your household, your enemies on the job, your enemies on the street, demonic powers, principalities and powers of darkness, whatever it may be that comes against you, the Lord says, I will deliver you from all your enemies, so that you live out all your days in peace, and rest in the Lord. I want you to go to Isaiah, back to Isaiah 30, the 30th chapter of Isaiah again. You see, God comes to Jerusalem with these wonderful promises. He said, if you'll call on me, I'll hear you. You'll hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or to the left. He said, if you'll simply call on me, I will hear you, and I will answer you. He said, I will deliver you, and I'll handle all your enemies. But the scripture makes it clear that Israel, or rather that Jerusalem and Judah, did not listen to the prophet, did not listen to the word of God. And the scripture says they panicked, and they did not consult the Lord, but they had their own committee meetings. They met in private, and they said, who sees it? God doesn't see it. And they counseled among themselves, and they did not call on the name of the Lord. They didn't seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but they turned to the arm of the flesh. They got on swift horses and sent ambassadors to Egypt. They went to Zohar and to Hanes, and they sent their ambassadors on swift horses, and they turned to the arm of the flesh. Look at chapter 30, verse 15, if you will, please. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say, who seeth us and who knoweth us? Chapter 30, no, that's chapter 29, 13. I want you to go to chapter 30, verse 15 again. This is chapter 30, verse 15. For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength, and you would not. Now, folks, look at me, please. This is the Prophet Isaiah standing before the people. He said, the Assyrians are coming within a year. And he said, all you have to do is stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. All you do is cry out to the Lord, and he will come and deliver you. And while they're gathered around you, while all this turmoil is around you, you're going to have your mind at rest and peace, and that's going to be your strength. That's going to see you through if you'll just take my word. But he said, you would not. You would not listen to that. You wouldn't take it. They panicked. And they said, no, we want to see action. The Lord works too slow. Oh, isn't that just the way we are? God has made us great and precious promises whereby we're made partakers of his divine nature. You know the hardest thing it is for a Christian or a child of God to do is to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord? We want something to happen. So we get on our swift horses, just like Israel, and we run down to Egypt. Egypt is flesh. Egypt is man-made methods. You see, the Bible says that the Holy Ghost is our comforter. And rather than accept that and rest in that, we run to our friends. We get on the telephone. We look for some human comforter. Who do you run to in your brattle? Who do you go to? Who hears your ear? Do you run to the Lord, or do you really pick up your phone? You say, I've got a good friend. This friend asked me, this friend will help me out. The Bible says Jesus is our healer. And rather than rest on that, we run to our doctors. We run to our hospitals. We run to our experts. We really don't trust the Lord. You and I know that. When we are in battle, when we're in trouble, we run to some counselor. We have Christians now that just... Go to the Christian bookstore. Look at all the people lined up on the how-to books. How to find happiness. How to solve your loneliness problem. There must be 10,000 books on how to overcome loneliness, written by lonely people who don't know what they're talking about. They're trying to solve their own problems. God said, if you will seek me, your ears shall hear word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it when you turn to the right hand and turn to the left. All God said, Israel, or Judah, Jerusalem, Judah, will you just lean on me? Folks, I'm telling you, we don't do that. Somehow this has to get into your heart. I've stood in this platform, this pulpit, this past year, especially, I've been looking back over the messages I've preached and the notes. Folks, I have preached more on this subject than any other subject this past year. Brother Carter has stood here and others have stood here trying to get us to believe God, not to lean on the arm of the flesh and to rest in his promises. It has been coming at us time and time again, and God must know, he must know, and I know he does, that many of us have been grieving him. Because I can preach the kind of message I'm preaching this morning about distrusting his word and leaning not on the flesh, but leaning on his word and his promises. And people come up to me and say, brother, that was a good word. I can meet him out on the street. Boy, that was good. Boy, the Lord touched me. That's Sunday by Wednesday. The trial is raging around them and you thought I hadn't said a word about trust. Everything they heard Sunday morning or Sunday night, they've forgotten. And they're on the telephone, they're in panic, they're on their swift horses running to Egypt. I'm telling you, that wounded the heart of God. God was wounded, he's grieved, because rather than being in a secret closet pouring out their hearts, they're down sitting in the council rooms with the Egyptians who were heathen, worshiping idols, and they're pouring out their hearts to these Egyptian lords. These very Egyptian lords that God once wounded and destroyed. The posterity of these people, and here they are with their seed sitting down in these council rooms saying, look, the Assyrians are coming against us, we're going to be in the battle of our life, we are weak, we can't stand it, we will pay any price if you come and protect us. What does, how does the heart of God feel when his own children, having all these promises, turn away from him and run on swift horses to the camp of the Egyptians and they're unburdening and unboosting themselves to these men. And God said it's a shame. He said they can't help you. And the prophet is incredulous, he can't believe their blindness. He said you've lost your discernment. Woe to the rebellious children that go down to Egypt and have not asked at my mouth. And they go to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh and to trust in the shadow of Egypt. And the prophet comes along and he said, you know why you don't hear the word of God? For the Lord's poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep and he's closed your eyes. This is the end of side one has been a test so many times trying. Every battle has been a test. He's tested you and tested you failed and you failed and you failed. And here they are at an ultimate test. Folks, I want to tell you something. If you've never heard anything ever preached in this pulpit before, listen now, listen to a pastor who's learning. I'm sorry I had to wait till I'm this age in my 60s to learn some of these lessons. But you can preach this gospel all your life, you can talk about faith, you can preach it, you can preach about trusting the Lord, but I don't want to tell you it only comes through trials. It only comes through test. And I wish I had learned in some of the former tests that I wouldn't have to be tested so severely at this time in my ministry, in my age, that I would have to go through such severe testing till I finally learned this lesson to just step back and trust God and call on his name and let him take care of everything. I have learned in a time of slander and abuse to stand still and see the salvation of God and not try to defend myself or the house of God. I used to be a fighter. There was a time 10 years ago before I came to New York, you ever touch me, you came near me, you pick yourself up off the street. Bless God, I'm a prophet. I didn't say that, but I felt it. You touch me and you're dead. No, that's all gone. And you know why? Because in the test, you're not to retaliate. You're not to take the battle in your own hands. You don't sit around questioning, is God doing this or the devil doing this? It don't matter. If he's chasing you, he said, blessed are you, whom the Lord loves. He said, well, God, you must love me an awful lot to test me like this. But some of you are not there yet. You're still fighting. Somebody talks about you on the job, start a rumor. You're going to start another one. You're going to retaliate. You're going to get even. That's not the Christ way. The test you're going through, are you going to sit around? When do you stop complaining and say, oh God, where are you? Why are you doing this to me? Lord, I've never loved you more than I do. Why, why, why, why, why? That's the only word some of us get out of our trials. And the hardest thing to do, and I'm telling you this, and it's the only way, is to rest and stand still and say, God, teach me the lessons I want to learn. Open my mind, open my heart. There's so much that he wants to teach us. You say, well, Brother David, I've been walking with God for 30 years. Well, folks, I've been walking with God longer than that. And as a pastor, I'm still learning. You're going to learn too. Forget how long you've been walking with God. I know people who've walked with God 50 years and they're still babies. Have learned hardly anything. And they don't understand why the Lord keeps testing and trying them. Hallelujah. God was greatly offended when they panicked and rushed down to Egypt. God calls it outright rebellion when we refuse to rest on his promises. Woe to the rebellious children that take counsel but not of me. They've not asked it in my mouth. They depend on horses and they trust in chariots because there are many, but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither do they seek the Lord. Beloved, all through the word, we have been warned that we're going to go through this and that God tells us that if you're a true worshiper, you're going to be tried more than anything else. But the truth is the majority of God's people do not rest on the promises. They don't. Now, God saw this feverish activity going on. He saw them rushing down to Egypt. Can you see their ambassadors and their princes? They've got swift horses and they're all excited they're going to work out their own problem. Go ahead, get on your swift horse. The Bible said the horses that are following you are just the swift and you can't outrun your problems. There's no place on earth you can outrun what you're going through wherever you go. It's still there because the horses the Bible said after you are swift as your horses. Just about you think, well, that's all over. You turn around. There it is. Still following you. No, you can't outrun your problems. And these men panic. They're trying to outrun their problem. Look now with me. Here's the heart of my message. Verse 18, chapter 30. God looks down at it and he says, and therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you. I'll wait. Look at me, please. God says, okay, you don't need me right now because you're so busy doing it yourself. I'm just going to wait. I want to be gracious. I want to hear you. I'm ready. I have a plan. I'll do it my time and way. I'm testing you to see if you're just sitting right and rest, get off your horse. But he said, and this is the reason why God has not answered many of you because you're still so busy trying to work it out, figure it out. And Lord said, okay, I'm going to wait until you exhaust all your human effort. I'm going to wait until you completely are exhausted and say, well, to whom shall I go? That's where he wants you, where you are hopeless in the flesh. There's no man, there's no woman, there's no program, there's nothing on the face of the earth is going to help you. And you say, all right, God, I quit. I resign. You do it. You do it. David said, I cried unto the Lord with my voice and my voice unto the Lord. Did I make my supplication? I poured out my sorrow before him. I showed before him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. God said, come on to me now and pour out your soul. Tell me what you've tried. I understand. I've followed you. I've watched you. Lord said, wait, I'll wait till you're exhausted. I'll wait till you're tired of trying to figure it out. And you just fall back and say, God, it's absolutely beyond me. I can't fight it. I can't do anything about it. I can't change it. I can't. My finances, my family, Lord, it's there. It's been thrust upon me. I have to just endure it. But, oh, God, you're going to have to give me strength. You have to figure this whole thing out. And the Lord said, let's go on. Hallelujah. He said, I'm going to wipe away your tears, the next verse, for the people dwell in Zion at Jerusalem. Thou shalt weep no more, for he will be very gracious unto you. He was very gracious unto thee at what? The voice of thy cry. And when he shall hear it, he will answer thee. The first message, it was the second message I heard Pastor Carter preach. When a cry becomes a prayer, is that it? And that's when I got on my car phone and called him to come down here and preach, which led to his being here. And I know he preaches this, and I know how diligently I preach it. But folks, somehow by the Holy Spirit, it has to find its mark today and change us as a people. God cannot build a strong church on people who are not convinced that God is on their side, that God sees and knows all, and that he alone, by faith, to those who call and cry to his name. Folks, I don't do anything anymore. Anything that comes my way, you know where I go? I don't get on the phone. I don't call Pastor Carter. I don't call any pastor anywhere on the face of the earth. I don't even sit down and talk over with my wife. I love her, but I don't take my problems to her. My wife, I love her, but she can't touch that space in me. She can't help me there. She can't touch that spot. And so I go into my study, and I shut the door. Or I go out, get in my car, and go to Pennsylvania, and go up on a mountain, and I'll spend three or four hours just walking and crying my heart out. I unburden my whole soul. I tell him everything. I weep, I cry, and I say, God, you said, and I use this very verse, you said, when I cry, you'll hear me, and you'll deliver me. And I'll tell you, after, when I come out, when I come out of that secret closet, or when I come away from that walk with God, there's something inside of me that can settle on this, and quietness and confidence is your strength. There is strength that comes. God reassures you. Then you're not looking to the arm of flesh. You don't have to call anybody. You don't have to talk it over with anybody. That doesn't mean you're a law to yourself, or that you're just a loner. But then when you come out, you're talking faith. You're talking God's on the throne. You're trying to figure anything out. But folks, God has waited and waited sometimes on me, and He's going to stand by and wait. You can pray for eight hours a day. You can seek God with all that you are in the flesh. You can read chapter after chapter after chapter. You can read whole books. You can read the whole Bible. But if you don't have faith in His promises, in His Word, nothing's going to happen. For the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose, and they shall be to you a shame and a reproach. You turn to the flesh. It ends in nothing but shame and reproach. But oh, I love this. He will be very, not just gracious, but very gracious to you at the voice of your cry. And when He hears it, He will answer thee. All right, before I close, now go to chapter 30, verse 20 and 21. The Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. How many of you going through that right now? Bread of affliction, water of trouble? Raise your hand. Am I preaching to myself? I said, how many of you being tested and tried? Raise your hand. Quit hiding. Well, there's still some of you hiding. I'll tell you what, if this doesn't apply to you today, get the tape by Wednesday at will. Verse 20, and though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, who gives it to you? The bread of adversity, the water of affliction. Yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner anymore, but then I shall see thy teachers. And folks, do you know what this is? This is revelation. This is, who is our teacher? The Holy Spirit. These are revelations of the Holy Spirit. We never, won't be hidden to you anymore because you're trusting in the Lord. They're going to be revelations of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's going to guide you now. He's going to lead you through. He's going to tell you how and what to do. Sometimes you just say, stand still, don't do anything. And then he will give you direction. There'll be a revelation of who God is, who Jesus is. And you'll be standing there, but you won't be standing still. You'll be learning. There'll be a process of learning. Your teacher will not be hidden anymore. Nothing will be hidden from your eyes. You'll be learning. Verse 21, and thine ears shall hear word behind these saying, this is the way. Walk in it. When you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left, he said, I'm going to make your path clear to you. You're going to know and understand. And folks, I don't have time. You go through the rest of the chapter and it's all about how God's going to bless you and prosper you in the, in the spirit of Christ, in the glory of God, how he's going to lead you and give you the bread of increase. Hallelujah. He's on the throne. He's not going to fail. Some of you need a baptism of faith this morning. You need to quit figuring things out. Some of you haven't slept good for a long time. God wants to give you a Holy Ghost sleeping pill today that you can go to bed tonight and rest and say, Lord, Lord, you take it from here. Will you stand please? Now, beloved, look my way. I've been in the ministry long enough to understand that God doesn't speak like this unless he has reason. He knows what he's doing. The Holy Ghost knows what he's doing. If I'm convinced of anything, it's that. And he's trying to accomplish something in your heart. First of all, I want you to know, if you're going to seek God with all your heart, you've got today to settle this matter. You're going to be attempted. You're going to be tried. You're going to be tested. You're going to be persecuted. How many understand that now? The closer you get to God, the more fierce it can get. I'll tell you what though, the Lord won't keep you in that condition. He comes to deliver. But do you understand now the reason why he waits to answer? He's waiting for you to quit figuring it out. He wants you to quit running around trying to solve your own problem. He wants you to just give him simple childlike faith and say, Jesus, everything I'm in right now is beyond me. And I know some of you need strength. It's not that you doubt the Lord. It's not that you have any intention of ever leaving or wounding him. But in their flesh, you're weak. Some of you have only been saved a year or two maybe. And you don't understand. It may be that everything's going well, but something inside, the enemy comes at your faith. He comes at you. He comes at your family. He comes with worry. He comes with fear. And those are the battering rams of the enemy. Fear, guilt, condemnation, and so many things. He just batters and batters and batters. What are you going to do? Are you going to stand on his word? He said, I'll make a way of escape. I will. I'll keep you from falling and I'll present you faultless before his throne with exceeding joy. I will. I will. I will. And that's what faith rests on. Oh God, you do it. I'm telling you, I stand here now because he's brought me out. He has delivered. He brought me into his banqueting house and his banner over me is love. Hallelujah. God wants to bring everybody in this church this morning out of your pit of despair. He wants you to walk out of here with a song in your heart, joy in your step, having committed everything to him, casting all your care upon him because he cares for you. I want, first of all, the first invitation up the balcony here on the main floor, those first that are going through a severe attack. You'd have to say, I'm like the children of Israel. The enemy is surrounding me. The battering rams are on me and I have just been tried and tested as never before in my life. I'm really going through it, Pastor Dave. I want you to get out of your seat first. Balcony, go to either side of the stairs and come down any aisle. I want to pray that God this morning give you a great victory, that he'll lift this burden from your heart today. If you're backslidden, if you're not right with Jesus, come and follow these that are coming. Say, I need to come back to my first love for Jesus. Maybe you've never been right with God. Come and make it right right now. God will deliver you. Please move close and move in close because there'll be a lot of people coming. All right. You that are standing here that came forward, Holy Spirit just spoke something to my heart. I don't think we realize how serious and how what a storm some of you are going through. I want to ask a question I feel the Holy Spirit to ask. And this is not to be showy or anything else, but to show how serious it is for some of you. How many of you have gone through it so badly lately, the enemy has even whispered to your heart, there's no purpose in living, you might as well take your life. Raise your hand, please. Raise it high. That's what I thought. That's why the Holy Spirit laid it in my heart. Have you been coming here for how long? Nine months? God's going to give you a great deliverance this morning that'll never come again. Isn't the Lord wonderful that he knows what you're going through and he prepares a precious word just to lift you out of that. It reminds you how much he cares. Huh? Isn't that wonderful? Now I'm going to come against these lying spirits. I'm going to speak the word of faith. I'm one of his shepherds. He's anointed me for this. And I want you to know, I want you to believe the Lord, but I want you to believe with me that as I pray, God's going to break the hold of this lying spirit that's trying to bring you down. The devil only holds you through lies. Once the lie is broken, once it's exposed, he has no power. He has no authority. Hallelujah. I want you to just lift both hands. You don't have to go way up. Just, just, that's, Lord, I surrender. Father, in Jesus' name, I come against every prince of power and power of darkness. I'm asking you, Father, to bind and rebuke every lying spirit, every lying spirit that has come against the children of God and those who've been cold and backslidden, those who are going through trials and temptations. You're the great deliverer. And I speak the word of faith right now that you break these chains. Every demon power, you're commanded to depart in Jesus' name and go your way into the abyss. Go your way. Break these chains, Father, by your Holy Spirit. Break this chains. Break the power of these lies. As we begin to praise you, come now, Holy Ghost, encourage a spirit of encouragement to place the lying spirits, to replace the spirit of the devil, the spirit of God, and the spirit of encouragement. Now, just tell him you love him right now. Worship him and let the spirit of God come upon you. Holy Spirit, fall upon this church because we trust in the living word of God. Lord, we've taken your authority now over all principalities and powers of darkness, the lying spirits of hell that would deceive. And I speak against every thought of suicide that is here this morning, that those thoughts never return. Not one should be lost to this demon of suicide, this demonic influence. In Jesus' name, I bind that spirit. I bind it in Jesus' name. And that spirit is bound. And you're commanded to never return to harass these minds again. Put a wall of fire now, Lord, around about and be the protection of these, your children. Hallelujah. I want everybody in this church, we're going to sing that again. Whom shall I fear? We have no one to fear. Nobody to fear. The Lord is with us. He's with you. He wants to deliver you. Rejoice in it now. This is the conclusion of the tape.