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You Can Come Back to His Love
David Wilkerson

David Wilkerson (1931 - 2011). American Pentecostal pastor, evangelist, and author born in Hammond, Indiana. Raised in a family of preachers, he was baptized with the Holy Spirit at eight and began preaching at 14. Ordained in 1952 after studying at Central Bible College, he pastored small churches in Pennsylvania. In 1958, moved by a Life Magazine article about New York gang violence, he started a street ministry, founding Teen Challenge to help addicts and troubled youth. His book "The Cross and the Switchblade," co-authored in 1962, became a bestseller, chronicling his work with gang members like Nicky Cruz. In 1987, he founded Times Square Church in New York City, serving a diverse congregation until his death. Wilkerson wrote over 30 books, including "The Vision," and was known for bold prophecies and a focus on holiness. Married to Gwen since 1953, they had four children. He died in a car accident in Texas. His ministry emphasized compassion for the lost and reliance on God. Wilkerson’s work transformed countless lives globally. His legacy endures through Teen Challenge and Times Square Church.
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This sermon emphasizes the profound love of God for His children, highlighting the struggle many believers face in truly accepting and believing in this love. It addresses the burden of past sins, the need for assurance of God's love, and the transformative power of understanding and walking in God's love. The message encourages repentance, restoration, and the joy that comes from knowing God's unconditional love and mercy.
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There are multiplied millions of believers all over the world who have never known and believed that God truly loved them. My mother was a powerful preacher on the streets and she preached the love of God and she went through this terrible thing. I know he died for me and I love him with all my soul David. I love him but there's some past sins in my life I can't shake off. Some things I did way in the past that now I just they seem there and I've been feeling that God is not pleased with me. Her last five years she entered into a peace and a full assurance that God loved her. But you see you can be in the ministry, you can be well known, you can preach to thousands and even hundreds of thousands. You can preach the love of God, you can be faithful, you can love the Lord, you can be pure, you can be holy, you can be righteous and still not know and believe the love of God for you. You say how do you know? Because that's what I was. I preached to hundreds of thousands. I've preached to crowds of 50, 60,000 people. Preach love on these streets for years and go home and cry. All these drug addicts, alcoholics, Nicky Cruz comes here and he gets saved and he gets so happy and he feels so loved and I just can't feel that I'm pleasing you. I've seen it all over the United States among pastors and I'm shocked that I talk to 75, 80 year old Christians who've been walking with God for years, many of them Pentecostals and they are not convinced of God's love. They're still striving to try before they die to make things even with God. Jude warned keep yourself in the love of God. I was faithful. I have loved Jesus with all of my heart. I never left my first love. Never. But I wasn't sure if his love for me, I wasn't secure in it. Until you are secure in the Father's love, there is no joy. There is no peace. There is no victory. You can't understand who you are in Christ because if you don't understand his love, that Jesus was the essence of that love. Jesus was the provision of that love. You can never enter the joy of the resurrected Christ. You can turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. That's not the love I'm talking about because he said I'm a father to you and if I'm a father to you, you better understand that if he's a true father, he's going to correct, he's going to chastise and he's going to deal with our failures. But he's going to do it in love. I'll tell you what, I serve a God who's very present in my life. I'll tell you, I'm not there anymore where I was. The covenant brought me out of that pit. You know when there's no knowledge of the true fatherhood of God and his love, people work for him out of obligation and duty rather than love. But you see, if the Lord is telling us to forgive our brothers and sisters, how much more is this heavenly Father willing to forgive? But I come to a loving Father who's full of tender mercies. So many I've seen that go out because they refuse to accept the love of the Father, refuse to come back to that love. And many of you are on that brink tonight because you failed God, you failed admissibly and honestly, if you sat down with me and began to spill it out, it would be probably more than I could handle. You see, if you only knew what I've done, if you only knew how low I've fallen. Folks, it doesn't matter how grievous your sin, because this is exactly what the prophet said, your wound is incurable, your wound is grievous. Humanly, it's impossible. And you're under correction, you're under chastisement of the Lord. You can't sleep, you remember every scripture, remember the songs, you remember the souls that you won. You remember it all and here you are now, away from the Father's house, you are the prodigal and you're back again where you were. And you say, I can't go back again. Oh, yes, you can. That's what the cross is all about. That's what Jesus is all about. That's what the blood of Jesus Christ is all about. You can come back to the Father at any time. You can get up and run back to his arms. But I've also had the joy, the extreme joy of seeing others who accepted the love of God for them, even though their wound seemed incurable. And I've seen God healed them because they allowed the Holy Spirit to draw them back. And see, that's the work of the Holy Spirit. When you're down and when you have failed in sin against the light and you feel that God is mad at you, could never again embrace you, could never forgive you. That's when the Holy Ghost comes. God has his ways of giving you Holy Ghost miserables. He knows how to do it, to turn you away from your sin because he loves you. Turn everything upside down. Listen to this, to the same people that he said, I'm chastising, I'm correcting you because your wound is incurable, your wound is grievous, everyone's forsaken you, you're cast away, you're under chastisement. Listen to what he says in verse 3, the same chapter, verse 3. The Lord hath appeared to me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee. He's talking to these people who are fallen. He's talking to a people whose wound is so grievous it looks incurable. And he comes to them now and listen to what he says. Hallelujah. I love you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness I will draw thee. Look at 31.3 in Jeremiah. I will draw you. He said, I'm going to draw you and I'm going to take the fear out of you from ever stumbling again. Hallelujah. And I'm going to cause you to walk a straight path. Why? Because I'm your father. I'm your father. Hallelujah. I'm your father. I don't know if anything one of my children or grandchildren could do to me that could rob my love for them. Nothing. Nothing. Especially if it was against me personally. How much more, heavenly father? He said, I'm going to do this for you because I'm your father. Hallelujah. Glory be to God. See, I'm going to discipline you because I love you. I'm going to chastise you. It's going to hurt. If you repent, if you just come to me back to my arms, I'm your father. I'm going to restore you. I'm going to draw you. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to draw you. And finally, I've learned that the greatest weapon against temptation and sin is to know and walk in the love of God. The greatest weapon against sin. Listen to Paul's testimony. We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and being hateful and hating one another. Now that's a messed up people, I'll tell you. That's a mess. Servants to all kinds of evil. But after that, after what? After all of this, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. In the middle of all this, a revelation came, Paul said, the love of God, his tender mercies. And by his mercy, he then saved us. Do you have the joy of the Holy Ghost? You can't have the joy unless you know God loves you. God loves me. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Truly, truly loved. It's not just a matter of working it up in your flesh. It's a matter of believing what God said. You've got enough scripture here to base it on tonight. Now, believe that with all your heart. That's how he blessed me, his word. I received his word into my heart. The Holy Spirit made it real to me. He drew you tonight. You have got to understand and believe now with everything in you. God, you're not my enemy. You're my father. Some of you don't, you've never known the love of an earthly father. Don't attribute that to the heavenly father. Not that experience you've had. Not at all. So I do have a father who cares and who loves me. Hallelujah.
You Can Come Back to His Love
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David Wilkerson (1931 - 2011). American Pentecostal pastor, evangelist, and author born in Hammond, Indiana. Raised in a family of preachers, he was baptized with the Holy Spirit at eight and began preaching at 14. Ordained in 1952 after studying at Central Bible College, he pastored small churches in Pennsylvania. In 1958, moved by a Life Magazine article about New York gang violence, he started a street ministry, founding Teen Challenge to help addicts and troubled youth. His book "The Cross and the Switchblade," co-authored in 1962, became a bestseller, chronicling his work with gang members like Nicky Cruz. In 1987, he founded Times Square Church in New York City, serving a diverse congregation until his death. Wilkerson wrote over 30 books, including "The Vision," and was known for bold prophecies and a focus on holiness. Married to Gwen since 1953, they had four children. He died in a car accident in Texas. His ministry emphasized compassion for the lost and reliance on God. Wilkerson’s work transformed countless lives globally. His legacy endures through Teen Challenge and Times Square Church.