In this sermon, the preacher reflects on his lifelong commitment to serving God since the age of 8. He emphasizes that God's promises have never failed him and encourages the congregation to trust in God's faithfulness. The preacher reminds the audience to immerse themselves in the Word of God to grow stronger in their faith. He also addresses the issue of slander, urging the listeners to confess and repent of any negative thoughts or doubts about God's love and provision. The sermon concludes with a reminder that God is always with His people and will meet all their needs.

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 WORLDCHALLENGE P.O. BOX 260 LINDALE, TEXAS 75771 or calling 903-963-8626. None of these messages are copyrighted, and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends. Now, just as a quick review, this morning we said that if we're going to maintain the blessing and favor of God, there has to be a continual rejoicing spirit. We've got to always be thankful for what He's done. When ingratitude sets in, then the hand of God is lifted. God will not stand by for ingratitude. We told you this morning that we as His church, we as His people, represent His portion, His inheritance on earth. And we are the only ones, those who love Him with all their hearts, those who truly walk with Him, the only ones who give Him praise, the only ones who can honor His name here on earth. We are His portion. That's marvelous to think, isn't it? That we are His portion, we are His inheritance here on earth. That places a great responsibility on us. Now, this church, we told you this morning, is at that prophetic crossroads or that prophetic peak where at the very height of blessing and increase and the joy and blessing of the Holy Spirit, that's when the Holy Ghost comes and warns and says, Be careful. If you want this to continue, if you want to see more of my grace, if you want to see me do things exceeding above all you could ask or think, lay hold of it now. Don't take this for granted. Beloved, this week, when God had been moving on this message, I began to just list all the things I'm thankful for. I thanked Him for the apartment I lived in. I thanked Him for my health. I thanked Him for this building. I thanked Him for everything He's done. I started listing all the blessings of God so they'd never be taken for granted. There's an old song that says, Name them one by one. Remember what the Lord has done. Now, this afternoon, this is part two, and it has to do with something that God's been dealing with me about. And at the risk of you thinking I'm spiritually weak, I'm going to make my confession anyhow because I really don't care much anymore what people think. We would just want to get a message through to your heart. Heavenly Father, help me to glorify You in this word. I want to magnify Your name. We're not speaking about me. We're speaking about You. But Lord, we do speak about Your dealings with us. Lord, what we read in the Old Testament with David and Joseph, these are stories of men and their experiences with You and how in human life they worked out their problems with You and they worked out their testings and trials. Even Abraham, all of those things happened to them as examples. Lord, sometimes You use Your servants, Your pastors and shepherds as examples and You take them through things to teach them things that they in turn can teach. That's what Paul said. We comfort You by the things that we've learned to be comforted in. And we share with You the battles that we've gone through. Now, Lord, You've taken me recently through a strong battle and I've come through to a wonderful place in You. But Lord, many need to hear and learn from this experience this morning we pray, this afternoon. Lord, we honor You. We honor Your Word. We honor Christ our Lord. We honor our Father. We honor the Holy Ghost. In Jesus' name. Amen. Don't slander your Heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit lovingly rebuked me recently for my having slandered my Heavenly Father. Now, slander is a false report that tends to injure the reputation of another. And it was not done maliciously. Now, the term itself, slander, suggests maliciousness. But I didn't do it maliciously. I didn't intend to hurt my Heavenly Father. But whether it's intended or not, it ends up as slander because it affects the reputation of another. You see, for a number of weeks, I've been tested. Probably a three-month period. I don't think my wife knew. I don't think hardly anybody knew the battle that I've been going through. It did not affect my preaching because God spoke very clearly. But God was testing me because I think all my life I prided myself on being able to hear the voice of God so clearly. Go here. Go there. Do this. Do that. And we all use those terms. God told me. God spoke to me. And I imagine most of you here that are Christians know what that means to hear God speak. Some of us hear clearer than others. And everyone has their way of hearing the voice of God. In fact, this past week, I went back over some of my old messages that I've preached here from this pulpit. And many I have preached on how to hear and know the voice of God. And I looked at that and said, Lord, at that time, I was hearing so very, very clearly. But for about three months, I went through a tremendous testing on hearing the voice of God and knowing that voice. Now, this is one area in our Christian walk that all of us are going to be tested in. If you haven't been tested in it yet, you will be. And it usually goes the same way it happened to me. I was praying about three months ago on three or four important issues. And I heard so clearly, still small voice inside and clear direction, detailed directions. And I thought, well, praise God, I've heard clearly and now I'm going to make a move on what I've heard. And everything seemed to be confirmed by the word of God and all the tests that I could make. And rather than these three things coming to pass, they didn't happen. In fact, just the opposite happened. Not one thing that I prayed about happened. And suddenly there was some confusion after all these years. There was some confusion in my heart about hearing the voice. I said, well, Lord, what was that voice? What did I hear? I'm not living in sin. I love you. I trust you. I've heard your voice. You led me to New York. I'm here because of your voice. You said that you're going to raise up a church. You're going to give us a building. It would take my breath away. You fulfilled everything that you said. I've obeyed you. And you told me to come here 35 years ago and work with drug addicts. I did, and now there's a whole worldwide program. Evidence of having been led by God. This church is full here today. Evidence that God did lead us here. There's evidence everywhere, but I don't know whether it was pride of hearing His voice. I don't know what it is, but I suddenly had a feeling, a sense, Lord, you are not speaking to me. You're not speaking to me clearly. I don't know if you're trying to drive me to the word. Now, the end result was that it did drive me into the word of God. But there was something in me, not anger at God, but at myself, not being able to distinguish the voice of God. Am I coming down somebody's road right now? And I just a little anger at myself that I can't trust what I hear. I can't trust that I would lay down at night and God would speak to me. He would speak comfort, especially at night, because I kept saying, Lord, I'm missing your voice. I don't feel that I don't hear clearly as I used to. Lord, what is going on? What are you trying to say to me? And I'd lay down on my bed at night and say, Jesus, I'm so desperately in need of hearing your voice. I need the comfort. I need that still small voice. Before I'd go to bed, He would just speak comfort. I love you, David. Just be at peace. Be at rest. And it would bring comfort. And then just before I'd go to sleep, the enemy would come in and say, well, that's just your head. That's just your voice. You're hearing what you want to hear. That's not God. That's you. And I went. It got worse and worse until it didn't affect me because God was still speaking His word to me. I'd go in the Word and He would give me messages. And I really, for three months, went into this book and it drove me to it. And it enlivened my fear of God. And it reminded me how close we have to stay to this book, that this is the word of the living God. He has spoken to us in the last days through His Son, and He is the word of the living God. Jesus is the word. He speaks to us through the word, is what He's saying. And I became more and more confident in the word of God. But I came to this place where I just felt God, for some reason, not hiding from me, just wasn't speaking clearly to me. And I took a young minister out to eat. And I'm saying, I don't know why I said it. I think I shocked him to pieces because he looked up to me all these years. And I said, Son, after all my years, I have to tell you, I still don't hear as clearly as I would like to hear. I said, Does God speak to you? He said, Yeah. I said, Well, how do you hear? And I said, Tell me. He's just looking at his chin hanging down as well. He tried to explain it, but he's so shocked after all these years. You mean you don't hear His voice? And then I was with another Christian friend, and I said, You know, I have to tell you, I need prayer. I said, I don't think I'm hearing as clear. I used to hear so clearly, but I'm being tested. I said, There are times I think God's not talking to me. I'm not hearing the voice. He's loving me. I've never felt closer to Him, but the voice is not clear. And I went home that night. This is just a few weeks ago. I went home. And I'm walking around in the apartment. I was alone. I was praying. And I said, Lord, why aren't you talking to me? Why are you holding your voice back? And for half an hour, I'm just walking, asking these questions. And the Spirit of God came into that room and sat me down on the chair and said, David, stop slandering your Heavenly Father. Stop slandering. I said, What? You talk about God speaking. He spoke all right. Stop slandering your Heavenly Father. And I said, Lord, you're going to have to explain that to me. He said, All right, I will explain it to you. And here's what I heard in the inner man. You're a father. You have two sons, two daughters. Suppose your son, Gary, gets on the telephone with your other son, Greg, his brother. And he says, Greg, I don't know about dad. He's not talking to me anymore. I call him, and he doesn't answer the phone. I try to reach him, and he knows I'm hurting, and he knows that I need him. He is not speaking to me. I'm not hearing from him. I can't get through to him. I can't reach him. And he says, Greg, are you talking to dad? Is dad talking to you? He said, Sure. He said, Well, I can't get through. And then the Holy Spirit said, What if your son, Gary, went out with his friends? And he suddenly just confessed to his friends. He said, You know, my father passed this Times Square Church in New York, and he didn't talk to me. I tried to reach him. He never answers the phone. And the Lord said, Is that slander, isn't it? Is he affecting your reputation? Is he touching you? I said, Yes. He's making it sound to all his friends like I don't want to talk to him, that I've shut him off, that I'm that kind of a mean-spirited person. And God says, All along, David, you know in your heart when you hear that you've tried to reach him every time you tried to call him, his phone was busy. And you did everything. Your heart was right. You reached out to him. You're ready to help him. You're ready to talk to him. Give him all the time that he wants. Answer every question. Meet every need that you're possibly able to meet. And you hear this. What is it but slander? He said, You stop slandering the Holy Ghost. He said, I've been talking to you, but you have not been receiving it because of unbelief. God was talking all along. But you see, when unbelief sets in, I'm talking to you about how to keep and maintain the blessing and favor of God. Because something happens in the inner man, something happens here. Because you see, God is more concerned about how you're thinking in your heart than more than that which is coming out of your mouth. Because as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the Scripture says. And most of our slander is in our hearts. It's in here. It's how we think about our Heavenly Father and His attitude and His responses to us. And we slander the Heavenly Father in our minds, in our thinking. And you can come here and you can rejoice. We talked about the need to continue to rejoice and serve Him in gladness of heart. But folks, that will not be received. That will not be received by the Heavenly Father. It will not come from an honest, pure heart if we are slandering Him the way we think. The way our thoughts toward our Heavenly Father. I can assure you, I repented. I said, Oh God, I see it. I'm sorry. I want to be careful what I say about you around other people. But more than that, the Spirit of God put the fear of the Lord in my heart about my thinking about my Heavenly Father. To even think that I would, to even imagine that I would think that I would carry thoughts for three months. Slanderous thoughts about my Heavenly Father. He who loves me. He who said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. He who said, I will seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened. My sheep know my voice. They hear when I call. I could have had a hundred scripture verses I could have reminded myself about. And rise up, raise up a wall against that unbelief. But I let it set in. I tell you, God delivered me, yes. And I know the whole time He never stopped talking to me for a moment. But my unbelief and my attitude and my heart and my slanderous thoughts toward the Heavenly Father blocked everything He said. Blocked it. And God began to deal with me the necessity of all God's people, all His children. How they think. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. It's how you think. You know, you can flatter the Lord with your lips and your heart be far from Him according to the scripture. You can flatter Him with praise. You can flatter Him with thanksgiving and worship. Thanksgiving, you can flatter Him with all of that with your lips. But what are you thinking in your heart about your Father? What are you saying in your heart to your own mind and your own soul? Israel slandered the Heavenly Father with a question. It happened at Rephidim. Remember when the whole nation began to weep because there was no water? Now they had seen God at the waters of bitterness, the waters of Marah. They had seen Him sweeten the waters. They saw the miracle of the Red Sea opening. They saw these miracles, but now at Rephidim they need water. There's no water. And Moses strikes the rock and water comes gushing out. Just a river of water comes gushing out. But it says in Exodus 17, 7, you know, by the way, that was called Massah, where the water came out of the rock. Because they tempted the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us or not? They tempted the Lord. And if you read that account in Exodus 17, chapter, it says, and they thought in their heart. It was something that started in their heart. They began to question, is God with us or isn't He? It was just a question that had been placed, a doubt had been placed in their mind. They're looking around and there's no evidence of God moving at this particular time. They're forgetting all the past miracles. And they're saying, I know He worked in the past, but is He with us now? Is He with me right now in this crisis? Is He with me now in my present problem? It was just a question. But then soon they began to voice it, because if it's in your heart, it's going to soon come out. You will not only be slandering in your heart, you'll be slandering before your brethren, you'll be slandering Him before the whole world. And this is what they did. Moses said they're talking in their tents now. They were going around and everybody's saying, is God really with us or not? Is God with us? That's all you have to ask your heart. That's all you have to say to your own spirit. Is God with me or not? I know He's helped me in the past, but I'm going through some, is God with me or is He not with me? And basically that's what I was saying. I want you to go to Psalm 78. Let me show you something in Psalm 78, right along the same line. 78 Psalm. Let's start with verse 18. Psalm 78, verse 18. And they tempted God in their hearts by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against God. They said, just a question, can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Yes, sure, He smote the rock. The waters gushed out. The streams overflowed. Can you imagine? They're just explaining one of the greatest miracles. Can you imagine anybody even talking like this? Oh, He smote a rock and water came out of it. How unnatural is that? If that doesn't take a miracle of miracles, I don't know what does. And they're explaining this great miracle. Oh sure, water came out of the rock, but can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for His people? Therefore the Lord heard this and was wroth, so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel, because they believed not in God and trusted not in salvation. Just a question. Is God able? That's the question. Folks, if you are thinking that, see this is what I'm saying. Is God really able to speak to me? Is He with me? Is He speaking to me? Is He not? These are questions. And folks, when you walk with this attitude in the heart, rather than standing on the promises of God and appropriating the promises, and move in by faith, and bring down those strongholds, because when that stuff gets a hold of you, it can absolutely destroy you. Absolutely destroy your faith. You can be seated in this church even now, and perhaps not even utter a single word of slander against your Heavenly Father. You have never said to anybody, you know, God's failed me. You may have not told anybody that God isn't speaking to you like I did. Maybe you've not slandered Him to any person. But let me ask you about your heart and the way you've been thinking lately. How have you been thinking about your Heavenly Father? Behold, He smote the rock, waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? The Lord heard this and was wroth, so a fire was kindled against Jacob. And anger also came up against Israel, because they believed not in God and trusted not in His salvation. My Bible said He's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. He knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity. He knows our thoughts. He knows what you're thinking. Folks, we are being judged by our thoughts. I had, before I came up on this, to this sacred desk, I had to sit here now, lay my thoughts out before the Lord, and say, Oh God, look at my heart. He's talking about having truth in the inner man. Truth in the inner man is not saying, well, I won't tell a lie. Truth in the inner man is believing what God said is true. That's truth. I accept it. I believe it. I want truth in the inner man. I don't want to just flatter with my lips. I want to believe with all my heart. I want all the doubt and fear gone from my spirit. Psalm 78, verse 36 and 37, read with me. Follow me. Nevertheless, they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. Now, look at verse 37. For their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast in his covenant. Their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful or steadfast in the covenant. Look at me, please. Let me talk to you about a heart that's right with God. A heart that's right with God is not just a blood-washed heart. A heart that's right with God is not a heart that's just being blessed and prospered. A heart that's right with God is not one that is just a pure heart. It goes beyond that. There can be no pureness unless there's pureness of confidence and faith. A heart that is right with God is a heart that's thinking right about who he is, about his word, about his faithfulness. I don't have a right heart, and God's been showing you some. I don't have a right heart. See, most of the times, we're wanting cleansing. We keep talking about our hearts being cleansed, and we come under guilt and fear and condemnation. We're always battling those things when God says, Well, wait a minute. I want to deal with this greater issue, the greater picture. I want to know if you believe that what I say is true. I want to know what's in your heart. What do you think about my heavenly Father? Do you think that I drop you every time you fail me? Are you under this fear and bondage all the time that I'm going to carry you into the wilderness and abandon you? I'm not going to feed you. I'm not going to give you bread and what you need for sustenance. He said, I brought you out in this wilderness to humble you, to see if you would trust me. And everything that you and I go through, our weaknesses, our tests, everything, is God saying, Will you turn to my word? Will you turn to me and believe what I say and let it bring life to you and strength? I want to give you a right heart. I want my heart to be right with God. And that's a heart that is bathed in faith and confidence in the faithfulness of God. Hallelujah. They did flatter Him with their mouth. They lied unto Him with their tongues, for their heart was not right with Him. Verse 41, they limited the Holy One of Israel. They limited Him. Now let me explain something to you. To think that God is not with you when He's promised never to leave you nor to forsake you is slander. To think that God will not meet your needs when He's promised to meet all your needs according to the riches of God by Christ Jesus, that's slander. To think that God will not keep you from falling when He's promised to keep you from falling and present you faultless before the throne of His grace with exceeding great joy, to think that He'll not keep you from falling is slander. When you're looking face to face with His promise and with His word, it's slander. Whether you say it or not, when you think it, it's slander against your Heavenly Father. To think that He will allow you to be overcome and destroyed by your temptation is slander when He's promised to deliver you out of temptation and make a way of escape. To even think God will permit the devil to kill you or to wound you when He's promised to deliver you from every snare of Satan, that's slander. To think that He is, to even think that He's heard your prayer and cry, you prayed, you cried, and to think that He has not heard you is absolute slander when He says, the eyes of the Lord on the right says His ear is open to prayer and we know if He hears us, we have the petition we ask of Him. We have the word, we don't believe it, we think wrong of Him, is slander. It's slandering our Heavenly Father. To think in your heart God is not with you because you have so much trouble and affliction now, that's slander when He's told you many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them from them all, that's slander. To think that God will not heal you when He said, I'm the Lord your God that healeth thee, is slander. To think that God will not do the impossible for you when He said nothing shall be impossible with your God, that's slander. To think that serving God is too hard when He said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light, you're slandering your Heavenly Father. To think God's mad at you, to think that He thinks poorly about you, is slander when He said, I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope in the latter end. If you're believing in your heart the lie of the devil, that God has bad thoughts toward you, or He's angry at you or mad at you, when He said, I know my thoughts, they are good thoughts, they are hopeful thoughts, to give you hope in the latter end. Hallelujah. Slander. I want to tell you, beloved, I look back over my life, if this were the last message I ever preached, I would want the whole world to know I've been serving Him since I was eight years old, when I knew who He was, and I knelt at an altar and gave my life to Him, and He called me to preach when I was eight years old, and now at 65 years of age, in all these years, I can say there hath not failed one word of all His good promise. There has not failed one word of His good promise to me. I can say with Joshua, know in all your hearts and all your souls that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord God spake concerning you. All things have come to pass unto you. Not one thing has failed thereof. This is the end of side one. There's not one promise He ever made me in my life that He has not fulfilled. There's not one blessing He promised me that He has not given. There's not one thing He said in this word, no promise that He's made to me, even my family, my ministry, or anything else. There's not one word has ever failed of all His good promises to me. And I dare anybody to show me where God has failed you. It may not have arrived yet if it's in the pipeline. He's shipping it to you. God is faithful. He's not going to let you down. Hallelujah. Glory be to Jesus. I want you to stand with me, if you will, please. You say, that's all you're going to preach? I've made my point. Have you been slandering the Lord in your heart? Have you been thinking wrong thoughts of Him? Have you even conceived that He could be unfaithful to you in any way? You have unsaved loved ones? Have you been praying about them? God's going to be faithful. You've been praying about your own physical problems, finances? Oh, my God said, I'll supply all you need according to the riches of God by Christ Jesus. He's not going to fail you. He's not failed you and He's not going to fail you. Now, how do I keep and maintain the blessing of God? I come and I rejoice in all the good things He's done. I serve Him with joy and gladness. But I have a heart that's right before Him because I stand to testify. I'm convinced in my heart, first of all. I'm convinced by the Word and by the Spirit of the living God. I've convinced myself through the study of the Word and through prayer and the working and moving of the Holy Spirit in my life. God's been faithful. And He's going to be faithful until I die. He's going to be faithful to keep me. Now, please don't go out here and say, Our pastor doesn't hear from God. I heard from Him. You're hearing what is the result of it. He does want you to hear His voice. He does want you to know it. But don't get scared when He takes you through those testing times. It's there all the time. Sometimes your flesh rises up and you can't hear. But that still small voice will come. He will be faithful to His Word. He said, My sheep know My voice. They hear when I call. Amen. Hallelujah. I see people coming. That's it. Just get right out of your seat and come down here. And let's believe the Lord right now. I don't even know why you're coming, but come on anyhow. I haven't given an altar call yet. Up in the balcony, do you feel like coming? Come on. I don't know what's happening here. Oh, you slandered, didn't you? You want your heart right, don't you? Hallelujah. Lord, touch us. God, let Your Word change us. Change us by Your Holy Word, oh God. Change us. Up in the balcony, just go to the stairs on either side. Balloons. Hallelujah. Folks, the Lord is good. The Lord is good. He's faithful. I'm standing here praying, Lord, what's the altar call going to be? If you're not saved, if you're not right with the Lord, why don't you join these that are here? The Holy Spirit's been speaking to you. Get out of your seat and come. Heavenly Father, lead us now in the kind of repentance that would bring honor to Your name. Lord, we've got to repent, even as Christians, if we have slandered Your name. We slander it to the spirits, to the spirits of the enemy, even. We slander it to our own heart, and then we slander it to mankind. And Lord, we wooed Your reputation with our own minds, how we think about You. We diminish Your reputation, and we diminish the concept of Your faithfulness in our own hearts, in our own minds. And Lord, we need to confess that. We need to pray that You give us a right heart, a good spirit, and a right heart that is resting in the faithfulness of God. Lord, I believe that's the rest that remains for the children of God. That's a complete confidence in the faithfulness of God, and that we can rest on Your Word and not fear. I want everybody, let's turn the whole auditorium into an altar at this time. My Bible said, we'd met everywhere, lift holy hands. Why don't we just do that right now? And let's pray this prayer. Let's make it a public confession. They did this in Israel, let's do it now. Jesus, forgive me for slandering Your holy name. Father, forgive me. Holy Spirit, forgive me. I don't want to slander Your name anymore. I repent. Oh God, forgive my unbelief. Forgive my doubts. You do speak to Your children. Speak to me, oh God. I confess my need. I need to hear from You. I need You to speak to my heart. Take away all the blockage, all the fear, and all the doubts. I love You, Jesus. And I confess that to the whole world. Now tell Him you love Him right now. Lord, I love You and I worship You and I give You praise. I love You, Jesus. I glorify Your name. I magnify You, Jesus, for You are King of kings and Lord of lords. Hallelujah. If there are any of you that came forward and your back slid and you're not right with God, all you have to do right now as you stand in His presence is confess it. Confess it to Him right now in your own words. Out of the abundance of the heart, let your mouth speak. God, here's my heart. Here's why I came forward and here's what I want You to do for me. I want You to change me today. I want You to change my thinking about You, Heavenly Father. And beloved, if there's anybody in this building that have had those thoughts toward the Lord, that He's not heard you, that He's not answering, that He's not going to keep you, any of those evil thoughts, deal with them now through the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. I'm so glad He keeps driving me to this, His Word. May He drive it to you. When people come to me and they say, I am so confused, I know right away they're not reading their Bible. If they come to me and say, I just can't seem to get victory, I know they're not reading their Bible. Because faith comes by hearing, hearing by this Word. Hallelujah. Get into Your Word so you grow strong in Him. Hallelujah. Now, folks, that we've confessed our slander, we have every right to rejoice and give. You see, we're responsible for what God tells us. We're responsible for what we hear. Hallelujah. We hear it. We act on it. That's when the joy of the Lord comes. And the joy of the Lord becomes our strength. Amen. How many are convinced God's not mad at you? Raise your hand. God's not mad at me. God's not mad. Why don't you say that? God's not mad at me. He loves me. Shake hands with three or four people. Just say that. God's not mad at me. God's not mad at you. God's not mad at you. This is the conclusion of the tape.