In this sermon, the preacher discusses the pressure that society puts on individuals to be successful and extraordinary. He gives examples of parents pushing their children to excel in sports or music, and the prevalence of self-help books promoting success and wealth. The preacher also highlights the dangers of this mindset by referencing Hitler and the impact of his success message on the German people. He concludes by emphasizing the importance of embracing ordinariness and recognizing that true worth and calling come from God, not from worldly achievements.

My message tonight, learning how to be ordinary. Learning how to be ordinary. We've got so many geniuses today, I thought it's about time for a message like this. I think as Abraham Lincoln said, God must have loved the common man, he made so many of them. I think this is a very vital message for this generation, in view of the hippie outbreak around the nation, and the rebellion of our young people, I think tonight I may be getting closer to the cause than anyone recognizes. Let me have God's praise. I want God to help me preach this. I need you, God. I need the Holy Ghost to take this word tonight with special auction, special anointing. Oh God, get through to the young people tonight, more than any message I have ever preached. Lord, I'm willing to set this whole message aside, but Lord, you gave it to me, and I bring it now to bear hard on the hearts of this congregation, in Christ's name, amen. Learning how to be ordinary. Scene one, Germany in the pre-war days. A young paper hanger by the name of Hitler began to preach a success message. The German people were told that they were a superior race. The pressure mounted until the day that this little paper hanger was made the supreme ruler of this super race that he had created. And in his heyday, millions of German young people were swept up in a state of euphoria. They were high. To the world he was nothing but a dirty little madman, but to these young people he was God. The world still cannot understand how an entire nation was duped by such a fool, but in retrospect, what else can you expect when superiority was taught in the schools, preached from the pulpits and over the radio, and even crept into the advertising in Germany during those days? Scene two, Life Magazine, July the 7th, this week. A shocking, fantastic report of 10 million Americans turning on with marijuana. Unknown numbers of teenagers getting high on psychedelic drugs. Engineers, computer programmers, school teachers, business executives, movie stars, and some teenagers by the thousands all turning in to the psychic revolution. Now what does the Hitler revolution have to do with the psychic revolution of today? What similarity is there between the millions of young Hitlerites worshipping that little God and millions of young drug addict worshippers in America today? The answer? The preaching of nothing but success and superiority always leads to idol worship, whether it be a Hitler or narcotics. This drug revolution in America today is nothing but the backwards of the American obsession for success, popularity, and genius. We have talked so much about bigness, about climbing the ladder, about getting to the top, about motivation, about the secrets of success, about being rich and prosperous, about being strong and muscular and good looking, about being intellectual and degreed, about turning the world upside down, about spectaculars and world-o-ramas. We have made it seem like a terrible sin just to be ordinary. 95% of the young people listening to me tonight will never grow up to be a top executive, will never turn the world upside down, they'll never say any great thing, they'll never do any really great thing, they'll not write a book, they won't produce a Broadway play, they won't be a glamour queen, they won't get their picture on the sports page either. But the whole American way of life is a pressure cooker in which we try to turn ordinary, typical, happy kids into neurotic, maladjusted, rich, miserable, aspirin-popping executives. Big shots. Paul the Apostle said, you see your calling, brethren. I believe you can hear, he pointed a finger right in our face and said, there's not a mighty, noble person among you. He said, you see your calling, brethren. Little Tommy hits a home run to win the ball game for his little league team and right away his dad starts grooming him for the big leagues. He's got another Mickey Mantle in his hands. Little Susan gets a solo part in the school of the church choir and mommy convinces herself she's got another Doris Day and she sets the wheels in motion, the lectures, the lessons and everything and she's going to be a Doris Day if she likes it or not. The school library is filled with success books and nothing else sometimes. Think and grow rich. How to succeed without really trying. How to make a thousand dollars a day in door-to-door salesmanship. And the lady who wrote that book never sold a thing in her life. I know. She's a friend of mine. Four steps to popularity. Powerful right thinking. Think right and you've got the power. The child turns on the TV and is told the biggest lies of all. All you need to be popular and successful today is to do away with bad breath. Smoke the right cigarette. Use the proper deodorant. That's right. Marriages can be patched up if the wife uses the right brand of coffee and gets the grey-out-of-bed search with the most powerful detergent. The child learns that if you can't sleep, there's no problem. We've got sleepies. If they're tired and run down and ache all over, we've got little liver pills. Eat too much or drink too much, there's no problem. Alka-Seltzer. And your problems are all gone. And if you're yelling at the kids too much, you need an anesthetist. Now it may sound funny, but it is not. Our young people are led to believe that success and popularity and power are the most important things in life. And all that you have to do to obtain it is to read the right kind of book, meet the right people, smell good, have fewer cavities, remember the popular formulas, and it'll drop right into your lap. No sweat, no work. And you know I'm telling the truth. Our young people today are rebelling against all this success pressure our parents are putting on them. And that's why they smell bad, dress wrong, and rot their teeth, and refuse deodorant, and grow their hair long, and read and study only the radicals. They quit their job and turn against the establishment because they're fed up with the lies, the phoniness, the pressures, the half-truths, the emptiness, and they just want to be left alone. And instead of a race of super-intellectuals like we thought we were raising, we've got a bunch of little kids sitting around sucking marijuana. There's a rebellion on in America today. And friends, it burns me up, and I'm going to have to get at it. I find myself too rebelling against the success cult. Even in the house of God today this cult is putting the pressure on our young people. Now I'm going to say some things here that some of us may not like, and some may not even accept, but here goes anyhow. The teaching is popular today that the surest sign that you're living up to God's word is if you claim all the prosperity scriptures in the Bible. Christian magazines suggest that God wants you to drive the best car, live in the best home, and eat filet mignon, and wear hand-tailored clothes. And the inference today is that the more God in you, the more prosperous you will be. Now listen to me, friends. God is certainly a good God. He desires the best for all of His children. He's not against the creature comforts that you supply yourself if you hold on to them lightly. And I'm not preaching against materialism, and I don't want to sound facetious, but sometimes when I go to some of these meetings and hear some testimonies, I get the idea somebody's trying to say, quote, I only made $50,000 last year, but this year I saw the light, and I lived up to God's word, and I was obedient, and God blessed me, and this year I made my first million. And friends, I find myself lately beginning to rebel against the success pressure that is building up even in the house of God and creeping into our preaching. And I've asked God to help me get my eyes off of homes and cars and clothes and bank accounts and all the business and the pressure that's causing our good young people to become beatniks. The very life and poverty of Jesus Christ cries out against the materialistic prosperity message that we're preaching today. And the Bible said that which is highly esteemed among men is often abomination in the eyes of God. Now I agree, God increases wealth. God gives men riches and the ability to make wealth. God is the giver of all good gifts. But hear me please. Prosperity, riches, and wealth are given to God's people for only one reason. Not to hog them and use them as self-righteous signs of being holier and more faithful to God's word, but to give it all back to God to further His kingdom and His cause. And it bugs me just a little bit to go to conferences where we've got 15, 16, 20 so-called Christian millionaires talking about the prosperity message and then taking half an hour to pay $2,000 worth of bills. And it bothers me that in spite of all the preaching of prosperity and this being a sign of faith, there is so little of it that touches the mission field from our pockets. And I've asked God to help me to practice this so that I can preach it so that it will touch the hearts of people. And I think God is getting quite weary of our suggestion that this is the plan of God for today. And there are some dying, starving people around the world, great Christians of God. And I believe a whole host of those who went through depression days, who would rise up not in anger but in disbelief at the kind of preaching we have today. Like Dad tells me about the greatest moments of faith in his life in the depression and sitting and praying for three days for some food. And a farmer brings a bunch of old apples he didn't want. And Mother made an old apple pie. She borrowed some flour from a neighbor. And Dad sat there, he said, for half an hour by that little oven waiting for that pie to come out. He hadn't eaten in three days. And I was just a little child. My sister went in and they sent us to the neighbors hoping that we'd get food. And he said they pulled that out and Mom was so excited the apple pie fell on the floor. And the old devil told Dad, curse God. Doesn't pay. This is what faith produces. And my Dad was just as much a man of faith as he was to his dying day seven years ago when God had blessed and prospered him. And some of you old timers have went through it hard and fast. Some of you didn't know where your next dollar came from. God was just as faithful to you then as he is now. Mr. Stone, a great millionaire of this generation, has helped me many times. Never boasts about having a baptism of the Holy Ghost. He never goes around testifying about what faith and prosperity has done for him. But he has given almost his entire portion to helping others. And I sure thank God for it. Paul the Apostle says, I know how to abound and I know how to be abased. Poverty and abasement are as much a part of God's kingdom as riches and prosperity. And our young people today want more out of life than big cars and nice homes and bank accounts. Our young intellectual generation want a faith that produces more than dollar bills and deep freezes. They want a faith that is judged by more than fancy buildings and bigness and showiness. It was Job who said, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. The Lord did both. Now, I just built a half million dollar building. And I believe in doing what God tells you to do. I don't believe we should ever limit God. And I rejoice in all the blessing of God. The bigger the car you can drive, go right ahead. But I tell you that you've got a massive dollar to God's kingdom. And a lot of us have Cadillac appetites and foreign pocket books. And I've just been thinking, I just came from Houston and they took me around on a tour last night of all these big fashionable areas in Houston. And someone suggested, you ought to come down here and build the crusade office. Homes are cheaper down here. And for just a minute I could feel that old man creeping in. And I rebuked him in the name of Jesus. I don't want to get involved in that when Jesus is coming. It's all going to burn anyhow. Jesus, you're getting quiet. I say we need a faith that will help us to learn how to be ordinary. I say God is looking for more young people who are just ordinary, who say ordinary things, who do simple ordinary things. Now I can tell you for a fact that I've met many drug addicts on the street who got that way because they felt they were failures and they couldn't live up to the image their parents had set for them. Their parents wanted them to be big shots, to be a success, to be prosperous. And they couldn't live up to it and so they copped out and took up the needle. We force our kids into college today and they're dropping out by the thousands. They have to wear a failure just like leprosy. It's an unforgivable sin in America to fail and so they turn to drugs and drink. We've taught our children to expect success and happiness and how to handle it, but we've failed to teach them how to handle the ordinary insignificant little things of life. We've taught them how to stand before the clouds and the bright lights, but we haven't put something in them to face the lonely hours of themselves. We haven't taught them how to face failure. Let me define what I consider an ordinary person. Not a lazy, fearful individual, but a well-adjusted individual who learns that whatever state he's in there with to be content. At peace and full of breath with no pressures on him and no foolish goals for his life. Did you hear me young people? No foolish unattainable goals. Or I hear some people say, well, you've got to keep pushing our young people. If they're going to get to the top, you've got to keep putting the pressure on them. Our young people get it in the church, they get it in the home, they get it in the school, they get it from their literature, pasta cooker. No wonder we have a generation of hippies. Life is very basic. Man must learn to live with God, live with his neighbor and live with himself. And only those who learn to live at peace in all triune sides of his life can ever be well-adjusted and ordinary. Man becomes frustrated when any one of these phases of life are perverted. Some learn to live with God, but they don't learn how to live with their neighbors. And some learn how to live with themselves, but they just can't stand people. Now let's forget about success and prosperity for a little while and let's just talk about the simple ordinary business of learning how to live as young people. First of all, man must learn how to live with God. Our entire life is spent trying to understand how we who are enemies of God can become his friends. Peace with God comes only when a person fully understands what it means to be a real friend of God. Now I face a real dilemma in my ministry now that I'm full-time in crusades. I want all the young people that hear me preaching, I want them to find a deep and satisfying relationship with the Lord. I want them to learn how to have peace with God. I want them to know that they don't have to be 50 years old and a great Bible scholar to learn how to have peace with God. I want to tell them that they can live in peace with God without any of the complications that they can't understand. And I'm going to tell you something. It's not the demons of hell that are blocking the gates of heaven, but Bible teachers. Often who are complicating it for young people and trying to confound the simple message of the gospel. The church library is filled with books that are so deep it makes it sound like only experienced saints can be happy with God and that only battle scarred ministers can reach a place of victory. And that's not true. The fact is that young David, little Samuel, young Timothy and many other young straplings found a simple answer in their relationship to God. And this proves to me that God wants all young people. I don't care how young you are. You may be a baby convert just converted. But God wants all young Christians to enter in right now to a place of peace and rest in their walk with God. Jesus Christ spent his whole ministry on earth simplifying the message of the Father begging men to humble themselves and become his little children. And he used simple parables to take away the hard shell of misunderstanding from the gospel truths. And in keeping with that principle of simplicity of the gospel in Christ I want to outline to young people tonight three simple things that God has told me to share with you tonight about having peace with him. Not that you can find God through little formulas and cliches. Not at all. But these bible truths that I give you now are so simple and basic and so clearly revealed that there's no other way. First of all, if you really want to learn to live with God and be an ordinary person that's well adjusted with your relationship with him God begs you, talk to me. Simply. Three words. Talk to me. Did you get that young man, young woman? God is begging you. Talk to me. Come let us reason together. Bring forth your strong reasons. Pour out your heart. Pray without ceasing. Pray to the Father in secret. I'll reward you openly. Come to me and I will not cast you out. Come to me and I'll come to you. Draw near to me and I'll draw near to you. Now isn't it strange Christian friends that you and I all know very well that God has all the power to answer every prayer. To keep us holy. To deliver us from all evil. To overrule all the powers of the devil in our lives. To set us free and to heal us and to lift our heavy burdens. And yet we find it so hard just to go to him and talk to him. Now let's forget about all the instructions on how to pray. I've read them too and they've just confused me too. How long you should pray or how to be effectual or the Bible verses to quote to get yourself in the mood. And all of the 1, 2, 3's and the ABC's of prayer. Forget it. Get on your knees like a little child and say Jesus I've got a problem. Here it is. I'm going to talk it out with you. And I look at these broken Christians terrified by anxieties and calamities. They say if I could only have an hour with Dr. Clyde Naramore. If I could only have Oral Roberts give me a half an hour of his personal time. I just need to talk to someone who can really understand my problem. So all of a sudden we've got a little Pentecostal psychiatrist giving out Holy Ghost instructions and prophecies. And I'm going to tell you something. I don't care if he's a Pentecostal psychiatrist. I don't care if he's a heartbroken concerned pastor or just one of these interfering jobs babysitters. Whoever it is. If he knows God in all he's going to tell you what I'm going to tell you now and it won't cost you anything. He's going to tell you the same thing I'm telling you now. Go to God and talk it out. Get on your knees. Ha, ha, ha, ha. You can do anything but that. Come pour your heart out to the Lord. Oh how many times I've been so sad and blue and lonely and I felt like the most backslidden hypocrite in America. I felt like a phony. I felt like my problems were going to crush me down. And I said God it's too much and I'll just go into the secret closet shut the door, pull out the telephone say Lord I'm staying here I'm going to talk it all out and I'll start walking around that office like a wild bull. God you know this problem. I'm going to have it out with you right now. And an hour or two later all the burdens begin to lift the sadness, the depression, the anxiety and I get a $25 treatment without a dime. If you'd quit running around looking for advice and if you'd just get along with God and discipline yourself and talk to God you wouldn't have to run around with all your little anxieties little tepid whirlpools misunderstanding. Secondly, God pleads trust my love for you. Did you hear me? Trust my love for you. I am love. The Bible said God is love. I loved you when you were a filthy sinner. I love you in your weakness and failure. I love you when you're up or down feeling good or bad when you have been written in the palm of my hand. I cannot forsake you. Believe in my love. Trust in my love. God loved Jacob through extortion. He loved David through adultery and murder. Peter through his denial. And he loved you through all your problems and weaknesses. God still loves you. God will not allow you to persist in your sin but he loves you every inch of the way as you fight your battle against the devil and the forces of hell. The love of God is so deep it passes all men's understanding that the Bible does suggest that we're to open our eyes and try to comprehend how deep and how wide and how broad is the love of God. Nothing has helped me. Young people have come to me saying, what could you tell me that would help me the most in my Christian experience? If you have to say it a thousand times a day before your heart will believe it say it over and over again. God loves me. I'm a child of God. He loves me no matter how I feel. No matter what I do. No matter how I feel. God loves me. Tell that to yourself. Tell it to the devil. God loves me. Oh, hallelujah. We spend so much time trying to measure our love for him. Lord, do I really love you enough? Let's forget that for a moment. God wants us to measure his love in our direction. How deep, how broad, how high. Thirdly, God is saying quit kicking and fussing. Quit kicking and fussing. There remaineth yet a rest to the children of God. The steps of a righteous man are being ordered by the Lord. All things are working together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose. So why are you kicking and fussing so much for? Why are you still trying to work out your own angles? And I'll tell you why we get restless and lose our peace with God. We never make ourselves see that he is watching over every little detail in our lives. Now we don't doubt that God's taking care of Vietnam and the Arabs and the Jews and the world problems but we've never been able to convince ourselves that God is involved in the details in our lives. And that's where the secret is. Most of our trouble comes from taking matters into our own hands and then messing it all up. Did you hear me? For most of us, God's too slow. It takes God too long to make up his mind to suit us. Please turn cartridge over for side two. You know, two days before we left for Houston I took my two little boys, Gary and Greg. So Gary, two days before we leave for Houston says, Daddy, where we going? Thirty-fifteen he says, Daddy, where we going? All day long, in fact, I had to get, I saw him coming, I had to run. Daddy, where we leaving? Where we going, Daddy? We get in the airplane fifteen minutes later, Daddy, when are we going to get there? Are we there yet, Daddy? How much longer? Are we ever going to get there? Oh, this is such a long trip. Daddy, when are we going to get there? Every fifteen minutes. Daddy, are we there yet? We got to Houston an hour later. Daddy, when we going home? And when I get home, you know what he's going to say? Daddy, there's nothing to do. We don't go anywhere. And I feel that my Heavenly Father has some kids just like that. Some little children running around. Father, where we going? When are we going to get there? When are we leaving? All the questions. And if he doesn't move fast enough, watch out. We just put our hands up and then we mess it all up and then we got a trauma. We've got an anxiety going for us. What you say, man? The secret of learning to live with God is simple. Talk to Him. Fill your soul with His love and then quit kicking. Secondly, man has to learn to live with his neighbor. Do you know that the ordinary person has not learned to do such an ordinary thing as to live at peace with his fellow man? The Bible even warns us to be careful when you chew one another lest you devour each other. After all these years, I'm sorry to announce husbands are still fighting with their wives, deacons with their pastors and students with their teachers, the blacks with the whites, the Jews with the Arabs, the rich with the poor and on and on. And I say that you cannot have real peace in your heart until you learn how to live with every man on earth at peace. You cannot have a single enemy. You cannot think a single ill thought toward any living creature. Well, how in the world can you do that, Mr. Wilkerson? First of all, quit judging other people. Now, Pastor, I'm preaching a plain meat and potato sermon tonight. Judge not that you be not judged. There are some Christians who ought to be sitting on the bench of the Supreme Court. They're such expert judges. Have you ever heard of Holy Ghost diggers? I want to talk about them tonight. This is the man who can't say anything about anyone else without digging at him. First of all, he throws a sock to his conscience. He throws out a compliment. And that gives him a right check to dig all he wants. It goes something like this. Oh yes, he's a real man of God. If he'd only learned to keep his big mouth shut. You see the dig? Yes. Listen. She's the most talented organist I've ever heard. She's the best. If she wasn't so stuck up. You see the dig? Come on. Our Pastor is a great man. That man loves souls. He's a good preacher. If only... Now watch the dig. If only he wasn't so stubborn about having his own way all the time. And pushing his own program through. Oh, I love him, but I wish he wasn't so stubborn. Holy Ghost diggers. It is absolutely impossible for one Christian to judge another Christian because there's no standard of judgment. For example, which is worse? To gossip about somebody or do the things they're gossiping about? Is it worse to lie or to call somebody a liar? Is the greater sin exaggeration or accusing somebody of it? Which is the greater sin? Glossomy or leaving half the meal and being guilty of the sin of waste? The Bible doesn't say anything about living like a fool, but he's damned if he calls a man one. Did you know that? Which is worse? To run off with another man's wife or sit in church and ogle the choir girls? Which is worse? To put a knife in a man's back or ruin his reputation and assassinate his character? I think it would be kinder to kill a man than to leave him a cripple for the rest of his life by trying to ruin him with lies and gossip. I don't care what it takes or how hard it may be. God demands that we make peace with all men and quit our judging and leave that business up to Him. God is the judge. We're to look for the best in others. The things that are honest, the good report. For every fault that your brother has, you've got two of them. I've challenged my staff in New York to do this. Next time you've got something going against somebody, get a little sheet of paper and mark down at least three good things that you can think about no matter how hard it is on you. Mark down three things. And take another sheet of paper and put your name on the top and start marking down at least 25 failures and see how stupid you look compared to Him. Let me tell you something, my brother and sister. None of us have a right to judge anybody else. We've got enough problems going for us, for ourselves. God expects us to walk away from all group discussions that have anything to do with character assassination. Don't form an opinion about somebody based only on hearsay and gossip. Believe the best of people in spite of all that you hear. Someone recently told in a group of ministers that I was having trouble with my wife. Now it was illness. Tragically enough, a cancer. But sitting within earshot was a man who has despised me and carried a grudge against me for four years. This was an ideal opportunity. He got on the telephone and soon in five states I faced one of the worst rumors in my life that Mrs. Wilkerson was divorcing me. Until we had to have the leadership come and stop the mouths of those that were traced down. And I had some god damn men interested in my ministry that stopped the mouth of this man. A grudge can destroy your life quicker than whiskey or heroin or LSD. I met a pastor recently in the Midwest who came to a crusade. And I noticed that he was watching me rather suspiciously. He came to me very timidly. He said, Mr. Wilkerson, I've got to talk to you alone, please. He said, I don't know how to begin. He said, when you started your ministry ten years ago in New York City, and I saw in the paper that a Pentecostal minister was kicked out of the courtroom. He said, I said to myself and to my family, how disgusting. I called you a publicity seeker. He said, then when you moved to New York and God began to bless your ministry, I had a seed of jealousy in me. And he said, I just kept growing and growing. And he said, I talked about you every chance I got. He said, and you came to our city and you preached. And he said, I still despise your message. And I talked about you around my family table, around my children. And tragically, one of the boys turned his back on God. He said, and that thing cost me my ministry. Brother Wilkerson, I spent a year in a mental institution. And he said, now I want you to know that I've taken many, many months to get the courage to come to you. And I'm here right now to tell you that I'm sorry. He said, this grudge that I've carried against your ministry now for ten years, I've got to get it out. He said, God put me on the shelf. God put me on the shelf. He said, when I stood before a congregation who tried to preach about grudges and about gossip, I couldn't do it because I was guilty of the sin myself. And how can you and I stand and judge another person? How can anyone preach white sisters? How can any Sunday school teacher or anyone else teach or preach about the goodness or the holiness or the severity of God if we're constantly guilty of judging? And tragically, ministers are among some of the biggest sinners along this line. You sit together in a group and if all you do is sit there silently without walking away when somebody's character has been assassinated, you're guilty. And then others, others have a beautiful cop-out. We sit there listening and shaking our heads and pisking. And then we say, well now, if it's that bad, we better pray for him. And in the name of God, we invoke the blessing and the prayers of God. What means it all? There's a motivation, a subtle motivation of gossip. Now I hear some people say now, Brother Wilkerson, preaching about gossip and things like that went out with a horse and buggy. We're a sophisticated congregation. We're city people. That's for country people. Come on, get down off your eye-holding horse. You mean this as much as I do any country people? The whole world needs to know as well as I do that we're all guilty of it. We go around judging and listening to the ill stories about other people and we get some kind of a satisfaction out of it. God forgive us. I say, God forgive us. I'm asking God to help me rejoice in the blessing of God on another person's life. I'm asking God, you know the thing that hurts us most of all is when God picks somebody else up and helps them to do what He told us to do and we sit back there on our little hoggy horse and we see them marching on and if we're just like that old slimy old prophet that told the young man that went up to prophesy, he said, come on and eat. I'm a man of God too. God told me for you to come and have a meal with me. Slimy old prophet. He was just backslidden. He was jealous of what that young man did. He wanted him to come down and be as sad and sedate and conservative as he was. He should have been the man that stood up there and rebuked what was happening in the land. And I'll tell you, some of our young people just a miracle they break through because we got so many slimy prophets that are just trying to drag them down. Wow. Thirdly, man must learn to live with himself. Young people have to learn to live with themselves. And the biggest job I've ever had is learning how to live with David Wilkerson. Not my wife or family or friends but myself. I've had a marvelous time coming into a beautiful relationship with the Father. And God's been teaching me how to keep my mouth shut about other people. Little by little I'm learning but my biggest problem is right here. The man I face every morning in the mirror. Some of the most miserable people on earth are those who have never learned how to live with themselves. They love God and they're nice to people but they hate themselves. Their favorite saying is, I'm no good. There's a letter from a young lady in Melody Land last month. She says, Mr. Wilson, I'm not good enough because I've failed so many times. God loves me, honey. Well, I guess that's why that's what I read in the Bible that something keeps telling me I'm not good. Every time I light up a cigarette I feel like I'm the devil's child. Am I really the devil's child because I give in so many times? Please pray for me Mr. Wilson. Please, I need to know if somebody really does care for me. I'm no good. We talk so much about pride being the great sin of this generation but that is the sin of sophistry. That's the sin of the sophisticated and successful but not the sin of the masses of ordinary people. Most ordinary people cannot live well with themselves because all they see when they look inside is a hypocrite, a phony, a good-for-nothing hunk of humanity. I'm no good. I'm nothing. I can't make it. Oh, how many young people in the world today have convinced themselves they will never live up to what God expects of them? They will not make it on the judgment day. Some have nothing more than little hope that God in some miraculous way will overlook their problems and some miraculous way out of grace save them. I've tried, Mr. Wilson, but I keep missing the mark. I guess it's just my nature. I look at others and I tell myself I'll never amount to it. My wife and family know what I'm really like. I heard a man say that. I act like a good Christian church but my wife sure knows I'm a phony. My real self, Mr. Wilson, is mean and selfish. I just hope God sees something good in me. I hope He sees my heart. Most people who say I'm no good are really trying to confess I've got some secret sin in my life and I can't conquer it. It's got a hold on me. It won't let me go. I've tried and tried but I just can't get the victory. It keeps pressing me down. I guess it's just because I'm no good. If I was good, why couldn't I lick this thing? Why does it keep hanging on? I've cried, I've prayed, I've done everything but I can't kick this thing. It keeps pressing on my soul. It's like a leech on my back, a monkey on my mind and I can't shake it. It must be because I'm wicked inside. I'm no good. The Bible makes it clear that He wants us to quit beating ourselves down. Quit beating yourself down young man, young woman. There is no righteousness in just belittling yourself. You have to learn self-discipline. You have to take the serpent by the tail. Here's the picture of a man by the name of Moses who stood there belittling himself. I can't go. I can't do it. I'm nothing. He'd been walking through the wilderness all these years and evidently picked up a little stick somewhere, a rod and it was in his hand and you know he just got used to that thing I guess and everywhere he went he had that little rod. I used to walk through the woods and I don't know what it was. I went around and my boy Gary and Greg my boys walked me through the woods. First thing we do we all pick up a stick. You got to wait until you get one that feels right. Just the right size. Hit it against the tree and knock it down to size. And he'd been carrying this stick around. And the Lord said what do you have in your hand? A stick. A rod. The Lord said drop it. Drop it. It must have sounded like the one or the silliest thing God ever told a man. There's nothing but a little stick. I'm used to it. It's a part of me. Drop it. Moses didn't know but there was a snake in it. He Can you imagine the fight of Moses when he saw that little rod of his wiggling around and looking at him with those beady eyes. Moses didn't know it had a snake in it. And then the Lord says now pick it up. By the tail. Have you ever picked up a snake? And some of us have the idea Moses was a superhuman being that had no fear and he just leaned down and picked it up. Have you ever picked up a snake? Didn't tell him to pick up the head because it had always been bruised by the master's heel. He said pick it up by the tail. I don't know what your thing is that you've got hanging on you but God's message to you is simple and there's no other way out. I've searched the whole Bible because I thought maybe I could come up with a solution for young people that have things that are hanging on their life. A lot of dads and mothers too. It could be that pack of cigarettes mister you've been hanging on to for months and you talk in tongues but the Holy Ghost told you to quit coughing. You don't know but you've got a snake there. Hmm? There's a snake in it. Drop it. That's the message of the Bible. Drop it. Whatever it is that's hanging on. Don't look for God to come down in some reckless way with a knife and cut it off. And I want to tell you something else my brother sister. When you reach out and you see what it's about today so take up serpents. You'll reach out by faith and that old snake in your life that old sin that's hanging on you put it up you drop it and God will take that very thing that experience of faith that you've had that glorious victory that you win and that'll become the rod in your hand. You'll be able to help others. You'll be able to preach the victory because you got the snake by the tail. Drop it mom. Dead. Young person. There's no easy way out. There's no other way. That sin. That weakness. That fear. That thing that keeps coming back at you. Get rid of it. Drop it. There's a snake in it. Eventually it'll die. I want to close in just a moment. You've got to resist the devil or he'll never flee from you. You'll be trying right now to toy with the snake. The Bible said no sin should have dominion over you. You say well I've tried everything now Mr. Wilkinson. There's just no hope. I'm going to have to learn to live with it. And that's the most tragic thing you can tell yourself. Learn to live with it. You don't learn to live with sin. God won't let you put up with it. God won't let you hang on to it. It has to go my friend. And my message to somebody in this house tonight is God sent me to tell you drop it. At this altar tonight. Drop it. If God wants you to have it back he'll give it back to you as a ride. But he's going to take the snake out of it first. Every head bow. Jesus take the snake out of us. Help us Lord learning to be ordinary. Learning to be ordinary. Well adjusted. But only as we make peace with God and with our brother and with ourselves. Lord there may be sin in the camp tonight. Somebody walked in here. Jesus burdened down with the sin that has plagued them. They just can't seem to fight anymore. They've tried everything and almost at the point of giving up. Lord there's victory. There's victory. There's hope. It may be hard oh God to drop it. Because we're so used to handling and playing and toying with it. But your message is clear. Drop it. Let go of it. Right now. Surrender it. Let me take the snake out of it. Let me take the sting out of it. The poison. And if I'll give it back to you it's only because I have a purpose. That's to use it. Oh God deal with us tonight. Nothing super. Nothing sensational. Just a quiet conviction of the Holy Ghost. I'm an ordinary person. But my problem is pressing me. I want Jesus to touch my life tonight. For more anointed messages write to the King's Tapes Library. PO Box 71877 Oregon 97303.