In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of understanding and fulfilling our destiny as Christians. He explains that our destiny is to live for the glory and honor of the Lord, according to His mind and will. However, when Adam and Eve chose to live for themselves, they were driven out of the garden and experienced sweat, murder, hate, anxiety, and fear. The preacher highlights the misery and pain that many Christians experience when they lose sight of their reason for being created. He encourages believers to seek their destiny and find completeness and fullness in Jesus. The destiny of every human being is summed up in Colossians 1:16, which states that all things were created by Jesus and for Him.

Heavenly Father, we've got a destiny, and a lot of people don't know what it is, Lord. And when we get a hold of this destiny, when we know for sure why you brought us to this earth, and why we were created, and we come into that destiny, there will be a fullness, there will be a completeness in us. Oh, Holy Spirit, please give us hearing ears this morning. I can't begin to unburden my heart this morning until people say, Lord, I'm hungry, I want to know. God calls everyone in this place to pray for hearing ears this morning. Let the Holy Spirit open this to us. Lord, that while I'm preaching, there will be waters to swim in for me and for everyone who hears. Lord, open our eyes to the vastness of Jesus. Open our eyes to our destiny this morning. We're going to keep repeating that this morning, and we're going to hammer it and hammer it until suddenly, before we leave here this morning, we're going to understand why we're here on this earth. What we're called to in Jesus' name. Amen. Hallelujah. Now, when I talk to you about the destiny of man, it sounds like I'm tackling a subject that's so lofty, so eternal, so incomprehensible, that nobody can understand. Destiny of man. It's really not difficult. In fact, it's very simple. And I believe it's a basic truth that God wants every Christian to understand. And I really believe if you understand this, it will be the key to your whole Christian experience. And I believe it will change your life like it's beginning to change mine. The Lord opened this to me. The destiny of every human being is wrapped in one single verse. One single line in the whole Bible reveals the entire destiny of man. All things were created by him and for him. That's found in Colossians 1.16. For by him were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him. What is the destiny of man? All things were created by him and for him. Hallelujah. All mankind was created by Jesus Christ. Do you understand that? By him, he created all things. He created them for himself. All things were created by him and for him. I'm going to keep coming back to that all morning. What is the destiny of man? We've been created for the sole purpose of being here on this earth for him. To the glory and praise and honor and pleasure of the Lord Jesus. We were created by him for him. If we're created by him for him, our destiny is to live in that. To be here for him. To be here for Jesus Christ. That's our destiny. Not just Christians, but every single human being. Man has been created that nothing he does on this earth will satisfy him or fulfill him outside of that destiny. There is a misery index. You know, if you turn on the news, they're using it already. They combined the temperature with humidity and get what they call a misery index. The misery index is 110. The misery index is 120. They have a chill factor in the summer misery index. There is a misery index for Christians and it has to do with how far you are or how close you are to your destiny. The further you are from fulfilling the destiny of being here on this earth for the glory and the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ, the more miserable you become, the more you fulfill that destiny, the more peace and the glory, joy and fulfillment you have. All the misery of mankind can be traced to the fact that they've rejected this destiny. Not a single living soul was created for any other purpose on earth, and that's why it's absolutely impossible for a sinner to ever be happy or fulfilled. The destiny of a sinner is the same as for a Christian, the destiny for all mankind. He created us all the same way, to be here on earth simply to serve, honor and be here for his pleasure. Now what about the Christian? What about all this unrest in the church, this turmoil, the lack of joy and the sadness and the fear? There's a sense of loneliness Christians talk about and futility. Go into any religious bookstore and look at the subjects on how to get Christians out of their loneliness. Isn't that ridiculous that a whole body of literature and theology should be written for people who will not come into their destiny? Who don't even know why they were born, why they're here on this earth. They are focused on self, living for self, wrapped up in self-interest. They're not here for the Lord anymore. They're not living only to the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a criminal act to invite sinners to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and find happiness and fulfillment. If you don't tell them that there's a destiny involved with it. This is not just a decision, there's a destiny involved. If you invite sinners to come to Jesus and find happiness and fulfillment, and you don't tell them that they've got a destiny to live for Jesus the rest of their life, and that God has so created them, that if they live for self they're going to be miserable, and if they live for Jesus they're going to be happy. If you don't tell them their destiny is to die to self, then you've only given them half a gospel. It's criminal. I will never again tell people to come to Jesus and be happy and fulfilled until they know there's a cost, that they have an eternal destiny, that they were created for one purpose, and that's to spend the rest of their life to the glory and honor and praise of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, God made an everlasting decree, and by the way, destiny means just that, an invincible fate, an established decree, a predetermined condition. There is a predetermined condition when you were born. I'm going to get into that here. This everlasting decree decreed that all mankind was predestined to live to the glory and honor and praise of the Lord, in whom God entrusted all of his fullness, and in fact the Bible said, for him all things exist. Paul the apostle on Mars Hill, didn't he say, we live and move and have our being in him. Our reason for existence is in him. You get out of that, you have no reason for existence. You lose the meaning of life. All these people in colleges running around trying to find the meaning of life, they'll never find it. Never find it. They haven't found it in thousands of years. They're never going to find it. In fact, they're getting colder and colder. Remember that game? You don't hide it. No, you're hot, you're cold. They are cold. They're really getting cold. They're getting further and further away from it. Nobody's moving closer to the truth. Mankind reaches his peak of fulfillment, pleasure and joy in the measure he lives out his destiny. Now think about that for a minute. In the measure you live out this destiny God created you for, that's the measure of your joy and fulfillment. In other words, the more I'm here for his glory, the more that he becomes my only aim in going life, the happier I become, but the more self-centered I am, the more miserable I become. That's why rich people are the most miserable people on earth. They spend their money for self, they're focused on self, and that self-interest creates misery. Most miserable people in the world are in Dallas, all these oil people, and a lot of them in Tyler, and some of them around here. The whole world today lives in total misery and despair because it's lost touch with his destiny. Man doesn't even know why he's here. Now I'm going to try to attempt in some weak way this morning to show you how man lost his destiny and the only way to find it again. First of all, we know that Adam lost his destiny as a result of sin. He lost it. Adam was created by and for Jesus Christ. Remember, Jesus Christ created Adam. All things were created by him and for him. He was with God before the foundation of the world, before the world was ever thought of. I mean, way back, not thought of, but before the world was ever created, Jesus was with the Father. Oh, hallelujah. He created all things. All things were created by him and for him. Man was created what? For him! Now keep that in mind. I'm going to keep pounding that. We were to be a race of people here on earth whose entire purpose was to find our joy and fulfillment and living only for him. And there were going to be two laws. A law of sin and death. A law of life in Jesus Christ. These two laws were finally enacted at the cross, and I'll show you that in just a minute. These laws work. You serve self. You serve your selfish pleasures, and there's a law. That is sin in the sight of God, and that brings death. Now, not physical death, that's a spiritual kind of death, and everyone who's living to self is living under the law of sin and death. But when you are here for the glory of Jesus and you've made up your mind that you're going to be here for the glory of the Lord, there's a law of the spirit of life in Christ. Life begins to flow, fulfillment begins to flow, and all that Jesus is becomes manifest in us. It's the law of the spirit of life in Christ. Now, our Lord created man not as an experiment. Boy, I wish you'd get that out of your mind. A lot of people think God created man as kind of a toy, an experiment, or some kind of an amusement. No, he was created for communion, for the Lord Jesus Christ, for his pleasure. Oh, he was created with the capacity to give and receive love from Christ, focused on Jesus. The whole world's about Jesus Christ. All creation is about Jesus Christ. Everything we are this morning, where we are, who we are, everything's about Jesus. It's not about us. The world wasn't created for man. All things were created for him. And most of his things were created for us, and so we're going to use it for ourselves. And that's where the trouble is. The world was created for me. I get sick and tired of preachers saying man was created just for dominion. He was not created for dominion. That was a by-product of his relationship and fulfilling his destiny. Dominion was to be over self. He was forced to take dominion over this self-life, because he was given a free will along with a destiny. Well, certainly, when the Lord created this man, he had to have told him. In fact, you read the rest of the Bible, you won't find it in Genesis. You'll find it in the rest of the Bible. You'll find it in the principles of God, that the Lord Jesus, when he created Adam, must have told him, Adam, you're here for my pleasure. I created you to have fellowship with you. And I've created you with a law in you, that says that if you'll fulfill that, that's your destiny, if you'll fulfill it, you will be happy. You don't need a will of your own. I've got the perfect will. You don't need a mind of your own. I've got the perfect mind. If you'll just yield to me, and give your life to me, you'll have glory, and you'll raise up a race of people that are in dominion. You'll raise up people who will be a pleasure and a joy to my heart. There will not be sadness. There'll be no sweat. It'll be a life of joy and victory and peace. It'll be everlasting glory. That's what God intended. God never intended man ever die. He was created an eternal being. Sin brought death. He was not to die. It was to be a race of eternal people in an eternal destiny, living in fullness because they were knowing why they were here on earth, and doing what they were supposed to do here on earth. Being here for his glory and pleasure, for his communion. Oh, hallelujah! I want to show you something here that's, I think, going to help in this. What other purpose can you see for any created being? Now, remember, we're not the only created beings. Jesus created angels, didn't he? He created seraphim, cherubim. He created those four marvelous creatures that have eyes all over. I mean, the eyes of God. I'm waiting to see those marvelous creatures that Ezekiel talked about, had eyes in the front and back. Everywhere, eyes. The eyes of God. The eternal eyes of God. I can't even comprehend it. But God created them for Christ's glory. He's got 420 elders receiving the prayers and the orders of the saints offered to him. And these all have a destiny. And what is the destiny of every created being? All things were created by him and for him. Every angel was created by him and for him. The seraphim were created by him and for him. The cherubim created by him and for him. The 420 elders by him and for him. Everything was created by him and for him. And why are the angels in ecstasy? They never sleep. Night and day they fulfill their destiny. Their destiny was to be to the praise and honor and glory and pleasure of the Lord. And all hours of our day and night, they are worshiping, they are praising, they are exalting the Lord. And that's where they get their joy. The more they praise, the more joy. Because when you fulfill your destiny, you're fulfilled. That's why the fallen angels have no joy and never can. And they are in torment because every time they worship Lucifer, they're outside of their destiny. And anything you do outside of your destiny creates misery. They were not destined to worship Lucifer. They were destined to worship Christ. And being out of their destiny, they're in torment. And their torment is because they're away from their destiny. They're not doing what they were created to do. You understand that? It's not difficult, is it? Now, man blew his destiny, didn't he? Now, what was the sin in the garden? It was the creation of flesh. It was the beginning of self-will. Sin is self-will. Sin is self-interest. That's flesh. And that's what happens, you know, by his actions. Adam was actually saying to the Lord Jesus, I choose not to be here on earth just to please you and glorify you. He said, I've got a life of my own. I'd like to make my own decisions. I want to be my own man. I'd like to determine my life and my future. I refuse to be just totally dependent on you. That's what the sin of the garden was. Now, up to this time, he's walking in the Spirit. He's clothed in the Spirit of Christ. And now, he realizes he's naked. What does that mean? Suddenly, the Lord has shown him what self-will does. It creates nakedness. He's naked now. Because he's walking in self-will, he's made a choice. And what's he done? He has grown his destiny. What was his destiny? To be here for the glory and honor of the Lord, the mind and the will of God. And now, he has his own mind, his own will. He's going to live for himself. So, the earth is going to be his kingdom now. He's going to make his own decision. And God, our Lord Jesus, drives this man out of the garden. He's driven out of the garden. And what happens? The same thing that happens to every man on the face of this earth that walks away from his destiny, to be here only for the Lord's glory. Sweat, murder, hate, anxiety, fear. Two creatures who'd lost their destiny, now condemned to a life in the flesh. Regrets, pain, suffering. They'd lost their reason for living. They'd lost their reason for being created. They were not created to sweat. They were not created for turmoil. They were created to live in a garden of ecstasy, in the glory and honor and worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you follow from Adam to Christ, and you find very few of Adam's race, who ever again come into their destiny to be only here on this earth for the glory of the Lord. Abel finds it, and he's murdered because he found it. He found it for just a short time. He offers an offering to the Lord, and he says, I'm here to offer praise and honor to the Lord. And when he did, he was killed. That's why I'm saying, you take your stand on this earth, to be here only for the honor and glory of the Lord. You step out of the crowd that's self-centered, and you run up against that Cain spirit. It's in the church. And the Adam race got so far from its destiny to be here only for the Lord, it became violent and exceedingly wicked, because the further you get from your destiny, the more violent, the more wicked. Hell represents the furthest point you can get away from your destiny. In the mind of God, you picture as far as God can cast a man out into the cosmos, out into everlasting darkness, hell is the furthest end that God can conceive from your destiny, from being here for his glory. That hell is really given over to yourself. There is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. There is fire. But it's being given over to yourself. It repented the Lord that he made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. And boy, you listen to the pathos of God when you read Genesis the 6th chapter. God looks down on the earth, and he sees a race of mad men and women. They're thinking now only of their pleasure. They're doing whatsoever they please. They're a law to themselves now. They're living in misery and torment. They don't even have one idea why the world is coming apart on them. It's chaos. There's murder. There's rape now. There's incest. There's sodomy. Every man's out for himself. It's do unto others before they do it unto you. Self-will is in control. Self-interest. They're a world away from their destiny now. The Lord grieves. Because here's a generation with only one man who knows his destiny. Only one man on the face of the earth that knows why he's here. And Peter called Noah a preacher of righteousness. Noah's the only man on the face of the whole earth that God could look down and say, there's a man who lives for me only. There's a man in his destiny. There's a man who knows why he's created. And that's why I know Noah. Noah was a fulfilled man. Noah had to be a happy man because he was living here, preaching righteousness, living righteousness, and that's what creates happiness and fulfillment. You think after the flood, Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Jephthah, wouldn't you think that they would understand now something about the destiny? Wouldn't you think they would get off into dry land and say, now we know why we're created. We've been spared so that we can live holy for His glory and honor and praise. That He be everything. We know what happens to men. We know how God judges men who live for self. Wouldn't you think men would have learned? What happens? Noah gets drunk. Ham uncovers his nakedness, which many believe means he created sodomy, a homosexual act while his father slept. And he wakes up, and Noah curses his first beloved grandson, Canaan. Look at the curse back again. Look at the turmoil. God has just dealt with this. And once again, man, Noah, his family, moved completely away from the destiny, back into self-will, back to living for self. And what do you come to find? You come to Nidrod, his great grandson, and to Babel. And finally, there's not a man on the face of the earth now who knows his destiny. There's not a man on the face of the earth that God can look to and say, There's one man! You know what you hear at Babel? Let us make a name for ourselves. And not a man to stand up and say, That's not why we're here. We're here to give glory to Him, not to make a name for ourselves. Where is it? I wonder if the Lord didn't cry out for just one man. One man fulfilling his destiny. One man who cared nothing about himself. One man who'd spend his life bringing glory to Jesus. And I think I hear Him say, like in Ezekiel, I sought for a man among them that should make up for the heads and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy, but I found none. I wonder if the Lord looks at our land and sees the church age in which we're living, and He says, Why is there no man? Why is there no intercessor? And I hear Jeremiah run up and down the streets and look everywhere you can, see if you can find a man, any man who stands for God and for truth. Jeremiah 5.1. Let me read it again. Jeremiah, run up and down the streets, look everywhere you can, see if you can find a man, any man who stands for God and for truth. David cries, Help, Lord, for the godly man is ceasing to be anymore. The godly man is ceasing from the face of the earth. And you read Psalms 11-15 and you'll find the Song of the Remnant. That's the whole Song of the Remnant. And if you're in the Remnant, Psalms 11-15 will be glory to you when you go home and read it. There's no man in the destiny at Babel. There's no man standing for God alone at Babel. And so, what happens? It ends in confusion, doesn't it? What did we say is the ultimate result of being out of your destiny? Confusion. Turmoil. And boy, you look at the history of the Old Testament, you can count on your hands how many came into the destiny from Abraham to Christ. You know Abraham was in his destiny, don't you? But look, Enoch walked with God. He preached righteousness. Jacob, in his old age, finally comes in to the knowledge of why he's here. Finally, after all the years he struggles through to this knowledge and he dies in the honors of a patriarch. But each generation from then on to Christ produced just a handful, just a handful. It's a shame to stand here this morning and tell you through the whole Old Testament there's just a handful of people. There's Joseph. There's Moses. There's Joshua. There's Caleb. When you talk about a Remnant, listen to what the Lord says. He's speaking to Israel through Amos. He said, you, speaking to Israel, you have I known of all the families of the earth. You alone have I known. Now that's incredible when you think of all the empires that surrounded this little flock of Israel. There was the Persian Empire, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Medes, the Persians, the Canaanites, the Ethiopians, the Sea People, as they called them, all the mixed tribes of Asia Minor. There were multitudes on the face of the earth and God looks down and He says, of all the families on the earth, you alone do I know. You know what He was saying? He says, of all the Medes and the Persians and all these empires, there's not a chance that one of them will ever fill their destiny. Not one of them will live to my glory. And if anyone's ever going to live in their destiny, if anybody on the face of the earth is going to live only for me, it has to come out of this little family that I have because you alone, of all the people on the earth, do I know. Only you. And even to this day, you know the Scripture says, many will come in the last days saying we've done mighty works, we've cast out devils, we've healed the sick, we still haven't even known you. Work of iniquity. You weren't doing it in your destiny. You weren't doing it to my glory. You were in the flesh and I don't recognize the flesh. And so there's nobody here and He says, if it's going to come, it's going to come out of my family. Do you understand the significance of that this morning? That the Lord's going to have a people that's going to come out of the remnant? What a tragedy because other than Moses, only two of Israel came into their destiny. Only Joshua and Caleb out of three million Jews. It's a shame God looks down and He says, you're the only people, this is the only chance and all God could find were two men after Moses was gone. Two men who knew why they were on this earth. Two men who walked only for the glory and honor of the Lord. It was the Lord Jesus who met Him as the captain of the Lord's army with a sword in His hand. That was Jesus Christ who said, I take over. And Joshua walked with Christ. Israel walked with Christ. That was Christ the rock in the wilderness. He was the water. He was the fire. He was the cloud. The whole Bible is about Jesus. The Old Testament is Christ. Any man who tells you you don't have anything in the Old Testament doesn't know anything about God. The Old Testament is Christ. A revelation of Him and also a warning of those who do not... Look what happens. Three million Jews get out of their destiny and die in misery. Isn't that a shame? How many millions of Christians with all the honor and glory that God has offered us, how many Christians are going to die in misery? I went into Dallas the other day to have someone look at my car. I was talking to the car salesman. And I talked 10 or 12. I couldn't meet one who wasn't divorced. A young lady that was in one of the offices came around and said, Oh, I know you. I heard you in Albuquerque and I've heard you at First Assembly in Dallas. She said, I used to meet my youth leaders. I said, Well, how's he doing? She said, Oh, we've been divorced. I'm married again. So how's he doing? Not good. Tending a semi-god church and the misery and the pain. She's gained 40 pounds, she said, overeating because of turmoil. Christians. And that's the way it is, isn't it? Look all around. You don't have to look very far. Maybe even look in the mirror. Look at the misery and the pain. God's saying, Of all the people in the earth, it ought to come out of you. This is my church. Hmm. Do you know why God called Israel out of Egypt? So that they could fulfill their destiny without any distraction. I want to read it to you. You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and I brought you unto myself. I brought you out to bring you in. Now, a lot of people are brought out but never get in. They're still lost in the wilderness. They never do find their destiny. It's an amazing thing here. He says, I called you out to myself. Now, the destiny was not the promised land. The only reason to bring them into the promised land is that they could fulfill their destiny without the distraction of enemies. It wasn't the promised land. Christ is the promised land. Living here for Him. Now, listen to this. Now, therefore... See, He wanted them to enter right in. He didn't want them to wait until they get to the promised land. He said, As soon as you come out of Egypt... That means as soon as you get saved, you're supposed to enter into your destiny. The Lord gives them a call to that destiny as soon as He gets them over the Red Sea. He says, Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and deed and if you'll keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. You shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Now, that's a clear call for them to walk in their destiny to be holy here for the Lord. Obey me. In other words, be a special people just for me here on this earth. Be like a priest who serves the Lord night and day with offerings. Just be here like a priest to me. And they could have walked through that wilderness in glory. They could have gone into a promised land. God, He was with them the whole time. He'd never forsake. It was their self-interest that brought all their misery. It wasn't the wilderness that caused them misery. It was self. It was getting out of their destiny. Well, once again, the Adam and Eve blows its destiny, doesn't it? It winds up wasting away in the desert. And never again in the Bible is there a body of believers in the destiny except for a handful. There's Samuel. There's David. There's Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the minor prophets. There's Job. There's Isaiah and Daniel, the three Hebrew children. And they're all called heroes of faith because they all fulfilled their destiny. They were living here to the glory of the Lord. They were a selfless group of people. They were devoted. Their lives took only meaning when they were in fullness to the Lord. They said, No other meaning to life but to serve Him. That's what a hero of the faith is. And the Bible says in Hebrews 11, God's not ashamed. He called their God. Why? Because they were here for Me, God says. They were in their destiny. They didn't live for themselves. They had eyes for the eternal. The Bible says they desired a better country. They weren't tied down to their things here on earth. They said, We're looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. They walked on this earth, but they weren't of this earth. They said, I'm a foreigner. I'm a stranger down here. The only people I know are God's people. Hallelujah! That's the way we're supposed to be walking, isn't it? To live only for His glory. Alright? Man can never again fulfill his destiny except through dying at the cross. Alright? Anybody understanding any of this? In the eyes of the Lord, the cross is the end of the Adam race. The end of the self-man. It's the end of the man who lives self-centered. God says, I won't deal with it anymore. I'm going to declare him legally dead. That doesn't mean that the flesh dies. You know he's not dead. He's been fighting you all day today. And you live with that flesh. But in the eyes of the Lord, at the cross, he was declared legally dead. I heard of a Jewish man whose son turned Christian and he went to the courts and declared him legally dead, disinherited him. That's what the Lord Jesus, that's what the Father did with that old Adam nature, that old nature of flesh. He declared him legally dead in His sight. Now, you die to sin once, but you're going to die to that flesh every day of your life. And I died to Him sometimes 20 and 30 times a day. You've got to roll in death. That's what Paul said, I died dead. He wasn't dying to sin. He died to this old flesh that was declared legally dead, but was still trying to exert itself. It doesn't mean he's dead. He's legally dead in the eyes of God. In other words, God doesn't deal with him anymore. Let me see if God can open that up a little bit to us here. See, God didn't try to... He looks at Adam, race. Nobody's coming into destiny. Before Christ comes, there's nothing but darkness. Jesus Christ came at a time when there's no evidence in the Scripture of anyone in the destiny. Man's lost his purpose. God can look at the whole creation and say it's out of its destiny. There's no purpose to it anymore. And so what does He do? He says, I'm going to create a new race of men. I'm going to create a new man. In God's eyes, there are only two men, two races. There's an Adam and there's a Christ. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. One or the other. And the cross is where this all happens and it's a legal transaction that happens by faith. Oh, I don't know if I can explain it or not. I'm going to try. Because at the cross, the Lord said, I can't rehabilitate this flesh. It's hopeless. I tried to rehabilitate it by the law and that only brought death. All it did was show men how hopeless it is to ever come into the destiny by trying to do anything with this flesh because it reverts to its self-centered ways. He said, I can't rehabilitate it. I'm not going to try to build anything on it. I'm not trying to make it something else. I'm going to do away with it. I'm not going to deal with it. I've got nothing to do with it anymore. I'm going to bring a new man and a new race. And so Jesus Christ came into this world as a patterned man. He's a patterned man. Oh boy, did He live in His destiny. God, when Jesus came to the earth, finally had a man in the destiny. Well, listen. I came down, Jesus said, from heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him that sent me. He lived the way man's created to live. He came to fulfill man's created destiny. He lives only to the glory of the Father. He doesn't do a thing to His glory. He has no self-will. He has no self-centeredness in Him. He said, my meat's to do the will of the Father. That's my life. That feeds me. When He said, it's my meat, He said, that's where I get my joy and my pleasure. It's my food. When are we going to learn that we don't live for Christ, we live on Christ? We don't live for Him. Many people are living for Him that are really not walking with Him. Paul said, He is my bread. He's our meat. He's our drink. He's our food. We live on Christ, not for Him. He's our very life force. Glory be to Jesus. This patterned man did nothing for himself. He was wholly dependent on the Father. He said, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself. When you talk about a man realizing... Remember, He's a man. The Son of Man can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do, for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth. Then He went on to say, I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. Remember, my own will is the old man, my own will is the flesh, my own will takes me out of my destiny, but my Father's will is living for Him, being here on earth for Him. That brings me into my destiny. And when the Lord left, what was His testimony? He said, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. I fulfilled my destiny. I live like a man should live, given totally to the Father. He said, I came to the earth destined to bring Him glory and honor, and I did it. We see Jesus, He's the last Adam, living like created man should live, doing all things to the glory of the Father, doing nothing in self-glory, doing nothing in the flesh, being here on earth only for Him. And what a joy He must have been to the Father, because He was in the destiny. What a joy! What communion they had! He was for God, and so God was for Him. God reveals Himself to a man, a woman, who lives in the destiny. That's where the revelation comes from. It was not Christ alone who was crucified at the cross. Boy, you know that, don't you? Jesus took down with Him the entire Adam race. He destroyed in the eyes of God that man who's enslaved to self. And boy, you don't dare talk about a new creation, or a new man, until you talk about the old man being done away with. And that's the problem in the church today. We've got a lot of people trying to be new creatures, and the old man's not dead yet. The old one hasn't passed away. What was it? You know, Isaiah said, He laid on Him the iniquities of us all. What were those iniquities He laid on Him? I'll tell you what it was. It was centuries of corrupted self-will. It was all the self-seeking ambitions of the entire human race. It was generation after generation of stinking flesh enslaving and driving mankind. It was all the crimes, the blasphemies, the rebelliousness, the stubbornness and wickedness of this Adamic self-life that's been lived for centuries. Down into the grave He took it. God said, Enough of flesh! No more self-will imposed on me or my kingdom. No more selfish flesh ruling and reigning in my presence. It's all over with. I won't deal with those kind of people anymore. I won't deal with people who live like that. No one will ever come into their destiny in the flesh again. They're going to be a new man. And at the cross, Jesus signed into covenant those two laws. From now on, any man who lives in the flesh, he has a law of sin in him, and it's death in my eyes. He's a dead man. And in the eyes of God, any man who does anything for God in the flesh is dead. He doesn't recognize it. He doesn't see it. He won't put up with it. It's dead. Everything is dead that's in the flesh. But He said, All who live for me on this earth who come into their destiny, I have a law that works in them, and that law works as well as electricity, as well as any other law on the face of the earth, that when you're here on this earth for His glory and honor, you're moving in a law, the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ that brings you fulfillment and joy and happiness and peace and everything that God is. Hallelujah. There's a law of the Spirit of life that's in control now. Now, we're living in a church age that hasn't been to the cross. It's the Laodicean age. And Jesus said, Not only is it rich and increased with goods and blind, He said it's naked and living in shame. He called it naked. A naked church living in shame. And then you turn to Revelation 16, 15 and you read this, Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. But what does this mean? A church walking in nakedness. And why does the Lord say, Beware, lest you be found at the last day when I come walking in nakedness and people see your shame. First of all, the devil sees your shame. When the devil sees you walking in the flesh, you're vulnerable to him. He can mock the whole Laodicean church because there's nothing there that God honors. Nakedness is walking in flesh. That's all it is. It's walking to self. Living for self. That's nakedness. And you look at this Laodicean church. They're not clothed upon by Christ. There's cast there, but there's no cross there. Now listen to it. He looks at this whole Laodicean church and it's naked and it's in the throes of shame because it's living for self. They've trampled on their destiny to be here only for the Lord's glory. Why are they here? To be rich, to be increased with goods, and to reach zero need. I've got no more needs. What is that? What is that? That's flesh, isn't it? That's the old man who was declared legally dead at the cross. That's the man who says, God says, I don't deal with anymore. Why was it easy for God to spew the Laodicean church out of his mouth? Because there was nothing there that counted. It was all dead anyhow. He's spewing something out of his mouth that's dead. That's lifeless. He would not spit something out of his mouth that was alive. In fact, he pictures himself outside the door of this church. Knocking, trying to find entrance. He's not even inside. There's nothing here. There's no destiny. There's no purpose to this church. Do you know that that Laodicean church was building charitable institutions? It was building schools of prophets. This was building temples to the glory of God, they called it. And God says, I don't see any of it. It's all going down. I'm going to spit it all out. And every demon in hell saw the nakedness of this church and laughed at it. And it was absolutely exposed to every demon power in hell. And that's why we have so many Christians, and I believe those that are living in carnality open themselves to demon possession. Not just harassment, but possession. We've got many Christians in the church that are demon possessed. Call themselves Christians. Because they're so far from their destiny, and the devil saw their nakedness and shame, and he moved in. They're not close with Christ, so he closed them with himself. God does not recognize or accept anything done for Him by that man He disowned at the cross. That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God, and man highly esteems the flesh. That's why people love to go to a church where there's hero worship. That's why we like our TV star evangelist, because the flesh loves this. That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God, because it's stinking flesh. It's stinking flesh. I don't care what a man does to the glory of God, and I don't care if the whole church glorifies the Lord because of what he did. If he did it in the flesh, God doesn't see it. The church is overrun today with those who are trying to deal with God in the flesh. They've never been to the cross. They've never sickened to the flesh. I've been dealing with preachers, young preachers who are burned out. I dealt with one preacher in his thirties, he's burned out. He's running, helter-skelter, working for God, running to meetings, going here and there, building up a big thing. And it's all in the flesh, and he doesn't even know what it means to be in the Spirit. He doesn't even know what it means to be here just for the Lord, and shut everything down and say, none of this counts until I know I'm here for Him. None of this counts unless I'm moving into destiny. All of this is going to burn. You see, that old nature is still in control. There's never been a time in that man's history that he's been so sick to the flesh he went to the cross and he said, Oh God, work on it brutally. Do away with all self-will in me and all self-interest. I know pastors, missionaries, evangelists, Christian workers working so feverishly, but so much of it is in vain. You know, it's not enough to say, I'm doing everything to the glory of God. The flesh always boasts that. That's a favorite boast of the flesh. I'm doing everything to the glory of Jesus. The old liar. No, he's still looking for the applause. Come on. I don't have to tell anybody. I used to watch Johnny Carson and he'd go like this, you know, applause, applause. You can see so many preachers that say, I'm doing this out of the glory of Jesus. Down here is the, come on. You know, there's no cliche that says, you know, time is running out and only what's done for Christ will last. What is it? Time is short. Life is short. She'll be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. That's not true. Not at all. Only what's done by Christ, by an uncrucified, by a crucified man who's in this destiny, because a lot of things are being done for Christ that are not going to last. It's done in the flesh. Don't ever say, all that's going to last is what's done for Christ. Only what's done for Christ by a crucified man who's in his destiny, who lives there only for the glory of God. That's the only thing that lasts. Because they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Can I give you a little more before I close here? Only a new kind of man in a new realm can ever fulfill his destiny. A new kind of man in a new realm is the only one who can fulfill his destiny. Christ was raised as the first fruits of a new man. A new race of man. Christ men. Men in Christ. Now when I say men, that means women too, you know. If any man be in Christ, he's in his destiny. He's a new creature. Old things have passed away. What are the old things? The old man, the old flesh, the old way of doing things have passed away. The old things are brand new. What's new? Hallelujah. What's new is I'm here not only for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm going to move into my destiny. See, God only recognizes one man. For in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. When you make Jesus Lord, you are declared legally alive and one in Christ. You're declared out of the old man and into the new man. Of course, every day you have to die to the intrusions of that flesh. Even though he's legally dead, he doesn't want to accept it. Here's what God says of you when you're in Christ. If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. What body is dead? That self-centered nature. That self-will is dead. And the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Now, when the Holy Spirit... You know, it was the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. And if you're going to be raised in newness of life, it's the Holy Spirit that does it. And the Holy Spirit brings you out into this new realm, into Jesus Christ. Oh, hallelujah! And suddenly, you're in your destiny. If you will rely on the Holy Spirit, if you will trust the Holy Spirit's presence in your life, there are not one out of ten Christians who acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. Even people who talk in tongue, they don't acknowledge the work of the Holy Ghost. They're still trying to do it on their own. They're still trying to do it in the flesh. That's what Paul said. Have you learned nothing? He said, how did you come into this but by faith? Are you going to be made whole by the flesh? Are you going back to the old man and the way of doing things, self-centered? No. He said, self has no place here. Hey, when you're in this new man in Christ, by faith, and when you say, I'm going to live my destiny, I'm going to be here for the glory and honor of the Lord, I'm going to judge all my actions on whether or not it brings glory to me or to Jesus. That's the measurement. Everything at every point in my life now has to be touched with this thought. Are you hearing me? Every act... Now, that sounds legalistic, but it's not. You work at it for thirty days or so, and you'll find it becomes a way of life, it becomes a joy, that you measure all your actions by whether or not it brings glory to you, or to Christ, or whether it brings honor or dishonor to His name. And you say, my destiny is to be here only for His honor, and when you come into that destiny, you know that you're a new creature in Christ Jesus, and that by faith, God is legally declared dead that old way in you. You don't have to be a victim of that anymore. You say, by faith, I can live in my destiny, I can live here for the glory and honor of Jesus. That's when His glory comes. Hallelujah. And when you're in this realm, there's no sweat, there's no turmoil, there's no rushing about, there's no ambition allowed here, no success has any meaning here, no man shines here, nobody builds memorials here in this realm. Everybody in this kind of resurrection life has one thing on their minds, one ambition, one goal, and that's to bring glory and honor to Jesus. No one here has a will of their own. No one makes any plans of their own. No one acts on their own. Everybody in this realm talks to Him about everything. They do nothing, they go nowhere, they don't attempt anything until He speaks to them. They are wholly dependent on Jesus. They love Him more than life itself. They know that that's their purpose on earth. They know that they've been brought to birth to glorify His name. And in this realm, once you move in that realm, God gives you one of the most glorious gifts on the face of the earth, a gift that the church is lacking. Oh, it's lacking! And I want God to give it to you. He's beginning to give a little bit of it to me. When you start fulfilling your destiny, and by faith claim this resurrection life, and by faith declare that old man dead when it arises, say, I roll in death, I die to that! That's not me anymore! And you say, in Jesus' name, I will live to His glory! And when you do, and start coming into that, now, none of us will do it perfectly until we're glorified. By the way, do you know that in heaven, that's our same destiny? To live for eternity to His glory? And what we have now, our destiny is just an inheritance of the full glory? What is the gift? Discernment. You smell flesh. You can smell it. You see it. You hate it. Because you're moving in a different realm now. And every time you get, and I believe God's going to raise up a remnant with such Holy Ghost discernment, because they're here only for the glory of Jesus, and when they see man get up and exercise his flesh, the odor is so terrible, and the Spirit says, that man is not in his death, that man's in the flesh. And you can look at everything that men are doing and say, hey, that's not glorifying the Lord. There's flesh, you can smell it. There's a discernment. God's given it to the remnant. That's going to be one of the great marks of this remnant He's raising up. They're going to be able to discern between life and death, flesh and spirit. Hallelujah! I'm beginning to smell it in me first. I'm beginning to discern it, and the Lord's saying, hey, David, that's not me. You remember I preached the other week about Samson going down to Gaza, that everybody's got a Gaza. That's your weakness. And the Holy Spirit, I hear it, I must hear it 25 times a day, David, don't go to Gaza. Don't go down to Gaza. Gaza represents that thing. You see, you start making progress, you start coming into your destiny, and you start growing in the Lord, and God is blessing, and all of a sudden you stop and you're hindered. See, you gave up your idols. Oh, I love what Peter said when he wrote his epistle. He said to this young group of converts, he said, you gave up your idols to serve the living God. And so you gave up your idols. That's a wonderful thing, and that's a start. And you start growing, and all of a sudden you stop growing, and the enemy starts creeping in, and you wonder what's gone. A minister's wife called me this past week, called our house, in fact, and she had been growing so much in the Lord. God had blessed her. She thought she'd been moving in the destiny, and now all the discernment was going wrong. Everything she heard sounded wrong, and nothing was confirmed, and there was confusion and doubt and fear. And she said, what went wrong? I'll tell you what went wrong. At some point, the flesh intruded. And when the flesh intrudes, and you get away from your destiny, you're stopped in your growth. And all you've got to do by faith right now is say, that's enough in Jesus' name, and ask God to show you any area in your life where the flesh touches, where you're in the flesh or living for self-interest. Anything in your life that's of self-interest, say, hey, that's not to the glory of the Lord. Get it out! Get it under the blood! And you'll start growing again. And you'll be in your destiny. Hallelujah. Well, let's see. Let me give you a final warning. If you live after the flesh, you'll die. That's what it says right here in Romans 8.13. What is there left for someone that's in the flesh and is not in their destiny? What's left? Well, the Scripture says, first of all, he's salt that's lost its savor, so he has no worth, but they'd be thrown out and trampled on. He's not producing fruit. He's on the vine, but he's not producing fruit. He claims to be in Christ, but he's not living for Christ. He's not here for God's glory. He's not here for His glory, so the only way he can produce fruit is to be in your destiny. So it says, cut it off. Men gather them and burn them. And then he says, hey, that's the tree that's going to be cut down. He said, why come into the earth anymore? That's the flesh. That's how God deals with flesh. And I'll tell you, before Jesus comes, is he going to come with a sword? He talks about an axe he's going to apply to the root. That's to the root of all flesh. Boy, is it going to cut? Is it going to hurt? Avoid the judgment seat. What an awesome moment. I see worship like T.L. Sparks sees it. He called it W-O-R-T-H, Worship. And here's the way, before closing, I think I want to say it to you so you understand it this morning. Is he worth giving up every idol to you? Is he worth living for with all that's in you? The next time I preach, I'm going to preach about the bride. Eliezer's a type of the Holy Spirit. Abraham's a father type. Isaac, a type of Christ. Rebecca, a type of the bride. Where did the Holy Ghost find the bride? At the well. Drawing. And if you're going to be in the bride, you're going to be at the well. You're going to be at the water. Is he worth diligence in the Word? Is he worth it? And I'll tell you, I have a grief here I've got to share with you before I close. I have a grief and it makes me cry every night. Mostly over my own staff. I don't even know if it's in my family. I know it's not my wife. Now, she's coming along in this area. And I'm not judging her. Boy, God's blessing her in such a marvelous way. But God has told you time and time again that you can't fulfill your destiny unless you're drawing water to the well, unless you're in the Word. And if you're not in the Word, you're going to start being thrown by every wind and wave. You're going to be off on prophecy after prophecy. You can't fulfill your destiny living on prophecies. You're going to drink the Word of God. You're going to eat the book. And if you're going to be in the bride, you're going to be drinking at the well. And at the well, that's where she got her bracelets and she got her jewels. And I believe she had to go 300 miles at least from Mesopotamia to her husband. And how many times they must have stopped at wells. And I believe that she drew the water all the way. And you're going to draw water all the way. You're going to have that Rebecca spirit in you and you're going to be at the well. And if you want to go where the Holy Ghost is working, he's at the well. You're going to find him at the well. That's where I find him. I don't find him in some meat world by talking in tongues and dancing. That's fine. I'm not mocking that. But I see so much stinking flesh. Go to the well. Hallelujah.