This sermon emphasizes the importance of standing in the holy place, which involves obedience to God, turning away from sin, and being yielded to His will. It calls for courage to put away unholy things, live for others, and seek God's guidance. The message highlights the promise of beauty, glory, vision, protection, and joy for those who stand in the holy place.

Praise God. You know, there is a joy that is a take-home joy. There's a joy that's confined to times when you and I are gathered together, but there's a take-home joy, and it's available to those who do not try to escape the truth of God. The Scripture says that Jesus said, You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Now, the know, the context of that word is in an intimate embracing. It's really the same word that is used of marriage. It's an intimate embracing where the two become one. It's not just head knowledge, but it's heart knowledge. When you and I hear truth, we don't run from truth, and if you're visiting today, the joy that you've experienced in this sanctuary is because you are largely among the people who have not resisted truth. They've let truth have its way. There have been behavior changes because of that, and subsequently, the joy of the Lord becomes your strength. Thank God. If you want joy today, the message I'm about to preach is called, Stand in the Holy Place. If you want joy in this generation, especially this one, because this is going to be a tough one, and for many who are here today, it's not going to be. It is already a tough place to be a Christian. It's a tough society to be living in, and it is going to get more difficult, and I don't like to have to say that time and again from this pulpit, but it would be wrong of me not to caution you about where we're heading. The messages that God gives to us as pastors is because we love you. Because we care. If we didn't care, we'd just come here with some skippy, light little thing, make you clap your hands and open your wallets, and away you go. And that's the way it is in many places, but not here. We have commissioned before God to preach the full truth. We're not after your wallet in Times Square Church. We're after your heart for God, a life of service that brings honor to Him, and I think you'll see that as this message progresses. We, no matter how deep the Lord calls us to dig, it always ends with hope, and a future, and joy. And Father, I just thank you so much, Lord, for the strength of the Holy Spirit. I thank you for how you have so manifested your life in this sanctuary, and you bear witness to what is yours, and you bear witness in our hearts in spite of the exterior exuberance. In our hearts that's the place you bear witness to truth. I'm asking for the strength, Lord, to speak this word. I'm asking God for you to give me the grace to disappear, that you may appear, Lord Jesus Christ, that your words may have the preeminence in our hearts, and that you be satisfied at the end of this time of gathering. Lord, it really doesn't matter what we say. It matters what you say. Yours is the only word that's eternal. Oh, God, give me the grace to speak this, and give us the ears to hear it. Give us the hearts to embrace it. Make us ready. We ask it in Jesus' name. Jude, the book of Jude, if you go right to the last book in the Bible, which is Revelation, it's the little one-chapter book right before that one. Jude chapter 1, and then put a marker, if you can, in Isaiah chapter 2. And we'll start in Jude chapter 1, a message that's called, not beware, but stand in the holy place. Stand in the holy place. Verse 1, verse 1, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. It means set apart, kept, and called. That's who this message, that's who this letter is written to. Mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write to you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And verse 11, woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the heir of Balaam for reward and perished in the gained saying of Korah. You imagine, beloved, this is the first generation. These are people writing that were alive at the time that Jesus Christ physically walked on the earth. And in that first generation, which we have a tendency to believe was so pure, so without fault, except maybe for Acts chapter 5 and a few minor glitches that overall the church was multiplying, moving in the power of God. We have a tendency to believe that Acts chapter 2 was just the norm. It went on forever. There were no attacks. There was no strategy of Satan. But when we read the Scriptures, we begin to realize that that was not necessarily the case. The attacks that we experience today in the church of Jesus Christ, they were familiar within that generation. You imagine Jude writing and saying, I exhort you that you content, earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. It might be 20 years or so after Christ's death in that vicinity or somewhere in that vicinity, and Jude is saying there was a faith that was given to us, and I'm cautioning you, you have to fight for that faith now. You have to contend for it. You can't just assume that everything that you hear is God. You've got to be in this book, beloved. If ever there was, and you've got to let this, you don't read the book, the book reads you. You've got to say, God, I take this book and I put it before me, examine my life by it, prove my heart. Like David the king said, see if there'd be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting. Don't let me assume that the way I'm thinking and what I'm doing is right, because there's a sin nature in all of us that wants to be as God and make its own declaration of what is good and what is evil, and you and I have to be aware of that. Jude said there are certain men crept in unawares. There are certain men. Now Jude is aware of this in his time. Unawares means they've settled in alongside you and they've done it sneakily, stealthily. You haven't noticed it. They've kind of slid into the church as it is, and then they've more or less slid into the pulpit or some positions of leadership. And Jude says they've come in, you've not been aware of it, and they've taken the gospel of the grace of God and turned it into something that's lascivious. Now what that means is it's a place where there are no restraints. There is no narrow path in this gospel. There is no power. It's a wanton thing. It's something that speaks as if it speaks for God, but it opens the pathway. It rids the Christian people who listen to it of the borders as it is, of behavior, and something that's acceptable to God. It makes it a lot broader than it really is, and it's powerless. Peter, the apostle, said while they promise liberty, they themselves are the slaves of corruption. They're not free, and neither do the people who listen to them become free. And they deny, he says, the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now some people read this and say, well, if somebody gets up and says, you know, I deny Jesus, I would understand. You know, I would know that's a false worker, but the word deny in the Greek doesn't mean they stand up and say there is no Christ. The word is better translated, they contradict Jesus Christ. They reject Him either in the face of former relationship or better knowledge. In other words, they should know better, and maybe even in some measure walked in the truth at one time, but they have denied that truth. They've denied the lordship of Jesus Christ. They've denied the word of God, and they've turned the grace of God into, and really it means also to an immoral thing, where you're allowed to do anything you want and still go to heaven. You attend some of these churches, you're allowed to live together without being married, and you're told you're still going to heaven. You're allowed to steal from the workplace. You can be proud, lie, hold grievances, everything's fine. As long as you give your money, they tell you you're still going to heaven. It's a corrupt thing. Jude calls them ungodly men, and they were preordained to condemnation, to a life that's condemned to be eternally without God. Think of Daniel chapter 5, when Daniel stood before one of the kings, the last king of Babylon, Belshazzar, and Daniel stood before him, and he said, Belshazzar threw a party, and in this party he brought in all the holy things out of the temple in Jerusalem, and he gathered all his leaders, and concubines, and all his staff, and everybody, and he threw a party, and they put wine in these holy vessels, and they began to drink, and they began to party with the holy things of God, and suddenly the writing of God comes upon the wall, and the fear of the Lord starts to strike them. They were about to be judged that very night. They called for Daniel. Daniel stood before the king, and he said, you know, I want to tell you one of the reasons why Daniel had a revelation. He said, king, keep your gifts to yourself, but I'll tell you what God is speaking, and Daniel stands in the king's court. He said, your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, who occupied the role that you now have, he became proud, and even though he was warned of God, he was proud, and he began to believe that the kingdom had been established by his own hand, even though he knew better, and God took him, and for a season, he lost his mind, and he went into the field, and his hair grew like eagle's feathers, and his claws grew like a vulture in a sense, and through that experience, God showed him that I am God, and the kingdoms of the world are mine, and it is God alone who gives people the right to rule, to reign, to have a sound mind. It all comes from God. Everything comes from God, and Daniel said, Belshazzar, you knew this. You understood how God deals with pride. Look at the scriptures, and look at the times throughout history that God has encountered prideful hearts, prideful people, prideful nations, and he says, you knew the history, Belshazzar, but yet you still took the holy things of God. You still poured wine in them, and he says, you lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought the vessels of his house before you, and your lords, your wives, your concubines, you drank wine in them, and you praised the gods of silver, of gold, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone, which don't see or hear or understand anything, and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways you've not glorified, and the scripture tells us that very night, Medo-Persian empire came into the capital city where Belshazzar was, and historians say apparently without any resistance whatsoever. Belshazzar is so drunk on his own power, and his own misunderstanding of security of God, he's so inflamed with his own way of thinking that he decorates Daniel, and makes him the third ruler in a kingdom that Daniel has just said it's over. It's finished. It's done. The armies were already amassed around the city, but the people were so blind they couldn't see it. They didn't understand the day they were living in, and folks when when you and I get out of the word of God, we can get to the place where we don't know the day we're living in. We don't understand the hour that's come upon us. I think of all the people in the kingdom of God in this country that have played with the holy things of God. They've toyed with the holy God, lived in arrogance and pride as if God's word is not to be obeyed. As if you can live any way that you want to live, and heaven still be your destiny, and then they've established as backslidden nations always do, preachers that will tell them exactly what they want to hear. In the old testament they said of the prophets, put these men away from us. We don't want to hear about the holy one of Israel. Bring us prophets that will prophesy to us smooth things. They will tell us what we want to hear, that tell us it is well with us, even if by some chance it is not. Jude in describing these spiritual leaders, he said, woe to them. They've gone in the way of Cain. That means they inwardly despise Cain. It was one of the two sons of Adam and Eve, and he and his brother Abel went out into the field to offer sacrifice, and God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's. And they've gone this way. They're trying to offer to God a sacrifice, and God says, I do not accept this sacrifice. I do not accept this half-hearted play with the holy things of God, toy with sin. I do not accept it, God says. But these preachers lead the people into a relationship of thinking that this is all right. They tell them that I do accept this when I don't accept it. And they've run greedily after the heir of Balaam for reward. In other words, they're using their religious position for personal gain. That's what it's all about. Folks, it's easy to identify a false prophet, folks. You don't even need discernment anymore. No matter where they start, they go for your wallet, folks. It doesn't get any simpler than that. They can't help themselves. It's all about money. It's not about you. If they could preach to a dollar and it would get saved, they would do it. They don't really care about your soul. You are just numbers to build an empire. That's all you are. You're just wallets and purses to be opened in their sanctuaries. They don't care about your soul. As long as they prosper, as long as their buildings have their names on the cornerstone, that's what it's all about. As long as they can write books and sell them and become bestsellers, they don't care about your soul, folks. It's all about money. And they perished in the gainsting of Korah. Now Korah in the Old Testament was a man of incredible persuasive power. And he convinced 250 men of renown that Moses and Aaron took too much upon themselves. He convinced them that, listen, you don't have to be just ministering to the Lord in the outer court. You can come into the inner court and you can take upon you whatever ministry you want. And somehow they were convinced. And they pushed into positions of leadership which they had not been assigned by God. They hate the sacrifice of God, Jude said. They do what they do for money and position. Isn't that exactly the religion that Jesus encountered when he walked on the earth in Israel among his own people? Actually, he brought the same indictment against the religious leaders of his day. It's never a popular message. These men ended up suffering but brought the same suffering to the lives of those who stood with them. Moses said to Korah and his company, is it not enough for you that the Lord has drawn you near to himself for his purposes? That you seek the priesthood also? Is it not enough for you that he called you to be saved? Is it not enough that you're part of his kingdom that you have to push into leadership that God didn't give you? You can identify these leaders quite easily. They have no word from God. They're passionless. Unless they're talking about money, there's no vision. It's all about bricks, exactly the same as it was in Egypt. It's all just about bricks and monuments, folks. There's so little passion. Everyone's preaching somebody else's sermon. Nobody has a word of their own. Heaven is shut to them. Now Hebrews, the writer in chapter 13 verses 8 and 9 says these words with which we are familiar. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now you believe that, don't you? And then in verse 9 he says, be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines. Now to understand how Christ will deal with people who have walked away from him and are standing in the wrong place. I initially was going to entitle this message, Beware of Standing in the Wrong Place. All we have to do to understand how God deals with people, churches, societies, all we have to do because he doesn't change is to study history. Paul said to the Corinthian church, all these things that happened to them were written for our instruction as examples for us upon whom the ends of the world are come. We don't have to wonder what God is going to do. We can go into the Bible and see what God has always done. He says through one of the prophets, I am the Lord, I change not. I do not change. You change, I don't change. We can know how God will respond and how God will react even in our day. Remember Daniel in Belshazzar, you knew he said, you knew. What a tragedy to stand before God and we've studied the scriptures but not ever made the decision to be allowed to have our lives come in line with it. Now let's go to Isaiah chapter 2 very quickly. We're going to do a very quick run through this chapter in the context of looking at how God deals with a people, a nation, even his own people. When they have turned away from him and created their own sense of righteousness, that means their own sense of right standing, their own sense of clean living. Isaiah chapter 2 and verse 5, O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord. Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east and are soothsayers like the Philistines. And they pleased themselves and the children of strangers. Now God was about to judge his own people. There's no delight in the heart of God in doing this, but they had embraced, they had opened their hearts, had opened their doors to strange fire as it is. Their land also, verse 7, is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures. Their land is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. In other words, remember just a few years ago in this country, there seemed to be no end to the prosperity. I remember Pastor David standing in this pulpit and saying to this congregation, the coming prosperity. He said, we're about to go into a 10-year period, I believe it was, of unprecedented prosperity in America. Remember in the high-tech boom, how many millionaires were made in that time? I remember those words because I acknowledge that the spirit of prophecy was on this man of God. And yet he said at the end of that period, it's strictly a mercy call. It's the last mercy call of God to America. And historically, that's what he would do just before he judged Samaria. There was an unprecedented prosperity that came into the nation. And that's one of the reasons why they wouldn't listen to the prophets that God sent to them, because they looked and said, listen, we've got silver, we've got gold, we've got treasures, we've got the mightiest army. Their land was full of horses and chariots. We've got mighty armies. What do you mean it's all going to come down? What do you mean that hardship is ahead of us? Are you blind? Don't you see what we have? Don't you see what's around us? In our churches, our primary preachers are telling us there's no end to the good days. Everyone's going to be wealthy and healthy and happy forever. Don't you see Isaiah, Jeremiah? Is there something wrong with you guys? What about you, Michael? Why can't you speak like everyone else does? Why can't you tell the people it's going to be well with them? Why can't you tell these kings, Jehoshaphat and Ahab to go into battle and tell them it's going to be well? There's 400 prophets telling Jehoshaphat it's going to be well. Why do you have to stand and tell him he's going to die if he pursues this course? Their land is full of idols, verse 8. They worship the work of their own hands, which their own fingers have made. We even put people on television and call them American idols. Very appropriate. See, our goal, our end game as a society is lust and wealth and power and fame. And that's exactly what it is. It's idolatry. And the mean man bows down and the great man humbles himself. Therefore, forgive them not. And the Lord says, they've gone away. I'll not forgive them, though they go through rituals that make it look as though they're seeking me. And keep in mind, folks, that these people would be horrified at the thought that they were idol worshippers. They'd be horrified, just as Israel was when Christ himself came and tried to tell them, your whole religious system is about power and status and wealth and formula and tradition. And ultimately, it's all about yourselves. And here's a man who's walking in a completely contrary stream to this. He's about to go to a cross. He's about to be given for others. He's a man of no reputation. He makes himself of no report. He washes people's feet. It was such a contradiction to the religious system of the day. They had so developed an order and a God consciousness of their own that when God came, they killed him. Isaiah 3.1. It says, Behold, the Lord of hosts does take away from Jerusalem, from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water. Now, here's the judgment. Here's what a society starts to look like. It has walked away from God, a society and its church and its people. Number one, stay in staff. That means the feeling of well-being is gone. Remember when David said in Psalm 23, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. The sense of comfort is gone. The sense of well-being is gone. Bread, I'll take away from you. He says, the stay and the staff and the whole stay of bread provision starts to dwindle through people's fingers. There's a consciousness now in many people that food is going to be the essence perhaps in the season ahead of us and the whole stay of water. That means that which satisfies an inner thirst. The Lord says, I take away your past feeling of well-being. I take away from you your present provision. I take away from you anything that satisfies your heart. Folks, I'm just, I don't know if it's just me, but I see people getting more angry every day in the streets of this city. You go out on Friday night where everybody's supposed to be happy and they look like they want to kill each other in the streets, and that's not an exaggeration. What will it take? The lawlessness is just waiting to break out. People are thirsty, so they go from show to show, club to club, bar to bar, relationship to relationship, fad to fad, thing to thing, getting emptier and hungrier all the time. And the reality is that we've rejected the ways of God as a nation. There's no other way to say it, folks. I wish there was a gracious way to say this, but I can't find one at the moment. The mighty man, verse two, and the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the prudent, the ancient, the captain of 50, the honorable man, the counselor, the cunning craftsman or artificer, and the eloquent orator. That means the magnificent speech makers. All of them are affected. The same thirst, the same hunger, the same fear, the same dread, the same sense that something is wrong. Verse four, he says, I'll give them children to be their princes and babes shall rule over them. In other words, I'll set over them leadership that gives no heed to the wisdom of the past. Remember Raobom when he took over the kingdom of Israel, he gave no heed to those that walked with Solomon. Though they tried to counsel him, he wouldn't listen. Stubborn, self-willed, moving in youthfulness, no heed to the past, no heed to what was once considered the ways of God. Verse five says, people shall be oppressed everyone by another and everyone by his neighbor. The child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient and the base against the honorable. And that means that social order will begin to break down. What used to be God's order now becomes a confused order. What used to be the family becomes any hodgepodge of people that want to live under the same roof. Evil starts to be called good and good starts to be called evil in the nation. Verses six to eight, when a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father saying, you have clothing be our ruler and let this ruin be under your hand. In that day shall he swear saying, I will not be a healer for in my house is neither bread nor clothing. Make me not a ruler of the people for Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of his glory. People will be desperate folks. The ruin will get so bad that nobody will want to lead it. That's where we're heading. You may or may not want to hear this, but you will know that the words that I'm speaking to you today are truth. You will know it live long enough and you become aware of it. The ruin will get so bad that nobody's going to want to lead it. Verse 26 tells us on her gate, she'll lament and mourn and she being desolate, she'll sit on the ground. That means the plans for the future are gone and hopelessness is abounding on every side. Just as it's always been folks, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. People will be so desperate for any form of security in chapter four, verse one, it says in that day, seven women will take hold of one man saying, we'll eat our own bread and wear our own apparel. Only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach. That's how difficult things are going to be. But there's another people. I said there's another people. There's a people have not turned away their ears from the truth. There's a people have stood before the cross and they've said, Jesus Christ, my life, my heart, my home, my future is in your hands. Lord, take me and do with me what you will. And instead of hoarding to myself, give me liberality. Give me, because your word says where the spirit of the Lord is, there's, there's liberty. That means generosity. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there's generosity. So God don't let me draw my hands in Lord. Let my hands be stretched out and you don't have to go to the other side of the world to fulfill this folks. It's as soon as you leave these doors, it's all around you. It's everywhere now. It shall come to pass in verse three, no verse two in that day. Now what day that day of hopelessness, that day of desperation, that day of the breakdown of social order that day, when leadership is not listening to the wisdom of the past that day, when there's a loss of wellbeing, provision and satisfaction in that day, the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. That which is planted in Christ is beautiful and glorious. And the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for those that are escaped of Israel. In other words, you've escaped this religious system. You've escaped these liars that are taking away the strength of God. You've escaped the self seeking of a society that's come under the judgment of God. You've escaped it folks. You've walked away from it and said, no, this is not my future. I'm not going with the crowd. I don't care if I have to swim upstream alone. I'm not going with this crowd. Verse three, he said, it shall come to pass that he that has left in Zion and he that remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy. Even everyone that is written among the living in Jerusalem, he shall be called holy. The scripture says standing in the finished work of the cross, standing in the truth and calling upon Jesus Christ as he has been revealed in scripture, whoever remains of this entire mess that is about to be judged, God says will be called holy, holy, holy, sanctified, empowered, set apart for God, holy, holy. God looks down. We don't call ourselves that God looks down and says, holy, holy, holy, holy, surrendered, sanctified. It doesn't mean without fault. It means sincere, sincere in our walk with God that God can look down and says, this one set apart for me. That one set apart for me. Even as Jesus commanded when the church was first established in Acts chapter one in verse four, he said, I commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the father, which said he, you shall, you have heard of me in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 15, Jesus Christ speaks these words to a generation in that time that he's speaking about that is going to see incredible evil unleashed to the point that the temple of God becomes an abominable thing. Oh folks, the temple of God is a physical place in Israel, but it is a spiritual place in you and I. It's the place where God dwells in the Lord. Jesus Christ said, when you see evil around you reaching its pinnacle, when you see, when you see evil getting close to the end of its day, when you see, when you hear gospel starting to abound that I've warned you about, false Christs, false representatives of Christ will be rising all through the world. The Satan's last day strategy is to confuse the church of Jesus Christ as to who Jesus is. When you see these things, when you become aware of these things, when the sacrifice just doesn't, it doesn't look right, you felt it might be a good thing, you felt it might bring about some peace in your life or perhaps in the world, but when you see ultimately it is incarnate evil, it's moving to do something in the temple that defies the presence of God. When you see this, he says, stand in the holy place. Stand in the holy place. And then he says these words, whoever reads this, let him understand. Stand in the holy place. Stand in that place that God has called his church to stand in from the beginning of the time until the last day when he takes us home. Stand in that place of waiting upon him. Stand in the place of obedience to him. Stand in the finished work of the cross. Stand in the power of God. Stand where God calls you to stand. Be what God calls you to be. Stand in the holy place. There's no calling in the body of Christ that is greater than any other. Do you understand that? Stand where you're called to stand. Do what you're called to do. Let the giftings of God that have been put in your life be used for the glory of God and for the souls of men. Reach out to the impoverished. Reach out to the oppressed. Reach out to those that have no helper. Be a conduit of this incredible grace of God. Stand in the holy place. Stand before a holy God. Stand in the place of being yielded. On the day of Pentecost they were in the upper room knowing that to step out into that marketplace they were about to confront a bloodthirsty crowd that as far as they knew they had just killed the only threat to their religion. Oh it was not a time when they'd be stepping out and behaving like fools. They knew exactly what it was going to cost them. But they stood in the holy place and in that place the power of God came upon them. That place where you and I are willing at whatever cost to glorify God. We're willing to preach the gospel no matter what it costs us personally. We're willing to live for God even when the whole of society is moving its hand against God. We stand in the holy place. Remember that church is going to be glorious and beautiful. The Lord said I will put a glory upon it and a beauty upon it. Isaiah 4 verses 5 and 6 the last two verses he says when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning and the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion every dwelling place that means your house and mine and upon her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night and upon all the glory shall be a defense when I read this oh God thank you Lord just as it was in the beginning it will finish in the end God said you stand where I am you let my word have its way in your heart you turn away from that which does not exalt me you start coming back into truth and bring your life in line with the truth and he said just as I guided my people Israel through the wilderness I was a cloud by the by day there was no confusion when the cloud didn't move they didn't move when the cloud moved they moved the Lord says I'll be that to you I'll be that voice that says stand still or go over here or do that I will guide you with mine eye and it was a cloud a pillar of fire by night hallelujah to the Lamb of God no matter how dark it gets you will see ahead you'll have a clear vision you will know where you're going you'll not be walking around like those that are afraid you will know where you're going the Lord has promised that his branch will be beautiful and glorious in the earth and verse 6 he said there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat and a place of refuge and a covering from the storm and from rain a full victory I give my people God says I give them a complete victory I give them a lasting victory I give them a shouting victory I give them a glorious victory praise be to God praise be to God praise be to God there's no safer place to be in life than in the will of God how do I know I'm in the will of God that you don't leave the joy of the Lord at the door when you leave that's how you know the joy goes with you we come together to worship and your life is just an expression of what your life is you don't need the choir to crank up any joy in your heart it's already there because you're walking with God you already you're not looking to the stock market for your happiness your joy can't be taken away because your pension plan is going down the tube it's not about that though the Lord take away the abundance of gold and silver and the horses your life isn't about that you're standing in the holy place your redemption your life your identity your past your future everything is in the hands of God and the reason we live is for other people and that God Jesus Christ be glorified in us on the earth that's the holy place we turn away from sin we turn away from lifestyles and practices and pursuits I shared with some people recently I said don't think for one minute that you can you can watch idiotic television all week and somehow be wise on Sunday or Monday this doesn't happen stand in the holy place I don't know who most singers and actors are and I thank God that I don't I don't really care to know them it really doesn't matter to me people are people they need Christ as Savior I haven't watched and don't know many of the local and latest television shows and I thank God that I don't I you'd be at such a disadvantage if I was standing here and all I have are illustrations from some stupid television show and it would be obvious to you that's what I'm watching and then there would be a measure of dullness in my spirit that matched what I was watching and ultimately it would rob you of the treasure of Christ and would rob me of the revelation of God yes there there's a narrowness to the Christian life but there's a joy and there's faith and everything comes into focus we begin to understand time and we begin to look forward to eternity we're not affected by the things around us yes yes there are we we have the occasional shudder like other people do when things happen but it's not lasting it doesn't dominate us it doesn't occupy us we don't live there anymore stand in the holy place stand in the holy place times square church I implore you in Christ's name stand in the holy place get away from what will rob you of vision you have to have faith in these coming days you have to be able to understand this book you need the resource that only God can give so I implore you I implore you to put away what you know is wrong and that I'm not going to name things because it there are too many to name but put away what you know is wrong have the courage have the courage to stand in the holy place have the courage to stand before a holy God and say examine my heart and give me the strength to do what I know is right have the courage to be given for other people and not to live the Christian life for some accumulation for yourself Jesus Christ condemned this when he came to Israel the whole religious system that was living for itself and had lost the purpose of God in the earth have the courage to live for other people now it requires a breaking it requires a stretching it requires God there's no other way to do this it's not in us to do it God has to do it in us but if you and I would have the courage to just stand there in the holy place stand in that place of God's power and wait and just sometimes it's no different than the day of Pentecost you just go in your weakness and those those 120 went in their weakness not in their strength they went in their failure not in their success but they knew that if they would do what God said if they would go to Jerusalem and stand in the holy place that he would come and empower them and give them the ability to be other than what they were and they would enter into a relationship with God that would so glorify him in the earth that's why Jude could say I implore you fight for the faith that was once given to God's people fight for the faith that Jesus Christ delivered to the church don't be turned from it don't be moved from it that was the faith delivered get back to the holy place now father I thank you Lord for this word today Lord I know I have delivered your heart I know Lord I know God beyond any doubt that I have spoken for you today I ask you Lord for courage to do this in my own life just to go wherever your plans for my life are going to lead me I thank you God Almighty for this church oh Jesus don't let us draw back now help us to move forward in you you said that everyone that will be beautiful and glorious will be called holy so I'm asking you God that you give us the grace to put away unholy things whatever those things be give us the grace to put them away unholy practice unholy association unholy speech whatever it is God give us the grace to put it away and your promise to us is beauty and glory and vision and protection sustenance and joy that's your promise to us and so Lord we're going to bring to you today our failure our struggles and the things we can't do in our own strength and we're going to take you at your word Lord as we come and stand in the holy place you will meet us you will change us you will guide us Father we ask this in Jesus name now if the Holy Spirit is drawing you I want to turn the front of this auditorium into into that holy place it's a place where you just come and meet with God if the Holy Spirit has spoken to your heart and you know this is for you and there's something in your life that's got to be put away the strength you don't have that you need in the annex you could step between the screens if you will please and here in the main sanctuary as we stand just make your way to this altar we're going to worship for a few moments and then we're going to pray and rejoice together in our God let's stand please if we will and the one thing I love about the book of Acts chapter 2 is is that the 120 that gathered in the upper room were not the the strongest they might have considered themselves among the weakest of believers in Jesus Christ but in their weakness they obeyed as much as they could and they went to the place that God said to go to he said go to this place he didn't say you know Terry wherever you want to he said you go to this specific place and I'll meet you there and for you and I it's the place of obedience it's a place where we desire to obey God we we do what we know to do and as much as we're able of doing and that's where God meets us that's where the miracle happens that's where the power came and when those 120 burst into the marketplace the scripture says they were speaking in the megaliths of God in the Greek it means the anticipated outworkings of the inward life of Christ they they were just saying I got to tell you what God's going to do in my life the sudden a sudden explosion of vision came into their heart they went into that room week and they come out with a vision of what they're going to be and where God was going to take them and when the religious saw it they said yeah we have nothing like that in the synagogue and they said what do we have to do to get that and we're coming to that time now in society where people are going to see the real church of Jesus Christ and say well what do I have to do to get that and Peter said repent turn from your sin turn from your sin that was the first thing out of his mouth turn from your sin and turn to God who will be merciful he'll cleanse you of the wrong that you've done and he'll give you this gift of the Holy Ghost for it's for you and for your children and whoever calls upon the name of the Lord in truth obviously in sincerity that's what this gift is for and that's why you're here today you don't have to go away from here strong in yourself God says now you've you've come to me I'll be your strength now next week you'll come back here and you'll be singing all right you'll be singing before the band starts you'll be singing before the curtain goes up you won't want to talk about you know yesterday's whatever with the person beside you'll just be wanting to focus oh God thank you so much for what you've done thank you for enabling me to love that person and workplace thank you God that you you helped me to speak tender words to someone thank you God that I'm getting up in the morning and I'm understanding the Bible thank you Lord that I'm on the subway and I just feel like bursting out in song thank you God almighty for what you're doing in my life and he said I'll make that branch beautiful and glorious and that means just the glory of God will be on you it's it's not yourself it's the glory of God beyond you'll be a smile on your face people be saying to you what is the reason for the hope that you have in this mess like where did you get that smile don't you read the news don't you see what's happening how come you're sitting there smiling and people will ask you for a reason for the hope that is in you hallelujah there is only one reason it's Jesus there's no other reason let's pray together pray with me pray these words Lord Jesus Lord Jesus I don't come to you in strength I come to you in weakness but I have a heart that wants to obey you I'm asking you for the power to do what is right what your word speaks to me and the things I have learned don't let me play with the holy things help me to respect your word and respect your mercy and respect your grace don't let me turn your grace into something that doesn't look like you help me to be honest help me to be given for other people Jesus Christ I invite you into this temple and I ask you to glorify your own name do it through me lead me guide me strengthen me and empower me you've promised me that I will be beautiful and glorious you will guide me you will protect me and be my shelter from every storm I believe you Lord I believe you with all my heart and so I'm going to thank you today that this very moment I believe that you are changing my life hallelujah to the Lamb of God thank you Lord thank you God thank you God