In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the need for individuals to recognize their own weaknesses and limitations. He encourages the congregation to rely on God's strength rather than their own abilities. The preacher warns against complacency and self-righteousness, reminding the audience that everyone is in need of God's grace and forgiveness. He concludes by urging the listeners to surrender their lives to God and allow Him to transform them, promising that this message will bring about positive change in their lives.

This message is one of the Times Square Church Pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing WORLDCHALLENGE PO BOX 260 LINDALE, TEXAS 75771 or calling 903-963-8626. None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends. My message this morning, getting out of Sodom. We're going to get you out of Sodom today. And Sodom out of you. And me. This message is for me, as well as it is for you. This has really made a mark on my spirit. I want you to go to Jude, please. Go to Revelation, turn left. One chapter. One book. I'm going to read one verse. Verse 7. Let's start at verse 6. Verse 6 and 7 of the book of Jude. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, under the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh. Now listen to this. They are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. They are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. An example. Sodom, our example. Heavenly Father, I need a miracle today. I need a miracle of unction and anointing. I come to you, Father, confessing my total dependence upon you. I can't do this in my human power or human flesh. Holy Spirit, come and take the words that you have implanted in my spirit. It has marked my heart. I believe this message is going to help change my life, and I want it to change the life of all who hear it. Not only in this room today, but those who hear it on tape. We pray, Lord Jesus, that this message will drive us to the cross, drive us to our total dependence on you. Anoint me, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Getting out of Sodom. By the way, we have a wonderful nursery through Exit 7 here, and if you have a baby that cries, we appreciate you take it through Exit 7. They'll be well cared for, and you come back and enjoy the service. And also after the service, our visitors, if you go through Exit 9 and up the stairs, we have a hospitality room. We'll give you the free tape of the message from one of the pastors here, and they'll answer all your questions you have. We have a wonderful hospitality team there, and you have a few refreshments next to Exit 9 before you leave. You'll learn more about the church, about the ministry here. Now let's get to the message. Getting out of Sodom. I once heard a minister say, in essence, the Old Testament is no longer relevant to our modern times, so there's no use studying it. How wrong he is. How wrong he is. I love the Old Testament because it explains the New Testament. If you want to fully understand the New Testament, you have to go in the Old Testament, and you'll find the shadows and the types and the patterns and examples are lived out in practical life, and all of our spiritual battles are mirrored in their physical battles. Very clearly, for example, Israel represents the believer in the Old Testament. Israel is the new believer in the New Testament. Egypt in the Old Testament is a type of the world in the New Testament. The wilderness journey is a type of our Christian walk. The battles of Israel, a type of our spiritual warfare. The tree that was thrown in the waters of Merah, a type of the cross. The rock that was smitten and out came water, is a type of Christ who was smitten at the cross. The Bible says, now all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition. They are for our teaching, upon whom the ends of the world are come. In Hebrews, we're warned, don't fall after the same example of unbelief. Go into the Old Testament, learn your lessons there, and don't make the same mistakes, in other words. In fact, even the tabernacle, the furniture, the priest, everything in the Old Testament, the Bible says, was example and shadow of heavenly things. The things that we face today. Now, it's been my practice, if I couldn't fully understand or comprehend the New Testament truth, I'd go into the Old Testament and find the literal figure of it. I'd find the example of it and learn. Now, for example, if you want to learn about your spiritual walls, that Satan has erected to try to ruin your life, or you walk with Christ, you go into the story of Joshua, and how the walls of Jericho came down, and you learn incredible lessons by the very practical, lived out experiences in the Old Testament. If you want to learn about keeping your anointing, you go into Judges and Samuel, and you learn especially about Samson, and how he lost his anointing. It's that clear. Now, in keeping with that, I want to, by the way, if you want to learn about prevailing prayer, you go to Jacob, and the wrestling with the angel. You see, you go to the Old Testament if you don't understand, and the Old Testament gives light to the truth that you're trying to comprehend in the New Testament. Now, the Bible says in 2 Peter 2, 6, God turned Sodom into ashes, condemning them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that afterward should live ungodly. God says, no, there's a purpose in what I did to Sodom. This burning down of Sodom, this dealing with sin in Sodom, is a lesson to the whole society, every society in history up to the last day. There are lessons to be learned from this. Now, in keeping with what I've just outlined, I want to go back with you into Genesis, and to the Old Testament, and I want to open up a powerful New Covenant truth. I've been studying the New Covenant in the past two years, and especially in the past year, and God has opened up a New Covenant truth, and I didn't fully understand it until I went back into the Old Testament and began to see the type. And I want you to follow me closely. I'm setting a foundation for the truth now. Actually, the New Covenant is all about getting you out of Sodom, and getting Sodom out of you, and getting you up on a mountain in the presence of the Lord. That's what the New Covenant is. It's getting the world out of you. It's the power to break your habits, the power to break the lust that is in your heart, and get you out of the bondage and the cords that bind you, and get you out and say don't turn around, don't turn back until you get to the mountain. And that's what the New Covenant is about. You'll find this type in Genesis the 19th chapter. And here we find a righteous man by the name of Lot living where he shouldn't live. He's living in a wicked, vile city whose sins had reached into heaven, whose sins had grieved a holy God. And he said enough. I'm going to burn it. I'm going to scorch the city, and that's what Sodom means in Hebrew, scorched or burnt. Now, we think of Sodom, we talk about the Old Testament being a type of the New. We say, well, what does Sodom represent? And most of us think of Sodom as representing, well, that could be San Francisco with all of its militant, homosexual, in-your-face community. Others say, no, no, no, that's New Orleans with its wicked, vile Mardi Gras. Or, no, it's New York City with all of its greed and its violence. New York City, we think of as a literal city. No, there was a literal Sodom, but the spiritual significance of it is that Sodom today is in our hearts. It's right here. We were born with a Sodomite nature. Scripture makes that very, very clear. You don't have to go beyond your own heart to find Sodom. In heart, David said, you work wickedness. The Bible said we were conceived in iniquity. We have the Adam nature, which is the Sodom nature. It is, we were born with this. We were created in iniquity. David said there was pride and hatred in the heart, forwardness in the heart, idolatry, lies in the heart. In Proverbs says the heart is where wickedness is devised. It's steamed out of the heart. Jesus himself said, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man. That's proof enough for me that you don't have to look beyond your heart to find the spirit of Sodom. Now, God himself calls Lot a righteous man. But this righteous man was not where he should be. This righteous man had a problem. He was bound by a cord. And he couldn't get out. He couldn't shake it. He couldn't cut it in his own strength and his own power. I don't know how many times he may have promised because of the vexing of his soul and what he saw and heard in Sodom. I don't know how many times he said next week or tomorrow, I don't know if he's ever tried to pack his bags and go and got a little ways and came back. I don't know, but I know he didn't have the power. He didn't have the will. He was decaying morally. Sodom was in his heart. Sodom had corrupted him. You'll see this very clearly as the story unfolds. He should have fled the city. He should have said, if I stay much longer in this iniquity, it's going to lay hold of me and cost me everything. And I see this as a type of the Old Testament believer under the Old Covenant. He hears the law. The law says, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly and standeth not in the way of sinners and sitteth not in the seat of the scornful. The law comes and describes the perfect obedience that God demands. And then man tries in his own strength and his own power to get out. You will find in the 14th chapter of Genesis a confederate army coming against Sodom and Gomorrah. And in this battle, Sodom and his kings, kings of Gomorrah and Zoar, lose the battle. And this invading army carries away, locked his family and all the inhabitants of Sodom and all the loot, all the riches, everything, and they're carried away captive. Abram, a man of God, with 318 of his servants, finds out and he goes after this army and through a miraculous working of God's power he overcomes the enemy. And the Scripture says that he took Lot and his goods and his riches and all the riches of the city and restored them. And they return to Sodom. Now here is an opportunity for Sodom to get out. Before this he had been warned. He had been told to get out but he goes right back to Sodom after his deliverance. And the picture in the Spirit, now get this please, a perfect picture that you cannot be delivered from any habit, from any sin, from any Sodom in your heart by the hand of man. Not yours or anybody else's. Not a godly preacher as godly as Abraham. Nobody can get you out. He got him out temporarily and all you get through your self-effort and struggle to defeat your own sin is a temporary release. And you go right back to your sin, you'll make God a thousand promises, you'll sin confess, sin confess, and go back to your sin. Because no human hand can deliver you from the pile of Satan. You can't get out of Sodom by Abraham, not a praying preacher. I don't care how much godly preaching you hear. I don't care how many people pray for you. I don't care how much, how many promises you make to your flesh. You cannot get out of Sodom on your own strength and power through striving and making promises. Paul called the law a yoke upon the neck which neither we or our fathers, nor we were able to bear. You see, Lot has been given an ultimatum. God says get out of the city and he can't run. He lingers. He has no power. He's deluded. He's blind. Because folks, we're talking now, God's interest here has to do with a believer, a man that he calls righteous. Forget the Sodomites right now. We're focused on a man called Lot living in a wicked environment, living in a wicked city, but he's got a problem. He's not a free man. I'm talking about Christians living in this generation who love God as this man did, trying to stand up morally in the midst of an unclean generation and yet there's something there of Sodom in the heart. It can be an act of adultery. It can be acts of fornication. There's a whole lot of things we're going to see here in just a few moments. I don't know what it is that binds you, but that's Sodom. That's the spirit of Sodom that is still in the heart binding you. You're not free. You know that. Anyone within the sound of my voice that now has a secret sin in your heart, you know you're bound. Nobody has to tell you. I don't have to remind you. You know you're bound. You can never come into the fullness of Christ. You'll always be on the border of the blessing that God has ordained for you, but you'll never enter the fullness. You will always have a sense of despair. You'll always have a sense of the wrath of God hanging over your head and never be free. I speak to a lot of people here this morning. There's a type of many righteous believers today who by faith have the imputed righteousness of Christ. Oh yes, they are righteous. That righteousness is by faith and it's imputed and they have that righteousness. They truly love God and they're even vexed by the sin in the society. They hate what they see all around them, but there's something still in their heart. They hear the law saying, lay aside your besetting sin. The wages of sin is death. Hear the conscience screaming. You hear God's word saying, lay aside your besetting sin. Here comes the law demanding obedience. Here comes the conscience condemning. And you say, I want, I am bound, and yet there's no power. There's no strength to break it because you keep going back and back and making God promises. Your conscience cries, the law cries, guilty, condemned. Under the old covenant, absolute obedience was demanded. There was no allowance for the slightest disobedience. The soul that sinned, the Bible said, died. There was no provision for the strength to obey under the old covenant. The law made sin exceedingly sinful, but the Bible said, it's a schoolmaster. You see, you can go to school, the teacher can teach you, but he cannot impart the power for you to learn. That's done by experience. That's done by everyday walk, making it work into your very being, taking those lessons and applying them to the life. The Bible makes it very clear. You say, well, why would God demand perfect obedience and then not give power to comply to his commandments? The Bible makes it very clear that God had a purpose. He had to bring man to the place where he realized he had no power in himself, no power to deliver himself. It took God over 400 years to teach Israel that they couldn't be their own savior, that he had to have a redeemer, that he had to have God come and deliver them. 400 years before they could learn that they couldn't break the power of their slave masters in their own will, in their own strength. It took God 400 years to teach it. And it took God centuries right up to the time of Prophet Zechariah to teach the Israelites in the old covenant, people under the old covenant. It took God hundreds of years to bring the people to believe that a redeemer was needed out of Zion, that he wanted to be a wall of fire round about them and all of these little walls they were building were tumbling down and they couldn't depend on those walls, that they needed total dependence on the heavenly Father, that he be the fire around them and the glory therein. And some people still have not learned that lesson. They're still under the law. They're still striving, making promises. I call it the can-do man. You've heard me preach it. I can do it. Give me a few more takes, a few more seminars. Somewhere I'm going to rally the strength. Somehow maybe God will allow some little thing in my life that will shake me up. Maybe through providential slight judgment. We don't want a big judgment. We want a little judgment. Just a nudge. No, no, no, no, no. God had to bring man to a place where he had to cry out, I am hopeless, helpless as a baby. I have no place to turn. It's to drive us to the cross. Drive us. Hallelujah. Now to you who are sitting here this morning saying, Hallelujah, this sermon doesn't belong to me. Because you see, I'm not a homosexual. I'm not a lesbian. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't curse. I don't fornicate. I'm not having a secret affair and no fornication. I feel pretty good so far. I'm going to settle down and enjoy this. You couldn't be more mistaken. When the word says, lust can seize and it brings forth, it's talking about a womb. Only a womb can seize. Only a womb brings forth. Let me tell you something. Every sin you commit is born in the womb of lust. And that womb is in here. No man sins except it comes from the womb of his own lust. Hear me please. No two babies are alike. No two lusts are alike. Your lust may be different than mine. But there is a lust in us that is always striving against the Holy Ghost because the Holy Ghost, see the Holy Ghost is not interested in dealing with particular sins. He's going for the womb. He goes to the womb. That's the power of the Holy Ghost. He goes to the seat, the womb. The thing that conceives it. But you say, well I'm not conceiving that. Oh listen, the Holy Ghost is always going down into the gut of that womb. Down into the center of that womb and killing the seed, the first thought. But what about, I don't know what is being conceived in your heart, but I want to tell you, we wink at some of the things that God doesn't wink about at all. They come right out of the womb of lust just as much as pornography or any other lust. That has to do with seeking the praises of men. Man-pleasing. A drive for power. Authority. The need to be revered by our peers. Roving eyes. Evil imagination. You can be proud of who you are in Christ to the point that it's sin. You can be proud of your prayer life until it's boasting. You can be guilty of the sin of coveting positions. You can be proud of your spiritual knowledge or your spiritual roots. You can be guilty of sin yourself as a humble, kind, teachable person when you're really not. I learned that the hard way. The past few years, God, the Holy Ghost really been dealing with me. I look back over my past life and my ministry. I started preaching when I was a teenager. And over 50 years of preaching, I look back and the Holy Ghost in past months, I've had to weep in the presence of God. Now, I know Paul gave his good advice for getting those things that are behind. But sometimes I have to examine myself, as the scripture says, and see where I'm at now compared to where I used to be. And I was blessed. I would be preaching in Albert Hall in London to thousands all over the world. And I would go to conferences and ministers' conferences and I was usually the main speaker. And I thought I was probably one of the most humble, not assuming I wasn't impressed by people or big shots. And I would walk in, you know, poor little David, and I never smiled. I had, because I was too anointed to smile. I had this sense of being destined, destiny hanging over my head. But I won't take back anything God did. He used me. But I look back now and I know He used me only by His mercy because I wasn't what I thought I was. And only looking back now with a little bit of wisdom do I know what I was. I was cocky. I mouthed off. There were things that I look back now and I see that make me grieve inside and I have to listen to Paul and forget it. Otherwise it would bring me down. I'd be in despair. And I hope He's teaching me those lessons. But you see there's so many things hidden in us and until the Holy Ghost turns the light on we don't see them. We can sit in a meeting like this and say, well, I'm just fine. Everything's fine. And yet still have some Sodom burning in our very spiritual being. I've got to move on. The Holy Spirit has shown me three covenant truths in this Old Testament type and I want to show them to you. And I believe these are the three secrets to getting out of Sodom and getting Sodom out of you. And I speak to myself first of all. If you listen to these three covenant truths I promise you you can be free. You can be free this morning. You can walk out of this church this morning no more bound by the court of any sin. I don't care if you what it is, pornography. As I told you, I've had pastors back here ask me to pray for them about pornography and have a briefcase with them and I knew it was full of pornography. They're asking me to pray for them. Full of pornography. Okay, I got something here. You lay down that briefcase. You'll want to be free. Alright, number one. Follow me very closely. We have got to take God seriously that He's determined to burn all of Sodom out of us. God is serious about our sin. There comes a time when God says enough. Enough. You've got to come to this place Genesis 18-20 the cry of their sin the cry of Sodom had come up before Him because the sin had been very grievous in the eyes of the Lord. And now listen to me please. You can never be delivered from your besetting sin from any habit, from any luck. You cannot be delivered until you come to this agreement with God. You've got to see as God does. My sin has come up before high heaven. My sin is grievous before a holy God. You've got to come to that condition. You can't explain it away. You can't excuse it. You face the reality. My sin is an abomination to God. My sin has reached high heaven and it grieves the Holy Ghost. You've got to come to a place where you say this thing that is in me born out of my own lust if I keep yielding to this temptation it's going to cost me my life. And that was the warning. Get out before you're consumed with this iniquity. Lot did not take these warnings seriously. He was warned Arise, get out of this place lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of this city. Beloved, we love to hear the preaching of mercy and grace. There has been tremendous preaching of God's loving kindness in this pulpit. We have preached from every conceivable angle about the mercy and the grace of God from this pulpit. I've preached a lot of mercy in this past two years especially the loving kindness of the Lord, the grace. We love to hear that preaching. In fact, God spoke to Moses when he revealed his own nature. He said, The Lord God merciful, gracious, long-suffering abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sins. Thank God for the mercy of the Lord. Where would we be without it? With the very next word. Listen to the very next word. And he will not by any means clear the guilty. God said, I will not wicked any sin. I don't care who you are. I'm going to go wicked to sin. I'm a merciful God and I'll be long-suffering. I'll be merciful. I'll be patient. But there's going to come a time that Sodom has to burn. There's going to come a time that I have reached the end of my patience with your sin. Now we know that Mark didn't take God's warning seriously because he slept so soundly the angel had to wake him up. No wonder his sons-in-law laughed. They're saying, you don't take it seriously. You sleep right through it. If you really believe this you'd be on your way out of here. You wouldn't be around here. You'd be gone. You don't believe it. Why should we believe it? Go ahead and try to witness about the coming of Jesus. But if you're living like Jesus isn't coming, nobody's going to listen to you. Here is a man face-to-face with the warning from God. Face-to-face with the warning of God. It's all over. Get up. This is the hour. This is the moment for deliverance. You can't sleep on this anymore. This is it. You see, Lot didn't want to be delivered right now. It's time to get up. The Bible says he lingered. He lingered. Now I believe in what I call divine ultimatums. I believe that you'll find it all through the book. Old Testament, New Testament. You'll find it. They're warned in the New Testament church not to grieve the Holy Ghost and yet Ananias and Sapphira grieve and lie to the Holy Ghost and they drop dead. The ultimatums are all through the New Testament even in the day of grace. And I believe in this. And the divine ultimatum comes when the Holy Ghost recognizes that your sin has so consumed you and so overpowered you that it's going to bring you to destruction. And before it destroys you, God has to come with his ultimatum and say, wait a minute. I'm a God of grace and I want to deliver you. I want you out of this. I want you to have freedom and I want you on the mountain. I want you in my presence. I want to bless you. I want to favor you. But I'm telling you now and I'm telling you that ultimatum comes through the preaching of the Word of God often. It comes through a friend. It comes through reading the book and convicted by the Holy Ghost. You read something, it touches you. It's a sword that pierces the marrow of the bone. And the Holy Ghost is giving ultimatums right now. It's the sound of my voice. He's giving you an ultimatum. He doesn't love me. He's a God of mercy but he's saying, I have warned you and warned you. I've spoken and spoken. I've even chastened you. I've slapped your wrist. I have sent a form of judgment to you. And now I'm telling you out of Sodom or you will burn with iniquity. It will destroy you. You'll go down with Sodom. How many preachers are there right now living in deep sin who once had anointing would give anything to a satan in a congregation one day when a prophetic voice said, Now! Out! This is the end of side one. You may now... And being so convicted by the Holy Ghost that allowed the Holy Ghost to grip their heart. But this man's been given that ultimatum and he lingers. Stephen faced a priesthood that had been warned time and time again by the Holy Spirit. And Stephen said, You stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart. You do always or continually resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did. So do you. Keep on resisting the Holy Ghost saying, Now! Sodom is going to burn. It's all over. I want you out. I want you free. Hallelujah. The Bible says, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God by which you are sealed to the day of redemption. The Bible says in Acts 10.34, God is no respecter of persons. It means God doesn't play favorites. He's totally impartial. Impartial. It has to do with His blessings and His judgments. He's totally impartial. I don't care how much you pray. You can pray six, eight, ten hours a day. You can read your Bible through five times a year. You can give your body to be burned at the stake. You can give and help people. You can do all of these wonderful works. But if you're not going to agree with God about your sins, you're going to keep harboring this thing that God is after to give you total freedom. God can't really enjoy your presence and you can't enjoy His until you're free. It has to do with perfect fellowship. God says, I'm no respecter of persons. He says, I'm going to deal with you. And you've got to come to that place, folks. We have a whole generation that's running everywhere wanting to hear a mercy message, a grace message. Yes, God is merciful. I thank God for that. In fact, you can't understand the power of God and the glory of the New Covenant until you understand mercy and grace. Thank God for His grace. So there comes a time God says, you're going to have to agree with me about what I see in you. It's reached my heart. I see it and it grieves me. And if I let you go on, it's going to kill you. So you better hear me. He sends the Holy Ghost and He gives you all the maiden that many of you very quietly, powerfully are receiving from a loving pastor right now. God saw what you did last night. He saw what you did last week. He knows what has your heart. And He said, I want you free. I want you with Me on the mountain. And if you allow the Holy Ghost to deal with that, you've taken your first step toward freedom. You have taken your most important step toward freedom. Because you're no longer taking sin lightly. Number two, stop trying to make a deal with your sin. Lot tried and failed. He tried to delay his moment of deliverance. He tried to delay his escape from Sodom. You see, the Sodomites surrounded Lot's house. They're pounding on the door trying to force entry. They're screaming obscenities. Evidently, Lot was a judge sitting at the gate because they said, you would come here and be a judge? He probably had tried to set an example. And they are knocking on the door saying, send those men out to us for the purpose really to Sodomize them. Lot goes out the door and tries to make a bargain. He tries to deal. He tries to make a deal. And here's the deal. He said, look, you know I'm a man of hospitality. That's his reputation. You know I've been hospitable among you. I've been very hospitable. I've got two men that are visiting here. And I want them to enjoy our hospitality. And I've got two daughters. I'll tell you what, I'll send them out to you. You do with them what you please. Now this man, he's no dummy. He knows they're gay. He's never touched their daughters. He's thinking, they'll go out and party tonight. These are Sodomites. They don't want heterosexual sex. They want homosexual sex. So he's trying to expulse one sin with another that he thinks is more powerful. He's trying to drive out one sin with another. He's going to drive out a homosexual sin with a heterosexual sin. It's like a pastor who once confided to me years ago. He was having an affair and he said, purposely he set out to find somebody else because he was so hooked on this woman to find somebody else with less of a problem, easier for him to break away. So he brought in another woman to drive out this other woman. You can't make a deal with your sin. You can't make a bargain. You can't put borders because every time you say this far and no farther, it spills over its borders. You cannot put borders. You can't put limits on sin. It always breaks out of its borders. And his thinking is, well now wait a minute, they'll go out and they'll party. My daughter will come home unscathed tomorrow and these angels will see Sodom's not so bad after all. His reputation is going to be intact. It's hospitality man. And he still gets Sodom. And that's what a lot of people would like. They would like to have the mercy. And he's thinking, God is a God of mercy. I know. He sent Abram. He delivered me once. He'll deliver me again. He saved Sodom once. He'll save Sodom again. And how many times have you been brought through it? God in his mercy forgave you. Came the blessing of God. The anointing came upon you right in the meeting. God's still with me. Ask Samson about it. How many times did he flirt before suddenly the spirit had gone? You can't make a deal with your sin. You can't bargain with it. You know my friend, the great prophet Leonard Ravenhill wrote a book called Sodom Had No Bible. That's true. I agree with that. But Sodom had something else. Sodom had one of the most powerful sermons ever preached to mankind. Sodom had an example very few people have ever had. They saw a holy man. A holy man walk among them and they watched him worship. They watched him pay tithe to Melchizedek. They had the testimony of a man who says when they asked to reward him he says I don't even want to touch a shoelace from Sodom. This man set an example. That should have sent shutters to lock. Should have sent here's a man who doesn't want to touch anything in our society. What's wrong with it? There should have been conviction of a powerful frivolous priest. Don't tell me he didn't have gospel. Lot's not ready to face reality. He's trying to put off the time of reckoning. He's dragging out the moment of truth. He's trying to make a deal. Folks I'm talking about how to get out of your besetting sin. I'm talking about how to get out of this thing that's laid hold on you. You've been fighting for so long. And God says now I want you free. No deals. No bargains. It has to go. No excuses anymore. No trading off one lighter sin for a heavier sin. It has to go. Alright if you're ready to take those two steps right now. You agree with God that your sin is grievous. And you're willing to stop making deals and excusing it. And trying to substitute good works to cover up your sin. If you're at that place then you're ready for the most powerful new covenant truth God has ever given his people in the world. And I had to go in the Old Testament to find it in the story of Lot. Do you understand? And here's the third thing. Lot never got out of Sodom on his own. He never did. He would have died in that holocaust if Jehovah himself hadn't come down and literally taken him by the hand. And you look at this confused man. He's blind. He's confused. He's deluded by the deceitfulness of sin. And yet God says he's a righteous man. He loves God. And so it's not just because Abraham prayed. Because Abraham prayed for five righteous people and he couldn't find ten righteous people and he couldn't find them. It wasn't just the prayers of Abraham. It was the absolute mercy of God. This was a type of the new covenant and how God you see under the new covenant God demands even more perfect righteousnesses than under the old. Be ye holy. Be ye perfect. He demands holiness. There's no excuse. God doesn't wicked sin less now than ever. Under the new covenant he demands absolutely obedience. But under the new covenant he gives you all the power you need to comply. To every command. Every demand of the gospel. He sends the Holy Ghost. If ye through the Holy Ghost do mortify the deeds of the flesh ye shall live. Through the Holy Ghost. The power of the Holy Ghost. And when he's being let out he turns to the one who has him by the hand. It's not the angel. In fact he turns to him and says Lord don't let something in my mouth and I want to go to Zohar. And he calls him Lord and in the original it's Adonai. It was Jehovah supreme ruler in Hebrew. It was Jehovah himself came down and said I'm not going to let you die in this holocaust. I love you. You're a righteous man. I've warned you. Now come on. And he grabs him by the hand and pulls him out. Oh hallelujah. He would have died in that holocaust. Folks the bible said while we were without strength Christ died. Without an ability without a will with nothing Christ died for us men. Folks all you have to do is say I hate my sin. All you have to do is say oh God I want to be free. Oh God no more excuses. I agree with you Lord my sin has reached high heaven. And turn to him with all of your heart. Say Lord I've had enough of this lingering and flirting and playing around. Now Holy Ghost come give me your word. Holy Ghost come take me out. I promise you he'll come. He will come and deliver you. Hallelujah. This man is still not ready to be alone with God. Because you see it's on the mountain. He said escape to the mountain. You know the mountain is where Peter James and John saw Christ transfigured. You know that the mountain represents the presence of God and the glory of God. Jesus went to the mountains to pray. I'll look to the hills and mountains from which comes my help. Great is the Lord and great to be praised in the mountain of his holiness. Isaiah said come you let us go up to the mountain of the Lord for there he will teach us his ways and then we'll walk in his path to the mountain. But this man is not ready for the presence of God yet. And he says send me to Zohar. And God in his mercy lets him go to Zohar. His wife looks back. His wife looks back. God says if you want deliverance if you want to be free the moment my spirit comes upon you and I'm bringing you out of this. You're sensing the freedom and you're knowing in your heart that he's delivered you. The desires are leaving. New hope is arising. Faith is coming. Let me take you now into the New Testament type. That's the Old Testament type. Now let me take you I want you to go to 2 Peter before I close. I want you to go to 2 Peter the first chapter. Now we'll see it in the New Testament. And this is what I didn't understand until I went into the Old Testament. 2 Peter the first chapter. Alright? Here we go verse 3 and 4. According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these he might be partakers of the divine nature having what? Escaped. We're talking about escaping Sodom. Escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust. Alright? Look at me please. Let me try to in the next 2 or 3 minutes just boil this down to the simple truth. You see you can't understand that until you go to the Old Testament. You see it in lust. You see it in Jehovah coming down and taking him out. Now listen to it. You want out? Where is the secret? Where is the power to get out? The Bible makes it very clear right here and now that it's truth that sets us free. The Bible says his divine power was given to them through that produced life and godliness. They were able to break the power of sin through great and precious promises administered by the holy ghost. Anointed by the holy ghost. Folks here is where the faith comes from by hearing the word of God. Not just by reading it but praying God give me an understanding. You go to these great and precious promises. Go to the new covenant. God said I'll give you a new heart. I'll be a God to you. I'll be merciful to your iniquity. I'll be a God to you. You'll be a people to me. When I hear God say I'll be God to you that means he sent Jesus with all the Godhood in him. Everything I need for godliness and holiness and to walk free from sin is in Jesus Christ my Lord. And I get it by faith standing on his promises. God said I will deliver you. I'll keep you from iniquity. I'll keep you from falling. I'll present you before the throne of God with exceeding great joy. I will do it. I will do it. If you will lay hold of my word. You see the angel that Jehovah had to lay hold on him and pull him out. Jehovah laid hold on him and pulled him out. These promises have to lay hold of you. You have to allow them to lay hold of you and say God I'm going to search your word. I do that every day. I search the word for his promises of keeping his promises of blessing his promises of fulfillment of fullness. I lay hold of that and say God I'm going to risk my life. I lay my life on that. I stand on your living word. Get the word in your heart and he said you'll not sin against him. You lay hold of these promises and let them lay hold of you and they will lead you out of Sodom. Simple enough. Nothing complicated about it. Flee in Sodom. Arise. Flee. Stop lingering. Run to the mountain. Oh he finally made it there but because he took a detour. You know what happened on that mountain. Something worse than Sodom. Happened on that mountain because this man though delivered would not move on to the fullness of God. Folks God wants us to be in the fullness of Christ. Where there's joy. You know something the joy that breaks out when you're free from the power of sin and you've allowed the Holy Ghost to go into that womb of lust and literally sweep it out. So God go right into the womb of my lust. Lay hold of everything that's unlike you. Take every cobweb. Take every black stone. Take everything that's in me. Take it out. I'll lay it open before you. And folks automatically joy will break out in your life. It's unbelievable. That's when spontaneous joy. You can always tell when you go to a church where people are getting free because the joy is not faint. It's not fake. It's a genuine joy in God that you can't describe. The hand clapping is real. The praising is real. Everything is real. The smile is real. The fellowship is real because there's no sin. I told a pastor recently of going to a friend's church and this dear friend of mine had lost the anointing a number of years before. A large church. As soon as I walked in he was surrounded by elders that were I had no other word but sleazy. Everybody around now were ungodly people. The choir director, my wife and I were there and I said, honey, I'm suffocating. I'm hurting. I feel like dying inside. We found out later he was a homosexual. He had to be dismissed from the ministry. But you see, the people were trying so hard but it was empty. The singing was shallow. The light was gone. It was death. Even though it was loud it was dead because there was sin in the chapel. God loves you. He wants you to be free. He wants you to be free today. Today is your red letter day. I said, God, I agree with you. I received my loving divine ultimatum. Lord Jesus, I want to come and lay it at your feet. I resigned. I lay it down. God, take me by the hand. Let these promises hold me. You promised me, Lord, that if I repent of this, I turn to you with all my heart and turn to your word, you will lead me out. Will you stand, please? I know this kind of preaching won't make you shout right now. It will put a shout in you later. Hallelujah. We preach like this because we have to give an account of your soul. I have to give an account. I'm going to be judged when I preach here this morning. Oh, yes. That makes me tremble. I'm going to answer. God will replay this message before his throne on judgment day. If I don't live what I preach, God is dealing with me. He dealt with me through his word. He's dealing with you. There needs to be a full confession, Lord Jesus, examine my heart. Holy Spirit, do that right now. Don't let anybody turn the searchlight away from them. Lord, anyone that loves you should be praying right now. Holy Ghost, turn on me. Holy Ghost, look into my heart. Is there anything of pride, ambition, self, roving eyes, any of these things that displease you, Holy Spirit? Go into the womb of our love. Go into the womb, Lord, and cleanse it. Hallelujah. Deal with it, Lord. Bring victory because you do love your people. You love them so much that you'll bring love and reproof and you will come with a divine ultimatum, but that ultimatum is meant to deliver from destruction. Hallelujah. Wherever you're at in this house, if the Holy Spirit, I don't care if it's in the choir, I don't care if it's here, upstairs, downstairs, in the lower rotunda, behind stage, wherever you're seeing me. Now, don't come unless the Spirit draws you, but if God, nobody needs to know why you come. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. That's His business. Nobody's going to ask any questions or say anything to you. You feel the drawing of the Holy Ghost, you come down here, but you come down here to agree with God. Today is my day of deliverance. Today. This can't be put off another hour. Lord, I want to be free today. I come, I acknowledge my sin. I want to be free. I want to be free. Come in close. There's going to be a lot of people coming. Come in here. Up in the corner, upstairs, go to either side, exits on either side, and come down. Folks, go real close. Move in tight. Move in tight. God bless you. Amen. If you've come to a place where you're just tired of fighting the battle yourself, if you're at the place where you say, I have tried and tried and I have not been successful. I've failed God in every promise I've made. I'm tired. I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. That's good. You come to him then. The law has fulfilled its work. You've seen exceeding sinfulness of sin by the power of the Holy Ghost and his word. And you've seen how utterly impossible, like a little baby in its mother's arms, you can't feed yourself. You can't protect yourself. You just have to rest in the arms. And I'm telling you right now, that's where God wants to bring you, where you realize that there is nothing good in you. There's nothing that merits his mercy. It's absolute mercy and grace and loving kindness of our Lord. God says, I see what you're going through. If you'll come and lay this to me now. If you agree that your sin has grieved the Holy Ghost, you agree right now that you can't continue in it. And let that grip you. If I go on, I'm going to be judged. Yes, you will. If I go on, it's going to cost me everything. And that's true. Look, I can't pray for you until you come to that place or I'm going to offer you false comfort. I can't offer you comfort. I can't offer myself comfort until I know that my sin is going to be judged. But if I go on with it, especially after you've received the light, then there's a darkness settles in and a hardness of heart that finally you can hear any message. You can sit through a message like this and be totally unmoved, totally unmoved and say, well, I know where I am with God and that's it. And that is going in your sin. And God will let you go because you've hardened your heart. But if you agree right now, see, I don't want you just screaming because it's going to cover up the conviction. I want you to look at it now and say, Lord, I know you've seen my sin and it's grieved you. And now it grieves me because I'm hurting you and I want to be free. Holy Spirit, I come to your word and I come to your promises. You said, if I confess this sin now, acknowledge that it's grieved you and I come to this place where I'm not going to make any deals and no bargains about it. This is it. Lord, I heard you take my sin. I'm ready. And if you're not ready to say, Lord, make me ready. And if you have that hunger, just that little desire, if he sees that desire, he'll come and pull you. Hallelujah. Holy Spirit, I'm asking you right now to let this go deep into all of our hearts. Go deep into my heart, Holy Ghost. Show me your hatred for my sin. You love me, but you hate my sin. God, you know what sin would do to me, what it would do to all of us. It's going to bring chaos and a burning, a scorching. Lord, it's going to cost us. For some it costs marriages, it costs homes, it costs everything they have and even their soul for some. God, I want you to pray this prayer with me. Jesus, I see my sin as grievous to you. I've sinned against you. I've held on to something that you want me to let go so that I can be free, that I can enjoy your presence and have full fellowship with you. I know it now. I heard the ultimatum. I receive it. Lord Jesus, I can't get the victory as I've tried in the past in my own strength or my striving or my promises. I turn now by faith to your promises. I deny my promises. I'll make you no more promises, but I'll turn to your promises and I'll trust those promises that you'll give me a new heart, that you'll take me to the mountain, you'll draw me into your presence and you will teach me how to get victory and walk in freedom. And you'll put a wall around me and you'll be my glory. You'll drive out this sin by your word anointed by the spirit. I confess my sin. I lay it at your feet. You promised me that you would keep me from falling. You promised me that you'd be a God to me. You'd be merciful to my sins and you will lead me. Give me a heart that's like your heart. In Jesus' name, I thank you and I praise you. Now lift your hands and thank him with your own voice. Lift your hands and praise the Lord. I praise you. I thank you. I come to you, Lord, by grace. I come to you now in faith, believing you with all my heart. Listen to me now. You've got to release your faith. God heard you. His sacrifice wasn't in vain. His blood wasn't shed in vain. It was shed for just this moment. Hallelujah. Can you say right now, say with me, Jesus, I know you love me and you're not mad at me. Turn around to three people and say, God's not mad at you. God's not mad at you. God's not mad at you. This is the conclusion of the tape.