From Lying at the Gate to Leaping in the Temple

In this third chapter, my message tonight is entitled From Lying at the Gate to Leaping in the Temple. From Lying at the Gate to Leaping in the Temple. And some of you that are here right now, you're lying at the gate.

But before this meeting is over, you're going to be wanting to leap in the temple. Praise the Lord. And we have a lot of you that are like that.

Amen. We've seen that Sunday night. My goodness, nobody wanted to leave.

Nobody wanted to leave the service. So the presence of the Lord was so powerful and so real. And we, there were people leaping in the temple and those that weren't leaping outwardly were leaping inwardly.

And tonight God can do that again for us. Praise the Lord. Acts chapter 3. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.

And there they ministered to a certain lame man. He was lame from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Now let me just stop there and digress for a moment and point out to you that Acts chapter 3 follows Acts chapter 2. Now that is a very profound statement when I explain to you what I mean.

Now Acts chapter 2 is a famous chapter. That's where the Holy Spirit was out poured on the day of Pentecost. And Peter and the other disciples stood up empowered by the Holy Spirit, priest of message, and 3,000 plus souls were saved and the New Testament church was born.

Now you put that in proportion today, it would be like 30,000 probably here in New York getting saved. It would take probably most theaters in Times Square to accommodate the crowd. And so there was this great outpouring and this great burst of glorious power manifested in the second chapter of Acts.

And yet here these two preachers who are going about their daily routine are not only able to be instruments to see the masses brought to the Lord, but they're able also to individualize their anointing and individualize the power of the Holy Spirit and focus in on one individual. And that's what this story is about. And that's who I want to talk about tonight.

Verse and verse three, this layman at the gate beautiful who's seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asking alms. And Peter fastening his eyes upon him with John said, look on us. And he, the beggar, the crippled man gave he done to them expecting to receive something of them.

Then Peter said, this verse six is if you had to pick out famous verses in the Bible, you'd almost have to list this one that I love. Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none but such as I have give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

And he leaping up stood and walked and entered with them into the temple walking and leaping and praising God. And verse nine says, and all the people saw him walking and praising God. I'm sure he interrupted a very dull prayer meeting.

They had never seen anything like this. A man to, to praise the Lord. They at first, they didn't know what was going on.

They were shocked by the fact that he was praising God. And then when they saw who it was and mighty miracle that took place. And so this is a story of a man who went from lying at the gate to leaping in the temple.

Shall we bow in a word of prayer? Our father, we thank you for that power. We thank you for that authority in the name of Jesus that enables us to say today to those who are spiritually crippled rise and be healed in the name of Jesus rise up and walk and be able to walk and praise you and walk in righteousness. Lord tonight, reach out and let this service set the stage, let it set the tone and the direction for the rest of this week and every service.

Lord, we thank you for those already. It's been evidence that you have selected. You have divinely brought them to this place tonight.

You have divinely brought them and Lord, you have already accomplished and are accomplishing your work in their hearts. But Lord search out everyone, every individual in this place tonight and bring them to that place in you that you want them to be in Jesus name. Amen.

Now you'll find yourself, you'll find yourself in this story tonight. This is a before and after picture. Before this crippled man encountered these two preachers who said to them in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up.

Before the man was a cripple and after he became a Jesus person, a healed person, but more importantly, a Jesus person. Before he was healed, he was a beggar and after he becomes a worshiper. Now this crippled man symbolizes all of us in a spiritual sense.

Everybody is a cripple. Now you see in reality, we are two persons in one. There is the outside person and then there is the inside person.

We are body and we are spirit. There is a natural man and there is a spiritual man. First Corinthians 15 and 44 says there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.

Now you see one of these two persons, actually it's one person but two parts of us, one of these two persons can be doing good and the other bad. One can be alive and the other dead. Our bodies can be very normal.

We can be alive and healthy but our spirits be dead. Or to put it this way, our outer person may be standing up tall and strong and healthy but the inner person can be lying down in defeat like this crippled beggar at the gate beautiful. I administered his service one time and after it a lady came to me, very refined, very well dressed.

I could tell just by her manner and by her speech that she was a woman of refinement. And she began to talk to me about another woman and presented the situation and said what would you think about this and what would you do and what would your answer be to this kind of situation. And as she was talking about this other woman, I discerned that she was talking about herself.

She couldn't bring herself to tell me that it was her. And as I looked at her and all of her refinement, the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me and said she's standing up on the outside but she's lying down on the inside. I went to preach at a church one time in a very nice church, very nice suburban area and the Lord laid an evangelistic message upon my heart.

And I would, as I went there and I sat on the platform, I began to second-guess myself or question whether I had the right message or not. Because I looked out onto the congregation of a lot of nice looking people. They stood for prayer.

They stood with their hymnals and they were worshiping the Lord. And I said to the Lord, Lord, do I have the right message? You want me to preach tonight to sinners? Look at all these nice looking people. And the Spirit of God spoke to me and said don't be fooled by the face.

There's death on the inside. Now the kind of crippled condition that I want to address myself tonight primarily is that which is a spiritual, that which is a moral. And when I talk about one standing up on the outside but lying down on the inside, let me, let me give you a picture, a description of what I'm talking about by telling you the story of a mother had her little son at church and he was very rambunctious and he had a lot of energy and he just wouldn't stay still and he kept running around.

Mother kept pulling him in and trying to get him to sit down. I remember when I was a kid, when I was like that, my mother used to have three names for me. She would say Donald and to get my attention and then if, if I didn't pay attention to her she would say Donald Wesley.

That's my middle name and I, you know, I knew that I was in a little more danger and if she didn't, if I didn't respond then she would say Donald Wesley Wilkerson. I said whatever and I knew there were no more names and there were no more talking after that. I better listen.

And I guess this little boy had ran, you know, out of names and his mother's patience and so she grabbed him and she sat him down on the seat, you know, like that and she said, I said sit down. And he looked up at her with defiance in his eyes and he says, yeah, but I'm standing up on the inside. Well, maybe some of you can identify with this little boy's feeding, but it's only in the reverse because in your situation you may be standing up on the outside.

Everything may seem to be alright, but on the inside you're lying down. Something isn't right. Something is wrong.

Let me ask you tonight, when your body gets up in the morning, does your spirit get up with you? You go to school, you go to work, or you go through the motions of being in victory and yet spiritually you know that you're either in defeat or you're on the road to defeat or you're weighted down. You're not fully standing up. You're crippled.

Or I think of some of you that physically you live next to each other and if anybody would observe your marriage they would say everything is all right or if anybody even would see you coming into this church tonight you could say everything is fine and yet one of you or the other knows that there's something that's not right. One of you, something is hurting. One of you may be lying down on the inside or say it may be the relationship of parents between children.

It may appear that's an all a loving family, but there's something that's not right there. And I ask you, has something died in your relationship to your marriage or your family that weights you down tonight? Then if so, you're like this crippled man at the gate, beautiful. He was crippled physically, but you can be crippled inwardly.

And I want to say to you tonight on authority of God's Word that we're here to speak to that condition. We're here for the letting the life of God breathe through us, through His Word and through His anointing to speak to that condition in you. And I want to say to you that person, that inner being that lies down dead tonight can be resurrected.

Hallelujah. So I want to speak to you about spiritual death and decay inside of you. What happened to this crippled man can happen to you.

You can rise up spiritually and be healed and to be saved and be delivered and set free. Oh, the description here, he leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. So let me take you through this story because it may be an encouragement for every cripple who is here tonight.

Now, first of all, look at verse two with me. How was it that this man came by this condition? It says in a certain man who had been lame from his mother's wound. Now listen to me, the most important question you will ever ask in your life is how did it happen that I am where I am? How did I become a cripple? If you don't ask, you'll never get an answer.

And you may go through life never asking the right question about your human condition so that you'll never find an answer if you don't ask. This man was crippled from birth. He was born that way.

He inherited the condition. There was nobody to blame. There was nothing he or anybody else could do that could change his situation.

He needed a miracle. Now if your problem tonight, and I say your problem is, I don't, I shouldn't say if, but your problem is caused by spiritual, a spiritual and moral condition of sin that all of us are born with. Therefore, what you need to realize is that it is a spiritual problem.

It is a moral problem and you can only find your answer in God and not in man. That's why I like to say if you're new, you're a visitor and you don't know the Lord, I always like to say about this church, you've come to the right place at the right time because we've got the right message for you. You'll not find it anywhere else in the Times Square area unless there's another church that's meeting tonight somewhere preaching the gospel.

But if this man was crippled because he ate something wrong, then all he had to do was to eat right and he might be right. But if your problem goes back to your birth, the only solution my friend is to have a new birth. David the psalmist said, in sin did my mother conceive me.

Again, the Bible says that we are born and shapen in iniquity and this man was lame from his mother's wound and my friends, your problem goes back to the wound. It goes back to the birth. Therefore, the only solution is that God goes back to your birth as well and gives you a new birth.

Hallelujah. I heard the story which I've sort of changed it a little bit, but the story is of a drug addict who needed help. He wanted to get free from his drugs.

He was seeking an answer, but he really is typical of anybody who has a problem and situation that needs to be changed, but we'll call this a drug addict. And he was looking for answers and so he was told by the politician that the reason you, there's no cure, the reason you're in your situation is that you have voted wrong. Therefore, you need to vote again.

If you vote again, you put the right party in office and you know what every politician runs on, has to run partly on a drug platform. He's got to promise some way, somehow what he's going to do about the drug problem. And so this drug addict met a politician and he said, your problem is you need to vote again.

He went to the psychologist and the psychologist said, your problem is that you need to think again. He went to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist said, well, you just need to try again. He went to the educator and the educator said, you need to learn again.

He went to the church and the church said, you need to join again. But finally he met somebody witnessing on time square and they said, you can be born again. You see when your problem goes back to your birth, Jesus therefore is your only hope and your only solution.

Now the secular approach to man's need is to help only the outer man's problem, but you see God gets to the root of the problem, the root of our birth, the poison that is within us. And my friend, this is the most simple, basic truth that anybody could teach. And yet with all of man's learning, he does not know that he has a birth problem, a sin problem.

And that's why we in the church of Jesus Christ are equipped to, to be able to minister, to minister to them. I remember we had a CBS reporter came to visit me one time over teen challenge. He wanted to find out what, you know, what goes on.

And he'd heard of this religious approach to curing drug addicts. And I'll never forget, he came in and he set up his recorder and got it all set, you know, and so forth. And he got his mic and he put it in front of me, he smiled.

And he said, now, Reverend, he said, tell me this, how do you cure the drug addicts here at teen challenge? And I said, we pray for them. And he was speechless. He didn't, he looked at me as if to say, man, you gotta be kidding.

You gotta be kidding. Isn't there anything more than that? And, you know, he asked me a few more questions and I never saw a man leave my office so quickly. He wrapped up his tape recording, went out on his way because I said, we pray for them.

He didn't even give me a chance to explain to you. See, society works, tries to work from the outside in and says, look, give a man a better job, give them a better education, give them a better environment. But Jesus worked from the inside out.

Hallelujah. We don't neglect the outer man. We want to educate people and God does all of those things, but you got to start from where the problem is.

This man was lame from his mother's womb. Now, if you need to see men's, if you want to see man's foolish attempt and feeble attempt to solve the human condition, just go visit Barnes and Noble or be Dalton and Son. I was in Atlanta, Georgia one time and went into a beautiful new mall and they just opened a brand spanking new bookstore.

And when I went walking into, I was going to browse. And as I went walking in, it was just like the spirit of God stopped me in the middle, right at the door and said, look around, look around and just look around and see from A to Z. You can begin at astrology and you can end up with Zen. And everything in between is all of the books, all of man's feeble attempt to try to explain man's human condition.

And yet with it all, we still can't get a person from the cradle to the grave with peace of mind. Now, going back to the crippled man, why was he in the condition, a certain man lame from his mother's womb? And this is the same reason that we're lame. Something is wrong with our birth.

You know, you see the thing that we say about drug addicts, and again, I don't want to just use that as an example, but it'll prove my point. You see a drug addict is not a sinner because he's an addict. No, he's an addict because first of all, he is a sinner.

And when you deal with the cause of your crippled condition, then the manifestation of it, be it drugs or whatever it is will go. I talked to you earlier about the refined woman who came to me one time. Well, I was at another meeting and a very refined man came to me.

And I had in this particular meeting, I had shown a film about our work with the drug addicts and how the Lord cures them. And the meeting had closed and I was rewinding the film and this man came up to me and he commended me. He said, Reverend, he said, I commend you for the good work that you're doing.

And then he began, he sort of enjoyed the film for this reason is that he saw these drug addicts and their plight. He began to compare himself with them. And he began to tell me about how good of a man that he was and all the good things that he was doing.

And I discerned that the man did not know the Lord. And I, I finally, I listened to him very patiently for a while. And finally I couldn't take it anymore.

And I said to him, sir, now, wait a minute. I said, you, you know, you tell me you're a good man. And in essence, that's what you said to me, you're a good man, but you must be careful because you may be good for nothing.

And, and when I said it, I realized what I had said, I said, you know, I wasn't trying to be insensitive, but when I said it, he, he, I got his attention anyhow. And I said, you know, the Bible says that our goodness is as filthy rags. And I went on to explain that truth to him.

And, and I thought after I left, you know, when some of the young men who who've come here to this altar and we refer, they come right off the streets, they've been living on the streets and we refer them to teen challenge. And, you know, we have a, we have a blessing room there. We used to have, I don't know if Tom would still have the blessing room to get some new clothes.

And, you know, some of the fellows that come in, we have to take their clothes and literally burn it. I mean, it's, it's got the smell of, of the streets on it. And the only thing you can, you can't even wash it.

You just have to burn it. And I was thinking about that man. I, what I would like to have done to illustrate to him, what God thinks about his heart was to save some of those clothes and put it on him.

As the Bible says, our righteousness is as filthy rags. Here was a man in all of his goodness. And so it doesn't matter, my friend, whether your sin be drug addiction or whether it, whether you be living in a penthouse, as we said, we all have to come by the same route.

We all have to recognize our human sinful condition. And that only as we come to Christ, are we able to be changed from that condition? Now, what was the result of him being crippled? It says whom they laid daily. Look at it again in verse two, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful.

Perhaps it was other beggars who were able to walk. Perhaps it was friends. I don't know, but somebody every day came and took that man, laid him there in front of that gate.

Now, listen to me. If your life is crippled, if you're controlled by a sinful condition, a sinful habit, then you are being carried by that thing through life. You see, eventually sin ends up controlling you.

It lays you down. It lays you out just like that man. If you're under the control of a sinful habit or lifestyle, then that habit has become your crutch or worse, it has become your stretcher.

And like that crippled man, this crippled man who was carried by friends every day to beg for money, your habits can become life's stretcher so that you cannot function apart from that sinful habit. And if that's you, my friend, then you're hooked, you're bound. You see, the crippled man was not free.

He was not independent. He was dependent. He could not walk freely.

He had to be carried. And let me ask you tonight, are you being carried through life by a sinful habit or something evil that is inside you that drives you? It dictates every waking moment. It dictates your lifestyle.

It dictates everything that you do. Everything revolves around that thing. Proverbs 5.22 says, his own iniquity shall take the wicked himself and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

And by the way, I'm not just referring to drugs or alcohol. I know people who are eaten up by bitterness, by jealousy, by envy, by hate, by anger. They're literally controlled by it.

It's as if every day they are laid down on a stretcher of bitterness. They're never free from it. And therefore they are emotional cripples and worse, they're spiritual cripples.

But then I see young people also who are crippled by habits. But if you talk to them, they think that they're doing their own thing. They think they're doing what they want to do.

They may even say, look, I want to do my own thing. And so they join, they go out, they join a peer group. And then what happens? Pretty soon they do what all their friends do.

They look alike. They dress alike. They talk alike.

They think alike. They do alike. And they call it freedom.

And this so-called freedom. And if there's any young person, any young adult, you're listening to me now and you think you're free. And some of you may have been raised in the church.

You may have known the Lord at one time and you, you shoved it all off. You just walked away from it and said, I'm going to be my own person. But I want to tell you that so-called freedom is really bondage.

Because when you give yourself over to the habits and behavior of the world, you become crippled by that behavior. And it's like lying down in a stretcher. Proverbs 1.32 says, for the turning aside of the wicked shall slay them.

Let me tell you something. If you don't already know it, or if nobody has told you before, nobody, but nobody does his own thing. Not me, not you, not anybody.

Everybody is doing somebody else's thing. It's just a question of who's in charge of real life. Everybody is carried to the gate of life by someone or something until you learn what freedom is all about.

And I want to tell you the worst kind of lifestyle is the kind where the wardrobe is a straight jacket. I'm talking about the straight jacket of drugs or alcohol or pornography or lust or gambling. Or as I mentioned, the other thing, hate, anger, jealousy.

And in this straight jacket, you're a cripple, even worse than a cripple, because you're not free to be what God has made you to be. Now, where did this man go to find help? It says, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful. And there, when Peter and John came along, asked some alms.

You see, everybody is looking for a gate called beautiful. Everybody is looking for an opportunity, an open door to a new way of life. But you see, this man was not even thinking about the possibility of getting through the door or the possibility of walking.

He thought his answer could be found in the help and resources of others. And what he got was temporary help, help to keep him alive, but not to be free. And every day he kept coming back to the same place to ask for the same thing.

And in so doing, he remained a cripple. Now, let me ask you this, is this the story of your life? Are you an alive beggar or do you want to become a whole person and a free person? And whether you're the beggar or you're the alms giver, you need to know that neither they nor you can save the crippled man. And don't fool yourself by thinking that you can buy happiness or healing of your condition.

Alms will not do it. Just ask the government, just ask the government, ask the prison system in America. You know, I remember when I first came to this city and I was issued a pass to go into prisons to do some prison work.

And when I got the pass, I didn't know what they called the prison system. I just thought it was jail or prison or whatever. And when they issued it to me, it said New York city department of correction.

And for some reason, it just struck me funny. And I laughed. I said, department of correction, they've got their nerve.

And you know, my friend, the problem we have in our society, it's not going to buy the relief. The department of correction is not going to do it. Isaiah 55 and two says, why do you spend money for that? Which is not bread and your labor for that, which does not satisfy.

I ask you that question tonight, if you're trying, trying to beg or to buy now, how was this man healed? Now the question is not so important as to how or to why a person is lying at the gate. We've told you here, if you'll notice when we have older calls here, we like to spend time praying with people and we want to have more time. We like to try to find out who we're praying for and why, but the question is not so important as to how or why a person is lying at the gate.

The question is who can, and you see, first of all, he put himself in a place in a position where help could be. I mean, he was consistent. God give us the same kind of commitment that this man had.

They laid him daily at the Cape beautiful daily. And he put himself in a place. He sat down at the door of the church, the gate going into the temple.

Friend, if you're going to be helped tonight, if you're going to, your life is going to be rescued or change or heal, then you've got to put yourself in a position. A crippled man could have gotten bitter. He could have given up.

He could have starved to death in his own self pity, but daily he sat down at the entrance of the temple and he got somebody evidently he got. There was a gate to life. There was an entrance to God.

He didn't know how to get into the church, but he, he at least got himself at the right place. He put himself in the right environment and he asked for help. Oh, he asked for the wrong thing, but at least he asked.

The scripture says, seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be given you, knock and it shall be opened to you. And let me tell you, my friend, if you want help, if you want out of your situation, if you want help, then the help will find you. You hear what I said? The help will find you.

If you'll put yourself in the right position, the Bible says the poor man cried and the Lord delivered him out of his distresses. Turn with me to add to Proverbs chapter one. I've been so blessed by this and you that are going out on the streets, I want you to get blessed by this.

Psalms chapter one, excuse me, Proverbs chapter one. Every time I, I see the groups going out, every time the groups go out, I think verse 20, it says, wisdom crieth on the streets. Wisdom crieth without.

She uttereth her voice in the streets. Hallelujah. She crieth in the chief places of the concourse and the openings of the gates in the city.

She uttered her words in the streets where the multitudes try to satisfy the emptiness of their hearts. There is wisdom. There is Jesus calling at the chief places of the concourse.

To me, that represents maybe our colleges and our universities where empty minds go to be filled. And yet God has a witness there. God has a word there.

It says at the opening of the gates, this speaks of people who are looking for places of economic opportunity or other opportunities where they could go to find happiness at all of these places. My friend, I want you to know that wisdom is crying out. Hallelujah.

God has his witness, his people everywhere calling out. And tonight is right here in Times Square for some of you that came here. The service was for ordained for you.

Going back to the story in Acts chapter three, notice what happened to this man. Why he went from lying at the gate to leaping in the temple. Look at it again.

And Peter fastening his eyes upon him said, look on us. And he gave heat unto them expecting to receive something of them. And the reason that Peter and John said, look on us is because as soon as they stopped, he knew or thought he was going to get something.

And so he had his hand raised out here while he was trying to get with the other hand, he was trying to get the other passers by. And so he wasn't even looking at Peter and John. So, you know, he said, look on us.

He gave heat unto them expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none. Now I used to always think that this was because, you know, they were poor preachers, but you know, they probably were poor, but that's not why they said that.

You see the gate beautiful. And look at the con, think of the contrast of this man's situation. Daily he had been there.

We don't know how old he was. I'm sure he was perhaps more than a teenager whom they laid daily at this gate called beautiful. And people would go into the temple, the place where they met the living God.

And here was this man. He was on the outside, not only of the temple, but of the presence of the Lord. And he's in this terrible crippled condition, but also the gate beautiful was a beautiful gate.

We're told that it was a beautiful bronze, excuse me, beautiful laid over with gold and silver. And evidently Peter and John noticed the contrast between where this man was sitting and his condition. And they looked at this gate that was some 40 cubits in height.

And that's what caused Peter and John to say silver and gold have we known all of the gold that's in this gate cannot meet this man's need. We don't have silver and gold, but, but we have something else. And when they said what they said, you recall what Jesus was on earth.

He said to his disciples, he said great after he had healed many people and worked many miracles, he turned to his disciples and he said greater works than these shall you do in my name. And this is the very first recording. This is the very first time that they now are exercising that promise and that authority that was given to them.

This is the first time they're exercising their faith. And here this contrasting scene of this man lying at the gate. And so they said, silver and gold have we known, but such as I have, give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.

And my friend, that's the same word for you tonight. Jesus can do for you what he did for that crippled man. Jesus can put you on your feet.

Hallelujah. So that you can walk and leap and praise God. He can get you in the gate, into the gate of salvation.

You see no gate's beautiful unless it's an entrance into something that will change your life. And you know what some people do, how some people are living. You know what a movie set is.

They have a Western town and you look at this movie set and you see a tavern, you see a hotel, you see a jail, you see this and you see that. And you know, if you were there, actually went there and you went through it, you know that all it would be, would be a sign, a facade. It's actually called a facade.

All it is, is a front. There's nothing behind it. You go and it's empty.

And I think of people all their life. And some of you have been doing that all of your life. You've seen promises, you've seen signs that hung out there and said, step right in here.

Here's a gate beautiful. Here's something that will change your life. Here's something that will meet your needs.

And you go through and you find out that it's only a facade. But Jesus can bring you into the temple and he can bring you into the presence of God and change your life. I want to tell you a story in closing.

I was going downtown Brooklyn one July, day in July, going to get a haircut. And I heard some sound across the street in front of Abraham and Strauss, A and S. And I was drawn by it because it sounded like a street meeting or somebody preaching. And I went over and there was a crowd and I was blessed by it because, you know, I'm, I'm not always impressed or blessed by some, but I was blessed by this man.

He was not ranting and raving. He was just sharing the truth. And he used wisdom that I wish more would use it.

He didn't yell, preached a little softer. That way people had to draw in closer. And that showed, you know, those who were interested in how wisdom was shouting on us.

And I listened for a while, thank the Lord for it. And I walked away. I saw a gentleman laying right in front of the laying down on the ground.

He's literally is crippled, but, but also more physically crippled, but worse. And he looked up. He said, Dave, he said, Oh, Don.

He said, I didn't recognize you. You've gained some weight. And it was very hot.

So he came. And I wish I could tell you that Santos has probably been in more. He lies at the gate comes at the entrance of the gate and he sees people going in and meeting God and encounter.

And he has looked in for years that you will not be. If you're here tonight, that you will not be an, that your story will not be like his will not end like that. You're lying at the gate, but if you are lying at the gate tonight on in silver and gold have, but such as we have in the name of Jesus.

If you'll give God a chance tonight, if we'll respond in just a moment or two and come to this altar, God is going to be maybe for many of you, it doesn't apply to you as a Christian, but it applies to some want this to be the date of December the 15th, that you could mark it down and heaven will mark it down. That your name was written down in the lambs book of life. Maybe you were heading someplace else tonight, but for some reason you came here to time square.

And this is the night that you encountered the living God. This is the night that you went from lying at the gate, Lord, do it. We pray that God can change their life.

And then he trusts them and he will send them right back out into the same turf and the same territory to reach the same ones. But if you've been wronged specifically by somebody, then God has a lesson for you to learn here. May your love be stretched.

If Christ is willing to forgive, may we not be charged.