Laying by the Pool — David Wilkerson

Laying by the Pool: Jesus’ Healing at Bethesda

Laying by the pool. Turn with me to John 5, please. John 5. Uh, Gwen? Mrs. Wilkerson? Uh, this is my farewell message. We'll still be here next Sunday. I want you to get up for five minutes and give your farewell.

Before Bob, you're preaching tomorrow? Okay. Alright. Huh? Might take you longer? I'm giving you five. We're gonna miss you people. Oh. That's, that's the wonderful thing about the Lord building a body of people together.

You miss them when they're gone. I miss seeing people from service to service. That may be a little too loud. I'm getting a little echo. Just a little wee bit. Okay. Thank you. Uh, I'm reading from King James.

The message, laying by the pool. After this, there was a feast of the Jews. I'm reading from King James. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches or porticos.

In these may a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water. Whosoever then first, after the troubling of the water, stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

And a certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he said unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool.

But when I'm coming, another step it down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed and walk. And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked. And on the same day was the Sabbath.

Prayer for Healing and Restoration

Now Lord Jesus, I ask you to give us a hearing ear, a hearing heart, eyes to see, ears to hear. And Lord, those who need healing in body, soul, or spirit, I ask your Holy Spirit to bring forth the message in love that it will be heard in the heart and not just the head.

That your Spirit would make it real. Lord, we believe you're coming today with a healing word. You want to bring restoration and healing to people. Lord, maybe some who are visiting here. We have many, many visitors.

You may have brought someone here especially, Lord, to hear what you've prepared. And Lord, in your love, reach their heart. In your precious holy love, reach them. And show them the tenderness of your heart this morning.

Show them how you care. That there is no getting away from your love and mercy. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Now, this pool of Bethesda mentioned in the 5th chapter of John was very unusual in that the Jews had made it a shrine of sorts.

It was a shrine. And the pool, they claim, was fed by an underground river. And there was a Jewish tradition. Now, I want you to listen very closely because this scripture bothered me until the Holy Spirit began to show it to me.

And you'll notice, if you have New American Standard, it says that there's two verses there that are not in many of the original manuscripts. And that's true. But this always bothered me. But I want you to listen very closely now as we go through this.

There was an unaccountable troubling of the water. At certain times, certain seasons, the water would begin to tremble. And the first one, according to this tradition, that stepped into this pool was healed.

One person. The first one into the pool was healed. And whoever was there first got in the water. And then the waters quieted down. The pool became a kind of Jewish Lourdes. Have you ever heard of Lourdes?

It's a Catholic shrine. I believe it's in France, isn't it, where thousands of people gather? And many, many professed healings. In fact, they have checked out some of these healings. And there are very many people that are really healed.

There's a shrine up in Montreal that we went to. People crawl on their knees. Many, many people have been healed at that shrine. And the Word says in verse 3, There lay a great multitude of impotent folk of blind, halt-withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

The Crowded Pool and the Insensitivity of the Strong

Now listen to me. I believe John recorded this Jewish tradition exactly as the Jews believed it, so that he could show the difference between this discriminating thing that the Jews had set up and the all-inclusive healing power of Jesus Christ.

He's trying to show the difference between the tradition of the Jew and the reality of Jesus Christ who walked among them. And here's what the Jews believed. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water.

Whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. The troubling of the water must have created a mob reaction. Now listen to me close. Get this picture.

They're waiting dead. They've come from all over Israel. They've come all the way from Judah. They've come from Samaria. They've come for hundreds of miles around. And the tradition says that they built the four porticos or the five porches just to shelter the people who came.

And by the way, for the mothers, there is a nursery back here. Okay, there's a nursery. You can go out that way or in this way into a nursery if you need it. Get this picture. They've come. Children, young men, husky young men have brought their mothers.

They're crippled and withered. They've brought them. They've packed food. They slept on pallets. We would call them sleeping bags, rolled up pallets. And they're laying everywhere waiting for the troubling of the water.

The tradition is that people have been healed. Well, there's no question that people are healed because God has so created this human body. Dr. Rice is here and he can tell you. There's marvelous healing powers in this body that are released through faith, that are released honestly through thinking right about the body itself.

Often people like bitterness. I believe bitterness can cause cancer. I've known people who have died who were bitter. And they've been told if you don't get rid of the bitterness within three months, you're going to die.

Five months, six months. I'm thinking right now of two people that have died just a few weeks ago of bitterness. Cancer, but it was caused by bitterness. There's no question about it in my mind. But can you imagine all these people come from miles around.

They've come through dusty roads and full of hope. And they come to this pool of Bethesda. They're laying everywhere. Now listen, if the Jewish priest were in the temple buying and selling and making money, can you imagine what kind of mob scene this must have been when the money changers gathered around?

Because where there's a crowd, the money changers are there. And I believe that there were booths set up that were selling souvenirs. I believe they were selling sleeping pallets. I believe that they were selling all kinds of Jewish relics and all kinds of souvenirs.

Everything. They were selling food. They were hawking food and waiting for the water to tremble. Now get this picture, please, because there's a man that's been sick for 38 years and he can't even move.

He probably crawls. He's withered. He's been that way for 38 years. And he's been there 38 years. And the crowd goes up time after time. The water's quick. And what a mob scene. Do you see the strongest, the healthiest people running over the cripples?

Do you see that only the agile can get into the water first? Do you know that the rich could make their way because there was a caste system in Jerusalem at the time and the rich were always allowed to walk by?

And the rich would come with their entourage and they would say, step aside. And I believe only the rich, the wealthy, the powerful, and the strong had the closest seat or the closest spot around that pool.

So that pool must have just been surrounded by the strong. Because this poor withered man reached out his hands for 38 years and saying, somebody help, I can't do it by myself. Waiting to get into that pool.

And he said, when I try to get in, someone else steps ahead of me and he gets it. I was at a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting once and I was horrified. I worked with her for five years in meetings. She didn't know what was going on in the parking lot.

And I was appalled one day out in the parking lot. Thousands of cars trying to get into the parking lot in Los Angeles. And the attendants, the parking attendants finally gave up. It was a mob scene. Every car trying to nose out somebody else.

There were bending fenders, fender benders everywhere. And you could see them gritting their teeth trying to get one slot ahead of the next guy to get into the healing meeting and get a good seat. I know Kathryn Kuhlman would have been appalled.

But I've seen this spirit. I have seen when her doors were opened, how people would elbow because here's a young man and he's got a sick mother and he wants to get her down in the front and elbow her.

And running down the aisle, pushing people aside, trying to get that good seat and get the healing. That's exactly what I see here. I see a mob scene. I see only the strong, the wealthy being able to get in.

Now, Jesus doesn't have a part of a will of fortune kind of healing pool. That's what it is. It's a will of fortune. This man had no chance. There's no question, like I said, that many people were healed there because they'd come distances.

Many of them I believe believed in Jehovah God. Many of them did not see the idolatry of such a thing. But you see, Jesus had just come from the well of Sychar. And there was a woman there and he had read her life.

He had seen in her heart and he told her that she'd had five husbands, remember? The Bible says that there's nothing hidden from his eyes. That he knows all things. You know what he told that woman? He says, I am the living water.

He said, there's going to be a well of water in you springing up into eternal life. And what Jesus was trying to say, the power's not in that pool, it's in me. It's in me. Now, we've got to understand that every person laid by that pool, every withered cripple, every blind person, already had something better than a discriminating moving in the water.

They already had something from God. They had Moses and all the promises that God gave him for Israel. They had the prophets and all the promises God gave through the prophets. They had the psalmist David.

These are the scriptures they read in the synagogues. These are the scriptures that were easily available. Every Jew knew them. Everyone at that pool had been trained and raised under these promises. But just like the Bible said, we take Jesus for granted, they took these promises for granted.

They didn't mean anything to them. Look, this poor crippled man, all of these are waiting for the troubling of the pool. What greater promise can you have? And I'm just going to read it, you don't have to turn it.

The Promises of Healing in Scripture

But listen to Exodus. This is what God gave through Moses for the Jew and for us. If you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and you will do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon you, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord thy God that healeth thee.

Everyone at that pool had that promise. Every one of them. It didn't mean anything to them. Listen to what David the psalmist said, and they were all aware of this. Bless the Lord O my soul, forget not all of His benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who healeth all thy diseases.

They had that. And from the prophets, for I will not contend forever, saith the Lord, neither will I be always mad or wroth. For the spirits have fell before me, the sins which I have made. For the iniquity of the covetous was I wroth, and I smote him.

I hid me, I was wroth. I went on fervently in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and I will heal him. I will lead him also, I will restore comfort to him, and to all his mourners. All those people mourning, all those people sick, God said, I'll restore you if you return to me.

I'll heal you. Hosea the prophet said, Come and let us return to the Lord, for He hath torn you, but He will heal you. He is smitten, but He'll bind you up. Jeremiah, Heal me O Lord, and I shall be healed.

Save me and I shall be saved, for Thou art my praise. They had these promises. They were quoted. Most of those people had a portion of Scripture with them, at least the law of Moses. They knew. They understood.

They did. All the phylacteries had these little promises on them. They carried little promises. Not cards, but little handwritten Scriptures. They were trained in these. But the Word was in their head and was not in their heart.

And when you have the Word in your head and not your heart, you're always looking outwardly. You're looking at something beyond the Word. And this hurting multitude was so blind to the Word of God. Now listen, they were not laying there sick and afflicted because they were sinners necessarily.

Not all of them were afflicted because of sin. Because remember, there was a young man who was born blind, and it came to Jesus, and the disciples said, Who did sin, Master, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

The Jews believed that anybody sick or afflicted was a result of sin. There's a doctrine in the land today from that same Jewish tradition that if everybody's sick is a result of sin. Now it can be, but not necessarily so.

On all occasions, Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned. He's born blind. He's blind now. He said, That's not the reason. Not because he sinned. This man's not sinned. Nor his parents. He said, This blind man did not sin.

His parents did not sin. Nor his parents, but that the work of God should be made manifest in him. God says, This is a chance. Every sick or afflicted person offers God an opportunity of glory and praise.

Every backslider that comes home offers Him an opportunity of praise and thanksgiving. Every broken heart that's healed is a testament of the power of Jesus. Now some of them were there because of sickness.

In fact, I see Jesus inferring that the man who was there for 38 years evidently had been tripping and was all to sin because when he caught him later in the temple, he said, Go sin no more. Remember that?

That suggests to me that he'd been a sinner. But when he got healed, he said, Jesus said, Now, go sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you. According to the Scriptures, these people laying around the pool were waiting for the wrong thing.

In their truth, they were waiting for the what? The moving of the waters. Is that what the Bible tells us we're to wait on? No. David says, in Psalms 130 verse 5 and 6, don't turn and listen. I wait for the Lord.

My soul doth wait, and in His Word do I hope. In His Word do I hope. All those people sitting there, they're hoping and praying. Can you imagine the discouragement? Can you imagine somebody being there?

Well, one man, 38 years, there must have been people who moved there, who camped there, for years. Can you imagine people that have come from miles? How disappointed. Every time somebody was healed, it added to that disappointment.

I don't serve a God who creates a mad scene like that. I can't serve a God like that. Now, you say, Brother David, it says right there in the Bible, an angel went down a certain season in the pool and troubled the water.

Who said there was first in trouble in the water and was made whole whatsoever disease he had? John, I really believe this. He's quoted it just as the Jews believed it because then he opens up how Jesus Christ Himself is the source of all the power.

You and I know that too. Well, follow me because I'm going someplace with this in just a moment. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits for the Lord more than David watched for the morning. David also said, truly my soul waits on God.

From Him comes our help. He only is my rock and my salvation. He only is my defense. I'll not be moved. My soul waits out only upon God for my expectations from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation.

He's my defense. I'll not be moved. Listen, if you're waiting for help from some psychologist, some psychiatrist, or some preacher, you're going to be disappointed. You're waiting by the pool. Always waiting for somebody to bring an answer.

It will not come from any other source than from waiting on Jesus. None at all. Now, Jesus seemed to be drawn to a certain infinite man there. A man had been there 38 years. See it there in verse 5 and 6?

A certain man was there. Had an infirmity 38 years when Jesus saw him lie. Knew that he'd been a long time in that case. He said that to him. What thought be made whole? Look at me for just a moment. This unnamed man, 38 years crippled, has many faces.

He represents a whole class of people. He represents some of us here this morning. Because Scripture says all this is given for our benefit. The Lord never just told a story for the sake of telling a story.

It always had an application to people of all generations. And especially to ours. You see this man laying there for 38 years, absolutely impotent? Jesus seems to have been drawn to this man. Perhaps because he was there the longest.

Jesus was drawn to this man. He's always drawn to the greatest need. I believe that. I see it in the streets of New York. He's drawn to the greatest need all the time. And he knew what was in the mind.

Because the Scripture said, Neither is there any creatures that not manifest in his sight. For all things are naked and open under the eyes of him with whom we have to do. All things are open to him. That means that what you're thinking right now is open to the Lord.

How you're responding to what you're hearing right now is open to the Lord. All things are open to him. He is reading every thought that you're thinking this very moment. I don't know. He may have been the weakest man in the place.

And Jesus drawn to that weakness. But you know, 38 years of dashed hopes, unbearable suffering and loneliness, they had to take a toll on this man. In fact, I believe in my heart he finally gave up. I don't think he was even trying anymore.

Hopelessness, Bitterness, and the Need for Compassion

Because you see, impotency comes in many forms. Many, many forms. It can be physical. It can be spiritual. It can be mental. Or it can be all three at one time. Today, right now, listening to me, you may be mentally or spiritually at the place this man was.

Impotent. You may be at a place right now where you're absolutely drained. Maybe at the point of not even trying anymore. Because you see, when you're in a situation that seems hopeless, and no way out, I'm sure this man had come to a place where he said, nobody really understands the depth of my sufferings.

No one really cares enough to stop and help. There's not a single friend, there's not a single loved one that I know with enough time, love or energy to really touch something in me that's hurting. He had no one.

I think of a prostitute down on the east side, just walking the street. And this is late at night. And she's holding a bag lady. They're on a park bench. And she's holding a bag lady. This bag lady was sick evidently and was crying.

This prostitute, so hard looking and hurting herself, her tears in her eyes, she was just patting her on the head and said, Honey, it's okay, we're going to make it. That prostitute was reaching out for love.

Anywhere she could find it. And this bag lady, no one cared. I told the other day of the bag lady they found dead. The true story, they found her dead. The police officer found her in the snow. One of the bags, they found a Bible signed by her husband and two boys had been killed in a car crash, left her.

They'd come from England, she had nobody. Wound up as a bag lady, reaching for love in any direction. But you take a good look at that impotent man and you think of all the years of struggle and the hurts that were heaped on him by uncaring and sensitive people.

You imagine people walking all over him trying to get to that pool. They see him withered. He just reaches, anybody, anybody, help! I can't do it by myself. And he's just walking away. Till finally he just becomes a part of the scene.

He blends in. There are many people like that that just seem to blend in and you don't even see them. It's possible to walk the streets and see people who leave and they just blend into the scene. One thing I don't want God to ever let me do in New York is to get hard.

I see people in New York, they're all hard. They have insensitized themselves. They don't reach out to the human eye. You can't bleed all over the street. There comes a time when you have to say look, you know, I can help you.

A woman comes, she says, look, I need five dollars. I said, no honey, are you hungry? Come in with me and I'll buy you a hamburger. And you have to use wisdom. But I don't want to get hard. This crowd was insensitive.

They're rushing by to get their own needs met. Christian, that's where the church has sinned the greatest in the sight of God. Rushing around to get their own needs met. And not looking around to the needs of others.

We're all guilty of that. While there are multitudes of Christians, and maybe some here this morning, your spirits may help us, and impotent, because maybe you have a lingering battle with a lust or a sin.

And you hate it. Somebody setting sin that's robbed you of your life and vitality, and you're laying helpless on what I'd call a bed of despair or depression that's set in on you. Depressed. Hey listen, there's probably no illness in the world worse than depression.

Now I've got to admit to you that I really don't know what that's about. The Lord's been good to me and somehow has kept me from depression. I've only known maybe a week or so or a few days at a time where I was depressed.

But I tell you, those few days I experienced, it was like hell. I can imagine what it's like for somebody that has it lingering. And they can't put a finger on it. What causes it? That has probably got to be worse than any other sickness or illness, a physical illness.

To feel low, to feel down, to feel worthless, to feel wasted. And waiting for somebody to stir things up and make something happen. Do you know there's some people that spend their whole lifetime waiting for some miracle?

Just waiting for that one instant all-cure miracle. Somebody, somewhere, is going to solve their problem. And it never comes. Folks, it will never come that way. So, you know what these do? God bless their hearts.

They drag themselves. Listen, they drag themselves like this impotent man. They drag themselves from the revival meeting to convention, to seminar, to counselor after counselor. They drag themselves out saying, help, help.

They tell and retell their story of pain. You know, I've sat down with some people and I know they've told their story so long that you don't dare interrupt them unless they miss a point. And if they miss it, they go back and find out, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you.

And then, you know, they've told it so long. They could write a book. Most of them would like to. And I'm not making fun of it. I'm just saying, let me show you where that leads to. Jesus goes up to this impotent man.

He asked one of the most obvious questions you could ask a suffering man. You know what he asked? And I looked at this, and I looked at it, and then God began to open it. He goes up to this sick man and he said, Wilt thou be made whole?

Has every sick man for 38 years wanted to be made whole? Wouldn't you think that that's too obvious a question? You know what Jesus was saying? Jesus was reading his mind. Do you really want to be healed?

Wouldn't you think, oh yes, Master. I've been here 38 years. Yes! Well, he didn't even know him as Master, but yes, sir, I want to be healed. That should have been his immediate response. But it wasn't.

Certainly, the Lord had a reason for asking such a penetrating, hard question. See, Jesus was inferring that he really didn't want to be healed. Now think of this for just a minute. He's inferring that he did not want to be healed.

Now see, there's a danger in prolonged agony and suffering. There's a real danger. And I'll tell you what it is. It's to finally give up and embrace it. The Puritans called it hugging the pain. Hugging the pain.

Now listen to me. You can suffer and suffer for so long until finally you embrace it. And it becomes a way of life and you build your whole life around the suffering. You build your life around the pain.

And finally, well listen to me, there's no more desire to get out of it because it becomes a crutch. It becomes a way of receiving love and attention. I found a teenage boy 11 years ago in Brooklyn, 17 years old, living in a dirty, rat-infested basement.

A pile of rags. He was sleeping on a pile of rags. He had a picture of his mother scotch-taped on the wall and he had a candle full of hepatitis. I had a young man with me and we picked him up and took him to the center and cleaned him up, gave him a clean bed, preached Jesus to him and loved him.

My heart went out to that boy. He stayed two weeks. Came home one day from a meeting. I had to go out for a meeting and come home. He was gone. So I went back and I found him down in the basement again.

And he said, Brother Dave, please leave me alone. He said, To you this is just a hole. It's just a piece of dirt. But to me it's my home. And I'm cozy down here. I'm comfortable now. I don't want to leave it.

He'd grown accustomed to his pain. He died six months later of hepatitis and jaundice. Ill jaundice from needles. He was hooked on heroin. I found a boy in Greenwich Village one day sleeping on a rooftop.

He wasn't more than 18. I said, Why don't you come? He knew about Teen Challenge. I said, Why don't you come? I'll take you right now. We'll get on Teen Challenge. He said, I don't want to do that. I said, Why?

I said, Do you sleep out there in the rain and everything else? He said, Yeah, I get some cardboard. He said, Tell you the truth, I like it now. I remember a bag lady in one of the parks. She's black.

She weighed about 300 pounds. Overweight. Sick. In fact, her legs were so swollen she couldn't walk hardly. She had about three bags. They sleep with these bags tied on their feet so that if somebody tries to take them while they're sleeping they feel the tug and they'll wake up and they'll hit you with an umbrella or something.

I mean, not because they're angry because that's their life. That's the world and those bags. I sat down in the grass and talked to her for about half an hour. You know, most of these, you know, they're mothers with children.

They don't want to go to a retirement home. They don't want to go to a rest home. They don't want to be put in some institution. Others have no family. I said, why don't you let me call the welfare department and get you a room?

She said, I've had a room. They put me in a room and it had a cot. She said, I slept on the floor because I couldn't sleep on a bed anymore. I've slept on park benches for twelve years. And she said, I was miserable.

She said, thanks but no thanks. I believe you care but just leave me alone. She's hugging her pain. She's embraced it. It's become a way of life. And you see, this is what I'm seeing in this whole thing.

The Lord's question implied that he wasn't ready. Instead, that expectant, yes, I want to be healed. He says, sir, I have no man. Now, I call this situation the no one, someone syndrome. The no one, someone syndrome.

I have nobody to help and it's somebody else's fault. Have you ever heard that? Always blaming it on somebody else. Emotional, spiritual, physical pain. I have no one to really understand. I have no one to touch it.

And always someone else is the cause, the blame. You see, I believe this man had bitterness building up in his heart. In fact, when he said, I have no one, it's true. And even though it's true, even though it may be that someone has hurt you, even though it may be that no one can touch you, it may be true, it's only adding to his burden.

It's not helping him at all. Now, he's deteriorating mentally as well as physically. His mind is full of bitterness. It's so sad, but it's real true that many hurting people couldn't survive without their sorrow and pain.

Listen to me. Did you hear me? Let me say it again. Some Christians, some of you here even, you couldn't survive. Because if God really healed you, you wouldn't have anything to talk about. You'd have to learn a whole new language.

Because you have so complained, you so murmured for so many years, it's become a way of life. I know professional murmurers. They are professors, they're pros. They have so complained, they so murmured about everything, nothing is right, that if God healed them, they'd have to learn how to encourage other people, they'd have to learn a whole new language of hope.

We're not ready to do that because it's not even in their vocabulary. Is that making some sense to some? Do you know anybody like that? There's a responsibility that goes with healing. And Jesus was asking this man, are you ready to take the responsibility that goes with being healed?

Do you know this new child? I believe God's going to heal. God's able to heal. But do you know there's a great responsibility that goes with that healing? There's a responsibility of testifying the glory of the Lord.

Now these folks have not complained. They're not murmurers. But you know, there's a whole responsibility that goes with that. There's a responsibility that says when the word of God comes to me, when the word of hope comes to me, I've got to take an action.

I've got to move. I've got to act upon it. When God brings me a word of hope, I can't just sit still. Alright, listen to me now. So no one cares. So no one really can touch you. So someone else is responsible.

So you go through more hard times than others. And you've got more suffering. You've got more struggles than others around you. Has it ever bothered you that some people seem to go right through life without any problems and you have to struggle and struggle and struggle?

All kinds of pain and suffering. You see people and you look so happy and you say, well don't they ever suffer? I look at some of the rich people around. I mean they don't seem to suffer at all. But don't look at that phony smile.

That's a facade. There's hurt behind all of that. Don't judge people by just what you see outwardly. But you see, those who don't turn to the Lord turn inward. Suffering has the potential, listen closely now, suffering has the potential of turning gentle, nice people.

Suffering has the potential. Prolonged suffering has a tendency to turn people into grumbling self-centered cripples who wallow in self-pity. And I'll tell you, it's measurable, I don't know what it's like, but I'm sure it's measurable to live with someone who's become an emotional cripple because they begin to measure your love by your willingness to cater to their weakness.

They measure your love. Did you hear what I say? You don't love me. If you loved me, you'd be more sympathetic. And after you've been sympathetic for five, ten years, and all the catering, finally, if you stop catering to that pain, if you stop catering to that weakness, they say, you don't love me anymore.

See, there's such a thing as tough love. And real love from God is a tough love. It makes you face truth. Truth in the inner man. God says, the only way to make you whole and keep you from being an emotional cripple is to tell you the truth.

That's why God has brought forth these messages from God above. And there's a minister's pulpit sometimes with a hard, strong message that it's tough love because it's healing. You know, I preached the message a few weeks ago.

It sounded very, very hard. But it came from a broken heart. It really did because I knew that I loved everybody in this house. I loved. I think my brother Don hit it on the plate. I said, Don, I think I got angry.

He said, I think you did too. Got a little angry. You know what I'm angry at, though? I'm angry at not people, but I'm angry at what I see the devil doing to them. When they won't make that final surrender.

I see the compromises and how it's going to affect children and family and so forth. And sometimes I guess the child gets old and I want to do it in the flesh. But you see, there comes a time when what you're going through has to end.