Wynne Prison - Part 5 — George Warnock

We need to be done by then, because there will be some closings, I'd say. If you'd have me set up 10 o 'clock in the morning, it would be great for you.

Joe Sims is going to come and share a word of testimony this morning.

I'm a little shaky this morning, I hope you all don't mind. With the love of God and His courage, I can finally talk about this and feel free about it. It all started, my pain for me, nine years ago in Dallas.

Well, I was in the Navy, I was one of those hot shot Navy pilots, and I thought nothing could ever take me down, but something did. Back July 1st, 1987, I just flew in from Pearl Naval Base and landed at Grand Prairie Naval Air Station in Dallas.

Caught my family to come pick me up. I had a little boy three years old, little girl five, and they were real excited to hear from me, because I hadn't been in in a while. And it was my birthday the next day, and they were going to get their daddy something special for his birthday.

So as I got done talking to them, Susan told me and my wife that she was coming to pick me up. And so I hung up and I docked my plane, I stored my gear, and I was sitting there waiting for them to pick me up.

About an hour and a half later, my commander and my navigator come and got me and told me they had to take me to Baylor Hospital. It kind of hurts. He took me to Baylor Hospital, and I thought they were joking with me because it was my birthday.

It wasn't a joke. My family had been in an accident. My wife and son were killed instantly. My little girl left four hours later. When they took me in that room, the doctor told me he couldn't do nothing for my wife and son, but my little girl needed me.

I walked in that room, and she was plugged up, everything, her whole body. I couldn't move. I walked over to her, and I stood with her a while, and she woke up. She looked up at me, and all she could say was, Daddy, it hurts.

She went back to sleep. She died. I lost everybody that day, and I thought I was such a hot shot. Now what? I couldn't do nothing for them. I left that day, and I buried them. A couple days later, I couldn't take it, so I went back to active duty there for a while.

I come back, and a couple months later, when this man went to court, turned out to be a Dallas County judge, district judge. He was drunk. He passed out going through an intersection in a suburban. They were in a little Honda Accord.

He was going about 60, and they didn't have a chance. I've been in pain over this and torment for nine years. I found out where this man was playing golf, Lakewood Country Club in Dallas. I put on my navy whites and got my weapon, and I went to that country club.

I walked out there, and I asked where the judge was, and they told me. I walked out there to him, and I asked him if he was Judge Kendall. He said, Yeah. I said, Do you know who I am? He said, No. And I told him, and all he could say was, I'm playing golf, son.

Do you mind? And that he had accepted his punishment in a court of law. All they gave him was two tickets and 10-year probation for three counts of negligent homicide. So when he said that, I just walked back to my Jeep.

I got my .45, and I come back, and I shot him four times.

Please don't rejoice over that.

Paralyzed him from the neck down. I haven't been able to forgive that man or any of that for nine years. He's wrote me three times asking me to forgive him. I never answered him until yesterday. I forgave him.

Thank you.

Forgiveness After Wrongdoing

Whatever anybody has done to us, and many of you have been wronged, and many of you, all of us, have wronged others, primarily the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of your hearts were revealed through the applause, and the Lord had just been giving me a word.

I'll paraphrase. He says, You clean up the outside of the cup, but inside there's rottenness. Dead men's bones. He says, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. What the Lord spoke to me this morning, for some of you, and if you're coming to the Lord with your whole heart, your heart's not divided.

Even if you're stumbling and falling occasionally, this word is not for you. But this word, the Lord said, was for the Sunday morning Christians who come to the church house on Sunday, and the people in your cell block, in your cell, see you coming down to the church.

But the leaven of the Pharisees is all over you. And the Lord told me to tell you that there's a far harsher and stricter judgment for those of you who come down here week after week and hear a word from God, and you harden your heart, and you harden your heart.

Joe hardened his heart for nine years because it felt too good to entertain the powers of darkness who told him how right he was and how wrong the judge was. Some of you have held on to that same kind of demonic comfort.

You have been wronged, and you'll not forgive. You can choose to have that kind of hell here, and then to have hell for eternity. You can make a choice. A brother gave me a poem that God had given him.

In hell I lifted up my eyes, and it said that he had hell here on earth all of his life. And then one day the Lord spoke to him and said, You have a choice. And the word that the Lord has for those of you who are Sunday morning Christians, and you may come to church four times a week and still have this, where you're not letting the Holy Spirit deal with your heart to bring holiness.

You're holding on to your right to be angry. You're holding on to your right to hold on to unforgiveness. And if you're doing that, then there are other fruits in your life that are an abomination to holy God.

Repentance and Preparation of the Bride

This bride that Brother George has been speaking about all week, Jesus is preparing right now. And I really think, you know, we've heard this for years, the time is short, but I really think we're in the final countdown.

And many of you have had opportunity after opportunity to stop being double-minded and to begin to be single-minded. Many of you have been involved in petty differences among the body of Christ here.

And you've been stumbling blocks to others, to little babies coming in who don't understand if these are brothers, why can't they get along? Why can't they love one another? Brothers, I'm telling you, this is a day for repentance.

This is a day for crying out to God to have mercy on all of us. Because his bride is a whore. His bride is a harlot. She loves the world more than she loves him. She has eyes for every other thing. Eyes for pornography.

Eyes for filthy television. Eyes for all sorts of things. Jesus Christ died for a bride. The blood that he spilled at Calvary was for a bride. And he intends to have what he paid for that day at Calvary.

He intends to have it. And you're making a decision right now whether you'll be a part of the bride or whether you'll hang on to all the hell in your life and go to hell. Today is the day of salvation.

Today, do not harden your heart. Listen to this brother who lived with hell for nine years. The Lord is the only one who can come and comfort that place where that wife and those babies were. He's the only one who can comfort.

The powers of darkness come and bring torment, but they surely can't comfort. And yesterday when he released that judge, that paralyzed judge who has paid and paid and paid, and when he wrote him a letter telling him he forgave him, God set him free.

I beg you today, I beg you, don't live in hell now and go to hell eternally because I want to tell you religion will tell you that if you are religious, you're on your way to heaven. But I want to tell you the proof that you're on your way to heaven is that you're letting the Holy One purify your heart continuously.

There's not a place we come to where we can just relax and say, my ticket is punched. And now I can be Lord of my own life. This is a walk of salvation. Yes, there's a time when we enter in, when we see the kingdom, and then there's a time when we enter in.

And I believe that entering in is when we just lay it all down, where we realize that there's nothing that we're hanging on to that's worth going to hell for. There's nothing that we're hanging on to that's worth hanging on to when you see what Jesus Christ did for us at Calvary.

Brothers, I believe that once you have a revelation of the love that was manifested for you at Calvary, I don't think there's ever any turning back. I don't think there's any way that you can turn back once you've seen that kind of love, that poured out love.

Receiving Peace and Rest in Christ

God wants to deal with hearts. God wants you to release it. God wants some of you to stop being hypocrites, to just acknowledge, I'm a mess. I'm a mess, and I can't do one thing about it. I came into this world tormented, and I'm still tormented.

Lord, is there any peace and rest for my soul? Yes. Yes, in the Prince of Peace. That's what he's promised to his people. Peace and rest. You know, I find myself so many times these days not knowing what to do in a service.

I am like a... You know, I used to be real confident, but I find myself more and more, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do in this service. I know that God wants to be real to some of you who've never had a daddy.

Some of you who've never known what love is, that's why you're here. And I know that the Spirit of God wants to come to you and love you like you've never been loved before. Your only part is just to receive him.

You know, we've received this thing that we have to get good enough to get to God. You know, I talk to people all the time who are in sin, and they say, well, I'm going to get things straightened out and start going to church.

Many of you know what I'm talking about. All your life, I'm going to get it. But it's just right today, turning it loose. All those things that you've held on to, all the things that have bound you, just turn it loose.

Just right now, just say, I give up. I give up. I take my hands off of my life. I've made a mess of it. I've wrecked everything I've ever held on to, myself included. I just give up to you, Lord. Just please reveal yourself to me.

Please reveal your love to me. And you know, that's the beginning. That's the beginning. He is the author and the finisher of faith. And some of you are just striving so hard to either get right with God or get back to a place where you used to be with Him.

You're just striving. Just be still. Be still. You can't make yourself right with God. He did that at Calvary. All you have to do is come to Calvary. Come to Him. And just give up. I give up. You say, well, that seems too easy.

It is, because if you could have any part in it, you'd take pride for your part. Amen? If you could make yourself holy, you'd write little booklets, How Everybody Gets Holy. You can't do it. All you can do is just give up.

Stop running. Stop trying to be anything. Lord spoke a word to me this morning, too, about those of you who have selfish ambition to do great things for God. It's selfish ambition. You can clothe it in Sunday morning clothes.

You can speak about it in a spiritual way. But I want to tell you, if there's anything down in you that aches to be the one doing the preaching, singing, whatever, call it what it is. That needs to be put to death, too.

It's the one who takes the lower seat who's exalted. And until you are perfectly content, until the Lord comes with that lower seat, He can't trust you to exalt you. Because if He exalted you, and if He used you, then you would touch His glory.

And no flesh can do that. So He wants some of you who have had ambition to do things, be somebody in the kingdom. Turn it loose. That's what Milt used to say to me when I would just be fretting over something.

He'd say, Turn it loose, Joyce. Turn it loose. And I didn't understand what he was saying back then, but he was saying, Give up control. Quit trying to control. Give it up. So some of you have been trying to control things, and it's caused strife in yourself, and it's caused strife in the church here.

God's Grace and the Call to Ministry

Turn it loose. Turn it loose. Brother George, you have about 30 minutes. Hasn't he been a blessing? Oh, my. It's been a real pleasure for Ruth and I to be here to share with you the Word of God, to meet so many of God's people, those who love Him, those who love Him perhaps more.

And I'm not criticizing those sitting out there in the churches this morning. May God minister to their needs. But there are those here who love Him more than many of those people out there because Jesus says to Him that much has been forgiven.

The same loveth more. And you're all, most of you at least, those who know Him, have come to that place where you have no doubt said in your heart and perhaps to others, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.

It's not quite right because Paul was the chief of sinners. You'll say he was just trying to be humble. No. He said he was the chief of sinners and that God chose the chief to show forth a pattern of His great grace and longsuffering to mankind.

He saved the chief. So that means He can save anybody else. So we thank the Lord for His great love and mercy, truth, patience, kindness, longsuffering. And we want to talk a little along that line. I want to read a...

I might not get around towards the end of the service to saying I appreciate very much being here. For meeting you folks. Meeting your good chaplain, Brother Kastner. Knowing that he carries a great load here in this job that God has given him.

And yet, confident I believe that God sent him here to minister to the needs of His people. And those who are even not His people at this point. But nevertheless, you never know whom God is going to draw in.

And when He draws you in, you know very well that it was not because of any good thing in you, but because it was the Father drawing you by His Spirit. So I pray God will abundantly bless as you gather together in this chapel from time to time.

Give much fruit for your labors and those who come here to minister from time to time. Send a mighty revival that will flow like fire, like water throughout this whole penitentiary until God moves mightily by His Spirit and brings in many hundreds of others into the fold.

For that's why He captured you, that you might be a light in this place. A light that God wants to shine forth from this place and behind all the iron gates and bars and wired netting that surround this place.

The Word of God is not bound and He is able to reach out and penetrate the hearts of men with whom you have contact from day to day as your light shines, as your light goes forth. Here in this corner where God, by His grace, has placed you, many of you will testify.

If I ask for the raising of hands, you say, by God's grace, it was God's grace that brought me here. Can I see a raise of hands? I couldn't begin to count them. Oh God, we thank You for Your grace, Lord.

We thank You for Your abundant grace where sin abounded. You said grace does much more abound. That as sin has reigned unto death, even so, Your plan is that grace might reign. Be King, be Lord, through righteousness unto eternal life.

Hebrews 8 and the Better Covenant

Give words from Your heart, Lord. This morning, words of life that will cause that grace to abound more and more. In Jesus' name I pray. Let me read a few verses from Hebrews 8. Paul writing to the Hebrews.

A people who were, well, you might describe them in one word that we well know, that is well known, a very, very religious people. Nevertheless, God was in their beginnings. It was God who ordained for Himself a nation called out from the nations through whom He might show His glory to the earth, that through Him all nations might be blessed.

But it's strange, yet not strange, if we understand that as one brother said, God has no grandsons, that every generation must come to Him to be sons of God. And though we have sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, it's not so in the kingdom of heaven He has no grandsons.

You must so come to Him and believe in Him that you become a son. Thanking God for any godly mother, any godly father you have. Knowing that by perhaps many tears and prayers and planting the Word of God in you, they were able by God's grace to transmit that grace to you, but that you must know Him for yourself.

And so Paul, having been arrested by the Lord on his way to Damascus to wipe out this crazy new sect that became known as Christian, angry with a murderous anger, thrusting men and women into jail. But he was God's chosen one.

God had chosen him even before his birth. And God says this is the time. And He reached down and He smote him there in the road. Blinded his eyes for three days, calling him to be an apostle to the Gentiles.

And so he loved his people. He loved his heritage. But he realized his people had missed that heritage when they crucified their Lord, hated Him, rejected Him. But nevertheless, there were many who did come in repentance and received the Lord.

But it is hard to shake off that religious heritage they had which had become encumbered with so many works, religious works, that profited nothing. And it's always that way. It's hard for God's people to shake off that religious heritage.

And yet I don't despise it. I don't despise it. I was brought up in a church. Some of them were denominational churches. Others were independent. Because our parents were not really denominational at heart, they didn't hesitate.

If they felt there was something better, they'd go from one church to another. I don't mean Sunday after Sunday. They'd settle down maybe a few months at a time, year, whatever. But if they saw something better, they didn't hesitate to go.

Now we're called church hoppers, I guess. Stay there with that religion no matter how dead it gets. Stay with it. But God wants us to move by His Spirit and to go on with Him. And so Paul wrote to the Hebrews who, though they received the Lord, well, there was a hankering after those good old things of the past.

And here I stand now and I realize I've done something wrong. Well, I could go to the temple and take a lamb or a sacrifice and perhaps some were doing that. And Paul was showing that once Christ has come, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin.

And the whole burden of the Epistle to the Hebrews is of better things in the New Covenant than in the old. Oh, you know, we're not going into all that. But what I want to say, just as a foundation for a few more things I want to say, is that this One who came and died, it was Paul's insistence in the Gospel that God gave him that He died and He rose again and He was enthroned in the heavens to become the High Priest of a heavenly sanctuary.

That that old temple no longer meant anything. That there was a heavenly sanctuary into which Christ ascended when He finished the work on earth. He finished the work on earth, but He had a great work to do in the heavens.

And so Paul says, the sum of the things we have spoken is this. We've got a High Priest, chapter 8 of Hebrews, who is set in the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.

Verse 6,. Now He has obtained a more excellent ministry than any of these priests have in the earth by how much more also He is the mediator of a better covenant which was established upon better promises.

He wanted them to know that though Christ finished the work on earth, He hasn't finished His work yet. And so Luke, when he writes the story of the beginnings of the church, says, The former treatise have I written, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the time in which He was taken up into heaven.

Of what Jesus began to do and teach on earth, He was taken up into heaven to continue doing and teaching from His exalted throne in the heavens. We must never lose sight of that. He's the minister of a heavenly sanctuary.

He's doing a great work in the heavens. What's He doing? I used to wonder, what's He doing up there all these centuries? Is He just filling in time? He's supposed to come back in the year and everybody's trying to come up with a date when He's coming back and God will never tell you.

You get a book saying we've discovered it, don't read it. He's not coming back according to man's schedule. He's coming back when He's accomplished His work in the heavens. And once again, it's going to be declared from the heavens.

It is done! The mystery of Christ is finished. He's there at the right hand of the throne of God interceding for His people and sent the Holy Spirit into the earth, into your heart and mine, that we might hear what He's saying in heaven.

That we might know what He's doing in heaven. That we might have an understanding of the nature and the purpose of His heavenly ministration. He's there doing great work. He's there in what Paul calls a more excellent ministry.

He's been in that ministry for a couple of thousand years almost. And He hasn't finished it yet, but it's near at hand, I believe. And He's going to say, it's done, it's finished. I finished the work.

What is that work? To minister the new covenant sealed by His blood testified to by the blood and the water, putting the witness of it in our hearts. That we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus. That our own nature is crucified when He was crucified.

That He's preparing in the earth a people, those who are sometimes unclean. Oh, and Paul lists it in one place. Murderers, hateful, despisers of that which is good. He gives a whole list of it. But such were some of you as you're washed, as you're sanctified, as you're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Jesus is there in the heavens to minister this covenant to His people. He's up there. He's ministering to you and I by putting His Spirit in the hearts of His people. That they, walking in the Spirit and living in the Spirit, will hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

And the Spirit is only saying what He hears from the throne room. But if you want a little sample of His ministration in the heavens, read and meditate much upon John 17. His prayer that He prayed just prior to His departure.

Christ's Prayer and the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

A prayer that He prayed, as it were, having finished the work. Though that was to happen, was it the next day or day after? When He had actually finished the work. But He had overcome and He knew it. He had set His face as a flint.

And so He speaks of it as having been done. And He said, Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

I have manifested Thy name unto those whom Thou hast given Me. Read it and meditate much upon it. And you'll see a little bit of how He's praying there in the heavens. And He goes on to say towards the end of that prayer, And I have made known unto them Thy name.

When I pointed out, I don't know if it was here or not, God says, I've made known unto them Thy name. He wasn't going around. He said, I want you from now on to start spelling God's name. J-E-H-O-V-A-H or Y-A-H-W-E-H.

Some of those Hebrew names of God. All of which is very precious and there's meaning in it. But when He says, I have made known unto them Thy name, He was saying, Father, I have let You so live in me and so direct My steps and so speak through Me that in everything I said and everything I did, I was glorifying You.

I glorified Your name in the earth. In everything that I did because I came here to reveal the heart of the Father to Your people and to bring in those who knew Him not that there might be one fold and one shepherd.

And so as He closed this prayer, He says, I have made known unto them Thy name and I will make it known. I noticed one time reading the New Testament how especially I think in John, Jesus would say, this is the time, but the time is coming.

The time is coming and now is. He's saying it's happening now, but it's going to go on happening. The time is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

I have made known unto them Thy name and I will make it known. Because when He would be glorified, He would be in a heavenly sanctuary ministering from the throne, ministering to His people by His Spirit.

The Spirit only receiving what He heard the Father say, what He heard the Son say, which is one and the same thing. Because Jesus says, All things that the Father hath are mine, therefore say I unto you, He shall take of mine and show it unto you.

Oh, if we only realize the precious heritage we have in partaking of His Spirit that He's here to reveal Jesus. He's here to receive what's in the heart of Jesus and show it to you and I. He's here to minister what Christ is ministering at the throne or what a difference it would make in our lives individually and in the church of Jesus Christ.

When we come to realize I'm here only to speak from the heart of God, only that which the Spirit quickens and makes alive. I'm not here to come up with sermons or teachings or any works of any kind except what God wants us to do.

And that is something each of us have to prove in our own walk with the Lord what the will of the Lord is. Because that's all God wants you to do is do His will. And therefore He wants to discipline us and train us and subdue us and take full charge of our lives that we might hear His voice, that we might do His will.

Seeking God's Will Rather Than His Plan

You don't have to know too much about God's plans and purposes although we do I think rightly so at times give a little insight on it by His Spirit. A young man wrote me and he says pray for me that God will show me His plan for my life.

And I wrote back and I said God's not going to tell you too much about His plan for your life. But you start seeking the will of God and find a relationship with Him and do the will of God and then you'll walk in His plan.

You and I walk in the will of God. We don't have to know too much about the plan. He does sometimes give us a little insight so that we won't lose sight of what He's called us unto. I'm not denying that.

But He that doeth the will of God abideth forever. And Jesus even before He came to earth we hear Him crying out in the heavens declared by the psalmist in prophecy sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not but a body hast thou prepared for me.

And that was one of the songs of the temple. And I'm not just sure where that great choir stood that sang these temple songs. Beautiful choir. Hundreds of them. I forget was it 288 who were designated for that choir.

But here they were out there in the outer court slaying bullocks and lambs and goats by the thousands. And their singers were singing sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not yet the blood was flowing and they were singing sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not but a body hast thou prepared for me.

In burnt offering and sacrifice for sin thou hast had no pleasure then said I, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. What did Jesus come to do? To heal? To perform miracles? To walk on the water? To turn water into wine?

To multiply loaves and fishes? Well, he did all those things in the will of God. But there's one clear statement that summarizes the purpose for which Jesus came was not even to fulfill a messianic ministry because he never fulfilled it totally while he was here.

To the dismay of his disciples he had to go away to complete the work. He didn't need to stay here to complete the work because the spirit of truth that was in him upon his ascension he would send back to live in his temple in the earth and they would be those who would minister and carry on the ministry which Christ began when he was here.

As long as they walk in union with him we're going to see a fulfillment a glorious fulfillment of the new covenant. Isn't it fulfilled yet? I read so much in the new covenant that God prepared for his people ordained for his people and I read it and I say I can't say it's there yet.

Unity and the Fullness of Christ in the Church

I read John 17. Father, the glory that thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one as thou art in me and I in thee that they may be one in us and I know I have only touched that in my own life.

I know God's people have scarcely touched the fringe of it but I know Jesus prayed it and I know God always heard him when he was here. He said, I know Father you hear me always and I know he's going to hear him now that he's exalted in the heavens.

Wouldn't we like to hear some of those prayers that he's praying in the heavens? Wouldn't it thrill our hearts? But we can know some of what he's asking. We can know what he's praying for as you get into the word and read the new covenant and see the desire that's expressed in the new covenant for God working in his people.

I used to read these prayers of Paul and say, oh, that was a wonderful prayer, Paul, that you prayed and too bad it didn't happen. I wonder if it's going to happen. But it's the prayer of the Holy Spirit through the apostle.

It's that intercession of the Spirit that's saying, I cease not to give thanks for you making mention in your prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation of Him.

This is in the new covenant. This is part of the new covenant. Jesus is praying this in the heavens. Therefore, the Spirit heard it. And the Spirit prayed it through the apostle Paul. And God made sure that it would be written here in the book so every generation in the church would have this prayer in their book to know the desire of God's heart.

The prayer that the Holy Spirit is praying for His people. That your eyes of your understanding might be enlightened. That ye may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.

Even when we're saved, we retain much of our selfishness. What am I going to get out of it? What am I going to get out of it, God? God wants to bring us to the place and by His Spirit He's working towards that end.

When we will say like the Moravians said one of the mottos they had, may the Lamb receive the reward of His sacrifice. That's all that's important. May the Lamb receive the reward of His sacrifice. He's going to receive the reward of His sacrifice.

That's why God's working on you and I. Redeeming us out of every tribe and kindred and tongue and nation and people that we should be His spotless bride, holy without blemish that the Father might be able to say, Son, I present to you the masterpiece of my creation.

The greatest thing I could create I give to you, my son, because you are worthy. You say, me? You and I? Yes, we are His workmanship. One translator said we are His masterpiece. We are His handiwork. Oh God, only by that Spirit of Revelation can we begin to comprehend that and when we comprehend it with that kind of understanding that God wants us to comprehend, it doesn't exalt us, it abases us before Him.