The Destructive Power of Lust — David Wilkerson

The Destructive Power of Lust in James

The destructive power of lust. I want you to go to James, the fourth chapter. Fourth chapter of James. If you find Hebrews, just keep going right. Just beyond Hebrews. James, the fourth chapter. I saw something this past week that did just...

I couldn't shake it. I said, I've seen it many times, but there must be a mistake. It can't be that serious. The destructive power of lust. Let's start reading. I'm going to read... I'm reading from King James.

Whatever version you have, I'm sure you'll see it very clear. From whence comes wars and fighting among you? Don't they come hence, even of your own lust that bore in your members? You lust, and you have not.

Look at these words. You kill. You kill. He's talking to Christians. You kill. And you desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight in war, yet you have not because you ask not. You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lust.

You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is an enemy to God. Would you look at verse 2 again?

He's talking to brethren. He's talking to the church at Jerusalem. And he's saying, you lust, and you have not. And you kill and desire to have. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we think of the Christians in the nation today, even those that may be in this room tonight that are battling a battle with lust.

Oh God, tonight, show us how serious this matter is. Show us, O Lord, that you're trying to deal with this so that we'll have victory, that it's not your will that we live in bondage to any kind of lust.

This city, O Lord, tends toward lust. This city bombards people with temptation on every side, and so there's so much giving of people to the spirit of lust. So break forth tonight with your Word. Set people free, Lord.

Let there be freedom of the Holy Ghost. God, I bind every lying spirit that would come against those who would hear the Word. We bind every enemy spirit, everything unlike Jesus Christ, so there'd be anointing, there'd be liberty to preach the Gospel tonight.

The anointing, the power of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Now, here in one powerful scripture, James outlines the deadly, fatal consequences of playing with lust. He clearly defines what is a downward pull of lust, and he's showing us where it finally ends.

He said, you lust and you have not, you kill and desire to have and cannot obtain it. Now, remember, you go all through the book of James, he's talking about my brethren. He's speaking to the brethren.

He's addressing it to the twelve scattered tribes abroad. And these are all who profess to follow Jesus Christ. And all through this epistle, he's saying, oh my beloved brethren. He's talking to those who are assembled together.

Beloved brethren, he's warning them not to despise the poor, for example. He's trying to tell them not to exalt the rich in their midst. In this very same chapter, he says to them, submit yourself to God, resist the devil.

Now, you don't tell that's ungodly people. He's speaking to brethren. Now, in light of that, this began to hit me. He's saying to these people who were bound by lust, he said very clearly, you lust and you kill.

And I looked at that, and so I turned to my commentaries. In fact, I looked at every version of the Bible. And the commentary makes it clear that none of the early fathers could believe it was that strong either.

And they tried to soften it, and they were talking about character assassination. They talked about envy. They tried to put many other terms to it. But they had to finally come back, even the revised standard.

All of them had to come back. It's there. It's so clear. You kill. He's trying to show something. In the church of Jerusalem and to everybody in this place tonight, they'll hear it. There's a downward pull to lust.

He's showing where it ends if it is not checked. He's saying it's a door that you open to hell, and it's a spiral staircase. And when you reach a certain point, if it isn't checked, it becomes a slide.

It's called backsliding perhaps, but it's a slide right into hell. And if it's left unchecked, James is showing you the end result of lust. He's saying you will end up with a beast nature. You will end up with a murderous mind, and you will let nothing stand in your way.

It is so overwhelming. It will so bring you down. You will end up killing. You say, well, brother, did you mean that in the church of Jerusalem, there were those who had been to Pentecost, James the bishop, and he's telling some of those, he said, you are killing?

There is no way to get around it. It's there in black and white. No one's been able to dispute it. It's actually... Think about this for a minute. If the high priest would murder Jesus, the Son of the Living God, if the church at that time was so corrupt that they would take the living Son of God, they would take others, they would take...

Who was it that murdered Stephen? They would murder Stephen. There was a spirit of murder, but was this creeping into the church? What caused this? It's all because of a spirit of lust that has never been checked.

Lust as a Downward Spiral Toward Sin and Death

Runaway lust. Now, James is trying to show us here that lust is not just a weakness. It's not just something singularly you fight with, a little isolated battle that no one else is affected by. You say, well, this is my little world.

It's my little problem. It's my sin. No one else is going to be bothered by it as long as I don't involve anybody else. No, it's not a weakness. It's not just your singular little inner struggle. No, God sees it as something more than that that affects so many, many other people.

It finally ends up in these very fatal words. You will end up with a mindset of hatred, a mindset of murder. In other words, he's describing a mindset that says you will stop at nothing until you achieve it.

You will stop at nothing. There will come a time that the very thing that you believe could never happen in your life, you could look at something right now and say, I would never do that. How awful, how terrible, how shameful.

That if there's lust in your heart that's not checked, if it is not stopped, if God does not heal it, if you play with it, if you flirt with it, you're going to end up one day doing the very thing that you once were ashamed of, that you could never conceive were possible to do, because there is a dramatic downward pull to lust.

What happens is that the addiction becomes deeper. With each step there's an acceleration. There's a greater desire. There's less satisfaction than before. We become more and more wicked and evil in our thinking.

There's a weakening of all moral backbone. And step by step the mind becomes polluted. Sin becomes less hated than it was before. We become more comfortable with our sin. Until finally that lust is driving us as a hopeless victim.

And we are overcome by it until it absolutely possesses us. And it ends up in death. That's exactly what James is describing in lust. When lust conceives it brings forth sin. And sin, when it's finished, what?

David, Bathsheba, and the Consequences of Unchecked Lust

Now, David opened this door of lust to hell one day. And just as James describes it, David became a killer. Now, if your spiritual sensibilities are shocked right now to think that you as a Christian, if you let your lust that you have right now in your heart go unchecked, and if it isn't stopped tonight, it's going to degenerate.

It's got such a dramatic downward pull that it's going to possess you. Oh, there's not a homosexual that started out wanting to be a homosexual. There's never a murderer that started out to be a murderer.

It's been a downward step after step, loss after loss of moral conviction. And if your sensibilities are stirred, thinking, how could you possibly even suggest that? I love the Lord. So did David, the mighty poet of God.

This holy man, a man after God's own heart. If you would go to David and say, David, the day is coming that you're going to kill because of your lust. You're going to become a murderer. You're going to plow a man with alcohol, an innocent man.

You're going to get him drunk and you're going to send him out to battle and murder him. David would have been shocked. He said, never in a thousand years. And he would have got out his harp and sung you one of his songs of holiness.

But the day comes. And I will tell you, it comes at a time, if you read the chapter before, the issue with Bathsheba, you will find that the Scripture says, and whether so ever David went, the Lord was with him and blessed him in everything he did.

And the Bible says, the very next verse, that he judged Israel with righteous judgment. But three months later or so, just a few months later, David has allowed his lust to run away. David has allowed it to overcome him.

David is running pale now down these steps to hell. And the day comes that David's looking out over a rooftop. And the lust enters his heart. And it conceives and it brings forth sin. And the word comes months later, after he has an affair with Bathsheba, the chief with child.

I'm sure David blushes. But he says, she's married. He calls Uriah from the front lines. Uriah loves his king. Uriah acknowledges him, here's a man of God. You think of this great man of God. Think of the scheming.

Think of the lies now. Because he's on a downward path. He sends him out with some provisions and sends him home. But this Uriah is more righteous than David at this point. This man after God's own heart has a spirit of runaway lust.

Just taking control of him. And now you see, the word coming to David said he slept at the gate. He said, I can't go home and be with my wife when all my soldier friends are out there, struggling, sleeping out under the stars.

David plies him with alcohol and liquor and gets him drunk. And he's ready to have his soldiers take him in a drunken stupor and throw him in his wife's home, so that he can have an alibi. But even in his drunkenness, this young man would not go home to Bathsheba.

And so David saw it was over. Can you see David? This great prophet of God in the Bible on two occasions calls David a prophet. This man after God's heart, this one who at one time was so close to the Lord, so walking in righteousness, that his conscience smote him for just cutting a piece of Saul's garment.

Remember when he went into the cave and cut off a piece of his garment? And then he went back and his heart smote him. He said, that's the anointing of God. Why did I do such a horrible, abominable thing?

Because you see, when you're walking in righteousness, you have that kind of discernment. You have that sensitivity to sin. You don't want to grieve God. You don't want to break His Word. But look at David now.

No, his heart's not smiting him. He's planning and he writes a note. And you know who bears that note? Takes it right to Joab. Takes it right to the captain of the army and says, put him in the front lines.

In other words, kill him. Kill him. And I don't think Joab understood it to this point at all. I don't think the captain of the army understood it at all. But he sends Uriah out in the battle, a hopeless situation.

And he's overcome. It's just like in Iran where they throw those 13-year-old kids against those machine guns. Yes, floods and floods. David flooded it and he knew that Uriah would be killed. And the note comes back.

He said, Uriah is dead. You know, David, even then, he's so far down. He's so bound by his lust now. He sends a note to his captain. You know in essence what the note says? Well, it just happened. That's the way things are.

It just happened. It's one of those things, don't let it bother you. And it didn't bother David until Nathan the prophet came and put a bony finger in his face and said, You're the man! You're the man!

And I want to tell you something. That's the work of the Holy Ghost. To come to a meeting like this. Maybe you're here for the first time. Maybe you've heard the Holy Ghost talk to you about your sin time and time again.

Nobody's raiding against your sin here. We're here to ask God by His Holy Spirit to convict you of your sin. But the work of the Holy Spirit through my preaching tonight is to be a knife, it's to be a finger, it's to be a finger and says, Out!

You're the one! If you continue with it, there's a downward pull. And like David, the time will come you'll lie and you'll cheat. You'll be treacherous against the Holy God to cover it up. You'll have murder in your heart.

So you'll lust and you'll kill. And I tell you on the authority of God's Word, if David's lust had not been stopped, if God did not put a stop to it, he heard this prophet of God and he melded before a Holy God.

He spent a week on his face fasting and praying. He wouldn't touch a drop of food. His heart was smitten because he said, I've sinned against God. And David repented. And that downward pull was thwarted.

It was stopped by the Holy Spirit of God. But if David had not repented, if David had not turned from his sins, I tell you on the authority of God's Word, he would have been worse than Saul. He would have filled Jerusalem with blood from one end to the other.

He would have murdered by the thousands just like all the other corrupt kings of Israel did. I tell you on the authority of God's Word, if his lust had not been stopped, if he hadn't had his life turned around, returned to the Lord with godly fear, he would not only have turned like Saul to a witch for instruction and direction, he would have become a demon worshipper.

He would have become the most occultist mind on the face of the earth. And David would have become a devil incarnate because he had more light. He was so close to the heart of God. And when you walk with God in holiness, you've heard Holy Ghost preaching.

You've heard it coming loud and clear.

And God's saying, lay it down, lay it down, lay it down.

And you don't lay it down. The message finally is not heard. Your ears are closed. That's what Bob was preaching about this morning. David opened his eyes. He opened his ears. He heard the conviction.

There have been times in my life that I've wished a man of God had such holy thunder, walked close enough to God that could have preached a message wherever I sat, that put me under such Holy Ghost conviction that I couldn't sit there, I couldn't play or toy with that thing that was in my heart and my mind.

I would have run from it. I could have saved my life from many, many tears. And I'm telling you tonight, I feel anointing and anointing of the Holy Ghost tonight that God called some of you here tonight to deliver you from your lust, damn your soul before you're lost.

Because you're already being magnetically pulled down. You're going faster and faster. The hole is getting stronger. Now, I want you to turn to the book of Judges. And I want to show you what happens when it goes unchecked.

The Moral Collapse of Gibeah in Judges 19

Judges, the 19th chapter. One of the most horrible, sad stories in all the Bible. You read this story and you can't believe that a people of God could backslide so much. They could become so immoral. Please turn with me.

You've got to see this. I want you to read. Judges, the 19th chapter. We're going to see the frightful end of lust. Lusty. What to say? You lust and you kill. Boy, will you see it here. Very, very clear.

I'm going to start reading in the first verse. There's a Levite here. A Levite is a type of ministry. Those who minister at the tabernacle of the Lord. Verse 1, it came to pass in those days when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of Mount Ephraim who took to him a concubine out of Bethlehem of Judea.

Now, a concubine is a slave wife. She didn't have the same rights. She's just a cook and a housemate. That's all. She had no rights. And his concubine played the whore against him. You see that? She played the harlot against him.

Now look this way, please. One sentence in the Bible and she played the whore. She cheated on her husband. It's the same line we hear over and over again. It sounds so innocuous. You see it, you hear it every day.

He cheated on his wife. She cheated on her husband. Just one line. But oh, how it shook Israel. How many people were killed? It ends up with 65 ,000 people killed. You say it's just my own little inner struggle or maybe it's just the two of us.

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's an ever-widening circle. This Levite takes this concubine as his wife and she plays the harlot and she runs away. Goes back to her father's house, verse 2, to Bethlehem and Judah and was there for a whole month.

Now she's gone for four months and he begins to miss her. And the Scripture says her husband arose and went after her to speak friendly unto her and to bring her again, taking his servant with him and a couple of asses.

And she brought him into her father's house and when the father Damsel saw him he rejoiced to meet him. Alright, look at this. Five days he spends with his wife's father. And he stays for five days and finally he said, look, I can't stay anymore.

I've got to go. So they head out. It's about noon and they head out to go home. And they get a few hours away from this place and they wind up in Jebus. Now that's Jerusalem today. And Jebus still was inhabited by the Jebusites.

And David was going to come in later and drive them out and this was going to become the holy city. But these are heathen at the time. Jebusites are heathen. They're wicked. They're vile. And they get to Jebus and the servant said to the Levite, let's stay here for the night.

And the Levite says, no, I don't want to stay here. These are strangers. These are wicked people. I want to go to be among my brethren. So they go on to Gibeah. And Gibeah means hilltop. And they go to this little town of Gibeah.

But something's happened in this little town of Gibeah. Now remember this is a Benjamite town. Benjamin was the smallest tribe of Israel. Benjamin had one of the greatest promises Moses gave to any of the tribes.

One of the greatest blessings that God was going to hold him in their hands and they would ride between the shoulders. Ride between the shoulders means that God would carry Benjamin on his back. No tribe had that kind of a promise.

Now keep in mind, they arrive in the evening in Gibeah, this town of Benjamites, and nobody offers any hospitality. No one offers to take him in. He's in the city square and he's about to lay down for the night.

He's got enough hay for his donkeys. He's going to lay his blankets out and he's going to sleep in the middle of the town. In fact, he tells an old man later, he says, in fact, God trusts me to keep me in His house, but nobody here trusts me to bring me to their house.

I'm a man of God. God trusts me with His house. They won't bring me into their house, even though I'm a man of God. An old man from the hill country comes down. He says, what are you doing here? He said, don't spend the night here.

Come to my house. A little old man. But I want to show you what lust has done to the society, to the Benjamites, to this Levite, to the old man, to marriage, everything. How lust has so corrupted the moral values.

Everything in this story is crazy. It's incredible. Somehow, in the middle of the night, there's a knock on the door because what's happening in Gibeah, this town, it's become a Sodom. There's no king in Israel at this time, but there is a holy high priest, Phineas.

Remember, Phineas is the one who went in and killed those two that were committing adultery in the tent? Phineas was a man of God. He was a high priest that stood for holiness. And here, an amazing thing happens.

A knock on the door. And outside the door, this little man's house, poor man, they're trying to knock down the door just as they were in Sodom. They wanted to commit sodomy. They said, we know there's a man in there, a stranger.

We've never seen him before. Bring him out. And what they want to do is the same thing they wanted to do with the two angels that visited Lot's house. Bring them out. They were going to molest them. This Levite is frightened.

Later, he told the princes of Israel, he said, they meant to kill me. Wouldn't you think that if a man had any regard for his wife, he would not do what this man ends up doing? First of all, the old man, the little old man goes out and he says, don't do this.

He said, I have a daughter. I'll send her out to you and you do what you please with her. This old man was about to send his own daughter to the wolves, to a raving, craven, mad man, a group of mad men outside the door.

Can you imagine a father like that? I've got two daughters. I can't imagine such depravity. A man that still has hospitality, but his values are so corrupted now, he's willing to throw his daughter out.

He knew she couldn't live the night through. It was murder to send her out. If you read the story, the Levite ends up sending his wife, his concubine, out to that mad crowd. The Bible makes it clear. The Bible doesn't try to hide any evil.

The Bible says, it's a shame to speak of the things they do in secret. This was not done in secret. This was done before all Israel. And they, all night long, they woke that woman in the morning. The Levite goes to bed.

What's happened to this man that he can send that woman out there? Look at the moral depravity now. What lust has caused in this nation? Here's a Levite who sends his wife out. Wouldn't you think he would at least keep her there and take a stand?

Where is the heart of God that says, if anyone gets hurt, I'm the one that gets hurt. He sends her out. The morning, he gets up. She wasn't even able to get to the door. The Bible said she laid there with her hands outstretched.

You've got to read it here with me. Look at Judges. Judges 22. Now, as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about and beat at the door and speak to the master of the house, the old man saying, bring forth the man that came unto thy house that we may know him.

And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them and said, Nay, my brother, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly saying that this man has come into my house. Don't do this folly. Behold, here's my daughter, a maiden, and his concubine.

Them I will bring out now. Humble them and do with them what seems good to you. But unto this man do not so vile a thing. He's trying to save a stranger and he's offering his own daughter. But the men would not hearken to him.

So the man took his concubine and brought her forth unto them. And they knew her and abused her all the night until the morning. When the day began to spring, they let her go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was till it was light.

And her lord rose up in the morning. You see, he'd been sleeping. And he opened the doors of the house and went to go his way. And behold, the woman, his concubine, was fallen down at the door of the house and her hands were upon the threshold.

She must have been scratching all night as long as she had breath left trying to get him to wake up. And he said, look at this. Woman, get up. Time to go. Get up. It's time to go. Can you imagine the depravity?

Is there any man here who thinks he can fall so low as to offer his daughter to this mad mob? Is there anybody here who thinks they can stoop that low? No, we don't think we could. We are not capable of even comprehending the depravity of this story.

But none answered. Then the man took her upon an ass and the man rose up and got him to his place. And look at this. And when he was come into a house, his house, he took a knife and laid hold on his concubine and divided her together with her bones into twelve pieces and sent her unto all the coast of Israel.

It was so that all that saw it said, there was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day. Consider it. Take advice and speak your minds.

It's there, folks. I have to read it because I find it hard to comment on it. I'm just having to read it to you. It's so ugly. There it is. It's a man cutting up his wife in twelve pieces and sending them to Israel.

And Israel receives an arm, leg, little piece of a body and say, what's this? It's never been like this before in Israel. We are a God's chosen people. 400 ,000 Israelites gather together to go up against the Benjamites.

They send up emissaries to Benjamin. They go through the Benjamite tribe saying, what's happened to your tribe? Show us these men. We want to bring them to justice. There's blood on their hands. God wants this thing dealt with.

Protecting Sin Versus Repenting Before God

Benjamin wouldn't give up those men of Gibeah because I'll tell you what, there's something happening in this tribe of Benjamin that you see happening in America and in our churches today. Why wasn't this tribe shocked like the rest of Israel?

Why didn't they fall on their face and say, listen, these are our brethren. This is our tribe. We've disgraced God. Think of it. Think of what these men did. They should have marched into Gibeah and demanded that these sons of Belial, these sons who were supposed to be carried on God's shoulders, had become the sons of the devil, sons of Belial.

Why would a whole tribe risk their very lives? Their very lives. In fact, you're going to see in this story, the whole tribe is wiped out. Every man except 700. Thousands and thousands are going to die because of unity.

There was no blessing for sin because self-esteem was more important. In honor of the tribe, there's a saying now in charismatic circles when somebody that's on television falls into sin or another well-known preacher or anyone falls into sin, they say, let's rally the wagons around them.

That's exactly what Benjamin did. They rallied the wagons. We're all in this together. These are our brethren. Let's protect them. It's a love trap. And folks, I don't want anything to do with that kind of love.

No, the true love is for God first, the honor and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness. When there's true repentance, then there's a change. And by the way, when there's true repentance, as there was with Manasseh who caused Israel to sin more than any other king according to the Scripture, when he repented, he went back and undid all the damage he did as a sign of his repentance.

This is the end of Psalm 1.

But we're not to rally around any advances. We're not to rally any preacher. We're not to rally anyone until there's total repentance and the sin is dealt with. So they rallied their wagons. Self-esteem.

And this is the one thing that bothers me about the preaching of success and self-esteem is that it has no conviction against sin. Self is more important than the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So they rallied their wagons.

They protected their own kind. Oh, I grieve over this. It makes my heart just grieve. Look at this. Marriage is being mocked in this story. There's adultery. There's murder. There's self-interest, self-esteem.

All of these things that are born. Little seed that's planted and conceives and brings forth sin and sin when it's finished, death. There's a total breakdown here of every moral value there is. Let me read this scripture.

I meant to read this to you before. Don't turn to me. It's Deuteronomy 32 .12. This is Moses giving a blessing to Benjamin. And to Benjamin he said, The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him.

And the Lord shall cover him all the day long and he shall dwell between his shoulders. God said, I'll carry you on the back. You're my beloved. Do you understand? They started out as the beloved of the Lord.

They started out as those who were carried on the very back of Jehovah God. They end up more concerned about the reputation of the tribe of Benjamin more interested in standing together with brothers rather than to stand behind the cross.

Folks, I'm not interested in saving my reputation or any other man's reputation. It's the honor of God that's at stake now. It's his name. It's his holy name that's being besmirched. Now, I'll tell you what, Benjamin was the, the Bible says, was the child of prosperity.

He was the child of Jacob's old age. He was the last child representing the last generation. Benjamin represents our last day generation. Beloved of God because of the grace that's been shown to us. Carried on his very back at the cross.

And yet, look what's happened. There's never been a generation in history so full of lust, so driven by lust as this generation. There's never been a generation that could have a porno palace in their own home.

There's never been a generation before that could go down to a store and get an R and X rated movie and bring it right down in the house and lay it right beside the Bible. There's never been a time like this in history where you could go right outside the door and you find anything you want.

Never has there been any day like this when our eyes and our hearts and our minds are bombarded. And when somebody takes a stand against Christians sitting, watching television hour after hour, you call it legalism?

No, we're trying to get you out of that downward spiral. We're trying to have that thing stopped and turned around. I've got to get into a prophecy now. I want you to go to Hosea, 5th chapter. This is all part of the message.

Hosea’s Warning About Seeking God After Persistent Rebellion

Do you know that the prophets, all the prophets tell us what's going to happen? You really don't need some new revelation. It's already here. It's all in the Word. Hosea, the 5th chapter. Hosea is one of the prophets that so challenged me.

It tears my soul apart and puts it back together again. How is God going to break? Folks, turn to Hosea, the 5th chapter and just leave the Bible open in your lap and look at me for just a minute. There's a free fall right now.

A lust free fall. It's a free fall. There's no bottom. How does God break that free fall? Some of you may be here now saying, Brother Wilks, I'm in that free fall into lust. Nothing seems to be able to stop it.

There's a powerful prophecy about what God's going to do. I want you to look at the, let's start at the 4th verse. Okay, let's start at verse 1. We've got some time. I've got another 10 minutes. Hear this, O priest, and hearken, ye house of Israel, and give ye ear, O house of the king, for judgment is toward you, because you've been a snare on Mizpah and a net spread upon Tabor.

The revolters are profound to make slaughter, though I have been a rebuker of them all. I know Ephraim and Israel is not hid from me. And now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled.

He said, you're full of lust. You commit whoredom, you're defiled. Look at verse 4. They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God, for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they've not known the Lord.

And the pride of Israel does testify to his face. Therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity. Judah also shall fall with them. Now look at verse 6. They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord, but they shall not find him, because he's withdrawn himself from them.

Would you look this way, please? You've heard Brother Phillips say it. You've heard Don say it. You've heard me say it. God is not hiding, but there's a qualification. He's not hiding from those who seek Him.

But he's hiding from those who toy with their lust. He's hiding. And a time will come, and I'll tell you why. You're going to see it here very, very clearly. They shall go with their flocks. Remember he said you've got a spirit of whoredom on you?