(Australia) Demonstration of the Spirit and of Power — David Wilkerson

The Demonstration of the Spirit and Power

I want to speak to you this afternoon on the demonstration of the Spirit and the power. The demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power. 1 Corinthians 2, if you will please. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 -5.

1 Corinthians 2, and I brethren, Paul speaking, and I brethren, when I came to you, came not with ecstasy of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Verse 4 in particular. My speech, my preaching, was not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. O Holy Spirit, we want to know what this is, this demonstration of your Spirit and of power.

Lord, we need that. We need that in this country. We need it around the world. We need it in all of our churches. God, speak clearly to my heart in the process of preaching this, that everyone who has ears to hear take it to heart, and Lord, change us by your Word.

Lord, this has not been a time of entertainment. We have not come to instruct people on how to do church, or how to gain people in the congregation. Lord, I believe that's all a byproduct of the demonstration of the Holy Ghost and of power.

These are byproducts. These are things that happen in our ministries and in our lives when we understand what it is, what this demonstration of the Holy Ghost and power truly is. In Christ's name, amen.

I read Paul's letters to the Corinthians 1 and 2, and I stop here at chapter 2, and I read this, my preaching, not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

Manifestations Versus the Biblical Demonstration of Power

And of course, we live in a day when people are looking for manifestations and demonstrations. We call them of the Holy Spirit. When revival, or what is called revival, and many are true revivals, people come from all over the world to see and hear and expect manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

And I believe in manifestations of the Holy Spirit. I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, when I was a young preacher, that was my number one prayer. When I preach, I want to see demonstrations of the Holy Spirit.

I want to see the fire of God come shake the house. I want to see people so convicted they just run and fall on their face before God. I want to see them tremble. I want to see the manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

And when we founded the church in New York City 18 years ago, and I'm sitting in the pulpit and I'm praying this same prayer, Lord, I want to see the Holy Spirit move. I want to see demonstrations and power of the Holy Spirit in this house.

Otherwise, what is the purpose of it all? And the Holy Spirit asks me this question, well, what do you want to see? What are you looking for? What demonstration are you looking for? Do you want to just have elders lined up and touch people?

Do you want to see them stricken? And the Holy Ghost really faced me with this, what demonstration are you looking for? Do you want people to be prophesying in groups? What is it you're looking for? And I couldn't explain it.

And I finally said, Lord, I would be satisfied if we would know and experience your presence in every meeting. That your presence here would convict people of sin. I don't care how people respond. If it's the Holy Spirit, it will be done decently and in order.

And Lord, I give it over to you. If you want to slay everybody, slay them. Whatever you want. But when I study the first and second chapter of Corinthians, and I listen to Paul say, I come to you not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and the power.

I say, where is it? Describe it. Where in first and second Corinthians do you find any human or any physical manifestations? Other than Paul turning over one to the devil for the sake of his soul. I don't think it was a man dropping dead.

And if it's for the salvation of his soul, it could have been a disease or something that slowly worked its way into his life or through his physical body. But you don't find the demonstrations here, any manifestations.

And you search his preaching and what you find are words that are to the human mind, the secular mind, foolishness. They describe his preaching as foolishness. And he speaks of, in his preaching of marriage, he speaks of morality.

He speaks of dress codes. And you find him speaking of ordinary subjects that we taught in Sunday school and taught by any knowledgeable pastor. And all of these things having to do with life and our existence here on earth.

You don't find any charisma. In fact, Paul was a long-winded preacher. He preached long sermons according to Scripture. He preached till midnight on one occasion. As Paul was long preaching, Acts 20, verse 7 -9, as Paul was long preaching, Eutychus fell asleep and fell down from the third floor dead.

I wouldn't call that a demonstration of the Holy Spirit. By Paul's own admission, he says, I come to you with fear and much trembling. Paul said, before I preach, when I preach, when I finish preaching, I have fear and trembling.

I tremble. He's not standing there as an actor. He's not standing there with such assurance in himself. But he said, I came with much fear and trembling. The Bible said his bodily presence is weak. They say of him, or he said, they say of me, my body presence is weak.

My speech is contemptible. In other words, people, Paul said, people say of me, I'm not a very good preacher. Evidently, Paul wasn't a very attractive man like Apollos. Apollos must have been a very handsome man, commanding in his language.

Here is Paul the apostle saying, my speech is contemptible. I'm a long-winded preacher according to the crowd. I have no charisma. I find no physical manifestations in first and second Corinthians, such as we would call manifestations.

Becoming the Message

I was talking to our senior pastor in Times Square Church, and I told him about my concern about what I would preach in conferences. And I said, I struggle to know what is the mind of God. And he said, Brother Dave, please understand, it's not your sermons.

That's not what's going to move people. It's what you become in Christ. You become the message. In other words, the speaker becomes the message. And so you don't have to worry about your subject. You become the subject.

And this is what Paul, I have not arrived. Oh, my goodness, I have not arrived. I come to every service like Paul trembling and saying, God, what right do I have? I have no merit. There's no reason why you should bless this gathering.

There's no reason why I should be able to touch anybody's hearts because of my own frailty of the flesh. And so here's Paul saying in 2 Corinthians 10th verse, the essence of what he was saying, say what you will about me.

Say that I'm not worth listening to, that I don't have charisma. But he said, I want you to take a look at me. I want you to see a demonstration of power and the work of the Holy Spirit. How God can take somebody without charisma, without a commanding voice.

A man who's given up everything in this world. A man whose appearance evidently in speech is contemptible. I don't know if he spoke the high pitched monotone voice, whatever it may be. But Paul says, God has touched my life.

I come to you not with enticing words, but I can assure you what I say has authority. He said, you look at me, you listen to me. And he said, you can follow my life. Follow me. He's not speaking out of pride.

He knew who he was in Christ. And folks, we today look for charisma. We look for this. And when in early Pentecost, I was born and raised in Pentecost and shouting Pentecost. And I thank God for shouting.

It's been a long time since I've shouted, but I believe in shouting. And sometimes the Holy Spirit comes in such silence where it's the loudest shout. For three months prior to the explosion of our twin towers in New York, the Holy Spirit came down in Times Square Church.

It happened three months before the towers fell. And a holy hush came. At first, it was five minutes at a time. In every service, nobody could move. No music, nothing. It started increasing, 15 minutes at a time.

And somewhere in the service, nearly every service, I would turn to my senior pastor and turn to the other pastors and say, what do we do? We don't know. And finally, in one service, 45 minutes of total silence.

And there was a scream, a silent scream going up to God. And I remember just sliding off my chair onto my face and weeping and broken. We went to weekly pastor's meetings and we would just weep, not knowing why we were weeping.

And pastors would get up to preach and collapse and just fall on their face weeping, congregation weeping. We didn't know. It happened right up to the very week of the explosion. God was warning us because there were prophetic messages.

People would stand. And pastors especially were saying, God is preparing us. Pray and seek his face. Do not be surprised. Don't be shocked. The Holy Spirit was speaking. That was a true, that was a manifestation of the spirit of God warning.

And he does that. And what has been happening last night and is probably happening in many of your churches now, God's speaking that way. But that's not where Paul was going. Paul is not talking about that kind of demonstration in power.

Paul's Ministry Apart From Competition

Paul the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 10, 16, he said, he's looking at pastors and he sees the competition. He's writing about it, some for Paulus and some for Paul. He sees competition among church leaders and jealousy.

It's this horrible competition. And Paul stands before the church, the man without the charisma, the man who could probably stand up and mentally overpower any preacher, overpower any agnostic, educated mind.

But this humble man gets up and he says in 2 Corinthians 10, 16, I'm not going down some other man's line of things. He said, all these things that I see and all this competition and all these methods that I see coming now, these are men's concepts and I'm not going down any man's line of concept.

And he said, I'm not going into another man's sphere of ministry. Paul says, I know where I got my ministry. I was alone with God. I was alone with Christ for three years in the desert. And the Lord gave me my sphere.

The Lord gave me the methods and the way I should preach. And he said, Christ revealed not himself to me, but in me. I have a revelation in me. I know who I am in Christ and I know where I'm going. And even when he goes up to Jerusalem, he's not a proud man.

He's not arrogant, but he's so convinced of regeneration by faith alone, so convinced that it's not by the law, so convinced that circumcision of the spirit, not of the flesh, that he wouldn't be moved by anyone.

He comes away from Jerusalem and he said, I went to the conference, but those that seemed to be somewhat among them didn't move me. He said, I've been to this conference and it didn't move me. Have you been to any conferences where you were not moved?

I hope and pray that really there's no purpose in this, not through our preaching, but through the presence of the Holy Spirit, that you are moved. I've been moved in my own heart. I've been moved by the Holy Spirit in my inner man.

But Paul says, I'm not going down any man's line. Paul said, all of these things, and in essence what he's saying, these things have been created by man to be reproduced in other men. Now folks, I am not putting down any other ministry, God forbid.

I respect any method. God uses methods. God uses the concepts of men. But you see, in this day and age, there has to be men who are not preaching a borrowed message. There has to be men who know something about what Paul's talking about, becoming the demonstration of the Holy Ghost and of power.

That their very lives, they have been alone with God, they've been shut in with God. They didn't study some man's book or someone's method on how to do church. And I say before a holy God, God has humbled my heart on this.

Some of these men, some of the books that I get, I hand them out to Christian workers, and I say there's something good here, take the good and use it. But Paul, the apostle, makes it clear, I know my sphere of ministry.

I know what God has called me to do, and I am not going down any other man's line. I'm not going to buy another man's line. Is God not unique enough? Is God not speaking to this generation that any man or woman of God in this house cannot get alone with God with such a desperate heart and such a hunger and such a thirst, saying, oh God, will you not do something for me?

Will you not show me? Folks, I passed a little church in the hills of Pennsylvania, a town of about 1 ,500 people, a church of about 100 people. In the United States, that's a very small church. And for five years, I married people, and I buried people, and I fellowshiped with the people.

And we called it a Pentecostal church. And we had what we called the gifts of spirit. There were utterances in tongues in many of the services, interpretation of tongues and prophetic utterances. And in the midst of this, I got very, very sick in my soul because people were not getting saved.

The same group of people and the same complaints and the same thing over and over again. And I just got weary. And I stood in my pulpit once, and I looked at these loving people. Nobody was really witnessing in the town.

And we were having a good time calling it the Holy Ghost. And really, in those days, if there was no preaching and there was excitement and everybody was exercising their gifts, they said, what a great service we had.

And it was because we didn't have any preaching. Great service. I am not mocking that. I've been back to that church years later and made it clear to those who are still there that there was no mockery when I wrote about it in the Cross and Switchblade.

And I said, oh, God, if this is Pentecost, I don't want it. If it doesn't put me out in the streets, if it doesn't put a burden for souls in me, it's not Pentecost and I don't want it. Now, I can say I pray in tongues more than you all, like Paul the Apostle.

Seeking God in Solitude and Brokenness

But I said, God, what do I do? I started praying and seeking God. And, you know, if you read the Cross Switchblade, God said, you know, I'll tell you what to do. Start with your TV, sell it. You come home from preaching about the Holy Ghost and then you come home and you watch these violent cowboy movies.

And you like that violent stuff, you know, they shoot them up. God said, don't you know I destroyed the earth for violence? And here you are. He said, start with that. He said, you can't handle your television, so sell it.

And just give me the time that you spent watching television on your face. Just seek me and see what I'll do. I'm not going to direct you until you get alone with me. We want to just sit in God's presence for 15 minutes and ask God to take us down some new sphere of ministry, open up some door, do something supernatural for us, and we're not willing to get alone and speak to him.

And folks, there's an old Bible you couldn't buy from me. I price this because the Lord told me just to pray, just your Bible. And in the summer months, I got in my car and went up on the hillside where from the parsley's my wife could see the car and I would go out into the woods with my Bible and I would just read the word and pray and seek the face.

And God began to melt my heart and break me. And I began to preach and prophesy to the trees. I just got so hungry for God. And until I could see souls saved, I would see trees flutter or something. And anybody came to see the pastor, my wife would say, he's up there.

There's the car. If necessary, you blow the horn. Months. And then one day. Standing in the pulpit. And collapsing. This. Rolling in agony. Thought I had a nervous breakdown and I went to my room. God, what's happening?

What's happened? God said, I'm I'm breaking your heart. I'm giving you a broken spirit, a contrite heart, because unless you have that, I can't use you. Pastor, I'm not going to play games. What I see around the.

The Spirit's Power Through the Preacher's Suffering

I've been preaching for 50 years. I've seen everything come down a turnpike. I've I've seen movements come where they were vomiting demons into paper bags. They said. I have been through and listened and seen one movement after another.

And all the tapes and all the books and all of the things that go with the with movements. And I have lived through so much of this. And we see that. And I remember the hunger and the cry in my heart.

Oh, God. How do you touch a man's life? How how do you demonstrate the power of your spirit? And I remember the the breaking that took place in my heart. And it was in that time of breaking in the office when I thought I was having a nervous breakdown.

And the Holy Spirit comforted my heart and said, no, I am making you a demonstration of the spirit and the power of the Holy Ghost. And I picked up a magazine, saw the face of seven murderers in New York City, and the Lord said, this is what it's all about.

Go to New York City and try to reach those boys. And that was the beginning. And, folks, I want to tell you something. Eighteen years ago, the Lord again moved on my heart. I was in New York City and I told about it last night when I saw the horrible conditions of New York City.

The Call to New York City

I had never really left. I went back to the summers, even though I traveled and preached on the streets. But this time I saw them selling death as the commercial for the pushers selling death. Take this.

It'll give you the ultimate trip. Death became the ultimate trip. And so I. God called me to go back to New York City. But I would go back every every week from about 300 miles from our little country town.

I read it from we were at this time we're living in Dallas, Texas. I had moved and I would fly up to New York City and just walk the streets and weep. And that same brokenness. And this the same call, David, you become very busy evangelist now, you're known around the world.

But I want you to take a new step and I want to use you in a different way. And I want you to go to New York City, but you're not ready because you've grown a bit cold. You meditate. And I was about to go.

I remember I was about to go to a big crusade and a prophet of God, Leonard Ravenhill, a great man of God. He's now dead. He wrote why Revival Terry's Sodom had no Bible. Great man of God, a true Elijah.

And he he was on my staff, a friend of mine, editor of our magazine. And I got to get on my special made bus that I traveled in. In fact, there were two buses. My band was in another. And he handed me a book written by a Puritan, William Grinnell, Christian in complete armor over, I think, 400 pages.

He said, David, read this. God's speaking to you. I put it in my bus and threw it down in the back room in my suite. Said, who has time to read 400 pages? Because, you see, I knew how to do it. I knew how to preach.

I had sermons that moved people. The altars were filled. What do I need? But I had no fresh word now. I had time to meditate, but I was not weeping. I was not broken before the Lord. I was so busy. But 20 minutes down the road, the Holy Spirit came on me and said, go back in your room and start reading.

And within 30 minutes, I was on my face. I said, God, I don't know you like this man. He wrote this hundreds of years ago. And now he's speaking to me. And God broke my heart and said, I want you to cut everything.

I want you to get out of the limelight. I want you to get alone with me. And it was out of that aloneness, it was shutting down, dismissing all my musical staff and starting over again. Because, you see, I had a name around the world as a praying man.

I had a name around the world as a soul winner and father of Teen Challenge and all of these wonderful things that people were saying, radio and television and all of this. And busy, so busy. Loving God, yes, but cold, cold in heart.

Preaching a series of messages that I had used around the world that worked. One young evangelist told me during that time, he says, you know, I know how to do it. I can turn tears on and off just like this.

I know when to fall down when I'm preaching. And he said the crowd loves it and that's why I give it to them. And when I heard something like that, I was crushed before God because he was one of the most popular Pentecostal evangelists in the States at the time.

So, God, I don't want to go down that kind of path. I'm not going that way. I shut everything down. And I began once again to seek the face of God. And that's when the call came to go to New York City and start a church.

Persevering in Faith and Becoming a Witness

And I'm telling you now, I tell you this from the bottom of my heart, I'm not preaching to you now. I'm just speaking from the inner man. I'm speaking from my heart. I have not arrived. I still struggle.

The greatest struggle I have in my life is to maintain that prayer life. Because when you set your heart to seek God, you're going to have a satanic spirit of interruptions. You're going to be interrupted more than you have ever been in your lifetime.

I have to go into my prayer room and my wife knows it. I know it. And I sit before a holy God. Nobody. When I go in there, nobody. Not the President of the United States. And by the way, his office has called a few times.

But if I'm in the prayer room, he doesn't get an answer. My wife said he's talking to the king. He's talking to the king. I struggle with that. Even this morning, I said, oh, God, I don't even feel like getting up and preaching because I have not had.

I've not had that quality of time. I've been so busy since I've been here. But you see, the Lord doesn't condemn us. It's not a matter of hours. It's something more than that. It's a faith that he's looking for.

He's looking for an anchored faith. I become a beacon of hope. I become a manifestation of the Holy Spirit when I truly am trusting God. I'm trusting him for a life of righteousness that's not of my own.

I'm trusting God that he will meet me. He will give me the word. I have to believe that when I'm seeking the face of God, I will be walking down the line that he chooses for me. And it'll be something fresh from the heart of God.

Paul, I'm going to get back to Paul the apostle. Wherefore, I beseech you, be followers of me. And he writes to the Corinthians in 416. 1 Corinthians 416. I'm sending Timothy to you, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways, which be in Christ.

And what I teach every man in every church. He said, I'm sending Timothy to you, and he's going to show you my ways. He's going to show you what I preach in every church wherever I go. And what is this message that Timothy is going to bring to the Corinthian church?

The Christian Life as a Public Spectacle

We are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to man. We're made a spectacle. This is what Paul the apostle says. The word spectacle there in Greek is theater. He said, if you're going to follow my way, you're going on stage before the whole world.

Before princes and powers of darkness. Before angels. Before all mankind. You're going on stage. And you're going to be watched. Every move that you make. And you're going to be tested. You're going to be made a spectacle to the whole world.

We are made. He's speaking by God. We're made by God as a spectacle. To the whole world like an outdoor theater where the whole world is watching. And in that congregation or in that theater watching and seated before you.

Everyone that you know. Every family member. If you're a pastor, every member of your congregation. And in your town, your whole city. Everyone is watching. Demonic powers are watching. Angels. Witnesses.

Scripture said, you are made by God as a spectacle. Paul says, your part is to play the fool for Christ. He said, all others will be strong, but you're going to be the weak one. Others will be honorable.

You'll get the part of the despised one. Others will experience hunger. You will experience hunger, thirst, nakedness. You'll be pounded in the face. In other words, that's what it means. He said, you're going to be pounded.

You're going to suffer. You will bless while others revile you. You're going to endure persecution and be slandered. You will entreat while others slander you. You'll be made the filth of the world, the off-scouring and scum of all things.

Now follow me. The audacity of Paul. Now, here's the way. You want a ministry? You want God to use you? You want to preach a demonstration of the Holy Ghost and power? He said, here's the way. Follow me.

You're behind this curtain, and you have been afraid to go on stage. But he says, once you make a commitment, the curtain goes up. And there you stand. And you have been given a script. And you're in a place, so to speak, and you are theater now before the whole world.

Now follow my ways, he said. Now, when Paul said we're made a spectacle, he's speaking not to every Christian, but to a select number. And I believe this with all my heart. There are some people who seem to have everything figured out.

They don't seem to suffer like others. They always have a smile. They always are so very positive. That's good. That's wonderful. But they seem to have figured out a secret where they don't have to suffer or go through the pain.

And they don't have to go on stage. They are not made a spectacle. They are not spectacles to the world. They're bit players. And the devil says, I'm not interested in the bit players. They're really not in the spectacle.

I'm after those who are on stage. And there are some of you know what I'm talking about as you sit here now. You're on stage. You're a spectacle. There are eyes watching you. You're going through suffering and things that you have never experienced before in your life or your home.

And Paul writing to those who are not a part of the spectacle, he says, I don't write this to shame you. He said, you are prosperous. You are blessed. I don't write this to shame you. He said, God bless you.

But he said, if you're going to follow me, if you want the demonstration of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost's power in your life, you have to become this very demonstration. You have to be the example.

Faith Tested Through Suffering

In the 11th chapter of Hebrews, you see all the heroes that have been in this spectacle. And you don't hear about their preaching. You hear about their faith, how they endured this spectacle. And one day we're going to have one great feast that everyone who's ever been in the spectacle, down through all the ages since the cross of Jesus, all those who've come through it and have become overcomers.

Not those who ran off stage and said, this is too hot. I don't want any more of this. I can't handle more. I can't take any more. And folks, I've felt like that at times. I don't want to be part of the spectacle anymore.

I can't handle this anymore. Lord, when does it end? My wife has had 25 operations for various things and I think five or six for cancer. They called it a family cluster. My two daughters with cancer, both not expected to live.

And I know what it's like to be on stage and expect a spectacle to the whole world, and especially to the powers of hell who sit there in the congregation, taunting and lying and saying you're not going to make it.

And angels in wonderment who have not understood pain, who have not understood the battles that we as believers since the cross of Jesus have gone through, the reviling and the problems that nobody knows about.

You can sit here and clap your hands and rejoice in the Lord, but nobody knows around you what's happening. Some of you wives are going through the terror time of your life. It has to do sometimes with your children or your grandchildren and the things that they're going through.

And the backslidden ones close to your family, close to your heart. Pastors who've been abused and mocked and lied about it. I know what that's about and that's the reason I waited until I was in my 70s and had gray hair and pastored for years before I took any kind of gatherings like this or conferences.

Because I didn't have anything to say to pastors. I didn't know what they went through. But after five years, I saw Times Square Church split. I saw associates rise up against me and lie about me. I saw three to five hundred people taken out, half the choir and most of the young people taken.

I was called every kind of name that you could be called. I was a spectacle before New York City. And I had pastors from all over the country call me, watching me, listening. What are you going to do?

They said I was a dictator. I was a hypocrite. Young people would meet me on the street and say, are you a phony like they say you are? And I didn't want to go to my church. I would sit and cry in our apartment.

And there were times my wife would have to literally pick me up by the arm and say, let's go. We lived two blocks from the church. I'd get halfway and say, honey, I can't go. I can't face this anymore.

I've had it. I don't have to put up with this. I'm an evangelist. I can go preach around the world and be appreciated, but I'm not going to let a handful of people destroy me. And I kept a journal that I don't even want to look at anymore.

That's been a number of years ago. And at the bottom of every page I wrote, will this nightmare never end? And some of you know what the nightmare is. And you are a spectacle before the world and before others.

Folks, the day that 300 to 400 people walked out on us, the next Sunday, because I wouldn't fight. I didn't stand up and fight. I didn't call anybody names. I called everyone I could and said, if I've wounded you, I confess.

I wept before them. I pleaded. I said, if I've harmed you in any way, I made everything right that I could. I would not stand and preach, never said a word about it. The Lord said, just be patient. And folks, the week that 300 to 400 walked in, out the next week, 600 people walked in in one day.

But I know what it is to be a spectacle before the whole world. You have a world. You have a circle of interest, and those in your circle of family or ministry are watching you constantly. There's a tendency to say, Lord, I want offstage.

I don't want to be in this anymore. I can't handle it. But you see, what the world needs now is not another great evangelist. What a sin-sick world needs now that is in stress, a sin-sick world that's lost its faith, churches that are shaking and trembling because the presence of God is gone.

What it needs more than some fiery preacher standing in the pulpit are those that are beacons of light, those that have been through the flood and through the fire and been through living hell and can stand up and say, live or die, I am the Lord, and I'm not going to give up.

I am not giving up. Everywhere Gary and I go, we meet preachers ready to quit the ministry. In Moscow, five years ago, 1 ,500 pastors, over 200 of them stood and came forward saying they had decided to leave the ministry just before the conference in one meeting in South America.

In one conference of 5 ,000, 1 ,500 pastors ready to quit the ministry. We see it all over the country. We see people quitting. In the United States, as I mentioned last night, in the past few years, 10 to 12 million born-again Christians have stopped going to church.

The battle is hot. The battle is raging. But what God is trying to create, what God has to have now, are these demonstrations of the Holy Ghost and power. And what the Lord is saying, you anchor your faith.

He said, without faith it's impossible to please God. And they that come to Him must believe that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. So He puts the responsibility on your shoulder and mine.

He said, you have the power in you to anchor your faith. You have the power to set your face like steel. You have that power to have an unshakable faith. Let no man who wavers think he shall receive anything from God.

That proves that God says you can have an unwavering faith. You can be a demonstration of the Holy Ghost and the power. So that you can stand up and everybody watching you, and you're not caving in, you're not asking God questions anymore.

Trusting God Amid Cancer and Loss

When my second daughter got cancer in the hospital, this was in Texas, and we were outside the door when they wheeled in a cobalt machine. We were told we can't go in there for three days, only doctors with lead suits.

And for three days they pounded her body with cobalt. They said there's maybe a 30 chance of survival. And my wife, standing in the hallway, pounding her fist on the wall, saying, God, I've passed cancer down to Debbie, and now Bonnie.