Audio Sermon: Shall We Continue in Sin - the Fear of God — David Wilkerson

The Call to Confront Continuing Sin

I trust you brought your Bible with you. You're going to need it tonight. I want you to go to Romans 6, please, the Romans 6 chapter. I'm going to start, I'll read the first two verses. My message tonight, shall we continue in sin?

Shall we continue in sin? Verses 1 and 2. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? That grace may abound, God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Folks, if you'll be patient the first 30 minutes or so of this message, we'll get to the amazing grace.

But I've got to speak his mind tonight on something that God has dealt so very severely and strongly with me about and something that's come out of my innermost being. Heavenly Father, I thank you that you've taken this word tonight and woven it into the very fiber of my being.

Lord, this was not a message that I invented. It was a message that came from your throne and it brought me to my face. And I pray God that you would come on me with such a grace and mercy that I could preach this in a way, Lord, that would not be offensive and yet accomplish your will.

I need your strength and your power and your unction and anointing. God touched my lips as you've never touched them before. Lord, you're bringing us into the covenant, but there has to be a special work done now.

Lord, this is the one thing that is needed before we can go another step further. Thank you for the marvelous word we heard this morning and the penetrating word this afternoon. And now, Lord, do it again.

Give us your heart, give us your mind, I pray. I humble myself before you. Amen. How is it that we who call ourselves Christians can continue holding on to besetting sin month after month and sometimes year after year?

How is it that Christians can come to a church like this and hear such a strong word? And how is it that Christians who raise their hands and praise the Lord and confess deeply that they love Jesus and yet they can hold on to their sins continue in bitterness, grudges, lust, fornication, adultery, drinking, homosexuality, lesbianism, you name it.

Thousands upon thousands of Christians have allowed the permissiveness of this age to creep into the church and into their very hearts and now excusing things they would have never excused before, winking at sins they have never thought they would wink at before, taking it so lightly, fornication, adultery.

Some besetting sin that has laid hold of the heart and just won't let go. A sin that's entwined itself around the heart like a serpent. And in spite of all the tears, in spite of all the praying, in spite of all the messages on the covenant, still that sin is there and it won't go.

It won't go. Paul asked the question, how can we, we who are baptized into Jesus, we who have been buried and resurrected with him, how can we who've been planted together in the likeness of his death, how can such as we continue in sin?

How can we do it? Folks, you know the longer that sin continues in your heart, the more difficult it is to get it out. The longer you toy with it, the longer you flirt with it, the longer you allow it there, the more difficult it becomes.

It starts decaying the spirit. It's like a cancer that spreads all through the body, all through your system and it defiles everything that you think, everything that you touch, it defiles your life and everything around you, it defiles your family, it defiles everything.

Sin never dies of itself. Never. If it's not uprooted, destroyed, it's going to take the throne. It literally takes the throne. I don't care how you sing, I don't care how you shout. If we continue in sin, the time is coming, it's going to take the throne.

We heard that very clearly this afternoon. Powerful message about the covenant and the need for God to do with our sins. The conscious becomes defiled, discernment is the first thing that goes. You lose your discernment.

You can't tell the difference between right and wrong anymore. The difference between right and wrong becomes very clouded and fuzzy and then that sin will become a voice in itself. It'll quote scripture to you to justify it.

The devil came to Jesus and tried to justify his temptation with scriptures. Oh, I have so many people tell me, tell me that, you know, this is not wrong because God spoke to me and God told me that this was not sinful when very clearly it's contrary to the Word of God.

The Holy Spirit, the New Covenant, and Victory Over Sin

Now under the new covenant, God made a promise to send the Holy Ghost to abide in us, to empower us to live in victory over sin and to completely defeat the dominion of sin in our lives. There would be a release of this power and he would give us a new heart.

The scripture says he would give us a new mind and he would come to set us free from all the captivity and slavery of sin. That is the promise of the new covenant. He promised to break the chain and set every cap to free.

But those promises are given only to those who are sick of their sin and weary of it. God forbid that any Christians should just sit back and claim the blessings of the covenant and say I'm waiting for the Holy Ghost to do it.

I've been told that the Holy Ghost will come into my heart and the Holy Ghost will give me the power and authority and that's it. And I want to tell you if you're waiting for the Holy Ghost to do it without your cooperation you're sadly mistaken.

He will not do it without your cooperation. Why would the Holy Ghost release his power to those who want victory over sin they don't even believe is wicked and they consider it only a nuisance. Why would God release any power of deliverance to those who wicked their sin and say well it's just uncomfortable me or it might hurt me I might be exposed by it but there's no hatred for that sin.

Why would God through his Spirit release his power to get victory over sin we don't even think is wicked. Why do believers continue in sin? Why do so many go year after year after year in their sinful practices holding on to besetting sin?

One root of bitterness, one grudge, one lust, one form of bondage. They have victory in every area of their life but there's one thing and folks I believe this with all my heart there's usually only one sin.

Sometimes what we consider a little sin is one thing that keeps us from coming into the fullness of the covenant blessings of God. Usually it's one thing and in the heart the mind knows it and God knows it and he's told you about it and he knows that this one area in your life that remains God says this has to go and then you come into the covenant.

I don't have to look far for an answer as to why we continue in our sins. I look into my own heart more and more I think at the time that I have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Every day of my life now I think of it when I have to stand before my Jesus and look into his loving eyes and I have to give an account of everything I've preached and I know over the years that I've preached things to others and demanded things of people I never kept myself.

I know that other than the grace of God and the mercy of the Lord I couldn't stand before him and Paul knew that too. He said let's have me preach to others I myself become a castaway. In other words I stand before Jesus and I didn't live what I preached.

I am aware every moment of the day now of that moment I stand before him I have to stand and answer for this message I preach to you tonight. I have to live tonight and the rest of my life what I'm preaching to you and I am reminded of that day and the Bible said if we judge yourself and not be judged and every day I put myself before the judgment seat of Christ.

I stand there in my spirit before the great throne of Christ and say Jesus look me in the eye if there's something there deal with it open it to me I'm not going to stand before you with a sin that I continue in.

I don't want oh God help me I don't want ever stand before the judgment seat having continued on a sin to the very moment the trumpet sound. There's some of you sitting in this building right now you can't even talk to somebody.

There's bitterness, there's grudge, there's hatred. If Jesus comes tonight you go immediately to the throne you have. What excuse you say well I was waiting for the Covenant Holy Ghost to do it. I thought a grace of God would abound.

What's your answer? Could that sin that you continued up to this last week or to last night and you still have it in your heart now it's still clinging it's still there. What do you do when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ?

Folks it's getting late and Jesus is at the door he's coming very very soon and I don't have to look very far. I just look into my own heart. I don't look at the failure of others and tonight I'm preaching we because there's nobody here without sin.

Now folks not everybody's living with a lust but I want you know if you sit here thinking you're above lust you don't know your Bible. We all come short of the glory of God and there is lust capacity for lust and every one of us are sin that there's a capacity in us and it's only sticking close to Jesus it's only believing in his word it's only staying close to him that gives us victory and trusting falling in his blood.

There are many of you come to that thank God but I'm talking about those tonight who are continuing in their sins. The time has come to ask ourselves the question why am I still continuing in this sin?

Why is this evil thing still there? Why am I not free? Now let me share with you the conclusion I've come to and I came to this with the help of the Holy Ghost and when he showed it to me he cast I literally fell wailing before God.

No new truth but it's something that has to be understood before we go another step further before we say another word about covenant. Here's the conclusion I've come to with the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The Fear of God as the Foundation of Holiness

We continue in sin because we do not have the fear of God in us. We have never had the fear of God implanted in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. You can't work up the fear of God. You can't get it through the laying on of hands.

You can't conjure up by any physical feeling or any kind of manipulation of the flesh. This is a genuine work of the Holy Ghost. He alone can implant his fear into our hearts and I'm telling you now there is no possibility of victory over any besetting unless the fear of God is being implanted.

Impossible. Proverbs 16 6 by mercy and truth iniquity is purged and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. Proverbs 3 7 fear the Lord then depart from evil. Proverbs 14 27 the fear of the Lord is the fountain of life to depart from the snares of the devil.

The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life whereby you flee the snares of the devil of death. Now see the fear of God is more than just reverential awe. I've heard that all my life. It's reverential awe.

No the Bible makes a very clear distinction between reverence and the fear of God. I read it to you from Hebrews 12 28 let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

With reverence God makes a distinction between that whole that reverential awe for God and godly fear. There's a major difference. There can be no full revelation or understanding of God's new covenant promises.

The full revelation will not come until the fear of God is deeply rooted in us. I quote to you the scripture God gave me 30 some 35 years ago said it would be the theme of my life and it's been that ever since.

The secret of the Lord was of them that fear him and the Lord was shown his covenant. The fear before the covenant. The secret of the Lord is in that fear him and he was shown him his covenant. We don't see the fear of God in the Church of Jesus Christ today.

You don't hear it preached. You do from this pulpit but you go all across. You could go from church to church across this nation. You will seldom hear a message about the fear of God. There's no fear of God before their eyes.

And we lack the fear of God because we have misinterpreted most of the New Testament scriptures about fear. We've misinterpreted them. For example let me let me give you examples. We quote this God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love and power and a sound mind.

A perfect love cast out all fear. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. There is no fear in love. These are all about fear but folks that refers to the fear of man and the fear of the devil but not the fear of God.

Paul made it clear. Listen to it. So that we might boldly say the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Same Greek word. This has to do with the fear of man. There is in the new covenant what I call a precedent work of the Holy Spirit.

And this precedent means that it precedes all other works. In other words this has to come first. And this precedent work of the Holy Spirit has to be accomplished in us before any of the other blessings and provisions of the covenant can be opened up to us and operate in our lives.

If we don't have this work of the Holy Spirit none of these others in fact when God accomplishes this work he is at the same time going to show you accomplishing all the promises they are in this one precedent work of the Holy Spirit that has to be accomplished in every one of us.

Jeremiah's New-Covenant Promise of a Fearful Heart

Won't you go to Jeremiah 32 with me please. Jeremiah 32. I'm not expecting any shouting till we get to the end tonight. And then if you don't shout you didn't hear a word I said. Start with verse 39 please.

Two verses I want to read. Now folks these are new covenant promises for the Prophet Jeremiah. These are not old covenant promises. These are new covenant promises. Let's start with verse 38. They shall be my people and I will be their God.

Now you know that's the first that's the first blessing promised in the new covenant. And I will give them one heart in one way that they may fear me forever for the good for them and of their children after them.

And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts. Why? That they shall not depart from me. Look at me please.

God says I'm going to make you a promise. I'm going to send the Holy Ghost and I'm going to give him to you. He's going to abide and live in you. When he comes he's going to cleanse the temple. Your body's a temple and he's going to deal with everything that's unlike Jesus in you.

He's going to go every corner of the heart every little thing that is unlike Christ he's going to assign the light on and he's going to deal with it. He's not going to awaken anything. He wants it clean.

He's going to have a clean heart. He's going to give you a new heart. He's going to give you a new vessel. But first of all he's going to come in and deal with issues that are in the heart. Out of the abundance of the heart are the issues of life.

Out of the heart itself are the true issues of life. He said I'm going to do great things in you. I'm going to cause you to will and do of my good pleasure. I am going to do marvelous things for you. But first of all before we do anything else God says I am going to put my fear in your hearts.

Why? If you don't have your, if you, he is inferring here that if you don't have his fear your sin is going to turn you away from him. And God says I'm going to come now in covenant. This is the foundation, foundational covenant to me.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost he says is going to come down and implant the fear of God in you. So that you will not depart from me. It doesn't say the Holy Ghost is going to come down and do all the work for you.

You don't have to do anything. You just sit there and wait. And we've got whole denominations teaching that you just sit and wait. You're only sitting and waiting when Jesus comes. Still continuing in their sins.

This is what I believe God is saying to us and I want you to listen very closely. He said I'm going to put my fear in your heart. I'm going to deal with you about how you look at your sin. How you deal with sin.

If you're taking it lightly, God says I'm going to deal with that. I'm not going to wicked any sin. He said he's no respecter of persons. And if you're sitting in this service tonight and they say it's lovely, you think you have some special relationship with the Lord.

That God has done such a marvelous work and grace in you but yet you can continue in some sin. Folks, if you say you have no sin, the Bible said you lie. And the truth is not in you. He said I'm going to give you an understanding through my fear.

I'm going to give you an understanding of exceeding sinfulness of what you're doing. I'm going to come down and show you the danger that you're in. Until we see God's wrath against sin, until we see how it grieves the Holy Spirit, until we no longer take it lightly, we will never be free.

You will never be free of your sin if you think it is nothing before the eyes of God. How does the Holy Spirit put his fear in us that we might not turn away from him? What method does he use to instill this godly fear in us, this divine marvelous fear?

His method is the convicting word of God. The convicting... Listen, if you're sitting here tonight hearing me and you say, Brother David, Pastor David, I have... I've been continuing in a sin. I've got something in my life that I know the Holy Ghost has dealt with.

I know there's something there that has to go. And I have tried, I've wept, I've tried to believe the covenant. I rejoice in that and I want to enter into that peace of that. But as hard as I try, there's still that thing there.

Still there. Let me tell you, if you have a heart to walk righteously before the Lord and this sin has brought you to a weariness and you're sick of it, you say, God, I want to be free. I want to walk before God.

I want to be able to look Jesus right in the eye. And I want to know if I die tonight, I stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And I know that I can say, and he knows, I have not continued in sin.

I've not continued in my sin. Oh, there's no end of his forgiveness. He will forgive and forgive and forgive. But you stand before God in a sin that you have continued in, you have not dealt with, you have never brought it out to the light, you have never allowed the Holy Ghost to deal with it.

It's because you lack his fear. We try to shake off all guilt and all condemnation before the guilt has accomplished its purpose in us. Now, wouldn't you listen closely? We cry up these scriptures such as, there is now no condemnation to them that be in Christ.

We say, I have no condemnation. I am in Christ. I'm covered with the blood. But you have no right to claim that until you read the rest of the verse. To them who walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh.

If you're continuing sin, you're walking in flesh. You're in flesh. Some of you sit and say, oh, this is so hard. No, the greatest grace of God is to deal with us like we're being dealt with now. The way God dealt with me, I've been dealt with first and he's dealing with you now.

That is the greatest mercy of God possible. Listen, the greatest thing God can do for you if you're continuing sin is to load your conscience with guilt. Load it. If you're sitting here tonight and you continue sinning, you have no guilt in you about it.

You can sit in this church and worship and praise God, go out and sin, you have no condemnation, you have no guilt. That means you have a hard heart. The greatest thing God can do for you tonight under the searchlight of the Holy Ghost is for you to cry out, oh God, there's sin in my life and I know it's there.

Load me with guilt until it accomplishes what the law said it's supposed to accomplish. To show the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the grief it causes the Holy Ghost. The fear of God includes, listen closely, the fear of God includes a full understanding of the danger and consequences of continuing a sin.

The danger and the consequences of it. Some of you sit here tonight, you're not aware of the danger, you're not aware of the consequences. I know how God dealt with me when I was a young preacher and I was going in the wrong direction one time and I remember Kansas, Missouri, Kansas, the state of Kansas out in a cornfield.

Lord told me to go out and pray and I'm out there by myself, no houses, no cars under rent and the Holy Ghost put his finger on it and he told me straight out, David, this is sin and I'm not allowed you to continue in it.

I'm telling you now, if you don't bring it out to the open, if you won't deal with it now and if you want my fear to take a hold of your heart, I'm just going to lift your anointing. God put his fear in my heart.

The fear of God, the righteous, holy fear of his holiness that I could not work with, that I couldn't play with, that I couldn't continue in it. Before I could trust God to give me the enduing power of the Holy Spirit first, I had to know it was sin in the sight of God and I had to see it through his eyes.

Oh, I saw it through his eyes. What he'll do, listen closely, if you really want God to deal with that sin, if you really wanted God, if you want to walk in freedom, let me tell you what's going to happen to you.

If you want to walk in full covenant, he's going to shoot flaming arrows into your soul with his word. Convicting arrows of the word of God. David said, your arrows have pierced my soul because of my sin.

The Five Consequences of Continuing in Sin

Now let me show you some of these flaming arrows he shot into my soul and he's going to shoot them into your heart. Would God help me to say it in love? Is God going to show us exceeding sinfulness of sin?

This is what the law is all about. When he holds up the mirror, he says, now I want to show you the ugliness of it and how I see it. I want to give you, I want to show you at least four of these arrows, maybe five.

Arrow number one, God considers hidden lusts, hidden sins in believers as more wicked, more dangerous, more vile than the most wicked, evil, open sins committed by the wicked. Did you hear it? God considers the hidden sins of the heart in the mind.

This is where it all begins. It's in the mind. We say, well, I didn't act it out. It may be in my mind, but I didn't act it. We don't think it's sin because we don't act it out. But God says he looks in the heart.

He knows what's inside your heart. Think of the most vile thing. Now this is going to get pretty strong, but I want you to listen to this and I believe this is all in my heart. Think of the most vile sinner, the most wicked deed you can think of.

Think of this man who had a girlfriend engaged and his father died and she didn't come to the funeral to comfort him. So out of hatred and revenge he married her, got her pregnant and killed the baby to get even with her.

Did you see it in the newspaper last week? One of the national newscasters on the radio said this is considered one of the most vile, evil works ever perpetrated in American history. The most vile act of wickedness.

You think of all the murders and the flaunting acts of sin by a generation has gone mad. Think of all the sins. And yet, folks, if you look deeply into the word of God, you'll find how God looks on the heart and God considers in believers.

He looks at sin. Now I'm going to talk about his grace in just a minute. But first of all, you have to see this before you go any further. God hates that secret thing, that thing that's embedded in us, that secret thing that we hide.

God says in my eyes, that is more wicked and vile. In fact, if you're a Christian, those open acts that you do, those sins that you do openly, I consider those hidden things far more evil. He said to Laodicea Church, he said, I know you.

You're not what you claim to be. You're not what you say you are. He said, I know you. You say, I'm all right. I'm in need of nothing. He said, I say, you're getting lukewarm. You're drying up. He said, I'm looking at your heart.

Everybody else sees all of this wealth and they see this prosperous church. But I'm looking, I know you. Oh, folks, when God puts his finger on our hearts and says, I know you, I know what's going on.

I know what's in your heart. For out of the heart are the real issues of life. And he, as he thinks in his heart, so is he. You have got to come to this place where you say, God, this is, this is a sharp arrow of the Holy Ghost.

He comes into the heart and says, you can't hide. Every secret thing is going to be brought out into the open. God says he despises that hidden, that which is hidden, that which no man knows about deep inside.

The second arrow, the longer sin continues in you, the more danger of hardening of heart. Your heart will get hard. Listen to what the scripture says. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily while it is called to day.

Lord said, while you still have time, lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. He said, you continue in sin and you're going to become correction proof sermon proof. Whereas once you were able to sit in the house of God like this and tremble at the word of God, you love the presence of Jesus.

You would sit, you would hear a message and you would be able to go up that night and say, Lord, I know that was delivered from the Holy Ghost just for me. I received it. You had ears to hear, but because you continued in your sin, because you would continue to play with it and work with it and you would not allow the Holy Ghost to show you the exceeding sinfulness of it, that God could bring it out and set you free.

And when the Holy Ghost says he'll come to empower you, he empowers you with this fear. The fear of God is a power that is not fulfilling his covenant. He said, I'll put my fear in your heart that you will not turn against me.

But the day will come if you continue in your sin and every day you can continue in your sin, the harder your heart is getting. So the time will come that you can sit and praise God and everybody will look at you as if everything is fine.

Nothing is wrong with you and you'll be able to sit through any message. You can sit down through Holy Ghost thunder and not be moved. People around you weeping and repenting and you sit there cold. You sit there unmovable.

Nothing can touch you. No preacher, no counselor, nobody. That's the word of God. Nothing can touch your heart anymore. It's hard because you won't let go because the sin continues. I've seen it. I've seen the horror of men of God turned over to hard heart.

I think of a minister friend of mine, large church, committed adultery. He had a lustful heart. His wife knew it and those who worked with him knew it. When a man tells dirty jokes and he doesn't have a mind on Jesus or everything, but Jesus, you know something's wrong.

He was caught and exposed, but God had mercy on this man and he was under discipline for a season and they restored him. But you see, he never let go. He never dealt with that. He seemed to get off easy.

Men stood in his pulpit and preached the fire of God. Preach conviction. Not because I was one of them, but stood in his pulpit. I was there the night he was exposed. I was preaching in his pulpit. I think five women came forward that were having an affair with him.

He could have an affair in his office and go from the office right into the pulpit. One of my friends asked him, how could you do that? He smiled. He said, you have to be a good actor. It's a hard heart.

Nothing moved the man. No preaching, nothing. I've stood in pulpits of men where the spirit of God, I remember one time the spirit of God coming on me. I lost five pounds in an hour because of the grief of the Holy Ghost.

Because the man behind me had sat for a whole week under Holy Ghost preaching with a hard heart. And the Holy Ghost said, I'll give you one more chance. I just stood for 20 minutes in the spirit of God.

I said, there are demons that are in the balcony. They're in the rafters all over because there's sin in this house. And God's giving you one more chance. I turned. Not a sound, not a movement. A few months later, exposed for homosexuality.

I've seen that hardness. Some of you here now, and I tell you by the Holy Ghost, and I'm a loving pastor. The spirit of God's on me. And I'm telling you, some of you here now, God is dealing with you in love.

He's coming now, just like he sits, sits you down and say, now, look, this is getting dangerous. You're in danger. And I'm here because I love you. And I'm telling you, you're in danger. You're not seeing it as I see it.

You've lived with it so long. You've grown comfortable with it. Now you can sit with a hard heart. I'm telling you folks, some of you need to deal with this tonight. Let your heart grow hard in my preaching.

You see, the fear of God comes and says every day you continue. Each day you go on doing it. Your heart is slowly growing hard. Your sin is becoming less obnoxious to you. Third arrow. I want you to go to Psalm 89 to see it.

You continue in your sin and you're going to face the rod of God. Psalm 89. This is also covenant. I'm going to give you nothing but covenant scriptures. I want you to begin reading verse 30. We're going to go through 30 from 30 to 34.

Now, folks, this is one of the prime important covenant promises. Start verse 28. My mercy will I keep for him forever in my covenant. She'll stand fast with him. That's covenant between God and his son, Christ, his seed.

That is us. So also will I make to endure forever in his throne is the days in heaven of heaven. If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, in other words, if they continue in their sins, then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.

Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I utterly will I not. I will not utterly from him, but suffer and or suffer my faithfulness to fail. Now, folks, we love to hear this. My faithfulness, my loving kindness, I'll never take away.