Don't Die in Your Wilderness — David Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, PO Box 260, Lindell, Texas, 75771, or calling 903 -963 -8626.

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The Wilderness Experience and God’s Faithfulness

My message this morning, don't die in your wilderness. Don't die in your wilderness. Father, thank you for this pulpit and this people, this church, its outreach, especially its outreach here in this city.

We thank you, Lord, for those who walked into this place this morning as visitors. They've heard about the church, perhaps, or just came out of curiosity. But I pray, Holy Spirit, you find where they live today.

I pray, Lord, that the word open up our hearts and our minds, receive it as from you. My God, anoint me. Let the unction, the anointing of the Holy Spirit be mine. Lord, I need your touch. I need quickening in my spirit.

I can't preach this out of my own strength. I totally rely upon you right now, Holy Spirit. There are people here today listening to me now, here in this auditorium and in the annex who are in a wilderness, a wilderness experience.

Something has happened that's cast them into a time of their life of testing and a very powerful wilderness experience. And Lord, I pray that you would encourage and bless and strengthen them and bring them out of their wilderness today, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Don't die in your wilderness. I ask, you know, we have many, many thousands on our mailing list, and to help me in this book that I'm writing on the suffering of saints and how God has been faithful to people in their time of calamities, I ask people to write and tell me their stories and their testimonies, how God kept them, gave them grace in a time of suffering.

And we got hundreds of letters. In fact, Gwen and I have been reading for weeks down in Florida. I literally have stacked this high right now that I brought home with me, and it's been some experience to read this.

Let me read something that has to do with my message this morning. Lady writes, 12 years ago, my husband and I retired from our secular jobs, and God thrust us into the nations as missionary evangelists.

We have traveled to more than 30 nations over the past 12 years in missions, trips ranging from four weeks to four or five months. We have witnessed signs, wonders, miracles through these willing vessels as we have yielded to God.

We have lived and ministered in very terrible circumstances, but God always kept me in divine health and graced me with supernatural strength. This past March, I was attacked physically by an unknown disease that was especially virulent, causing pain and swelling in the hands that had touched a multitude of people and in the feet of those who had walked in remote regions of the world.

The cause of the painful swelling in my joints could not be identified and left a number of specialists just scratching their heads. But God seemed silent, and the heavens were as brass during this time.

And even though I cried to the Lord, I received no revelation, I never felt his presence. It was a lonely journey of nine months through a wilderness of pain and uncertainty. God did not allow anyone to prophesy over me in this time, nor did he allow any of Job's friends to accuse me.

It was the greatest testing of my faith I've ever experienced in my entire Christian walk. By December, the pain had taken its toll on me physically and mentally. I was exhausted and losing ground spiritually.

Those were some of the darkest days of my life. I didn't know if I would see the new century. But thank God, for nine months, I had hardly slept at night because of the pain. But in December, I woke up one day to bright sunshine, flooded my bedroom, and I realized I'd slept for the first time.

My first thought was, I don't have any pain. I was afraid to move or tell my husband. I kept waiting for the pain to return, but it didn't. I realized that while I'd been sleeping, God had been at work, and I had a sense that he had told the devil, enough is enough.

This has been just over a year now, and I'm still free of pain and my swelling. The doctor's records have these words written on them, mystery, miracle. I have more strength than I've ever had before.

Here's what she said, and what prompted my message this morning, I came out of my wilderness leaning on the arms of my beloved Jesus. I came out of my wilderness leaning on the arms of my beloved Jesus.

You know, it's been very faith-inspiring to read hundreds of letters that have been pouring in from believers who've come out of their wilderness rejoicing in God's utter faithfulness. Just absolutely rejoicing.

They've come through calamities, tragedies, death, the valley of death, through pain, deep suffering, times of testing. In fact, the wilderness for some has been so long, and the dark night has been so long, they cried out, Lord, will this ever end?

Many, many letters, Lord, will this ever end? But majority of those who've written to us kept their faith. At times they would waver, and they said they were ready to faint, but suddenly they were driven to the Word of God.

They allowed their testing time to drive them to the Word, and drive them to their knees, and as they began to read the Word, and as they were praying and seeking the face of God, they were coming out of their wilderness with testimonies of deliverance and the faithfulness of God.

Folks, never in all my years of, I've had a mailing list for nearly 40 years, and never in all those years have I heard of so much suffering as I've been hearing lately. I turned to Gwen, I said, Gwen, have you ever read anything like this?

Have you ever heard anything? Almost everybody, and the same is probably true here in this congregation this morning, almost everybody knows somebody has cancer, or has a disease that's debilitating or terminal.

Almost everybody knows somebody going through a hard time now, credit card bills that are piling up beyond their ability to pay, financial burdens, business problems, and other problems, stress like we have never known or heard of before in the history of the nation.

You hear it from all over the country, mental and spiritual wildernesses, depression and stress and fear, crisis mounting on all sides. One man said, he wrote, he said, I hate to answer the phone anymore.

He said, all it takes is one call. There's a letter here, for example, from a lady who got a call like that, and she said, Mr. Wilkerson, this is really a letter of triumph over tragedy, but you wouldn't have been able to tell me that four years ago.

Katie’s Testimony of Tragedy and Sustaining Grace

We're a strong Bible-believing family, going to church regularly. My husband, Barry, 36, I'm 31, three beautiful boys, age 7, 3, and little Craig, 14 months. My phone call came on Monday, August 26th, 1996.

My husband fell off of a 35-foot-off-a-roof he was replacing, and he fell to the pavement. He was alert, but he required surgery to fix a broken femur and elbow. The last thing he said, tell the boys I love them, and I'll see you all in the morning.

Those were his final words to me, because at surgery there was trouble, and in the morning he was comatose. And my faith told me he was resting, and in time he would be back with us again. Thirteen days later, after many procedures, a transfer to the best hospital, statewide prayer chains, the Lord took him home.

Everything seemed to be going so good for us, and suddenly our world crashed down. But Brother Dave, I want you to know, Jesus said there's no tribulation. He didn't say there was no tribulation for Christians, did he?

No, and raising three boys alone now has proven that. Let me just say to you, Pastor Dave, that through this, my boys have a desire beyond compare for heaven. Not only do they have a Father God waiting in heaven, but they have their earthly dad there waiting, and it's changed their lives.

We praise God now for taking our saved dad to heaven. It's a goal for all of us someday. His life was not in vain. His funeral touched so many unsaved people. There are so many people in such worse sufferings than we've gone through.

I've been so thankful for the presence of the Holy Spirit, and your recent letters have sent my heart pounding in response to the Lord. And she goes on to tell how the Lord sustained her through this, while others who don't know Jesus, where did they go?

Where did they find their strength? How did they come out of their wilderness? She came out of her wilderness leaning on the arms of Jesus. I'm going to ask you now about your wilderness. You may be in one even now.

It could be that your finances are in shambles here this morning. It could be that you're facing debts that keep growing. You may have lost your job, or you have a fear this morning of losing your job.

Your wilderness may be through death valley. You're facing a loved one. Gwen and I know what that's like, and by the way, our little Tiffany, 11-year-old Tiffany, our granddaughter with a brain tumor, has been removed, and she's gone through chemotherapy and is now starting next week her radiation, and so far everything has been working out.

They're surprised at the strength and good nature of this precious young lady. We appreciate your prayers. Some of you know what it's like to be in a waiting room of a hospital. Maybe you're a husband who heard those words.

Your wife has a tumor. She has cancer of the breast. So many letters of this, women with cancer of the breast spreading to the spine, and I've been there and watched in the waiting room as I've waited for a report on Tiffany and go in the room and hear the doctor say this is a very rare kind of cancer.

I've heard that four times with all the women that I've talked to you about, Gwen and Debbie and Gwen, and I know what it's like to be in that waiting room and listen to the doctor, and while I was there in the waiting room to have a doctor come out and tell a mother your 15-year-old son has liver cancer and it's inoperable, he's going to have to have a transplant if we can find one, and you watch as those who are Christians don't seem to come apart.

They take the news and there are tears. Yes, I cry. They all cry, but then there's suddenly something happens. Holy Spirit just seems to move in with strength and power in that time of wilderness. All it takes is a telephone call.

I'm not trying to scare anybody. I'm going to try to encourage you today that no matter what your wilderness is, God is there. He's greater than your wilderness, and he wants to bring you through that wilderness leaning on his arms.

It could be your marriage. Maybe some even got up this morning and said, I can't take anymore, Lord. I've had it. And you can come to church and put on a smile. Nobody knows what you're going through, but down deep inside, you know the hell that you've been through.

You've tried. You've prayed. You've fasted. And all of a sudden, it doesn't seem that God's answering your prayer. It could be a child that's gone wrong, some of your children giving you, you're in a living hell with your children, in family crisis, situations beyond your control, nothing that you can do about it physically, and you have to cry out to God with everything in you.

You see, we all end up at times in a wilderness experience, not once, twice, but many times in our lifetime. I look back, and I could write a book just on the wildernesses I've been cast into in testing times.

God doesn't just permissively just try to throw you into a testing time. God always has a reason for that. Next Sunday, I'm going to be preaching, Lord willing, on the pruning process, and I want to show you how wonderful and marvelous it is that, in fact, when God prunes, according to the Greek and also the Hebrew, when He prunes, He dances with joy.

Now He can't be dancing with joy just because there's sickness or disease. He doesn't dance at that. That's not what the pruning is all about. But I want you to know that He is always there, and the testimonies that pour in of God's grace, that's been a great encouragement to me.

But how is it that you're handling, how are you handling your crisis experience, your wilderness? And how are you walking through it? How are you going to come out of it? I can assure you, every wilderness is going to change you.

Every wilderness experience is going to have an effect on you. It's either for the good or for the bad, and you're going to come out of it one way or the other. And I'm asking you this morning, if you are in a wilderness, I'm not preaching just this congregation, I'm preaching far beyond it, to all the tapes, video and audio that go around the world.

And I'm preaching to you right now, you are in a wilderness, and how are you reacting? What's it doing to you? Is your faith increasing? Are you turning more to prayer and seeking God? Or is there some kind of a root of bitterness coming in, and these questions that are all natural and God puts up with the initial why, and why me, and why at this time, and what have I done?

The questions, is this God's judgment, have I done something wrong? Is God judging something from the past that's in my life? That's not what it's all about, folks. That's not what the wilderness is all about.

Faith Through Suffering and the Example of Job

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, the scripture says. You tell me you have faith, you say, Pastor Wilkson, I'm coming through it with faith in my heart. All right, then I'm going to ask you the question, where and how did you get your faith?

Upon what foundation is it built? You see, a lot of people don't want to hear what I'm about to tell you, but I'm going to take in your word now. If you tell me that you're getting your faith from the Bible, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

Now if all you've been hearing, you've been saying, well, I hear all the good things, but I want to tell you what the scripture says clearly. There are some people, for example, would like to rip the book of Job right out of their Bibles.

And I'm going to tell you, you don't have faith. You know nothing about faith until you can look Job right in the eye. You have got to understand that God permitted all of these problems in his life. He permitted the taking of his children.

He permitted the loss of his health. You've got to look Job in the eye on an ash heap and listen to his pain and his cries that God would take his very life. You've got to listen to a wife who's mocking him.

You've got to look at the loss of his reputation and everything in life. You've got to see him sitting on an ash heap, his clothes torn in agony and his voice saying, God, why? Not understanding that God loved him through it all, that he was never more precious to God than when he was suffering.

You've got to look that all in the eye and say, God was in it. And if you can't believe that, you don't even begin to know what faith is because it was in that battle, it was in that struggle with Job that he came out with an indomitable faith that was able to say, though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

And if you can't face Job, tear it out of your Bible and don't talk about faith. You don't have faith, you have presumption. You don't have faith. I want you to go with me to Psalm 69, if you will, please.

Psalm 69, I'll take you through a few scriptures. And I want to tell you, if faith comes by hearing the word of God, then it's going to come by hearing these words in particular. Psalms begin with Psalm 69.

Let's go through the first three verses, if you will. Save me, O God, for the waters are coming unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing. Now, folks, this doesn't jive with what I heard a preacher tell a congregation recently.

He says, I have outlawed suffering in my life. He said, I read my Bible and I have a faith that immunizes me against sickness. I don't allow sickness. I don't allow poverty. I refuse to have it. And you people who are putting up with it don't have faith.

I tell you, that man's headed for a wilderness. God bless his heart. Then how do you, how does that jive? How do you fit this into his theology and others who say that Christians don't suffer? Verse 2, I sink in deep mire where there's no standing.

I'm come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. I'm weary of my crying. My throat is dried. My eyes fail while I wait for God. Look at verses 15 to 17. Let not the water flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up.

Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. Hear me, O Lord. Thy loving kindness is good. Turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies. And hide not thy face from thy servant, for I'm in what?

I'm in trouble. Hear me speedily. Go back to Psalm 66, a few pages back. Psalm 66, verses 10 through 12. For thou, O God, hast proved us. Thou has tried us as silver is tried. Thou brought us thus into the net.

Who brought us into the net? You brought me into the net. You laid affliction upon our loins. Who laid it? You laid affliction upon our loins. Thou has caused men to ride over our heads. We went through, what did we go through?

Fire and water. And thou brought us out into a wealthy place. Turn to Psalm 119, if you will, please. Psalm 119. Go to verse 67, if you will, please. Verse 67, before I was afflicted, what did I do? I went astray, but now I have kept thy word.

And verse 71, it is good for me. What? Why? Psalm 116. Turn to 116, if you will, please. Psalm 116, verses 1 through 4. I love the Lord because he heard my voice and my supplication, because he has inclined his ear unto me.

Therefore, will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me or surrounded me. The pains of hell got hold upon me. I found trouble and sorrow, then called I upon the name of the Lord.

O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Verse 6, the Lord preserveth this simple. I was brought low and he helped me. Folks, look at me, please. It is all through the word. You cannot deny it, that there is suffering.

There are wilderness experiences for all the faithful. These are godly people. Faith comes by hearing the word of God, but it comes by hearing exactly what I read to you this morning, that we have just now concluded.

God’s Presence Through Fire and Water

The scriptures loudly declare that the path of faith is through fire and waters. Listen to what the scripture says. Thy way is in the sea and thy path is in great waters. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

He said, but the way goes through deep waters. It goes through fire. It goes through testing. Isaiah 43, 19, behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall be springing forth. Shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Where is the way? The way is in the wilderness. It's in overflowing waters. I'll make a path through flowing waters. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.

When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I, the Lord thy God, will hold your right hand saying to you, fear not, I am here to help you. Yes, there are tests.

There are trials. There is a wilderness. There is a wilderness. I don't ask God why Tiffany had brain cancer at 11. I don't ask my wife had it five times. I'm not asked why my daughters have had cancer.

I don't ask that anymore. I don't say, God, where were you? God, why didn't you answer my cry? I've been faithful to you. I've been seeking you and praying. I've been living in the righteousness of Jesus by faith.

And these things happen, one wilderness after another. But folks, it's been every wilderness experience where I've found the way. I found the truth and I found the life. And I found his hand all sufficient.

His hand was always there. He said, when you're in the fire and your water, that's where you're going to find my hand. You're going to find your path. You're going to find it in your hard times. Who gets his hand?

Those that are in the waters and who need it. Those who are self-sufficient don't need it. There's a dear sister, Esther Hunter, who's on my mailing list. She's written this book, Joy in the Morning, M-O-U-R-I-N, because of morning, Joy in the Morning, a very powerful book.

And she wrote me a letter this past week. She and her husband, they were in Arkansas. They flew into Hillbury, Manitoba, Canada, to bury a 90-year-old dad who was a preacher, wonderful man of God, 12 children.

All 12 children came to the funeral to honor this great pastor's father. They had just been to the funeral parlor and ministered to the Lord. And they were going on to, we would call it a wake, where people bring in food in somebody's home.

And they were five, all the families piled into five cars and headed toward the home. And a terrible blizzard struck. And the blizzard just blocked out everything. It was a whiteout. And the cars were separated.

And somehow, the second car that Esther was in, she had a premonition to the Lord that there was an accident ahead. A four-wheeler was trying to pass a truck on a two-lane road and hit the first car head-on.

That car was one of their five cars. And she was a nurse, and she came on the scene. And immediately, her nurse instincts kicked in. She pulled out of the car her little nephew. I think he was five or six years old, bleeding.

Pulled out her sister. Her sister died in her arms on the cold road. Couldn't pull out two brothers who evidently died on impact. It was a horrible, bloody scene. Little Christopher lived, but her sister Faye died and her two brothers.

Now, remember, this is at a funeral for a father and her mother with Alzheimer's who didn't know anything that was going on. And shortly after that, the homestead burned down. Of course, there was a wilderness of two years for Esther.

Her husband's sister committed suicide, or someone close to her committed suicide. And a lot of what-ifs and why. For two years, the dark wilderness. One day, she went down by the poolside, by a river, pulled out a stone, and wrote on that stone, I can't carry this load.

She said, I forgive myself. I'm not blaming myself anymore. Threw the stone in the river, and God lifted it. And she has written a marvelous book of God's healing power to those who go through it. She shudders every time she hears somebody say, if you had faith, it would have never happened.

Wonderful testimony. Books like this that go all over the world. A picture of the whole family here. And Esther's a testimony of the grace of God and of faithfulness. Because she said she walked out of her wilderness with joy in her mourning.

Dying in the Wilderness Through Bitterness and Unbelief

She came out of her wilderness. Some come out of their wilderness bitter and hard against the Lord. Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Isaiah 49, 14. You know, I've seen Christians that have gone through great suffering, and I've seen how it has hardened them.

I've seen how bitter they've gotten against the Lord. They have turned completely against God. One preacher who was going through deep suffering, couldn't understand why death came into his family. Because he thought he had figured out faith to such an extent that these things just possibly couldn't happen in his family.

And when it happened, it just threw him. It just devastated him. He turned against the Lord. And finally, when Christians who once knew him, visited him, were shocked because his first words, I don't ever want to hear the name of Jesus mentioned again in my presence.

A man who once preached the gospel. And folks, you can come out of your wilderness hard. You can come out with unbelief. You can come out with bitterness. If it does not drive you to his face. If it doesn't drive you to your knees and to the Word to find comfort.

If you don't turn to this book in the time of trouble and believe what it says, you can become bitter and hard. And I'm telling you, this is the point of my message. There are some who literally die in their wilderness.

Now that they get bitter, they die in the wilderness. And that's exactly what happened to the children of Israel. The whole adult generation that came out of Egypt, died, wasted in the wilderness except for Joshua and Caleb.

They died miserable lives full of grief and agony and pain because they refused to lay hold of God's precious promises to hold them and keep them in their time of trouble. The Lord had told them, fear not, neither be discouraged.

Dread not, neither be afraid. The Lord, your God will go before you. He shall fight for you.

This is the end of side one. You may now turn the tape over to side two.

Israel’s Unbelief in the Wilderness

The Lord says, I bore you up as a man doth his son in my arms. He said, I went before you to show you a place, to show you the way to go. I want you to go to Deuteronomy, second chapter. And let me show you what happened to these people with all these promises.

Second chapter of Deuteronomy. Second chapter of Deuteronomy, starting at verse 14. And the space in which we came from Kadesh Barnea, until we came over the book to Zadred, was thirty and eight years until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host as the Lord swore unto them.

For indeed, the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy them from among the host until they were consumed. So it came to pass when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among them, the people.

So it came to pass when all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people that then the Lord spake unto me saying, the Lord didn't even speak until they were done. He didn't move until all of these who were in the wilderness because of their unbelief, because of their bitterness toward the Lord, because they refused to hear his word and his promises.

They would not be comforted. They refused the comfort of God and his spirit. And every one of them died, wasted in this wilderness. Every single one. Think of it, a whole generation was lost because of their unbelief.

There are two things that I see that caused these people to die in their wilderness. The same two causes, I believe, that cause Christians to die in their wildernesses today. First of all, I want you to listen very closely.

They never did believe or accept God's love for them. They never did believe. God tried and tried to convey to them his great love for them, but they cannot accept it or believe it. They could not believe that because of their trials and because of the testings that they were in, that they were really loved of God.

In fact, they hid it over and over. God is angry at us. Why would he bring us out here and try to kill us? Why would God allow this in my life? If he loved me, why would he allow me to go through such trial?

Financial problems, testing in the families, marriage, and all of these testings that I have to go through. If God loved me, if God loves his children, why the suffering? And they could not comprehend or believe that everything that came to them came from the hand of a loving father.

Everything. I'm telling you now, Saint, if you love Jesus with all your heart, there is absolutely nothing that happens in your life except that which comes from the loving hands of the Father. The tender, loving hand of God.

He knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's after. I believe this is the root cause of all doubt and unbelief, an unwillingness to believe and rest in God's love for his own people. You know what God said to me?

He said, I chose you because I loved your fathers. It wasn't because of anything special about you, but I loved you because I loved your fathers and I made a covenant with your fathers. The Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a special people to himself.

The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more or mighty than anyone else. You were the fewest of all. But I chose you, saith the Lord, because I loved you. Read that in Deuteronomy 7, 7 and 8.

Remember when Balaam came against Israel to try to curse it? Why didn't God obey? Why didn't God answer Balaam? The Lord thy God would not hearken to Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee because the Lord thy God loved you.

Over and over again said, I have loved you. God said, I have loved you. He took them to the brink of the Red Sea and tested them to see if they would answer to that love. God put them there to see if they would just say, I know we have a loving God.

We have a loving father who would not abandon us. We have a loving father who will not turn us over to the enemy. We have a father who will see us even though it looks dark and hopeless. He said he loved us and a loving father, if he be God, he cannot make a mistake.

And if he is God, he's going to deliver us one way or another. But they could not accept the love of God for them. Why the bitterness at the waters of Mar, God again testing, would they believe that a loving father would not let them die of thirst in a wilderness?

God was saying, what kind of a father do they picture me to be? And he brings them to the bitter waters so that he could just extract from them some manifestation, some essence of love that they could just lean on him.

God wants to be loved. He wants us to know that he loves us. But in turn, we love him because he first loved us, the scripture says. There has to be confidence in his promise. God loved me. And I tell you, Saint, no matter what you're going through today, I don't care if it's the valley in the shadow of death.

God is doing something out of love. You've got to believe that he loves you, that he's going to see you through. Even though you've messed it up, you've made mistakes. Maybe you're in debt because of foolishness.

Maybe you've had it because of covetousness. All right, then repent and get a hold of God and say, Lord, this is bigger than me. But I know you love me. I'm your child and you'll not fail me. I drink in his love daily.

Every trial that comes to my life now, I begin to drink in his love. I acknowledge to him his divine love. Father, I don't know anything about this. I don't know how it's happened, why it's happening.

But I know that you love me. And out of this is going to come something to glorify your name. My part is to say, I love you, Lord, no matter what. Till you slay me, I will love you. I will trust you. Twelve spies go into the land.

They bring back an evil report. Giants and impregnable walls and fortresses and obstacles. And they cry out, we're not able to go up against this. People were there stronger than we are. You know what they're saying?

My situation is greater than the love of God for me. They have so belittled the love of God, so rejected the very thought of God's love for them in their trials, that every obstacle clouds out the love of God in their lives.

What's going on here with Israel? Why all of this turning back in their hearts to Egypt? They're accusing a loving father of abandoning them and leaving them to their own devices. I know what you're going through this morning.

God has not left you to your own devices. In fact, he loves cleaning up our messes. Folks, I'm telling you, I wouldn't be here this morning if I didn't believe God cleaned up all my messes. I've made more messes than you've ever made.

I have made messes, financial messes and things. I'm not talking about morality, but I'm talking about things, stupid, dumb mistakes that got me in trouble. I said, Lord, how am I ever going to get out of this?

And the Lord said, repent, David. Quit trying to be your own God and start trusting me and leaning on my love. Boy, I thank God he's a God of messes. He cleans them up. Fear, doubt, unbelief, they're all the same in God's eyes.

And it all springs from an unwillingness to believe and accept his love for us. You know, if I really believe that God loves me, then I don't ever have to fear that he's going to let me be deceived. He's not going to let me fall.