The Precious Blood and the Mighty Hand — David Wilkerson

The Precious Blood and the Mighty Hand

We're going to talk about the blood, the precious blood and the mighty hand, the precious blood and the mighty hand. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the anointing on this service tonight. We sense the power of the precious blood and the mighty hand of God.

Do something very unique in us tonight. Let us hear from heaven. Let us be a channel tonight. Give us open ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. If we have preconceived ideas and this goes against them, help us to judge it not by what I say, but what the Word says.

Oh, Holy Spirit, we judge by the Word tonight. Bring forth in this congregation tonight a new sense of the glory there is in being secured by the blood. Give us a new sense of the mighty hand of God at our disposal.

Do we have power against Satan and sin? Do we not be under the dominion of lust and sin? Oh Lord, show us the mighty preciousness of the blood of Christ in this service, I pray. Amen. The precious blood and the mighty hand.

Passover and Security Under the Blood

Let me take you back to the Passover. You know, the Jews are shut up in their home, and this is the night of death. God's going to pass through the Egyptian camp, and the firstborn is going to be killed this night at midnight.

The blood of an unblemished lamb had been stricken, and with a hyssop the blood was applied to the upper door post and the two-side post. They had been told by God, the blood shall be to you for a sign upon the houses where you are in, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.

Furthermore, they were told, the Lord will not permit the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you. I'm going to see the blood on the door, and I'm going to pass over your house. Now let me take you to Egypt that night and show you two Israeli homes.

In this particular house, they're meeting around the table, they're sitting there at the Passover feast, partaking of the lamb, and the father and the mother are very nervous. They look at one another and they look at their firstborn child, and the father is filled with fright, the mother is scared, the whole family is frightened, and suddenly the father grabs that firstborn in his arms and he says, family, on your knees, pray, pray.

We may have grieved God somehow. Maybe we'll lose him tonight. Pray. Trust. We may have grieved God in some way. Next door, the same feast, the same night, and what a spirit of joy there is in this house.

They're eating the Passover lamb and the bitter herbs and the unleavened bread, and the little firstborn looks at his father with inquisitive eyes, and his father takes him in his arms and says, all is well, son, family, be at peace.

Didn't he say the blood, when it was applied, will give us safety? We need not fear tonight. Now, which of those two houses, which of those two houses were the safest that night? The one where people were nervous and afraid and tenuous, or the one where there was such peace?

Which house was the safest? They were both safe. Equally safe, under the blood, no matter how they felt, no matter how nervous they were. He said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. It's not how we look at the blood, it's how God looks at the blood.

How God looks at the blood. Hallelujah. God was about, God's not about to trust deliverance and safety to our feelings and our fears, not even to our goodness and our righteousness. Their part was simply to apply the blood to their houses and trust God's word that they were secure.

Now, they had not as yet come to the Red Sea. They were only one day out of Egypt when God reminded Moses and Israel, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand, the Lord brought you out from this place.

He didn't bring them out by the blood, He brought them out by the strength of His hand. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt is a very clear type of our deliverance as Christians from sin and slavery.

Now, are these things happened unto them for our examples? And they are for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. For our admonition means that we can see in their struggles a shadow of our present battles with self and lust and sin.

Their Egypt is our ungodly world. Their bondage to the Egyptians is a type of our slavery to lust and sin. Their house is our temple of the Holy Ghost. Their lamb is our lamb, which is Christ. The blood of that unblemished lamb is the type of the blood of our unblemished Savior.

If you want to know something about where we are in Christ and about our power over sin, you have to go back to the example for our admonition. I want to bring to your attention three marvelous lessons that few Christians have learned, not in the charismatic circles, not in the Baptist or Pentecostal, any circle.

Very few Christians have learned these principles. And it has kept us back from enjoying what God is trying to say to us. Alright, lesson number one. The blood removed them from judgment. The blood completely removed them from judgment.

For I will pass through the land of Egypt, I will smite, I will execute judgment. See, this is judgment day. I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you.

This is judgment night. It was frightening. Death was coming. And what weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth throughout Egypt that night. The Bible said there was not a house where there was not one dead.

There was a dead son in every house in Egypt. Yet that same midnight hour of judgment did not touch a single Jewish home. These Jews were completely secure out of judgment. Some of them didn't enjoy it.

Some didn't appropriate. Some of them didn't understand it. But the blood completely removed them from the judgment of God. Now of course there was obedience involved because they were to stay in the house under the shoulder of the blood.

But it was the blood alone that placed them out of judgment. There was no goodness in these Jews. Not at all. The very night God said, pack your suitcases and your satchels, you're going to leave. They packed idols in those satchels because later they were called upon to give up those idols.

If God had waited for these people to be righteous or holy before he gave them security through the blood, they would have died in Egypt. This was absolute mercy and grace on the part of God because the scripture said that they were unworthy.

They were backslidden, earthly minded, gay saying, disobedient. They were, again saying, disobedient people. These are the same people who 40 days later would be dancing drunken around a golden calf. And God knew what was in their heart.

It was all mercy. It was all grace. God was trying to raise up a people after his own heart that he could reveal his holiness and majesty to. God, David said, it was because you had a favor for them. You loved these people in a very special way.

Now, when we talk about the blood of Jesus Christ, there are many lessons that we've learned. But the first lesson that God tries to teach Israel, and it's the first lesson you and I need to know when we come to Christ, is that the blood of Jesus Christ secures us from judgment.

Now, you know that later Israel would see the blood in a different way. There would be a sin offering, a burnt offering. There would be an atonement through bloodshedding. But the first lesson about the burnt offering, the sin offering, the atonement, the first lesson of the blood is that the believer is completely safe from judgment of the blood of Christ.

He's safe. Oh yes, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. The blood is our atonement, but first of all, it is our security. It's God's way of securing himself a people who can be delivered.

They were safe, but not yet delivered. The first lesson is that we are safe under the blood of Jesus Christ. You know that there was still a red cedar cross. There was a wilderness to face. There was a warfare with giants, imposing walls like at Jericho, enemy strongholds to come down.

Oh yes, many battles ahead, but first the Lord said, I'm going to secure you before I deliver you. Now, you've got to get this lesson and get it well. And I know this to be a fact, and it's taken me 25 years to come to it.

I'm convinced that you can't battle the devil of principalities and power. You can't resist any lust or temptation. You can't touch these modern giants of ours today until you have a knowledge that you're secure under the blood of Christ.

You can't resist the devil until you know your security in the blood. No matter what my heart condemns me about, no matter how guilty I may feel, no matter what little voices whisper to me, I've got to know beyond a shadow of a doubt, I am out of judgment, I am safe because the blood shelters me.

The blood of Christ shelters me. The blood on the door of my heart secures me in His sight. It's sad there's not a handful of believers in America today that are resting in the security of the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

We come to church and we sing, oh, the blood of Jesus. We sing about the cross and don't have the slightest idea what that blood has done for us. We never enter into the joy and the victory and the glory of its shelter.

Sheltered from judgment by the precious shed blood of Jesus Christ. We can't believe that God could look on us because we still have disobedience in us. We still feel our unworthiness. We still feel the staining of our spirits by this age.

And we can't accept such marvelous love and grace that He can pick out a people after His own heart and says, even though you're not where you should be, even though there are giants yet in your life, even though I've got a ticket to a wilderness, I've secured you under the blood.

We're always questioning our safety. You know, if God based your security the way you felt or how good you were, you would be more guilty before God than you were under the law because there's a higher claim under Christ than the law.

There'd be no man saved. God must take our security out of our own hands so that it stands on nothing but the pure grace of God through Jesus Christ. It's not our devotion, it's not our obedience, it's not our goodness, it's His raw pure mercy.

Tell me anybody in this building that deserves the blood of Christ. Tell me anybody in this building can stand up and testify I've got good enough to have the blood applied to my heart. I finally was obedient enough.

I got rid of all this shit and lest all the Lord finally came and secured me by His blood. You got it all wrong, it's backward. He came to you when you were dirty and filthy in sin. He was reconciled to you while you were out of grace and law.

And He came to you in your filthy condition and He revealed His love and He gave you His blood. Hallelujah. Now, if I'm not preaching eternal security because I believe that you can trample the blood, you can do despite to it and be lost and go to hell.

You've got to stay in the house. I believe that many, many people trample the blood of Jesus Christ who claim to have been Christians and they're going to hell. They trample the blood and it's possible to be lost.

You trample the blood. But the Bible does not say those who were disobedient that night, suppose they did not partake of the unleavened bread, it doesn't say they were going to be out of the security of the blood.

They were going to be cut off from Egypt. However, from the fellowship of the family of God. This cutting off, the original Greek means almost disinherited from the family. They're still going to leave Egypt, but they're not a part of the fellowship.

They're not a part of the reality of what God was doing. And I see many, many people like that. They may be going to heaven, but they have no fellowship with Christ. They have no communion whatsoever because of disobedience.

They've been cut off. And sin will do that. Sin will stand between you and Christ. You may be secure. Now, you can't flaunt your disobedience. You can't stay in your disobedience. But there are many Christians who have something in their life they have not laid before the Lord.

This has to do with the unleavened bread. The unleavened bread means absolute separation from everything that stands in the world and of the world. The bitter herbs is the memory of what you were and are without Christ.

And that's bitterness. But first of all, God never once intended that His people live under fear, anxiety, or guilt. He has prepared a rest that remains for the children of God. What is the rest? The blood.

The security of the blood. The shed blood of Jesus Christ. It's a rest that remains for the children of God. Oh, a perfect rest. God was saying to Israel, Now that you see that I've secured you and removed you from fear of judgment, let me deliver you physically from the flesh.

I'm going to secure you now in your body. Because they still had the flesh coming after them in the form of Pharaoh. It was John Wesley and George Whitefield who argued for years whether the Christian worked toward security or from security.

Do I keep getting better and better and more and more like Christ until finally I'm secured? Or am I secured and then work toward His perfection through faith in Jesus Christ? Well, I think we have the pattern right here, don't we?

Did the children of Israel work toward security or from security? Weren't they secure under the blood? And it's almost as though the Lord was saying to us, Now that I've secured you by the blood, let you and I by the power of the Holy Spirit work on these things in your life.

Let's deal with them. I'm going to secure you so I can make you holy. I'm going to secure you so I can reveal the holiness of God. Not one thing must be added to the blood of Jesus Christ. Not one thing.

Much more than being now justified by His blood. Being made just right by the blood. We shall be saved from wrath. Judgment is the word there in Hebrew. We shall be saved from judgment through Him. Through His what?

His shed blood. We're saved from what? Judgment. We are saved from judgment through the blood. Do you believe that? Do you believe that you're sitting here under the blood of Jesus Christ and you're saved from wrath?

You're outside of judgment? That the thing that was in God's eye that offended Him has been removed by the cross? That God looked on what Jesus did and said, It's perfect. It's absolutely finished. And anyone who comes and receives that, I see him just as I see Christ.

Perfect. Justified. Made just right in my sight. Not by works of righteousness. You're saying that tonight. Did you believe it? Oh, hallelujah. But you see, we don't want to do that. It's blood plus discipleship.

Blood plus self-denial. Blood plus asceticism. Blood plus obedience. Blood plus mortification of the flesh. Blood plus feelings of holiness and righteousness. Those are all services you do unto the Lord out of a secure heart of love.

Those things you will do because you love me. He said, If you love me, you'll obey me. All that obedience comes from having the security of His love in His blood. Now, in theology, there's a term called redemption.

That means to be rescued from sin and its penalty. Not just from sin, but the penalty of sin. The Bible says, In whom we have redemption through His blood. Forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace.

Rescued from the penalty of sin through the blood. Not what I've done, but through His blood. I want to tell you something. God is not bent on condemnation, wrath, and judgment. The heart of God is to bring many sons to glory.

You can't read the story of the prodigal son without seeing that's not just a story about a backslidden Christian coming home. That's a revelation of the loving heart of God who stands waiting and grieving over every straying child of His.

And how when that child comes back, He rejoices. When the woman found the coins to rejoice. When they found the lamb to rejoice. It's the story of the heart of the Father who rejoices over His children.

Love, Reconciliation, and the Heart of God

Who come to Him in love and accept His mercy and grace. It's the rejoicing heart of the Lord. I took a hard look at the church two years ago. And decided I'd quit my crusades and I'd lock myself in a prayer chamber up in the hills of Arkansas.

And I looked out over the church with its divorcing and its disobedience and the lust and everything. And I said, oh God, I'm going to stay here until you give me the greatest hellfire brimstone sermon you ever gave a preacher, ever.

I want to thunder like Jeremiah. And I got my Bible out and I read Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel. You see, my nature is that way. I tend to be a little more Jeremiah type as far as looking at the dark side of things.

And, you know, I started reading about the blood-stained captain who comes with wrath in his eyes. I said, I'm getting close. I'm going to stand there and I'm going to flail and wail and I'm going to bring people to their knees.

There's a place for that. But it better be behind eyes that are tear-stained and a heart that is broken. It had better come out of the dignity and the love of Jesus Christ. But for two weeks I couldn't get anything.

And finally, after two weeks, the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart, get your commentary and your tablet and your pencils. And I want you to write down, hand, word by word, everything you find on love and reconciliation.

And I was surprised there was that much in the Bible about love and reconciliation. And I'll tell you, I saw that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And he's given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

God said, I'm a friend. I'm a friend to the lost. I'm a friend to the backsliders. I'm a friend to my own children. If he loves those backsliders, those sinners out there, how much more does he love us?

Oh, there may be disobedience of God in his spirit. We'll deal with that. Oh, yes, he'll deal with that. But in the meantime, he loves us. Glory to God. It's like the preacher who preached one of those hellfire brimstone sermons.

He went home and said, oh, God, I sure skinned him good this morning. Lord said, I don't want hides. I want souls. Listen, listen. If you're sheltered under the blood of Christ, you are safe tonight as Christ is.

Oh, hallelujah. For when I saw I was removed out of judgment, Christ's blood fully satisfied the heart of God over my sins. God didn't say when you see the blood. He said, when I see it. And you and I look at the blood and we wonder, does it really secure me?

Oh, there's still some spots. There's still some things in my life. By the way, it's I was reading last night about the sin of leprosy. It always started with a little bright spot, you know, something that attracts you.

And they were that little white spot that was thrown out of the camp. That means you're out of fellowship. You're cut off just like these. They were still Israelites, but they were cut off from the camp.

They're going to be brought back when God healed them. But they weren't pronounced healed until the leprosy covered them from head to toe. And there wasn't a spot left that wasn't white. That means if you've got sin in your heart, you can't be healed until it's fully exposed.

Absolutely, totally, fully exposed. And the priest took two little birds. And he took one bird in a little basin of water and a little hyssop, and he broke the neck of it, causing the blood to pour out of the neck.

And it went mixed with the water, the blood in the water. They took the hyssop and sprayed it. The priest sprayed it on the wings of the other little bird and shushed the bird away, and the bird flew away.

An image of Christ in his two marvelous works of the shed blood and then being ascended to the Father as our high priest. And when the blood was applied to the leprosy, it was pronounced clean, even though he was covered with it from head to toe.

You're cleaned by the blood of Christ. And then he was told, now go wash yourself. You're going to learn obedience now. Oh, it's a marvelous thing if we could only see. We have missed it. This is a Pentecostal church.

If any church should know the power of the blood, this should be it. We preach about the cross. We sit at the Lord's Supper, not even discerning the body, not understanding what it means. It means shelter.

It means safety. It means protection from everything that the devil can throw at you. Hallelujah. I'm going to tell you something else. Now, you listen close. If God passed over the blood of a mere lamb, would he not pass over the blood of his own dear son?

I'm going to tell you something else. And I'm going to say it with as much love as I can muster in my heart. I don't have anything to do with the preaching in America today that a child of God under the blood of Christ can be possessed of a demon.

Because if God won't cross the bloodline, how is he going to let a demon cross it? I can't be possessed of a demon under the blood because the devil can't even find me because my life is hid with Christ in God.

He can't possess me because when the devil was cursed, he was told to eat dust. And the Bible said, I've been raised from the dust, and there's no dust in me, there's nothing he can eat in me, so he can't come anyhow.

And I'm seated with Christ in heavenly places. You mean to tell me that God's going to let a demon sit beside me in heavenly places? At the throne? In the Holy of Holies? Let me tell you what's happening.

And I say this in love. This teaching is coming from some honest, stirred, awakened men of God. Because the first thing you do when you start seeking the Lord, He'll put you in the dust. He'll put your face in the dirt.

He'll show you your sin and the hopelessness of it. And you crawl to the cross. And the first thing you see when you crawl to the cross is a snake. And he's a strong snake, and he's wiggling, and it looks frightening.

But you see, if you just lifted your eyes a little bit, you'd see there's a man with his heel on the head. And that's Christ, the Son of God. And he has his foot on the devil's head, and he's robbed him of all of his power.

It's not that the teaching is wrong, it's just not a high enough vision of the cross. It's the first vision, but it's not that high vision. It's not that these men are preaching error. Not at all. I love every one of them, and I say that from my heart.

I'll hug them and love them. But I'm saying, lift your eyes a little higher and see the blood. See that my Christ has his foot on the head of the serpent. And the Bible said he had rendered him useless, a symptom of his power, a symptom of his power.

Oh, the blood of Christ protects you from demons, from devils, from everything that Satan can throw at you. Safe and sheltered under the blood. Don't let the devil take that hope away from you. This is God's Word.

Hallelujah. I'm going to pass over that blood. You're secure. Now, just about time you think I'm preaching eternal security. Let me turn the coin. Now, some of you go the other way and say, well, you're doing all right there, brother Dave, until you got on my sins.

Deliverance From Sin by the Mighty Hand

All right, second lesson. They were delivered from Egypt's power by the mighty hand of God. Now, listen to me, please. We're not talking now about security. We're talking about deliverance. We're not talking just about the blood.

We're talking about power. You've got to hear me, please. The Scripture says, for with a strong hand that the Lord brought thee out of Egypt. The Scripture says, by strength of hand, the Lord brought us up out of Egypt from the house of bondage.

The house of bondage is the house of slavery to sin in our type. Listen to this Scripture. Thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand and planted them. Thou didst defect the people and cast them out, for they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them.

But thy right hand had a favor unto them. Thou art my king, O God, command deliverance for Jacob. Through thee will we push down our enemy. Through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.

For I will not trust in my bow, or that's my righteousness, neither shall my sword save me. That means all of my good will and all my intentions and all my promises. All of this will not save me. How do we get saved from the power of the enemy?

In our flesh, the mighty hand of God. By thy right hand, thy strong hand. The Bible said, and we left Egypt with a high hand of God. There was a high hand that took us out and delivered us from our physical enemies.

Oh, some Christians have a sense of being forgiven and safe and secure. They feel the relief of that. But they lack this sense of power in their daily life over sins that so easily beset them. I meet Christians like that all of the while.

I meet preachers like that. They can preach against sin, but they never really have this confidence. They never have this sense of having in them a mighty power that delivers from the powers of the enemy.

His blood secures us, then his mighty hand breaks the power of sin. Sin still dwells in us, but it no longer rules us. The principle of sin will be with you until Jesus comes. But God comes and strips it, drains it of all of its power and all of its force so that you can go like the leper and cleanse yourself.

You go barrel and enemy has already been defeated. Now, follow me on this please. What an incredibly encouraging word in this day of all of our superhuman efforts to be holy and pure. Listen to this. Delivered from slavery by the strength of His hand.

There's the key. Delivered from slavery, delivered from my habits, delivered from this thing that haunts me, delivered from this lust by His what? His mighty hand. Oh, glory be to God. The Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's.

Now, that goes against our pride, our sense of justice, and even our theology at times to accept the truth that our salvation is outside of us. Oh, you hear me, dear saints? One of the greatest things God ever revealed to me, and revealed it to me in its fullness, that my salvation was accomplished for me outside of myself, outside of anything I've ever done.

Outside, outside, keep saying it. It's outside. God did it outside of me. He delivered me. He secured me. His mighty hand. It's all there outside of me. I didn't earn it. I didn't deserve it. I didn't do anything that merited it.

It was all done outside of me. God did it from the foundation of the world before you were born. Oh, hallelujah. Thy right hand, O Lord, has become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy.

I would imagine you've got enough wisdom and knowledge to know that an enemy's dashed to pieces doesn't have any strength against you. Right or wrong? Who dashed the enemy to pieces? Did you bite the bullet and said, bless God, I'm going to lift this somehow?

Well, I'll tell you what, if you want to go out and fight it that way, you keep making promises, and you say, I'm just going to get a certain quality or quantity of faith, and I'm going to make God-enough promises, I'm going to isolate myself, I'm going to knock down this flesh somehow, I'm going to get the power over it.

Well, you go ahead and go ahead, but God will let you fall on your face and fall on your face, despair after despair after despair, until you realize it's going to take a stronger arm than you have. It's going to take a bigger bow than you have.

A greater sword than you possess. So why not have one big despair and get it all over with? Get it all over with. You're no match for the devil. Now, you see, the blood secured Israel from divine judgment, but the higher hand of God delivered them from the power of the flesh.

Hallelujah. God has one commandment. Do you remember what was God's commandment to Israel concerning their enemies? Anybody here know what God told Israel concerning all their enemies? Drive them out.

Spare not. Well, that's the only message God has for sin. Drive it out. Spare not. You shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their pictures and destroy all their molten images and demolish all their high places.

But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that those which you let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides and shall vex you in the land wherein you dwell.

Now, let me show you a picture. Have you ever been to Israel? To Jerusalem? Or have you seen pictures of Jerusalem? There's a mosque right in the middle of the holy city. Gold-domed mosque. You know why that mosque is there?

It's a testimony to every generation till Jesus comes of the falling of not driving out the flesh. Not getting victory over the flesh. Now, let me show you what that means. And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem.

But the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin to this very day. Now, Judah had once defeated the Jebusites and cast them out. But they allowed the Jebusites to come back in and regain control.

The Jebusites were non-Semitics. And their Hebrew name suggests immoral. This was an immoral seed. And the Bible said, Jerusalem was then known as Jebus, a city of strangers, not of the children of Israel.

Do you know that Jerusalem is still a city coexisting with strangers that are not of Israel? Do you know that that seed of immorality was even allowed when David came in and captured it and set up Zion on that 24, 30 acres on the top hill of Zion?

Of Jerusalem? The Jebusites were allowed to be absorbed into the Judah culture. That seed of cancer was still there, never dealt with. And so even today, we have a testimony to the flesh that remains.

The mosque in Jerusalem is a monument to all times. And what happens? The Jews still cry. It's a prick in their eyes, it's a thorn in their flesh and they weep over it every day. You will never get victory over flesh until you share God's hatred for it.

Israel never did share God's hatred toward their enemies. But they had hated their enemies like God had hated them and felt the wrath of God toward their enemies. And God had a reason for that because their cup of iniquity was overfilled.

God had dealt with these that were in the land of Canaan. They had the Gospel even before. They had turned it down. But they never did share this hatred. They made covenants. They made peace with their enemies.

They made agreements with their enemies. They've been told that if you'll drive out your enemies and spare not, I'll bring you into land flowing with milk and honey. Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose His seed after Him.

He brought you out in His sight with His mighty power out of Egypt so that you could drive out nations before you that were greater and mightier than now are. So I could bring you in to give you a land for your inheritance as it is this day.

Can you hear the words of the Holy Spirit for you in this tonight and for me? Listen to it. I saved you. I brought you out so that I could give you power to drive out from before you all your enemies and that you spare nothing.

That you drive it all out. Oh, but we say, can we not spare? It's just such a little thing and we spare this. We make an agreement with this. We learn to live with it. No, God's attitude is it must all be driven out.

You cannot spare because whatever you spare will eventually become the most painful thing in your life. It will prick your eye. It will be a thorn in your flesh. It will be painful to you the rest of your days.

We've got to learn to hate our sin. No agreements. No compromises with an entrenched stronghold. There's no other way to please God. If you're going to coddle your sin and play with it and let it remain and refuse to bring the hand of God to demolish it, you can quit praying about victory over flesh and sin until you cultivate a hatred toward it.