The Gift of Righteousness — David Wilkerson

The Gift of Righteousness and Freedom from Sin

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, P .O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771, or calling 903 -963 -8626.

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The gift of righteousness. Let's pray. Lord, we are hungry for you. We thirst for you. We never get weary of our time together in your presence. And I pray, Lord, that you would say something to our hearts this afternoon that would quicken us by the Holy Ghost.

Spirit of the living God, come upon me. Lord, you put this in my heart. It's so simple. There's nothing complicated about what I preached this afternoon and tonight, but I believe, Lord, that you're wanting to set people free from their sins, from the bondage of habits, from lust, from all of the things that even Christians battle within these last days.

Lord, there are temptations on all sides. The enemy is coming in like a flood. The Bible said, woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea. The devil's come down to you, having great wrath because he knows his time is short.

Spirit of the living God, come upon me. Anoint me. Let the word of God go forth with power and unction, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The gift of righteousness. I want you to go to Romans 5, please. Fifth chapter of Romans, Romans 5.

For you new converts, if you get to Acts, keep turning right. Next chapter, next book after Acts. All right. Romans, the fifth chapter, beginning to read at verse 17. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and what?

The gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift, that's the gift of righteousness, came upon all men unto justification of life.

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. The gift of righteousness. Folks, look at me, please. You can keep your Bible open. You're going to go through some scriptures with me this afternoon, but just set it on your lap and give me your good ear and your good eye, whatever that may be.

There has never been a time when we have been so preached at and taught at than any other generation in history, as far as I'm concerned. We have more books. We have more tapes. We have more seminars and conventions and revivals than any time I can ever, at least that I know of.

There's never been a time like this when we've been so saturated with knowledge, with books and tapes and every conceivable avenue or instrument of giving knowledge. We have our heads full of knowledge as no other generation in the past.

But with all of this giving out of knowledge, there's been very little truth. And I am absolutely obsessed with this scripture. There's a scripture that I can't let go of. In the past month, it's just been consuming me.

Truth That Sets People Free

This one simple statement of Jesus, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Say it with me. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Hallelujah. Now you can go to a convention or revival meeting and I say this without any rancor.

I say it kindly as I can. But people all over the United States, Christians are running around to have some evangelists lay a hand on them or tap them and expecting some great emotional kickback from it.

And many people do fall down and many people have a deep emotional experience of either uncontrollable laughter or uncontrollable tears. And people write to me from all of the United States now saying, I was dead and I was dry and I went to a meeting and I had hands laid upon me and I began to cry or I began to laugh uncontrollably.

It's changed my life. I am happy now and so forth. Folks, I'm not putting any of those experiences down. I have had those experiences. I know what it is to laugh in the Holy Spirit for hours before the Lord.

I know what it is to have uncontrollable laughter and we're not putting that down. But when we speak against some of the emotional experiences going on around the country today, we say it plainly, we speak the truth, we try to back it up with scripture, but we're not mocking and we're not mocking it now.

Pastor Carter and myself, we've never mocked people and their experiences. But let me tell you, those experiences will hold you for a while, but they are not going to set you free. The Bible said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

It's truth. Worship in itself does not set you free. It doesn't set you free from the bondage to sin. Prayer in itself does not set you free from the bondage of sin. It is truth that sets you free. Nothing but truth according to the scripture.

I have heard it said, and I think I may have said it a time or two in my past ministry, the statement American churches are getting overfed and overstuffed and Christians are getting overfed and overstuffed while the world is dying and going to hell.

Have you ever heard that before? How many have heard that? American Christians are getting overfed and overstuffed. That can't happen unless they're eating junk food. Listen to me, please. Don't ever again, after you hear what I'm about to say, ever say that Christians who sit in a church where truth is being preached get overfed.

It is impossible to get overfed on truth. Truth cuts. Truth trims. Truth gets into the fat and gets to the bone. You cannot get overfed or overstuffed on truth. It is truth that sets men free. The problem with the missions departments of many denominations, they are sending young missionaries out around the world that spend four or five years in studies.

They study culture. They study all the ethnic problems. They study finances. They study all kinds of doctrinal issues to a point. But very few of them have come into the knowledge of the truth and they come home after a year or two burned out, discouraged.

Many, many come back because they're defeated. Because if you don't have a foundation of truth under you, you are no match to the powers of the devil, especially on a heathen front on a mission field.

You have no strength. You have no foundation under you if you don't have the truth. And if you go to a church where they're just giving little sermonettes, if you go to a church where they're just trying to appease and trying to attract a crowd, you're going to starve.

You're going to die. And you will get fat and overfed on that kind of problem. But you can't get overfed. You can't get overstuffed when you have the truth. Because wherever pastors are preaching the truth, where churches are walking in the truth and hungering and thirsting after truth, they're going to send out people.

It's going to be a natural byproduct of walking in the truth. The truth releases missionaries. The truth sets people to evangelize. You can't just have warm-up services. You can't have a pastor up there just cheering people on.

The cheers will die down and the burden dies down when the cheers are gone. It is truth. And that's why in this pulpit, in past months especially, we have been trying to establish you in truth. That you would be coming to this church with a hunger and a thirst for truth.

Not sermon tasting, but saying, oh God, I don't want to hear just something new. That's the Athenian spirit. That's not what I'm talking about. And it's not just to go to hear some great revelation. The Lord rebuked me this past week.

I worked for three days and nothing was coming. And I said, well, what's stopping me? And while I was standing in the room, He said, it's because, David, you're running after revelation instead of the simple truth.

Now, if you go in to the living room, get on your knees and repent. I got on my knees and said, God, I've been running after revelation. And I don't want just revelation. That'll come. I want to go to the simple truth.

I want truth. Truth. Because if you run after revelation, you stand a chance of getting a thorn in the flesh. I've had enough thorns. I don't know if I'm ready for another. We have been talking to you about justification by faith.

Justification by Faith and Imputed Righteousness

Now, folks, if you have got a problem this afternoon, if you are bound by habitual sin, if you're facing a battle in your life, a struggle against any lust or habit. A young man told me the other day, he said, Brother Dave, I'm so discouraged.

I'd given up drugs and drinking everything, but I'd had a battle with cigarettes and had about six months I was free. But this past week, I'm back on my cigarettes, and I know that opens the door for all the other habits.

And he was heartbroken, saying, I've got to find freedom. He said, I last two or three months, and then I go back down again, and I'm just not free. And I'll tell you something, folks. Listen to me very clearly.

You can get down on your knees and cry out to God with everything in you. Oh, God, come down and deliver me. I have preached, Pastor Carter's preached about that gut cry, crying out to God for help. He is our helper, he's our keeper, and to cry and pray out.

But folks, he's not going to come down and just pluck you right out of it. When you cry and you pray, God, deliver me, he's going to send you the truth that will deliver you. You're going to get truth.

And if you are hungry for that, you cry out to God, he will put you in a church. That's why many of you here right now, he's answered your prayer, you prayed for deliverance, and God sent you here to get truth, to get delivered.

Amen. Amen. Glory to God. Now, we've been talking to you, first of all, about some truths that are absolutely fundamental. We've been telling you that the foundational truth of the Christian walk is to understand justification by faith.

How am I made right in the eyes of God? Is it through my own effort, or has Jesus done something for me that has satisfied the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the justice of God, and the demands of the law?

Has anything happened? Yes, it has. We've told you that Jesus came to this earth, God in the flesh, incarnate in man. And he was sinless, even in his motives. He lived a perfectly sinless life. He had perfect righteousness.

He fulfilled all the demands of the law. Not one iota of the law was broken by our Savior. He kept the law to the letter. He kept it in spirit. This perfect righteous Jesus died on a cross and ascended to the Father.

And when he ascended, he stood before the Father and presented to the Father a perfect, absolute perfect righteousness. And the Father accepted it. And at that very moment, at that moment, God said, I will receive no other man.

No flesh will stand before me. There's only one body. There's one man. It's Jesus. He's going to be the head, and he's going to have a body on earth. And I have justified that body through what Jesus has done.

And the Bible said the righteousness of Christ was imputed to those who bring saving faith to him. Now, we told you what saving faith is the other day. It's not just a plain ascent to the Word of God.

It's deeper than that. We explained that. But we've come to realize that there is no righteousness in us that we can present to the Father that's going to stand on Judgment Day. I don't care how good you are.

I don't care if you live to be a hundred. Someone said in France there's ladies celebrating her 121st birthday, documented, the oldest woman on earth, 121 years old. I don't care how long you live. I don't care if she lives to be 150.

I don't care if she never smoked, drank, cursed, or committed adultery, fornication all her life. She still has nothing to give the Father. There is only one righteous. Say it. One righteous. Perfectly righteous.

Now, that righteousness and when you believe in what he did is not infused into you. In other words, he doesn't pour it into you so that it becomes yours. You can stand before God and say, look, this is my righteousness.

No, it is imputed to us. He gives us credit for what Jesus did. He credits it to our account. I am considered, I am credited to be as righteous as Jesus in the eyes of God through the blood of Christ and the sacrifice that he made.

I am justified before God. Folks, if you don't have that, you have nothing of courage and boldness to stand before the devil because the righteous are as bold as a lion. A what lion? As bold as the lion of Judah.

Hallelujah. There's a holy boldness in those who know where they stand and who they are in Christ. Produces a holy boldness. Now, we want to talk about another truth that can set you free. You can say to me, Brother David, well, that's a wonderful thought.

But I'm in right standing with God now. I have access to the Father through what Jesus did for me. That's wonderful truth. That's wonderful to know. But how does that help me in my everyday life? I'm still living a life of up and down.

I am living a life of failure. I fall down. I make mistakes. I have failed God. I've gone back to an old habit. There's something has a hold of me. There's a sin that grips me. And folks, don't look to the right or to the left.

Don't look around you. Because if we knew what God knew about you, I'd be very comfortable in my preaching right now if I knew what God knew. I'd be able to say, I know this mess is going to fit. Not that I would say this is for all of us.

You say, well, how can I? I want to live holy. I want to live righteous before the Lord. But where is my freedom? It's one thing to be right before God, but I want to be right before men. I want to be right before my eyes.

When I look in the mirror, I want to know I'm right. I want that. That is sanctification. Now, you guys from Timothy House down here, say from Drugs and those from Hannah House over here, listen to me, please.

Listen close. Don't get uptight about these theological terms, justification, sanctification. Don't let it fluster you. Don't be afraid. But do pray that God will open your understanding so you know it.

Because this is so important. Our very eternal life depends on it. Power over sin depends on understanding these truths. You say, well, that's just doctrine and it's too deep. It's too complicated and I have to sit there and think.

Yes, you do. We've had enough people just going to church and they can just lay back and a little bit will come in, hear a word or two. No. If you want the truth, you seek it with all your heart. You keep your eyes open.

You keep your ears open. You hunger, your thirst to reach out because those are the only ones who are going to get it. So pray right now. God, help me to understand what the pastor's saying about sanctification.

Now let me, I have read all kinds of books on this word sanctification. You've heard it. I read the, I have almost every Puritan writer there is. I have a Puritan writer, one of my favorite writers, John Owen.

I've read almost all of his volumes. You go to my library, you pick them up and almost every page is marked, especially on sanctification. There's one, I think it's book number three. I studied and studied.

And the more I read, the more confused I got. I finally put it all down because everybody had their own ideas. John Wesley had his idea. Calvin had his, and John Owen has his, all of these. And finally I said, no, I can't go that way.

Lord, you have to speak it into my heart. I want to make it simple. Let me give you, not from a book, but from the Holy Ghost, what he gave me about sanctification. Listen to my simple definition I believe the Holy Ghost gave me.

Sanctification as the Spirit of Christ at Work

Sanctification, this is popping. Can you hear me all right? Sanctification is the spirit of Christ in us making us to become what God sees us to be already. It is the spirit of Christ in us making us to be in reality what God already sees through justification.

He's already made us right and that's a wonderful holiness, but he's bringing that holiness down to practical life. That's the work of the spirit of Christ in you, conforming you to what God already sees you to be.

Very, very simple. There's nothing complicated about that, is it? Let me say it again. It is the spirit of Christ in us making us to become what God sees us already to be by faith. It's the spirit of God at work in us, helping us to be made actually what God imputes to us in Christ Jesus.

By the obedience of one, so many be made righteous. They're going to be made holy by the obedience of Jesus Christ. All right, listen to this, please. Don't go there, but first let's learn this, four, three, and four.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification. I want everybody to repeat the word sanctification. Say it, sanctification. That we should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess this vessel in sanctification and honor.

He said this is the will of God, that you live a holy life and that your life not be out of control, that no sin should have power dominion over you. That's exactly what Paul is saying in first Thessalonians 5, 23.

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, pastor, that's what I want.

I want control in my life. I don't want to be tossed. Every time temptation comes, I don't have to run after it. I don't want the devil to pull me like a puppet on a string. I don't want to have this one sin in me or this lust or whatever it may be.

I don't want this to have control over me. Folks, there's been, I know a man in this church who's been, ever since we've been here, he's been with us for eight years. He's still fighting his cigarette habit.

He's not here today. That's why I'm talking about him. Oh, I have prayed with him and I have talked with him and he said, brother, Dave, I want the victory, but for eight years, he's been fighting. I don't know what you're fighting.

I don't know what your temptation. I don't know what your bosom sin may be that keeps drawing you back. That seems to have power and authority over your body and your mind, but the scripture makes it very clear.

And you say, brother, that's what I want. I want that kind of victory in my life. The Bible clearly states sin shall not have dominion or authority over you. Now God intends that there be a controlling power in your life, that there be a controlling power.

Reigning in Life Through the Gift of Righteousness

Now, here's where you're going to have to go back with me now to Romans 5, 17. For if by one man's offense, death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and a gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Christ Jesus.

Look at it again, shall reign in life. You know what it means to reign? The Greek word there means to rule from a foundation of authority or power. To rule from a foundation of authority and power. How many here would like to reign in your life?

You want the power to reign over sin. That's what he's saying right here. I read it again. They which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign by one Jesus Christ. They're going to reign in life, this present life.

Not just when we get to heaven, but power and authority over every demon, lust, every demonic power, every principality and power of darkness that comes against you to rule in life. Now, this is amazing truth.

The scriptures say, they which receive abundance of grace and a gift of righteousness. And Paul calls it a gift. In other words, something I have possession of. I can touch it. I can feed it. It's a gift.

It's mine. I want to prove to you this afternoon, if I can, that this gift of righteousness is none other than the spirit of Jesus Christ himself given into your heart. All right, I want you to go with me, please, to Galatians 4.

Galatians 4. I told you you're going to have to think. You're going to have to follow. Galatians 4, verse 6. And because your sons, what has God done? God has sent forth the spirit of his son, where? Into your hearts, crying Abba Father.

Now, tonight I'm going to give you what I believe is a revelation of that. All I'm going to tell you right now, look at it. It's not you and I crying Abba Father there. That's Jesus crying Abba. Look at it.

That's Jesus crying Abba. And I'm going to tell you what that means. There are two cries. You don't cry Abba Father until you get to Romans, and we'll tell you why. His cry has to become our cry, and we'll talk about it in depth tonight.

But I want you to listen to that again. And because your sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying Abba Father. The moment you've surrendered to Jesus Christ everything in your life, and you give him saving faith, that very moment God sends forth the spirit of his own son into your heart to live your life for you.

For you. Get that, please. I'm asking God to help me make it simple. I'm struggling just to make it simple so that even a child can understand it. And that's what God's will is. Know you not that Jesus Christ is in you except you be reprobates?

Now look at me please, folks. I want to talk to you about something. Holy Spirit, I told Pastor Carter just before I came in, I'm not, there's something, I'm not yet seeing it. Know what? I came in late to the service because the Holy Spirit was trying to show me, and he showed me.

I'm going to talk about authority and control. And the Lord boiled it all down to two simple statements. And folks, I have not some great educated mind. I have to see it plain. I have to see it simple.

Even Peter says of Paul the many hard things that he said. And I read some of Paul's statements, and they're very hard. You have to have the Holy Ghost to understand it. But you see, God, this whole thing has to do with control.

Surrendering Control to Christ

Who's in control? You see, the moment you come to Jesus, that very moment, you've been in control of everything. So you came to Christ. The reason somebody went to drugs and alcohol, the reason some of you have besetting sins in your life, is because you thought that you were in control.

You were different. They're not a drug addict that hadn't gone to drugs, thought he was different, he's going to make it. He was in control. Come on, fellas, amen? You never thought you're going to get hooked.

I am different. Basketball players, football players, they feel that they're supermen. They can run around with a thousand different women in their lifetime thinking they'll never get AIDS, or they'll never get sexual diseases, and they thought they were different.

Because everyone now confessing in sports that they have AIDS said they thought they were supermen. They were in control. Folks, a good half of my, well, maybe a third of my minutes the earlier days, and even in my teenage years, I had to be in control.

My poor wife, I don't know how she lived with it. If she didn't see it my way, I'd throw scriptures, even if I had to invent them. That's right. Now, I'm not being facetious. I would throw together three or four little pieces and just, I don't know.

She'd say, that's not in the Bible. I had to be right. I had to be in control. You are never, ever going to get victory over any sin until you give up control, until you lay it down and say, I am not in control.

I am too weak. I am helpless. I can't do it. That's what God's talking about, the law and trying the law, but the knowledge of sin, and then people said, well, I'm going to bite the bullet. I'm going to get back in control.

And that's what many of us do when we come up against the sin. We say, well, bless God, I'm going to get victory over this somehow. One more time, Lord, try me one more time. I'll get it right next time.

And we are seeking to get back in control. A friend, a pastor friend of mine told me recently, he's about my age and he kind of prided himself at his age. He was so healthy and so strong and could do things and very, you know, energetic.

Well, during this big blizzard we had recently, he hurt his back and he couldn't move. He had to call some young men into shovels, his driveway and his walks. And his wife is out there too with a shovel and he's sitting there.

He can't move. He totally lost control of everything. He said to sit there, what's my wife cleaning the drive, cleaning the walks, shoveling the walk. And she's smiling. He said, well, I had two weeks to just absolutely, I think it was two weeks.

I considering how weak I am. He said, it changed so many things in my life. God taught him so many things. See, we want control. We think that we can do it ourselves in our own strength, but that's where you get in trouble.

That's why many of you have never been free yet because you look, you go out and you face your temptation, you face your lust, you face your, your, your besetting sin. And you, you say, you will not get me down.

You look in the mirror and say tomorrow, I will have more power. I have more strength. Just say no. That was, that was Mrs. Reagan's whole program against drugs. Just say no. I'm telling that to a whole generation of kids who believe they're supermen and they're in control.

They can take drugs. They can have sex and never get pregnant. They can do all of these things. And everybody's in America is in control. And God just has to sit back and say, well, I've got to wait till you give up your control.

If you are sitting here in the balcony and here now, you think that you can fight your sin. You think you're strong enough or God's just waiting at you to be good enough. You're in control and God can't do anything.

All the theology, all the preaching is in vain until you say, Lord, I am not in control. I have failed and failed. And as long as I think I'm in control, I'll keep on failing. That's why Jesus said the controller to live in you.

Paul said, I live yet not I, you know what he's saying? Oh, I live, but I'm no longer in control. I live, but yet not I, I'm not in control is what he's saying. But Jesus came and he took over control of my whole life.

Everything I do now, I'm going to make a bold statement that'll scare you at first. You think I've lost my thinking capacity. Jesus was never in control of his life or his ministry. You said, I don't believe that.

The father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Jesus said, every word I speak, every act, I got it from my father. My father's in me doing all these works. Every word you hear, everything you see, my father in me is doing it.

My father's doing the work. Hallelujah. And if you give up the control and you give it over to Jesus, the next time you come against your lust and the devil stands, the devil knows whether you stand before him in your own power or closed in the power and authority of Jesus Christ.

He said, Paul, I know, but who are you? I know when Paul comes to me, he's not in control because he said, Christ lives in him. Christ is doing the work, but you're standing in your own power. Who do you think you are?

Down you go. But then you stand there and devil says, you're weak. Yes, yes, I am. You can't, you're no match for me. You're right, devil. I'm no match for you, but that doesn't matter because I'm not going to do it anyhow.

I'm not going to fight you. Your battle's with the Jesus in me and not me. When you're going to give up the battle and all the control to Jesus, he says, the moment you come to him by faith, God sends the spirit of his own son, Jesus Christ to dwell in you, to live in you.

And folks, when it says Christ lives in me, it's as simple, as simple as that. Lord, every time I try to do it myself, I'm going to back off. And by faith, it's an act of faith. Jesus, I trust you have the power.

You have the willingness. You have the might. You already defeated this devil legally. Now defeat him practically in my life right now. Glory to God. He therefore, that supplieth to you the spirit and works miracles among you, does he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

He's talking to the Galatians. He said, you started out right. You came with faith. You believed him to justify you and sanctify you and keep you till the final day. But he said, something's crept in.

He said, you believe him that you're justified and you're right with God, but now you're into the flesh. You're going to sanctify yourself. You're going to make yourself holy. You say, I believe that I'm all right with God through what Jesus did.

I won't take anything from the cross. I'll take nothing from the power of the blood of Jesus. But boy, when it comes to living a holy life, getting power over sin, I have to do that. He says, you started in the spirit.

Are you going to be made holy in the flesh now? You're going to try to do it yourself. You're going to be made perfect in the flesh. The scripture says, he that ministers the spirit to you and worketh miracles among you.

I'm going to tell you something. If you're going to be delivered from any habit, any sin, it's going to, it demands, listen to me, it demands a miracle. Who in the world can through their own self-effort defeat some of these habits?

Do you know that nicotine is the most habit forming? More than drugs, more than crack or any other thing, cigarettes. In fact, that's been in the news all week. If you have been listening to the radio and reading your newspaper, they're about to sue the leader of one tobacco company, because when he appeared before Congress, he knew there was a report.

They've even named the substance in tobacco, far more addicting than any other kind of addiction on earth. And some had been smoking, some had been blowing smoke in Jesus' face long enough. Because when you smoke, you're blowing smoke right in his face, because you said he lives in your heart and your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.

So when are you going to quit blowing smoke in his face? Some of you now, you're still drinking. You say, well, I'm Italian. All Italians drink. My wife's Italian. She doesn't drink. Say, oh, I'm not hooked.

I'm going to tell you now, I'm led by the Holy Spirit to just say that some of you can't even wait in the morning before you get up, or when you get up, you go right to your alcohol. So I love Jesus, but you're still what I call a sipping saint.

You will never be delivered until you see it in the eyes of God for what it is. This body of mine is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and God said, if I destroy this temple, I'll be destroyed. It's all, but then you become a legalist.

You know what legalism is now? It's a code word among those evangelicals who don't want to live the straight life anymore. They just paint it with this word legalism. But folks, God wants us to be conformed to the image of Christ, not just in the outward things, but a pure heart with motives that are so clean, that are so pure before the Lord.

But more than that, he doesn't want anything controlling your life. He wants no sin in control, and this is what deliverance is all about, till finally my life is in total control and submitted to Jesus Christ.

By faith, I'm submitted to his righteousness. By faith, I submit to his power to sanctify me, that he's able, if he's able to save me, he's able to keep me. Do you understand that? If he's got the power to save you eternally, surely he's got the power to keep you for this short span of life that you and I are going to live.

Glory be to Jesus. Hallelujah. Giving thanks unto the Father who delivered us from the power of darkness. But the Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from evil. Listen again. The Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from evil.