The Bewitching of Saints — David Wilkerson

The Bewitching of Saints in Galatians

I'll talk to you this morning about the bewitching of Saints, the bewitching of Saints. Galatians 3, please. Galatians, the third chapter, verse 3 verses. Galatians, the third chapter. O foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ have been evidently set forth, crucified among you.

This is only what I learned of you. Received ye the Spirit by the works of law, by the hearing of faith. Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the flesh? Verse 3 again.

Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect in the flesh? Foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you. Heavenly Father, I ask for an anointing of your Spirit upon my body, upon my lips, my mouth, upon everything that comes out of my mouth, out of my heart.

Lord, I've been shut in with you, and I heard this from your heart. Lord Jesus, this is not a complicated message, but Lord, this is a message that can set many people free if they'll hear the Spirit, if they'll ask the Holy Spirit to anoint it.

Lord, it will come out of my mouth anointed, but we have to have anointed ears. We have to hear what the Spirit says in the inner man, and that can't happen unless our hearts are open. Holy Spirit, open the hearts of those in the annex, those that are here in the main auditorium, wherever I'm heard.

Holy Spirit, I thank you for your faithfulness. You're not going to fail to proclaim your Word through me. Lord, I'm just a vessel, but I thank you, Lord, that you have cleansed this vessel and that the Word of God can flow freely.

Let it flow like a river out of me, Lord Jesus. Let it be refreshing. Let it be a conviction. Whatever you need it to be to every individual here, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. There's one thing you can be sure of.

Satan's Trap for Sincere Believers

If you're a seeker after God, you've made up your mind to serve the Lord with everything in you. You put God on notice. Lord God, I'm not going to let you go until I know your fullness. And you have set your heart not to be a part of this world's schemes.

You set your heart to be a seeker after God. I'm going to tell you one thing. Satan's going to attempt to bewitch you. He's going to attempt to deceive you. Now, folks, this is a very, very important word, and I want you to hear it.

It has something to do with every believer in this house and those who are hearing me. The devil sets a trap for those who are most sincere about going all the way with him. He sets a trap. It's not a trap of sin.

It's not a trap of sensuality. It's this very thing that we're talking about in the third chapter of Galatians. Paul begins the letter, and the first chapter, don't turn there, but he begins his letter to the Galatians with this word.

He said, I marvel, speaking to the saints, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you to the gospel of grace, the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. What he's saying, you Galatians amazed me.

He said, you absolutely amazed me. God called you to embrace the gospel of grace. You went for a time believing and trusting that you're saved by grace alone and faith is finished work. But what happened to you, so quickly, suddenly moved into another gospel.

You've moved away from the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ. You've moved to another. You have been bewitched. In other words, you've been given over to an uninformed, unintelligent gospel that is not according to the mind of the scripture.

He said, you've gotten off course. He said, there's some that have come into the church to trouble you, that means to distort you, who would pervert the gospel of Christ. He said, somebody has gotten to you.

Somebody came in and your hunger for God and your thirst to go deeper in the Lord, you have been enhanced or you have been trapped into another gospel that is not the gospel of grace according to Christ and according to the word of the Lord.

The Galatians' False Pursuit of Perfection

When you look at these Galatian believers very closely, you'll find that they had truly heard the gospel in its fullness. There was no false gospel. Paul was there, the founder of this church. Timothy ministered here.

All of the great names of the scripture ministered to these people the gospel and Paul the Apostle said, before your eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently or clearly set forth, crucified among you. Now these are believers grounded in the gospel.

They're not novices. They've heard a pure gospel. They weren't a people having itching ears either. It's very clear from the context. They were not chasing after false prophets and false teachers. There's not a word here about sensuality.

There's nothing about the love of the world. There's nothing about adultery. There's nothing about gross sins here. In fact, these Galatians were struggling to be perfect before the Lord because Paul says, are you now made perfect by the flesh?

In other words, he said, I know you're seeking perfection, but how are you seeking it? What kind of gospel is going to maintain you? You came into the gospel. You got saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ and his finished work.

Now how do you plan to maintain that? Somebody came along and said, yes, you're saved by grace, but then once you're saved, you have to maintain it by certain things that God requires of you. Circumcision.

You've got to be circumcised. These were Jews that had gotten saved in Pentecost, and these are Jews in the New Testament church had given their heart to Christ, and really they're sincere men. They really want to walk in holy.

They want to fulfill the law. Now that's don't commit adultery, don't curse God, and don't covet, and all these things in an effort to try to be holy and to win the favor and blessing of God. And Paul was coming to them and he said, there's a twist.

You're getting away. You're moving away into something. Somebody, some teachers are getting a hold of you. Now there's not a word about false teachers here. There's nothing worth about false gospel. There's nothing about merchandising gospel.

There's nothing here about anything that's false, but Paul said there's troublers that have come. There's troublers that have moved in among you, and they are twisting you, and they have an unintelligent, uninformed gospel.

It's not according to truth, and it's a trap. It's a bewitching gospel. In other words, it sounds right. It sounds so good, because you see, the flesh always arises, wants to bring something to God. The flesh is always striving.

Haven't you ever had that in your mind? Has it never popped up in your mind? If I could only pray more, if I could only be more diligent in the Word of God, if I fasted more, if I were more disciplined, I would be a powerhouse for God.

The flesh is always wanting to come up and help God save us and keep us. He said, now you got saved the right way, but now you're trying to maintain this experience with Jesus by adding something to the flesh.

He said, he calls these people, now they're spirit-filled people, because he said, received you the Spirit by the works of the law, so he's proving that they were full of the Holy Ghost. Now get this picture.

They're full of the Holy Ghost. They're well taught. They want to be holy. Jesus Christ has been clearly set forth before their eyes, and Paul, Paul is speaking now to the whole church. He said, you've been foolish, you've been bewitched, means unintelligent, misinformed.

Bewitched means professing something false. He said, the gospel that you're now practicing, the gospel that you now are believing in, is not according to the gospel by which you were saved. It's another gospel.

Bible, Paul said, there are troublers distorting in your midst the true gospel of Jesus Christ. They're distorting it. In Galatians, the third chapter, in the same chapter, Paul charges Peter being led away by the Jews that came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and now when Peter and Barnabas were there with Paul among the Gentiles, they ate with them, they communicated with them, they fellowship with them, but then these Judaizers, these Jews that came from Jerusalem Church, the Pentecostal Church, spirit-filled people, men who wanted more than anything else to see the church pure.

They wanted to please God. They wanted to be holy. They come down to Antioch where Paul is ministering, and it's mealtime, and they're in the cafeteria or wherever they were eating, and the Jews from Jerusalem won't fellowship.

They don't eat with Jews. That's the old law. You don't touch a Gentile. A Gentile can't even touch your garment, and you don't associate with them, especially at mealtime, because you're going to be contaminated.

So the Jews went on this side to eat. Peter and Barnabas, not wanting to offend the Jews, go over there and sit at that table, and Paul and the Gentiles are isolated over here, and the wall is being erected, that old wall that was torn down at the cross, and Paul was spiritually indignant, and he rebuked Peter in the face of them all, and Barnabas.

He stood there. What he was doing, he was charged, he said, you're getting away from the true gospel. You are troubling the Gentiles. Now, you see, the Judaizers, can you picture what had happened to the Galatians?

The Galatians had listened to this gospel. The Jews had gotten down there prior to this meeting, and they had told these Galatians, yes, you are saved by simply believing in the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

Faith alone you are saved, but once you are saved, you must be circumcised. You've got to have the mark in your flesh. You have to know every man must be circumcised according to the law of Moses. It was the gospel plus works.

I have to prove to God that I'm worthy of this salvation, and can you imagine how good the flesh felt when those Jews, they imposed their doctrine on the Galatians, and they circumcised these men, and these men are now in pain, and they're thinking that their blood and their pain is added to the atonement, the blood and the pain of Jesus Christ.

I have proven to God they could sit back and feel their pain, and they're in a healing process, and oh God, you know I want you. You know I want to do everything right, and so they can always look to their flesh.

I have helped God. I've proven to God that I want him, and I've proven to God I want to be holy. I will do everything he asked me to do, and Paul the Apostle says, by the works of the law or the flesh, he's saying to Peter, by the works of the law or the flesh shall no flesh be justified, for by faith in Jesus Christ alone you are saved.

He said to Peter, you're frustrating the grace of God, for if righteousness has come by the law or the flesh, then Christ has died in vain. He looks right at Peter, said to Peter, if you're going to add something now, you suddenly come down here and you're telling my Gentile friends, now you're saying, all right, it's all right, I'm saved, I'm holy, because I have the mark on my flesh.

You can have hypocrisy in you, you can have prejudice against the Gentiles, but because in your flesh you believe you've done something to please God, everything's okay, everything's all right. Now let me get to the point of this message.

The question has not changed since Paul's time. Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by your flesh? Having started right, how are you maintaining your walk with God? How were you saved?

How did you get right with God? What wonderful thing did you do? What sacrifice did you make? When did God look down? At what point did he look down and see you? And he said, there's an honest man, there's a good woman that deserves to be saved.

To tell the truth, you deserve hell. You were no good. You weren't an enemy to the gospel. You weren't an alien to the gospel. You weren't worth saving. All your works was filthy rags in the sight of God, all of us.

There was nothing in you. You're not saved because God looked down and he saw something of searching or seeking or anything else. No, no, no, he came down by mere grace alone. You heard the gospel, you responded to it, he put a measure of faith in you, and you came to Jesus by faith, and he saved you.

Now the Bible says you're not only saved by faith, you walk by faith. The just shall live, shall walk by faith. The same faith that saved you is the same faith that keeps you. Hallelujah. In the past few years, the past two years, I've ministered in Macedonia, Romania, Poland, Finland, Russia, Canada.

The Lack of Victory Among Believers

I've ministered to thousands. And everywhere where I go, I see the enemy disturbing the hearts and lives of many believers. Everywhere I go, I see pastors addicted to pornography. I see wives of ministers and just wives of laymen in the church thinking of suicide, that walk with God spirit filled, have thoughts of suicide, giving up.

And everywhere I go, I meet miserable Christians, miserable in their marriage, miserable in their home, miserable on the job, living in fear, and some of them that walk with God for 12, 15, 20, 30, and even 40 years.

Many of them in their 60s and 70s and even in their 80s, living and never have ever entered into the Promised Land. They're in a wilderness, and they're going to, many of them are going to die in a wilderness.

And I know for a fact that there are numbers in Times Square Church who've made trip after trip to this altar. Every time there's an invitation, you come to the altar. I'm not putting that down. But where's the testimony and the victory that should have come out of that?

How many times I see people, time after time after time, I sit behind me, I sit in front of me, and this is not a rebuke. This is a concern. My heart breaks when I see people come in and they're so down.

And I want to make excuses. I want to say, well, it's the city, it's New York, it's a busyness, it's on the subway where everybody's breathing on you and pushing you and cursing. It's unkind bosses. I want to make all these excuses for the saints.

And when I pray, I see faces from this congregation come, keep coming at me, keep coming at me. And I know there's not that continual victory, there's not that overcoming life, there's not that continuous flow of the joy of the Lord in their life, and they're up and down, and they have to be propped up and buoyed by something emotional or friends around them.

They have to be held and prompted. I go to God and I say, Lord, I've heard enough of this. It hurts. I want to know why, because here from this pulpit, we have preached a gospel, a compromising gospel.

Jesus has been clearly, evidently set before this congregation. You have heard preachers that have been on their faces before God. It should be producing a steadfastness. It should be producing something that you cannot be tossed by every wind and wave around you.

You should be like a pillar. You should be like a... Paul said, you ought to be teachers by now. Let me show you the danger that I am in as a pastor, and I have love for you, and I see, I know in the Spirit, I see it and I feel it when I meet many.

Not just a few, but many. And I said, Lord, I can't give any excuses anymore, because your Word is true. And you see, here's the danger point. If I get a wrong attitude about this, and I just get in the flesh, and I say, I've had enough, that's enough, I'm going to get up and shake this church.

Man, I'm going to preach some sermons about compromise and about doubt and about fear, and I'm going to get up here and say, the reason you're not living in victory, because you haven't prayed enough.

You haven't read your Bible enough. You fast for an hour. You watch too much TV. You watch dirty stuff on television or on Internet. I tell you, I stand here, I don't think any preacher in America could load you with guilt better than I could.

I could get you so loaded down with guilt, you'd run back to the altar, and you'd crawl out, and you've ever cried and said, that's me. Yes, Lord, that's me. I'm not disciplined. I don't pray like I should.

I don't read my Bible like I should. Yes, and I have doubts, and I have fears. And you'd confess again, and confess, and confess, and confess. And then you'd make a pledge to God in yourself, saying, this is it.

I'm going to get up early, clock in the morning. Oh God, give me strength to wake up. An hour of my Bible reading every day. One hour. One hour of prayer. And when the pastors say fast, I'm going to fast.

At least a day. And we make all of these promises to God in ourself, and we fail. We miserably fail. You see what's happened. If I get up, and all I do is put you under some kind of guilt, and start hitting you to do something in your flesh, I have become a troubler.

I've become one of these men. You see, these men came out of the midst of the people. They came out of the old congregation. They were not false doctrines, preachers. They were not false prophets. These were those that were Pentecostal believers that raised up random.

These were lay people, and lay preachers. And I could be guilty of that. Remember what Paul said. Peter was guilty of troubling the congregation. He was one of these that was really distorting the gospel of grace.

And if Peter and Barnabas could be guilty, I could be guilty. Any pastor can be guilty if they're not understanding the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. And it's done unwittingly. It's done with good intention to get people to become more holy and more righteous.

And when we put pressure on people to become more holy and more righteous, then we have a tendency to get into the flesh and whip it up and get the flesh praying, get the flesh moving, get the flesh doing this and that, until finally we feel we have something to bring to God.

And after we had about a week of fasting and prayer, we get proud. And we go to prayer and say, Lord, now you've got to answer me. I've got it right now, Lord. You owe me an answer to prayer, because here I am.

I'm as pure as the driven snow. If you're a man or woman of God, if you have an eye for God, you will pray. It will not be a burden to you. It's a time of fellowship. It's a time to get to love Jesus more than you've ever loved Him.

You are drawn to Him, because you know that that's where strength and power is. You will read your Bible, and it won't be a task to you. You'll be reading this just to find out more about your lover, Jesus.

You will do that. You will fast, not because you want to get something from God, but it gives you time along with Him. It shuts you out from the world, and there's revelation that comes from that. Yes, and it's true that many of you are carrying burdens and harassments from the devil, because you haven't prayed, you haven't written in your Bible, all of that.

But folks, we are always striving to bring something of ourselves to God, of sacrifice and hardship, and bring it to Jesus as if to say, Lord, add this to your sacrifice. You see, that's the gospel of works, and that's what Paul was speaking about here to the Galatians.

Hallelujah. Sit with me. What happens when, under preaching, you get convicted, and you go to the altar, and you make God all these promises, and then you fail? We've been driven, then, into a different gospel.

We've been driven into this very bewitching gospel of the flesh. This is not a people turning to adultery and fornication. These are people that are hungry, want God with everything in their heart. And folks, I tell you what, when you begin to hunger and thirst for God, you want more than ever to walk closely to the Lord.

You want his favor and blessing in your life. You enter a battleground. It could be the most dangerous time of your life if you're not careful, because the enemy, he's not going to try to get you to run off into pornography or into adultery or fornication.

That's not going to be the issue. The issue will be that the enemy comes on this battlefield. It's between two gospels. Are you going to continue believing that, through faith alone, the Holy Ghost is given to you, and that power is there through the Holy Ghost, not through what you do.

Not any good thing that you do. The Holy Ghost comes down. He puts the fear of God into your heart. He gives you a desire to be with the Lord. He gives you a desire to pray. That's the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit.

You don't have to pray for access to the Father. That was done at the cross. You don't have to pray for that. That's already done. He says, come and take advantage of it. Come boldly with confidence to my throne, because at Calvary the door was open.

You don't beg me and pray for that. It's already done. None of your works. Folks, I know, I'm not going to boast about it, but I know my position in prayer and in the study of the Word. I give myself to prayer and the Word, as the Apostles did.

And yet, I know that my prayer doesn't merit anything with God. My Bible reading doesn't merit anything with God. Not favor, not grace, not mercy. Fasting for a week or 40 days does not merit anything.

That's, those can become works of the flesh if we go into that and try to just say, I'm trying to please God. You could do all of those things and still not be pleasing to Him, because you were working and moving in the flesh.

But when you come to Him by simple faith and say, Lord Jesus, it was at the cross that you gave me access to the Father. It was your sacrifice that made Jesus love me. It was not anything that I have done or anything that I've accomplished.

It's all done through Jesus. And you see, God has one desire, and that's to glorify His Son. Not to glorify you and your good works, but to glorify His Son, and His Son in us, doing the work. See, my problem as a pastor is not to get people to pray and fast and do things for God and get busy, go soul wind, do this, do that.

Folks, we've got churches all over so busy. People just running around, and often it's a substitute for intimacy with God. All service should come out of intimacy. Folks, if you're really intimate with Christ, no preacher has to beg you to go out and tell everybody about Jesus.

You'll tell your friends and everybody else, out of intimacy with the Lord. And if it's only because I'm up here trying, that's not my problem to get you to do these things. I've given up on that, folks.

I look over the message I've preached the last 15 years, and man, I have yelled and screamed and preached and huffed and puffed and tried to get people to pray and read their Bibles. I've given up on that.

I've got people under conviction. Man, I've been at pastors conferences where the preacher get up and rail against preachers for the lack of prayer, because preachers often don't pray. They talk about it, preach about it, but they don't do it.

I'm not putting them down, but that's just the gospel. So one great evangelist told me, he said, you want to see something tonight? He said, you want to see every preacher on the face? I'm going to preach about the lack of prayer.

He did, and everybody's on their face, weeping and crying, go back and don't change. Doing the same thing. No, see, that's not my problem as a pastor. My problem is to get you to trust that Jesus has accomplished a full salvation, not only to save you, but to keep you.

And all these good works are byproduct of you coming in right now, taking access that He has provided, and out of that relationship, that loving relationship, a step of faith. It's all by faith, nothing else.

By faith, and then that faith begins to work out in your life in practical ways, in walk of holiness and righteousness before the Lord. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, so then they which are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

How blessed it is, the scripture says, to walk by faith as Abraham did. And folks, the reason many who are listening to me now are still struggling with doubt and fear and guilt and belief and depression.

Now, I'm not saying all depression is all of lack of walking by faith. There's a lot of depression caused by chemical imbalance and many other things, and it's a very serious subject, and I'm not going to deal with that right now.

But that troubling of your spirit, that lack of steadfastness, it all boils down to this. You have not come into this blessedness of resting in what Jesus has accomplished at the cross. You're not resting in that.

You've never fully accepted it. You've never fully believed. You're still striving to please God in some way in the flesh. Listen to me close. I'm going to close in just a few moments, but I want you to turn with me to Colossians, the first chapter.

Reconciliation Through Christ's Finished Work

Colossians, first chapter. As soon as you get that, just leave it open on your lap, if you will, please. And look this way. More than anything else, as a pastor, and folks, you saw me preaching in Helsinki and in Russia, St. Petersburg and Moscow on this film, and I know when I stand there, I stand in tears before all of them.

And I may not be weeping now, but in my heart, this is something I feel so strongly. I'm not lifting my voice. I'm just going to tell it to you from my heart. My one great concern is the concern of Pastor Carter, Pastor Neal, and all the pastors of this church.

You can't be a true servant of God without having this passionate desire to see God's people steadfast, not tossed to and fro, not up and down. And we all go through hard times, but when you're trusting that you're totally reconciled to God, that God's not mad at you, that you were reconciled to God when you were still a sinner.

You were, in essence and practical, in every conceivable spiritual way, you were reconciled. God made provision for you to be totally reconciled to God. God was not mad at you. God was reaching to you when you were a sinner.

When you were as far away as you could possibly, the Holy Spirit was yearning after you. Jesus was praying for you. Jesus had his eye on you. And he paid the price for total reconciliation. I want to talk to you for a few moments about reconciliation.

Reconciliation means restoring a friendship that's been broken. In other words, it was there. This represents believers. When God, when Jesus is talking about reconciliation and Paul talks about reconciliation, we're reconciled to God, it means that there's a fellowship that has been restored.

In Colossians, the first chapter, listen, if you will get a hold of this now, please, if you ask the Holy Spirit to make this real to your heart, you will have the power and strength, as you walk out of this church today, if you will lay hold of the truth of reconciliation, you lay hold of this with all of your heart, you have a weapon against anything the devil is going to throw at you.

I'm a reconciled child of God. In my struggle, no matter what I'm going through, God loves me. I'm reconciled. Even though I feel unclean and everything, I am reconciled to God. Colossians, first chapter, start verse 19.

For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him, I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime alienated enemies, now look at the next three words, in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to resent you, what?

Holy, unblameable, unreprovable in his sight, if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you've heard was preached to you. Now look at me, please.

Guilt, Condemnation, and Alienation from God

Here's what happens. There's a compromise comes into our life. Are we sin? Or some evil thing has taken hold of our hearts. It's taken a hold of your heart and it's grasped you. And now you're under guilt and condemnation.

And you say, God is angry at me. I am not what I should be. I'm a hypocrite. If people know what I really was, if they really know my past, if they really know how undisciplined I am, if they only knew how weak I am.

And you see what happens in our minds. He said, in your mind you have been alienated. You have alienated yourself. God, nowhere here says that God in his mind is alienated from you. He said, in your mind you have alienated yourself.

You have made yourself an enemy. And what you're saying, God can't be pleased with me. God must be mad at me. He can't. How can God, a God of holiness and righteousness, how could he be anything but angry at me when he sees what is in my life and what is in my heart?

Now here you are coming to church. You're praising the Lord, but you know there's something there. You know you have not been following him as close as you should and all of these things that could bring pile after pile of guilt upon you.

And you're convinced now that God is mad at you. He's wanting to judge you. That he's your enemy now. And I want to bring this to your attention again. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies, where?

In your mind, by wicked works. Yet, now, he's saying all along you've been reconciled. God did not walk away from you. God has not changed his mind about you. The same spirit that baptized you is still in you.

The Holy Ghost doesn't flee in and out of your life because of your struggles. No, I'm not where I should be, Lord. No, there's still a work that you have to do in me. But I can't face it. I can't do anything about it until I know that you still love me.

That I'm reconciled. I'm not alienated from you. I'm still your friend. I'm still in fellowship with you. And I'm going to come running back because you see, Adam sinned and he withdrew because he was afraid.

That's what sin does to us. Sin causes us to run from his grace. Causes us to run and then try to work our way back by faith. You say, I have been reconciled to God. And Paul cries out, be ye reconciled.

You be reconciled. God is already reconciled. You reconcile yourself now. You lay hold of the promises of God. God's my friend. God's not mad at me. Say it right out loud. God is not mad at me. God is my friend.

I have fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Go to 2nd Corinthians please. And with this I close. 2nd Corinthians 5th chapter. Let's start at verse 17. Therefore, for any man being Christ, he's what?

Now tell me when you stopped being a new creature. When you lost your temper? When you said something that was displeasing to God? Did you how did you go from being born again to not being born again?

Did you die? If you died spiritually, why would you be here hungering, thirsting for the Lord? Why would you still be wanting fellowship with him? Is that what it says? He's a new creature. Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. All things are of God who has what? Reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That ministry of reconciliation is to our own hearts first.

You reconcile yourself to God. You lay hold of his promises. Be reconciled to God. Verse 19. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and imputing their trespass, not imputing their trespasses unto them, hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's name, be ye reconciled to God for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteous of God in him.

Hallelujah! Made the righteous of God by faith. Be you reconciled. Reconciliation is God taking the initiative to restore broken fellowship. He said I've already accomplished that, now you be reconciled to me.

I'm reconciled to you. Folks, the only power over sin, the only power over the enemy coming with thoughts of confusion and suicide or whatever it may be, the only weapon against that that I know is to be totally wholly convinced that God loves me.

I am loved. He sees my condition and he said I'm going to present you unreprovable, without rebuke. I will present you wholly unblameable, unreprovable in his sight. What greater promise can that be? God has made you a promise when you stand before the judgment, you're going to stand unreprovable, you're going to stand there holy and righteous before me.

I'm going to do that if you will trust that you are reconciled to me by faith. Yes, we repent, we confess, but we do that because we know he receives us because he said come boldly with confidence. The cross has made access, you come take advantage of that access.