The Little Boy Everyone Called a Devil

The Little Boy Everyone Called a Devil

by Tommy Lewis

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Lord Jesus, we are Your people. We are Your children. We thank You for the resurrection, or we’d be in great sorrow right now. We thank You that You’re the beginning and the end, the everlasting. That death is not the end, Lord.

It’s an enemy to be conquered. It has been in Your experience, and it will be in ours. So, Lord Jesus, we join them tonight in their sense of loss, realizing there’s a time of mourning, but then there’s a time to release and to be comforted. Lord, thank You for letting us join together with them tonight and just to love them and to be one with them. We adore You, Jesus.

We are celebrating the resurrection tonight. Thank You for that. It is Your victory, Lord, and we always have the victory in You over the first enemy, sin, and also the last enemy, death. Thank You for that. We lift our hearts in great gratitude and praise and thanksgiving to a God so great and wonderful and glorious. Amen. Amen.

I thank the Lord Jesus for the gospel, don’t you? Amen. If the gospel will not do what it claims to do, it’s not much good, is it? It wouldn’t be as good as an aspirin tablet, because aspirin tablets will do something of what they say they’ll do. They make a claim of it on their wrapping, and if you take it, you expect some results from it, or you wouldn’t give your good money for it.

It wouldn’t be as good as pop, fizz. You can get a burp out of that if you like to burp. But I’m persuaded that the gospel will do everything that God claims it’ll do. Amen. Aren’t you glad of that? If we meet the conditions, it is yea and in Him. Amen. Glory to God. There’s nothing wrong with the gospel. It’s just something wrong with our part of it. The gospel will work.

Has the gospel worked in anybody since we’ve been here? Have we preached it? Has it worked? Has it worked? Good news to you. Hallelujah. Anybody been healed? Nancy, are you here? Would you come up here and share? Nancy shared something of the results of the power of the gospel in her life since she’s been here, and I believe it would bless you very good to let her say so. She is one of the redeemed of the Lord, and she’s fixing to say she is. Hallelujah. Not only redeemed, she’s saved and being saved and going to be saved. All right, baby. Thank you.

I was sitting right back there taping the Sunday morning service. And all of a sudden, my back started to straighten out and I just lifted in my chair. I haven’t been able to sit in a straight back chair since I was 17 years of age. I was hurt on a skating rink floor, three girls skating together, and we locked skates and I landed on the floor as the only one hurt.

That time, we didn’t have… Well, we do have doctors. We did have doctors, but you didn’t run to the doctor every time you got a little pain, you know. And Dad took me to his family doctor and they taped me up and I was fine and I haven’t had any backaches. Now, I wasn’t thinking about having any back healed. I didn’t come out here for that. That was never… That has never entered my mind for years and years and years. I haven’t had a backache. I don’t have a headache and the doctor can’t understand why I don’t have them, but I don’t have them. So, Sunday morning, like I say, I was just sitting there listening to Tommy. Mind her own business. No mind on back, not uncomfortable, no pinch, no, no nothing. And all of a sudden, my back just straightened out. And I praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him for it. Thank you. Hallelujah.

Wonder who slipped up on her. Somehow she got unselfconscious just long enough for it to take place. I believe that. I really believe that. In the preaching of the gospel, it moves you out of yourself and God moves in where self has been occupying that place. And something takes place when God moves in. If you want God to get in, self has got to get out. And the moment it gets out, He’s in. Like her, she didn’t have to invite Him in. He’s been trying to get in all these years. Hallelujah. He just had to get her attention off herself a little bit. Get caught up in Jesus.

Well, we’ve got this far, haven’t we? Ha. I don’t believe He’s going to let us down now. Do you? Lord, we love You. We thank You so much, Jesus. I do adore Him. I do love You, Lord.

Help Yourself, Lord. Just… Be Yourself in me, Jesus. I welcome You right now to be Yourself in me. I want to be more surrendered, Jesus. If You can help me on my want-to level, I appreciate that. I want to be totally surrendered to Him.

I want Him to be in me what He wants to be to you right now. Hallelujah. I’ve been persuaded a long time that nothing could separate me from the love of God which is in Him. But I’m sort of in the process of repenting for letting the things that you have done separate you from the love of God in me. How about that? You want me to repeat that?

St. Paul, in Romans 8, he said, “I am persuaded,” and you know what he was persuaded of. You read it there. A lot of bad stuff. He was persuaded that none of that could separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That’s what he says in Romans 8. Last verse.

I’ve rejoiced in that. And here a couple of days ago it dawned on me, well, He’s in me. Haven’t we sung tonight that we’re the temple of the Holy Ghost? We’re not synagogues, places of teaching. We’re the temple where God’s at. And if God’s in you, God is love no matter where He’s at. He can’t be something somewhere that He’s not somewhere else. He’s not divided. He’s not schizophrenic. If He’s love anywhere, He’s love in you, isn’t He?

And that’s the first thing He is. He’s love in you. Hallelujah. He’s love before He’s healing. He’s love before He’s merciful. He’s love before He’s forgiven. That all comes out of… That’s the byproducts of this love. God. Hallelujah. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t it an awful thing that He’s got us down here for a purpose? And how I have allowed little old bitty thing, not half as bad as what Paul was talking about, couldn’t separate him from the love of God.

Have you ever let somebody separate themselves… Or you separate them from the love of God in you just because they talked about you a little bit? Hallelujah. Just because they seem to not appreciate you as much as they would, you just cut them off right then from the love of God that is in you. And that’s the only place He can… That’s the only place He can get to them. Hallelujah. He’s trying to reach them on a level of their understanding. They don’t understand a God somewhere else. A God that you talk about in heaven.

That won’t work. I want something I can see, don’t you? I was messed up and hurt with human beings. The reason I was hurt with them is because I was looking for something in them I didn’t find. I found something that I wasn’t looking for. I’ve been looking for love all my life. Hallelujah. The reason I’m so mad and mean is because I just didn’t find it where it’s supposed to be.

I know this because you were created by God for God. That we were created for love to be in us. And it’s the right place to look for it. If I look for it in you, I’m supposed to find it in you. Hallelujah. How did that grab you?

Nobody understood God being loved anywhere until Jesus Christ, the place that always been looking for it and hadn’t found it, God came in the likeness of that that we’d been looking for to find it. How did that grab you? And if He hadn’t sent Jesus, the incarnation of holy love, we still wouldn’t know what it was. It still would be, but we wouldn’t know what it was. We’d still be looking for it in the places we’re supposed to look for it. Hallelujah.

I never said that before, but it’s so. That come right out of the glory land, right then. Hallelujah. Don’t that make sense? Those folks that was following this man and all them people got suicidal, got suicidal over, they just missed what they were supposed to find. They found the wrong thing, but they were looking for the right thing. They wanted to be loved and He acted like He loved them more than anybody else they’d ever found, so they followed Him. Hallelujah.

Jesus didn’t point the boys off to the happy ghost somewhere, the big ghost in the sky. He said, “Follow Me.” Hallelujah. Didn’t He? Why did the multitudes follow Jesus? Because in Him they somehow had found what they’d been looking all their life.

How does that grab you? Is that okay? That’s… Ida has a right to look for love in me. She has a right to be disappointed and hurt when she don’t find it. I have a right to look for love in you. And I get hurt when I don’t find it.

All of my meanness, all of my sins came out of that because I look at love. I’d have never… I doubt if I’d have found love early in my life in my family, I wouldn’t have never went looking for it somewhere else and it cost me to sin. Hallelujah.

I was born to respond to love. Hallelujah. That’s what we’re born for. I didn’t find enough love in my daddy that I could run up to him and put my arms around him. So, hallelujah, I was cut off. The love in me was ready to flow. I just didn’t find nothing encouraging it to come out. This is the whole idea. Encourage people to love you. Let them run up and throw their arms around you. I wanted to get in my mama’s lap many times. I wanted to get in her arms and that was the place I was supposed to be when I was hurt. Yet, but somehow it didn’t… I didn’t feel enough love to reach in that word with that and set me free to run and jump in her arms. Hallelujah. Love sets you free to do these things. That’s the reason we like CFO camp. Somehow, I get in the midst of loving people, and it’s… I don’t act like this everywhere. Hallelujah.

The world can’t take it. I’m ready to do it on the streets or anywhere else. But… This makes sense to you. If my daddy would have been really loving me if it had the love of God in him, he would have set me free instead of bound. I was bound and… Hallelujah. When I wanted… Many a times I wanted to go put my arms around my daddy. Why didn’t I do it? Because he didn’t set me free to do it. He didn’t love me. He didn’t know how to love me. That didn’t set me free. It pushed me off. I felt a rejection. It’s the reason we feel a rejection. That’s the… You fear that more than anything else, that people are going to reject you. That’s the greatest fear we have. We don’t want to be rejected. We’ll compromise. We’ll act. We’ll act out games. We’ll do what the crowd says do. We’ll go into all kinds of things because we want to be accepted. See? Understand what I’m saying?

Jesus said… How about Brother John sitting in there where they were having that communion that night, and here a grown man laid his head right over on the bosom of another man. Weren’t that awful? Something tells me that Brother John had wanted to lay his head on his daddy’s arms. See? Even when I was a sinner I could find women to lay my head in their arms, but it was the wrong thing. I still look in love there. But what I really wanted and never would be set free until I could find a man that, hallelujah, could set me free to just get in his arms. That makes sense. It’s the reason we’re all messed up. You’re talking about an energy shortage.

All this love is in these people out here. It’s there. You’re talking about there’s more oil down on the inside a human being than ever been in this ground. Somebody’s just got to touch it and make it feel free enough to respond. Sinners follow Jesus. Sick folks come to Jesus. That makes sense. That’s a… I believe there’ll be more healings. I believe your healing comes when that takes place.

I believe that Jesus set them free to do… I believe when He set them free within, set that love down at the end that was made to respond. I think the human love we have was put in us to respond to God with. Why did we have it put within us? It became perverted, it has to hold ill. But it was not perverted in the beginning. It was not God but it was love. And it had to be in us for some reason. It was there for us to make a response to God in one another.

And we would have been freed from sin and been freed from sickness. We’d have never… I doubt would I have ever been half as sick as I was if somebody could have loved me into being free all the time. See? If I would have known how to love on her, when I first married her, she wouldn’t have had as many headaches as she had. I’m very serious. She told me she used to develop little old ailments. She’s not real serious because that would frighten me too much. But she said she used to develop little headaches and little backaches because she felt somehow she was reaching for love in me. She was trying to lose something in me. Trying to somehow for me to love her so she could respond and be herself.

That makes sense to you? No wonder we got such bad problems in marriage. Wherever we somewhere early in our life… Let me stumble along with this because it’s coming and it’s the first time I’ve done it, so I believe the Lord. Y’all just help me here with it and pull it out of me. I believe this is very necessary that we talk this way. Whom the Son sets free, and the Son is God, and God is love, love sets free, is free indeed, and you can’t be free without love. A child cannot grow up in freedom unless somehow he senses a love that will let him be himself.

Mama wouldn’t let you be yourself. Daddies wouldn’t let you be yourself. It was too embarrassing. See? Too embarrassing for him to be this self. See? I almost kept my daughters from being their self even after I met God because of this crazy mess that a man doesn’t love his daughters anymore and put his arm around them after they get to be 13 or 14 years old, start developing a little bit.

And so with that crazy idea programmed in me, not by God but in this crazy false world that we live in, when they were little I’d hold them in my lap and just let them nuzzle and just do anything they wanted. I let them be their self until they got a certain age and then I put them in prison. Then I cut off their response from me. I cut off the love to them and they had no other place of responding. Maybe that’s the reason so many young girls crawled into bed with the first man that comes along, because of daddy. Daddy didn’t know how to love her into freedom. To be herself. Help her grow up. Let her… I believe a girl needs to tell her daddy more than she does her mama the things that’s happening in her body. I believe, you see. But you don’t tell daddies that. I believe daddies either prepare daughters to be wives or they prepare them to be something less than a wife. I believe mamas are to prepare sons to be husbands or they’ll prepare them to be something less than a husband. Hallelujah. How does that grab you? Amen. I did have sense enough to see some kind of discernment to see that my daughters were standing off.

They looked like flowers that was wilting. And finally I asked the Lord, I said, “What in the world has gone wrong with these children?” He said, “You quit watering them. You quit loving them.” And look what I was fixing to miss. Look what I… Look, no wonder children don’t want to be with their parents when they get old. They don’t know them. They never know one another. How can I let you know me if I don’t love you? When I love you, I welcome you right into my being. You walk right in on me.

And so against all the tradition, against everything else, I began to force myself to go up and take them in my arms and to tell them I loved them and to put my arms around them and to kiss them, hold them in my lap, teenage girls… arms. And folks, I can tell you today, the water is still flowing. They’re not cut off from me. They’re all married. When they come home, they’ll get in my lap, hug me and kiss me. Look what I was fixing to lose. I was fixing to lose what I wanted. You can’t command this. You cannot make your children love you. You can’t make them do a thing. You have to love them into doing it. Hallelujah. That make sense?

I was losing my son when he got to be about 13 years old. Even my son, he would see me preaching. I’d be anointed. I’d be real sweet and pretty and everything. At this point, he would see me hugging other people when I got through preaching. And he would rush in and push them aside and put his arms around me and hold me just as tight as he could. And you know what would take place? There was a barrier, unseen barrier in me pushing him off. Pushing him off. And him hanging on and yet something in me was rejection. You ever had that? You ever felt that? See? Somebody hug you and yet you put your arms around them but yet you were pushing them off. You can feel this with people. I can feel it with people who have this negative field around them.

And he didn’t know what was wrong and I didn’t either. I did not know what was happening. And sometimes a minister will receive wisdom for others that’s never been applied in his own life. You understand that? Solomon had great wisdom, it didn’t seem to work with him. Read it. He told a lot of good things but it just didn’t work with him. He said a wife is a good thing. He didn’t tell you what she’s good for. That’s for you to find out. Then he said I had 900 or 700 and didn’t find a good one in the whole group. So he never found out what they were good for.

He told a lot about how to live with the Lord and I think he died in idolatry. How about that? Great wisdom. No man had wisdom like him. A lot of times when we use the gift of wisdom or the word of wisdom on another and it sets them free, and your home can be messed up as bad as the one that just seen set free, and you still bounce.

Brethren, this ought not to be. And thank God, sometimes if you listen to what you’re saying you can learn from the Lord through your own mouth. So one day, thank God, see, the Lord loves you, He’s just trying to get… He’s just trying to get to us any way He can.

Even your hurts is good thing because God can get in through them. Don’t try to get them healed too quick, just let Him come on in through them. Just say, Lord, I’m hurting, and that can be a door for the Lord to get in you. When everything is going fine you don’t even think of God, but when you get in trouble, really, that’s the door that He can come right into.

Seem like He can get into folks that knew they had problems a whole lot better than folks who were afraid to say they had problems. You notice He never can’t help them much. I used to think that He almost hated the Pharisees and the religious folks, the way He talked to them. I don’t believe that at all. God love and God… God, He was trying to bring them to the realization they did have need, and if they said they had need He could have done something for them.

If they could have said, Lord, we are hypocrites, their lives would have been open for Him to come in, but as long as they said they didn’t, they closed the door on the Lord. So He had to use sort of strong language, hoping that He could break in and they could have met if all of them that they would have said, yes, we are full of dead men’s bones, we act righteous but we hate folks and we… You see, He can come in on that. Hallelujah. You can’t get in if you’re lying, that sort of keeps Him out. A lot of times, a lot of us don’t believe He can take the truth yet.

He can take it if you can tell it. Somehow you think you got to prepare Him for it. You know, I’ll wait… Used to I wouldn’t confess sin because, you know, under legalism, because I got the idea if He didn’t know it, I weren’t about to tell Him.

Because I know how daddy acted when I… you know, we learn to tell lies because of punishment. Because of fear of punishment we learn to tell lies. That’s the reason we even lie with God. So it’s just any old thing, just if you… if you feel real lustful, that’s good. You know, if you know how to handle it, you can just take that and say, God, it just shows how much I need love.

No condemnations in those who are in Christ Jesus. If you’ve been a drunk and still have an appetite for it, don’t let the appetite use you, you use appetite. Just say, be made for intoxication. And you’d have to be, or nobody would ever take a drink of whiskey. Did you know that? If man was not made, that’s a… that is… that’s a counterfeit, it’s in the flesh. If man was not made for intoxication, he’d have never drank a drop of whiskey as long as he lived. He just couldn’t, he wouldn’t want it.

So he just… he just proves that he’s made for… Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. But what does it say right after that? But be filled with the Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, hallelujah, what did they say was wrong with the boys? They said they were drunk, they were intoxicated, and they were intoxicated. They were intoxicated on love. There’s nothing more intoxicating than love. You act right crazy if you act like you’re in love. Ain’t no drunk never acted as crazy as a man who thinks somebody loves him or thinks he’s in love. He’ll be crazy enough to ask the woman to marry him. And how… and the woman that thinks that she’s crazy enough to say yes.

So drunk people don’t act half as funny as folks who are really in love. Read the book of the Acts and there’s some funny folks there. They’re doing all kinds of stuff. It wasn’t speaking in tongues that got them to go out there and act so foolish before that crowd. These boys got intoxicated with the love of God and they just didn’t care what folks thought anymore. Have you ever noticed a very timid person who’s sort of shy and worried about what people think? You get him about drunk and he’s what they used to call the life of the party. He just cuts up and the next day he’s so embarrassed he don’t know what to do, he won’t even get out.

That makes sense? You know, a man or woman wouldn’t do nothing as foolish as to get married if they didn’t think they were in love. It takes them a long time to realize what they done. Hallelujah. First time he does something wrong or she does something wrong, he says, oh, I made a mistake, what a fool I was. See how foolish you were? You even confess you got a little intoxicated and done something you wish you hadn’t have done. You ever get drunk and couldn’t think of what you’ve done the next day and ask somebody, how did I act? Wanted to find out before you went out and had to face the people, did you? Somebody’s been drunk.

Thank God that there’s one thing the Lord blinds us to. Or if He didn’t, we’d never… we wouldn’t have any no offsprings going on in the world today. Isn’t it wonderful that He don’t let you know what you got until after you get it?

Because anyone who knew what they had when they got it, they wouldn’t have it. But after you get it, everything that shows up in it was there when you got it. So don’t complain. It was already there. There is nothing that shows up that’s not yours. Isn’t that amazing? No matter what shows up in the woman or the man after you get married, it was there when you married them, it didn’t come in later. It was there and it was yours, and everything that they ever… they are and ever will be or have belongs to you today you say, I do.

Remember when, when the preacher said, when you take this woman or man to be your lawful, you know what, and for good and bad, they never hear the bad. In fact, they just can’t hear it because they’ve never seen her bad. All they’ve done is come and she, you know, she let mama work herself half to death while she’s getting ready for the date and all he sees is her hair combed, her smelling good, dressed up in the best thing she can get on credit, and every whole deal, and he thinks, bad, nothing, ain’t nothing bad about this girl. And then when he gets home, and as Thelma was talking about, the wrapping starts coming off. And he thinks he’s got his loose Pandora’s box there. He’s got… and then he thinks he’s from the devil. That’s sort of amazing.

Jesus is the only person who ever knew what He was getting and yet got it. He knew everything there. And let me tell you, since you have been born into the family of God or united with God in Jesus Christ, no matter what shows up, it was there when He got you and it’s His.

You don’t have to feel guilty because it was already there. Not a bit of it has come in since you’ve been in union with Jesus. Aren’t you glad of that? Calvary is really God saying, “Son, would you take this mess to be yours?” And He says, “Yes.” And look what it cost Him.

Whatever you were, you’d be that to Him. Calvary is you. That’s where what you are is becoming His. He is becoming what you are. He didn’t have to sin. All He had to do was marry somebody who was that and it became His. You were made unto Him sin.

That’s marriage. This thing is more than a legal thing. This is a biological hookup we got. I’ve never been mad with my marriage license since I’ve been married. That’s the legal part of it. It’s never raised, you know what, with me. It’s never hurt me anyway. In fact, I don’t even know where it’s at. I haven’t seen it since we went home.

And it shows it’s more than a legal thing because I’ve never been hurt through the legal part of it. I’ve never been disappointed. Neither has Anna. But this thing is a biological deal. How does that grab you? I used to wonder, well, how in the world could Jesus be… He never sinned. He couldn’t sin or whatever. Nature was totally against sinning. How in the world could He become sin? He married a harlot. And whatever you are, He becomes that. That is your humiliation. Humiliation. That is your mess that falls on Him. When a man marries a woman, is she the biggest prostitute she’s ever been? The shame of it falls on him. And if he’s the nicest man that’s ever been, the glory of his good name falls on her. It’s the exchange deal. You understand that? You were made unto Him sin. You were made unto Him sickness. You were made unto Him death. That’s all you were and that’s all you had. And that’s all He could get. Hallelujah.

Isn’t it an awful thing the way… If this thing is true, and it is true, it means that everything that He is, hallelujah, you are. You like that? Yes, hallelujah. You’re made sin unto Him. He’s made righteousness unto you. Hallelujah. You’re made sickness unto Him. He’s made health unto you. You’re made death unto Him. He has made life unto you. Hallelujah. It’s a good exchange, folks. This is a wonderful thing we’ve got going here. He said yes to us and it looked like He’s waited 2,000 years and we ain’t about said yes to Him yet. Where do you take Jesus?

Well, where would we have? Talk about love. I actually believed my son would have got on drugs. I feared that. There’s no telling what he would have done. I feared everything. And so I became very legal with him. I tried. I felt I knew how he was supposed to be. I know what a son ought to be. He ought to be what I think he ought to be.

He ought not embarrass me. Me, a preacher. By running around drinking and taking drugs. He ought not to do anything that would bring a reproach on me. Isn’t it amazing when our children get in trouble, we don’t think of them. We think of what it’s going to do for us.

Right when they need loving more than any other time, we think of our cotton. Isn’t that amazing? Well, somebody came from Raleigh one day. A young woman who had a little boy who was four years old. She wanted to have counseling and I said, “Well, what is it you’re… what’s the problem with you…” She had a problem with this boy. I said, “What is your problem?” She said, “My… I’ve got a four-year-old son and he’s a devil.” I said, “Jesus has not made devils. Your little boy is not a devil. Tell me what he’s doing.” She said, “I’ll be reading the Bible and he’ll come over and snatch the pages out of it. Throw them on the floor.” She said, “I’ll be praying and he’ll come over and push me over. Just push me right flat on this way.” Sort of acting like a devil but he still wasn’t a devil.

And so, I didn’t know the problem there. I didn’t know how to answer, so I turned to the… to the fellow who’s in residence here. And this seemed to be… I didn’t even… You know, sometime I don’t know how to name the gifts. I don’t even know what gift it was. That’s not important. As long as it works.

Jesus never said, “Now, boys, I just used the word of knowledge. Did you see that word of wisdom I just hit that old gal with? Now watch this gift of healing come out of here. Okay?” You have to look carefully even finally. You say, well, it says covet the best gift. But it says for that, before that, follow after love.

And the object… and you want the best for the object of your affection. And in loving them, that’s all we’re required to do. The very gift that is needed will be there. You don’t have to reach in the box and get it. Haven’t you noticed that?

And I said, tell me… This came and I asked her, I said, “When you were… found out you were pregnant, did you want that baby?” And she began to cry. She said, “No, I hated it. Hated that pregnancy. I didn’t want that baby.” And she was just a boy. I had her to the birth. And if there hadn’t been any deliverance, I’d have had her in worse shape than she would have been before she came to see me. I couldn’t have give her tranquilizers. See, Jesus, God will not bring to the birth and not bring deliverance, will you? That’s the difference in the Lord and other folks.

I said, “Well, here’s what’s taking place. You have given that baby birth out of your womb, but you… that baby knows he’s not in your heart. And that baby is really saying, ‘Mama, if you don’t love me and let me in, I’ll destroy myself and you in the process.’”

That’s the reason we’re destructive. That’s the reason we act funny. I’ll hurt you when I’m hurt. I’ll hurt my mama. I’ll hurt my daddy. I’ll hurt anybody when I’m hurt. And you will too. And we’ll go on hurting one another until somebody frees, frees me, frees me from the bondage that I’m in.

The love in me is bound. I’m a prisoner. The Bible says we’re prisoners in darkness. But what is it a prisoner? My spirit is in darkness. And light doesn’t come to destroy, it comes to reveal. It just takes away the darkness. And I make a response to love and I’m set free. Whom love sets free, they’re free indeed. But what is that set free? It’s the love that’s in you. That’s what’s set free. It’s the oil.

She said, “What can I do?” I said, “I never prayed a prayer like this before.” And I did not know whether it could take place or not. I said, “I’m going to pray a prayer that I don’t know whether God will even answer or not, but it’s your only hope.” And I said, “If He can do it, we’ll try it.” I laid hands on her head and I said, “Lord Jesus, I don’t know whether You can do this or not, but there’s a child’s life at stake and a mother’s life at stake.” I said, “If You can go back and give her a love for this child the night that she got pregnant, we’d appreciate it.”

And in the twinkling of an eye, you see, the kingdom of God doesn’t come by observation. It comes by discernment. You know that? I don’t believe it’ll ever be by observation. I believe it’ll always be by discernment. It’s not lo here nor lo there. The kingdom of God does not come by observation. The kingdom of God comes by discernment.

And in the twinkling of an eye, I saw this woman come out a prisoner. A mother who had been a prisoner through hate was set free by the love of God, and in the twinkling of an eye, after four years, she became a mother.

She jumped up radiant like a woman who had just given birth to a baby. The woman who brought her, she was dark in darkness when she came. The woman who brought her, when she ran out into that big hall shouting and praising God, she said, “What in the world has taken place?” And she said, “I just became a mother.”

That’s a beautiful boy today. And it’s a beautiful mother. And that boy has not given me any trouble as I know of. But wouldn’t they if he’d have been in prison they’d have said he was incurable. He’d have been doing all kinds of things and all he needed was somebody. You see, we need to discern the time, don’t we?

If I’m walking in love, I have discernment. You don’t have discernment out of love, I don’t believe. Be too dangerous. But if we walk in love, and the Bible commands us to walk in love, live in love and walk in love, then we really have discernment.

We can discern when this thing needs, is ready to take place. There is a time, I believe. About three weeks later, I was walking up the steps one day and I saw Tommy coming, he’s a tall, lean boy. About 13 at that time, he threw his arm around me and I felt something in me push him off. I had my arms around him, but the way he was clinging to me, he knew it was like I was pushing him off. He felt the pressure. And yet he was hanging on like I had my hands pushing him and he wasn’t wanting to turn loose. So the first time in my life, I turned to the Lord Jesus. “They that call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And I said, you see, these things make sense to me now. What does it mean, call upon the name of the Lord and be saved? That means right now. Don’t mean go to heaven. I’ve already called on Him 21 years ago. That’s settled.

“Oh, wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” I said, Jesus, why can’t I love this boy? See, I would never admit that. Who in the world will admit they don’t love their child? I’m not, I’m not… I couldn’t be, really. The love that I had for my mother could not be released in me for her, although she’d been dead for years, until I… until God put His light in there one day and I admit it, I hated her. See? That awful word, but I could not be helped until I confessed to sin. See?

And the moment I did, the love that I couldn’t give her now just poured out of me. See? What she couldn’t get out of me, Jesus got out for. And immediately I prayed a crazy prayer. I said, “Jesus, she’s not here. But if wherever she’s at today, tell her I love her.” And I’m set free, you see. Whom the love sets free, they’re free indeed. She don’t have to be here. Hallelujah, I love her. That make sense?

Here’s what Jesus said. “You are resending doing something to your son that was never done to you.” You get that? I was jealous, the little boy in me, who never could put his arms around his daddy. Who never, my daddy never had an attraction. He never attracted me. Love attracts. Anything else repels. I never, I see my daddy, I loved him so much it was down in him it was hurt.

I actually hurt because I can’t love. That’s the reason people are hurting. That’s the reason children can’t, are hurting so bad and taking drugs and everything else. If with love, if we can’t love, we will hurt and hurt and hurt because the hurts will not go away until love is released. Hope that makes sense. This thing with Jesus has to be more than I thought it was. If it don’t work, I’d rather be drunk than to play religion. I really had. If it don’t work, I don’t want it. See? If it can’t do me no good now, I don’t want to take a chance on it later. I’ve got to know whether it’s so now or not. That doesn’t hurt the Lord because He’s more anxious for this to take place than I am. He’s been working on me all my life.

“You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” And the moment He said it, here’s the beautiful thing about God’s word. God’s word, if He speaks, becomes an experience. It’s just not a play game. Do you know that? When God speaks and if He tells you something and it didn’t come an experience, it didn’t become a happening in your life, you still couldn’t do it. That’s if God just says you go out there and love and it hasn’t become an experience in you, I can tell you just as good as God and it’ll work just as good as God. How does that grab you? See? You understand what I’m saying there? Nowhere in the Bible do you see where God spoke it didn’t become an experience. It just didn’t fall dead. He said, “Be healed,” and they got healed.

“Lazarus, come forth,” and He didn’t say, well, he was dead. You know, make an excuse. He came forth. God said, “Let there be light,” and folks, there’s light. Let there be and there is. Let there be… And all that He said is going to become an experience. That’s the reason the resurrection, you’re going to experience it because God has said it. It must become an experience.

That’s the reason legalism failed. Legalism just pointed you to experiencing the fall. You do it, but it couldn’t help you. It had great commands on you, but it had no power to release you to do it. That’s the difference in the gospel of grace, of truth and grace, grace and truth. The grace come before the truth. Truth without grace was under the Old Testament. That was truth over there, but you got killed. There wasn’t any mercy and grace with it. Truth came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. No mercy over there because there wasn’t any grace over there. Man had to be stoned. He had broke the law.

You want to see grace, truth, grace, mercy and truth, grace and mercy and grace come together? The woman that was thrown at Jesus’ feet in the temple that had been caught into bed with a man. Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.” Folks, that’s mercy. He said, “Go sin no more.” That’s grace. And when He said that, if He had not somehow communicated a freedom in her life, she would have been right back in bed again with a man because the law had told her not to commit adultery. Am I making sense to you here? You’ll know when you hear the word of God because it does something. It’s not just… it’s just not some little passing fancy.

When Jesus said, “I forgive you,” folks, people were forgiven and they knew it. We preached forgiveness for years in the church of Jesus Christ and people feel just as guilty when they go out as they did before they heard it. I did, didn’t you? It didn’t set me free to tell me that God forgave me. You know why? It wasn’t spoken by the Spirit, by the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven.

The words I speak are what? Light, or what? Spirit and life. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Did you know even my words can become experience in you? Show you just how little and weak and weasely we are. I can say words if I get in the wrong spirit and break your heart. It’ll be an experience. Most of our hurts and most of our problems is an experience that came out of words. Did you know that? We’re still experiencing them. You remember something somebody said years ago and you’ll write in the experience of it today. And as long as it’s hurting, you ain’t healed. Hallelujah. You need another word to come set you free. That make sense?

And the moment the Lord said that, folks, I didn’t have to try to love him. There was no condemnation. There was no trying and no line. All of a sudden, the barrier fell. The wall of partition went down within me and my son walked into my life and he’s been there ever since. Hallelujah. He became a son that day. That was the day my son became my son.

Isn’t that wonderful? This is sort of funny gospel, but it’s the real gospel. It has to work. How many of you believe you’re made in the image and likeness of God? Isn’t that wonderful? And you are. The gospel is seeking… Let me see how I want to say it.

It brings a conversion from the perversions. We talk about homosexuality being a perversion and every cotton-picking part of the body of us is perverted. Our thinking is perverted. Our willing is perverted. Our soul is perverted. Our whole being was perverted in sin. That’s a perversion. Satan is not a creator or an originator. He’s a counterfeiter.

And a duplicator. But not an originator or a creator. How many of you has ever been jealous? You think that’s of the devil? No, it ain’t. This is going to… I’m going to have to go slow with you here. I blew their mind up in New Hampshire. You’re made in God’s image and likeness, you just said, didn’t you? God is what? Is what? A what? A jealous God, isn’t He? Then you were made for jealousy. You know where jealousy comes from? Love.

All jealousy comes out of love. How did that grab you? I’m not going to leave you hanging. I’m going to just let you… I’m going to toy with you like a cat with a mouse. It’s a perversion. It is up… It was put in you by God because you made in His image and likeness, but it has been perverted. And now then, through the love of God, it’s being converted.

Now, I’ll tell you the difference, and you’ll know from now on whether you’re working in under the perversion of Satan or under the conversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Peter, after you’re converted, strengthen your brethren. The sin of it or the conversion of it, which is a sin, is to be jealous of someone.

And that’s the curse of it. That’s under the curse. But you’ve been delivered from the curse of the law. To be jealous of someone is to be perverted. Well, God is a jealous God. Then what is the conversion? You see, the reason it’s self-love is the reason I’m jealous of you. That means I want to take from you. I’ll kill because I have not. See? I’ll covet. I’ll do all of these out of self-love. But it does come out of love. All jealousy comes out of love. But when the love got perverted, then the whole man became perverted.

Here is the conversion of it. What love produces. You’re still going to be jealous. We are jealous now. Jealous is full of… And the more love of God you get in you, the more jealous you’re going to be. Isn’t that wonderful? You want to see the greatest display of jealousy there’s ever been? It’s Calvary. You want to see a jealous God, you look at the cross. You want to see the… God in His… Maybe this is the ultimate jealousy. You’ve got to find Calvary.

Real love is jealous for you, but not of you. You get it? God’s love, God is jealous for you. That’s the reason we got a cross. God is jealous for you to become what He created you to be, so He sent Jesus so it can happen. That’s jealousy.

You like that? See, some of this perversion… See, I’ve been jealous of all the preachers. Isn’t that awful? That’s the perversion showing up in me. I ought to be jealous for that man to be the greatest preacher there’s ever been on the face of the earth. Every time he stands up, everything in me ought to just… Jealousy should boil up in me that anything that would hinder him from having the full anointing of God in his life, I should be so jealous for it, I would take a cross and die for him that it would happen. That’s taking the cross of Jesus Christ.

That’s the reason it said, if you be a disciple of love, you’re going to take a cross. And jealousy will drive you to the cross of death. No greater love had no man than this. That He healed the brethren? No, that’s a lesser love. You can do that and not have the jealous for love. The healing that Jesus done, the healing level of love, was the compassion level, but that’s not the greatest level. You can feed the sick, you can feed the hunger, you can do all these other miracles on that level. But greater love have no man than this. Guess what? That He laid down His life for His friends. Folks, I have seen people heal when I prayed for them that I wouldn’t have walked a mile for them.

I’ve been angry. Is that of the devil? You’re a little dubious now. You’re made in God’s image and God’s likeness. God is a what? God is an angry God. And all anger comes out of love. Why am I angry if my son does something to embarrass me? Self-love. Perversion, say, Jesus. I’m a perverted man.

Calvary, again, is the greatest display of anger that has ever been on the face of the earth. And the more we get in God’s love, the angrier we’re going to get. When I get angry enough with the things that keeps you from being what God created you to be, I’ll have power to bring a separation. I’ll have the power to separate you from it. Jesus did not pet death, folks. Don’t let anybody kid you. We’re not in enough of the love of God to do the things that Jesus done. I’m going to be very bold. You don’t have to have me back, but you got me now.

Jesus didn’t go up to that tomb petting and pampering death. I don’t know much about the Greek or the Hebrew or anything else. I just know Jesus. And if I knew everything else and didn’t know Him, I’d just be nothing. Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. It says He groaned. He was angry. His anger matched His love. They go together. The more selfish you get, there are some children, and you’ve read it, that have been so pampered and spoiled in selfishness until one day their parents refuse to give them what they want. They can no longer afford it. And their self-love now has increased in anger until they are so angry they’ll kill their parents. That’s anger. That came out of self-love. But when Jesus stood at that tomb, folks, He had an anger that matched His love. And when He spoke, He could separate death from a body and bring forth a living man. Hallelujah. How did that grab you? A lot of time, I don’t even give a tune. I’ll pray for people. I’m not mad about the things that bother them. We’re not mad with sin. Really, we’re not. Not mad as we’re going to get if we get in love.

Jesus was mad with it. He was angry with it. God is angry with the sinner sin every day. Has that made sense to y’all? You like that? Well, have I done it going long enough? Maybe you think I’ve gone too long. That’s crazy.

I am. I don’t believe a one of you in this room is satisfied to be where you’re at. Are you? No, you’re not. If I had to remain just like I am, and I’m in a good place right now, I’m being taught a lot of things in my life.

I don’t know why. But I’m being taught a lot of things in my life, and I might really get rejected later. Because I actually believe everything Jesus done, I’m going to live to see it done. I really believe that.

I need to, maybe, maybe I need to finish tomorrow. Because what I was fixing to say might take another hour or so. Don’t be afraid of the angers in you. You see, we’ve lived under condemnation too long. See? I used to, I’ve heard so much cotton-picking mess in my life that since you become a Christian, you’re not supposed to be this way. Well, I’m like that. And I’ve lived under condemnation like that. Okay? Everything that you’ve had in you before Jesus got in you is still there. The flesh is still hung on to you. Every bit of it’s there.

And so I’m not, you see, I haven’t lived in guilt. Here’s one reason I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. If we can ever get the guilt out of the church of Jesus Christ, we’ll have a, you’ll have something on, this world will have something on its hand.

If we can ever get out from honor to guilt, self-imposed laws and rules that we’ve made for ourself, you know why you condemn yourself? God don’t condemn you. The devil can’t condemn you. You condemn yourself. You know why we condemn ourself? Because we fall below what the standard we set for ourselves since we’ve become a Christian. That’s for self-condemnation.

That make sense? So I’m not, well, maybe I will speak just a little on this if you don’t mind. I’m going to teach you the simplicity of the gospel in a few words. It’s going to sound crazy just like that did when I first said it. People just almost had a fit when I mentioned that jealousy was, you know, God put it in us.

No, I’m not. Take too long. You just sleep on it. We’ll talk about it in the morning. It’s by our hearts before Jesus. Don’t be afraid of any problem you’ve got in your life from this point. Face it. Honest, you can face it in Jesus. Lord, I could kill that person. See? I could do this, Lord. I did hate mama. I despise daddy. See, I can say that now. I’m totally free from it. Has no pain, has no guilt when I say it.

It’s a door open to let Jesus Christ and His love, mercy, and grace into my life, into the darkness. Hallelujah. Lord Jesus, I love You and thank You. I don’t love You as much as I’m going to. Lord Jesus, I know You’re going to love me into it, and I’ll know it, I’ll know it as it comes forth. For Lord Jesus, it’ll be manifested in my relationship with other people no other way. If I say I love You and I hate my brother, I’m a liar. I don’t like that, Lord. It’s such an indictment against me, but it’s really not an indictment. You’re not here to indict us. Lord Jesus Christ, if I hate my brother, it reveals how much I need loving. And Lord Jesus, there’s this love within me, this reservoir, this oil, this… Hallelujah. Your love has not set me free enough yet.

Thank You, Lord. Praise You, Lord. I really believe Jesus is dealing with us now. Don’t play games. If something showed up in your life, just say, Lord, I did do that. And then take it and confess how bad you need Him.

If it’s sin, just say, Lord, it shows how much I need the blood. If it’s something less than love, Your love, it shows how bad I need it, Lord. When I’m hungry, it just shows how bad I need food. When I’m naked, it shows how bad I need clothes.

When I’m thirsty, it shows how bad I need drink. When I’m blind, it shows how bad I need sight. I don’t need condemning. When I’m sick, it shows how much I need healing. Everything reveals how much I need Jesus and how much you need Him. Lord, I receive You now. I have received You. I receive You again. Come and come quickly, Lord, into areas of my life. Knock on the doors I’m hid behind. Trembling in fear. Frightened. Been waiting all of these years for somebody to love me out from behind closed doors. Thank You, Lord. Thank You. Thank You so much. Amen. Amen. Wow. There’s a lot of the kingdom in this room right now. Look over the heads of others around you and you’ll see the light of the presence of the Lord of glory.

Don’t let it go out. Don’t revert back to self-consciousness too quick. Do we get dark? Amen. Thank you.