I'm here to take some souls with me to heaven. [applause] I want to just talk to you as a pastor, as a grandfather, and a great-grandfather and I want to talk to those who are carrying a need. My topic, if I were to choose one, would be "The Need in You and How to Meet It." You see, we can hide our need. We can put on a front. It can look like everything is fine. Even families can fake it and look like they're the all-American family and everything is okay.

And I've been thinking about it for 58 years of preaching around the world and all the human need that I've seen. I was contemplating or thinking about, a number of years ago, the son of one of the best known television personalities in America. I won't tell his name. He was Mr. all-America. He was, in fact, had two of the top TV shows in America, always smiling, traveling around the world, giving his upbeat American message of hope.

And his son gave a message in the Forum in Texas and I read about it in the Dallas Daily Morning News. His son got up in the Forum and, he'd just he'd had to come out, he was so broken. First place, he's the son of this well-known man and he said, "My life is a mess." He said, "I just decided at 40 years of age, all I have to show for life is making money, making money. I wasn't happy in my home and I left my wife." And he said, "I've tried to find happiness with other affairs." And he said, "Recently, my dad and I went out to the beach and he was rather reflective. We were talking about our family." He said, "I have two sisters that have been divorced. One of them twice. The other, the husband committed suicide."

And he went on to say, "I have a brother who's 34. He doesn't know what he's going to do. He sits at home." And he said, "My dad, who is traveling all over in his jet, giving these messages, turned to me and said, "My life has passed me by. There's nothing in it. It's all a front," he said, "I feel like life is passing me by.""

And he said, "My mother, bless her heart," he said, "my mother, the kids are all gone and Dad's gone and Mother sits at home lonely and feels useless and this," he said, "in my family, there's a need that can't be met. We've tried everything." And I didn't know at the time because this was a wonderful man and a wonderful family, to all appearances, but messed up. He said, "There's a need there. I can't explain. There's something deep and my family hasn't found it."

Years ago, a number of years ago, when I wrote "The Cross and the Switchblade" and I was traveling around to television programs and radio shows, I was invited in a Chicago all-night radio program. I was one of five guests. I think it started at 11:00 and went to 3:00 or so, five guests.

One of them was a comedian who had been divorced 10 times. I don't want to mention his name. And I was one of the guests and for the first two hours I sat there listening, this man mocked marriage. He said, "I've been married 10 times." And he said, "I'm getting married the 11th." And this 11th one was sitting in the audience. For two hours, he was mocking marriage, he was mocking issues and he was challenging men to get out of their marriage if it's bad and find a younger, better looking wife.

And during the show, the host turned to me and said, "Mr. Wilkerson, you haven't said anything." He shouldn't have said that. [laughter] The Spirit of the Lord came on me and I pointed to this man and I said, "Sir, I think I've just met the loneliest man in America." I said, "I think you cry yourself to sleep. I think this is an act." I said, "You've mocked marriage, you've made fun of it. And I just say, I have met the loneliest man in America." And the host quickly went to commercial. [laughter]

After the show, it's about two o'clock in the morning, I was leaving and I didn't know how to get a cab or anything. But this comedian came up to me and he said, "Mr. Wilkerson, I've got to talk to you. Please let me take you to your hotel." I said, "Fine." We went to the parking lot and she got in on her side and he got there and put his head on the steering wheel, then he turned. I was in the back seat.

He said, "Reverend, you hit the nail on the head. You've just met the loneliest man in the world." He said, "10 women couldn't be wrong." He said, "I have maligned this woman." He said, "I think I need God." He said, "I have a need in me and when it couldn't be met, I went from one woman to another trying to get somebody that would meet this hounding need in me that I didn't even know what it is. It's like an itch you can't scratch." And I prayed with him. I ministered to him and prayed. He prayed the sinner's prayer, but that's all I could do at the time.

But you see, we can hide these things, but when we're alone, when everything is, when you have to face the silence. I was thinking this past week, some of the loneliest kids I've ever met in all my ministry in Harlem, now those are the early days of Teen Challenge, the ministry God used me to raise up for drug addicts and alcoholics. Now I had a motor scooter and I went all through Harlem and Spanish Harlem and I was walking the streets.

I met a teenage girl on the street corner and I was trying to get her into the ministry. She was a drug addict and she said, "Mister, I want you to come with me. I want to show you something." And she was a mainline heroin addict and she took me into one of the rundown housing areas and into a dark, lightly lit room, and there were five deaf-mute teenagers. One maybe being a little older. One was a 17-year-old red-headed deaf-mute and there was a couch and there were two, a couple wooden milk crates that they were sitting on, one needle and they're shooting heroin.

Now, the girl that invited me there knew sign language and she cared for these kids, five of them pushing that dirty needle into their veins. And that 17 year old girl looked at me as if to say, "Please don't be offended. Please don't be offended." I asked the girl to sign for me and the little girl was signing and I asked her, "Why, with all of your other problems, you can't speak and you can't hear?"

She was [inaudible]. "We have needs, too. We hurt. We're not accepted and mister, we don't rob, we don't steal. We take government compensation money and that's how we get our heroin. But this is the only thing and this eases the pain. We get relief for a while." I tried to get them to say, "Come on in." I gave them invitations and told them how to get into Teen Challenge and I prayed with them and left.

But you see, your problem may not be drugs. It may not be alcohol. It may not be any of these things that I mentioned here, but there's a need. I don't think I've met anybody yet in all my ministry that doesn't have a need, some unmet need, some hurt, some pain, it may have to do with children, other things.

But you came here tonight and you can't fake it when you're in the presence of God. You can't fake it because the Holy Spirit, this Hound from Heaven who comes to open up the love of Jesus Christ and manifest not just in words, but in deeds and showing us the way to meet those needs.

I don't know what your need is. You came here, you hear people testify how they have been met, their needs have been met. But let me give you just three little hints, three little things that the Holy Spirit told me to tell you on how to meet that need that is in you, that hurt, that pain.

First of all, you've got to turn away from all human, physical... You can't go to anything that's physical and find help. No doctor, no physician, no pastor, no friend, no mate can meet that inner need. That can't get to the root of it. That can't do it. You have to realize the problem, the need, is spiritual and not physical. Because you know the history. Those who have all the money they could... The owner of one of the football teams here in New York City, if you've been reading the paper, grieves over his daughter who had all the money she could want and the cars and fast life and everything and her life snuffed out.

You can't find help anywhere else, but in Christ. There is no other place to turn on the face of this earth. There's no other hope. There's no other. And you've got to settle that in your mind. I have to recognize. You acknowledge that this need in me is spiritual, and if I try drugs, it won't work.

It amazes me how many young people now are giving themselves to parties. It was in the headline of one of the magazines here. I was at the grocery store and looked. It says, "Every night we party." And these young adults and pot and drinking, trying to ease the fear, the emptiness and the fear of the future and the struggle to make it.

I asked a preacher's son recently why he was running with the pot crowd and he said, "I never have felt in my life worth anything. I'm a slow learner." And he said, "I was never accepted by those who were in the in-crowd." He said, "I got in with some friends and I smoke pot because I feel accepted. And it eases for a season just a little bit of eases this feeling of being left out and not amounting to anything." And it's not helping him. Every time I talk to him, I find out he's going deeper and deeper into it and finding less and less peace and rest in it.

And I'm talking to someone. I'm diverting now from what I planned to say, but I know the Spirit of the Lord is speaking through me. He's telling me, the Spirit of the Holy Spirit, that some of you sitting here now, you have turned to pot and you've turned alcohol. You have tried and tried to ease that pain and meet that need that is in you and it's not working. The pleasures of the world, the Bible doesn't hide it. It says for a season, yes, but it keeps diminishing in its fruit. And some of you sitting here now, and you've already been down that track, and I'm asking you now to come to the reality of the gospel.

First of all, you must see it plainly and right to your heart. Your only hope is recognizing that this is spiritual. It has very little to do with your past. Some of it, do, in other words, how you arrived there. Secondly, you can't just hear the truth. You have to do the truth. Some of you, most of you are here, the scripture makes it very clear. Jesus said, "I am the way and I'm the truth." And he said, "If you love me, you will obey me." You will do what I say. You will do. You obey the truth. It's not enough to hear the truth. It's not enough to come to a meeting like this and hear a pastor or these testimonies.

Because, you see, most of you, you saw maybe, the Passion movie and you know about the cross and the shed blood of Jesus. Many of you can quote scripture even if you don't acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. You know. You have the knowledge of Christ. The Bible makes it clear in Romans that these things about God, they've been made clear either by nature or some way God has gotten through in some measure to your heart. You know the truth.

We say, "You shall know the truth and this truth shall set you free." But there's more to it. It's the doing of the truth. It's the hearing it and accepting it as the truth and walking in it. There's a walking in truth that sounds very simple, but this is the problem. In the scripture, it says, Paul the Apostle said, "They have heard the truth and they refuse to walk into it, loving their unrighteousness, loving their pleasures."

You can never have your need met if you look in the mirror and say, "I love it too much. I love what I am doing." There has to come a cry in your heart. You have to come almost to the end of your rope. Some of you have heard enough gospel to save anybody in this building tonight.

I was reading this afternoon and this brings me to the third point. Jesus says in the 17th Chapter of John, he's speaking of his followers. He's speaking of those who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and he says this, "I pray for them. I pray for them that they will be kept from the evil." Because you may be asking the question, if I give my life to Jesus tonight, I not only hear the truth, but I begin to walk in it.

For example, Jesus said, "If you confess me before the world, I'll confess you before my Father." That means to make a confession. We do that in this church. We ask people to make a public declaration that they're ready to receive Christ as Lord. We say, get up and come down to the altar. Now the altar, it's just a piece of wood up here, but we call it an altar. It's a place where you can just declare yourself for Christ. And we invite you to get out of your seat and come down here and stand here and take a stand for Christ.

But not only does Jesus say, "I pray for those who love me," he said, I think it's in verse 20, "and I pray for those to whom they will preach." In plain English, to those preaching. And I was sitting at my desk this afternoon and this was hitting me and then I'm going to close in just a moment. This hit me. He said, "I pray not only for these, not just my followers, but also to all of those to whom his followers will teach," or preach to.

And it hit me. The words that I speak to you now, while I speak, the moment I started preaching, the moment I started talking to you, that scripture is being fulfilled. Jesus started praying for you, even in this service. He started praying for you because I believe the Word. I'm going to walk in it and I'm going to believe it. I believe that what I'm saying to you right now is being accompanied by the prayers of Jesus himself to the heavenly Father. He's praying that you will open your heart. He's saying, "Give them ears to hear and eyes to see," and he's praying for you as sure as I know that Jesus prays for his believers.

I know he prays for me and I thank God for those prayers, but I stand here in the authority of the Holy Spirit of almighty God and the power of this living word, and I came to this pulpit believing it that my words are not falling to the ground in front of me. They're not being wasted. I told you, I came here to take some of you home to heaven with me. I don't know how long it'd be for me, but I'm taking you along because Jesus is praying for you. And God has never turned down the prayers of his own Son.

Glory to God who in the highest. Now, it's up to you. This is life and death. It is a dangerous thing, I have to say this in love. It's a dangerous thing to shake off the loving grace of God because there's a tendency then to harden your heart and the more you hear it and the more about Jesus you hear, the less and less you want to hear it and the harder and harder your heart will get.

And this is the day. This is the time God has set. He brought you here, not by accident. You're here in the perfect divine will of God. If he's ever led you in your life, if you've ever asked God to lead you, he heard you and led you to this church tonight. Will you stand?

Lord Jesus, I'm asking you by your Spirit now to come with your loving power, the loving grace of Christ, and speak to hearts tonight that this is the place and the time to have those needs met. Lord, you said, "Come onto me all you that are weary and heavy laden. I'll give you rest." As the young lady said, and these others have said tonight, they've come to that peace and that rest and the joy that is in Christ.

Lord Jesus, I know your prayer is going to be answered tonight. I don't know whether it's one, I don't know if it's two or five, 10 or 50. I don't know how many are hearing this, but Holy Spirit, I know that I know that I know, that you're going to hear the cry of your own Son and you're going to bring those that are heavy laden, carrying pain and disillusionment, emptiness and bring it here to your feet.

And Jesus, you've promised that you would give the power to walk. If we would surrender, you would give us the power over evil. You'll give us the power over habits. You'll give us power to leave our friends that are dragging us down, to leave and walk in a new life in a new way, in Christ's name. Amen.

Now I invite you. While they're playing, to step out of your seat. Up in the balcony, go to the stairs on either side and come. I'm not putting on a show and I'm not... I'm too old for that, but I'm going to stand here and I want to welcome you into the loving, caring arms of Jesus.

I'd like, just all stand, no clapping. Just allow the Holy Spirit to speak. If you're one of those who he's speaking to right now, you have this deep need that's still not met and a pain that you can't carry any longer on your own strength. I think when you heard these testimonies tonight, surely you heard something that you related to.

I'm not going to prolong this. Step out of your seat here in the main auditorium. If you're in the Annex, just go to the hall and the ushers will show you how to get here. Come and bring the pain. Bring the emptiness, bring it all to Jesus right now.

It takes more than a prayer. It takes even more than a confession of your sins. I'm going to ask you to pray a prayer with me. I'm going to ask you to repent. I'm going to ask you to ask the Lord to lovingly forgive every sin and to accept you into the family of God.

But you see there has to be more than that. It's not just hearing and not just the prayer. Behind that prayer has to be a commitment that you make, that you will follow and walk in the truth. You will love the truth enough to do it. You have to love the truth. You have to say even just the simple cry, your simple prayer inside your heart saying, "Lord, I want to go the right way. I want the truth that sets me free." The only truth that sets you free is not just the hearing but the doing of it so that you make a commitment right now.

"As of tonight, I'm going to commit myself to Jesus Christ," or recommit if that's the case, but you're going to make a commitment. "Lord, I'm going to follow this through. If there's a new believers class, then Lord, I want the truth. I want to walk and I want to know what Jesus says. I want to know more about him being the truth so that I can walk like him. I want the power in me."

You're going to have to break with the world. You're going to have to break with friends. If you're a young person here, I see some young people here. I just have to say this. I talked to a boy last year because he said he was witnessing to his friends. They're all pot smoking, drinking friends. He's had those friends for years. And he said, "I can't leave them." He said, "I don't preach at them, but I live the life before them. And I believe by living the life." And he was inviting them into his apartment and they were smoking pot in front of him. And I said, "No." I said, "I don't care." And he's been touched in his lifetime. He's been touched. He knows Jesus. He knows that he won't make the break. And he wound up smoking pot. He wound up getting caught. And he's in pretty deep trouble right now.

You see, you're going to make a break. It's not just coming up here and saying a prayer. Now this prayer counts, if it comes from the heart, if you're ready. And those of you have been, you gave your heart to Jesus. I presume many of you here have done that. You've given your heart to Jesus, but you've been toying with just a little nab and nib at the world or back to friends that you know are going to drag you down. Make that commitment now. If I have to walk alone, I want the truth and I want to live it and I want to do it.

Now, will you pray? Will you pray with me? Now, don't pray that prayer unless you're willing to make a break with everything of this world and say, "I want Jesus. I just don't want to hear about it. I want to walk in it." Say this with me. Pray this with me.

"Jesus. I want to be serious. I want to go through to an encounter with you, Jesus. I want to know you. And I don't want to have to come back time and time again and get saved and re-saved. I want it all tonight. I want to give you a commitment. I do confess all my sins and I believe you, Jesus, that you can give me the authority and keep me from evil. I surrender. Now Jesus, open up my heart to understand and know the truth that I may walk in it."