God works destruction.

[TaylorDonBarret]

Young men, you will heartily agree that you can do nothing of yourself… You don’t know at all what that means. It’s going to take so many decades of all your strength being destroyed; you have no idea what it means. Even those of us who are older and even those of us who have been in the ministry longer than I have been alive: it’s a process of learning. What does God do? God does such a work of destruction in our lives! He says “I will cleanse you” in Ezekiel… “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols.”. He will break apart all those cisterns that you make that can’t hold water, He will smash them and smash them and smash them! …Until your left utterly destitute of everything. That is, of course, if your God’s man. If you’re not God’s man, He will give you the desires of your heart. And that’s the most terrifying thing you could ever imagine. The Pharisees, they wanted to receive glory from men; Jesus said God gave them their reward in full. And then they went to Hell. The most terrifying thing young man is that God will give you the desires of your heart. You desire big ministry, popularity among people, all men speak well of you? God will give it to you. But it won’t be blessing, it will be judgment ending in condemnation. You must be weak. You must be weak. The life of Peter is such an example of this.. “Lord, though all men deny you, though all men betray you, though all men turn their back on you; I will die with you!” It was so necessary for that **** to crow. It was so necessary for Peter to fail. If that had not occurred I don’t believe that he could have ever been filled with The Holy Spirit. He had to realize ‘I am a betrayer, I am nothing!’ Some men will say “Yes!”, but they will still hold on to this, they will say “Yes, I am weak and I can do nothing without Him”, but they still hold on to idea “I have enough piety in order to be used of God”. You do not! It is even forsaking whatever known piety you think you have, and realize that God works because God has ordained to work; and to take the weakest of men and do the greatest of things. Your problem is not that you don’t know enough, your problem is not that your not gifted enough, your problem is your too strong. Your just too strong.

-Paul Washer