Entering the New Covenant by Death to Self – David Wilkerson

Down into Nothingness

I experienced the “going down into nothingness.” Now, I am not interested in the dictionary’s definition of nothingness. All I know is that I came to the end of myself—down, down, down into a place of total helplessness.

I had struggled long and hard to be obedient to the Lord, striving earnestly to live a holy life and to be pure. I had tried diligently to beat down every passion and lust in my body and mind. I had read many books and listened to many teachers, looking for keys, insights, secrets to living the life of an overcomer. I had wept until there were no more tears. I had walked and prayed, I had knelt and prayed, I had lain on my face and prayed. I had read my Bible until my eyes were weary. I had begged the Holy Spirit to cut off my offending right arm, pluck out my offending right eye, do whatever He had to do to rid me of all besetting sins. I wanted to be a pleasure to my Lord so badly.

Then one day I could take it no more. On that day, I could not even pray. All I could do was lie on the floor, empty in spirit, with no tears left. Engulfed in a sense of failure, I could only say, “Lord, I cannot go on like this anymore. I am worn out. I have tried and failed. After all my searching through books, all my study, all my efforts to be a conqueror, I still battle with the flesh. My temptations have not let up. I have tried to be a living sacrifice. I have struggled to live by faith. I have tried diligently to live and walk in the Spirit, to allow Him to lead me and empower me. But I still don’t get it. I still don’t understand why it’s not getting through to me.”

Down into nothingness I went—where the cry is, “Lord, I can’t struggle anymore. I have nothing in me to offer You—no merit, no plea. I have no more power, no more fight. I am weak, helpless. I’m clueless as to what I need to do.”

Down to nothingness—where you know nobody on this earth can help you. No counselor, no loved one, no friend, no minister. It is a place where you know that unless the Lord comes to change you—to open your eyes and show you the way—it cannot be done. It is a place where you know beyond any shadow of a doubt you can do nothing on your own. It is where you once and for all face the truth that all your struggling and striving in the flesh have gotten you nowhere, and now everything depends on Him. If there is going to be revelation, He has to give it. If there is going to be deliverance from besetting sins, the Holy Spirit has to do it. If things in my life need fixing, He has to fix them. If I am to be a blessing and joy to Him, He has to make it happen. If I am to walk in the Spirit, He has to show me how. If the Holy Spirit is to empower me to defeat lust or passion, it must happen by imputed faith alone. I am now out of the picture. Out of nothingness must come His supernatural strength. My promises are worthless because I cannot keep any of them. My striving is in vain because I have nothing to work with.

Down to nothingness—where I no longer have a will of my own. On my own I am helpless, “will-less.” I have given up my will because it has failed to accomplish any spirituality in me at all. At this place, I found myself on solid ground to remind Jesus that He Himself could do nothing on His own.

Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. . . . I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” (John 5:19–20, 30)

It was there in my nothingness that I told Jesus, “You were God in flesh, yet You needed the Father’s direction. You could do nothing on Your own. How could You expect any more of me? If You needed help and direction with every step, how much more do I need You to guide me in everything? How much more helpless am I without the same love and guidance from the Father? Jesus, You said Your Father loved You, and, therefore, He showed You ‘all things that He Himself does.’”

If I am in Christ, and His Father is my Father, then I am also loved. And He must show me all that He wants to do through me, for Him.

Then said Jesus to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.” (John 8:28–29)

Nothingness—a place where you feel abandoned. You love Him, you desire Him, you know that He is, but you feel that for some unknown reason He is silent. His revelation is not coming to you. He is not answering your heart’s cry for a clearer vision of what you are going through.

In such an hour, Jesus cried to the Father, “‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” (Mark 15:34). I made the same cry: “Father, all I want is to do Your will and please You. Why must I bear this sense that I’m on my own? Why do You not respond in my desperate time? Why is my soul so cast down with feelings of rejection and confusion?”

Breaking Through the Clouds

When Jesus said to His followers, “Take up your cross and follow Me,” He meant, “You will go down the same path to death.” A cross experience is when you think God has turned a deaf ear to your cry for righteousness and holiness. For a season your prayers go unanswered, and your heart rises up and begins to reason: “All I wanted was to be like Jesus—to walk in victory, to be a joy to Him, to enjoy sweet communion. But this? Why is there no clear way, no reassurance? Why is this darkness in my soul—this feeling of speaking into God’s ear, yet He appears not to hear? Why does it have to be so complicated?”

It is at this point in His crucifixion that Jesus broke through the devil’s cloud and cried aloud in faith. “When Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ Having said this, He breathed His last” (Luke 23:46).

Here is where the cross is most powerfully experienced. It happens when in my nothingness, I surrender my will—I quit struggling and striving. I now become wholly dependent on Him. The matter is now out of my hands completely; God has to take over. His Spirit must take me into death and raise me up as a new man. I give up the ghost, the independent life of flesh. Death to all ambition. Death to boasting and trying to impress others. Death to doing anything on my own. Death to my plans, desires, will. Death to all my striving to please Him. And, most of all, death to my past flesh-faith.

How many times have I struggled to muster up faith and tried to pump it up with promises? I repeated over and over, “Lord, I believe, I do believe, I really believe. I really, truly, honestly believe.” But it did not work. (You can always tell a request that is of the flesh, because it comes with a deadline. We give God what we consider long enough to act—but when He does not perform on schedule, our so-called faith turns into ugly unbelief.)

Death—it is the only way out of the Old Covenant and into the New. “Flesh-faith” has to die. No more striving to believe. If I am to have faith—true faith, the faith of Christ—He has to give it to me. We have been given a measure of faith—yet if it is true that I can do nothing of myself, then this includes having His faith. That is why Scripture calls it “the faith of Christ.”

Paul wrote:

I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. (Romans 7:9–13)

Are you sin-sick? Are you truly yearning to live a holy life, free from the habituating lusts of the flesh? Then get ready to die. Get ready to embrace the cross. The Old Covenant will bring you to your wits’ end—to nothingness. When you have given up all hope of overcoming sin by your own human power and will, then you are ready to enter the glorious realm of freedom through the New Covenant.