I Would Not Have You Ignorant | Pastor Nick Cassidy

Welcome to the Spring Church Podcast.

We are so glad you joined us.

Our mission is to reach the lost by raising up fully trained disciples that are empowered by God to impact their world.

We pray that you are challenged and encouraged as you listen to this week's message.

Myself, my wife Catherine.

Again, it's an honor to be among you, to just worship the Lord with you.

Amen.

Thank you.

And to just sense what the Lord is doing here in this house, it's always very, very um faith-building for us as we as we come in fellowship with you, see what the Lord is doing among you.

We're very grateful that you haven't forgotten us in Ireland.

This church has been a wonderful church, a great giving church, and a great mission-sending church.

And I pray that regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in, you'll always be gracious in your heart to the work of God.

Because it's the greatest thing you can do with your existence is to give into the kingdom.

It is a sowing into the eternal things of God, and we do want to commend you for that.

You sent a wonderful team our way again this year, and uh Pastor Tim and Emma, of course, captain that team, and um gave a great account of you and of the church here and really left us encouraged.

Pastor Lauren and Shane were amazing with the VBS.

We're so blessed by them, and just the general team, just the way they went out and embraced uh just the average person on the street, shared the love of God with them.

Uh I can I can say this to their credit everywhere they went, every report from all my leaders and and congregants, is that the people that came from the Spring Church left a blessing behind them and encouraged church.

Can you ask for any more than that?

No, you can't.

But we're so grateful that you would remember remember us in our land and send such quality people.

And may God continue to bless you, Pastor Owen and Pastor Madd and and uh all the other pastors.

And it'll be like the Grammys here if I try to remember all the names and to get somebody wrong.

But the Lord bless you.

You have splendid leaders in this church, from your elder board right through to your pastoral staff, your ministry staff.

Uh I know them all for many years now and I've seen them by the way they've grown in the grace and God and the love of God, how they've matured into their calling.

Uh they're young men, but they're godly men with godly wives and godly families, and they've stood the test of time.

Amen.

Church in Ireland, I think I would disqualify to say we're in revival in some level.

And I don't say that lightly.

I'm a Christian 46 years.

I pioneered a church with my wife Catherine.

I'm in the same church for 38 years, and uh, we've never seen such a tremendous move of the Holy Spirit.

Uh, you know, it was just a phenomenal time to be alive and to see God moving in the Gen Z generation.

You know, I thought, as I said before, I think I always thought that Z meant zombie, um, but I didn't know what that meant.

And I thought they were very difficult to reach.

How do you ever reach people that don't even understand biological science, but God can reach them, amen?

And he is reaching them, they are as spiritual as the boomer generation.

They love, they are, they need God as much as any generation.

And rather than creating a wider gap, I want to see ways of bridging that gap, amen.

And um, praise God, he is He is winning them.

And they are they are standing up and being counted and they're going out, and God is doing something really magnificent.

I think of that scripture, you know, I will do something new among you, now it shall spring forth.

Will you not be aware of it?

So I would ask you to open your eyes this morning, open your hearts to something old and something new from the Lord, amen.

And that God expand you and grow you, and don't let Sunday morning just be a tick of the box that you leave the same way you arrived in here.

That would be that would really be a you know a sort of lesson in the up in the in the obscure to say the least.

But let's really ask the Holy Spirit to speak something to our hearts, amen.

So will you bow your head for just a moment and ask God to help us to hear him, and that we would not just be hearers, but we'd also be those that would believe and do.

And so, Father, Lord, I just come before you in the name of your Son Jesus, Lord, and I lift up this word, Lord, that you put onto my heart, God, and I pray, Father, it will it will hit the mark for all of us, myself included, God, that we will leave her changed, oh God, changed in direction, Lord, desiring more of you, Father God, and leaving with living with greater intentionality.

So, Father, we just come before you.

We're grateful for all that you've done, but speak one more time from this pulpit, Lord, and let the name of Jesus be exalted, oh God, and let your people be built into faith.

We pray in the loving and wonderful name of Jesus, our Lord.

Amen and amen.

We just came from Canada, from Prince Edward Island.

We were with Pastor Carter and Theresa for a week there, and also at a group of people called the Titus Company.

That is a group of us that travel with Pastor Carter and Theresa when the Lord opens up opportunities around the world to minister to leaders and churches.

And uh they're just we're just a group of already pastors and leaders that really have that opportunity to go to churches that don't have the ability to even foot the bill.

We finance our own way there.

But we were a meeting for prayer and just uh seeking God for guidance for next year as to where we would go.

But in my conversations with Pastor Carter, um, you know, something stirred.

We were just we were shortening one another and what God was saying and doing, and and of course, yeah, all day yesterday, I uh Owen left me on my own.

Would you believe that?

I'm in great hospitality earth.

No, I asked him, I had to shut in.

I had to shut in with the Lord all day yesterday because I think I changed 20 times the message.

I moved from this one to this one to that, and streaming new message, and all that stuff was going on.

But it was the conversation with Pastor Carter came back to me late in the afternoon, and and I really feel this was the right message to speak here, because we were both talking about the urgency of the moment that we're living in.

And I really enjoy that video, by the way, whether it was the patriarch or not, because it just shows the foolishness of the world at the moment.

Amen.

We have to resist worldly thinking, friends.

We have to resist ungodly counsel and we have to stand on the word of God, amen.

And we have to start believing in the supernatural outworking of his word, amen.

You cannot be afraid of that.

You cannot, you cannot, you cannot just become so safe as a Christian that you think that we're going to win the world through doctrinal statements, you know, and and that would be wonderful.

I think if if good preaching could have changed America, I think we could have done it.

We've had some great preachers and still have in this great country of yours.

But you know, the apostle Paul says, I didn't come to you with eloquence of speech, I didn't come to you from a great pedigree.

I came to you bringing what he says, manifestations of the power of God, demonstrations of the power of God.

And and so if we're gonna meet the challenge of the moment that we're living in, the challenging times that we're in, we're not gonna do it through just speaking out bumper stick or Christianity or just having the best of natural thinking.

Even good doctrine, friends, there's something more that God has left for his church, and you and I have to be ready to hear what the spirit is saying to the church.

Joe chapter 2, verses 28 and 29, he said this, and it shall come to pass that afterwards that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men will see visions, and also upon my men servants and upon my maidservants, I will pour out my spirit in those days.

And here's the promise of God.

There's something more to the experience of the Christian than just doctrine, amen.

There is a life that is to be lived in relationship to the Holy Spirit.

I wanted to bring us through just a few readings this morning.

I'm on the iPad, by the way, says I bought the wrong translation Bible with me.

And so this morning, the first service, I was getting beautiful pictures of my grandchildren up during my um message here, and it did warm my heart to say the least.

Acts chapter one, amen.

Acts chapter one, go there with me, verses five and eight.

And this is what the Lord says, and for John truly baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

And then go down to verse eight.

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the other ends of the earth.

Can you say amen this morning?

You shall receive dunamis.

That's where we get the modern word dynamite.

You shall receive a power that's not of yourself.

Jesus said it is important that I leave you, because when I leave you, I will send you another.

That word, another, means another of the same kind.

In other words, it was God, the very God, the Holy Spirit, and He would lead you into all truth.

And this power was what was going to make the difference for men that would just have an argument.

Amen.

Friends, I'm telling you, the hour is late, the time is dark.

We don't need arguments.

We need men and women that are equipped and empowered in the power of God's Holy Spirit.

Acts chapter 2, verse 1.

Acts 2:1

When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all on one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were seating, and they appeared unto them divided tongues of fire, and one shed upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

What a remarkable thing, what a powerful thing that happened.

Men that were covering, men that were fearful, men that had seen the one who they loved crucified and put into the ground, friends, and yet, even though he had resurrected and they had seen him resurrected, there was going to be that need of something greater in them to stand against the tide of oppression and to establish that great church of Jesus Christ.

It was going to be the power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead coming in and touching our lives.

Hallelujah.

Turn to me to another scripture, a little bit of a Bible study, but you'll catch it.

1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

The importance of these truths, friends, has escaped us.

Paul says this writing to the church that he planted in Corinth.

It wasn't a very big church, it was a church of about 120 people.

I found that quite remarkable when I did my study on the Corinthian church.

It wasn't a large gathering, but man, was it a gathering?

And to be a Corinthian, as you know, was not meant to be.

Someone called you a Corinthian, they weren't complimenting you.

A Corinthian, you know, he's an he's a Corinthian.

That's another word for being a whoremonger or a drunkard or an immoral person.

And yet, this church that that that Paul established, there was these incredible manifestations of God.

In many of them that they were illiterate in the sense that they had no pedigree, they had no background, they didn't have any Judaism background or many Gentiles that had come in, but they they had heard the preaching of the gospel and they believed it in faith.

And then the journey of romancing with the Holy Spirit began began with them, and God began to move among that group in great power, and spiritual gifts started to break out in that church.

It was a phenomenal church, it was a church full of problems, a little bit like our churches today.

A lot of people can't believe that God can move in our churches today.

But let me tell you, if he can move in the Corinthian church, he can move in any church.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

A lot of people say, Oh, because there's sin or there's weakness or there's failure that God can't move.

What a load of nonsense, friends.

The spirit of God is greater than any human failure.

I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Amen.

Praise God for the promise of God's Holy Spirit.

There was that breaking out of sin all over the Corinthian church.

Oh, I might tell you one thing.

That Paul, he must have been a very bad pastor.

Jesus was probably worse again, because Jesus is only a twelve, and one of his was a you know, thief from the beginning, and he denied him.

And you know, it's amazing how objective we can become with the church and not see the wood for the trees.

Amen.

Oh, just be careful, friends.

Condemned is he who condemns the righteous.

Hallelujah.

That's the one curse in Jer in the book of Isaiah.

They condemned the righteous, and it was a curse upon them.

And so that would be today for us, friends, when we call the people of God that are holy and call holy and call them on holy.

Amen.

And well, I just want you to defend the body of Christ.

But any of these manifestations are breaking out in the Corinthian church, and he starts off in chapter 12.

Gives two chapters, 12 and 14, which is a which is an intense amount of scripture to give to this subject.

There's very few areas of doctrine in your Bible, save Romans, you know, that deal with justification by faith.

Corinth is probably the next biggest teaching and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And something along our journey as Christians have dispensed of this.

But anyway, let's read what he has to say.

Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.

You know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols, however, you were led.

Therefore, I make known unto you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a cursed.

And no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

They are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

They are differences of ministries, but the same Lord, and they are diversities of activities, but it's the same God who works all in all.

But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.

For unto one is given the word of wisdom to the spirit, to another the word of knowledge to the same spirit, and to another, faith by the same spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the same spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, the cerning of spirits, to another, different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

But one and the same spirit works all things, uh, distributing to each one individually as he wills.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

You know, friends, uh, there is only one church.

Amen.

One Lord, one baptism, one body.

And I'm a study of history, I love history, particularly recently.

I've been sharing with Owen and others that because of the false rise of Catholicism again and all that, all that uh false religion coming back into our communities, it's driven me back into church history, driven me back into the scriptures, which is not a bad thing at all, amen.

But I've learned something very quickly.

We as believers don't go back to 1517.

For those of you who don't know that date, that is the date Martin Luther, 31st of October, 1517, the reformation.

That was a great time in history when God began to reform that church again and bring it back to sola scriptura and back onto biblical principles.

But we don't go back there, amen.

We're not good Protestants, no friends.

We go back to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

That's the church that we are more to, amen.

That is where God wants to bring this church because in the end days, men will depart and go after all sorts of deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, and we need to be able to combat that aggression of the spirit through the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

There's only one church, that church is a spirit-filled, spirit-led body.

The apostle Paul, writing years later to the Corinthian church, he starts to lay down order upon the manifestations that were surfacing it at Corinth.

But this is what he says: he starts off by telling him this I would not have you ignorant.

I would not have you ignorant.

Ignorance is a terrible thing, friends.

The Bible says, because of a lack of knowledge, Hosea in chapter 4 says, My people are perishing.

Knowledge is so important.

How can they call upon it him whom they have not heard?

You have to know the name of Jesus before you can call upon him for salvation.

If you don't know that something exists, then you would never try to apprehend it.

And he says, Remember, you are Gentiles carried away by these dumb idols.

And I was thinking, if there's ever been a generation that has been led astray by dumb idols, it has to be this one between pop idol and American idol.

And if that isn't bad enough, the mega church pastor idol, amen.

And how we've been led astray through personality and technique and the blasé and the and the smooth and the hip and every other sort of junk that has passed itself off as religion, friends.

I tell you what, friends, it holds nothing, no power, no wind, or empty clouds without rains.

But God has given us the Holy Spirit.

We need to remind ourselves that we are commanded by God, by the God of heaven, to live this life, not by the natural unction, not by the flesh of man, not by the pop pastor idol, friends.

But we are to live this life to the power of the Holy Spirit.

He says it's not by might, it's not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.

This is what God will try to bring us back to.

We are facing the darkest times in human history, friends.

But thanks be to God.

You quoted it this morning from Romans where sin abounds, grace does much more abound.

Amen.

Oh, hallelujah.

I will send my spirit upon all flesh.

I will, says the Lord.

And so we are living in a time, I believe, where men and women again are beginning to drill down into real Christianity.

A life that is animated, a life that has moved, a life is led, a life that is empowered by the Spirit of God.

We have wrongly distilled the message and reduced just the Christian salvation to just forgiveness of sins.

Praise God for forgiveness of sins.

Praise God for the cross of Jesus Christ.

We must not and I do not downgrade the great attribute of salvation.

Paul says in Romans 5:1, we have been justified by faith and we have peace with God, and that has been done through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:1

But friends, we have a generation of people who have heard that God can forgive sin, but they're unconvinced that there's more to the picture than that.

They've heard the stories of the love of God, they've heard that sins can be forgiven.

What I mean is that they hear about love forgiveness and they but they say they fail to see much of the supernatural keeping power of the Holy Spirit in the life of his church.

I want to tell you this morning, forgiveness of sin wasn't the only thing won for us at Calvary.

Hallelujah.

There's more to the picture, there's more to the journey.

I want to tell you, there's an experience in God that God wants you to have with him.

God wants you to go on a journey with him.

It's not about your pastors and your leaders, it's about you and I relating to the Holy Spirit.

It's about you and I developing and growing up and putting on our big boy pants spiritually and hearing from God.

That is not an elite, we do not preach an elitist gospel.

We preach that there is one God and one mediator between God and men.

And you and I have access to the same throne of grace to enter in time of need.

We have a resource that we can come to.

We have a spring that never runs dry, friends.

Hallelujah.

The Holy Spirit was given to lead you into all truth, and that truth was the unlocking of the power of God so that the church can live not just forgiven, but free and in victory.

Free and sticking it to the devil and every demon of hell, friends.

That's the that is the church triumphant.

That is the church that's discovering the old true religion.

That it's not just about being saved, friends, it's being saved to the uttermost.

Amen.

It's walking in the place where God always intended us to walk.

That average, normal men, unlearned men, as they saw in the book of Acts.

These men that never went to Bible schools, these men that never had much education.

Because the Apostle Paul says that not much of you came from royal society, not much of you came from the top oscillances of community.

But God takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

Oh, hallelujah! Thank God this morning.

If you're foolish in your own eyes, let me tell you, you're in a place to be used by God because God will use you, God will speak to you, He'll speak to the depth of your being, He will tell you when to turn right, He will turn you when to turn left, He will tend to tell you when to stay still, He will tell you when to move forward.

Amen.

That is the life of the Christian friends to be listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

For too long we have been merely content to be saved and forgiven.

For many, we have lost, even from our vocabulary and our experiences, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

I don't know about you, but I came into this manifestation very young.

I was 12 or 13 when I got filled with the Holy Spirit.

And we're talking about a time in Ireland where we had no pastors.

My mom and dad got saved.

It was a just a divine move of God upon our own family unit.

We had our Bible, we had Matthew Henry commentary, and we tori what the Bible teaches.

And through that, we had a hungry heart.

But in that studying of the scriptures and reading the word of God, we saw that the Holy Spirit was promised in the scripture.

It's amazing, friends.

There was nobody jittling our jaw or pushing us backwards or forward or telling us all these stupid, sometimes stupid manifestations that you see happening.

But we knew there was an authenticity in the scripture, that there was gifts, powers, leadings that were urged by divine right that God had chosen and elected to empower his church.

And we started to simply seek them as simple believers in a family home.

I want to tell you, Jesus is true to his word.

He who begins the good work in you will bring it to completion.

Amen.

Thank God for the Holy Spirit.

Hallelujah.

But many of us, I remember those days when I got filled with the Holy Spirit.

I remember as in the little meeting, and someone started to pray, and that person became so animated.

He actually started praying.

Tongues became animated.

I'm 12 years old.

I'm kneeling down and praying, and all of a sudden I get this excitement over me.

It's nothing other than that sense of God is with me.

Me, this sense of God is here, and I'm naturally animated because I sense his presence.

And then I started to speak in tongues right there, nobody near meet, not even praying for it.

I started to speak in tongues.

I had been studying it, but I started to speak in tongues, and I was so embarrassed to tell my mom and dad.

Going home in the car, they knew something happened.

I didn't even want to tell them because I might have pulled my sister's hair that morning.

I don't know.

I might have broken a dolly.

I was 12 years old.

You know, I might have gone, and I was thinking, all these, you're 12 years old, going into 13, you're facing puberty, you have all these questions going on already.

How could God do that to you?

Are you getting what I'm saying?

But he did.

And remember the touch of the Holy Spirit.

And I remember telling my dad, and my dad was nearly weeping when she said, Tell your mom, tell your mom.

And then tell my mom, this is at the kitchen table, and let me hear you speak in tongues.

And that was two worse again.

You know, and I'm like I'm nearly dying a thousand deaths, but I've spoken tongues at the table, but I'm not saying that's the way to do it.

There was a lot of ignorance, you know.

There was a lot of this was very, very new, but it was very real.

These are things that generated us to have a have a confidence to go on the streets.

The Apostle Paul gave us two-thirds of the New Testament.

Thirteen books, I think he wrote if you take Hebrews in.

And he said, I, more than all of you, speak in tongues.

I'm thinking, wow, this is probably the most intelligent man that we have record of in the scriptures.

They estimate that he had two PhDs at the equivalent by the age of 25.

I studied under Gamriel.

I studied with Barnabas, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Jew of Jews.

After the law, he was perfect.

This is a this was no weak man.

And he's saying, I more than all of you, talking to the Corinthians who are just fresh out of the water Christians, manifesting the Holy Spirit.

I more than all of you speak in tongues.

It got me thinking, well, what does it do?

I had no idea.

What does it do?

Because the Bible talks about the gift of tongues and the speaking of tongues.

There's a differentiation, differentiation there.

Speaking in tongues, friends, and the gift of tongues, similar but different.

One is to be addressed to the church, and if it's addressed to the church, it has to be interpreted, or else be quiet.

Otherwise, you're out of order.

You're just disrupting the order of worship.

But the other one with an edification, the building up.

That's why Jude writes in his one chapter book, you beloved, building up yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.

Brothers, I wouldn't have you ignorant.

Oh, I talked to a young man this morning.

He came to that altar.

First up, he was a young man sitting over there.

I could God, I could see God speaking to him about the Holy Spirit.

Ran to that altar this morning.

I said, Are you speaking?

You speaking to us?

He said, I am, but I haven't spoken in a long time.

And I said to him, You know, there's a rule in nature.

You know, a mole has two big old eyes on the top of his head, but he's blind because all he is is under the ground all the time.

And nature has its natural things, use it or lose it.

And you know what, friends?

We have dispensed with some of the most beautiful things that have happened in our lives and retort it to nothing but bumper stickers and quoting scriptures, a formula for godliness, a form of godliness, but no power.

That's what that word means.

So we've seen the first service this morning, Paul talks about having a form of godliness.

That means formula, a formula, three steps, two steps, but no power.

But if we are gonna meet, if we are gonna meet what's coming down the road, that's already here.

Friends, we don't meet it on the road, we meet it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

There needs to be an intentionality here, friends.

There needs to be a going back.

We've lost it from our vocabulary, and we wouldn't have you ignorant.

Some of us have been baptized in the Holy Spirit for years, and others here this morning.

It is an experience that God would have you to walk in because the time is dark, friends, and you're gonna need everything in that mercy that you can get.

If he needed it, you need it.

Let nobody hear me so ever again and say, My teaching is enough, my doctrine is enough.

Well, why would Paul say, I'm more than all of you, speak in tongues, because there were times in his life where he left a man sick in traumas and he talked about even despairing of life itself.

Can you imagine getting to such darkness?

Can you imagine getting to such a place in your life?

And some are there, some have been there, and some will go there, but you can't even pray with the natural mind.

You're so spent, you're so broken, you're so disorientated, but you can pray in the spirit, you can build yourself up.

There's something, friends, we need to come back to.

There's something we need to recall, there's something we need to remember.

Paul says, I don't want your ignorance.

My reading of the first century church is that it quickly began to turn after the first hundred years, and it began to turn out out of any particular sin.

They started to get into Christology, which is perfectly right.

The nature of Christ, the two natures of Christ, the try, the triunity of the Godhead.

And so great men and uh of God began to plow into that deeper understanding of the revelations and they come up years later with the doctrines of the Trinity that we agree to and the glorious truths of God's word.

But sometimes in the pursuit of truths, we become less dependent upon the simplicity of Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The first church wasn't highly educated.

You know, friends, they were people that had a living encounter with God.

And I want to tell you, friends, if it's about getting you up to speed, literacy-wise in the scripture, or getting all your theology right, all your doctrines right, friends, let me tell you, friends, then you will never qualify.

But God qualifies those he calls, amen.

He gives them gifting beyond their abilities, friends.

He gives them words that don't fall to the ground.

It says that a Samuel, the young boy Samuel in his time, when he when he spoke, it says his words never fell to the ground.

That's the difference of speaking in the spirit.

So you can speak, you can say the same scripture, but if you're not walking in the spirit, when you speak under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, you don't even know it, friends.

But when you are under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, it hits the mark.

And the other scripture from a man that's just walking in the natural thinking, it doesn't hit the mark, friends, because it's not a formula.

It's not a formula.

Those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

And that's what God is bringing us.

We have steered far too close to an intellect-only gospel.

We have not humbled ourselves, we have not chastened our natural, our brilliant minds to be infused with the mind of the spirit.

This global war that has descended on us will not retreat with doctrinal statements, friends, bumper stickers, or your Facebook scrolling, easy Christianity.

You know, these I have these guys used to text me.

I'm just letting you into something.

I used to get a text from a few different people.

I don't know how they got my phone number.

I regret it.

And I wake up in the morning, being for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Cheap.

But I've also received a text or a scripture, sometimes in the same manner, and it is landed because that one is from the Spirit of God.

Amen.

Their men and women are animated, being led.

They've taught themselves how to listen and listen to the third person of the spirit who lives within you, and how to walk left, right, up, down, stop, stay.

Instead of just going with the best of a natural mind, friend, that's still only a natural thinker.

This global war that has descended on us will not retreat with doctrinal statements alone.

Our doctrine, even our acceptance of the precious covenant of grace, was never meant to be unhitched from the power of God.

Why on earth do we ever get away from that?

Why, how do we ever get away that just setting up a great building like this with great infrastructure and great teaching, and we need that, we need discipleship, we need all that, but I want to tell you, friends, without the power of the Holy Spirit, it's not gonna go too far.

Not gonna go too far at all.

It was never meant to be unhitched.

Turn with me to 2 Kings chapter 4.

2 Kings 4 · chapter mention

Reading from verse 1.

A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servants fear the Lord, and the creditors coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.

So Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you?

Tell me, what do you have in your house?

And she said, Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.

Then he said, Go borrow vessels from everywhere, from all of your neighbors, empty vessels, do not just gather a few.

And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you.

And your sons then pour it into all those vessels and set aside the full ones.

So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her, and she poured it out.

Now it came to pass that when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, Bring me another vessel.

And he said to her, There is not another vessel.

So the oil ceased.

Then she came to the and told the man of God, and he said, Go sell the oil, pay your debt, and you and your sons will live on the rest.

The reason I'm finishing in the scripture is because here is what looks like a tragic situation.

Many believe that this was the wife of Obadiah, the man that hid the prophets of God.

And it seems to be so on fire that all her life was a sacrificial life, serving God, her husband, a godly man, a good man.

And now she's facing what seems to be ruination.

Not even be able to afford food, maybe borrowing money from creditors just to just for bare subsistence.

And it can seem so awful at times from those of us who've walked with the Lord a long time.

We can hit very difficult times in our Christianity.

And it's not an easy life, friends, it's an impossible life without the Holy Spirit.

And so she hits to this time in her life where the creditors are at the door and they're coming and they're cashing in.

And she goes to the only source that she has, which is Elisha, the man of God.

She tells him the story.

And I can imagine Elisha when he's hearing the story.

And he says, What have you got in your house?

And she says, Nothing.

He must have been scratching his head and saying, That doesn't sound like God.

That doesn't sound like him.

Tell me again, what do you have?

Oh, well, I do have a piece of oil.

As you and I know, friends, oil is a character of the Holy Spirit.

In every true believer, the Holy Spirit of God lives in you.

Every believer has been sealed with the Holy Spirit.

Every believer has access to the power of God.

I would not have you ignorant.

I would not have you living your life just on your educational understanding of the scripture.

There comes a time, a serendipitous moment, and I believe that's going to happen for many of us this morning.

According to that hunger and that thirst, you're going to be satisfied.

If you're sped up at a status quo, if you're doing the same thing over and again every day, if you're in groundhog day, if your Christianity is a formula Christianity, but you've lost the joy, you've lost the power, you've lost that excitement, you've lost that leading of the spirit.

I've got news for you today, friends.

He's still in the house, amen.

He's still there, he's never left.

I don't want you ignorant, brothers and sisters.

God hasn't brought you this far to disappoint you.

He hasn't led you to come up against a Goliath that can't be taken down by the Spirit of God.

Amen.

He hasn't brought you into circumstances that will overwhelm you.

No situation, no temptation can overtake you.

None that is coming to God, to God, none that is coming to man, but God is faithful.

Hallelujah.

The faithfulness of God.

I want to remind you who lives that lives within you.

I want to remind you this morning to go over deeper and start to the linen to the line of the Holy Spirit.

And so that starting of the gift within you.

God has never abandoned you.

He will never abandon you.

I'm going to put you low.

Until I leave you, I will send you another paracletus, comforter, someone who comes alongside you, another of the same kind.

I will send you God the Holy Spirit.

He is with you, he said to them, but soon he's going to be in you.

I would not have you ignorant.

I would not have you ignorant.

Apostle Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy, stir up that gift that is in you from the laying on of my hands.

Talking about the Holy Spirit.

Talk to that young man this morning when he came to the altar and I said, Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?

He said, I was many years ago.

I said, You're speaking with tongues.

He said, I do.

But not very often.

Stir that gift in you.

Oh, if the apostle Paul says, I'm more than all of you.

Great intellect, great anointing, moved in miracles.

But I'm more than all of you.

Don't you discount that for your life?

Do it at your own peril.

Keep on trying to soldier on and push out.

The Bible says your young men will utterly faint.

But those who wait upon the Lord, that's the Holy Spirit.

That is the waiting of God, that the leading of the Holy Spirit will renew their strength.

They will rise up with the wings of eagles.

And this morning, I genuinely feel that there needs to be in the heart of all of us that desire again to live a full gospel life.

Amen.

Not just believing the cross for forgiveness of sins.

Praise God for that.

He is mighty to save.

Amen.

But to believe that it unlocks something in the believer, that it does something, gives them access to someone that is greater than them.

Amen.

That you're not speaking about God, but you're speaking for God.

When you open your mouth, let me tell you, men will know that you've been with Jesus.

Amen.

When you step out into the marketplace and just say, What manner of man is this?

What manner of woman is that?

Where did this come from?

And you're saying, I don't know, no, I just shared something basic.

I want to tell you, when you share something basic under the leading of the Holy Spirit, it hits its mark.

It hits its mark.

And so there needs to be this drawing again back to the comforter, coming back and being intentional with our Christianity and say, Come, Holy Spirit, I need thee.

Come, sweet spirit, I pray.

Come on thy strength and thy power.

Come on thine own gentle way.

And my friends, I do believe that we have lost it somehow in our journey.

We haven't got rid of our doctrine, but it's just it's just become under a dusty heap of other doctrines, the busyness of life.

And then the enemy is coming in and ravaging the house, and we're thinking that we've got nothing to combat it with.

Oh, I want to tell you, Paul lays out in chapter 12 and chapter 14 all those wonderful gifts of the spirit, words of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.

Romans 12, he talks about ministry gifts of prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhorting, leadership, mercy, giving, all of them are from the Spirit of God.

Oh, how we have become ignorant.

Oh, how we believe that the gospel has become elitists.

Just a few Gnostics at the top, just a few people that know it.

Oh no, friends, the Christian gospel was ordinary men empowered.

Ordinary women empowered.

They stepped out of an upper room after enduring a bloodlust that took their savior from them.

And the rumor was gone, we need there's more here, we need to kill them as well.

And they stepped in, fearful.

But they stepped out, friends, with a boneless, with a dunamis, with a fire, and they were but fishermen.

I would have put it easier for you.

They were just rednecks.

You get that down here.

They had the accent, they were from the wrong, they were Nazareth, most of them.

They even had a different accent.

That's you.

You got a different accent for sure.

But you're y'all and howdy.

Oh, ordinary men empowered.

Could that be you?

Could that be you?

I say it could be.

And I say it must be.

Because if we want to meet what we're meeting, face what we're facing.

Then it's a church that is full of the Holy Spirit.

And I'm going to open up these altars.

We're going to spend some time together.

If you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, you need a fresh touch, you should come, you should run.

If you're not baptized in the Holy Spirit, you want to come into the gift of tongues and just open that doorway to the Holy Spirit.

You come.

Believe God.

Jesus said, Oh, your innermost being from your belly.

Actually, it means I always say, Yes, I spoke in tongues from here first.

It was like something that started deepening in me.

And somehow I just gave it oxygen.

And I was a bit fearful, is it me?

And so an old man said to me, No, it's not you.

Which one of you fathers?

If your son came and asked you for fish, we'd give him a stone or give him bread, we'd give him a serpent the other way around.

How much more would God give you the Holy Spirit to those who ask?

You come ask, come believing, come trusting, and then abandon yourself to the Holy Spirit.

He will not wound you, he will not lead you astray.

And let the life be a supernatural life rather than a mere intellect life.

Oh friends, let me tell you, that's what the world needs to see.

Ordinary men, women, boys and girls, full of the Holy Ghost.

Simple words coming out of the mouth, animated by the Spirit, generated from a deeper place than just here.

Why did I say that?

Because the Holy Spirit came upon me.

That's the hour.

Would you stand this morning right across the church?

Pastor Owen's going to come lead us in the altar.

But I just want to encourage you.

When I was on vacation two years ago in Greece, myself, my wife, my son Jordan, who's a minister in Geneva, came with his wife, Chelsea, to visit us.

And they said to me, you know, Dad, come on, let's go for a cycle.

And now I was 28 pounds heavier back then.

I hope you've noticed I've dropped weight.

Just getting ready for the rapture.

And so I'm like, oh my gosh, it's 32 degrees, and they want me to cycle 20 miles back.

And like, uh oh.

And it, yeah, she's laughing.

Of course, she knows exactly what I was thinking that day.

I'm like, oh yeah, of course.

My son read me, he said, Dad, we'll get you an e-bike.

I've heard of those contraptions, so I said, Okay.

So anyway, I got the e-bike, the rest were doing it the hardcore way, delighted with themselves.

So I'm so chuffed because my son is fit, but I'm right on his wheel, his back wheel, the whole way, up the hills, down the hills.

Sweat's poured off me, buckets of water on me.

And uh, but I get there 20 kilometers up the road, and we pull into this beautiful beach, and I'm sweating and puffing, but I'm chuffed that I managed to stay up with my son at 58 years of age and overweight and all the above.

Still good looking.

And my son looked and said, Dad, you did great, well done.

And then he looked down and he said, He said, Dad, he said, Dad, I said, What?

He says, You never switched on the battery.

I did get 20 kilometers out of the battery.

That's like the church today.

But let me tell you a secret.

On the way back, I switched on the battery, and I arrived back home 15 minutes.

I'm still eating my ice cream down to the last you know, and I see them and I'm apart.

I'm refreshed.

That's the difference.

You see, God needs you need to let God switch.

Maybe you need to switch on.

The Holy Spirit is with you.

Soon he'll be in you.

He is in you.

This is for everyone, for your sons and your daughters, for all those who are far off.

We have relegated.

We have become doctrinal, nothing wrong with that.

You know it.

You know it.

But I don't don't pay doctrine.

I've always been very strong in history and doctrine.

Can I tell you one thing?

I don't pay it for a long time.

The power of the Holy Spirit, and just paid lip service to it.

But I know if we are gonna meet the challenges, some of you, your marriages are on the on the rocks or gone or broken.

Never get that one back.

Shouldn't have gone astray.

You know, if there's nothing gonna change that, it's gonna be a move of the Holy Spirit.

It's gonna be men and women, and don't wait for the pop idol pastor to do it.

Some guy's gonna come into Jackson Church here that springs and shake you all over, and it's gonna happen to you.

No, it doesn't happen like that.

It's ordinary men, ordinary women who take God at His word and say, I believe with all my heart that Jesus didn't lie when He said, 'I'm gonna send you another comforter,' and that there's gonna be a power from heaven hit you and strengthen you, and mobilize you, and bring you into the end days, beginning to see signs, wonders, and miracles happening through your life.

I believe that with all my heart.

The hour's late, the time is dark, friends.

It's those who want us.

This are those who hunger and thirst.

But they shall be filled.

I'm going to hand over them in a moment.

But if that's you, come to the altar.

Say, I'm I'm going to press in God this morning.

Don't worry about the car park.

Don't worry, worry about the buffet food.

You're going to miss the baptist.

Let the Baptist get first in mind this morning.

Don't worry about that.

Hunger and thirst for a move of the Holy Spirit in your life.

If you're baptized in the Spirit, come back to that fresh baptism and then start to speak where it's nearly embarrassing.

I'd rather direct the river than try to pump it up out of the ground, okay?

I'd rather deal with an over-expression than nothing.

Amen.

I'd rather deal as a pastor with the mess of having people just moving in the spirit.

As Paul had to put some order on it, we will.

You great leaders, if you get a bit too excited, you're drawing too much attention to yourself, we'll stop you.

We won't stop you from moving in the spirit, but we'll say, hey, hey, hey, we have to worship the Lord too.

We don't want to be hearing you swimming and shouting all the time.

You understand what I'm saying?

It does get a little messy.

But I tell you what, the life of men and women that are excited again, energized again, loving God again.

Ordinary people go into hospitals and praying for the sick.

Whoever heard the likes of it, surely you need a pastor.

Oh no, no, friends.

You shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.

Oh God.

Maybe this is the hour of Joel chapter 2.

Joel 2 · chapter mention

I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

God give you the faith to switch the battery on.

God give you the faith this morning to move in a place that you haven't moved ever or maybe moved years ago in, and now you've become dormant.

That you would just move beyond all those fears and those failures.

And start to take back by faith the ground that the enemy's taking in your home, first of all, in your own life.

Then in your home, Jerusalem, Judea, then maybe Samaria, Jacksonville, maybe the other ends of the earth after that.

But there is that journey where the Holy Spirit will set you on fire, set you on order.

And then when you speak, you're not speaking a bumper sticker scripture that you just learn and just text out.

Oh no, no, no.

And if you do that, it's gonna be under the Holy Spirit, it's gonna hit the measure, it's gonna hit the mark every time.

I invite you, I invite you to seek God this morning as we worship Him together.

God will do something powerful in your life.

Healings, manifestations, giftings.

Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

This life is a supernatural life.

Don't be fearful of it.

It is a supernatural life, it's not a natural life, it's a supernatural life.

Are you ready?

Are you able to trust God to take your hand and lead you where you haven't gone before?

Are you going to move beyond yourself and move into a life with the Holy Spirit?

It's your choice.

What's in your house?

Hallelujah.

Just come this morning.

We're going to worship.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thanks for listening to the Spring Church podcast.

We pray that you were encouraged, uplifted, and challenged by the message today.

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We pray you have a great week walking in all that God has for you.