Following The Holy Ghost

Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Say this together.

Say Heavenly Father, I'm glad you selected this time for me to live.

I'm a person of destiny.

Thank you this morning for the Word of God and the Holy Ghost that will inform me of things yet to come.

I'm ready for surprises.

Nothing can knock me off of my path.

I will not allow the devil or any contrary voices to alter my path.

I'm following the Holy Ghost right on into glory.

In Jesus' name, amen, you can be seated.

Let's turn in our Bibles to a couple of spots Romans, chapter 8, and 1 John, chapter 5.

Romans 8 · chapter mention 1 John 5 · chapter mention

Romans, chapter 8, verse 14.

Romans 8:14

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

How many of you believe that's true?

Well then, the converse is true as many as are sons of God, they are led by the Spirit of God.

I mean, they're both true.

So if you're a believer, you're led.

So we talked about that last week.

And then verse 16, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit.

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

Everybody say the witness.

And then 1 John 5, 10, the first part of the verse says that he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself, in himself.

What does that mean himself?

Well, yourself is a spirit, you're a spirit being.

You're not a body.

You have a body, you have a mind, a soul, a mind, will and intellect.

But that's not where the spirit lives.

The spirit witness is in yourself, it's in your spirit, the witness of the spirit's in your spirit.

And so you know, last week we talked about being led by the spirit, but this week we're going to focus on following the Holy ghost, because if we are led by the spirit and the Bible says we are, we're believers, we are led.

But then have we followed the Holy ghost?

Do we follow in the leading?

See?

That reminds me of the old bumper sticker lead, follow or get out of the way.

I mean, you know some folks, they just you know they don't number one, they don't trust that they're being led because they're not hearing and they're not perceiving the leadership.

And that's the reason for these messages because we follow the Holy Ghost by faith.

We got to have faith to follow the Holy Ghost.

If I don't preach this and teach this, you don't have anything for your faith to anchor to and persevere until you have a knowing about the guidance that God has given you.

The Bible says he's guiding, he's leading you.

How many of you believe the Bible?

See, that's why I'm teaching this over and over, because you need to anchor your faith.

See, a lot of people.

They live their life on theories.

They hear this theory, this, that theory.

I like what Brother Hagin said about theories.

A theory is a supposition based on ignorance of the subject under discussion.

The theory of evolution it's a theory and it's based on faulty information.

They don't believe the Bible and yet it's accepted science.

You go take a thing in biology.

They're going to try to drum this whole idea into you and it's a lie.

Gender, all this gender stuff it's a lie.

The whole Sodom and Gomorrah opening of the Olympics is a lie.

It's a slap in the face of every Christian on the planet.

Oh, we didn't mean to offend you.

Yes, you did.

You're full of offense.

You people can't get over yourselves.

You can't stand the fact that you have been relegated to the back rooms.

Now you want to come out in public and show this.

I mean, I don't know if you saw it, but I saw just enough to make me want to throw up.

I can't imagine spending the money it takes to go to watch that.

Go all the way to France, go all the way to Paris.

Channel 2 interviewed this couple from Houston and they traveled all the way.

The young couple I guess they're young and stupid.

And it was too much trouble to go down to where the action was because all the security, they locked the whole city down.

Why?

Because there's so many Muslims there creating trouble.

So they locked the city down so the tourists can't get to where they want to go.

And also they had a strike on the transit so you can't ride the subway.

Oh, what a delight, don't you want to go back to Paris?

And you know where they were doing.

They were wrapped up in an American flag blanket, sitting on a bench watching it on television.

Well, they could have done that in Houston.

How dumb can you get and still breathe?

Oh, I'm getting off.

Obviously they weren't following the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost will save you a lot of money if you follow it.

Enough about the Olympics Praise God, I'm boycotting them All right.

Enough about the Olympics Praise God, I'm a boycotting them All right.

Uh.

But we established last week that every believer has the right to be led by the Holy ghost.

God said he leads his kids.

God says in first John five that you've got the witness of the spirit in yourself or in your spirit, and so the one of the primary duties of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost is the third person of the Godhead.

I mean he's no lightweight, he's not just hitchhiking down the road, he's not just, you know, walking around in human flesh.

You've been cleansed and made worthy by the blood.

People in the Old Testament couldn't get this close to God without dying.

And you're as close to God as you need to be.

He's in there and he's in there.

One of the main things he's in there to do is to guide you and to lead you.

So you can't follow the witness of your flesh.

Your flesh has a voice.

It's called feelings, emotions, a lot and I said this last week most christians over 40 years of ministering to people with all kind of difficulty bad, you know, tough marriage situations, tough family situations, tough career situations, business situations.

I mean they're trying to follow god.

They do want to follow god, they understand the concept, but they don't know how and and so they just follow their emotions.

No, God's not a flesh.

He's not flesh.

The Bible says the witness is in you, it's in your spirit.

Your spirit knows things because of its proximity to the Holy Spirit.

I mean, if somebody's living with you in your house, you're going to pick up some things.

You know just by the association, aren't you?

Amen?

I mean, gladys and I have been living, you know, as a married couple for 55 years, and so we know some things about each other.

We pick things up without even talking.

I know some things, she knows some things.

I mean, it's just amazing.

You know you just kind of, and that's the way the Holy Spirit is with you.

The Holy Spirit will allow your spirit to pick up, and it's not a voice.

See, we talked about that last week.

Don't quit straining to hear voices.

There's lots of voices you can hear, and none of them are without significance, but not all of them are God.

Some of them are demons, some of them are your flesh.

One of the voices that you can hear is reason.

Reason is a voice of the mind.

God's not a mind.

He's not going to talk to your brain tissue.

No, he's communicating with your spirit, spirit to spirit, and the main way that he leads you is through the witness of the spirit.

We talked about the witness last week.

What it is?

It's an intuition, it's a, it's a peace or it's, you know, perception.

It's a peace or else hesitancy, a lack of peace, you know?

I mean listen, when God closes a door and God gives you a hesitancy.

That's that's guiding, guidance, that's leadership.

You ought to praise God as much when he says no as he does when he says yes.

Just think about Paul and Silas.

They they were.

They had a plan.

They planned to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not.

The Spirit said uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh.

Doesn't say how he said it, but I'm pretty sure it was a witness.

They lost their peace about going to Bithynia and so, okay, we don't go to Bithynia, let's go to Asia Minor.

And they were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the gospel in Asia Minor.

Two closed doors, and it doesn't say how, but I'm pretty sure it was just the witness.

You can't prove it wasn't, because then, after that, there was spectacular guidance, in other words a dream.

Paul had a dream about the Macedonian man Come over here and help us.

And so they went, they started their journey and they had a long way to go back.

In those days they didn't have airlines or even trains or even cars.

I mean, they had to walk.

And so they made their way to that part of the country and got the jailer saved and his whole house and all the prisoners got released.

That's a pretty good deal.

That's a jailbreak.

Praise God.

There's a whole lot of prisoners need to be released All the January 6th people.

They need to be released.

Now, you see, we can look back on that and see what a lie that whole thing was, because they allowed these crazy people to get in there and get inside and they were arrested.

But my guess is they just got released.

We don't know when they got released.

They went into Congress when was the cry about the insurrection when the Palestinian people were protesting?

Right there in Congress, and then outside, when Netanyahu was here the other day, they burned the mayor.

They took the flag down off the flagpole.

That's not their flag.

See, when you burn my flag, you go to jail off the flagpole.

That's not their flag.

See, when you burn my flag, you go to jail.

I understand that we need freedom of speech, but it's gone way too far.

I don't think our founding fathers ever thought that anybody would burn the flag, that people died to keep going?

I just don't.

I think we need to change some things.

This freedom of speech.

I believe in freedom of speech and I believe that people can differ, but when they go to violent measures, they scrawl how moss is coming on our monuments.

I want to get rid of every one of the city leaders in Washington DC.

Let's take back Washington DC and make it a federal place.

It's not a city anymore.

No city, no, it's run by the federals.

Get rid of Bowser.

What an idiot she's, just like all the other left-wing crazy people like Commie Harris.

I call her Commie, not Commie.

I don't call her Commie, I call her Commie because she's a Commie.

Okay, enough of that, let's get back on the whole.

I sprinkle, I sprinkle a little here.

It's red meat.

Some of you are getting excited, some of you are scared.

So, oh my God, what kind of church is this?

Well, you'll find out.

It's different.

It's a different church.

So, so that we don't stumble over the supernatural.

See, everybody say I've got supernatural equipment, I've got the witness of the Spirit in me.

See, it's supernatural.

It's every bit as supernatural as a vision, as a dream as a prophetic word.

All of those things are valid.

They're ways that God can guide you.

But if you're waiting on something spectacular, you might wait a long time.

Most of the time the spectacular types of guidances only occur just maybe once, maybe never.

I mean, I just think about Brother Hagin.

It was unusual for him.

He had Jesus appear to him like eight times, but I don't know that he ever raised the dead.

I don't remember that he ever had that in his testimony.

But Smith Wigglesworth, I don't remember that he ever had a visitation of Jesus and yet he had 23 people raised from the dead.

See, you know the differences in ministries.

They're all different gifts and all of that.

And so you know, as a believer, I mean we shouldn't be expecting that we're going to be led by dreams and visions and all of that.

Let's we have the witness.

It's just, every bit is supernatural, but it takes faith to follow it.

I said it takes faith to follow it.

I said it takes faith to follow it.

Everybody say the witness of the Spirit.

Brother Hagin talks about an outstanding evangelist of his day, that he was a.

I mean he had the most amazing miracles.

He was a very successful, he was an evangelist and he got people saved In order to get people saved.

You know, healing is God's dinner bell, miracles is God's dinner bell and so, but you know, they had a real revelation of that in those days and he was just very successful.

I packed out his tent and just he was an amazing minister of the gospel.

And so someone was interviewing him, says to what do you credit your success in the ministry?

And he said well, if you're talking about me personally, he said I'll just tell you about me personally, me personally.

I always obey my deepest premonitions, which is just another way of the witness is to talk about the witness of the spirit.

My deepest premonition See, it's not a voice, it's not a dream, a vision.

See up on the platform ministering to thousands of people, you know, for healing and stuff.

He would have the word of knowledge, he'd have the revelatory gifts.

He would have the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom.

He would see people healed, he would function.

But in his personal life he needed to live by the witness of the Spirit and be guided by the witness.

And so last week we talked about six things that you can do if you want to be led by the Spirit, mainly feed continually on the Word and pray much in the Holy Ghost.

That's the main thing.

You've got to have a prayer life and you've got to have a life in the Word.

To have a prayer life and you've got to have a life in the Word because that's the basis upon which you can build your faith, to receive the guidance.

But today I want to talk about following the Holy Ghost, and so let's look at John 14.

Jesus is speaking about the Holy Ghost and the disciples knew very little about him and he's beginning his teaching them Later in there in this series.

In John, he said I have many things to share with you, but you're not able to bear them now.

So he couldn't tell them everything because, wow, they weren't saved, they're Jewish men and they're not born again, so they're spiritually dead.

There's only so much that Jesus can share with them about the Holy Spirit.

But he did share these things with them and for us.

John 14, verse 16.

John 14:16

They're sad, remember, they're bummed out because Jesus said I'm going away.

And they're bummed out.

I mean, they can't imagine Jesus being gone from them Three and a half years and they've come to depend on him, they've come to look to him, and now he says he's leaving.

In verse 16, he says and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not.

Neither knoweth him, but you know him, for he dwelleth with you and he shall be in you.

See, he wasn't in them yet, but he was with them.

How was he with them?

Because Jesus was with them.

Are you with me now?

The Holy Ghost was with them because Jesus was with them.

How was he with them?

Because Jesus was with them.

Are you with me now?

The Holy Ghost was with them because Jesus was with them.

Now that's going to be different.

I'm going to leave and you're going to have the comforter and he's going to be with you, but he's going to be in you.

Glory to God, I will not leave you comfortless.

I will come to you.

What does that mean?

It means coming back to again.

No, he's not talking about the rapture.

He's talking about I will come to you in the person of the Holy Ghost.

I mean, the Holy Ghost sounds and looks and feels just like Jesus inside of us.

It just that's why people say well, the Lord spoke to me.

Well, the Lord.

Technically, the Lord didn't come down here all the time.

He did come down here and talk to Brother Hagin.

Brother Hagin saw him.

That was a gift of the discerning of spirits and the word of knowledge or, in some cases, a word of wisdom which is futuristic, that's a function of the gifts of the Spirit.

We don't all.

That's not how you knew you were saved.

You didn't get a gift of the spirit.

You knew you were saved because of the witness talked about that last week.

He said I'm not going to leave you orphans, I will not leave you comfortless.

In my margin it says orphans, I'm not going to leave you without a guardian.

I'm so glad that we've been able for 15 or more years.

How how long has it been 2008 since we've been supporting Malawi?

I lose track.

2008,.

So it's been 16 years supporting orphans in Malawi.

A victory.

Christian children's home.

And these children are orphans because their parents, many of their parents, died of AIDS, mother and father.

It started in Africa, where the men, in order to make a living, they started driving trucks and they were going out and they were picking up STDs and bringing it back and giving it to their wives, and then both parents would die of AIDS.

And then you've got a child, a precious child, and so they're just on the street.

There's many, many street children in India, many street children all over South America.

There's beginning to be homeless teenagers right here in Houston, homeless, and they're vulnerable.

They don't have a guardian.

He said I'm not going to leave you like an orphan, I'm not going to leave you forlorn.

I'm not going to leave you unguarded and unguided.

I'm going to leave you with a spirit of truth.

That's what we've got.

So we're not orphans and God desires to lead and guide us.

He wants to guard us.

A guardian, I mean, it's part of the danger.

You know, in the last days, perilous times shall come If we don't learn to be led by the Spirit and then follow that leading.

We're in danger, and I see it all the time.

People just, they just get too busy, they get too wrapped up in things that are not that important and the next thing you know they're dead.

And then some religious person said well, god, it was just their time.

No, it wasn't their time.

God did everything he could to lead them in a different way and they weren't paying attention?

Are y'all with me now?

I'm not saying that if you follow the Holy Ghost you'll never have trouble.

I am saying if you do have trouble, the Holy Ghost will lead you through it and out of it.

That's what I'm saying.

So you've got to trust that he will always provide guidance for you to follow, and the main ingredient of that trust, of course, is faith in the guidance.

I mean, you've got to have faith and it's not based on some theory that somebody told you, it's based on God's Word.

It's based on God's Word and this is building your faith to get to the place.

You know, it's kind of a leap for some people If you've been in the habit of following your emotions all your life and all of a sudden, you, you decide well, pastor's right, I need to start.

Well, it's a little bit.

You know it's challenging.

I'm not gonna lie, you're gonna make some mistakes.

But what did when peter leaped out of the boat and started walking on the water and then he?

Then he got his eyes off of jesus, started looking at the waves and all of that and got a phrase oh Lord, started beginning to sink.

Oh Lord, save me.

Did Jesus just let him sink and drown.

No, he got him.

He caught him and walked him back to the boat.

Glory to God, god's big enough to walk you back to the boat if you go in the wrong direction.

Glory to God, I've walked back to the boat if you go in the wrong direction.

I've walked back to the boat so many times and sometimes I was way out there if I didn't took me 10 years to walk back to the boat one time.

I hate to tell you, but I'm going to tell you.

I mean, you can make a series of decisions in the flesh and be way, way.

Hey, griner, where are you?

We're over here.

When Allison was little, we were out shopping.

They were out shopping at some little store.

Gladys and Drunk Ruby.

Ruby Caudell is one of our dear friends.

She and Gladys talk on regular basis.

She lives in Tulsa.

She's been to the church.

It's been a long time.

She doesn't travel too much anymore, but we know her as Drunk Ruby because you know she just gets drunk in the Holy Ghost Anyway.

So Allison was there with Graham and Drunk Ruby in some store and Allison looked around looking for Drunk Ruby.

She says Drunk Ruby, drunk Ruby, we're way over here.

We're way over here.

We're way over here.

You missed monk wuby.

I'm telling on you, alice, I'm sorry, that's my privilege as grandpa.

I can tell stories on my kids.

We still, we still have that story.

That's one of our precious ones.

We're this one, we're way over here.

Everybody say faith to follow the Holy Ghost.

So here in John 14, 16, he said I will not leave you without a guardian.

I will not.

I will not leave you like an orphan.

Think about an orphan.

Doesn't have a mom and dad, doesn't have anybody to guide them in life, does help them make decisions when they're a tender age, and if they're very fortunate they might wind up in an orphanage and at least they have protection, at least they have food and shelter, but they don't have that parental love in an orphanage.

It's I mean, man, I mean, and I've known people that were in non-Christian and they're just basically like not a Christian orphanage.

Well, you know, man, they're warped, they don't have the love.

They don't have that.

Thank God for Victory Christian Children's Home.

It's Christian, it's spirit-filled, and those kids do have love.

So, number one here, on three things, I want to faith to follow the Holy Ghost.

God is interested in what you're interested in.

There's nothing too small or too big.

You got to get over this idea.

Oh God doesn't care about that.

Yes, he does.

If you care about it, he cares about it and he's got he's got guidance for you.

If you wait on it, a lot of times we just blunder through and do our own thing or, you know, walk by the seat of our pants and we don't realize that we're any worse for it, because it doesn't feel any different than how we've always lived.

But I'm going to tell you something you can get so close to God that he can just kind of turn you in the right direction.

It's not about a voice.

It's not about a goose bump, it's not about any of that.

It's about the witness of the spirit and just like just a little, you're so closely aligned with your see.

Comforter is the wrong.

It's not a good translation of the word paraclete In John 14 that we read.

Read that is really the word paracletos and it means helper.

It means helper.

He's your helper.

I don't want to demean the Holy Ghost by saying this.

I don't want you to think that I am, but it's like he's your personal assistant.

You know, when you're an executive and you're big cheese and you're the CEO and you're in a big corner office and you're smoking those $50 Cuban cigars.

I don't recommend that, but I mean.

You know what I mean?

Well, a lot of those guys.

They have personal systems and they will pick up their cleaning for them, they will do all the mundane things so they can stay on their phones and make money.

He's like a personal assistant.

He is all about helping you.

And if you don't know that, then you ignore him.

You know Psalm 23, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil.

Well, guess what?

God didn't lead you to that place.

You walked there.

You walked there all by yourself.

You walked there without checking with him, without following him.

Because where does he lead you?

He leads you by the side of the still waters.

He makes you lie down in green pastures.

He doesn he lead you.

He leads you by side of the still waters.

He makes you lie down in green pastures.

He doesn't lead you in the valley of the shadow of death, but he'll lead you out of it.

If you find yourself there, he will give you a way out.

Oh, glory to God.

I'm telling you he's the way out If you need to get into something.

He's the way in, he cares about you every little thing, every little thing, every little thing.

So the word comforter there is a bad translation.

I mean to me it just just the wrong.

It's kind of like, when you see the word love, it's it's in first corinthians, it's a god, it's charity.

What charity doesn't really tell you what it's.

Agape, it's the god kind of love, a charity.

We think of charity as just being helping the poor or something Helping somebody that can't help themselves.

But really the Greek word agape is the God kind of love, god is agape, see.

So sometimes the King James they chose these English words and comforter is a poor one.

It really means helper.

And comforter is a poor one, it really means helper.

There's another one in Acts 26, 22, where Paul is sharing his testimony with King Agrippa.

Yeah, king, he's a prisoner, but he's appealed.

His, you know, he's not going to be judged by the Jews, he's not going to be judged down there in the Middle East, he wants to go to Rome to be judged with Caesar.

So they said, oh, you want to be judged?

Well, come on, we'll hear your case first.

And so Agrippa, king Agrippa is here in his case and he said I stand before you and, having obtained help from God as my ally in the Amplified, he's your ally.

Think about a battle, and you know what?

Sometimes you need an ally in battle.

Israel dearly needs america to be her ally right now, and we have.

We have treated her shamefully.

I say we they.

Kamala kami.

I mean what an idiot.

She's a bird brain at best.

I don't know how she ever got a law degree.

Did she got a law degree?

Did she get a law degree?

I mean, she was the Attorney General of California.

Really, I mean, this woman is nuts.

We talk about Biden.

Biden was nuts.

Biden was just past his prime.

I mean, you know, he just had dementia, function of being old and being ungodly and living the kind of horrible life he's lived.

These people are terrible people.

Kamala Kami here, she's a terrible person and she dressed down the head of Israel this week.

And what happened?

Well, hezbollah decided they're so weak they're not going to do anything about it, we're going to send rockets.

Where did they send the rockets this time?

How stupid are they?

They bombed a Druze, an Arab Druze village in the Golan Heights.

This is not Jewish kids that got killed.

This is a dozen Arab kids that got killed by rockets last night.

How dumb are you?

Why would you bomb your own people?

As a matter of fact, lebanon has got a lot of Arab Druze villages in it, and now Hezbollah said oh, it wasn't us, they're afraid of their own people, which tells me that if the Arab Druze wanted to, they could get rid of Hezbollah, but they don't.

I thought you were on the Holy Ghost.

I am.

I'm just another sprinkle.

No charge, no extra charge for them.

Talk about allies.

He's your ally.

The Holy Ghost is your ally.

I mean, nothing can stand up against you when you depend on him.

Nothing too small, nothing too big, alright.

Number two guidance from the Holy Ghost often comes in like a series of waves.

What in the world are you talking about?

Well, I'm just talking about, depending on how complex it is, that you need to hear from God.

See, sometimes you're at places.

You need to hear from God.

See, sometimes you're at places.

One of those places was when I was frustrated that I couldn't sell my house in West University $650,000, 5,000 square foot three-story house that today is worth $1.8 million million, but back then it was.

I couldn't get 650 for it, and that's because I built it presumptuously.

I didn't follow the Holy Ghost.

Lest the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain that build it.

That meant that not only did I not get a profit, it cost me everything that I owned.

It sucked all my finances out, not only me, but my partner took all of his money.

So it was destruction.

But what was the reason?

Well, the reason was and I didn't know what the reason.

I knew it wasn't God, it wasn't God's fault.

I didn't blame him.

I said to Brother Oste ostain, we went to paris.

That's the last time I've been to paris, probably the only time, unless god, god, leads me to go back, but anyway.

So I was in paris that summer, 30 years ago, right right now, or a little bit a couple of weeks ago, 30 years ago.

We're in paris for a and so we were floating on the river Seine, or whatever they call it.

I call it Seine, I don't know what French call it.

And to get over jet lag, I'd always got my, I always got my schedule.

On his schedule, if he got up at three o'clock in the morning, I got up at three o'clock in the morning.

If he went to bed at 7 pm.

Well, I went, you know, I just synchronized with him and so we got out in the bright sun floating down the Seine River and I was just really heavy because my house wouldn't sell.

I couldn't pay the interest.

I'd been through this before.

It's like a broken record, it's like an eight-track tape.

That tape is coming around and I'm going to hear that song yet again.

Gladys worked in a single-girl office that had an eight-track tape and they had a Roger Miller tape and that's the only tape they bought them and all day long she heard Roger Miller on the office sound system and she got so sick of dang me, dang me they ought to take a rope and hang me that she was tempted.

If you've heard that song, I Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd.

You hear that song 150 times in a week.

You know, and this is my life is like an eight track.

I mean, I'm going through this yet again.

God, I don't blame you, I know it's me.

What did I do this time?

What did I do?

So I had to find out.

See, you know, it's not a quick, easy answer.

It's not just zip and that's all over.

No, it took a series of communications.

Are y'all getting this now.

Now some things are just quick and easy Turn here.

You know, don't go.

Now I think about lots of people were supposed to be in that building on 9-11, and something made them late, something told them not to go.

That testimony was over and over 50,000.

There should have been 60,000 people in that building.

It was less than 3,000.

Are y'all with me now?

So sometimes, sometimes it's just real quick.

But other times in your life when you're in transition, if you're in business, you've got a career, you've got issues with your marriage, issues with your finances I mean some things are a little bit more complex than just snap their fingers.

So guidance sometimes comes in waves.

I mean you know I'm not a surfer but I've watched surfing.

You know I watched one time I was watching them on television.

I watched them surfing on Oahu, the North shore of Oahu, hawaii.

It's one of the great surfing destinations in the whole world 40, 50 foot high.

In January that's when they're peak.

The waves are peak and Gladys and I were there one time and just a little after the peak and they were still.

I mean there ain't no way I'm getting out in that water.

I mean there's no way.

I mean it is fearsome, but you know when you're out there you can't just surf once and then go to the beach and stay there.

No, they get back out in the water, paddle out to where the waves are breaking and they ride one after another, because a day where the surfing is good it might not be any good tomorrow or the next day or the next day.

You seize the moment by getting in the water and catching each wave and riding the wave as far as you can ride it.

And just because you rode one wave successfully, you don't quit.

Then you paddle back out.

There Are you with me now?

And so we've got to stay.

You know, we've got to stay in the zone when God is communicating with us in order to hear all of the instructions that he's got.

And when I say instructions, it sounds like I'm talking about a voice.

And I'm not talking about a voice, I'm talking about the inward witness.

This church is an example.

Let's look at John 16.

Are you getting anything out of this today?

Well, I'm taking longer than I intended.

How many of you have got an appointment?

You've got to hurry up and get out of here, go ahead and leave.

Praise the Lord.

No, I'm just joking, verse 13.

Now he's still talking about the Holy Ghost.

He's teaching them a little bit what they can bear.

They can't bear much, but he's going to teach them a little bit.

How be it when he, the spirit of truth everybody say spirit of truth is come?

He will guide you into all truth, for he shall not see all truth, not some of the truth, not part of the truth, not just enough to get you in trouble.

All the truth that you need.

He will guide you in all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak?

The word guide?

I think about a tour guide.

I went to Israel 2003,.

Gladys and I went and we had a former general, an IDF, moshe Bronstein.

And we had a former general, idf, moshe Bronstein, who was a tank commander in the 67 War when Israel took back the old city from Jordan.

The Jordanians had control and they were trodden down to the Gentiles.

But in 67, they took it back and they didn't try to do it.

They were attacked, they were attacked.

See every war that Israel has been in.

They didn't try to do it, they were attacked, they were attacked.

See every war that Israel has been in.

They didn't start, they had to defend themselves.

So he was in one of the gates of Jerusalem.

You know the fish gate and this.

Different gates and the gates of Jerusalem are designed for camels and donkeys, they're not designed for tanks and donkeys, they're not designed for tanks and his tank.

He went through the gate to go into the city from outside and got stuck and the Jordanians shelled him with artillery, blew his tank up with him in it and he was in a coma for six months.

I mean, talking to this guy, it was amazing that he survived and he was a brilliant tour guide.

What was he doing?

Well, he was showing us, step by step, the sites in a country that we weren't familiar with.

We weren't familiar with this territory, we weren't familiar.

I mean, I knew about it from the Bible, but I'd never seen it myself.

I'd never my eyes had not gazed upon it.

I mean we spent a week there and he took us place to place, to place to place, all over the country, especially Jerusalem.

I mean we went down and we saw the pool of Siloam.

I mean we saw some amazing things.

Amazing.

And that's the way the Holy Ghost is like a travel guide it introduces a traveler to an unknown country step by step.

You may be going into something that you're not familiar with, you've never been through it before, you don't know exactly what's ahead of you and you're going to need more than one little brief answer.

That's where I was 30 years ago, but I didn't know it.

All I knew was I had a house that wouldn't sell and I couldn't pay the interest again and I was frustrated and I didn't have any money.

I had no cash flow and I had to go to work for another builder.

My company went to work for his company and he paid my company so my company could make part of my payroll.

It didn't make my whole payroll but it made something.

It was better.

I mean, we had a little to pay our bills with, but not enough really going downhill.

So I said to Brother Osteen floating on the same river.

I said, brother Osteen, I said I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I mean, when I get back I've got to find out what.

You know, god's not done this to me, but I've got to find out where I've missed God.

I've missed God somehow.

I don't know where I did it, but I'm in trouble I'm going to have to, and I never like to burden him with anything.

That's probably the only time in all the years I was with him that I ever shared anything with him.

He just kind of looked at me, he didn't say anything.

And the next morning, 5 o'clock in the morning, we wake up.

I fix coffee with the two of us.

We're bunking together.

I'm in one bed and he's in the other bed.

We've got a little table with a coffee maker on the thing and I make coffee and got him his cup.

I got my cup, got back in bed and laid in bed and he's over there flipping through some notes.

He said John, I got something for you.

How would you like to have Brother Osteen preach you a message?

Well, that's what I got.

See, I didn't ask for it.

Jeremiah 31,.

John, this is for you.

Refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded and there is hope in thine hands.

See, I'm just quoting it, but he didn't quote in all the verses, he just those phrases he quoted.

Bible says John, refrain your voice from tears, your eyes from weeping and your voice from tears, or whatever it was.

Your work shall be rewarded and there is hope in thine end.

You know, I'm telling you, john, when it's all said and done, everything's going to work out on.

Well, you know, it was an encouragement.

It was an encouragement.

Did he tell me what to do?

Did he tell me what action to take?

No, but he gave me a rhema word.

So when I got back to Houston, I no, but he gave me a rhema word.

So when I got back to Houston, I jumped off into Jeremiah 31, verse 15, and I just used that as my jumping off place and I started reading the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:15

And then I was reading my normal reading and I was praying much in the Holy Ghost and over a period of weeks, the next few weeks, you know, god began to just show me this church in the pages of Jeremiah.

How in the world?

Well, I can't explain it with words, I'm just telling you, when I was reading it I saw a church and then one morning in early August been about three weeks since we'd gotten back, two weeks, three, two or three weeks the Holy Ghost, early one morning it was really the still small voice.

I didn't really hear the voice of the Lord, but you know it's, I counted it like the Lord spoke to me, but it was my own spirit picking this up and he said he repeated, my spirit repeated what he heard.

Son, you're a minister of the sanctuary.

Five o'clock in the morning, I'm sleepy, I'm worn out.

I'm going to drive.

I'm fixed to get in the car and drive 300 miles over five counties with this other builder that's hired me to watch over.

He's a build on your lot.

So I've got to go to Crosby, I've got to go, you know, mont Bellevue.

I got to go to Alvin.

I've got to go to Alvin.

I've got to go to God.

You know, you're just humble.

Yeah, I'm just driving, driving, and then I have to go back by Westview to check on that house.

Sometimes I'd have to have my.

This time of the year I'd have to haul my lawnmower with me and mow the grass at my house in Westview.

I didn't have money to pay somebody to mow the grass.

Y'all are looking at me funny, like you've never made a mistake.

But the Holy Ghost spoke to me.

Son, you're a minister of the sanctuary.

Then I knew it in an instant.

I knew why I was in the trouble.

I was in.

I was doing the wrong thing.

I needed to start this church.

I needed to be pastoring a church and I was waiting for the phone to ring and God said no, you get out there and start it.

It was different than what my pastor's opinion had been.

He always said the phone would ring.

Well, he was wrong.

That's why you don't listen to men, you listen to the Holy ghost.

I don't ever tell people what to do.

I don't tell you to move, I don't tell you not to move.

I don't tell you.

And especially if you come to me and say well, pastor, god said I'm never going to differ with what you said, god said, even though I know it's not true.

Many times I've had people say well, god told me and I knew God didn't tell them, but I didn't.

I didn't say anything Because why, number one?

They're probably not going to receive it, but if they do, they're going to look to me instead of looking to him.

I'm going to have to be present in every decision they make.

That's not the right thing for either one of you.

Are you all with me now?

All right, and the last one For guidance to be identified you've got to stay connected to the truth.

You've got to stay connected to the truth.

You've got to stay connected to the truth.

I mean, if you break the connection you know, if you take a vacation, if you just let the problems of life interrupt your praying and reading your Bible, your time.

But even more than that, really, I think the best way to live is not like I'm going to pray now and then I'm going to leave all that behind and go live my life all day long.

Listen, you don't have to break your prayer time.

You just carry your prayer time with you all day long.

He's as close to you as the breath in your mouth and you're just uttering praise to him.

You're thanking him in every breath.

You're leaning on him with every fiber of your being.

One preacher called it practicing the presence of God.

Another one said God inside minded.

When you train yourself like that, then you're going to identify his nudges, you're going to identify his little alterations in your schedule, are y'all?

Is this helping you?

I like James 4, 8, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you.

See, we're waiting for God to draw near to us.

No, that's out of order.

We need to draw near to God and draw near to him all day long, not just first time in the morning or late.

Some of you pray at night.

I realize that Brother Hagin was a night prayer.

He didn't pray in the morning, he liked to sleep in.

That was the way he did.

He was able to sleep in.

So most of us can't sleep in and God help you if you're on rotating shift.

I've lived on a rotating shift and it's not a lot of fun to rotate the shift.

I mean it's tough.

So to get a way to pray on a regular basis when you're rotating your shift, you know you've got five days on days and five days on nights and five days on what they call graveyard, midnight to eight.

I mean that's tough.

That's a tough way to go, but God can help you.

The main thing is to have a regimen of prayer and reading your Bible, no matter what.

Are you with me now?

So draw near to God and he'll draw near to you.

Joshua, chapter three.

Let's look at this real quick.

This is my last point.

I'm going to wind this up, joshua.

They had just finished 40 years wandering around the desert.

They're at the banks of the Jordan River and verse 3, joshua 3, 3,.

They commanded the people.

He sent men out to the officers, to the multitude of people.

They commanded the people, saying when you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord, your God, and the priests of the Levites bearing it, then you shall move from your place and go after it.

In other words, you're going to follow the Holy Ghost.

That's basically what he's saying.

You're going to follow the presence of God, yet there shall be a space between you and it, about 2,000 cubits, half a mile by measure.

Come not near unto it.

Why?

Because they couldn't get close to the Shekinah presence.

They'd die.

They're spiritually dead and they can't get that close to the glory.

But they can see it and they can follow it.

If they get too close they might kill over dead, but we won't.

No, he's right in here.

We don't have to keep our distance.

As a matter of fact, it's better when we don't keep our distance.

Let's get right up in his tailpipe, right up in his grill.

Come not near to it.

That you may know the way by which you must go, for we have not passed this way heretofore.

We're living in a time we've never lived in right now.

15 years ago, I heard billy brim say no, no one has pastored a church in the end days and I mean, I mean it went off in me when I heard her say it, because this church doesn't look like lakewood that I went to.

Our churches have to change.

Church has to change.

Why?

Not the truth, not the anointing, but the way we do things.

Why?

Because we're living in the last of the last days.

There's a different emphasis and if there's no one's pastor to church in the last days, nobody's been a church member in the last days and we need to get rid of how things used to be and get rid of things.

I mean, keep the good things, but hey, let's get ready for some things that are a little different.

And how are we going to do?

The Holy Ghost, you would not have passed this way here before.

And Joshua said unto the people sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, for the Lord will do wonders among you.

Oh, glory to God.

We're fixing to see the greatest outpouring of miracle signs and wonders we've ever seen.

But we need to get ready and we need to get in position.

I call it.

You know I use this, this illustration, glad it's going to get mad at me, but I'm going to use her sister and brother-in-law as an example.

Nelda and Jim, they're in heaven.

They're both in heaven now, but so they won't hear this, hopefully, unless they're looking.

Are y'all looking?

But I've known Jim, my brother-in-law.

I mean I've known him since I was 14.

We worked together for a couple of summers and know him very well, before I ever got married and all that.

So he was part of the family the eldest is her sister, older sister and they were coming to town.

They wanted to come by to see us and they were coming through Houston to go down to South Texas.

And I said yeah, I said you know, you're going to have a hard time finding our house because I knew they weren't used to Houston traffic.

Now, Jim, they had lived in Dallas for a period of time and he knew Dallas, but I mean it'd been years since he'd been in traffic like Houston.

And I said, look, I'll tell you, we'll meet you in Humboldt at 1960 and 59.

They're coming in from East Texas down 59.

We'll meet you at the whatever IHOP or whatever it was.

And so we did.

We met them and we had coffee and I said, okay, now y'all follow me now.

Now, follow me now, don't let a bunch of cars get in between us, because we've got to navigate the beltway up here, and then we're going to get off the beltway because it's a toll road and we want to get off and ride the feeder all the way to my house, and so it's just going to be a little complicated.

So don't lag back.

It's going to be a little complicated.

So don't, you know, don't lag back, get right up, you know, follow me close.

So I get up on the freeway and we're driving south on 59.

And I look back there and there's about 10 cars in between us and them and they're driving a white Toyota.

I, you know there's a million white Toyota.

If you drive a white Toyota, you do not stand out.

Sorry, I mean once.

I mean you're just a speck back there and I'm looking, I'm like God, where are they?

And see, this is in the days before we had navigation.

We didn't even have hands-free.

I mean we had cell phones, but man, I don't like talking on the cell phone when I'm driving.

I mean, it's just, man, it's very, it's bad enough.

Hands-free, much less, you know.

But then we just didn't.

So I'm, and so I took the exit and, sure enough, they went sailing right past Sayonara.

They didn't come by to see us.

I call them.

I mean it's going to take an hour to get hooked back up.

I got to pull off and then they got to find me.

Are y'all with me now?

I mean there's no way.

I mean they went right past.

Hey, it's going to take an hour for us to flange back up and then go to the house, and it's just.

We'll see you some other time.

And it's just, we'll see you some other time.

Is that what we're going to do with the Holy Ghost?

Because we're not in his tailpipe.

We need to be right in his tailpipe.

We need to see his license plate right there.

Is this helping anybody?

Oh, hallelujah.

So stay connected to the truth.

I mean, when I came into the sanctuary of God, then I understood this.

This is a truth for you right here.

But it's not the only thing.

It's your personal relationship with God.

Build your faith on the idea that the Holy Ghost does lead you and is leading you and that you, by faith, are following the Holy Ghost.

Come on, lift your hands and receive today.

Glory to God, Hallelujah.

Did you get anything out of this today?

Are you happy?

Well, come on, let's praise him right now.

Glory to God.

Thank you, jesus, that you lead, guide and direct us through every place we're going, and we're going to great places.

God's got a great plan for each of us.