Cooperating With The Holy Ghost 2

Pick them up and wave them around.

Make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Say this together.

Say, heavenly Father, because I'm walking by faith and not by sight.

You're not mad at me, You're on my side, you're with me, you're in me, you're for me, you're putting me over in every situation.

I am victorious in Jesus' name, amen.

Woo, we can all be dismissed now and go home.

No, let's look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 6.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

I want to start this morning with what I began last week.

I really don't know if I'll finish it today.

That's a wonderful thing about being pastor.

I don't have to do it all.

Give it to y'all in one load.

So, 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 19.

1 Corinthians 6:19

And we are bringing you a message entitled Cooperating with the Holy Ghost, and in verse 19 it says what that's how I read it.

Maybe you don't read it that way what?

The Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian Church, what?

No, you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own, for you are bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirits, which are God.

So ain't God for the Holy Ghost?

He lives in us and he's not just there here today and gone tomorrow.

He never leaves us nor forsakes us.

He's in us and he's in us for our benefit.

He's our helper, jesus.

As we talked about last week, he called him the Comforter.

In John chapter 14, 15 and 16, the word Comforter is there.

John 14 · chapter mention

That's the King James translation of the Greek word paraclete, which really means helper, helper's a better translation, but I like to amplify it.

It amplifies that paraclete to mean counselor, helper, intercessor, advocate, strengthener, standby One, literally one called alongside the help.

Just think about God, the third person of the Trinity, the third person of the Godhead, alongside you to face everything you face.

You're never alone.

Just think about the third person of the Holy Trinity that you're interce.

He's praying for you.

And Jesus said he's praying for you.

How much more prayer do you need?

I mean, how many dozen people have to pray for you?

Hundreds of people.

Some people have the idea I get enough people praying.

I tell you it's gonna work.

Well, you know, no, it's.

You've got something to do with it.

You're faith All right.

So you know.

First, john 4-4,.

Greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world, amen.

So we talked about these things last week and it's for our benefit then and our advantage to cooperate with him and four areas, and I began with two of those four last week and we're gonna touch on both of those again this week, so that's why I don't know how far I'll get down to number three and number four, but they are.

See, these messages will expound on four areas in which it's vital for you to cooperate with the Holy Ghost concerning being controlled by the Holy Ghost, being in control, being led by the Holy Ghost, being filled with the Holy Ghost and having fellowship with the Holy Ghost.

Those four areas.

And when you cooperate with the Holy Ghost in those four areas and see, we're all at different stages when you know when you grow in things, the things of God, you know you, you come up, you come, you increase, you come up a little higher each time, that's we've never arrived.

I'm still, I'm still developing in those, each of those four areas.

Sometimes I, sometimes I can tell that I'm stalling out and so I need to pay more attention to one area or both areas or three areas, and so it's not about being just perfect.

I mean, we're growing.

My job is to see to it that you keep growing in these areas.

So, and it's to your benefit, I mean, it's all you know.

Really, these messages are the epitome of humility.

You know, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and he will exalt you in due time.

And so sometimes people have the idea well, I'm just a weak worm of the dust.

I it's not humility, that's a lie.

You're not weak, you're strong.

Why?

Because he lives inside of you.

It's never proud, it's never pride to confess who you are in Christ.

It's never pride to confess what you have in Christ.

But at the same time, we need to cooperate with the Holy Ghost.

Cooperate with Him, co-operate, isn't that good.

He's operating something on the earth and he wants you to be with Him.

You know we're laborers together with God through the Holy Ghost.

Isn't that awesome.

I say it this way a lot of times.

You know we're partners in the family business.

God and sons unlimited.

We have a place at the table Now, when you first get saved.

Well, you know you've got to grow into that.

You know God's not gonna give you a whole lot of authority when you're a baby, but we all start at the same point.

We start as babies and then we grow from there, and my job is to make sure that you keep on growing, that you don't stall out, that you don't just kind of give yourself permission to be at a certain level and, as it were, tread water.

There's no tread in water in the kingdom.

You're either growing or you're going, or you're retreating.

So that's why we share these messages with you, and so we talked about the first one be controlled by the Holy Ghost, it says you're.

Glorify God in your body.

Now your body is not born again.

Your body is the same body that your old man used to live in your spirit, that you were born with.

You were given birth and then you got.

You know, of course babies are innocent.

Babies don't have any.

You know, paul said it this way I was alive under God once, and then sin came and I died.

When did that happen?

When he got to the age of accountability.

There's comes a time in your childhood when you're responsible.

Now You're responsible to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

If you raise your children correctly, it's seamless.

You can't even.

Really it's hard for them to ever say a certain day I got born again, because they just kind of slide right in there.

But sometimes, you know, a child goes through childhood and maybe parents are busy and they come to children church.

We have kids saved in children church and they come up and they, you know, they fall under the conviction of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost lets them know, hey, you need to get saved, and they get saved.

It's wonderful when your little children get saved.

They come out of the innocence and then they realize, oh, hey, I'm lost, I need to get saved.

That happened to Jay on my lap in the Catholic church Before you're.

So you know holier than thou about crucifixes.

You know protestants, you know I was raised protestants and Catholics.

You know I guess I am a Protestant now but I'm not protesting anything except Democrats.

Anyway, I haven't carried any signs lately but anyway I protest with both words and prayers.

But you know we were at the Catholic church, I'd been saved a few months and we were sitting in church and he's a little guy, you know, five years old or so, something like that, sitting in my lap and it's, you know, the soaring edifice of a Catholic church, big, soaring ceilings, impressive architecture, and we had this stylized cross with a stylized Jesus nail to it up there above the altar and it wasn't like the old time of church where I grew up in our Lady of Refuge Catholic church in Refugio.

I mean, it's very graphic what's up there your nails, blood, the whole thing, you see it all.

But anyway, he looked up there, you know, and we're during the Mass, and he said who's that?

And I saw his eyes, he was looking up, I said who's who?

Who are you talking about?

And he, just little hand, just pointed up who's that and I said that's Jesus.

And then, you know, a little while I went by he said what's he doing?

What's he doing?

I said, and they just hit me.

I mean, you know, I thought God, this little guy is getting something here.

I said, well, he's hanging on that cross.

He was nailed to that cross for your sins and for my sins and he began weeping and I got him home and got him saved.

He just got saved, five years old.

I tell you the convicting part.

We need to be convicted of our sins.

Sometimes it happens to little children in children's church.

Nobody's beating them over the head.

The Holy Spirit is there.

But then, once that happens, he comes and takes up residence inside of you and we began to grow.

So we talked about.

Glorify God in your body, and your body's the same body when you got saved.

That body wants to do the things it used to do when you were lost.

If you were a drunk, well, it wants to drink, and if it's left alone, it will.

Finally, even if you get saved and you really do get, see, I hear people say this.

Well, if you ever want to do that you never were saved to begin with Well, that's a bunch of bunk, because people can be saved in backsliding go back to their old life.

I see it a lot More than I like.

I think we need to clean some things up and let's believe God for all of our dear friends that have backslidden or have backed off of drawing near to God, and let's believe that we're gonna have a revival.

We need a revival in the church before we can have an awakening in the world.

So your flesh wants to do all that it's always done.

So we have to, we who are you.

Well, you're a spirit.

You're born again.

You're a new creature, but you live in that body that's unredeemed.

It has base desires and everybody's got the same desire.

I mean, they have different desires, but the same thing is that if you let your body rule you, then you're not living a Christian life the way that God intended for you to live At first.

You're a brand new baby Christian.

Sometimes it takes a while to separate yourself from some of those habits.

For me, I made my own beer and when I got saved, you know I mean God dealt with me about drinking and all that and said you know, no more drinking.

Now I'm not saying this wrong.

If you sip on wine, you want to be a wine sipper.

I'm not here to give you the don't do's.

I'm just telling you what I don't do.

I don't do that because I was walking down a road of alcoholism and if I'd have kept going that way, that's where I'd have wound up.

I had friends that were alcoholics that I associated with, that had lunch with them every day and saw them all the time, went hunting with them and all that they drink to just inebriation.

Sometimes I'd join them and sometimes I'd stay, you know, semi sober.

But the beer that I made, it was pretty hard to stay sober.

It was real, real powerful.

It was not Bud Light, it was buddy heavy.

I mean it was.

I'm not bragging, I'm just reporting.

So God said no, no more.

After a few months, see, I grew enough for him to talk to me and deal with me.

I grew enough for him to tell me that I didn't.

But I drank beer at first and I heard from God at first and I prayed in first.

I got the baptism of the Holy ghost and I had celebrated with a beer.

Why?

Cause I didn't know.

I'm growing All this judgmental, you know, but yet I'm preaching something where you do need to grow up now and start realizing that there are things in the flesh that you need to lay aside.

Lay aside the sin and the weights and as you grow in God, god requires you to to not allow your flesh to rule you.

So we talked about the fact of Romans 613.

We have to yield our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

The word instruments means weapons.

Your body parts, in other words, your hands, your eyes, your mouth, your tongue.

Yield it to God, yield the right of way to God.

God who, god, holy ghost, live inside of you.

That implies being controlled by the holy ghost.

Everybody say I'm controlled by the holy ghost, and so all four of these work together.

I mean, you know, they're not separate, they're really.

They dovetail together and they interact with one another.

So if you don't do one it affects the other.

So we talked about in, for instance, the Corinthian church was a church.

He said in chapter one you become behind in no good gift.

They were filled with the holy ghost and spoken tongues.

They had gifts of the spirit active in their services.

So, as a church, see that church is one level of control.

The church itself, the assembly, should be controlled by the holy ghost, and then the individual members of that church should be controlled by the holy ghost.

So it's twofold, all right.

So here they were.

He said you come behind in no good gift.

He led with the positive.

But then he spent the next few chapters pointing out some things that needed to change.

And he got to chapter three and he said you know, it's reported, you know that.

You know you guys are living in such a way that you need milk and not meat.

I can't give you meat because you're carnal or baby Christians.

Carnal means body ruled.

You know, when you raise a two year old, they are body ruled.

They want what they want when they want it.

You're in the checkout line and mama, and you've got your two year old there in the basket and they see that candy and they want it, don't they?

Ah, they'll test you.

They'll test you.

Well, see, baby Christians, kind of the same way.

They want their way.

Well, we've got.

We're a church assembly, we've got to love on our baby Christians.

We've got to nurture them.

We've got to not just pat on their head and say, little darling, we've got to help them realize when they're wrong and just gently lead them along.

Amen, are you with me now?

Yeah, but when he got to chapter three he said you know, you guys are carnal, I can't even give you the meat of the word, because you've got strife and division and you've got cliques, you've got factions among you.

And it says in the amplified that are you not walking as mere unchanged men?

See, I thought how we're supposed to walk.

We're not supposed to walk like we were when we were lost.

We're supposed to walk as people that have been born again by the spirit of God and controlled by the spirit of God.

And when we don't, it's an issue of maturity.

Well, you know, that's my job is to mature you.

That's why the anointing for pastors on my life, because in Ephesians, chapter five it says that's our cheap Ephesians, chapter four.

That's why the five fold ministry is there to perfect you.

You need help.

You need help to help you grow up.

I'm going to give you a diet, that's I'm going to feed you the good word of God.

That will help you grow.

I don't have to follow you around and say, uh-uh-uh, slap your hand.

No, we don't have to do that.

I just preach the word, you get it and you begin to grab ahold of it and you change, don't you?

And so it says.

And so you yield your members.

It says don't yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness under sin.

Don't do that.

Do the other.

Yield your body parts as instruments or weapons of righteousness to God.

Amen.

So that means being controlled by the Holy Ghost.

In Hebrews three, 13,.

I got into this a little bit and I didn't finish the thought.

I want to finish it today.

Let's look at it real quick.

Hebrews three, 13.

And uh, hebrews says something about this subject, verse 12,.

Take heed, brethren, lest there be an interview and evil, heart of unbelief and departing from the living God.

See, uh, remember.

Last week I talked about, in first Corinthians five, the young man who came to church with his stepmother, living in open sin.

And Paul pointed out.

He said you know, I heard about this.

What in the world are you doing?

Your, your bodies, your, your collective body is not being controlled by the Holy Ghost and you let a member come in here living like that and that kind of sin.

That's not even named outside the door over there.

Nobody does that.

Nobody does that.

Living with your stepmother how should you not?

Also, just, why didn't you hand him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of judgment?

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.

If you let that go on uncontested, you're gonna attract more of that behavior and the more of that behavior comes into a church, the Holy Ghost goes out the door.

He's no longer in control of that body because the leadership, the pastor's too chicken Chicken and he doesn't have leaders installed in the church that are too chicken to put their arm around the guy and say, look, you can't do that, you know better.

See, he had to have been all right.

He was letting an evil heart of unbelief he was letting, he was giving himself permission to do this thing.

And see, you know, is he saved?

Well, yeah, he's saved, but he might not stay saved if he keeps going that direction.

Keep reading here Hebrews 12,.

Take heed, brethren, unless there be any of you at the evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God.

This is going on in the church right now.

People are departing from the faith everywhere you look, and it's right before the return of the Lord.

I'm telling you there's going to be a great influx of people.

He's got to get rid of these people that don't want to serve him.

They're just being separated.

Everybody say that's not, he's not talking about me.

Yeah, I said you take heed.

You take heed, but exhort one another daily.

Verse 13, while it's called today, in other words, don't put it off.

Exort one another daily.

What does exhort mean?

Encourage, but it also means brother.

I mean to tell you you can't do that.

You know better.

And stop it.

Tell me you're going to move out or have her move out, one of the two you can't do.

That Bible says if you see a brother or a sister overtaken in a fault, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness.

Less a worse thing happened under you.

Why?

Because that spirit comes into your body, into your body of believers.

The assembly of believers.

That's that sin comes in and it starts to just lower the level of the power of God available to change people.

You can forget about miracles.

You can forget about signs and wonders.

God's not in a cohabitate with that.

Amen, praise God.

Pastor, this is kind of heavy.

No, you need to know this because we're living it right now.

We're living it right now.

This is an encourage.

Really, this is the kind of message.

If you get ahold of it, this is the kind of message you could run around the church on.

That's how positive really the results are.

And when we don't partake of it, we cheat ourselves.

I don't want anybody to cheat themselves.

Let's just get ahold of what the Word says, but exhort one another daily.

While it's cold, today.

Don't put it off when you see this going on, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

So the problem was that this young man had gone down this road in the Corinthian church with his stepmother Doesn't talk about the stepmother, I don't even know if she was saved.

She might not have even been saved.

So it didn't address her, it addressed him.

He was a member of that church in good standing.

He was saved, probably filled with a holy ghost speaking in other tongues, but somehow he had let the tempter get in.

He had flesh got in control of him.

He quit requiring his behavior and he just went into sin.

So he was hardened.

What do you mean hardened?

His spirit is where he hears from God.

God talks to your spirit, not your head, not your flesh.

He's not gonna send you an email, he's not gonna text your phone with a message.

They've got an app now that you can get on there artificial intelligence where you can talk to Jesus.

Yeah, I mean, look, we're living in deception now.

Well, let me tell you about another part of deception.

James 1.22 says be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own self.

So this young man, if he did get any preaching that addressed what he was doing, didn't do it.

He heard it and didn't do it.

So then he deceives himself and thinks that it's okay, it's okay if I do this, jesus gets me, he gets me.

See, that whole ad campaign makes me wanna throw up, because I know they mean.

Well, I know the people that are putting it on.

They're spending millions of dollars.

I was watching the Astros the other night.

It was on the screen.

They project their ads on the outfield wall.

And there it was, jesus.

You know, through a no hitter or whatever, I don't remember now what it had out there it's the.

Jesus gets me, well, Jesus gets you, and he tells you to change.

He tells you to yield yourselves to God.

Amen, that's what he tells you.

He doesn't tell you to go ahead and stay a homosexual.

He doesn't tell you it's okay to be transgender.

He just does not say that.

It says the opposite of that.

See, that's what that whole thing.

It's a lame attempt to reach out to all these people that are going to hell.

Jesus gets them, but if not gonna do any good, they've got to repent.

Are y'all with me now?

All right?

So so the?

So the handing him over to devil, to the Satan, for the destruction of his flesh, was mercy.

Well, pastor, I'm still not getting this.

Okay, the deceitfulness then hardens your heart, hardens your.

He is saved, all right.

Here we are in Hebrews.

Turn over to chapter six, verse four.

There are five things that can happen to somebody, to where, if they're saved, they can get unsaved.

I don't believe in what saved all we say, because the Bible doesn't teach you, but I do say it's hard to get unsaved.

It's very difficult and you have to meet five qualifications to qualify to be lost.

Once you're saved and see, I hear this excuse, all well, they never really were saved.

Yes, they were, they were saved.

The Bible says they were saved.

They're saved when they say they are and when they believe it.

Who are you, you, god?

Can you get inside of people?

People are tempted in the flesh.

It's hard to get your flesh to obey you.

It's a lifetime struggle for some people.

If you've ever been addicted to drugs, you know, I've heard testimonies.

You know, since I've been saved, I've had testimonies of people that were hopeless drunks that got delivered instantly, drug people that got delivered instantly.

But the vast majority are people that have to just basically believe God day and day and speak and not don't say you're a drunk, don't say you're a drug addict, no, you say I'm delivered by the blood of Jesus.

Thank God, I'm free today.

That's another day of freedom, hallelujah, instead of counting down the days that you stayed on the wagon.

That's the alcoholics, anonymous.

It's not the word of faith, it's not the good news, it's not Jehovah Jireh, jehovah Rafa, amen.

Are y'all with me now?

All right?

So it says it's impossible for those who were once enlightened that you got saved, tasted of the heavenly gift.

You got the joy of your salvation, made partakers of the Holy Ghost, you got filled with the Holy Ghost, the evidence of speaking in other tongues, and if tasted the good word of God, you've been Bible taught and discipled for a season and the powers of the world to come.

You've experienced miracles.

Now see, if you're lacking any of those five, you don't qualify to commit the sin that he's talking about, the sin of rejecting Christ.

So then, if you've had all these things, if you fall away, people are falling away.

People are falling away.

They're not just backsliding, they're falling away.

Backsliding is one thing, falling away is another.

There are two different things.

Folks Don't put them together.

They're not the same.

Falling away means what?

Apostasy, apostasia, the Greek word.

It means denying Christ.

If they fall away, to renew them again, unto repentance, seeing they crucified of themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame.

So, this young man, why are you going through all this?

Well, you need to know what the Bible teaches so you can help people, because we've got people that have already denied Christ.

There's no point in spending any time on it, but you have backsliders that are worth your time.

Maybe some of them are in your family, maybe some of them are in your friends and they're backsliding.

Well, let's work to get them back in fellowship with God.

This young man technically was backslid.

He was committing a very bad sin and they turned him over to the devil to afflict him.

It doesn't say what the devil did to him, but it could have been gotten sick, he might have been tormented, he might have not been able to sleep at night.

I don't know what the devil did to him.

They just basically said you don't have the advantages of church membership.

I'm going to take my pastoral covering off of you and you're gonna have to wrestle with the devil by yourself.

You're not gonna have your brothers and sisters to agree with you about it until you get right with God.

Well, why would they do that?

Because if he continued along this line, he could harden himself so much that eventually he would depart from the faith and he would say God, I don't need you.

This Bible stuff is a bunch of bunk and I've seen it.

Live long enough to see it.

And that's what this John called it the sin unto death.

He said there is a sin unto death and I do not say that you shall pray for it.

You don't pray for somebody that's committed that sin.

Well, how do I know what you don't know?

But the Holy Ghost does.

The Holy Ghost does.

The Holy Ghost does.

Why am I going through?

Because you know we're coming into a church time where revival is.

We're gonna bring people in here that are so wild and weird and I've been saying this for a long, long time, lots of years, I've been saying it.

I mean, they're drug addicted, they're wacky, they're whacked out, they've got all kind of weirdness about them and we gotta love them, we gotta get.

You know, let's catch the fish and God can clean the fish, but on this flip side we've got to help them grow.

I have to help them grow into a more mature way of living.

Praise God, so he could have gotten in the case where he would deny Christ at some point.

So okay, to keep that from happening.

So his spirit shall be saved in the day of judgment.

Let's take him out of the church and turn him over to Satan to destroy his flesh, and if he dies young, at least he'll go to heaven.

See, that proves that backsliders don't go to hell.

It proves it.

And we get these people.

They just think, oh, they went away from the Lord, they're going to heaven.

No, they're not.

I'm telling you, jesus' blood is more powerful.

The people that teach that have a lousy revelation of the blood of Jesus.

The righteousness of God in Christ, amen.

I'm spending more time on this.

Why?

Because it's needed.

We live in those times and we can't be the judge, jury and executioner.

We've got to deal with people in mercy.

We're not going to be the kind that looked down their nose.

See, nobody was looking down their nose at the young man.

They're doing it for his benefit.

You find, in 2 Corinthians he said okay, that's enough, bring him back, he's repented now.

I think they went a little too far and so Paul had heard about it.

He said, hey, bring him back, he's okay now.

And love on him, get him restored now, assure him now.

See, I mean, people can drift.

That's the value of being in a church.

You don't get that just floating around from church to church.

You don't get that just deciding on a Sunday where you're going to go to church.

You know you need to plant yourself.

Amen, there's protection for it All right.

So here you know.

We see that, people, that sin hardens the heart or hardens the spirit and or makes it more less sensitive to spiritual things.

So when we get to being led of the Holy Ghost we talked about that last time, if you aren't here, be sure and get the media but God leads us primarily with the witness of the spirit.

Romans 8.16,.

You have the witness First.

John 5.10,.

You have the witness in yourself, the witness of the Holy Ghost.

We talked all about what the witness is.

The witness is peace.

It's that sense that you are.

And when I say sense, I don't mean five senses.

I mean that you have an attraction to a certain decision that you're in the middle of making and you just you know it's the right way to go or else you lose your peace and you hesitate and you can't seem to follow through with the decision.

See, that's the Holy Ghost witness saying don't do it, don't do it.

As one that has violated and ran right through the witness, I'll tell you that.

Did God ever leave me?

He never left me, thank God.

He blessed me as far as he could and he did.

But there came a time, after a while, when I recognized what had happened.

I mean, he didn't.

He didn't just say, ah, you missed me, you doofus.

I'm through with you, you're fired.

No, god used me mightily after I missed God in the witness of the spirit.

I missed him in a business transaction, I missed him with a business decision and I won't have time to get in all of that.

I've teach that in other times.

But the witness of the spirit is how you know you're saved.

Romans 8, 16,.

We've established in Romans 8, 14, as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

If that's true and it is then we can flip that over and say as many as their sons of God, they are led by the spirit of God.

So it's not a question of whether God is leading you.

He is leading you.

He leads you all the time.

That question is are you identifying his leading and following it?

Two things you have to identify his leading and follow it.

Well, if you harden your heart through giving your flesh free reign, let your flesh do whatever it wants to do.

When you get mad, when you throw a tantrum, when you, you know, give somebody a piece of your mind when you fail to walk in love, amen.

When you lay aside your Bible reading, you've got bigger things to do.

When you lay aside your prayer life, you're too busy to have a prayer life.

I'm too busy to pray.

Well, you know what you're doing.

You're giving place to the flesh and you're hardening your heart.

It may not be a sin not to read your Bible.

It may not be a sin, you know, not to pray a certain, but if you keep doing, you're giving yourself permission to be away from God.

God says draw near to me and I'll draw near to you.

It's not the other way around.

You're kind of on the road to backslide, the backslide highway.

It doesn't happen overnight, it happens a little at a time.

It happens a little as you give permission to your flesh to rule you and study you.

Who's you, your spirit, ruling your flesh, paul said.

He said I keep under my body lest at any time, while having preached to others, I myself would be a castaway.

He keeps his body under what?

Under water, under no, under subjection to his spirit.

He said it's no longer I that liveth, but Christ liveth in me.

But I live in him, but Christ liveth in me for the life that I now live, in the flesh.

I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

That's what he said.

Well, paul did it.

We can do it.

We can put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for our flesh, and that will help us then, in the leading of the spirit, to identify that leading and to follow it.

You're gonna have the courage to follow the leading of the spirit because your body is out, it's been subjected to your spirit.

You'll have some kind of reasoning, some kind of an excuse will come up in your mind, but you know, by the witness you're supposed to do a certain thing and you're gonna do that and you just tell your mind to hush.

You're gonna just, I'm in charge here.

Your spirit dominant.

Everybody say spirit dominant.

When people are flesh dominant, they're carnal, they're body ruled, they don't follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, they're not being controlled by the Holy Spirit, so they're not cooperating with the Holy God.

And if you're a member of a church like that, that's gonna kinda be a rock in the stream, so to speak.

If you've ever been to a river, you know, if you've got all these rapids, you know they've got this white water.

They have white water rafting.

What makes the white water big?

Old boulders that are in the stream.

If you hit that boulder you're gonna have some damage.

The river of God doesn't have any boulders.

Don't be a boulder in the river of God.

All right, so we got into.

Are y'all following me about the ruling of your flesh?

You rule your flesh.

You yield it to God.

You tell it how to feel.

I mean, it's the same with healing.

Maybe your body feels sick.

Well, you tell your body.

Look by his stripes.

I was healed, just hush, I'm getting up, I'm gonna go to church.

Linda, linda Moreno's here.

She probably doesn't feel like coming to church here she is.

Glory to God.

We're standing with you.

Your faith makes you whole, linda, glory to God.

See, that's when you've told your flesh okay, I'm going to church.

So who's the I spirit, amen, we talked about?

Your flesh can be trained.

Your flesh can be trained.

You know, the Bible says that if the spirit of him that raised Christ from the dead dwelling you, he that raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal body by that spirit.

And we think about that in healing, but we also when he makes your body alive, he makes it more amenable to being trained.

You can train a dog, can't train a cat, can't train a cat.

But you can train a dog.

A little dog jumps through a ring of fire.

A little dog gets up on his hind legs, does a little dance, whirls around.

You know, stay, sit.

You can train a dog.

If a dog can be trained, your flesh can be trained to do the right thing.

And who trains it?

You, you're the spirit.

Is that helping you?

And the Holy Ghost will help your flesh be amenable to be entrained.

And we went into all of that last week On being led by the Holy Ghost.

You know he leads you in all the practical things of life, it's not just spiritual things.

Ooh, god is leading me to go to Africa, be a missionary.

Okay, well, great, but what about right now?

What about the nasty now and now?

Maybe that's down the road, but what about right now?

What's he leading you to do?

This is always some kind of grandiose, you know, these faraway looks in people's eyes, you know.

But no, he starts with just the nitty gritty.

So I remember I loved Gloria Copeland's testimony about this.

Gloria Copeland, the Kenneth was just starting in the ministry, traveling, going to churches and they're young parents.

He's a young mom and he left town to go and she had a car and went to the store, got home and put it in the garage and gets the kids to bed and then she said, oh, now I've got some alone time.

I'm gonna read my Bible.

This was all new to her in those days.

This is in the sixties and they just gotten.

She had just gotten saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, had been very long.

She's really a baby Christian and so she's just gonna get her Bible.

She's gonna pray in tongues and she's gonna.

She's so excited about this new life that she's found.

And so she's sitting there, you know, and she's like, okay, I pray to now and I've read my Bible.

I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna close my eyes and be still before the Lord in case there's anything.

And she, this just very faint voice, which really that voice is not God.

That's the voice of your human spirit, which is your conscience.

The still small voice is one of the ways God leads you.

I urge you not to wait for voices and lead, because voices can be hacked.

We talked about that last week.

That's something I never taught before.

It just came right out of prophetic statement.

You know, visions and dreams can be hacked.

The devil can give those, but the witness can't be hacked.

But anyway, she did hear this still small voice your light's on in the car.

And she said lights on in the car, what that's?

What would God care about that?

That's not spiritual, you know.

And she just ignored it and just just kept.

And then a little while later your light is on in the car.

And then she thought well, you know, I guess it's possible that that's God, I don't know.

I was kind of weird If I go and check and it's not on, I know I missed it and there's no harm done, nobody's here, but he, you know me.

And so she just kind of reluctantly got up and went to the garage and opened the door into the garage and goes in there and her dome light was on because the back door was not latched on that car, the kids had got out of the back seat and it wasn't all the way shut and her dome light was on.

If it stayed on all night long she would have had a dead battery the next day and she would have been stuck at home with her husband out of town.

She wouldn't have had her way around, it wouldn't have had a car.

God cared about her circumstance and I mean she started weeping and crying because God is so sweet and so kind and so gentle, and so he's, he's watching after you in every way.

Come on, lift your hand right now.

Glory to God.

He's there to help you, he's your helper.

He's not working against you, he's not there to condemn you, he's there to help you.

Glory to God, all right, so all four of these are linked.

You can see.

I mean, if you're hard-hearted by sin or by being doing your own thing all the time, you get hard-hearted.

Bible says be tender-hearted one to another and walk in love.

So in a church like this it's easy to get hard-hearted because you get cross-wives of somebody for one reason or another and you can get kind of aggravated.

I hadn't told this story in a long time but I got aggravated one time at Lakewood, really aggravated.

I was so mad, I was madder than a wet hornet.

But we had a special guest, a speaker, I don't remember who it was on a Sunday night and Gladys and I.

In those years they called them counselors.

Later on they called them prayer partners, but we were honored to be counselors and we get the first three rows reserved for our seats.

But I wanted the first row, I wanted the front row.

We got there early, I put my jacket around the back of the chair.

It's old metal chair, you know folding chair, that's what they had at Lakewood.

No, no, no these kind of chairs.

And then I put my Bible in the seat and I put her Bible in her seat and we had two chairs next to the front row.

We were there real early and then we went around visiting with people, went to the bookstore, all of that.

I came back about 10 minutes before the service started.

Hey, it's getting late, we better go sit down.

Service about to start and this lady who was, you know, a counselor I knew her from that, I didn't know her very well.

She's sitting in my chair and Gladys' Bible is sitting next to her.

She didn't move Gladys, she just moved my stuff and my jacket was on the floor and my Bible was on the floor, kind of upside down, open like this and wrinkling the pages.

Well, I wasn't very happy.

I said you're sitting in my chair, that's my stuff.

Well, it wasn't here, it was.

The chair was empty Lying.

Thank you.

I picked up my stuff, I picked Gladys, I marched over there.

I found a place.

I think by then the third, I think it was all filled and we had to sit back closer and we had six or seven rows back.

Oh, it was mad.

I went to complain.

I went to brother William William Guthrie was the head counselor in those days.

I said William, look at her, she's sitting in my chair.

I came early just to.

He said oh yeah, that's kind of rough, ain't it?

Well, you'll be all right.

And I said I was tempted to say something oh, you're not gonna do that.

And he just kind of, he started laughing at me, he started playing with me, he hugged me.

You know I couldn't stay mad.

I mean, he just see, he didn't slap me, he didn't say you're in the flesh, boy, what's wrong with you?

He didn't ever.

He never condemned me, he just laughed and loved on me.

And how can you stay mad when somebody's laughing and hugging you?

And I realized he was right.

See, I just had to make a decision to let that go.

Now I've been saved about two or three years.

So it's not.

See, your flesh has to be trained.

Your flesh doesn't wanna do the right thing.

I was so wronged, see?

Well, I was, but you know you forgive it.

It's not the end of the world.

It's not worth having strife over.

It's not worth having a big problem right before a wonderful service.

I just think about how powerful that service was and the devil was working overtime to keep me out of the fullness of what I had in front of me.

Don't be saying shame, shame, pastor, because I've grown up since then.

But don't you dare take my seat up here.

All right, so I've spent a long time on that, but I think it's worth it.

And I didn't get into the other two.

So guess what?

I guess I'll have to come circle back around next week and be talking about be filled with the Holy Ghost.

So I'll just read one verse and we'll get into it more next week.

Ephesians, chapter five.

I told you about the four areas.

We've talked about two.

The last two is be filled with the Holy Ghost and be in fellowship with the Holy Ghost.

And Ephesians, chapter five, verse 18,.

It says be not drunk with wine where is in excess, but be filled with the Spirit.

And the word be is really be being filled.

And so the linguistic key to the Greek New Testament says it this way be continually and habitually filled with the Holy Ghost.

Be not drunk with wine.

Where is in excess?

See, I don't preach against drinking.

I mean, if you just have to drink wine, we'll drink it, but don't get drunk.

The word drunk means you know what it means.

I mean drunk means you're affected.

If you've got such a high tolerance for alcohol that doesn't affect you, well then you can drink, but you better, you know.

Again, see, it says be not drunk Doesn't say don't drink.

He told me not to drink.

The reason he told me not to drink is he knew I was going to minister to people and he didn't want me having alcohol on my breath.

He said you know, he told me.

He said what if you?

What if you're?

You know your witness of these friends of yours?

They're, they're, they're two of them are, are alcoholics and you're talking about Jesus, and they smell beer on your breath.

What makes them think that you've changed?

I didn't have a good answer, so I just quit.

But anyway, you just.

But be not drunk with wine, but get drunk on the Holy Ghost.

I mean be filled to overflowing, be being filled, be continually and habitual.

And guess what that doesn't happen automatically.

Doesn't happen automatically, so mean you've got to get a hold of your flesh over here and move it out of the way so that you can put yourself in position to keep drinking the Holy Ghost, drinking of the Holy Ghost, drinking of the Holy Ghost to your field.

With the Holy Ghost.

We'll get into that next week.

Amen, come on, lift your hands and receive.

Praise God, what a joy life is as we're faithful to cooperate with the Holy Ghost.

Everybody say I'm cooperating more and more with the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost that lives inside of me.

Hallelujah, come on, let's rejoice.

Glory to God, amen.

And I believe you receive something that will help you with backsliders and people that you know that need to have somebody to exhort them and somebody to restore them.

That's what we want to do.

We want to get people restored to full fellowship with God.

Amen, how many of you know somebody that's backslidden and they need to be restored?

Look at all these hands go up and see, sometimes it's our family.

So you know we have to do a lot of praying now.

Let don't just, you know, leap in there and start talking to people.

Pray first, soften, soften things up a little bit with the Holy Ghost prayer and then God will lead you and help you to restore people.

Praise God, hallelujah.