Following The Holy Ghost

Pick your Bibles up.

I'm gonna get into the Word with you right now.

Let's just keep tasting of His goodness by feeding on His Word.

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

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, thank you for the anointing, thank you for your presence tonight.

I've tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

I'm so grateful that you've given me your holy Word.

It's the Word and the Spirit that are working together in my life to give me the victory.

In every situation.

I've never caught unaware.

I've never caught short.

I'm an overcomer.

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

Let's turn in our Bibles to a couple of places Romans, chapter eight, and also first John, chapter five.

We'll start with Romans eight and then we'll go back to Romans eight, verse 14, the apostle Paul writing to the church at Rome.

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

And if that's true, how many of you believe that's true?

So then the converse is true.

You can just use mathematics.

If that's true, then as many as are the sons of God, then they are led by the Spirit of God.

How many of you believe that's true?

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

That's what I wanna talk about tonight following the Holy Ghost.

See, it's one thing for God to lead you, it's another thing for you to follow.

And I say that with great experience, because there's been numbers of times in my life when I didn't follow his lead and I cheated myself and my family Can't blame God.

Why?

Because God's leading.

He's leading you.

Whether you know it or not, whether you've discerned it or not, he's leading you.

That's what the Bible says.

I mean, is the Bible true or not?

See, sometimes we just have to take the Bible and say, yeah, that's true, right there, god's leading me.

He's not a question, not a question of whether he's leading me, he is leading me.

Question is what are you following?

And then it says for you've not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you've received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry ah, by Father, talking about the Holy Ghost, if the Spirit himself bears witness, with our Spirit, that we are the children of God.

So the witness, everybody say the witness of the Spirit, all right.

And then we'll go back over to First John, chapter five.

Here's a different apostle writing at a different time and he says in verse First John, chapter five I'll find it here in a second.

That's First Peter, that's not First John.

All right, he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness.

There's that word again witness.

He has the witness in himself.

So how do we know we're saved?

We're saved by the witness of the Spirit, and so if we are to be led by the Spirit, he leads us primarily.

The same way.

He lets us know we're saved.

He leads us by the witness which we all have.

We all have supernatural equipment with which we can follow God.

If you didn't have a radio, you wouldn't you know.

If you didn't have, like, a radio they have an airplane you wouldn't be.

You wouldn't know where you were flying.

You know you'd be flying around, and without a radio that's pretty bad.

I mean, all you have to do is get in the cloud.

You wouldn't know whether you're going north, south, east or west.

You lose track of the ground.

You don't know where you're at without radio, the radio beacon.

It kind of you line up with a beacon on the airport that you're flying to, and so it's really important to have a radio.

Well, we got a radio.

It's called the witness.

It's supernatural.

Everybody say I have the witness in me.

I have a witness in me Ever since you got saved.

You, you're saved.

You got installed the high tech, you got the latest equipment.

He installed the witness of the spirit inside of you so that you can follow the Holy Ghost.

You don't have to not follow, you can follow the Holy Ghost.

So that's what I'm talking about tonight.

The third person of the Godhead lives in us.

What an amazing thing.

Sometimes we have to rip.

You know that same spirit that moved in here tonight.

You know that's a different.

You know demonstration it's a different administration of the spirit.

But that same spirit lives inside you to guide you, to inform you.

We don't have to be at a loss, we don't have to have Fox News tell us everything.

We don't have to have.

In fact, fox News doesn't tell me much of anything anymore, but anyway, we got the witness.

So our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost there, in first Corinthians, chapter six.

What know you not?

That your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost which you have of God?

You're not your own, you've been bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God, your body and your spirit, which are God.

So we belong to him and our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost individually.

And then tonight, collectively, this church was the temple of the Holy Ghost, just another administration, a different level of administration.

When we're together, he's here, just like he's in you individually.

So you're never by yourself, you're never alone, you're never you know out there where you're vulnerable.

Why?

Because you've got the third person that God had living on the inside of you Never at a loss.

So one of the primary things the Holy Ghost does is he leads every believer.

That's his job, it's one of his main jobs lead.

And so then it's our responsibility then to follow his lead.

It's imperative, it's not optional, it's imperative, I mean to the degree that you follow the Holy Ghost.

That's the degree that you're gonna walk in the blessing.

That's the degree to which you're gonna walk victorious.

It doesn't mean that you're gonna escape problems.

I don't mean that.

But I mean you're walking with him and so you've got the goods to overcome anything.

I mean, you know, just think about the children of Israel.

He led them out of Egypt and where did he take them?

Right to the Red Sea.

That look, they thought God, you know, man.

You made a big mistake.

What'd you do that for man?

We got Pharaoh's army behind us.

We've got an impenetrable place, you know.

But he had a plan.

His plan was perfect.

They just didn't know what it was.

Sometimes, when the Holy Ghost is leading you, you don't know exactly.

It doesn't look like he's leading you really, but he is.

Are you following?

That's the problem, that's the question.

So we have to follow the Holy Ghost.

How?

In the realm of the Spirit?

Because he's gonna lead you in your spirit.

He is a spirit.

He's not a body, he's not flesh, he's not a mind.

He is a spirit and he will lead you in your spirit.

By that witness, the same witness that you knew.

You know, when you got saved, you didn't see Jesus, you didn't see him.

He didn't appear to you and say thou art saved, you know, and give you a blessing.

No, you just knew it by the witness of the Spirit.

You knew it down in your knower.

You just knew and you knew you were different.

You didn't understand it theologically yet, but you knew, boy, something changed.

I remember the night I got saved, buddy, I knew I was saved.

I didn't wonder about it at all.

How did I know the witness, and I mean I passed from death into life, from darkness into light, and about one o'clock in the morning I trudged upstairs and went to bed and I slept all night long till the phone rang the next morning About eight o'clock.

Come open me up.

I was by myself when I got saved.

I didn't answer an altar call and, by the way, the witness.

So God's not flesh and bone, he's not gonna.

You know feelings, your emotions are the voice of your flesh.

He's not gonna lead you with your emotions.

I know lots of people that just try to be led.

They have a certain happy feeling, or they have a sad feeling, or they have a feeling this way or feeling that way.

You can't be led like that.

Your feelings are all over the map.

God doesn't lead you with your feelings, why?

Because that's your carnal flesh.

Everybody's flesh has feelings.

The feelings don't die when you get saved.

I mean just cause you get saved doesn't mean you're never gonna get angry again, you're never gonna get sad again, you never listen.

You know all have all those emotions.

That's not how God leads you.

Guess why?

Cause he's not flesh and blood, he's not a mind, so he's not gonna lead you with logic.

Men are the worst at that.

They just wanna have everything.

Logic, you know, logical If you have a man and a woman.

This has happened in lots of times when I've met with people.

Usually when they're having trouble in their marriage, I meet with a man and his wife and have a meeting and pray over them and talk to them and try to help them.

I mean, it's just amazing, you know, a man is gonna make a decision based on all the logic and the you know this at point A to point B, and the woman is just gonna get, if she agrees with her husband, it's not for the reasons that he stated.

It's always way out here.

It's not by not being critical.

I mean women just think on a different planet.

They come from Mars.

No, I'm just joking.

Really, women more likely.

They follow their intuition, which is really kind of kin to the witness.

Women are wired that way.

I like to put it that way.

They're kind of wired that way and men are not.

Men are not wired to go by the intuition, which is why men have a hard time many times and it takes a lot of work for a man to finally figure out how to follow the witness of the spirit.

There's a testimony right there.

You only thought.

You only thought Irma was from Mars, right?

I mean, come to find out she was from what Benavitas did you?

So God's a spirit and the voice of the human spirit is your conscience.

Now, I had a conscience when I was lost, when I was a little Catholic boy.

I had a conscience, but it wasn't reliable because I wasn't born again.

I was still a child of the devil, I was still in darkness, I had not been born again.

So, by definition, I'm a child of the devil, so my conscience will permit me to do anything.

This is what we've learned now.

All you gotta do is look around and men's human being, conscious conscience will allow them to do anything, to commit the most gosh-awful atrocities, to treat their children and all these things, the crazy things that we're seeing, the tragic things that we're seeing, and so?

But your conscience, once you get saved, your conscience can develop into a reliable guide as you read your Bible and pray in the Holy Ghost.

Your conscience is the voice of your spirit.

Now, I use the word voice because it does talk to you in words.

But that's only when you first get saved, really after you grow up a little while.

God expects you to follow the witness, because if you just follow voices all the time, you're gonna get tricked.

Verse Corinthians 14 says there's many voices in the world, none without significance.

So if you're used to, you know.

When I first got saved, it seemed like I heard voices all the time.

I could tell the Holy Ghost would speak to me, my conscience would speak to me, and then one day I mean it all ended and that's God wanting me to walk by faith, wanting me to walk in the light of the Word.

He wanted me to walk in the light of my witness, the witness of my spirit.

Well, I didn't know, I couldn't understand that.

Women can understand that, because of the intuition thing, they're more likely to follow that than men are.

So it took me quite a number of years to develop in that area.

That's why I'm teaching this, because we can all you know the Word of God is our guide and we can all improve in our area of following the Holy Ghost.

And we don't ever have to miss God.

We don't have to.

It's not something we have to do.

Oh well, everybody misses God.

Well, we don't have to.

You don't have to miss God.

You can know what God's will is in any particular situation.

Every time I said every time you don't have to miss it.

People do miss it, but you don't have to.

There's no law that says you have to.

In fact, god wants you to follow Him.

So this conscience, then you know you have it, and your conscience, you know, really quits talking to you in words and then you know you'll get kind of disturbed in your heart Whenever you, for instance, when you miss God and you sin, what happens?

Well, you get disturbed down in here.

That's your conscience, your conscience, and you better pay attention to your conscience.

You better say oh, I missed it, lord, forgive me.

Right then, just don't wait.

Right then, and keep a tender heart or a tender conscience, be tenderhearted one to another, forgiving one another.

You have all against any.

See, it takes effort.

It's easy to get hard hearted.

It's easy to be unforgiving toward people.

It's easy to carry a grudge.

When you do that, you're messing up your equipment that God uses for you to know what His will is.

You're putting yourself in danger, you're cheating yourself.

You're not accomplishing one thing, you're hurting yourself.

Are you with me now?

So these voices, I mean we just need to put that all to rest and quit listening for voices.

It's like stumbling over the supernatural, looking for the spectacular visions, dreams, voices, prophecies, people that wait on that type of what I call spectacular guidance, when God is always guiding you.

He's guiding you 24, seven by the witness of the spirit.

You don't have to have a vision, you don't have to have a dream to know what God's will is.

You don't have to have all that.

It's great when it happens.

It's happened to me Usually.

I find when I have something like you know, spectacular guidance, like a dream, it usually means something has gone off the road in his sideways in a ditch and it's kind of take a lot of effort to pull it out.

It usually means I'm gonna have a challenge in front of me and he didn't want me to waste any time knowing what was behind it Trouble.

And so you know, since I don't really look for trouble, it comes my way.

Anyhow, I don't really ask God to give me that type of guidance.

I don't ask.

I never ask for dreams.

I never ask for God to speak to me Because the devil can oblige.

Amen, all right.

So when you get saved, you have that still small voice, the voice of your conscience, which is the voice of your spirit, but it starts to fade away.

Because God expects us to walk by faith.

He expects us to walk in light of the Word, he expects us to walk in light of the witness of the spirit which we all have, because that's how you knew you got saved Lean on the witness.

We have the witness of the spirit on the inside of us.

So now, romans 8.16 talks about that witness.

What is it exactly?

What exactly is the witness?

How would you describe it?

Well, it's a knowing.

It's just a knowing.

You know, that's how I mean.

When I got saved, I just knew I was saved.

I asked God, I gave Him my life.

I said my own version of the sinner's prayer.

I admitted I was a sinner, I admitted that I needed Him, I needed a change from the inside out.

I asked Him to take my life and he did.

And I had such peace when, for over a year, I'd had fear, the fear of going broke.

My business was bad, we were living off of our savings and the savings was just about gone.

Hadn't sold a house in a year.

When you don't sell a house in a year and you're a home builder.

That means you have zero cash flow, that means you have zero income.

I mean, you know it was pretty pressure packed.

I had dread.

I dreaded going to bed because I just lay there, couldn't sleep.

So I'd stay up watch TV till two, three o'clock in the morning until I would be so exhausted that I'd go, you know, finally fall in bed exhausted, and I'd sleep for three or four hours, wake up the next morning and as soon as many maxes open I'd buy me a six pack of beer and drink me a six pack before lunch to kind of put the fire out.

Some of you are looking at me so innocent, but that's what I did.

I mean that's how I lived for about a year before I got saved, a good year before I got saved.

That's where I was, and the night I got saved, I mean all that left me.

I mean I had the peace of God.

I'm telling you joy, hit it to me.

I mean you, just so.

I had the witness.

I didn't.

He didn't appear to me.

I mean I had the witness.

It's a perception.

You know Acts 27,.

Paul told the captain of the guard, the centurion.

He said sirs, I perceive.

And the owner of the ship.

Sirs, I perceive that the voyage is going to be with much hurt, both of the lading of the ship and of our lives.

He didn't say the Holy Ghost told me.

He didn't say God appeared to me, he just said I perceive so, on the witness of the spirit, paul knew that they shouldn't sail at that moment and of course they didn't pay any attention to him.

He's a prisoner, he's a jailbird who cares what he says, he's not in charge.

So they ignored him.

And because he had the guts to say it, then God was obligated to save the lives and he didn't save the ship.

The ship was lost and all the stuff on the ship was gone.

It lost, but he saved every life on that ship.

Everybody that sailed with Paul was saved because Paul told them what he said I told you not to go out there.

But now we're here Say I told you so.

But see, the Holy Ghost warned him in a witness.

He didn't even get a vision, had God a vision?

The angel appeared to him on the ship later, but before it happened it was just on the witness of the Spirit.

So he said I perceive it's a perception, it's an intuition.

Another good word Women are more, like I said, more able to make decisions on intuition.

They just have a feeling about something.

They have a and you know it's not a feeling, it's an intuition.

All right, another way of the witness is having peace about a decision that you've made, or you have turmoil.

I believe that was part of Paul, I perceive.

See, I think he lost his peace about them going on that voyage, but he wasn't in charge.

What if he hadn't said anything?

See, I think they would have been at risk.

He would have been at risk Because, you know, god wanted him to warn them and then it gave him standing later on for them to listen to him.

When he did give them advice, he said now don't you get off this ship.

You got to stay with the ship.

Don't try to take those lifeboats.

Those are not going to do you any good.

You're going to die if you do that.

The angel told me y'all stay on the ship.

And they did till the last, and when it started breaking up they were able to ride the broken pieces of the ship.

Every one of them, would say every one of them Supernatural protection gave Paul a standing with the captain of the ship and or the centurion and the owner of the ship.

Are y'all with me now?

So it's peace about a certain direction you're going, or turmoil or a lack of peace, and that's when you need to stop.

Go ahead.

That's another word.

Is green light, red light, or an ease or a hesitancy?

Sometimes you just have a hesitancy.

Brother Hagin described the witness this way he was invited to preach in a church and he was about to go and he would write a letter and crumple it up and throw it away, saying that he was coming.

He'd sit down and write a letter, crumple it up and throw it away.

He could do that three or four times.

And Jesus appeared to him, was talking to him about following the Holy Spirit and he said you know, I'm going to train you to walk by the witness of the Spirit.

You just did that in this letter.

It's not my will that you go to that church.

They won't accept your preaching on the subject.

They're not open to the word of faith, they're not open to prosperity.

I don't want you to go there.

They're not ready to hear it.

And the fact that you didn't have peace about it.

You kept writing the letter saying you're coming and you kept throwing it away.

He had a hesitancy and so he said that was the witness telling you not to go.

Now I'm telling you not to go, but I'm never going to tell you that again You'll have to go on the witness.

I'll never appear to you and tell you not to go or to go anymore.

I expect you to follow the witness of the Spirit.

See back then the old Pentecostal.

You know, he got hooked up with Pentecostals.

He's Baptist, but he got hooked up with Pentecostals and Pentecostals used to cry and wail and moan and groan and spit and and he got hooked up with Pentecostals and he was getting and everything.

Oh, begging God, oh, show me a sign, give me a sign, show me what to do.

Oh, you know, and he had fallen into that habit and Jesus had to correct him.

Aren't you glad Jesus corrects?

And I'm glad Brother Hagin is not so filled with himself that he couldn't preach.

They preached out of his own mistake, brother.

Brother, those things did the same thing.

He preached out of their mistakes.

I do the same thing, I.

I made mistakes.

I want them redeemed, I want to, I want you not to repeat those.

So it's an ease, or else a hesitancy, and this is a great blessing.

I mean, if you, if you'll just train yourself to quit looking for spectacular guidance, quit looking for some pie in the sky, some righted across the sky, some sign.

You know, some people get all hooked up on signs.

You know, Lord, if you want me to do this, you do that.

Well, I don't do that.

That's just, that's dangerous to do.

That's setting a fleece and that's not how we're led.

We're not led by fleeces, we're led by the spirit and primarily the witness of the spirit, not so much voices.

Amen.

Is this helping anybody?

So, having said that, about the witness and the realm of the Spirit, which is how God leads you, gives you guidance.

This kind of guidance is available in every Facet of your life.

He's able to guide you about your career.

You know whether you should Be looking for another position somewhere else of people move around.

Nowadays Very few people stay with the same company their whole life because you know if you're not careful you can get cheated that way, passed over for promotion.

You don't even know that people have it in for you and you put in 20 years and you're at the bottom of the heap when you if you to listen to the Holy Ghost, he to move you on.

So you know, be sensitive to the Holy Spirit leading and your career and your business.

And you know your relationships.

Where you live, god, god guide you where you live.

He's got a place called there.

So, since the Holy Ghost leads you in the realm of the Spirit, one way to be more accurate is to increase the strength of your spirit.

Your spirit can develop Greatly.

You can become Spirit dominant instead of flesh dominant or Reason dominant.

You can get your spirit built up in and so dominant that it will prevail over your thinking and over your flesh and make it easier for you to Operate by the witness of the Spirit.

So how do you do that?

Well, feed continually on the word.

John 663.

Jesus said the words that I speak to you.

They are spirit and their life.

So feed continually on the word.

I mean, that's the best way to get your spirit built up.

Feed on the word.

And then, of course, the second thing.

You already know what I'm gonna say pray much of the Holy Ghost, jude 20, building up yourselves on your most holy ghost, on your most holy faith.

Praying in the Holy Ghost, building yourself up First, corinthians 14, for you know, he that prayeth in an unknown tongue, edifies himself.

Well, who's himself?

At your spirit.

You are a spirit, you're edified, your strength of your skin to a charged battery.

If you ever gone to your car and the batteries down Usually modern cars if your batteries down it means you have to replace it.

I got news for you and the way they are, these modern cars, I mean that's where it was with my Ford 150.

I mean you know it was only three years.

I was funny how these, you know it's got a three-year warranty.

At three years the batteries gone, you get to go buy another hundred and fifty dollar battery.

I bought me another hundred fifty dollar battery before I traded it in.

So they, you know, trade in the car after bought a brand new battery, buying brand new tires Anyway.

So you know what do you do.

I mean doesn't do any good to charge you you're gonna have to replace it.

But the same with your spirit, you, just your spirit, can get.

You know it can be lacking in edification, be lacking in a charge, and then therefore it's not dominant and when God is leading you, you're weak in understanding it.

That makes it so.

Build yourself up on your most holy faith prayer than the Holy Ghost feed.

Continue on the word.

You know, remember, god doesn't lead from behind.

Remember what?

What Obama used to say lead from behind.

You know America's leading from behind.

Well, you idiot, we can't, nobody can lead from behind, and God certainly doesn't.

He leads from the lead, he is the lead.

The question is do we follow him?

Yeah, that's, you know most of the time what we're doing.

We're leading from behind.

You know he's following us.

Well, that's a.

That's a real, real, risky way to live.

Amen, we want to follow him.

We want him out in front and we're following him Primarily through the witness will put, put him first in all things and and then follow him.

Praise God, follow the Holy Ghost.

You get anything out of this tonight.

Amen, let's lift our hands, praise God for the Holy Ghost.

Thank God for leadership of the Spirit.

Just want to encourage you.

He's always leading.

You don't ever have to feel like he's not leading.

He is leading, he is leading and you will learn.

If you put these principles To work, you'll.

You'll learn to identify the witness of the Spirit and you don't have to make Mistakes.

You can always know.

One other testimony brother Hagan Talked about was in the area of finances.

He knew a man back in the depression days in the 30s, where a million dollars was a lot of money back then.

A Million dollars back then is almost like a billion dollars today.

I mean, it was just.

It was beyond belief how much money a million dollars was.

And he was a millionaire and he had a seventh grade education.

He didn't own a pair of shoes.

You know, till he's 10 or 12 years old, were was barefooted.

You know, as a kid, so poor, you imagine Cold weather and everything.

It's one thing to be barefooted in the summertime, but how about in the wintertime?

You know.

So he didn't have it, he didn't inherit it.

He, he got it Primarily after he got saved and he just he started.

The Holy Ghost taught him how, what to do with his money, taught him how to make money and he made a bunch.

And Then people knew that he had money.

So they'd come to him with investments.

They would come to him with business ideas and, you know, want to sell him stock in a business or part of a business.

So they'd want to, you know, get him.

You know, get him involved in their business.

And he said you know, brother Hagan, I just never make a mistake.

He said, you know, when I have somebody come, my head says, yeah, get in on that.

But my heart is reserved.

So I just get in my prayer closet With my Bible and I pray in the Holy Ghost, I read my Bible.

Sometimes I and he had a literal walk-in closet that he would, that he would do do that with just shut out the world, shut out distraction, and He'd get in there.

And he said sometimes I'd have to be in there two or three days.

I just come out, just get water and and I might just eat a little something to keep keep me from just being real weak.

But he said I just mostly fast and pray in the Holy Ghost, read my Bible, and I'd always know, and sometimes I'd, I'd, I, my spirit, would tell me something different than my head.

My head say, yeah, I get in on that.

My spirit say, no, no, that's not for you.

And then the vice versa.

My head would say I don't do, don't fool with that.

My spirit say, yeah, that's it, that's the one, that's the one he said, brother Hagan, god just, he just blesses me.

I make so much money.

I mean every, every investment I make.

I make money on season.

God's not against you being.

He's not against you being rich.

He's against you being covetous.

He'll show you how, by the witness of the spirit, he knows where all the riches are.

Doesn't amen, hallelujah, glory to God.

Well, let's thank him tonight.

Lord, we thank you, praise God.