The Utterance Gifts 1

Let's reach down and pick up our Bibles, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad Glad.

You're here with us today, hallelujah.

Let's say this together Say heavenly Father, I'm so glad for Jesus, I'm so glad for your holy written word.

Jesus is the word.

To know him, to know you, I must have revelation and understanding of your word and that happens through the Holy Ghost.

Thank God for the Holy Ghost.

We need the Word and the Spirit to put us over in these days and we'll be always giving you praise for the victory in Jesus' name.

Amen, amen.

You can be seated, turning your Bibles.

And first Corinthians, we'll start with chapter 12 and we'll also read in chapter 14 as well.

First verse, first Corinthians, 12, one, paul writing to the church in Corinth.

He said now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.

The word gifts in my Bible is italicized so it doesn't appear in the language of the Greek.

So literally that sentence says now concerning spirituals, I would not have you to be ignorant.

Concerning spirituals.

That word spirituals, there is the Greek word pneumatikos, which means wind.

So literally what Paul is talking to the church at Corinth, who basically had a work in knowledge of the spirit realm they were highly involved in the occult before they got saved.

They were comfortable in the spirit realm.

There are cultures, there are people, groups in the earth that are very comfortable dealing in the spirit realm, but they're ignorant of God's spiritual realm in most cases.

So he said the things concerning the spirit or the things concerning the wind.

I don't want you to be ignorant.

All right.

And then chapter 14, next page over Verse one follow after charity.

That word charity really is a gophe.

It means God kind of love.

Follow after love, the desire, spiritual gifts, and rather that you may prophesy.

Everybody shout prophesy, for he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God, for no man understandeth him.

How be it?

In the spirit he speaketh mysteries, but he that prophesies speaks unto men, to edification and exhortation and comfort.

He that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself, but he that prophesies edifies the church.

I would that you all spoke with tongues.

They don't leave that verse out.

I've heard people make a case against speaking in tongues, and that's not what he's saying.

Why don't you listen to what he's saying?

That's why I'm teaching this, because people get all fouled up.

They think we ought not speak in tongues.

No, he said I would that you all spoke with tongues.

But if you speak in tongues, I really, really, really want you to prophesy, rather that you prophesy, for greater is he that prophesies and he that speaks with tongues.

Except he interpret that the church may receive edifying.

And so today I wanted to share a message on the utterance gifts.

The utterance gifts.

I'm not gonna teach extensively on the utterance gifts, I'm not gonna teach extensively on all the gifts.

In 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, verses eight through 10, it gives us the spiritual gifts that are given, nine spiritual gifts that are given as the spirit wills to each believer individually.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

But here, in chapter 14, he's basically giving you an open invitation, if you're a believer, to say, hey, desire to prophesy, be one that gives messages, a prophetic message.

Why am I preaching this?

Why do we talk about it?

Well, because I believe that the utterance gifts and what are those utterance gifts?

See, there's the nine gifts.

Everybody say nine.

I believe they can be divided into three major categories.

The utterance gifts, which are we've already talked about.

What are they?

Well, it's prophecy.

And what is prophecy?

Well, it's an inspired utterance, inspired by God in a known language, through a believer to the church.

That's prophecy.

That's a prophecy.

It is an inspired utterance in a known language, through a believer to the church, and you'll hear.

If you hang around here very long, you'll hear some prophetic words.

I wanna hear more.

I wanna hear you prophesy more why?

Well, I'll get to a why in a minute.

And then, of course, the other utterance gifts are the gift of tongues and it's companion, the gift of interpretation of tongues.

Okay, what is that definition?

Well, the gift of tongues is an inspired utterance in an unknown language, inspired by who?

God in an unknown language, through a believer to the church, and it's always meant to be interpreted.

So it must be accompanied.

If it's a message in tongues to the church, then it must be interpreted.

It won't be of any use.

Somebody stands up and just talks in tongues and there's no interpreter.

It doesn't profit.

So what has to happen?

The interpretation of tongue, the interpretation of tongues, is a divine gift that allows one either the same person that gave the tongue or someone else can interpret that tongue, not translate it.

See, I've heard messages in tongues that were short, maybe five seconds and the interpretation was 30 seconds.

So it's not a translation, it's an interpretation.

And who does that?

Who does that?

It's a gift of the spirit to the believer.

And who's the beneficiary?

The church.

And, by the way, the church.

And again, what is the purpose of prophecy and its companion tongues and interpretation?

See, when you have a gift of tongues and the interpretation tongues, it equals prophecy.

It accomplishes the same thing.

What is it supposed to accomplish?

It's supposed to accomplish edification, exhortation and comfort of the church.

Now you know there's nine spiritual gifts.

Here we have in chapter 14, in fact, the very last verse, in verse 39, or close to the last verse 39, wherefore brethren covet to prophesy and forbid not to speak with tongues.

Amen.

There are churches Right now that don't want the move of God, they don't want prophecy, they don't want tongues, interpretation, they don't want speaking in other tongues, because they're afraid of error, they're afraid of flakiness, they're afraid and they're quenching the spirit, they're grieving the spirit.

Last week I talked about Stealed for Victory.

Y'all remember that message, how Hezekiah had these odds that were against him and Judah, and they had a massive 185,000 Assyrian troops, crack troops, chariots, horses, weapons.

And here they came and they were gonna take over Jerusalem.

They're gonna conquer Jerusalem, they're gonna kill as many Jews as they could.

And he and Isaiah went to the Lord and cried out and the Lord came back and said you know, you have to be afraid of this massive group.

The battle is the Lord, just more with you than there is with them.

Remember that and put steel in their spines.

When he gave that word to all of Judah, they were afraid and a lot of the churches afraid.

Right now they're looking at what's going on in our nation.

It's unprecedented in our history.

The insanity, I'll just put it that way, total insanity.

The demonizing of our entire country, the lies and the political defeat that we seem to have had.

And the reason is the church didn't show up to vote.

Now they've done the postmortem.

They know what happened.

They had a whole bunch of people, christian people.

See, it's mostly Christians.

Folks don't believe the lies of the news media.

It's mostly Christian people that go to church, maybe not very regularly, but they go to church.

They believe in God, they believe the Bible is the word of God.

They don't really practice it much, they don't pray much and they went to the polls during the primary and a bunch of them didn't show back up for the for the end result.

How stupid is that?

It's because they're going to a church.

It doesn't provide any encouragement, any teaching, any exhortation.

So anyway, last week we talked about, in preparation for this massive invasion of the Assyrian people, sannakarib and his armies.

You know before that, when he was 25 years old, king Hezekiah spearheaded revival in Israel and Judah in Jerusalem.

He repaired the temple.

They got the priests doing their jobs.

Hey, you guys, get yourself cleansed, get yourself separated.

You're not, you're sleeping on the job.

Get woke up, get ready to start making these sacrifice.

You've got to.

We've got to have sacrifices, daily sacrifice.

He had started the tithe again.

They had so much tithe come in.

It was heaps and heaps.

They repaired the temple.

They took out the idols that other kings, evil kings of Judah, had used it as a storehouse of demonic idols and defiled it.

He cleaned it up.

He spearheaded revival.

They celebrated Passover together for the first time since Solomon's day.

I'm talking about revival.

Hit them and what happened?

The devil came after them and the only remedy we've got for what's going on in the earth today is not political, it's revival.

The church needs a revival and the point I made last week is we need personal revival.

Each individual believer is responsible for reviving yourself.

He has given us the means by which we can personally revive ourselves.

We don't have to have something else happen, we don't have to go some particular place, we don't have to find a mountain somewhere, we don't have to put a white garment on.

We can have a revival if we'll get into the Word and we'll speak in tongues.

Get full of the Holy Ghost, stay full of the Holy.

That was my point last week.

So what is this week?

Paca?

Gifts of the spirit.

What does that have to do with?

Last week?

Everything, because the church is dead when it comes to the gifts of the spirit.

Even spirit quote unquote spirit filled churches are not functioning in the gifts of the spirit the way that they should.

Instead, it's just one or two of the clergy.

We know the gifts are in.

When I read these verses, I just got through reading them.

They're not just to the clergy, they're to you, they're to every believer.

Every believer should be functioning in one or more of the gifts, but especially prophecy.

I mean he's giving you an invitation covet to prophesy, desire more.

Covet means to desire earnestly.

And what would be the motivation to prophesy love?

What would be the motivation to prophesy love?

You love God, you love the church, you want the church to have exultation, edification and comfort.

And where is that prophetic word born?

It's born in your private devotions, when you have personal revival, when you're praying much in other tongues and reading your Bible in the morning and God gets you all encouraged and God gets you all ready to go.

I mean, now you're looking for somebody to explode on.

The context of these verses is a church service.

I said the context of chapter 14 is all about a church service.

Are y'all with me?

Now?

I want to see us get more active in the vocal gifts, because they are the ones that are the easiest to launch out into.

And we have a written invitation right here.

We have a scriptural, written invitation to get involved with prophecy.

There's a whole lot of silence.

Some of you are shaking your head, yes, but most of you are saying, oh my God, I don't think I could ever stand up and do that.

Well, you know the fear of public speaking is real.

When you do a survey with most people, when they talk about public speaking, they shrink back.

They don't want to be heard, they don't want to go to the.

You know, the thing is if you're bold enough to stand up in church and give a prophetic word.

You'll be bold enough to go to the school board meeting and be heard as a parent.

You'll be bold enough to go down to the city council or the Harris County commissioners court and you'll be able to speak for God down there.

And not only that when you stand up and speak, there will be an anointing on your words that will break things loose.

That's what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for revival, and the church is going to have to get with it.

So my job is to get you motivated and get you scripturally on a solid ground.

Concerning the utterance gifts, and what are they?

Prophecy, tongues and interpretation.

Now you have six other gifts that are mentioned, and loosely you talk about the revelatory gifts.

And what are they?

Well, the gift of the word of wisdom, and that's a bit of God's knowledge concerning a person, place or thing that is in the future.

A word of wisdom is futuristic.

You kind of get a glimpse of something that hadn't happened yet and you know about it.

Women have women's intuition many times.

They have a premonition.

They talk about this all the time.

Even women that are not saved have this thing about them.

I don't know whether it's because they're women or what, but I mean women typically are more sensitive to spiritual things than old iron-headed men.

Iron-headed men and before you get too glad, you know, iron-headed men are the backlog on the fire.

You know we burn all the time.

We're burning the backlog of the fire and women are the kindling.

So you need a backlog, you gotta have a backlog.

This is not a married seminar, but it's closed.

But the gifts of the Spirit are real and the revelatory gifts, the word of wisdom futuristic, the word of knowledge which is a part of God's information about a person, place or thing in the present or in the past.

You can know something about someone or something or some place in the present or in the past.

That's a word of knowledge.

And then you've got the gift of discerning of spirits.

It's not the gift of discernment, there's no such gift People talk about I have the gift of discernment.

Well, no, you don't.

That's not a gift, that's suspicion, it's really not from God, it's not love.

We're supposed to think the best of everybody, not to think the worst.

You know, the gift of discernment is not a gift.

The way that most people understand discernment, discerning a spirit is simply being able to see into the spirit realm.

Now, potentially, every believer can function in one or more of these gifts.

It doesn't make you a pastor, it doesn't make you a prophet, it doesn't make you a five-fold minister just because you have some giftings that occur in your life.

It's just a blessing.

The motivation should be for love.

For love, you have these gifts.

You're going to use them as the spirit wills.

Now, not as you will.

I mean, you can't do this just when you want to.

There've been, you know, a lot of times on Sunday nights, particularly Sunday night.

I don't know why, but Sunday night typically brings out more of the gifts that I have in my ministry, which would be the word of knowledge, discerning of spirits and gifts of healings.

I'll get into the power gifts in a minute.

But revelation, revelatory gifts seeing things that are not apparent.

Now, every believer can function in that way without a gift of the Spirit.

I mean, sometimes God can just speak something sweet to you and you'll know something about a situation.

But the gifts of the Spirit are for what purpose?

They're for others, they're for the church and the context is a church service, all right.

So the revelation, revelatory gifts, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been dealing with demon powers that are in people.

We're having all kind of difficulty.

I go to God and say, god, this is difficulty right here.

What is world's going on?

I'll have a dream and boom, here's a demon spirit.

I see that spirit in my dream.

I seldom see them in my natural, where I'm awake.

I'll see their tools.

I'll see axes and arrows and that type of thing.

So Sunday nights, I mean sometimes, I'll just call out words of knowledge about healing or about something else.

People will come up and respond.

I'll lay my hands on them.

You know things happen by the Spirit.

On Sunday nights they do occasionally.

On Sunday morning I wanna see the church alive with a supernatural.

I wanna do it as the Spirit wills.

I don't wanna perform, I don't wanna get under pressure.

There have been really great ministers.

I won't mention his name, but there's one prophet that I could tell.

He was active in the 40s and 50s.

He died in the 60s and toward the end of his life he'd gotten off into familiar spirits.

He was a true prophet of God and we have a misunderstanding of what prophets ought to do in the New Testament.

Prophets in the New Testament don't have very much in common with prophets in the Old Testament.

I mean, prophets in the Old Testament were the only.

There was only three people, three groups of people in the Old Testament that were anointed and had the Holy Ghost upon them the priest, the prophet and the king.

It was scriptural for the king to ask the prophet have you got a word for us?

That's what Hezekiah did with Isaiah what's going on with this group of Assyrians coming here?

And they cried out to the Lord.

And the Lord answered.

And who got the answer?

Isaiah.

The prophet, got the answer.

That's scriptural in the Old Testament.

It's not scriptural in the New Testament.

It's not scriptural for you to go to a person and say what have you got a word for me?

What's God saying to you about me?

That's unscriptural, it's witchcraft.

More of that in a minute.

But I function in these gifts because of the office that I stand in.

But you can function in a measure of these gifts just as a believer.

And I'm suggesting to you that the church needs to have a revival that starts with a personal revival of each of its members and that's going to affect the church services.

The church services are going to be more alive.

I want to see love plus unity equals miracles.

I want to see such an atmosphere in this church where people come in uninitiated.

James is telling me about someone.

It happens a lot.

We have these Republican meetings here in the church now, all last year year before we started opening our churches for these Republican meetings They'd never had a Republican meeting in a church before, never, and they liked it.

And one lady says you know, I just love coming over here.

I sat in the parking lot and it just looked like the building was glowing.

Well, it was glowing.

It's glowing with the power of God.

Now I know that we don't build buildings where God lives, but I'm telling you, if God is everywhere present, he's more present here than he is down at the Joe's Bar and Grill.

This is hallowed ground really.

We didn't build this church for God to live in.

He lives in us.

We're the temples of God.

But yet, on the other hand, there is an atmosphere here when we're not here, it's here and people are beginning to respond to it.

They come in here and they've never felt anything like it.

They just, and the meetings go so smooth that there's no arguing, there's no screaming, there's no, you know it.

Just just people get an agreement and they're able to get their business done.

Are y'all with me?

Now I'm about to say the utterance gifts.

We've got an invitation to be part of the utterance gifts.

You might not ever function in the other revelatory or power gifts.

Now the third group is the power gifts.

What's that?

Well, the gifts of healings.

Literally it says gift of healings.

It's really gifts, plural gifts of healings.

Now, that's not laying hands on the sick and they recover.

That's for any believer.

You lay hands on the sick, they recover.

That's just part of your equipment.

I mean God backs you up, he confirms his word with signs following.

That's not a gift of the spirit.

But then, on the other hand, there are gifts of healings.

That's another level and that's as the spirit will See.

God's always wanting to get people healed, but not necessarily through the gifts.

Gifts of healings occur independent of the person who's receiving it, independent of their faith.

It helps for them to have faith, but it's not limited by their faith.

And so you see these big healing meetings on Catherine Kuhlman, you know to some extent.

Benny Hinn, different evangelists all during the healing revivals in the 40s and 50s, oral Roberts, different ones that would have these big tent ministries.

There was a lot of gifts of healings being manifest, a lot of words of knowledge being manifested, gifts of the spirit.

And you know, whenever you receive something from a gift of the spirit without your own faith involved, you can lose it.

So that's why it's kind of useless to go into a healing meeting and go back to your old, dead church.

It doesn't teach on healing, it teaches you that healing passed away.

You might as well just go ahead and tell the devil devil, steal it from me.

Then Doesn't do a bit of good.

So Brother Hagin, he was part of that healing revival but he didn't have a tent.

He didn't go into the mass meetings, he went into the churches.

He wanted to teach believers how to keep what God gave them.

He wanted to teach them faith.

Besides that, god told him to teach my people faith.

So that's what he did.

He could have been a lot richer, a lot quicker.

I mean you have 10,000 people versus 500.

And one of those tents, 10,000 people in a tent, people walking out of wheelchairs, people I mean amazing.

Listen, I believe there's another revival on the coming up, but it's gonna take us having a personal revival with the gifts of the Spirit.

Are you with me now?

All right, so you had the gifts of healings, you have the working of miracles.

I mean, for instance, like Smith-Wigglesworth had something like 19 people raised from the dead in his ministry.

So when he had someone raised from the dead, that wasn't his normal faith, that was a gift of faith.

That's the third power gift.

The gift of faith would fall on him.

He had the faith to command that person to live and that person would live.

And then the gift of healing had to come and heal him of whatever it was that he died from, otherwise he'd be revived and then die right there on the spot.

I mean, if he had a bad liver or a bad kidney, or if he had a heart attack or he had a stroke or whatever, and he raised him from the dead, he wouldn't profit anything because he just still got that infirmity, so he'd die again.

No, he would have three gifts of the Spirit functioning all at once the gift of faith, miracle operation of faith, the gift of healing, the gifts of healings and the working of miracles.

Are y'all following me?

Well, you might not ever tap into the power gifts in your life.

You might not.

God may never give you that.

Most of those kind of gifts are go with the office of the evangelist TL Osborne.

People like that that traveled the world and functioned in these gigantic healing meetings oh my, they would function in these gifts of the Spirit.

Are y'all with me now?

So I'm getting back to the utterance gifts.

Why are they so important?

They're the doorway into the supernatural.

They're the doorway into revival.

If you show me a church that's active in the utterance gifts, the other gifts are going to manifest, not necessarily through the believers.

You know we don't have a way for you to function in the gifts of healings, for instance, after you're a life team member.

It's possible because we have life team members that go through a period of discovery on our part.

We find out who you are and what you have and how faithful you are, and then we ask you to be one of our life team members and they're the ones that stand up here and lay their hands on people when they come forward.

I just do it because we need to not just gladden to me.

When we first started the church for the first several years, we did all the prayer.

By that I mean we did all the laying on of hands.

That slows things down.

When you know 50 people come up slows things down.

Everybody out there is waiting for 50 people to get ministry.

I mean it just kinda.

You know, we had two and a half hour services.

Well, our services are quite a bit shorter now because God showed us some ways that we can, you know, delegate our authority and allow our life team members to lay their hands on people up here and release what is called the corporate anointing.

The corporate anointing is all of us together coming into the church service.

See, when you yield yourself to the vocal gifts, there's gonna be more corporate anointing.

More corporate anointing means more miracles.

More miracles means people start hearing about miracles.

They start thinking oh, you know what?

I need to get over there.

Glorious way church.

I heard that people are getting healed of cancer.

I heard that people are getting healed of heart disease.

I heard that people there was a stroke victim got completely healed.

I've been hearing about that.

I'm gonna get over there and all of a sudden we're growing and influence.

Are y'all with me now?

Everybody say personal revival, and so the proper motivation then is love.

You can't do it just to be seen.

You can't do it just because you know you want people to notice you.

You can't do it just because you want to build your ministry.

I've had that, I've seen that and that shipwreck, brother Hagin, back in those years, early 50s, they had the voice of healing magazine.

Gordon Lindsey was kind of the guy that kept everybody in relationship with one another.

So you had, you know, all these different guys that had tents going out into the country and the world doing these healing meetings.

It was easiest to get people healed back in those days.

Why?

Because there was a special move of God to reinstall healing in the church and then it drifted away.

Why?

Because there became competition among denominations and a lack of love and it put the stop to the Holy Ghost moving like that.

But you know, through history God has brought revival after revival after revival.

We're overdue for one.

There's one coming again before Jesus comes back.

I said there's one coming again before Jesus comes back and what I'm saying is it's going to be the easiest way to get prepared.

Let's do what the Bible invites us to do.

Let's get involved with the gifts of the Spirit and be willing to be used as a vessel in that area.

You're not telling God when to do it.

You're saying God, I'm available.

Now, don't say this unless you mean it, but let's say God I'm available, god I'm available.

He heard you.

He heard you too.

Amen, amen.

Let's say it again.

Maybe this time you'll be more willing.

God I'm available.

Oh, that's better.

I like that.

I'm worried.

You decided.

You did a quick calculation.

That's good.

So the proper motivation is only love, not to be promoted, not to be seen.

But he would meet.

Gordon Lindsey had these meetings and he would keep these guys.

You know they had egos, they're humans.

You attract a crowd of 10,000 people a night in the city for two weeks.

I mean, you will have an ego and you will be tempted to think that you are in charge of this wonderful ministry and you're not.

The Holy Ghost is Amen.

And they spent all their time perfecting their ministry about the gifts of the spirit.

And what about the gifts?

They're as the spirit wills, not man.

So this man I was talking about earlier, he had been such widely used in the prophetic.

Somebody took a picture of one time he had a halo, something like a glory over his head in the photograph, and people would just almost worship him when he would go to his city, oh so and so I'm not gonna use his name because I'm not here to denigrate him.

I'm hoping to see one of these days.

Maybe he made heaven.

I hope he did.

But you know, he got off, he started preaching error and then he started performing.

You know, when he would go to a city the spirit wouldn't be moving in the way that he wanted.

So he would just kind of manufacture it and he gave himself over to familiar spirits, which is demonic.

And so one night he would minister in the Holy Ghost, marvelous ministry, and the next night would be familiar spirits.

Brother Hagin wrote about it.

He went to some of his meetings.

He said, yeah, one night would be the Holy Ghost, the next night would be familiar spirits.

Well, you know, that's a quick way to get a quick exit out of life.

Are you with me now?

So why am I teaching this?

So you won't be ignorant.

1 Corinthians 12 says be not ignorant of the things concerning the spirit, and there's a lot of ignorance in the church.

Ignorance is three.

It can be lack of understanding or knowledge about the things of the spirit.

It can be partial understanding of the things of the spirit or partial.

It's partial.

You know a little bit, but not much.

That's probably where a lot of people are, or it can be ignorance.

You don't pay attention to it.

I mean, the spirit of God is dealing with you and you don't even recognize it.

You haven't broken through into the level of spirituality that you need to know when God is dealing with you and moving you and giving you some information that you need to use, how many of you know what I'm talking about?

See, god wants to use you as a vessel, his vessel.

We're all vessels.

We're all could be potentially able ministers of the new covenant, not the old.

The new People need the church.

People out there need the church to be the church, and there are sleeping Christians that need to be awakened by you.

You have an influence.

God can tell you.

God can show you where, by his gifts, by his spirit, are you with me now?

So ignorance, the devil that never ignores ignorance.

He takes full advantage of ignorance.

God cannot bless ignorance.

He can't bless ignorance.

He can't bless a mess.

We have to know something about the Spirit, which is why I'm teaching this.

So this prophetic let's get back to prophecy now, or its companion, its tongues and interpretation.

Well, pastor, I don't want to say the gift of tongues.

I got the gift of tongues when I got baptized in the Holy Ghost.

I speak in tongues.

That's not the gift of tongues.

The tongues you got, the language you got when you were baptized in the Holy Ghost, the same as the disciples got 120 went up a room.

The day of Pentecost was fully come.

They were all in one place and one accord, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, pneumaticos, and it filled all the place where they receded and cloven.

Tongues like as a fire, came and sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them the utterance.

So they all got their glossolalia, their language.

That is the proof that you've been baptized in the Holy Ghost.

Somebody said oh, I've been baptized in the Holy Ghost, I just don't speak in tongues.

Well, you're not baptized in the Holy Ghost Because you don't have the scriptural evidence.

The scriptural evidence of the baptism is speaking in other tongues, but that's not the gift of tongue.

Why?

Because your language is for you to pray to God.

Your Spirit prayeth who To God?

You edify yourself when you pray to God.

So there's an anointing on your tongue.

All of a sudden, you're able to praise Him, you magnify Him, you're able to very, very give a thanks.

Well, it says in chapter 14.

You speak divine mysteries, it says.

We read that you speak about things that your brain doesn't understand, but yet here on earth you're speaking things forth.

Oh, it's so valuable, especially when we get together and have our power hour plus services, when we pray in for all the prayers that we've been praying, for the elections and for the uncovering of all the shenanigans that have been going on.

It looks like God didn't hear.

It said oh, god heard every prayer we prayed and they've been released and now they've become the judgment of the people that are resisting God's influence.

That's why it's so important for the church to keep exerting influence.

Are you with me now?

So these this powerful?

That's not the gift of tongues, that's your glossolation, that's your personal prayer language.

The gift of tongues is what direction?

It's God giving you a supernatural utterance to a believer, to the church, in an unknown tongue.

So it's very similar, but it's not.

It's a different direction.

God is speaking through you in another tongue, and every time that happens, it should be interpreted.

I want you to look at Ephesians real quick.

I'm going into a little more detail that I have planned, but I want to build a case.

I might have to pick this back up next week, matter of fact, I think I will.

Ephesians 5, 18, be not drunk with wine, whereas in excess, but be filled with the spirit.

The word be there means be, being, be being filled.

The linguistic key to the Greek New Testament puts it this way be continually and habitually filled with the Holy Ghost.

So it's not something that happens one time.

Oh, I got baptized in the Holy Ghost 1949.

Yeah, it may be, but you haven't been filled since You're running on empty.

We need to be filled and filled again.

We need to work on staying filled.

Why?

Because we leak.

In other words, when you minister to others, you're ministering out.

There's a flow out of you and you need a flow back into you.

I see this all the time.

I've gone all over the world preaching this to ministers, because these ministers, especially in Asia, I mean they're work, work, work.

They have a work ethic, they work, work, work, they work so hard at having a church.

It's so hard over there.

I mean it's not the Bible Belt in the Philippines, it's not the Bible Belt in India.

They have a lot of religion against them and they work, work, work.

They're always working, working.

And well, you know, they spend so much time working for God.

They don't spend any time with God and they're running on empty.

They need to get filled and filled again.

That's what I go and teach them.

I get them refreshed.

I wash their feet for three or four days.

I mean they get healed, they get, they get fresh menna, they get more, you know, excited about what they're doing because they're just at the end.

Most of them are at their wits end.

A lot of pastors, they, they have nervous breakdowns, their families fall apart, their kids go off into the world.

Why?

Because they're ministering on empty.

Oh, we've got to be filled and filled again.

I spent a good part of my time just staying filled.

It's a lot of.

It takes effort, pastor, I don't know how I do that.

I have to get up at five o'clock in the morning, go to work, I know.

Get up at four, you know.

Go to bed earlier.

If you're a night person, stay up a little later and pray, you know, before you go to bed.

Whatever, you do it, but you can.

You know, brother Hagin was a night person, so he did his bread at night, so it's not one size fits all.

The matter is we all have 24 hours in a day.

You can schedule God in, can't you?

We're going to have to schedule God in, and so this, this, uh, he says now be filled, be being filled with the spirit.

Be, be being filled, be continuing and filled with the spirit.

Verse 19 speaking.

So your mouth is the first way that you stay full of your mouth.

You can kind of see that it's connected to the utterance gifts, because you've you spend a lot of time praying and speaking and other tongues and praying in tongues toward God.

It's not a hard thing then for you to get a message from God that can go to you.

This is exactly what happened to me when I first started functioning in these things.

It says be being filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

So what is it?

What when I'm praying and I'm praying in other tongues?

I'm praying to God, I'm speaking to God, my spirit is speaking to him, but then after a while, I start speaking in other tongues and then I hear something and I start saying something, and the something I'm saying is really from God to me.

It's encouraging me.

Son, you're doing the right thing by spending time and prayer out of and I just prophesied to myself.

I'm speaking to myself and usually it'd be a good confession.

I'm speaking the Word.

Thank you, lord, that I'm healed by the stripes of Jesus.

Thank you, lord.

Give thanks unto the Lord.

That's the next verse.

Be filled, giving thanks always, in all things, to the Lord.

Don't get thanks for what the devil did.

Get thanks to what God did.

Get thanks that you have the victory over everything the devil has done.

So if you spend time speaking to yourself in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart you know we were singing that song this morning.

I started singing it another time.

That's scriptural.

You ever sing another time.

See, that's scriptural.

That's part of getting filled with the Holy Ghost.

So basically, what would happen is that I would be filled with the Holy Ghost.

I'd be reading my Bible and all of a sudden I'd have an utterance, a supernatural utterance, and I'd identify that it was a prophetic word and it was to me.

I prophesied to myself and I thought a time or two.

I thought you know, this message is not just for me, this is a message that church could stand.

Now I didn't go into my study and sit down and write it out and memorize it and go deliver it the next week.

I just said, god, if you want me to deliver this, anoint me, and I'm willing.

I'm willing to be used in prophecy.

Now that was a big thing for me, to stand up in front of thousands of people at Lakewood Church and I'll never forget the first time it happened to me on a Sunday night.

Sunday nights wasn't quite as crowded, it was about 2,500 people, 3,000 people.

The church in those days, that old church building, would hold 5,000 when it was packed.

Sunday mornings it's packed 5,000 people First time.

You know he had mercy on me just 3,000.

And I mean, all I can say is I just had a phrase came into my heart.

I knew it was a prophetic word.

It wasn't the whole word, it wasn't the whole word, just one phrase.

And I, man, my heart started beating, my knees started knocking, my palms started sweating, I mean, and you know, you just get that fear of public speaking, but I knew it was God.

I couldn't resist it.

I'd already asked Him to use me and now he's taken me up on it.

Out of that big, huge crowd I kept looking around, didn't I?

Anybody here can say this without me having to say it.

But I stood up and I got the usher's attention.

I said I got a word.

He went up the aisle and got the other usher head usher's attention and they got Brother Osteen's attention.

Oh, my God, oh, we've got a word of prophecy down here.

And I was brought a microphone and I mean I was so nervous I could, I could hardly.

I mean, the microphone went like that, somehow.

I prophesied my little prophecy.

It lasted about 10 seconds.

It wasn't long.

See, blessed are the short-winded that shall be heard from again.

Don't preach a sermon, don't give five points in a poem.

It's just one thought.

It's one thought from heaven.

One thought from heaven is all.

You're there to share.

You're not there to share.

You're not there to talk down to anybody.

You're not there to depreciate anybody.

What are you there to do?

Edify, exhort and comfort.

This hai-jee is the.

It means to encourage.

It also has a note of correction not correction, but a note of correction.

Be strong.

See, that's kind of correction Right.

So you know you're positive.

That message.

Well, how does that happen?

When does it happen?

It is born out of your private prayer life.

It's born at the times which you spend with God and you get comfortable conversing in the spirit realm, Are y'all?

Is this helping anybody today?

I'm talking about a personal revival that needs to happen in the church and it won't happen until we all get willing to be used as vessels, yielded vessels.

I mentioned that last week.

God's not looking for gold vessels, he's not looking for silver vessels, he's looking for yielded vessels.

Paul said you know, my preaching and my teaching was not fancy, it was not imbued with all of my education.

He was a highly educated man.

He said I was afraid in your presence, I was weak in your presence, but what did I do?

I came with a demonstration of the spirit and of power.

See, that's what utterance gifts does.

The utterance gifts brings a demonstration that the spirit of God is here.

Yes, everybody expects me to do what I do, but what about you standing up?

See, that's another level then.

It takes faith to stand up and be recognized In this church if you want to prophesy or you want to give a message in tongues, and if you do give a message in tongues, I'll ask you after you give it.

I'll ask you if you have the interpretation, because the Bible says if you have a message in tongues, pray that you may interpret so you can do that at a time.

Lord, if you ever use me with a message in tongues, please give me the interpretation.

I'd like to flow in that too, and then you know, when you get the faith to do both, you can get the faith to just skip tongues and just give the message in a prophetic.

There's a higher level of anointing on prophecy than there is tongues in interpretation, just for your information.

Why?

Because it takes more faith to give one.

Your faith is involved.

It takes faith to stand up and be recognized In this church.

If I recognize you, I want you to come up here and stand and face the audience and face the camera, and I want you to give that prophetic word or that tongue or that interpretation to our live stream audience and I want you to be seen of the people instead of standing At Lakewood.

We didn't do that.

We just stood up where we were and we had a microphone, and that was what we did because it took too long to walk way up there.

You know it's a long way, but here we've got plenty of time for you to come up here.

I believe it's more effective when people can see you and you can see them.

Whoa, I don't know if I could ever do that.

Well, you can't if the Holy Ghost calls you to do it.

Amen.

How many of you can do?

People you can do.

You can do all things through Christ.

You strengthen you right?

We've gotten a written invitation right here.

The word covet to prophesy Isn't that strange.

You use that word.

The word covet just means desire earnestly.

And why do you desire it?

So cause you can be lifted up?

No, so that you can help the church.

You can edify, exhort and comfort the church because you love the body of Christ, like Jesus does.

You love God and you love the body of Christ.

You love your brothers and sisters and you want them to be encouraged when they come to church.

So a few things to leave with you.

Number one ask God to use you in prophesy or in the utterance gifts, if you're more, you know.

If you want to start off giving a message in tongues and let somebody else do the interpreting.

That's perfectly fine.

Almost every message in tongues that I've ever heard, I've had the interpretation, but I generally don't give it unless no one will stand up and give it.

There's been a time or two when it wasn't really a message in tongues.

Somebody got sort of overflowing.

Well, I'm not gonna fuss at you, but prophecy does need to be judged.

I'm the judge, I'm in charge of the service.

It's gonna occur when I'm up here, so I have to.

You know, if something happened and you gave something kind of crazy flaky thing, well, I'll stop you.

So okay.

Well, you kind of got off track on that one.

Try again next time.

I'm not gonna fuss at you.

Oh, I don't think I could ever do that.

Well then, you've got to get more perfectly developed in love, see, because love is the only motivation you have.

It's not pride, not pride.

It's not your personal pride, it's love, love.

Oh, I want to say this about personal prophecy.

Anybody know what I mean by personal prophecy.

So there are churches that have classes that teach people how to personally prophesy over people.

You can go to their class on Friday night and they've got a whole class and there's, you know, there's just.

This is all leftover from the charismatic and they're not word of faith.

I mean, you know, brother Hagen talked me a lot about the Holy Ghost because he was here when the charismatic renewal came and he saw the abuses of the charismatic renewal because it was gifts apart from the word, and gifts apart from the word really are not profitable.

It's just gobbledygook and the love is not there.

When somebody prophesies over you that you're going to get married to a blonde and she's going to be an ex-showgirl, and she's, that's just a bunch of bunk.

We're not the psychic network, we don't have tarot cards and we're not reading your palm.

I mean, what's the difference when you prophesy future events to someone?

That's just a bunch of bunk and it can't be talk, it's error.

So that's what I got out of the word of faith movement.

Brother Hagen was really good about order.

He was.

They used to have believers meetings in their church on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning was their Sunday night service.

Sunday morning was just for members of the church.

Sunday night the whole town came Sunday morning, just their believers.

So he said now you come to church Sunday morning, don't come to get, come to give.

And he would challenge them to have a word, challenge them to have a song, challenge them to flow in the Holy Ghost.

He would sit up on the platform and just be silent and they would just get up like popcorn.

One of them would give a message in tongues, somebody else would give the interpretation.

Somebody'd stand up and give a prophecy.

Somebody would stand up and start dancing in the spirit.

One lady started dancing in the back of the church and she wore out a pair of shoes, never made a noise, there was no music.

There was no music.

But her feet were moving so fast.

It was not just you know the charismatic can-can I'm talking about.

Her feet were moving super naturally.

It wore out a pair of shoes.

She never said a word, she never came up.

She was in the back and those old wood floors you could feel it kind of vibrating.

She was back there.

What was she doing?

She was dancing in the spirit.

Now we dance on our way up here, we dance our offering up here and all that.

That's okay.

But there's another level.

There is a spirit realm that we can get into if you're yield to it.

Everybody say I'm willing, lord.

I yield myself to the Holy Ghost.

So personal prophecy is not allowed here because you know, I've had people over the years try to prophesy over me.

Pastor, I was praying for you.

I've got a word for you.

I said well, just don't give it.

Don't say thus sayeth the Lord to me ever, don't do it, because God's not gonna use you in that fashion toward me.

I mean, the only people can prophesy to me are people with equal or superior anointing to me, and that would be brother Hagan or brother you know, and he's dead.

Brother Osteen, he's dead.

Brother Osborne, he's dead.

Brother Oral Roberts, he's dead.

All of them gave me words, you know, amen.

But you can't give me a word.

It's the wrong direction.

I'm here to help you.

I'm here to perfect your faith.

I'm not gonna go to you and ask me what is God telling you about me?

It's dangerous for you to do that, because you're saying you're speaking for the Lord.

When you prophesy, you're speaking for the Lord in first person.

Are you with me now?

Well, that's kind of prideful.

No, it's not prideful.

It's protection on your part.

I want you to flow in the proper direction.

It's for the church.

Personal prophecy is just problematic.

Let's major on what the Bible majors on.

This is talking about the church.

Personal prophecy is only mentioned a couple of times in the New Testament.

Agabus prophesied there was gonna be a dearth, which happened, a famine, and he also said thus shall the man be bound who owns this garment?

And he didn't tell Paul don't go to Jerusalem.

He said thus shall there be the man bound who goes to Jerusalem?

And he took Paul's garment and bound himself.

And so everybody else interpreted that to mean don't go, don't go.

He said what do you tell him not to go?

I've got to go, I am going.

Jesus told me to go See.

So the prophet didn't tell him not to go.

The prophet just confirmed you're going and this is what's gonna happen to you when you go.

That's all the prophet did.

He didn't tell him anything new.

He didn't give him any new revelation.

You can only find that a couple of times in the New Testament.

What is this business about teaching people to prophesy every time they turn around over somebody else?

It's bunk.

So in this church, if somebody does that, you just hold your hand up, says no, that's not allowed.

Besides, that prophecy has to be judged.

And who's gonna judge that personal prophecy If brother Mark prophesies over you during his, when he's here?

I don't know that.

He's done that very much, most of his tongues and interpretation he had.

What a blessing they are.

But we've had a few ministers that would prophesy individually over you.

Gladys has prophesied over people very rarely but when she has it's been right on the button.

It's not something we do very often but it's scriptural for us to do that.

I prophesied over people.

I've had words of knowledge, I've seen things Are y'all with me now.

So I don't wanna cramp the Holy Ghost, I just wanna protect you from getting out of order.

And so if Joe Blow comes up to you and you don't know who they are and they're starting to try to prophesy over you, that's where I've seen abuse, that's where I've seen flakiness and you have the right to just hold your hand up.

So no, that's not an order here.

Not an order.

We don't do personal prophecy.

Pastor just has to judge it.

He's not here to judge it and that's it.

And I would wanna know what your qualifications are.

I would wanna know what ministry you're part of and if you're just a believer prophesying to another believer, I have no scriptural evidence that.

That's in the book.

Believer to believer prophecies.

Personal prophecies are just not in this book.

So let's not major on that, let's major on what is in the book.

Doesn't that make sense?

That just makes sense.

Just a major on what God majors on, and you stay in the flow and the Holy Ghost is able to bring us into a higher place.

That's the whole point of this message.

I wanna get us into a higher place in the spirit realm.

So stay full of the Holy Ghost.

Ask God to use you in prophecy and wait for God to anoint you before you start to be recognized.

You'll know when you're anointed to give it.

You won't have to ask anybody, you'll know it.

God will come upon you when you ask him to do it.

He will come upon you with an anointing.

You'll know that you're ready to give that thing that you have.

And don't try to make it rhyme necessarily.

I mean it's fine if it does, but you don't have to.

Don't try to be brother-haked, don't try to be Billy Brim, just be yourself.

Deliver a good encouragement, one thought from heaven that will encourage and exhort and comfort the church.

Come on, lift your hands and receive the day.

Hallelujah, glory.

Did you get anything out of this?

It was practical.

You know.

Sometimes we just have good old, you know, pastoral messages that will help you and keep you in the flow of what the Holy Ghost is doing.

Glory to God.

Thank you, jesus.

I remember that.

I see it again, christine copays.

I mean years ago she was sitting over here, I think, and I saw this dollars, the gold dollar sign, wasn't it the gold dollar sign, right above your head, about eight inches.

And I see it again.

I see it again on.

I see it again on.

And what is that?

Well, that's discerning of spirits and word of knowledge For a buck.

I said that he can't tell you.

You know, he start preaching on the gifts.

You start having gifts.

Glory to God.

Come on, let's lift our hands and thank God.

Thank God for the gifts of the spirit.

Pastor, what does that mean?

It means prosperity.

It means provision, supernatural provisions coming her way.

You too, jimmy.

He said amen the loudest.

So it's coming on.

He just moved right across whoop, right over there.

He got so happy about Christine having that dollar sign over her head.

Now it moved over his head.

Come on, let's thank God.

How many of you would mind having a little extra provision here?

Well, come on, just reach up and take it.

Hallelujah, glory to God, just take it God's no respecter of persons.

Ha ha, ha ha.

Glory to God.

Thank you, lord.

Well, that's the definition of a Holy Ghost church.

Amen.

Let the Holy Ghost move.

Let the Holy Ghost don't quench him, don't grieve him.

Cooperate.