Looking To Your Spirit

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

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I am glad I'm here right now.

Everything's changing, jesus.

You changed everything and you changed it when you died on the cross for me and then you rose from the dead for me and you raised me up to live with you, and I'm living in you.

In this time, I refuse to fear everywhere I walk.

That's where the kingdom of God reigns in Jesus' name.

Amen, amen, amen.

Thank you, worship team, beautiful job.

Let's look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 14.

1 Corinthians 14 · chapter mention

And then also, while you're turning, find Proverbs 20.

1 Corinthians 14, and your homework would be to read the entire chapter.

It's funny.

I've heard preachers just read every other verse and conclude that we ought not pray in other tongues.

And it doesn't say that at all.

It says the exact opposite.

You know, when you tear verses and pages out of your Bible, you're down to be deceived.

You know there's a group.

Already Everything comes around.

You know, in cycles there's a preacher.

I'm not gonna mention his name.

I'm out here to throw rocks at him, but I mean he's one of us and now he's all of a sudden.

I mean he's word of faith and he's preaching that there's no tie.

You don't have to tie it.

Well, you're a dummy that we've been saved by grace.

We're in grace to tie this Old Testament?

No, the tie that's just Bible.

It's all the way back to Adam.

It's not.

It doesn't have anything to do with the law.

It has to do with how God works.

And so you know, when you listen to people and then all of a sudden they come out.

And then the other thing that he did wrong is he didn't consult with other ministers that love him and they're associated with him, and he just comes out with this ridiculous statement.

And he didn't do it once, he did it several times.

He wrote a book, I think.

And you know you're out of order, buddy, you know you just ought to know better than to say that.

So when you run across these kind of things, just know that that's a departure.

This is what Jesus is talking about.

Verse Thessalonians talks about Second Thessalonians.

All right, verse Corinthians 14, verse 14.

For if I pray in an unknown tongue, say, we did that this morning, didn't we for a while?

Corporately, if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.

Well, that's not negative, that's just a fact when you pray in tongues, what happens?

Your spirit is praying.

Who's it praying to God?

Right, your spirit is praying to God.

Your understanding, your brain tissue might not know what you're saying with tongues, but God knows and your spirit knows.

Then, in verse 15, what is it then?

I'll pray with the spirit and I'll pray with the understanding also.

I'll sing with the spirit and I'll sing with the understanding also.

We used to sing a lot more in tongues than we do now, but I think it's starting to come back around Singing in tongues.

I mean, when you can't remember the words, you don't need to remember the words.

You can make up your own song and sing in tongues.

All right, so then, in Proverbs 20, proverbs 20, 27.

The spirit of man is the candle, or my margin says, the lamp, of the Lord Searching all the inward parts of the belly.

The spirit of man is a lamp that illuminates your spirit.

God will light your candle, he will light your lamp.

And where's your lamp?

It's your spirit.

Where's your lamp?

Where's your lamp?

Where's your lamp?

It's your spirit.

So today I wanted to speak to you briefly about this message, of this subject looking to your spirit.

Looking to your spirit.

God is a spirit, man is a spirit, say it's really important for you to get this.

I mean most people they look in the mirror and they think that's them.

Nobody's ever seen you.

You are a spirit, lives inside that body and you have a soul.

I used to think spirit and soul were the same until I got saved and started learning better.

But man is a three-part being.

We're a spirit being, we live in a body and we have a soul, which is our mind, will and intellect.

No one has ever seen you except God.

You're in that body.

You're locked in that body until either one or two things happen Either you die, the natural death, and then your spirit for the believer to be absent from the body, be present with the Lord, I mean right.

Then you leave and then what's left is not you, but what's left is your earth's seat.

I'm believing to stay here until Jesus comes and then I'm gonna by and past the grave for these guys Not gonna need the grave, I'm gonna cheat the undertaker.

Sorry Clines, sorry Mark, not gonna see me.

Mark Cline, I've known him for 30, almost 40 years now and anyway.

So God's a spirit, man's a spirit.

God contacts us and deals with us.

Spirit to spirit.

See, that's not hard to understand.

Spirit to spirit, he deals with us.

That's why we all, corporately, we prayed in other tongues so I could get more clearly about what it is that the Holy Ghost wanted to do in this service, and it helped me to get settled on what I was beginning to that board of knowledge that I had about the legal trouble, the piece of paper.

I started off by seeing a piece of paper.

You know, it's just, we could have missed it.

So we're in this thing together, but on an individual basis.

You need to learn these things and apply it in your own prayer life.

That God speaks, or I won't even say the word speaks, but he communicates to you spirit to spirit, because when I say speak, then people start listening for voices.

You know you can hear all kinds of voices.

Bible says there are many kinds of voices, none without significance, and you gotta, once you start hearing a voice, you gotta find out what the source of that voice is.

It might be a demon, you know, or it might be just your own flesh.

You know your emotions are the voice of your flesh.

Amen, I mean, they scream at you.

So many people are led by emotion.

They, just when they feel good, they're on top of the world.

When they feel bad, they're at the lowest part.

So you gotta you can't depend on your emotions, you gotta look to your spirit.

So believers are led by the Holy Ghost through their spirit, not their mind or their flesh.

See, god doesn't talk to your mind because he's not a mind and he doesn't live in your mind.

Well, he lives in my body.

My body's a temple, yeah, but he doesn't abide in your flesh.

Your flesh just houses him.

He really, more accurately, he really lives in your spirit.

So the Holy Spirit in your spirit, all Mixed up together, isn't that a wonderful thought to think about.

Think about that say that your spirit and the Holy Spirit are just so intimately connected.

Yeah, they reside in this flesh, in this body, but not in the flesh.

They're just surrounded by the flesh, and so God's not a flesh and so he doesn't talk to you flesh, and you know.

So we have to learn to look to our spirits if we're going to receive guidance and answers.

You know, god got answers for you, doesn't have to be mysterious.

In Proverbs it says you know that the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord.

You know, if you see this little birthday candle, little old, tiny birthday one birthday candle.

I mean you could light that birthday candle and come in this room right here, and I'm telling you, you could still fall flat on your face.

It's not enough light to light your way in here.

I came in here when we first built the building, you know, and I was just so smart I thought, well, I don't need to turn light on, I've got all this light coming through these doors.

There's the middle of the day, all this light coming through here.

And I came up on the platform and we've remodeled since then.

We used to have all these steps coming up.

We've remodeled all this since then.

But I mean, I walked up here and fell flat on my face right across the steps.

I didn't see those steps at all.

They were completely darkened to me, even though we had all this light coming in there.

And that's the way a lot of folks are.

Their spirit is so underdeveloped that they've got nothing but like a birthday candle to light their way and they really don't know what in the world is going on.

They're walking in darkness most of the time and they're just led by their emotions.

They're led by circumstances.

Whatever happens out there in the world, that's what they think God has sent as a sign to them.

Oh, this message can change your life and set your feet on solid ground to where you're really walking with God the way that he intended.

Adam walked with God in the cool of the day.

The word cool there is the Hebrew word wouach, which means breath.

He walked with God in the breath of God.

Now that's what I call walking with God, independent of circumstances, feelings, amen.

So believers, when you study believers number one are born of the spirit.

John, chapter three Jesus said you have to be born again.

I didn't say it.

He said it Born of the spirit.

Believers are born of the spirit by definition.

If you're not born of the spirit, you're not a believer, you're not a Christian.

You might call yourself, I call myself a Christian.

I wasn't born again.

I was a Catholic boy, but I was not born again.

And when I?

Well, how did you know that?

When I got born again, I knew the difference.

I thought, wow, this is what I've been missing all my life.

So believers are born of the spirit.

Number two believers are filled with the spirit.

You know, jesus commanded the disciples.

Remember the great commission.

Going to all the world, make disciples of all nations, teaching them, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all the things that I've told them to do.

Luke, all power in heaven and earth is given unto me.

Matthew 25, go, ye, therefore the great commission, but writing all involved with that same phrase is but Terry, in Jerusalem, until you be endued with power from on high, for John, truly baptized with water.

But you're going to be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days from now and you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, judea Mary and the uttermost part.

So don't dare try to go and fulfill the great commission without being baptized in the Holy Ghost.

We teach you the three baptism the baptism in water, the baptism in the Holy Ghost and the baptism into the body of Christ, all three baptism.

We teach you that faith foundation.

So you understand that that's a central doctrine of the church and so much of the church today, especially evangelical churches, bible churches, baptist churches.

I'll just be more specific about what churches I'm talking about.

They tore all these pages out of their Bible.

They don't believe in doing what we just did this morning.

They think it's somehow.

It's not.

You know, not in order.

They've been taught wrong, been taught a bunch of theories.

I like what Brother Hagin said about a theory.

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

That's a theory and most people have been taught theories.

And if you have, as a believer, have been taught a theory, it has gotten into your spirit and it takes a little bit of doing to get that lie out of your recreated spirit that God gave you.

Your spirit has been what Polluted.

Now you know all the stupid things that the nuns taught me and the priests taught me in Catholic school.

That was just ball face lie, catholic doctrine, confession, you know, and all of the stuff that they teach you.

I was lost when that happened, so I don't have it in my spirit.

That spirit went out of me.

I became a new creature and I quit going to the Catholic church.

For that reason I never got polluted with all that stuff.

Are you with me now?

But there's a lot of born again.

Not a lot, but there are some born again Catholics.

Don't get offended if you're Catholic and you consider yourself born again.

Well, I'm not here to argue with you.

I'm just telling you what happened to me.

I was not born again and I was president of the Knights of the Altar.

I trained altar boys.

I was the nun's favorite.

They just knew I was going to go to seminary.

So that's where I was and I was lost as a goose.

I would have bused hell wide open if I'd have died.

Oh, thank God, I got saved.

So, born of the spirit, filled with the spirit.

See, believers should be filled with the spirit.

Jesus didn't say it'd be a good idea if you.

No, he commanded them.

He commanded them to be filled.

Now, he didn't command them, you don't have to go to.

It'd be filled with the spirit to go to heaven.

But if you're not filled with the spirit, you might go to heaven faster, you might amen.

And then the last one, of course, is believers are led by the spirit.

So it's not a question of whether you're led by the spirit, it's a question of whether you're following the leading Dance.

Follow or get out of the way, the old bumper sticker.

I mean a lot of people just don't let me.

You know, they do all the dances.

They don't follow, they don't follow the Holy Ghost to do their own thing, even though they're believers, even though they're God loves them.

They're born again, they might even speak in other tongues, but they're not listening to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

This is what I want to teach you a little bit today about you know, looking to your spirit, looking to your.

Everybody say looking to my spirit, amen.

So if we are to look to our spirits for guidance and answers, then we ought to be praying in other tongues.

That's just absolutely necessary.

There's no other way to do it.

You're gonna have a hit and miss proposition at best.

First Corinthians 14 tells us what happens when we pray in other tongues.

The Bible says you know, if you read the whole chapter, it says he that prays in unknown tongues speaks not unto men but unto God, for no man understands him.

So it's not designed for us to have communication with each other.

It's designed for us to have communication with him.

It's a supernatural language.

He that prays in an unknown tongue speaks mysteries.

You're speaking things that are hidden for you, not from you, and God is using your own mouth to bring them forth.

And at some point in time you can actually find out what those mysteries are down on the inside of you.

And if you keep praying in other tongues, you know that understanding will come up when your mind will become aware of what your spirit already knows.

That's the value of speaking in other tongues, and that's also the terrible thing that happens when we don't spend time every day.

Now, you've heard me for years.

I tell you every day read your Bible.

Well, we're Bible people.

You ought to read your Bible.

But every day you ought to be praying in other tongues.

And I don't mean just while you're going to work, I don't mean just when you're mowing the grass or when you're washing dishes.

I mean that's fine if you want to pray in tongues while you're doing other things, but really it's designed to be the most enhancing to your life.

If you give yourself to praying in other tongues, that means shut out all of the things that distract you.

Why?

Because your understanding is unfruitful.

It is very difficult to pray in tongues more than about five minutes without a distraction.

You're going to sit there and your cell phone's going to go off.

Somebody's going to text you.

You're going to get an email ding and you're going to want to check it.

You're sitting there with your computer.

You're going to find out.

You're going to want your computer's making racket.

You're going to find it, see anything and everything.

It's good to isolate yourself and do nothing but praying tongues until your mind gets very quiet, and then you just get in.

It's hard to describe it, but you get into a zone of praying in other tongues, just your voice, speaking divine language, your prayer language that you receive when, when you get baptized in the Holy Ghost.

You can't do this unless you're baptized in the Holy Ghost.

You can't do what 1 Corinthians 14 says to do.

You can't.

And another thing it says is that he that prayeth in an un-un-un-tongue edifies himself.

Who's himself the guy looking at you in the mirror?

No Spirit.

You edify your spirit.

How can you edify anybody if you're not edified?

Are you there?

I mean Jesus called the baptism of the Holy Ghost in John, chapter seven.

Rivers of living water should flow out of you.

Well, guess what?

If rivers of living water are flowing out of you, there's got to be some rivers flowing into you and we need to be replenished.

That's why we need to pray in other tongues.

I mean, if you minister to anybody, if you tell anybody about Jesus, if you try, if you attempt to help anybody, if you pray with anybody, listen, you're giving out.

You need to have a supply coming back in At some point.

You're gonna empty out and you're gonna have just dry riverbed.

So that's why we need to pray in other tongues.

He that prays in an un-un-tongue magnifies.

God verily giveeth thanks.

Well, this is all, 1 Corinthians 14.

You wanna praise God?

Sometimes we run out of English or our known language.

We run out of ways to praise Him.

We just start praising Him in other tongues.

Now, do the other use English?

What shall it be then, brethren?

Well, I'll pray in tongues and I'll pray in my understanding.

I'll praise in tongues, I'll praise my understanding.

I'll sing in tongues, I'll sing with my understanding.

Are y'all with me now Talking about looking to your spirit and the only way to get your spirit strong enough and bright enough and big enough to contain the light that God wants to illuminate you, that kind of light that will light your path and let you see what you haven't seen, know what you haven't known.

You don't know what you don't know till you start praying in other tongues.

Oh, come on, let's lift our hands.

God knows how to put it together.

He knows how that we can have success and that's my job is to get you successful in life.

Amen.

So when you pray in tongues, your mind doesn't necessarily understand, but your spirit becomes active.

Now you stir that spirit up.

You know anything that's left undone, left out, it just gets bad.

You can take a bucket of water, set it outside and after a while that water won't be fit to drink.

It starts to turn tepid.

Next thing you know, mosquitoes are laying eggs in it and it's got larva floating around in it.

It's nasty.

After a while it turns color.

You wouldn't want to drink it.

Have you ever been to an old pond?

We used to have an old pond over there next door where we sold the property.

But there was a pond out there and it was just.

It just turned, had about an inch of green slime on the top of it and I don't think a thing in the world lived in it.

I think there might have been a turtle or two, but other than that there were no fish in it because there was no oxygen in it.

What happened?

It was just sitting there.

It just got bad.

How about gravy?

I mean, you've got to pour the gravy over your chicken fried steak.

If you let it sit out for very long, it's going to have a skin on the top of it.

What are you going to do with the skin on the top of your gravy?

A lot of people have skin on top of their spirit.

Their spirit has not been stirred in so long that it's beginning to turn color and smell.

God made it perfect but you let it go down the tubes.

See, god's got a keeping side, but you've got to keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

So we've got to do some stirring up.

We've got to stir up that spirit by speaking in other tongues and so that it's full of life vibrancy, amen.

So you edify yourself.

By speaking and praying in other tongues, you literally that word, you literally become a home builder.

I guess I'm kind of partial to that word because that's what I did for a long time 25 years Now.

I'm building lives.

But the word edify literally means to build up from the foundation.

That's why I said earlier if your spirit has got error in it, if you sat in a church that was abusive to you and spoke down to you and did all kinds of it, and we've had altercalls for people that came out of those kind of churches where the pastor just took advantage of you and sucked all the life out of you and all of that abused you.

I mean we have sheep come in here with missing ears and bloody.

You know they're sheep or kind of lame.

You know Well, god will heal them.

So you know, to build up from the foundation.

I mean you've got it.

You've got it.

So the other part of edify means to rebuild, restore or repair.

Well, I don't understand that my spirit would have to be rebuilt.

Jesus already gave.

I know he did that originally, but you've messed it up by being in the wrong place with the wrong people at the wrong time.

I'm glad you finally showed up here.

Stay here and don't leave until we have the chance to teach you where you can get restored, rebuilt and repaired, and I'll show you how to do part of that, because part of it is your job and that's praying in other tongues.

Is anybody getting anything out of this?

Yes, I just listen.

I'm so glad for what I do know.

I know there's a lot of things I don't know still.

I mean that's why I pray in tongues every day.

I prayed in tongues this morning for a long time and I believe that it helped me get into the spirit of this service, so that we don't just have cookie cutter service and we do the same thing every week.

This is do it like this and then you can.

You know, god's not like that.

Jesus spitted mud and made clay.

I mean God, what did you do with that?

I mean spit on His hand and on one of the guys' tongue.

I mean, how would you like that one?

How about violate the COVID protocols?

He was seen salivating on someone's tongue.

Oh, jesus didn't do things like everybody else did.

So you, literally, jude 20, therefore, built my beloved brethren, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.

Building up yourselves, see, edify, and I mean about the same thing.

This is what we do when we pray in other tongues.

You know, even though your mind is unfruitful, even though your mind doesn't always understand what's going on, stick with it.

See, that's the discipline of a disciple.

A disciple is a disciplined one.

You have to discipline yourself to have delayed gratification.

See, we're an instant society.

We want it now.

We want the water burger right now.

Don't wanna drive up there and wait for you to bring it out.

I want it now at the window.

I've already paid.

Give it to me now.

You fixed it my way, how I like it.

Yeah, that's water burgers, just like you like it.

Just like you like it and I like it now, right, don't we?

That's why we go through the drive-thru.

We don't wanna wait and do it ourselves.

We want them to do it for us now, right.

And if you're not careful, that spirit can be on you where you just don't have the patience.

It takes to push through.

When you first start praying in other tongues, it takes a while to stir up.

It takes a while for your spirit to gain the ascendancy over your mind and over your body.

Your spirit is being built up every moment you pray in other tongues.

And, yes, we have to spend time in the Word.

We have to have both.

We're Word and spirit.

People, people that just.

I've had people.

I had a guy that came to the church in the first building and a couple.

It was a couple, they were just.

They were so distinguished looking and he had a certain type of polished shoes.

He looked like a professional, he was a professional and she was too.

She had a business suit on.

She didn't just have some old.

You know, moo Moo on.

If you're wearing one, I'm not talking about you, but I mean, in other words, she, she had a business suit on.

Each time she came to church she's dressed to the nines high heels.

I don't mean little heels, I'm going at high heels and her hair coiffed, is that a word?

Anyway, I mean, she and they look great and they're sitting back there.

They're kind of like back that way.

And I'm up here like that.

And I noticed that she, when we're in worship, means her hands are up.

She's got tears running down her face and her mascara is coming down her face too, cause she didn't care, she loved God.

She didn't care who knew it, she worshiped.

And he's sitting there like this, his arms fold too.

He didn't enter in.

And when I started preaching, the same way she's sitting on the edge of her chair.

She's taking notes, he just like this.

And so one Sunday she comes up for prayer.

Gladys laid his hands and back then my pastor, john Oste, he said now you do all the praying, don't be doing right here.

Brand new church.

People need to hear your voice, they need to have your hands on them.

Don't delegate that.

You do all the prayer, you and Gladys and your family, if you want your family, and of course, my kids.

You know, claire just got out of college and Jay just got out of high school, so they didn't do much praying at the altar.

We did all the praying at the altar.

Gladys got a hold of this lady and laid hands on her and, man, I mean, she fell out.

Now in those days we had a regular I mean the Holy Ghost would move.

We'd had people you talk about a Holy Roller Church.

I had one lady rolled all the way across the front and then all the way back, like that, never a hair out of place, and it was, I mean, the Holy Ghost.

I thought she was gonna roll up on the platform.

I wasn't sure just exactly how that was gonna work.

But this lady, she fell out and of course we had catchers and they called her and then after a little while they got back up on the platform.

There wasn't a half dozen people come up, prayer, I guess, and I got back up on the platform and we were doing some other things and she got up and so the usher came to help her and she's a little unsteady, she's drunk.

I looked at her face and her eyes are going like this.

When I say drunk in the Holy Ghost, some of you've never seen it, but it happens.

It's gonna happen more and more and more as a church, if we're doing what I'm talking about, it's gonna happen a whole lot more right here.

There's gonna be more demonstration of the spirit.

So she got up and I started smiling because she was so dignified and yet she's not so dignified right now and one hair's kind of come apart because she hit the floor pretty hard.

And she gets up and she's got these high heels on.

So she starts walking down this aisle right here and we have the front doors right there, and then she got about halfway down that aisle and she starts trying to run and she one shoe came off and now she's got one high heel and one like this and she's still drunk and she does not make the turn and she falls into a heap in the back of the church.

Of course, the usher's helped her get up and everything, and she waddled back to her chair with both her shoes and her hand now by this time and her stalking feet, but her husband's just back there like this, trying to be anonymous, I think, and so I took note of it.

I mean you know that.

I said man, I'm so glad, god, I'm so glad you brought them here.

Man, I mean I love that.

I don't know about him, but she is getting something.

I just think it's gonna transfer here pretty soon.

So he comes up the next Sunday after service.

Didn't come up for prayer after service.

The pastor got some questions for you.

He said I'm you know.

I said he said I'm an investor.

I'd do that on the side of real estate investor and I've got five rent houses.

Four of them are vacant.

I said ooh, I said so you're carrying.

You got mortgage on, yeah, and it's all.

Man, my cash flow is terrible.

And he said I'm running out of money to keep that floating.

He said I really need help, need agreement, and I said absolutely, we'll agree with you right now, in Jesus name.

But he didn't come up with the corporate anointing.

See, that's the time to come up.

It's not after the service, it's right now, right here, right now.

This is where the Holy Ghost is moving.

It's after the service, so I don't have the corporate anointing to help people with, it's just me.

Well, that's an anointing, all right, but it's so much more powerful right here.

So anyway, I talked to him and the Holy Ghost, you know, I'm a pastor, but he back then we didn't have membership, he had not committed to me as a pastor, but I am a pastor and so I just gave him pastor order.

I said can I give you some advice?

Well, sure, after we prayed.

I said you know what I said.

He said listen, I listen to Copeland, I know what you're gonna tell me.

Get into the Word.

He said I've got a cassette player in my car and I'm a sale.

I said what do you do for a living?

I'm a salesman and I'm in the car all day long and going to see my customers.

And he said in between, I'm listening to Kenneth Copeland, I'll listen to Copeland all day long.

I got all of his tapes and I'm listening to his tapes and I really I've got the word.

You know.

He started quoting what he was standing on, the word, which was all good, it was good.

I said can I give you some pastoral advice?

Yeah, I said push the eject on brother Copeland, not because he's not great, he's really good.

But you don't need any more of the word.

What you need is you need to get wet, you're dry.

I said you need to put worship tapes in that, in that cassette player.

You need to worship God all day long.

You need to lift your hand.

I said you know, steer with your knees and lift both hands to heaven.

Did I really say that?

Just now I've done it.

I mean you know.

I said you know, you're just, you're two word word.

I said the letter killeth but the spirit giveeth life.

You need both, but right now you've just, you're kind of you know.

I said your wife has got it.

You need, you need to get wet man, you need to get full of the Holy Ghost.

Do you pray it all the time?

Well, not much.

I said well, you need to start praying more and other time.

Anyway, they left the church and he's dead today.

He died Then.

It wasn't a good ending because he just didn't want to hear the truth.

See, some people they just they want to do the same whole thing all the time and they expect different results.

If you're not having results, you better get with the Holy Ghost.

Oh, come on, let's lift our hands, praise God, look to your spirit.

And you, you, literally.

You know, look to your spirit.

But you've got to pray in other tongues.

Build your spirit so it can be a proper lamp, so that when the Holy Ghost illuminates that lamp you can see and not stumble.

Stop looking to other people.

Stop looking for to so-called prophets that are going to prophesy some kind.

You know there's churches that do nothing but prophesy, that teach their members to prophesy with each other, and personal prophesy.

That's a bunch of bunk and that's never in order in this church.

We don't do personal prophecy.

Nobody prophesies like that in this church and if they ever are, you will know that that's out of order.

And so you can hold your hand up and say that pastor said that's out of order here.

Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not here for you to prophesy over me.

You know there's none of that in the Bible.

I mean, yeah, you've got Agabus, who was a prophet who prophesied over thus shall the man be bound who goes to Jerusalem?

He didn't prophesy to him that he shouldn't go to Jerusalem.

He just said this is what's going to happen to you.

And then everybody else tried to talk Paul out of going to Rome or Jerusalem rather at the time, and he was bound when he went there.

But his deal?

Jesus wanted him to stand before Caesar.

That's why he did what he did.

So anyway, getting back to, let's major on what the Bible majors on prophecies for what?

Edification, exhortation, comfort of the church, not for future telling.

Telling your voice, really fortune tellings what it is.

It's a bunch of it came with the charismatic.

It's a perversion of the word of God.

Don't fall for it.

Don't fall for it.

Now we have legitimate prophets that come through this church.

We're going to have one in September.

Brother Wiseman's coming, gene Wiseman, and he is a bona fide prophet.

He may or may not prophesy over you, but he will never prophesy the future over you.

He might say something over you, but it ought to be something that you already have in his confirmation.

That's all.

That's only used for personal prophecies, for confirmation of what you already know.

And again, if you'll build your spirit up, build on that foundation, it can repair some of the lies you believe in the past.

It can restore some of the things that are wrong with your spirit that you've let in by sitting under the wrong ministry.

So don't go on YouTube.

Somebody said have you seen So-and-So brother?

So-and-so he's.

I saw him on YouTube.

I said no, I don't go to YouTube.

I don't listen to YouTube except my own message.

I'll check up on myself.

See how I sounded, I don't.

You know.

I might listen to brother Mark, I might go to brother Copeland.

I might get some old brother Osteen messages.

It's kind of fun to watch some of those old messages, but you know, really I don't spend very much time doing that because we haven't.

This is a new day.

This is the day right now.

This generation has to have a word for it.

I can't look back and get everything from back there.

So be careful about getting on YouTube and internet and catching on to somebody you've never heard.

You don't know what life they're living.

You don't know where they came from.

You don't know who their father was.

You don't have any idea, anything other than what they're happening happened to speak right there in that moment that you speak.

Let's say, I got a 40 year track record.

You can go back 40 years and find out what I've done.

You can go back I don't have many years and hear all my messages.

So it's out there, these guys.

Where are they?

I don't know.

I don't have time to go check them out.

Amen.

There might be a legitimate one every now and then, but I don't have time to look, and neither do you.

You need to pray in other tongues.

Start looking to your own spirit for guidance and answers and I'm telling you, the Holy Ghost will answer you.

Meet you there, hallelujah.

You know what will happen.

Eventually you'll start speaking to yourself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

You know it might not happen the first week or two or month, or three months or something, but eventually you'll start having a flow and you'll just hear yourself.

You might even prophesy to yourself.

That's not wrong.

I remember I start prophesying to myself.

What would I do?

I'd edify, exhort and comfort myself and that's perfectly legitimate for me when you're praying a lot in other tongues.

And then sometimes I'd hear something I'd say you know what that's for the church, lord, if you want to use me and prophesy at church.

I mean it took a lot of courage for me to stand up in front of thousands of people and give a prophecy.

I'll never forget the first time it happened, on a Sunday night.

There's 3,000 people there and I had had a word and God just reminded me of that word that I had.

And I didn't have the whole word.

I had just a phrase.

Sometimes when you prophesy, don't be writing it all down and have all perfectly word processed word, that's not God, that's you.

But I had faith to give that first little.

Thus saith the Lord.

And I just began.

I had the first of all.

I had to stand up and get the attention of my usher.

And the usher said, and I said, I've got a word.

He turned around, went to his captain and he turned around and got Doty's attention.

Doty was up on, I was to her side and so I was standing up and the usher pointed me out and she says oh, we've got a word, go ahead.

And so they brought me a microphone.

Oh, I was so nervous I could even hold the microphone.

I was a microphone doing like that.

I somehow made it through.

But eventually I got to where I could prophesy in the moment.

I didn't have to get it ahead of time, I didn't have to get it in my prayer time.

I just got so full of the Holy Ghost and stayed full of the Holy Ghost that I'm sitting there in the service.

And then one time I remember in 1988, we were invited to go or 87, I guess we were invited to go to a minister's meeting at the Galleria.

A thousand ministers were there related to Brother Osteen.

Some of them are former pastors that were there from Corpus Christi, dean of an aide Garner.

At the time we had been our pastors a year and a half and we moved to Corpus for a short time.

They were there and several others were there.

We knew almost a lot of them and but we're just there to be greeters, we're there to just kind of be.

You know attendance.

It was an honor to be there and I'm sitting in the crowd, I'm not sitting in their sex.

They had a whole section to the side where all those ministers were and Brother Osteen starts preaching and I mean, within five minutes the Holy Ghost came and sat on me and it gave me a word and I thought, oh God, I don't want to do this.

You've got your full-time ministers.

I'm a home builder, I, you know he wouldn't let me alone.

I said, all right, okay, I just throw it all on you.

Then, whatever, I looked like a fool.

Whatever, I don't care, I'm fool for you.

And all I had was the Lord has commanded the blessing upon you.

That's all I had and I thought well, they know that One of my, you know, get up and say that.

I got up and I let it loose.

You know, after Brother Osteen finished preaching, I had to go all the way through his message for 30 minutes Thank God he's a short-winded preacher 30 minutes, 30 minutes.

And I stood up and he saw me.

He said you got a word.

Yes, sir, come on up here and give it.

I didn't have an usher, he did it direct.

And this is before I had my job opening, closing services, and I got up and I prophesied that and I mean, the whole place erupted.

And see, that was a blessing that God wanted to use through me.

Because, why?

Because I had built up my spirit, I had edified myself.

Amen.

I built myself up on my most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.

God wants to use you in your world.

Whether he ever uses you to prophesy here or not, he wants to use you, he wants to guide you, he wants to show you where all the money is.

It's coming your way.

I'm telling you this is a great opportunity right now for all of us.

I mean, you know, it doesn't have to be Bill Gates to get to all the wealth.

Listen, the church is gonna have a transfer of wealth into its hands.

How are we gonna know?

We're gonna know by the Holy Ghost.

Come on, lift your hands and receive.

Looking to your spirit, looking to your spirit, did you get anything out of this today?

Oh, thank God.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

Thank you, jesus.

Well, pastor, I just I have to go to work early in the morning.

Listen, you can give me all the excuses that you want to, I don't care.

Do you want things to change?

That's good, that's all I know.

It changed for me.

It changed.

This church is here because of this message.

It's not because I followed this one or followed that one and got so and so, in fact, really all the times that I ever sought counsel from somebody besides my pastor which I never did I never asked, brother, you know, I didn't bother him, and that was the problem.

I mean, if I could have asked my pastor for some advice, he would have given me better advice than some of the people I asked.

So I've learned the hard way on the other side of that, not everybody that you ask their opinion is gonna give you valuable advice.

But if you look to the inside, everybody say I'm looking to the inside, I'm building my spirit up.

So it's a reliable guide in Jesus' name.

Amen, praise God, hallelujah.

Come on, let's rejoice a little bit.

Thank you, Lord, for the word of God.