Following The Holy Spirit 1

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

Ha ha ha.

And let's say this together say Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing the waymaker.

He didn't stay in heaven, but he came and paid the price.

He went back there, but he didn't leave us as orphans.

You sent the Holy Ghost to live and abide with us forever, our helper, our standby, our advocate, our strengthener, our counselor.

Thank God for the Holy Ghost.

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

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

Romans, chapter eight, verse 14,.

It says for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

How many of you believe that's true?

Well, if it is true, then the converse is just for mathematics.

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

How many of our sons of God, daughters of God, then you are led.

Everybody say I am led.

See, it doesn't say you might be led, it doesn't say you're gonna be led, it says you are led.

Everybody say I am led by the Spirit of God.

The Spirit Himself bears witness, with our spirit, that we are the children of God, and if children, then we're heirs.

Heirs of God and joint heirs are equal heirs with Christ.

If so, be that we suffer him, that we may be also glorified together.

So the Spirit bears witness.

Everybody say the witness Witness.

In first John, chapter five, verse 10, the first part of the verse.

It says he that believeth on the son of God has the witness in himself.

And so today I wanted to share a message, and probably we'll go into next week on this subject following the Holy Ghost.

Following the Holy Ghost.

Every believer received the Holy Ghost when you got saved.

Now there's a subsequent filling, infilling the baptism of the Holy Ghost that every believer should receive, and it's not optional.

We like to call it optional just because people choose not to do it.

Well, and they think do you think this is Lubies, where you can go through the line and pick and choose what you think is you want?

No, if Jesus is Lord, jesus commanded the apostles to not leave Jerusalem until they be endued with power from a where they ever got.

The idea that the Holy Ghost is optional is just dumb, bad teaching, religious claptrap.

Be careful when you say that word.

Make sure you get all the consonants in the right place.

But anyway, it's religion.

It's optional in the sense that we don't have to have the baptism to go to heaven, as some denominations tell you, unless you speak in tongues, you can't go to heaven.

Well, I don't believe that.

But on the flip side, if Jesus is really your Lord, you should be filled with faith and filled with the Holy Ghost.

But every believer has the Holy Ghost, just like this glass has got water in it.

That's how you've got the Holy Ghost.

But when you get the baptism, that glass of water turns into rivers.

I mean it's overflowing.

And I like to say we get the Holy Ghost originally, so we can be say this for us, but the baptism is for our ministry to everybody else.

But then there's the element of following the Holy Ghost.

And so in 1 John 4, 4, you know, the third person that God had, the greater one, lives in you.

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

You know, it's good for us to think about the fact.

He's there all the time.

He's not coming and going.

He didn't take a vacation, he didn't leave for a while because he got mad at you.

He's there all the time.

And then, of course, 1 Corinthians, chapter six.

But know you not that your body is the temples of the Holy Ghost which you have of God and you're not your own.

You've been bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, with your God's.

So he lives in us, the Holy Spirit lives in you, and part of that Holy Spirit is the witness.

We're gonna talk more about the witness in a minute, and one of the primary things the Holy Spirit does on the inside of us is lead us.

We need to be led, don't we?

Amen.

So then, if he's leading and he is, bible says he's leading it's not that he might lead, it's not that he's gonna lead, he is leading.

He's leading 24, seven.

But are we following?

See, there's the question Are we following his lead?

You know the bumper sticker lead, follow or get out of the way.

A lot of people just got out of the way.

They just didn't, couldn't figure out how to follow the Holy Ghost, just like a lot of times, you know, in years past, we'd have people come to see us.

You know Houston's kind of an intimidating place if you're from Timbuktu, little bird somewhere and you got one stoplight in the town and you have to come into Houston.

It's pretty intimidating.

You know you catch a freeway and then you catch another freeway, take another exit and you know it's pretty confusing.

So I'd just say, look, you make it to 1960 and 59th.

They're coming from East Texas.

We glad it's had relatives I'm thinking about right now.

Our sister was coming to town.

I said, look, I'll meet you at 1960 and 59.

They're coming in 59.

I said, now you follow real close behind me now after we leave.

You know, we let met them at Denny's or whatever.

I hopped and most people just never did know what that meant.

When I mean follow me close, I mean get on my bumper, because if you don't, people in this town are going to cut in front of you.

And I mean I mean we started down 59 to Beltway, had to catch the Beltway and before we got to the Beltway there are 15 cars between me and them.

I couldn't even see them and they couldn't see me.

They missed the exit.

Now they're going down 59.

I don't know where they're going to stop.

I don't know where they're going to be by the time I get off of the Beltway and make a U-turn.

How am I going to find them Lost.

That's the way a holy ghost.

Sometimes we don't follow enough close enough.

He's leading.

It's always.

He's always leading or we follow him.

So it's imperative that we follow the holy ghost.

This is the subject of this couple of messages I'm going to give you.

I've got an exhaustive message on developing your spirit, since he's a spirit being and all of this is done in the spirit you need.

It just makes sense that your spirit needs to be built up.

So I have a out there in the media center, I think, a four-part series on developing your spirit.

So I'm not going to preach that I could.

I'm going to preach part of that.

But the emphasis today is following the holy ghost, and we have to follow the holy ghost where, in the realm of the spirit, he's a spirit being and really it would do you good to quit looking at yourself as the person's looking back at you in the mirror, because that's not you.

That's the body you live in and it's the body the Holy Spirit lives in.

Can you imagine?

So your spirit of the Holy Spirit live in the same body.

So they got to know each other pretty well.

When you got saved, they started getting to know each other.

They live in the same house.

They're all mixed up in there together.

Isn't it a shame that people don't do anything about developing their spirit?

They pay all the attention to their body and to their mind and they think that people know them by their Facebook page with the Pouty lips.

Somebody tell me what that's all about.

I don't know what's all about.

That's not you.

Nobody's ever seen you.

Peter called you the hidden man of the heart, hidden man of the heart.

And Paul said you were the real.

You is the inward man and nobody's seen the inward man.

You've never seen him.

So quit relating yourself to your flesh, because you can't follow the Holy Spirit in your flesh, because the spirit of God is not a, it's not flesh, he's a spirit.

God is a spirit.

Amen, are you with me now?

And so, in the flesh, your feelings are your voice of the flesh.

And you know people say I feel this way, I feel that way, I feel wonderful today.

I feel so sad today.

Well, that's, that's maybe, but that's not how God leads you.

By your feelings, you'd be all over the map.

You'd be in Pearland instead of Tombaul.

If you were going to come see me in Houston, you'd wind up in Pearland instead of Tombaul.

That's a long way across there.

I went to Pearland one time to buy some barbecue and I found out that it's not worth the drive.

It's just, I was past hungry when I got there.

Glad it says I always preach about food and she's probably right.

So you can't follow feelings, because God's not a flesh, god is not a mind.

When somebody called him the eternal mind of the cosmos, well, no, they're.

They're dumb.

They don't know what God.

They don't know God.

God's not a mind and your puny peanut brain cannot reason with God.

You know you.

Just, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

His ways are higher than our ways, right?

So where are we going to find his thoughts and his ways?

Right here.

God always leads in consistent, consistently with his word.

God and his word are one.

So his spirit in his word are one.

So you know if you so, reason is the voice of the mind.

Your mind has a voice.

It's reason.

Well, you know he wouldn't do that, he wouldn't tell you to do that.

Da, da, da, da.

How many of you have never heard that voice?

You've heard that.

You've heard that that's the voice of your own reason telling you not to obey God, you've gotten something in the spirit about doing something, and now your reason is taken over and you're you know you're short circuiting the leading of the spirit.

So reason is the voice of the mind, feelings, of the voice of the flesh.

And so you've got one voice left and that's your conscience.

That's the voice of your recreated human spirit.

The steel small voice is another word for conscience.

But you know, if you feed your spirit with a word of God and you pray, have a good prayer life, your conscience becomes a pretty good guide and indicator of what God wants.

Even though it's not God talking to you, your recreated spirit can guide you because many times it picks up from the Holy Spirit what the Holy Spirit wants.

Amen, are y'all with me now Talking about following the lead that the spirit gives?

But you have to listen and follow your spirit, and especially the Holy Spirit.

Well, Pastor, you know I believe that I've I've had some wonderful dreams and visions.

I've had one time a prophet gave me a word.

I've always believed that was God speaking to me.

Well, if that's what you're waiting on, have you ever, when you were little, did you ever have to connect the dot little puzzle?

You know one, two, three ABC, and you're connecting the dots and it you're.

When you connect all the dots and go through all the deal, then you've got the picture of the chicken or the sheep or the or whatever it is that you drew, and.

And so if you're only being led by visions, dreams and words, which are legitimate at times, and you leave off the witness of the spirit, you don't connect the dots.

This church is here not because God spoke to me.

Last week I went over a lot of spectacular guidance.

I talked to you about what God spoke to me.

I saw some visions.

I had a dream, this, that and the tsunami dream, my spectacular, spectacular guidance.

I think about all, usually my.

In my experience, when I have that type of leading from God, that means what's coming up is going to try me very severely and he, by his graciousness, gives me something that's greater than I can hang my head on when I'm going through something tough.

But in the between, you've got to be prepared to follow the Holy Ghost in the form of the witness of the spirit.

You know, you've got a conscience.

It's got.

You've got a still small voice.

When I first got saved, I mean, I heard God's voice at first.

Then I heard my own spiritual spirits, a still small voice, and just micromanage me.

Just I was just amazed at at how the spirit would lead me.

And then, you know, a few weeks or months back into it, it all faded and I didn't know why.

But now I can tell you why.

It's because God expects us to walk by faith and not by sight.

You know, he used the witness of the spirit to let you know that you were saved.

He didn't appear to you in a dream, most of us.

He didn't have somebody prophesy that you're saved.

No, you believe the gospel.

And then, of course, we just read that, the witness of the spirit, whereby we cry Abba, father, it was the witness that did it.

The witness of the spirit, let you know you're a Christian.

So that's the primary way that the spirit is going to lead you, because it takes faith to follow the witness.

It takes faith because your flesh is going to try to get in the way with your feelings.

Your mind is going to try to get into the way, in the way with your reason.

Are you with me?

Other voices?

That's another reason.

You know, the witness of the spirit tells you that you're saved.

You have the witness, verse John 510.

Why not voices?

You know, I'd rather have a voice, pastor, I followed voices in the past.

Well, maybe you have and maybe you've had some measure of success.

I have to, but not all voices are God.

I just gave you two that aren't God.

Your reason, your flesh, those are not God, are they?

What are some other voices?

Demons have voices.

Devil has voices.

Do gooders have voices?

Naysayers have voices.

False teachers have voices.

Are you with me now?

So if you're going to follow voices, you've got to find out what voice you're listening to.

And in my experience, in 33 years of ministry, almost 27 years of pastoring, most people don't spend that much time to investigate the source of the voice.

And yet they'll allow the voice to tell them and give them guidance.

Are you with me now?

So two reasons why we shouldn't follow voices.

Necessarily, let's not stumble over the supernatural.

The witness is supernatural.

Looking for the spectacular voices, prophets speaking, you know, words of knowledge, words of wisdom.

I've had that happen In the New Testament.

We're not to be led by prophets.

A prophet speaking to us should be no more than confirmation and if it isn't, throw it away.

Yesterday, even the best miss God.

They have flesh and bone bodies.

They have carnal minds.

If somebody's giving you a word and you don't have a witness that it belongs to you, just throw it away.

I had a lady one time.

A prophet said you're going to have a baby.

At the time she wasn't married and by the time she started sitting under my ministry she's in her fifties and she wanted a meeting with Gladys.

And I said, okay, back then I would just meet with anybody and everybody for any reason.

Now I don't meet with anybody.

I have a staff that meets with you, but I want to know the reason for the meeting.

If you call the office and you want a meeting, we're going to ask you the reason.

If you won't tell us the reason, you're not going to get the meeting.

Why?

Because that's just ridiculous.

We should be able to be prepared for what it is that you've got.

You're going to throw something out there at the last minute and we haven't even been able to be prepared for the meeting that we're going to have.

You can't go talk to your boss without telling him what you want to talk about, can you?

So anyway, we just foolishly said yes to the meeting and Gladys and I and I'm meeting with a woman Gladys, who's in the meeting back then.

But I sat down with her.

She had been coming about a year, seemed like a very dignified businesswoman, you know, just well-coiffed and all that Giver tither.

So we sat down with her.

She said well, I'm mad at God.

I said mad at God.

Surely you've learned better in a year that you've been coming here than that you can't ever be mad at God.

God's your way out.

Well, you know, he told me I was going to have a baby.

And here I am and I almost laughed.

I said well, would you mind if I pointed out something obvious?

How can you have a baby if you're not married?

You chose not to get married, not God.

So why are you mad at God?

How is that God's problem?

You haven't done what it takes to have a baby.

Are you expecting a maculate conception here?

The Virgin Mary?

What do you want?

What is it?

What is it God hasn't done?

She said well, he gave me a word.

I said well, how did he give me a word?

Well, in my last church, a prophet came through and gave me a word that I would have a baby.

I said okay, when was that?

Well, I don't remember.

Well, who was it that gave you the word?

Well, I don't remember that either.

I said so let me get this straight.

You're blaming God for a word that you don't remember when it was and who gave.

Is that about right?

I said well, that's foolish.

I said you're blaming the wrong person.

Why don't you take the point of the finger and turn it this way, right here?

That's another reason you don't want to meet with me, unless you want the truth.

Usually, it just takes one meeting they're either out the door or they repent, which is one of the two.

How silly is that?

No voice is spectacular guidance.

That was not God.

And even if it was God, she didn't apply it.

She wasn't moved by it.

Listen, god wants me to have children.

I must get married.

I've got to find.

So I said well, why didn't you get married?

Old Christian men, they're all just so.

I found out real quick that she was real picky way up here in her demands, and so I just kind of let off on her.

You know, there's no, she's got so many hangups, and so there's many voices First Corinthians 14, many voices and all in the world, and they're all have a significance and some of them are significantly wrong.

Some of them are significantly damaging, and so don't be paying attention and seeking voices.

If you, if you need spectacular guidance, lead that up to God.

I've never one time asked God for a dream or a vision or a word.

I just lead that to him.

He knows how to lead me and I've taken a lifetime learning how to follow him and I'm still learning, amen.

And and then the other reason we're not to follow voices and spectacular guidance is God wants us to walk my faith, romans 117,.

You know we shall walk by faith and not by.

You know God the just shall live by their faith.

Second Corinthians five says you know five, seven.

We walk by faith and not by senses and not by gifts.

Gifts are wonderful, they have a place, but let God be the determiner of one that determines whether you have a gift or not.

So there always the spirit wills, the gifts of the spirit, there, as the spirit rules.

First Corinthians, chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

So the witness operates all the time.

Everybody say the witness is operating right now in my life.

So the question is what is the witness?

See, I can hear you asking that what is the witness?

If it's operating, I don't know it.

I don't know how to identify it, and so I'm going to give you some descriptions of the witness to help you identify it.

And let me tell you it takes faith to follow the witness because your flesh wants to have more direct guidance your, your, your mind, your reason.

You want to have a reason.

God, why can't I go on that trip?

Nothing wrong with me going down on that trip.

It could be that God knows what's going to happen on the way and doesn't want you to have to go through a trouble, a trial and a trouble.

I just think about the car wrecks that can be avoided if we just walk according to the witness, if we let the witness operate in our lives.

I'm not saying all tests and trials would end, because Jesus said in the world you shall have tribulation, tests, trials, anguish.

You know you're going to have all those things that comes with the territory, but be of good courage.

I have overcome the world.

I have deprived it of its ability to harm you.

How, by giving you the witness, the witness can keep you from entering into a test and trial.

Many times you just kind of pass right over it.

Are you with me now?

So the witness operates all the time.

What is it?

Well, it's a knowing.

You have a knowing.

Women would describe it as intuition.

Because women claim women's intuition.

I've never heard a man say man's intuition.

Because men, the way they're made, they're made to be logical Point A to point B, one, two, three.

That's men, women, you know they'll come to a conclusion.

See, how was it that you reached that conclusion?

And Gladys will tell me some story that goes all the way around and she goes past the Beltway all the way to 99.

If you get on 99, you'll travel 300 miles.

It's 300 miles around Houston.

And she'll come back and boom.

She reached the same conclusion I did, but took a completely different route.

Intuition.

Well, intuition is just you don't have evidence, you don't have anything you can sink your teeth into.

You don't have reason, you don't have.

You just have this feeling.

You have this leaning toward a certain decision and you make it.

Many times it's on children.

You have a bad intuition about your child and many times it's accurate.

But if we were honest we would find out.

A lot of times it's just plain old fear.

It's really not intuition when it's fear.

So these things work similarly to the flesh and to the mind.

That's why it takes faith to operate them.

Well.

How in the world are we ever going to tell the difference?

Spiritual growth will take care of it.

You have to grow your spirit.

Your spirit has got to get stronger.

So, knowing, having a knowing down in your heart, not a voice, not a word, not a rama.

Thank God for Ramas.

Again, I need Ramas all the time.

You know rama, word of God need it, but just a knowing, an intuition, a perception.

I like what Paul said in Acts 27.

He said sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with much hurt, both of the leading of the ship and of our lives.

And they didn't pay any attention to him.

The ghost told me, he didn't say.

An angel appeared to me.

Later on, the angel did appear to him.

Jesus appeared to him and told him he had to stand before Caesar.

So he had some spectacular guidance previous to this.

But on the dock of that, about ready to set sail, he perceived that it wasn't time to sail and so he voiced his concern and they just discounted it Because he's a prisoner.

And he said what does the jailbird know?

And so they took off and of course we know the story the ship was busted apart by waves when it ran aground outside the Isle of Malta and the ship's cargo was lost.

Can you imagine what that cost the owner of the ship?

He lost the ship and the cargo, but not one life was lost, not one.

Every life was spared.

Was it because the crew had faith?

No, it's because God had mercy.

God had mercy on them for Paul's sake.

They even thought about killing him.

After they're saved, after they're alive, they thought about killing Paul man.

Talk about ungrateful.

See, god reigns on the just and the unjust.

I mean God's ways.

We need to know a little bit about God's ways sometimes.

So perception you perceive in your spirit about this situation, it's having peace about your decision, or maybe turmoil.

Or you could put it this way you have ease about your decision or you have a hesitancy.

You're hesitant, hesitant.

You can't seem to make up your mind about this particular situation that you're praying about Hesitant, hesitant, hesitant.

That's probably the witness.

That's right.

Could it be fear?

Yeah, how am I gonna know the difference?

Gotta start growing that spirit of yours.

You gotta grow that spirit.

Get that spirit dominant.

Green light, red light.

Brother Hagen tells a story of being in Garland, texas, and he had started his traveling ministry and they had a garage.

They converted a garage for the ministry, mail out books and stuff, media, and his ministry grew.

So he had a plan all figured out that he was gonna convert his whole house into ministry headquarters, hire some staff and find another home there in Garland.

He had it all figured out, in fact, build another house on his property.

He had a big enough piece of property.

He had it all planned.

He's a man of prayer, he's a man that listens to the Holy Ghost, he's a prophet.

And so you think, okay, that's God.

So he went to Tulsa, friend of his said, yeah, you need to move to Tulsa, everything's happening here in Tulsa.

And he didn't think anything about it because he didn't recognize it, god, and said anything to him at all.

And he said look, I want you to just bear with me.

There's a building just came up, it's Brother Osborne's old office building.

It had an apartment upstairs, you know, and that Brother Osborne and Daisy lived in and then everything else went downstairs.

And so he, just to make his business businessman friend happy, he went, you know, just okay, I'll go and look at it.

And he said as soon as he walked in that place in his spirit.

It was like a buzzer went off.

Bzz, that was a witness and he recognized that's a witness, that that building he better pay attention.

And of course the reason starts going how in the world this is gonna cost a lot of money.

And then later on, in visitations after that, I mean at one point God even sent an angel, said if you'll do this, I will get the money, and by this time, such and such a date, you're gonna have $4,000.

The angel told him that.

So when did the spectacular guidance happen?

When he committed to obeying the witness of the spirit.

How many of you believe it was God that he moved out of Garland and moved to Tulsa?

His work is still there 70 years later.

It's still there.

Go over there.

Come on, let's lift our hands for the witness.

God is leading us by the witness.

He's not gonna.

He's not.

Maybe he is right now.

The question is are we following?

And so that's the intent of this message to help you, give you some Bible knowledge as to how you can move from where you are into something bigger and better.

We're living in the days where people have to.

You know, listen, there's so many dissenting voices, there's such a spirit of deception, satan comes as an angel of light.

You can't depend on every person acting like that.

They're a minister, because unless you know them, unless you have been close enough to them, you're glad it's not my family.

We've lived our life in front of our people all these years.

We have witnesses, been here since the first building.

I mean, we're not hard to understand at all.

I've got a mountain of messages online that you can listen to and I haven't changed.

The brother Frank, where are you?

Frank?

Frank says I've heard that story I don't know how many times.

It never changes.

Well, that's right, because it's the truth.

The truth doesn't change.

If I tell a story, it's the same now as it was in 1990, whatever five, when we started.

So since, following the Holy Ghost is in the realm of the spirit.

It's not in the realm of the flesh, it's not in the realm of the mind.

We have to increase the strength of our spirit, have to become more spirit dominant.

I was meditating on this the other day and how similar our spirit growth is to our physical growth.

You know we're all born as babies.

Forget about born again.

When you're born the first time.

You're born as a baby and you know you love little babies.

They're so innocent and when you first few days, little baby's eyes might be crossed.

Nothing wrong with their eyes, they just hadn't learned how to focus.

They didn't need eyes in the womb.

It's dark in there and if we do the very first thing, we pull them out of the womb, we take a picture of them, flash, you know.

Can you imagine how painful that is after you've been in a dark womb for nine months?

And then mama has a picture taken or the doctor takes a picture, and of course they slap them on the bottom.

That's kind of a shock.

They get them to breathe Because they haven't breathed, they didn't need to breathe, they couldn't breathe, and so you have all these things that happen.

And you know they have a brain, they have vocal cords, they have nasal passages, they have ears, they have the sense of touch, but none of that really is totally developed.

But it takes a little while before they start to encounter this world.

Their sense of smell but I'm telling you right now they smell mom, they know mommy.

They know mommy.

Their eyes kick in, their ears kick in, they know mommy's voice.

You ever see a mommy talk to baby in baby talk, baby talk is coming out of the toddler's mouth.

Nobody can understand.

But mommy, oh, he wants such and such, she wants this and such.

It's wild Daddies, forget about it, you'll never be mommy, anyway.

So I got to thinking about how children develop.

And it's really the same when we're born again.

We're all born in that same way.

We don't have our faculties, our supernatural faculties are not all.

What we do have is the witness that tells us we're saved.

It is the most basic thing.

I'm a father.

Oh, come on, lift your hands right now.

Oh, I tell you, god, it's so majestic, magnificent.

He gives us this supernatural it's not natural Supernatural and we leave it on the shelf.

I remember Jay is maybe three months old.

He's crawling on the floor and we have shag carpeting in the den.

And I made a mistake.

I came in from mowing the grass outside and I had my grass mowing shoes on.

They used to be dress shoes, but then they'd gotten old and needed to, so I'd just use them to mow the grass in and they got crusted over with grass clippings and stains and gasoline and everything else.

They're just grody looking.

And he's down on the floor, crawling on the living room floor, and I walk in there where he was and he starts screaming at the top of his little lungs.

And I had no, I thought I'd stepped on him or something.

I reached up and picked him up and comforted him, got him all quieted down and I couldn't figure out what in the world was wrong.

Her lattice wasn't even in the room, she was somewhere else.

So I put him back down on the floor.

As soon as I did, he screamed again.

I finally figured out.

He saw those shoes and those shoes did not belong in his world.

He was deathly afraid of those shoes.

He heard my voice and the shoes didn't match the voice.

Are you with me now?

That's how we grow.

We all start in the same place, and as a Christian, you grow in the same way.

At first you have to have the voice.

You have to have the voice of the Lord tell you.

You have to have all these other voices, and then they start getting confusing, because then the devil figures out how to talk to you, and so it's God wanting us to walk by faith that we have to grow up.

So let's grow our spirit to where we can understand what the witnesses say.

Just two things today and, like I said I've got four weeks of teaching out there on growing your spirit.

John, feed continually on the Word, Feed continually on the Word of God.

Jesus said in John 63, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.

So when you feed on the Word, that's the spirit speaking to you, that's the life of God coming into you, and your spirit needs spiritual food.

What is it, the Word of God?

I think about how much effort we put into educating our brain.

We start off in pre-K nowadays, then we go to K, then we go to first grade, all the way through eighth grade, then we go to high school and then, if we wanna go and do something else, we either go to some alternative schools to learn a trade maybe, or we'll go to college.

It's many, many years 16, 17, depending on what you wanna do.

If you were a doctor, you're gonna be in school for a long time.

Lawyer man, it takes a long time.

You're in school a long time All to educate your reason and your brain.

And yet we think well, I can come to church when I feel like it, I can read my Bible every great once in a while.

You are so far behind.

You have time to catch up.

I said it's time to catch up.

I mean, the church has gotta grow up.

We're living in the last days, the devil is running amok and the church is behind.

Not this church, but most churches are way behind.

Why?

Because they don't preach the Word, they don't do the Word even if they preach it.

It doesn't do one bit of good to know what the Word says and not do it.

Why call you me Lord, lord?

Do not the things that I say so feed continually on the Word?

What does that mean?

It means come to church.

And really I'm here because I didn't go to church once a week.

I went to church three times a week, in fact four times a week, because for years we had two services on Sunday.

So Gladys and I and my kids who are with me in the ministry went to church.

We went to church all day Sunday.

I mean we got there at eight o'clock in the morning on Sunday morning.

We didn't leave there till one o'clock and we went home and had lunch and came back that night for 6.30 service, sunday night, and that meant we had to leave our house about 5.30.

That's all day Sunday.

Every Sunday I said every Sunday.

And then, you know, as God promoted me and had jobs for me to do that were pretty important to me to do, well, I had to give even more.

And, of course, wednesday night sometimes we'd leave the kids at home, gladys and I.

When they got older, they had homework.

So we figured out a lot, you know.

But then for years I went by myself Wednesday night because Gladys had to stay home with the kids.

Well, we made a decision and I went to church.

And what was I doing?

I was educating my spirit and it's going to take more than just a little casual inner.

You know, read my Bible when I feel like it, come to church when I feel like it.

That's again.

That's why the church is weak, immature, lacking in power, doesn't know which end is up and speaks things that are totally inappropriate.

We've got church leaders saying that the church must be get the shot.

So I came out on Facebook says he does not want to speak his name because it's irrelevant.

I just said so and so does not speak for me.

I mean, you know, come on, who are you Really?

Who are you to say that to anyone?

Or have you adopted that spirit that rules over people that you know better than anybody about their own health care decisions.

I don't even tell people what they do.

I give them the opportunity to do what they want to do.

That's where it ought to be.

It ought not be top down.

These decisions made by every individual for their own life and their own peace, led by the spirit of God that's in them, are you with me now?

So feed, continue on the word.

And the second one is pray much in the Holy Ghost.

Oh, I think about what I said earlier, the idea that the Holy Ghost baptism is optional.

No, it's.

It's.

It's absolutely necessary.

If you want to live in victory, pray much in the Holy Ghost.

You don't pray in tongues.

Then you can't do half this message.

You're not going to ever really get to the place in your spirit where you can dependably know that God is leading you in a particular direction.

That's harsh.

Well, it's true.

What do you do with these denominational churches that don't even believe that?

That's for today.

Well, of course it's for today.

Too late to tell me that.

I've been living with that for 40 years.

Man, it works pretty much.

In the Holy Ghost.

Jude 20 says building up yourselves on your most holy faith, pray it in the Holy Ghost.

So that's how you build yourself up.

And 1 Corinthians 14, for he that prays in an unknown tongue edifies himself.

The word edify there is like charge of battery.

You build yourself up, you charge your spiritual battery.

You begin to.

It doesn't build your faith, it builds your capacity for faith and it makes your spirit more sensitive to spiritual leading.

Now, now see that you know that's true.

I just spoke truth and that's truth is hitting your spirit.

Most of you are going like this.

And if you hadn't received the baptism?

If you need to receive it, quit putting it off.

It's for today, it's for right now.

We need it.

The church needs the power of the Holy Ghost.

Jesus is one that said it.

You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses unto me.

I mean, you know we can't even really be a proper witness of the Lord Jesus without the baptism.

We can be a witness.

I know some guys that Baptist Methodist, their soul winners.

I knew a guy that went to high school with.

He got on fire for Jesus.

He got saved.

Glad it's not already been saved for a few years and I heard about him getting saved and I thought, man, because he was the class troublemaker.

He was always messing around, he left all the air out of the tires of the Bishop Texas buses when they came for a football game and unfortunately people saw him do it and so he got in a lot of trouble.

He was a ring tail tutor but anyway he got saved and you know, he started witnessing the kids and he had a children's I mean a teenage ministry.

They were crying then at his apartment and I mean they were having revival and as far as I knew, he wasn't baptized in the Holy Ghost.

He's still a Methodist going to Methodist church and talk to his widow and she said John, I just don't understand it.

We were sitting in our apartment and he just leaned over on my shoulder and died and I said, well, the devil killed him.

Well, I just don't understand why the you know the Lord allowed that.

I said the Lord didn't allow anything.

He allows everything you allow.

You want a simple answer why he died.

He didn't have the baptism, he didn't have the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

He's out there on devil's territory getting people saved and he was an easy target without the power of the Holy Ghost to warn you about something going on in your body.

It's just real easy for the devil to snatch your life right out of your body.

That's what happened.

He was dead before he knew it and thank God, he went to heaven.

But that wasn't God's best.

We tried to minister to her.

You know she was one of those grasshopper.

You know a grasshopper Christian.

They hop here, they hop there.

They bring this subject up, they bring that subject up.

See, there's no substitute for coming to church sitting under a Bible, believing, spirit-filled ministry, feeding on the Word of God.

To continue, your spirit will grow.

Your ability to hear things in the spirit will grow.

When I say hear, I don't mean hear voices, I mean perceive and recognize the witness of the Spirit on a highly accurate basis.

Amen, praise God, follow the Holy Ghost.

Come on, lift our hands right now.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

You know God doesn't lead from behind.

That's what Obama said when he was president.

Well, you know American needs to lead from behind.

Well, that's a bunch of bunk.

And God does not lead from behind.

He is the leader.

Put him first in everything.

Amen, did you get anything out of this today?

Oh, come on, let's for joy this morning.

Glory to God.

How many of you are absolutely I mean you are, you are absolutely turned on to the fact that you're going to improve in this area.

You could see things in your life where you've kind of taken the strawberry shortcut.

You know there's no shortcuts in the spirit realm.

You've got to, you've got to do things but the Bible way.

If you'll do those things, commit yourself to that, god will bless you, hallelujah.

So long before we go, we have a lot of Search and