Demonstration Of The Spirit

your Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's get into the Word and let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I'm here on purpose tonight, to be a witness of this momentous occasion and the lives of these young believers.

They'll never be the same.

We'll never be the same because of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

I open up my eyes and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to me tonight.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen, amen, yeah, let's turn in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, please, and we'll start reading verse 1.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

Paul is writing to the church at Corinth.

And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring under you the testimony of God, for I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing or persuasable my margin says persuasive words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

Everybody shout demonstration, and here's the reason so that your faith should not stand or rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Demonstration, that's what I want to talk about tonight demonstration of the Spirit.

And I mean here, here, at Glorious Way, we even have a demonstration of the Spirit in the baptismal.

I mean, you know, notice the Word of Knowledge operating and the Spirit of God taking each believer special.

I mean, I've sat through a lot of baptism services, I've baptized a few myself at the beginning of the church, and but that just that's.

That's what the Spirit of God is doing here.

Demonstration of the Spirit and of power it's only used one time in the Bible and yet it was a major part of the early church ministry demonstration, apodexus, and it's from a root.

That means to show off, showing's off of the Holy Ghost, and I don't mean that than negative.

You know, when we call somebody a show off, it's kind of like immature and and prideful.

But the Spirit of God wants to show people that he's real and that the message that's being preached is real.

God, god shows up.

I said God shows up.

And so the glory of God.

We sing a lot about the glory, the glory of the glory of God is the demonstration of the Holy Spirit.

That's exactly what it is.

I like that song we sang this morning.

We go from glory to glory, lifted us higher.

We go from glory to glory to glory.

We go from one level of demonstration to the next level of demonstration.

Are y'all with me tonight?

Praise God.

And so a demonstration, or you know when you, when you cut that word in two, demonstrated, it puts demons and dire straits is what it does.

So demonstration is proof that God is present and it brings transformation for believers.

And if there are sinners present during demonstration, then it brings conviction.

I've been having to say this lately because I still hear people, believers say oh, holy Spirit convicted me.

No, he didn't.

He did that when you got saved.

He's through convicting you.

The Spirit of God convicts the world of sin, doesn't convict the church of sin.

The Holy Ghost doesn't have anything to do with you sinning, and when you sin you are grieved.

Your spirit doesn't agree with the sin.

So it's not the spirit of God convicting you, amen.

So get your.

Get it straight.

Sometimes we have these old timey sayings that people used to use and we pick up on them, but I like let's be, let's attribute to the Holy Spirit the things of the spirit, and he's not the one that convicts the church of sin, he convicts the world of sin.

And so in a service like this, even in the baptismal service, if there are sinners present, their conviction can happen.

You know, I've been in front of a lot of people coming up to the altar.

I mean, you know a liquid church for 15 years and then the last eight being up on the platform facing these people coming from everywhere and coming down there.

Brother, those things had, and I had more than one conversation about what happened to all those people that came up, because they they say a little prayer and then you never see them again.

See, it's more.

It takes more than saying a little prayer.

It takes a legitimate conviction of the Holy Ghost to reveal to a person that they are a sinner and then, and only then, can they get saved.

They can't get saved, they can't get saved with just a little prayer at the altar.

In fact, many people come up.

In the years that I was a prayer partner there, I'd ask people why they came up.

Most of them didn't even know.

It's kind of like they were punch drunk or something like something hit them in the face and people come up for all kinds of reasons in an altar call.

You know, brother, billy Graham, he used to have these big, remember those big crusades he'd have in the, in the stadiums, and he would just say come, and they would start coming.

Man, you know just as I am, 35 stanzas of, just as I am, and they're, they're coming from everywhere.

They're standing just crowded down there, thousands, you know, in a crowd, and he didn't call them.

He didn't, he didn't, he didn't mark them down to save.

He called them.

He had a word for it.

I can't remember his word acolyte or something.

I forgotten the word he used.

But they were not counted as as believers and they were not counted as part of the church until the core.

The other churches that sponsored that crusade followed up and they showed up at church and were baptized.

That's when you counted them.

Until then.

It's just.

You know, lots of people say they're saved, but they're.

Listen, folks, we're coming into a time right now where the demonstration of the spirit is necessary so we can get the sinners convicted.

Amen.

So fancy preaching oratory, homo-letics.

I call it fluff and bluster.

It might attract a following, but the word and the spirit brings growth and glorifies God.

Aren't you glad for the word and the spirit?

And now, 2 Corinthians 12, hold your place there in 1 Corinthians, go back to 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, and talk about demonstration, talking about signs and wonders and miracles.

2 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

And I tell you, the reason I'm sharing this is because I know that we need more of it so you can have what you preach.

I like to put it into you.

He said here in 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 12, truly, the signs of an apostle will rot among you in all.

2 Corinthians 12:12

Patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds, patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds, the signs of an apostle.

And so he didn't brag on himself, he bragged on the office that he or he magnified.

I should say he magnified the office to which he'd been called.

He didn't start off being called that, he was called a preacher and then, after he was faithful to preach awhile, then he was a prophet and after many years, then, in the church of Antioch when you read it in the church of Antioch Acts, chapter 13, I think where they ministered the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said separate me, barnabas and so forth for the ministry unto which I have called them.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And so they were brought up before the church and laid hands on them and they were sent out as apostles Paul and Barnabas.

And later on, when Paul and Barnabas split up, jesus didn't fall off the throne.

When they split up, they split up in strife.

Why is it recorded in the book of Acts?

So that we don't just get all unhinged when people fall out?

I don't.

I mean, there's been a lot of relationships that I've had that have fallen out and you know I don't like it.

On my side I want to be faithful to that relationship but I'm not going to chase them down the road, I'm going to keep on going.

I mean, paul kept on going and Barnabas you never heard from again.

Barnabas' name fell off the pages of the Bible.

It kind of tells you something right there.

But but he said, surely the signs of an apostle were wrought among you and all patients, signs and wonders and mighty deeds, mighty deeds.

Think about mighty deeds.

I believe that the church is coming into a place where mighty deeds are going to come back.

I mean, just think about shaking a viper off of your hand into the fire.

That's pretty, that's a pretty mighty deed.

And then have a whole.

The whole island had a revival and the king of the island got healed and saved.

I mean he shook the idol and malta praise God.

So we can.

I mentioned this this morning and I've mentioned it recently.

But we can help or hinder demonstration of the spirit.

It depends on, first of all depends on the worship team.

They have to have the dedication to prepare and they do.

They practice, they pray, they worship their worshipers so they lead boys.

It's really, it's really helpful to have, have, just like tonight.

I mean, we set a set of table out here and look at, look at the anointing just to baptize these young people.

Man, they never be the same.

And and then, of course, the preaching.

I've got to be prepared.

I can't mail it in.

I got to be prepared.

And but then you have to be ready, you have to respond.

It's up to you to respond or not respond.

When you don't respond to the spirit, it hinders the demonstration.

I'll say that again.

I'll say y'all were looking at me bad, I'm going to say it over.

When you don't respond to the spirit, it hinders the demonstration.

Yeah, there you go.

Remember Dr Ed Dufresne?

He wouldn't let you sit there.

He made you amen every.

He would say half a verse and he'd want half a sentence.

And he wants you to say amen, amen.

I don't say any amen's in here.

I like what, brother, those things, can I get a better amen?

Say I like that.

Can I get a better amen?

Yeah, so well.

So will you respond?

Will you yield?

What do you mean?

Well, just like worshiping God.

I mean come in here on purpose to worship God, and I've felt the difference in the last, last Sunday and this Sunday.

I mean it's just like we've come up another notch.

You know, we really just like that song.

We go from glory to glory, strength to strength, faith to faith.

We're just coming up higher.

Let's keep going.

Let's just keep on going.

So will you respond?

Will you yield or will you resist, or will you stay in your comfort zone?

Sometimes it's our comfort zone is not to not to sing much or not to lift our hands or not.

You know, every now and then we'll have somebody take off running in here.

Have you ever thought about, maybe, running?

Well, why didn't you Listen?

I mean the only thing during the third song, that's usually worship.

That wouldn't be an order, because in you know, it was worship.

Everything's going up.

But during praise, I mean everything.

We're all in here together.

We can run.

Nobody's going to stop you.

Amen, we have a lot of liberty here.

We don't have a lot of rules.

So there's two kinds of demonstration.

There's the physical demonstration and then there's a spiritual demonstration.

Physical demonstrations can be look foolish, they can look a little bit crazy Sometimes.

You know again like running, I've had people do all kind of things.

We'll get into some of that later in a minute.

And then of course there's a spiritual demonstration where you have the gifts.

But another demonstration of the spirit is revivals.

And ever since Jesus went to heaven you know about every few hundred years there's been revivals.

I guess the first big major revival came with the Lutheran, when Martin Luther nailed the indictment to the cathedral at Weems and rebuked the Roman church at that time for its sin and sale of indulgences and basically preaching that you're saved by works.

And Martin Luther is the one that brought back salvation by grace, through faith, and that was the Protestant Reformation in the 1400s.

It's amazing, that was a tremendous revival and it got people out of religion into a relationship Born again.

The evangelical was born.

At that point it had been lost.

See, revivals bring that which has been lost, that which has waned.

A revival brings it back.

It is really legitimately a demonstration of the spirit.

The spirit says let me show you how it ought to be.

I want us to be a church where the Holy Ghost can just get out in front of anything else and let him manifest himself the way he wants to.

And so revivals have brought back, in that particular time, the doctrine.

It brought back a doctrine that had been stolen by religion and by corruption.

You've had revivals of even offices.

I mean, you know, for many years we'll get into that in just a moment but I mean you know what happened to the evangelists, what happened to the prophet, what happened to the apostle?

For years that was nothing but a pastor was there, it was the only thing recognized.

So in the 40s and 50s, healing had to be brought back to the church.

There was a great healing revival that was not accepted by the mainline churches.

They didn't.

Number one, they couldn't handle the crowds.

Number two, they didn't really like what was being preached, they didn't agree with it.

And so these people like Oral Roberts and AA Allen and many other revivalists of that day, they had tents, they took their tents and they traveled across the country and they held these great healing revivals In those years.

It was, it was, it was healing was like popcorn.

I mean, it was the easiest thing in the world to go into one of those tents with a serious fatal disease, terminal disease, and get healed.

It was, it was, it was constant.

Brother Hagin talks about a guy that that he knew that was off and the Holy Spirit told him you know, you did.

Brother Hagin walked in the office of the prophet and and the spirit of God warned him about this man.

So for God to talk about the sin of another man to him, that's judgment.

And God's not going to do that with you.

He does it with people he can trust, like like a prophet, like brother Hagin.

So he said, I want to say I want to take care of him, but he's opening the door to Satan.

Satan's going to cut his life short if he doesn't repent in three areas.

First of all, he needs to repent in his love walk.

He's arrogant and he treats his staff like dirt.

Number two, he's got to repent over his weight.

He's 400 pounds and he has the sin of gluttony.

He just is uncontrollable.

He's eating all the time.

And number three, money.

He is money minded and if he doesn't repent, if he doesn't handle these three things in his life.

He's going to come to heaven early, didn't say God's going to kill him.

God's not going to kill him, the devil's going to kill him and take him off the scene and he needs 30s.

Brother Hagin says I went to one of his meetings.

I'm not going to mention his name, but I went to one of his meetings one time.

15 people in the wheel chair section all got up and walked, even though he had sin in his life, even though he was not living the way he should live.

The anointing on his life was still working and 15 people got up and walked and he shut the meeting down and took an offering.

And I see, that's money minded.

I mean, what about?

I mean this is the demonstration of the Spirit.

Are you going to interrupt that for an offering?

Well, of course people would give anything to get healed.

This is a huge responsibility.

You cannot make a price on your minister.

You can't sell the anointing.

Amen.

Anyway, he never did get a chance to warn the man and he didn't die.

He died young, but anyway, getting back to that particular time of the 40s and 50s, god brought this healing revival back and think about it hadn't been but about 40 years since Azusa Street.

Azusa Street was the Pentecostal Revival that happened in 1906 in California, where the Holy Ghost was poured out fresh and new.

The church had had let slip the baptism in the Holy Ghost and they were no longer speaking in tongues.

No one would speak in tongues and so the baptism of the Holy Ghost was added back in that Pentecostal Revival and during that revival they had the most marvelous healings.

I've read books by our witnesses of the Pentecostal Revival.

It's amazing if you haven't read some of those stories.

But one of them, you know, brother Seymour, would sit up on the platform with a sack over his head.

Daddy Seymour was running the meeting but he was so humble he didn't want anybody to know who he was.

He didn't want to have anybody look at his face.

So he literally sat up on the platform with a sack over his head and he didn't really do anything.

He just kind of sat there and lay.

People were out in the audience and they would pray for the sick.

They would kind of get the glory of God would fall.

It would be so thick you couldn't see, and little children would write the.

As they grew up they wrote about their experiences going.

They didn't have children in church back then and the kids would play in the glory.

They would go down under the pews and get under the glory, where their parents couldn't find them.

It didn't grieve the spirit at all.

So for the little children to come under me, such as the Kingdom of God.

So, anyway, this one man walked in there with a wooden leg and he said I want prayer, I want my leg, I want my leg healed.

Well, you don't have any faith.

Sit down there.

We don't, I'm not going to pray for you.

What do you mean?

Well, you're still wearing that wooden leg.

What do you expect God to do?

Push the leg off for you.

You got to pull that thing off and you'll, we'll pray for you.

It'll be real rude.

He pulled the wooden leg off and set it in the chair, and I mean, they watched his leg grow, grew a knee, it grew an ankle, it grew a foot, it grew toes, and he walked out of there on two legs.

They lost healing between 1910 or so and 1940.

They lost it why?

Well, sectarianism, you know rivalries, I tell you.

Wars are fought over oil, Wars are fought over anointings.

There was strife in the church, and so what did God do?

Did he smite everybody?

No, he brought another revival, the healing revival, the 40s and 50s and brought healing.

And so there was teaching about healing, there was demonstration about y'all get anything out of this tonight.

And then, of course, in the 60s it lasted until the early 60s.

Actually, people like oil Roberts, you know, kenneth Hagan, was part of the healing revival but God wouldn't let him buy a tent.

He wanted him to go into the churches.

Well, that was a big sacrifice, because you're going from a crowd of 500 maximum and all the tents you know, 10,000, 8,000, 5,000 people, so a whole lot different crowd, a whole lot different exposure and so.

So then in the 60s we had the charismatic renewal where the Holy Ghost was brought into the mainline churches.

Brother Osteen was just a little ahead of that, 1958 he was baptized in the Holy Ghost as a southern Baptist pastor.

One of the first ones had a friend Bethel church there, what's their name?

In Baton Rouge, stocksdale, what, stocksdale?

Roy Stocksdale was a good friend of Brother Osteen and they both got the baptism of the Holy Ghost about the same time Two Baptists, and that was in 1958.

So they were just ahead.

See, that's another thing about revival.

Sometimes they're preliminary, a little ahead of time.

See, that's what I want to be on the forefront of whatever God's going to do next.

I want to be right ahead of the game, right ahead of it.

Why do we have to lag behind?

Why can't we be just ahead of it?

Well, some of you like that idea.

I don't know.

Praise God.

And so here you had the charismatic renewal, went into the Baptist church, the Methodist church, even the Church of Christ.

I mean, there were people filled.

I know some people that were Church of Christ, got filled with the Holy Ghost and, of course, the Catholic church.

Pope John the 23rd was the pope in those years and I was just coming out of grade school in the high school in the 60s and he said it's time for us to open the windows of the church and let the Holy Spirit blow through.

That's what that pope said.

That was a genuine man of God.

We've got one in there now.

That's a Marxist.

God warned me about him, for he ever showed up.

I don't know if any of you remember that.

So they came in the Catholics I've been told that there's over two million Catholics in the Philippines that pray in tongues to bury.

I don't know if that's true or not, but anyway they need teaching.

The charismatic move was kind of wild and it wasn't based much on the word and so you get a lot of flakiness in the charismatic move.

See God not worried about that.

He wants to get the whole church hitting on the same cylinders.

He can revise and take care of all of those excesses.

And so in the 70s you had the teaching revival.

The teacher had gone away, nobody taught.

Now brother Hagan was a teacher and a prophet and a teacher.

So he loved to teach, he could preach, but God told him to slow down and he said teach my people faith.

So he was a teacher, he loved teaching.

He didn't much like functioning in the prophetic because like that preacher, I mean, that wasn't pleasant, that was pressured.

I have to know that about that man.

And then when he died he felt kind of bad that he didn't make more of an effort to warn him.

I thank God for preachers like that to tell you about their mistakes.

But anyway, so you had the teaching, you had teaching centers.

Rise up and you know you'd have faith center and teaching center and all that kind of thing.

Marilyn Hickey is a teacher, you know.

That's a good example of a teacher.

And then in the 80s you got into the prophetic, the prophets, and I'll never forget.

God spoke to me there's a prophet in town, I want you to skip church.

I didn't skip church.

I had a job to do at Lakewood man.

I showed up for my job, I didn't skip.

But the Holy Ghost spoke to me Sunday night before Sunday night service.

He said there's a prophet in town I want you to go to that meeting on Wednesday night.

Let him know that you're not going to be there Wednesday night.

And so I kind of didn't feel good.

But I mean I knew I heard from God, so I let you know.

I forgot who I told, but I didn't tell Brother Osteen, but I told somebody and so my whole family, we all went and it was Dr Ed DeFranc and he was at Roy Love's church, that little old bitty sanctuary that seats about 100 people.

Anybody ever remember that little old church that he had over there, golf Meadows church?

Little old bitty, I mean you know it's smaller than that right there, just a little bitty.

But he was there and he was preaching a house of fire.

I mean I got an impartial.

Are you with me now?

The prophets ministry in the 80s.

The apostolic came.

In the 90s we started getting understanding about the apostolic and also in the 90s you started getting some physical manifestations.

I know I mentioned that a little while ago.

Running you know, running is a physical.

Remember about Brother always talking about his mother running in the church.

Brother Mark, that's funny, you know, she'd take off running here.

She is 80 years old, she's running around the church and it was a physical manifestation of the spirit.

And so then, you know, his dad would get up and says well, you know, it's not necessary unless it's necessary, and this is necessary.

Drunkenness you know, this morning we had a little laughter, remember that.

You know I sang Jesus, jesus, jesus.

Carol had an urge to change the music, come up and play that song.

I started singing in the spirit of God fell, and when Gladys got up to speak and to pray over live streams, she started giggling and kind of couldn't really do, it couldn't function, see, and then everybody kind of giggled a little bit.

What, if we had wanted to, we could have gone right on into a full bore.

Oh, why didn't you?

Well, because I'll tell you why.

Because I believe strategy.

We're using strategy now.

It's something I learned from Brother Hagin.

He just said well, all services for most churches are just all the same, but in his day, when he pastored, the Sunday morning service was the Holy Ghost service, so they would have demonstration.

Now they did prophecy, they had tongues, interpretation.

I mean, he said one lady when he was pastoring had this little wood floor church, little one room church, and this lady started dancing in the spirit.

Now there was no music, she wasn't dancing to the music, she was over in the corner, nobody saw.

She was very quiet, but she was back there moving her feet like nobody could ever move their feet and by the end of the service she was at the whole service.

She was over there dancing and at the end of the service her shoes were worn out.

She had to throw them away.

Some people dance to the music and all some people twirl and all that.

But this was really the Holy Ghost comes on your feet.

I said the Holy Ghost comes on your feet.

Praise God, I'm a hopper.

I do more hopping.

I'm not as good with my feet Twirling, rolling.

We've had people roll and our first building, people roll all across from the church.

We'd lay hands on people at altar time and they'd lay there and all.

I remember this one lady man.

She was dressed at the night.

She was a businesswoman.

She had her hair coiffed, she had her high heels on.

She was absolutely spotless and she fell out.

Hands were laid on her.

She fell out.

I don't remember what the need was.

When she got up she was so drunk, she was like this and she started running down the aisle of that first building and she forgot to turn.

When she got to the back she hit the back wall and fell in the heat.

Demonstration of the spirit Drunkenness.

Are y'all getting anything out of this?

Well, are you willing to yield yourself?

Now?

See, sunday morning in his church.

That was for the home crowd.

They understood that it wouldn't offend anyone.

People would yield and say yeah, and the Spirit of God could move in the church on Sunday morning.

But Sunday night everybody knew what was in order.

Sunday morning would be out of order, sunday night.

Now I read this years ago and it bothered me for years and years and years.

Until last year we decided we're going to make a change for Sunday morning we're going to see.

Sunday night is our Holy Ghost time.

We don't have very many visitors on Sunday night.

Typically Tonight we might have some because of baptism, I don't know.

But Sunday morning, that's when we have visitors, that's when we have uninitiated and that's when people can just turn around and leave because they don't know what you're doing and it doesn't relate to them, it's new to them and what are we trying to do?

We're trying to attract people, right, and so it makes sense then.

So we started backing off a little on Sunday morning, getting out a little earlier, making a little bit more palatable for people to come here.

Amen, and you know what?

The Holy Ghost is, not greed.

The Holy Ghost is there.

I mean, he was here this morning.

I could have taken the service into drunkenness and we could all have a whoo, but there have been a lot of people here that wouldn't know what in the world we were doing might have been offended.

Are y'all looking at me kind of funny?

Well, it's true anyhow.

So in his town that church Holy Ghost was Sunday morning and sometimes the spirit of God would just come on a holy hush and it wouldn't be a sound.

They had kids in there, they had babies in there, no babies crying, no kids running, everybody quiet.

The spirit of God would fall and just Well, one lady, her husband was unsaved and he'd been thinking about coming to the church and he'd heard about this church and so he came up to the church late.

He was going to come in just in time for the preaching and so he came up to the door and he put his ear to the door and he didn't hear anything.

It was total silence.

There was no music, there's no preaching, there's no nothing.

And he thought, oh my God, I missed the rapture.

And he opened the door and everybody's in there, everybody's in there, and there's nobody making a sound.

He came right up the front aisle and knelt down and gave his heart to Jesus.

So every now and then you'll get one.

But then Sunday night was supposed to be evangelistic night.

That was the night when they had the best singing.

They had lots of singing, they had the best music in town.

Everybody came to hear the music and that was when they opened the doors and it was the community church.

Everybody would come, everybody would be comfortable and you know that was more evangelistic in nature.

Are you getting anything out of this?

But I'm talking about demonstrations of the spirit.

And I remember in 1988, gladys and I had a friend at Lakewood that we knew and she was launching out in her ministry and invited us to come.

She rented a hotel or something, a meeting room, a pretty good size one actually, and it was, you know, she was Friday night, saturday, and we wound up going on a Saturday afternoon.

She had another guy that I'd never heard of.

He's a good preacher and he was bringing the message on the meeting that Gladys and I decided to go to.

So we went and we were you know, we're tired, we have a lot going on and all the time running back and forth four times a week to Lakewood and all that kind of thing.

So so the preacher got up and he preached a while and then he said I wanna have an altar call.

Everybody.

That just needs strength.

You know, you just a little bit tired and you need a refreshing.

Just come on down here.

And last night we don't ever get prayer.

We're the ones that are praying for people.

That's our job at Lakewood.

We pray for everybody.

We don't ever get prayer.

I don't go up for prayer, I'm praying all the way.

I thought, well, hey, let's go up and get prayer.

This was a good message, let's go get refreshed.

So we did.

We went up and he laid hands on us.

I felt some anointing, you know, and she did too, and we just we didn't fall out because we had to, we just yielded.

Sometimes when you fall out you're yielding, but sometimes when you fall out you get knocked down, right.

I don't know if you've ever had that happen, but I have.

But anyway, it wasn't a knock down, it was a yield.

We got back up, we made our way around.

It was a pretty good size room.

We waited way around.

We were sitting on the sides and the front row on the side of the area and about that time the preacher started.

He had went from single file because that's what we were doing, single file.

He moved people like across the front and he started going down the line this way.

And as he was going down the line this way, he was singing in other tongues to Mary had a little lamb, shokalapa, katale, katale.

You know when.

It was kind of funny, we're looking at each other and just kind of oh yeah, all right, okay.

And then he shifted into a shoe fly, don't bother me.

Well, when he shifted into a shoe fly don't bother me we both fell on our face in front of our chairs, laughing our heads off.

We could not contain ourselves.

Holy laughter hit both of us and we were laughing and laughing, our sides hurt, our jaws cramped and there were people from Lakewood there, you know, supporting this and she was watching too and she was pointing at us and everybody was pointing at us like because we were the only ones really getting drunk.

We got real drunk and it was the first time it ever happened to me.

1988.

Demonstration of the spirit and skipped to a Maloo, my darling.

That was the next song.

I mean, all the religious devils went running out the door.

Come on, let's lift our hands, lord, we just yield ourselves to the Holy Ghost.

We are nobody's fool, but we're fools for Christ.

Ha ha, ha, ha ha ha.

We yield ourselves.

You know God has to get you to a place where you will yield.

I said he has to get you to a place where you will yield.

He won't be so worried about what people think.

So in 1992, it was a Sunday night, I think at Lakewood and by that time I think it was Gary Simon was leading worship and when we first moved in there it was rotating and it was a long time for when we had a worship team that was jailed, it could get us.

Plus the fact when we I'm just observing, I'm not criticizing, I'm just saying when we moved into that new building from that old place across the street, the press across the street was just man, it was dripping with the Holy Ghost all the time.

When we moved in the new building it was a lot of people impressed, and so the more impressed they were with their surroundings, the less the Holy Spirit manifested.

It was pretty dry there for a while.

I mean the only thing you had going was Brother Osteen preaching.

I mean he could bring it and did bring it.

It was powerful, but without that it would have been tough.

And so the worship team I mean they're good, but they didn't have a really solid leader.

Brock Wilson was the leader.

Whenever he led it was good, and I'm not criticizing the other one, I'm just saying he was the leader, but somehow they just didn't have a leader.

So then, when Gary got married to April, and then Gary took it over, it took off.

And so one night, sunday night, man, I was on the front row in a preacher.

A pastor friend of mine that I knew from San Antonio, was sitting next to me and glad it's over here.

And I kept seeing myself running and we'd get up to a crescendo, you know, and Brother Osteen was up on the platform by this time and he'd get ready to preach.

And then everybody would holler and the service would get back up and the worship team would kick back in and start singing whatever it was they were singing.

And finally I said, when it died back down, I said, well, lord, if it comes back up again, I'm all, I'm gonna run, I don't care.

And so it came back up and, man, I took off, I took off to the left and I ran all the way.

Jim Whitwick was standing there.

I thought he was, I didn't.

He didn't know what to do.

His eyes were this big.

Jim's not here tonight.

I wish he was here.

And I ran by the ushers Sam, are you here, sam?

Sam was there.

I ran right by Sam.

My jacket was like this.

I was running so fast.

My jacket was wide open.

I was giggling.

It was the most exhilarating thing I'd ever had for me.

I mean, I was just so filled with joy running around the bottom of that sanctuary.

I came all the way around and got back to my chair.

Everybody was screaming and hollering and they just lifted the service up and when I got back I was not breathing hard, I was not out of breath.

And I turned to Al and I said I'm not even breathing hard, I feel like Elijah.

You know, the hand of the Lord came upon Elijah and he outran the chariot 20 miles back to Jezreel.

Amen, I mean, it was super natural, because I'm not a runner, I'm not a jogger, and but the hand of the Lord did come upon me.

Come on, let's demonstration of the spirit.

So we had a good service, you know, got back, I closed the service in prayer, got back off the platform, put the microphone up and there were some people standing in there next to where I was gonna go, and then I recognized the lady.

She was not blood related, but you know she was my aunt Eunice.

She's not blood related, she's my uncle's wife, it was her niece.

So anyway, it's kinda close and I hadn't seen her in a long time.

And I said, well, farrell, and I thought, well, she picked a night to come while I'm running around the church, you know.

I said well, farrell, and it's good to see you.

What brings you here to Lakewood, you know, cause I knew she went to one of those new age churches.

You know she needs to get saved, she's in a new age church and she said, oh, the bankers are having a bank, I'm in banking and we're having a convention.

And my colleagues here just begged me.

They'd heard about John Osteen in Lakewood Church for years and one of them was just grinning, you know, he was just grinning like a possum man.

I mean, he just grinning, he was grinning from ear to ear and I made eye contact with him, you know, and I said, well, I guess you saw me running.

He said, oh man, it was great.

I loved this tonight.

This was great.

Of course she was kinda didn't know what to say.

She was kinda sputtering and coughing and everything else.

Praise God, are you ready to yield to the Holy Ghost?

Rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

There's another revival coming.

I said there's another revival and just while we were, while Jay was baptizing there, I just I just had this in my spirit.

I won't prophesy it, but I'll just read what the Bible says, that in Malachi, chapter four, verse five Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

And I believe, among other things, about this next revival.

I believe it will be an, in you know, a harvest revival.

But I believe one of the hallmarks of this next revival that God showed me just now is the fathering.

The fathers are going to rise up.

It's gonna.

We have few fathers in the church.

It's obvious.

It's obvious from looking at the way the country has gone.

The church is not taking a leadership role.

The churches are hiding.

Pastors are afraid they're compliant with government.

I mean, the book of Acts is not compliant with government.

We've got to obey.

People have asked me over and over why.

Why is it?

Well, because the fear of there's no fear of God.

There's the fear of man, and fear of man brings a snare.

What fear of man?

Well, the fear of government, fear of the IRS lifting the and they can't take the tax exempt off of the church.

They can get rid of the 501c3, but they can't take the tax exempt.

We're tax exempt by law.

They would have to pass a whole new law.

I never wanted a number.

I didn't have one for three years.

I didn't like going to the government and asking them for anything.

I didn't start this church with any governmental permission and I didn't like going to them to get me some kind of letter that somebody can look up online and decide whether I'm legitimate or not.

I don't like being legitimized by the government.

I did it because there's almost no way you can get a tax exemption when you go buy computer equipment, you go to stay in a hotel, all of those kind of things.

We do have benefits of tax exemption, but if you don't have that number you don't get them.

So I finally just gave up and got a number, but I don't care if it costs us the number to do what God called us to do.

I don't fear the IRS, I don't fear the government and I don't fear my board of deacons, because I don't have one.

I don't have a.

You know I'm on the board of grace, a family held church.

I, you know I'm in charge.

I have to worry about getting fired because you didn't hire me.

He can fire me.

Hey, man, are you?

I'm not being arrogant, I'm just saying that this is why the church is words at that.

The church needs fathers.

Come on, let's lift our hands right now.

Father, you said you'd do it and I believe you showed me that and it's going to be a great element.

Just think about the kids out there that don't have fathers, all these riders and looters.

Most of them don't have fathers.

They wouldn't know their father if he walked up.

No wonder they're angry.

They're misguided.

They don't have anybody to watch over them, to hold them accountable.

In fact, they don't even know how to be held accountable.

If you try to say anything to them, they they rise up.

I tell you, I believe God is about to move in in the, in the church, and I just want us, I want us to be on the forefront of whatever God's going to do.

I don't know, amen.

So let's learn to respond and help to usher in the greater demonstration of the spirit.

Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

Praise God.

Thank you, lord, for the Holy Ghost, thank God for demonstration, thank God that we've got a group of people that want whatever God's got, don't want to withhold anything.

We're not withholding anything on our side.

We know that you're not withholding anything on your side.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen, amen, praise God.