I feel like singing some more.
I just, you sometimes just come into church and you just want to praise God and you don't
want to do much more but we need to build ourselves up with the Word of God, Amen?
Yeah.
Okay, we can take the offering.
It's good to know, you know, when we give in this church, you know some churches put
up a pie graph and then they show you their budget and how much more money we need and
da da da da da da da da da da.
I call those begging charts.
We didn't have to do that in this church because the Holy Spirit always provides what we need.
But if we were to put up one of those charts, we would tell you where the money goes and
I just think it's good people know.
Like if you want to know anything about money in this church, I don't touch it, John handles
it all but it's an open book.
You can come and ask how the money is used but I'll tell you, most of the money is used
to help people that are the most dispossessed, most needy, both spiritually and physically
because we have so much.
And so you can be pleased when you give.
It goes, I believe, to where the Holy Spirit is directing us, Amen.
Okay, if you have a Bible, open it and I'm just going to read two verses today which
I think are really important.
Father God, as we come to Your Word, Lord, You are the Word become flesh.
I ask today that this Word will actually become flesh to us, Lord.
It will become life to us and it will change what needs changing in Jesus' name.
Galatians chapter 5, a great passage in the scriptures that you should know really well.
If you're a spirit-filled believer, you will.
Verse 16, I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh
for the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are
contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish.
I feel the preach a lot on the Spirit at the moment because I believe that God is beginning
to pour out the Spirit upon all flesh and as the world becomes darker, Isaiah 60 says
the time of the world's great darkness and we're seeing it emerge now is also the time
of the greatest glory in the church and the glory in the church can only manifest through
the life of the Spirit.
And in my years of being a pastor, I have witnessed many salvations and I've witnessed
many people receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and they receive it and they have an
experience in the Holy Spirit and then I've also witnessed many people think that's the
end of it.
I've got it all.
What Paul says here, he says you don't just need to learn to receive the Holy Spirit,
you need to understand how to walk in the Spirit or another translation is walk with
the Spirit because the Holy Spirit is a person who if you've come to the cross of Christ,
recognized that you're a sinner, the Holy Spirit did that work to convict you but you've
actually recognized, repented of that sin and received Christ as your Lord and Savior
at that very moment, that very second, you receive the person of the Holy Spirit to come
and indwell you and then when you are baptized in the Holy Spirit, you receive the Holy Spirit
upon you to empower you.
So every believer who receives Christ as their Lord and Savior is filled with the Holy Spirit,
every believer is.
But Paul was writing to this letter, he was writing to a group of people who had experienced
the Holy Spirit, had been filled with the Holy Spirit, had been baptized in the Holy
Spirit and then what God had started in their life, Satan came and stole it through religious
people and it still happens today.
These people were going along, they believed they needed a Savior, by faith they received
Christ and by faith they also received the blessing of Abraham which is the person of
the Holy Spirit.
So they'd received that and then somebody came in, these Judaizers who were jealous
about what was happening in their midst because when the Spirit is at work, other people will
become jealous of what God is doing in your life.
And when these people came and saw what was happening in these Spiritful believers, they
actually tried to steal them, steal the blessing and these joy killers came and said, aha,
but you are not really saved, you may have received Christ but the real sign of a spiritual
person is circumcision.
And this is what a contemporary Judaizer or a contemporary Pharisee will always try to
convince you is that Christ and the Spirit is not enough.
You need Jesus plus something.
You know today it's not circumcision but people sometimes say it's, you know, you're not really
saved unless you eat the right things.
You know you've got to apply parts of the law, you've got to actually, or you've got
to have your Sabbath on a certain day.
People say that even some people want to bring you back under the Jewish feast.
We celebrated Passover, we did that through the cross, but all these things are dead works
that are added, that are added to the simplicity of receiving Christ and being led by the Spirit.
And the first thing that happens when you're having your, the Spirit of God stolen from
you is you lose your joy.
That's why you call these type of Pharisees joy killers.
And Paul says to these people, when these people are trying to steal what God is doing
is you need to stand fast in the liberty which Christ has made us free and do not become
entangled again, verse one, with the yoke of bondage.
And see, Paul says, he says to us here, he says you need to not only receive the Spirit,
but you need to walk in the Spirit.
You need to reject these Judeanists and learn to walk in the Spirit.
Now when you walk, you're going somewhere.
And Paul contrasts here in the passage I read, he contrasts the life of the flesh.
He says walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill or gratify the lust of the flesh.
And he focuses on the fact that the flesh lusts against the Spirit.
If you walk in the Spirit, there's one evidence that you're going somewhere and where you're
going and when you get there, the place you're going to will always be a place that glorifies
God.
When you're walking in the flesh, the evidence that you're walking in the flesh is you always
arrive at places that please yourself.
And the problem with us is once you are saved, you receive the Holy Spirit within your body,
but your flesh is going to be with you until you die.
And that's why Paul says as soon as you're saved, there is a struggle that you are born
into and the struggle is caused by the divine life, the seed of divine life you receive
at conversion.
If you don't receive that seed of divine life, there's no struggle.
You're happy to do fleshly things.
You're happy to go the way the world goes, but once you receive the Holy Spirit, the
divine life, it produces a conflict within you and your flesh, which is all your senses,
touch, taste, smell, all those five senses, it wants to do opposite of what the spirit
man inside you wants to do.
There is a struggle going on and it's an age old struggle because it started when Sarah
was pregnant with Ishmael and Isaac.
They couldn't get on.
The flesh will never get on with the spirit.
You saw it again with Esau and Jacob.
There is always, Esau is a man of the flesh, Jacob's a man of the spirit, and they cannot
get on.
They cannot live together.
They want different things.
The Bible says that we have this treasure in a jar of clay.
The container is our flesh and the content, the Holy Spirit, is the treasure.
That's what happens, but they want different things.
This battle is like a, the way I describe it, it's like a gravitational pull because
the flesh is always wanting to pull you down into the lower nature.
The flesh is always wanting you to gossip.
The flesh is always encouraging you to lust.
The flesh is always encouraging you towards greed.
The flesh, there's an exhaustive list in chapter five verse 19, but it's a gravitational pull
to bring you down to a lower state.
It is of jealousy and all those sort of things, drunkenness.
But when we're in the spirit, it's like the law of aerodynamics.
We soar above and live above all the lower nature that the flesh wants us to do.
This is the only way we can make progress, is the only way we can defeat the flesh, the
only way we can get above the lower desires and the lower nature of the flesh, which wants
to do all that stuff, lust, gossip, be jealous, be greedy.
The only way, there is no other way to defeat that except to walk in the spirit.
A lot of Christians I've seen over the years try to get victory in the Christian life through
what I would call self-will and self-effort.
It leads to people living a great life of frustration.
That's why I say that I think the thing that is most needed in the church is to be able
to teach people on how to walk in the spirit.
One of the great evidence I believe that, you see the Holy Spirit as a person is that
you're walking in the flesh is when you come to dark times.
Everyone is going to face dark times, everyone's going to go through difficult, dark periods
in your life.
There's no denying it.
And when you're a Christian, I think you go through darker times.
But when someone who is walking in the flesh encounters darkness, a dark season, a challenge
in your, maybe your family, your marriage, your business, whatever it is, when you're
walking in the flesh, you, that darkness produces fear in you and that fear neutralizes and
often paralyzes your walk.
Now we're all going to experience the darkness, but the Word of God, David said, even though
I walk through the, what does he say?
Shadow of the, I will not fear.
Why?
Because you are with me.
When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, there is a person with you and when you're in those
dark times, you know you're not alone because that person is the presence of God.
It is the Spirit of God and you know, you know that your fear, yes, you're going to
experience the emotion of fear, but rather than that fear stop you, terminate you, you
know that fear is temporary because the person that is with you is the power of God and he's
going to take you through.
He's going to take you through.
So it's like, that's why the Bible says, I did not give you a spirit of fear, but of
power of love and a sound mind.
Now if you turn to Romans chapter 8, this is a great passage again and tells us that
the true sons of God walk by the Spirit, not of the flesh.
Both these passages speak about the tension and the battle between the flesh and the Spirit.
It tells us how to overcome the lower nature, how to be victorious, not through self-will,
how to overcome the gravitational pull of the flesh trying to drag you into the lower
nature and how to walk in the Spirit which lifts you into a different realm.
When you walk in the Spirit, God is with me is not just a theology, it's a reality.
You know the presence of God is with you and you live, this is not an arrogance, but you
live above your circumstances.
You have the same circumstances, but they don't take you down.
You're able to go through them and stay on top.
You're able to go through the same battles, the same challenges, but they do not pull
you down.
They do not take you down and that's because the Spirit has the last say in every battle.
The Spirit has the last word in every battle.
So you say, well how do I walk in the Spirit or with the Spirit and not allow my flesh
to lead me, not be led just by my human senses?
Firstly you have to, when those people come to you, there are Judaizes today.
There are many people, I've encountered many both outside and some have come inside the
church and said, you're a good church, but you need to be doing X, Y, Z.
And if you listen to that, you'll grieve the Holy Spirit, you'll lose your freedom, the
joy of the Lord will leave you, your strength will go and you'll say, I don't know what's
happened but ever since I decided that eating five apples a day was necessary to salvation,
whatever it is, whatever it is you add to the simplicity of Christ will steal your joy.
It'll steal your freedom because it is Christ alone who saves us and the Spirit alone empowers
us.
So when you encounter that, you can't be nice to everyone, you need to stand firm in the
liberty.
You need to be able to recognize it and say, it sounds good, it sounds good but it's not
for me.
So you need to be able to recognize it and stand firm.
Paul says, stand firm now in the liberty you received.
And then I believe the Holy Spirit walking in the Spirit and walking by faith are almost
two sides of the same coin.
And when Paul speaks about walking in the Spirit, you're seeing Galatians chapter five,
which is where he's addressing this, he begins in chapter three by saying, oh you foolish
Galatians who has bewitched you.
And then he goes on to say, this only I want to learn from you, did you receive in verse
two, the spirit of the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?
He goes on to say, therefore he supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles, does he
do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?
You see the connection between the receiving of the Spirit and faith.
And then he says it again in chapter three verse 14, that the blessing of Abraham might
come upon the Gentiles in Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith.
So if you are going to walk in the Spirit, faith really, I've come to like this later
definition as I get older, faith really means dependency upon God for everything.
And faith in this context means dependency upon the Spirit for everything.
You got to know that your flesh can produce nothing good because when you're, let me just
wait, when you're walking some, walk in the Spirit, what do you use to walk?
Use legs and you lean on your legs and you depend upon your legs to get you where you
want to go.
And this is what you've got to do when you walk in the Spirit, you've got to depend and
lean upon the Spirit for everything.
Everything, you got to know from your flesh you can produce nothing good.
If you have a strategy, it may sound good, it may be good, but if it is not birthed by
the Holy Spirit, it will not get you where God wants to get you and that is the place
to glorify Him.
So you got to lean on the Holy Spirit.
And so you come to a temptation.
You know most people I know, they actually, a lot of people they try to overcome temptation
through self-will.
And then they fail because flesh can't overcome flesh and they become despondent, they say
this doesn't work.
But when you throw yourself on God and you say, I know I can't overcome this temptation,
I know I'm going to give it into it apart from you Holy Spirit.
When you do that and when you depend upon the Holy Spirit, a river and a flow is released
to you.
What is it?
Not fear, but power to overcome that temptation.
Love to love that person who's trying to make you angry and control you.
You actually have a supernatural ability to love them and then you have a sound mind.
Your thinking gets onto God's frequency.
But it's only released, that's the life of the Spirit is only released when we are dependent
upon Him for everything.
Everything.
You got to learn to depend on the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit, when He's in you, Jesus said in John chapter seven, and it's very
instructive even today because this still happens.
But Jesus is watching, He's watching people celebrate what God did yesterday, but they
have no present day expectation God's going to do anything miraculous today.
And He's watching them, they're celebrating when Moses bought water out of the rock to
feed 600,000 people or whatever it was.
And He struck the rock and this supernatural event happened, water flowed.
But they had no expectancy that this was the same God who could do similar things in their
midst today.
And Jesus was watching this, you know, this is what religion is, it's a celebration of
what God did yesterday with no present day expectation that He's alive today.
And He's watching this and He's becoming angry because He's saying, I'm here.
The rock which was struck is standing before you and you can't recognize it.
That's what religion does to you.
And He says, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink, he who believes in me as
the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
And He said, that's the Holy Spirit.
But see the Holy Spirit comes when you're filled, when you believe and you're filled,
He comes to indwell you and you are filled and He starts to change you from the inside
out.
But I've said this many times, the Holy Spirit can be in you as a pond or He can be in you
as a river.
And for Him to be in you as a river dominating and dictating to your flesh, there needs to
be a flow.
And how do you make the river flow?
It's the same thing when you're baptized in the Holy Spirit.
So you're filled with the river but you're baptized with fire.
The river needs to be stirred in order to flow, the fire needs to be stirred when it
becomes a flicker.
And that's why Paul says to Timothy, in 1 Timothy chapter, 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse
6, he says this, therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through
the laying on of hands.
So the river that you've received the Holy Spirit sometimes in you as a pond, there's
no life, there's no peace, there's no joy, there's no victory, nothing's happening because
you need to stir up that gift.
Or maybe you received a spiritual gift.
This is referring to a spiritual, remember the gift of prophecy.
But that gift, the person of the Holy Spirit needs to be stirred.
And how do you stir the Holy Spirit which is within you?
You need to be a stirred person so that you're in overflow because when you get to someone
to minister to, it's too late to stir yourself.
There needs to be a flow.
Jesus says, David said my cup overflows.
How do you stir?
Ezekiel chapter 47 is a prophetic picture of the end time church which is moving in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
And it says there is a river that flows and this river flows and it's really the spirit-filled
church being led by the Holy Spirit.
And everywhere these people who are filled with the Spirit go, they bring healing.
Whatever this river touches, it gets healed.
So it says the river flows in verse 1 from under the threshold of the temple.
Now that's in chapter 47 but a lot of people don't know what precedes chapter 47 is chapter
46, profound.
And then it says chapter 46 is which precedes chapter 47 about the river flowing.
It is all about worship.
The headline is the matter of worship.
And it says that he shall worship at the threshold of the gate.
And in Ezekiel 47 says the water flows from under the threshold.
What am I saying?
Is that the way to stir the Holy Spirit, the way to be a stirred is through worship.
And worship, the reason a lot of people are not stirred is they think worship is an event
we do on Sunday.
Worship is an act that we bring to God every second of our lives.
And is just completely being surrendered to Him, completely being needed to Him, praising
Him with our obedience.
That's a life of worship and that's why the Spirit flows.
So to be a stirred person, to walk in the Spirit you must stir what you've received
and the first thing to stir yourself is worship.
The second thing that stirs your spirit is praying in tongues.
And I sometimes come into, I've got to be critical of my own church here, sometimes
I come into the prayer meeting.
You know a good prayer meeting, I'll tell you what a good prayer meeting.
It's about 30% real worship and then it's about the other 30% praying in tongues.
Because when you pray in tongues, God is a Spirit.
You're praying in the Spirit and you're tapping into the very mind of God.
And what you do, you're praying what God wants you to pray into your life.
You're praying things that you don't even know need to be prayed about.
There are things happening in your family.
When you pray in tongues you're actually praying the solution that God is wanting you
to pray because He is the God of the Word.
It is so powerful praying in tongues.
In the Spirit realm you're defeating spiritual powers that you can't even see.
You're cutting off problems that you don't even know are coming against you.
It is so productive to pray in the Holy Spirit.
And I want to be critical with some people.
It is okay to pray in the mind.
We want to come in and we want to, everything that's in the newspaper, everything we've
read, everything that's going on about politics, we want to pray about that, we want to pray
about this.
It's okay, but it's nothing like praying in the Spirit.
And when you pray in your Spirit, your Spirit is stirred.
Your Spirit is stirred.
And you know the evidence, the evidence that you're being baptized in the Holy Spirit,
I know there are some people, and I'm going to be critical, but some people they think
like weird behavior or manifestations of certain things shows that I'm a great spiritual person.
I'm not trying to show we're a great spiritual person, but the evidence you're baptized in
the Holy Spirit is you're praying tongues.
Silence.
Because people like the weirdness.
It means nothing.
Jesus, when he received the Holy Spirit, he's straight up.
Straight up.
There's nothing strange about him.
He's straight up.
Smith Wigglesworth said, once a man is baptized in the Holy Spirit, he is straight up because
it produces the life of Christ.
But we have to be a stirred people.
We have to be stirred.
And this time I believe the Holy Spirit is trying to stir his people.
He's trying to get us into that place where we want Christ, we want to obey him, we want
to praise him, we want him and nothing else.
We want to worship him with all of our life and we want the Spirit of God to flow.
You know, you've got to know that this is corporately and individually.
Without the Holy Spirit, the Christian life is absolutely hopeless.
He is the victory.
He is the one that gives you the victory.
He is the one that will defeat your flesh and trying to overcome and beat temptation
and beat that depression by self-will is only going to lead to frustration.
We have to get to the place where we say, I cannot overcome this.
I cannot defeat this what I'm fighting, whether it be a temptation, whether it be a depression,
I throw myself on the floor and I depend upon you Holy Spirit to do something in my life
that I can't do.
When you get to that place, the Holy Spirit releases a power, he produces a love into
your heart and reduces something into your mind that makes your thinking sound.
You didn't receive a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.
So we need to depend upon him.
We need to stir ourselves and you also need to feed the man.
There was an advert one day, feed the man meat but we need to because what it is, your
body is alive but your spirit man is in there and I prayed for someone once and it was really,
I couldn't figure out what God was trying to show me but he showed me later.
This person had all these issues in their life and when I stood there and prayed for
them all I could see was this incredibly puny man but they were quite a big person.
And God said to me, he said, the spirit man in them is so weak that the flesh keeps defeating
the spirit because they eat junk food all the time.
You know if all we read about, you know if you read the newspaper all the time you're
going to become worldly.
If you read the Bible all the time you're going to become godly.
And if you're feeding yourself, your soul and your body all the time on just the stuff
that the world, you know on your phone reading stuff all the time, your spirit man cannot
grow strong.
He yearns for the word of God.
He yearns for the logos and he yearns for the rima.
That's what builds your spirit man up is the word.
And we need to be people.
I'm concerned for these generation of Christians because it's almost as though, I've been
to a lot of places over the years, it's almost as though we're becoming post-word Christians.
People go and you go into churches and you see people without Bibles.
I think how can you, how can you be a Christian and not have a Bible?
That's your roadmap.
That's your food.
That's your sword.
Okay.
Now, let me read.
Still got plenty of time.
Okay.
Verse five, hold on to your hat.
Verse five of Romans chapter eight, for those who live according to the flesh set their
minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things
of the spirit, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life
and peace because the carnally mind is enmity against God for is not, thanks to us, subject
to the law of God nor indeed can be.
So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
That's sobering, isn't it?
But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you.
Now, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not his.
And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because
of righteousness.
But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the spirit who
dwells in you.
Now what Paul is saying there is that when you receive the spirit, the spirit that's
in you, you have a mind, so you have a body, physical body with legs and arms, you have
a soul which is the realm of your mind, will and emotions, that's where psychologists work
on the soul, but you have a spirit.
In your body and your soul, they are still subject to sin and depravity, but your spirit
when you receive it, it is the spirit of God.
There is no sin in it.
The spirit is completely righteous.
He is in you.
That's why you should say, you don't walk around saying, I'm just a sinner saved by grace.
That requires no faith, but also denies who's come to live in you.
And you're saying, well, I'm just a sinner saved.
That's saying, I want to remain subject to the flesh and defeated.
But you say, no, I am this person, this spirit man.
He's taking over.
The righteousness of God is in me and that's who I identify with.
And you say it by faith.
Not arrogantly, you're not saying, it's not saying that I'm not subject to sin, not saying
I don't fall, but I see myself not as someone who's going to be defeated.
People who say that, often it's an excuse to remain in sin.
It is.
It's an excuse.
They really don't want to overcome.
When you start to, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is, when you start to define
yourself as a righteousness of God, this stuff starts to fall off your life.
And it's not arrogance.
So here it is, it says, same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
What is that?
It's the resurrection spirit and it is life.
So it says this spirit, it's not only righteousness, he said, but the spirit is life, verse 10,
because of righteousness.
So the spirit is the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
Jesus was dead and this spirit came in and raised him back up.
And that same spirit is now living in you.
But here's where it gets exciting.
It says, but the spirit from him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the
spirit who dwells in you.
Ho.
So that spirit that is now in you, that raised Jesus from the dead, is able to bring, when
you're depressed, life into you and raise you up out of that depression.
When you're sick, he's able to come into your sickness and raise you up out of your sickness.
When you're in sin, he's able to come out into you and he's able to raise you out of
your sin because he is the spirit of life.
Everything about the Holy Spirit is life and it is righteousness.
So you have this treasure, this spirit of life in a jar of clay, but your jar of clay
still lasts and it still gets depressed.
So how do you get the life of the spirit to affect the soul and the realm of the flesh?
Paul says here, for those who living according to the flesh set their minds on the things
of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit, for
to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
The bridge between the life of the spirit and your soul and your body is your mind.
Your mind is the battlefield and your mind is the bridge, but if you keep thinking, I
am just a sinner saved by grace.
I am just going to be sick forever.
This is never going to change.
Your mind when you think like that is focused.
It's called carnally minded and it is death, but the mind that is...
Listen to this.
The mind, the carnally mind is enmity against God because it is not subject to the law of
God, but if you set your things on the things of the flesh, those according to the spirit,
but if you set your mind on things of the spirit, life is released.
What does the spirit want your mind focused on?
It says there right in the passage.
The spirit is life because of righteousness.
In other words, the spirit comes in you to produce righteousness.
And when your thinking is in line with the spirit, not prosperity, not success, but your
thinking is on righteousness.
When your thinking is on righteousness, you're thinking that's when the spirit, which is
life, releases resurrection life into your soul and into your body.
That's when the power that is in you is released.
It is all dependent upon how you think.
I'm telling you, the mind is the battlefield.
I've seen this many, many times.
I've seen over the years, I've seen how come it is that some believers, they get saved.
Three years later, they're saving others.
They're laying hands on the sick.
They got a ministry.
It's like, wow, so quickly.
In others, they've been Christians for 50 years and they go around circles.
What's the difference?
It's the mind.
The mind focused on the flesh or the mind focused on righteousness?
The Bible actually says, God saved me to make me righteous like His son.
That's what I want to be.
That's what I think about.
That's my goal.
That's my aim.
The spirit is life because of righteousness and the one who raised Christ from the dead
gives life to your mortal bodies through His spirit that dwells in you.
So we have been filled with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
We also have this treasure in a jar of clay.
Every day as a Christian, we need to make a choice.
What realm am I going to live in?
The realm of the flesh, the soul?
Am I going to depend upon my own resources, my own thinking, even my own religious history,
my own religious experience?
Am I going to depend upon that?
Or am I actually going to say every day, Holy Spirit, I need you.
I need to know you more.
I cannot overcome temptation of my own.
I know that my flesh can produce no good thing.
I need a fresh touch of you.
I need you to move and I'm going to worship you.
I'm going to pray in the spirit till the Holy Spirit starts to move again in my life.
I'm going to be determined to be a stirred Christian.
I'm going to feed my spirit man the Word of God and I'm going to focus my mind on becoming
the righteousness of Christ.
There's four things.
If you do those, if you do those, there'll be a takeover in your life.
The Holy Spirit will take over you.
You have a body, a soul and a spirit.
The key is to having... You know, have you ever seen an American marching band when they
come out?
That's the most glorious thing.
Have you ever gone to America?
I lived in America for a short while and they have before their sports, they have these
marching bands and they're just all in sync and they're all... They just march beautifully
and they all know what to do.
Everything's in order and it's proper place.
But you know why they're all in order?
There's this guy out the front and he's got a pole and he's going doot, doot, doot, doot
and everything he does, they're watching and they're all following him and they're all
getting their directions from him and they're all doing what he says.
That's how the Holy Spirit has to be in your life.
He has to be the band leader.
The one is out front with the influence that everything else follows.
I am so excited.
As a pastor, I've never been so excited and I'm not meaning to offend anybody here but
I know what God is doing.
We are going to see a great outpouring and the glory of the latter day is going to be
greater than the former.
There is going to be... I want to touch on things but I don't want you to be... Because
what's going to happen is that when the Holy Spirit is poured out... God showed me this
years ago.
I used to be a really poor surfer in Cronulla when I was young and I wasn't very good but
I used to sit on my board and my ski out there and because I wasn't very good, I didn't catch
many waves.
But I stood out there and I sat out there and what I would notice was that if you just
sat out there and a big swell came, big wave came, I would just enjoy the bobbing up and
down.
It was an experience and it was great but the good surfers, they would anticipate what
God was doing and they would ride into it and they would ride the wave a long way.
I had the experiences bobbing up and down.
When revival comes, this is what it's going to be like.
If you're someone who lives in the flesh, you're going to say, oh, God's doing something.
It's gone.
But if you're someone who knows how to walk in the Spirit, you know you're going to go
somewhere.
That wave of God's glory is going to take you.
It's going to take you in a ministry.
It's going to take you in a place.
It's going to take you and heal you.
God's going to use you to heal people.
It's going to take you to preach.
It's going to take you in the dimensions that you can't get to if you're in the Spirit.
It's going to take your business places.
It's going to take you somewhere.
But we really have to and I'm feeling so strong about this.
This is not just us.
It's the Western Church.
It's so carnal and there has to be a repentance of how we've trusted in flesh.
We have trusted in flesh.
We've trusted in programs, you know, and God is dealing with it.
If you've got eyes to see all the entertainment, God's pulling it all down now.
He's going to bring His church back to a people who are dependent upon the Holy Spirit and
know how to walk in and with Him.
That's the future church.
You know?
If I've upset you, I'm sorry.
Actually, I'm not.
It's the Holy Spirit.
I'm just preaching in the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit's upset you.
But we are going to see God do something in this day.
And I even believe, you know, if you've got eyes to see, if you've got eyes to see, you
know that in 2019 something changed.
It's not going back.
We are entering into what the Bible calls the birth pains.
And the world is going to get very, very dark.
It's going to get darker.
But this is what the Bible says.
For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people.
But the Lord will rise over you and His glory will be seen upon you.
The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.
It's on the wall over there.
I didn't even put it up there.
Someone put it up there as a prophetic gesture.
But this means that the hour of the greatest darkness is always, is also going to be the
hour of the church's glory because the church walks in the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is what's coming.
Let's pray.
Father, we come to you today as your children.
We are so thankful for Jesus that you sent Him, that you slayed Him for my sin, that
you put Him on that cross and kept Him there in my place and in my stead.
And I believe, you know, the Holy Spirit says, Peter said in Acts chapter 2, repent and receive
the Holy Spirit.
Someone here, you need to repent.
You've never received the Holy Spirit.
You're not saved.
But that's what the Holy Spirit says to you today.
The very life of God wants to come and indwell you, but you need to repent before you can
receive.
Whoever that's for, that's God speaking, not me.
But Father, we thank you that you put your Son in my place, that He paid the penalty
for all my sin.
And when I came to Him, I was forgiven.
I was cleansed.
I was washed.
And I was made into something new, new creation.
The only reason it is new is because it now has someone living in me that wasn't living
there before.
This is the source of the newness.
It is your Spirit.
And we come to you today, Lord, and we repent and we apologize to you for ignoring you,
Holy Spirit.
We repent and apologize to you for preferring our own wisdom, our own religious background.
We've trusted in other things and we have failed.
But today, Lord, you are doing a new thing and we rejoice.
We rejoice because you're merciful, you're gracious to forgive us.
And we come to you today, Lord, and we say to you, Lord, we can do nothing without you.
We declare to you, Lord, today our dependence, our humble dependence upon you for everything.
Father, to overcome temptation, we need you, Holy Spirit.
To overcome depression, we don't need the doctor, we need you, Holy Spirit.
To overcome the darkness, we need you, Holy Spirit.
To heal what is ailing, we need your resurrection life, Holy Spirit.
I'm asking this morning that you deal with all self-sufficiency, you deal with our pride,
you deal with our mind, you deal with our slothfulness, that you stir us this morning,
stir in us desire to worship you, to stir up that gift by praying in the Spirit.
To feed the man, the word, spiritual man, the word of God.
That we may not frustrate you.
Lord, you say if we walk in the Spirit, we're going somewhere.
You want to take us to a place that glorifies you.
You want us to finish our life knowing that we have not been ordinary but extraordinary
because we have glorified the Lord Jesus Christ in this life.
Lord, that is your plan.
That is your plan.
I ask that you deal with our flesh today.
I give you permission, Lord.
We say come Holy Spirit, convict us, convict us where we are carnal and help us.
You are the helper, hallelujah.
Help us to walk into that place where we will glorify you.
Holy Spirit, we need you.
We need you.
No, thank you that we're not without you, that we have you.
Stir us and keep us stirred for the sake of your kingdom in Jesus' name.
All the people said, get ready church, God is about to move.
I know it.
I just feel those raindrops, first raindrops of an outpouring.
I know it in my spirit and I'm excited.
If you feel like you need to repent of anything or if you feel like the Spirit of God just,
He never leaves you but sometimes you feel like He's left you.
If you need, the Bible says you need to be filled and not just once, you need to be continually
filled and filled and filled.
The way you stay filled is to be empty of your own strength, empty of confidence in
the flesh.
If you need a fresh filling, I'm not going to pray for you, no one's going to touch you.
You just come out here and say to God, I need a fresh touch.
I need the Holy Spirit and He will do something new in your life.
Hallelujah.