You need the Holy Spirit
You need the Holy Spirit. He isn't a matter of do you want him, no God says you need the Holy Spirit whether you want him or not. If you want to walk the solid Christian Life, you're going to have to go after, and bring the Holy Spirit into living reality to your life. We can pray with you at the altar to get you a jump start, Hallelujah!, but you got to go after him more than just in the church. You got to make him something you really want to seek and spend some time seeking at home.
1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9
"but as it is written"
I could make a whole message out of as it's written but you've heard me talk about it before whenever these people write down the word it is written, that puts Authority behind it. That means it's done. "Eye Has Not Seen Nor Ear heard natural eye natural ear nor have entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those that love him". Verse 10
"but God has revealed them to us through his spirit for the spirit searches the things, yes the Deep things of God. for what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world" that's important not the spirit of the world but the spirit capital S Holy Spirit who is from God. "And we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God, these things we also speak not in Words which man's Wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual but the natural man does not receive the things of the Holy Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is is rightly judged by no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him" that's Capital H.
Has anybody ever tried to tell God how to do it. You're not going to get far. But we have the mind of Christ, praise the Lord! He's talking about the Holy Spirit and today in the churches there is a great lack of the reality and preaching about the Holy Spirit. Receiving and moving in the Holy Spirit, and I don't know how it all happened but if you go to many churches that even claim to be Holy Spirit Full Gospel Pentecostal, you hardly even know that the Holy Spirit is there, that there is anything special about it. It takes time to seek the Holy Spirit and to have the Holy Spirit move among you and because for whatever reason, we quit going aggressively after the Holy Spirit.
Churches have replaced Him by programs. We got a program for everything and some of it if you'd seek the Holy Spirit you wouldn't need a program.
Entertainment
some people are entertained with the gimmicks, smoke machines, flashing
lights, it gives you a tingle. It gives you an emotional experience, but most of the time it's not the real power of the Holy Spirit coming your way
So we've gone and replaced the Holy Spirit's power, and I could go down a long list of things such as...
Preaching about how to get rich. Send me your money and you'll get rich. Go ahead you can laugh. If you've watched TV you know what I'm talking about.
The Devil is Attacking Our Churches Backbone
We don't want to offend anybody so we're not going to talk in tongues, we're not going to talk about Holiness, we're not going to talk about sin, and that's just exactly the way the devil wants it because our faith has to do with God, Our faith has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, our faith has to do with the power the Holy Spirit, our faith has to do with being saved actually saved, not saying a prayer, but repenting of sin and giving your life over to the Lord Jesus Christ and believing that he has paid for our sins and receiving the Holy Spirit in and being born again. We have problems not only with that crowd, but you got another group, and I don't often name names but I'm going to this morning. Beware of the false doctrines of John MacArthur and RC Sproul. They are of a group called cessationists which means they don't believe the Holy Spirit does these things anymore. They don't believe. They believe that after the Bible was written and the last Apostle went off, that all miracles all movings of the Holy Spirit quit. That's a Doctrine, in fact both of them hammer on it so hard that I wonder if they're not blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Calling the miracles of God today Devils, demons, I don't know if any of you are watching them or listening to them but once in a while I hear Christians paying a lot of attention. Well you pay attention to that guess what's going to happen? You're going to go flat in your walk with God. Say Amen somebody. I guess you don't agree with me. Well anyhow you can look it up and see.
Starting with verse 10 in 1 Corinthians 2, "the things of God are revealed to you by the Holy Spirit"
You can get a lot in your head but it's got to get in your heart. If you just get in your head you'll get religious, if you get it in your heart you'll get right with God.
"the things of God through His Spirit and they are multitude" in other words the promise here is it opens up the reality of the Unseen Godly world the seen kingdom of God the unseen reality of things we don't visibly see the kingdom of God even though the kingdom of God is in us. we don't see what is the kingdom of God. The Angels, once in a while, there's a breakthrough but God reveals to them those things to us so that we can understand the things of God, the Holy Spirit Spirit teaches. How does He teach you? Read your Bible, listen to True preaching and the Holy Spirit makes things real to you, and you understand things that you wouldn't understand if the Holy Spirit didn't show you. That's why sometimes the unsaved and the carnal Circle their ears when you're talking we're talking about a rushing Mighty Wind, there it comes. Hallelujah!
So God has revealed the things of God To us by His Spirit. That's one reason why we need the Holy Spirit desperately, Hallelujah. We need the Holy Spirit alrighty well talking about the Holy Spirit. People say it's gone today that you'll offend the unbeliever if you talk in tongues but 1 Corinthians 14:22 says "tongues are a sign to the unbeliever" a supernatural attention getter Hallelujah you go to a lot of so-called Pentecostal churches today and you don't you wouldn't be allowed to speak in tongues if you do you got to go in a back room somewhere.
You don't move in the spirit if you do you got to go in the back room somewhere but God wants the moving of his Spirit to be on display Hallelujah! God wants the reality of the Holy Ghost and all the things that Jesus gives in the gifts of the Spirit and all those things he wants them to be on display more than on a T-shirt, and I'm all in favor of t-shirts so don't misread me I think it's good to put it right on there and put it there so I'm all for t-shirts bumper stickers whatever but the reality and the moving of the spirit Hallelujah! is for God the testimonies about how you were healed. Tell people hallelujah the testimonies about how your life was changed tell people tell people hallelujah If any man be in Christ he's a new creation. Are you a new creation? Some of us been saved for long so long we kind of forget about that but the thing is we are totally different than we would be if we weren't walking in the Spirit. When they offer you a drink say no thanks I don't need that anymore I'm drinking some stuff that you have no idea what it is I'm drinking the water of the spirit woo Hallelujah and I got feelings that you'll never get out of that booze. amen
It's true, Hallelujah! I was addicted to this that or the other thing but Jesus Set Me Free! I was following the wrong ideas about Jesus but the Holy Spirit came and the Word came and Jesus Set Me Free I was following a wrong religion and Jesus showed me the truth in the word of God Hallelujah and if you're out in the public you'll have people saying things and you're constantly in a decision of whether do I say anything or don't I say anything Hallelujah! You know what you do is your business but if you offer me a drink I'll say I don't do that anymore oh you think you're better than me no I'm not better than you I was set free by the power of God hallelujah! hallelujah!
Healing Power
Why do I keep preaching healing? because the Bible says so because both of us and our family have experienced numbers of healings over the years and some of the things I'm dealing with now I still believe God heals Hallelujah. God heals today amen! Don't let the devil tell you you're too old. Abraham was a 100 when he got restored so unless you're a hundred, why, believe God now. Don't take the passive attitude if God wants me healed he'll heal me, that's stupid. Yeah he wants you healed do you want it bad enough and believe him bad enough to make a fool out of yourself and go for it cry out at the altar tell people that he's a Healer and you're expecting healing. I even tell the doctor that I was healed of that and they just look at me. I believe it's fine to go to a
doctor but you spend more time sitting in the doctor's office than you do praying and seeking the Lord for healing he's a mighty healer today! Okay turn to Acts
19 it's somewhere between Genesis and
revelation Acts 19 verse two well let's just read a little bit of it and as it happened while Apollos was at Corinth that Paul having passed through the upper region came to Ephesus and finding some disciples there he said to them did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed and they said we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. I want to go further than that but I would say today the majority of the people even those that claim to be Christians would have to say we never heard of the Holy Spirit, or if we did it was just a passing thing. If you said to most of the people in our culture "did you receive the Holy Spirit since you believed" I believe 99% of them would say "I don't know what you're talking about" Hallelujah! we associate with Christians so we're not aware of how really bad it is out there. Hallelujah!
So this question comes up and in a deeper meaning see he's talking about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit so Paul says and he said to them into what then were you baptized so they said into John's baptism now as the confusion to the thing what is John's baptism? John's baptism was the Old Testament baptism into the Jewish Community doesn't say that much of anywhere but as you keep reading this at first you think it means getting saved but that isn't what it really was they said John's Baptist then Paul said indeed baptized John indeed baptized with repentance saying to the people that they would believe on him would come after him that is on Christ Jesus when they heard this they were baptized in the name of Jesus. See when they heard about Jesus they got saved and got baptized Hallelujah! That's important, and then when Paul laid his hands on them after they received Jesus after they were baptized. Paul laid his hands on them and they them the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied now the men at that point were all about 12 so you have here baptism. We could talk about this later but your first baptism there's three of them is into the baptism into the body of Christ. That's when you get saved, the Holy Spirit puts you there. The second one is you should get baptized in water as a testimony to your relationship to Jesus Christ. And we believe that and then what he's talking about here is the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and when you have the Holy Spirit come upon you and you're filled with the Spirit . The evidence that this has happened is speaking in other tongues and that's what he's talking about. They never heard of this they never knew anything about it it was a whole new thing to them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now some of the nitpickers. I don't know if we have any in here or not there might be somebody watching this on the video they they said say "well then they prophesied" well if you look at that they spoke with tongues and that word and in the Greek means and of another kind in other words they spoke with tongues, but you don't have to prophesy in order to be that you show that you're filled with the Holy Spirit. There's two Greek words for and I can't think of right now but one of them says it's one of exactly the same thing and so when the spirit Came Upon them and they spoke with tongues that means that's the total substance of the Holy Spirit coming upon them the power of the Holy Spirit and the evidence speaking in tongues then when it says and prophesied that's a different and and it means it's added to I don't know if that means anything to you or not but that's powerful. Hallelujah!
To watch the full sermon, visit https://www.southbutlerag.org/post/the-promise-you-need
