The Spirit Is a Person

On to you tonight it is with praise and thanksgiving. Lord, you are so good, so good, so good, so good. God is good and we praise you, Lord, for your goodness to us, Lord.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, the little devon, as far as I know, Lord, is doing well, coming along. I thank you for that wonderful miracle, Lord.

The doctors were amazed. We praise your name, Lord. You are our great healer.

By your stripes we were healed, and that's it. And so, Lord, we pray you'll bless each household here, particularly this night, Lord, when the things that are dark spiritually are set up as though they were important. Lord, we pray you'll protect us in this time.

We want nothing to do with the unfruitful works of darkness and we pray that we will worship Jesus on Halloween night. We just set up Jesus and he will be our great one, Lord, that we look to and that we worship and that we enjoy. Praise your name, Lord.

Bless each house represented here with safety and health. And as the young people have their doings tonight, we pray your hand will be upon them, Lord, to keep them safe and healthy on the premises and on the highway. Hallelujah, Lord.

We look to you alone for our health and our safety, Lord. Yes, Jesus. And now, Lord, as we continue, you know the needs that are here.

I pray you'll speak to them, bring Jesus to each one as he or she has need, Lord, that no one will be left out, we pray in your name. Amen. I want to talk a little bit tonight.

We've got as far in our study of Ezekiel as chapter 47, talking about the water of life. The water of life is the Holy Spirit. And I want to talk a little bit about the Holy Spirit as the Lord leads.

Audrey, I've got your Bible here. Now, we are part of a Pentecostal denomination, and the problem has arisen, I think. I don't know how many would agree with me, but we, as important as tongues is, and God knows I speak in tongues probably more than anybody in the house, but there's more to the Holy Spirit than speaking in tongues.

Much more. And we have young people with us, some of them are thinking about careers, some have engaged in careers already, wondering what they should do, and whatever is done has to be done through the Holy Spirit. Notice the NIV, King James refers to the Holy Spirit as our comforter, but the NIV calls him our counselor, and I like that better, because comforter gives you the idea that whatever you do, the Holy Spirit is going to comfort you, whereas counselor, the idea that he's telling you what to do, and advising you what to do.

And as far as the Holy Spirit, last week we went into something very important, I think. We might start there tonight, it's in Luke 11, 5-13. Luke 11, 5-13.

It's a very important consideration, and I haven't preached on it very much, but I feel it's time. God wants this emphasized, and I said last time, Sunday night, that each one of us, each day, should pray at least once that God would give us more of his Holy Spirit. That's all.

I mean, how long is that going to take? And I've been doing it. I've been doing it. It doesn't take long.

I'm just asking God, because while God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey him, we know from Acts 5-32, yet there is this scripture about pestering God, and that's just exactly what the Greek means. Tony says it's used today in the Greek language to mean somebody that's persistent to the point of being obnoxious. And so it's an angle, and it's in Matthew, and it's in Luke, and we need to pay attention to it.

Then he said, suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. So we're not talking about praying for more of the Holy Spirit for ourselves, but so that we may be a blessing to others. In the world today, there are some of you that may go as a missionary.

Now, you can't go as a missionary unless God calls you. You can't be a preacher unless God calls you. God called me when I was 19 years old, about one year younger than Rebecca is now, I guess.

You're 20 now? You're 21. Two years younger than... I'm going to ask a woman her age. I was two years younger than Rebecca is now, and when God called me to preach.

I was in Japan at the time. You can't call yourself to preach. You can't call yourself to be a missionary, but every Christian can pray for the Holy Spirit, because you notice it says, um, a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, so it could be somebody in your school.

It could be somebody at work. A friend of mine has come to me, and you know, we've had a lot of gospel preaching in America. We've had a lot of information, but what people need is the Holy Spirit.

They need life. Jesus said, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. They're just not academic words.

They're just not school words. They're not just words out of a book. You can tell people the gospel, and it could be true, the information is accurate, but unless the Holy Spirit is moving through you, that word will be nothing more than words in a book.

See, Jesus said, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. You can be in the Holy Spirit to the place where the words that you say are spirit, and so people hear in their mind the information, but they hear in their personality. They feel the life of God.

So this applies to all of us. A friend of mine has come to me in my journey, and see, if you're not prayed up and you don't have the Holy Spirit, then you have nothing to offer. You can tell them about Jesus.

Say, come to church or something, it's all good, but you don't have life to give them, unless the Holy Spirit is there. This tells us to ask for the Holy Spirit. The one inside, referring to God here, says, don't bother me.

Can you imagine God saying, don't bother me? Can you imagine that, Abby? God saying, don't bother me? That's what Jesus is telling us. God is waiting to be bothered. There's an element in God that admits to persistence.

I don't know whether it's because he wants to see if we're serious, or whether that's what, but we have the word, and the word says, don't bother me. Of course, the Americans were arrogant and proud to say, well, that's the way you feel about it. Forget it.

I've got other things to do. And if you do that, you get nothing. God said, go ahead.

I got it all. You have nothing, so if you want to parade around in your nothingness, why, help yourself. You're going to have to be a little more insistent.

You're going to have to be a little more insistent. I think some people are like that. They ask once, and they say, oh, God didn't answer my prayer, so forget it.

Or, it's not his will. How do you know it isn't his will? Don't ever believe something isn't God's will, unless God tells you it isn't his will. Then if he tells you it isn't his will, it isn't his will.

But until he does, he may be just asking for you to bother him a little. Don't quit. When you go before God, don't quit.

Remember Jacob, he could have got up in the middle of the night and walked off. He stayed with it. He hung on to God.

He said, I'm not going to let you go. This is not forcing our will on God. It isn't that.

It isn't that. We always want the Lord's will to be done. We're not trying to force him to do something that he doesn't want to do.

It's just a fact of the spirit realm that you get things from God by persistence. I think it's very important for young people to know that, especially although some of us dudes can profit from it too, and that is life, and you've heard me say this probably ten times, life beats the idealism out of us. By that I mean a youngster is apt to believe anything.

They believe they can whip the world. It reminds me of a senator that said when he went into the senate he was going to save the country. By the time that he got out of the senate, and a few years after a few years had been knocked around enough, he said if he could just save the sand dunes in his state, and life does that, Brooks.

But isn't it true that if you keep asking God for something that he's not going to give you right away, or isn't that certainly if they know that he hears you? Isn't it true that he'll give it to you anyway if you keep following him? Well, you always come before God with the idea, not my will be done. You always do that. That is the most fundamental of prayers, but that is not an excuse for not going after what you want.

See, like I told you, until I was corrected by Chief, that you can't steer a ship when it's in the harbor. Well, you can a warship because they have ways of playing the force of water on the rudder so you can even steer it while it's in the port. But just for us that are not driving battleships, but maybe a sailboat, you can't steer it when it's in the harbor.

You just can't do it. You can wiggle the rudder around all you want, but nothing's going to happen because the boat is not moving. I mean, it's like sitting in your car and working the steering wheel.

It won't go anywhere unless the car is in motion. Well, that's the way it is with our life. And people say, well, if it's God's will, he'll send me to the mission field.

It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. You have to be in motion.

And then the Bible says you will hear a voice behind you if you go to the right or the left. You will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. So when you get out and get going, taking whatever course is reasonable, the Lord will direct you if you're praying.

It isn't that you're forcing things on God, but it's so easy after years go by to lose the joy that you had and what you really wanted from God, and yet it didn't happen. But life beats that out of you. It just made you feel, well, it'll never happen.

I had hopes of being a missionary. I had hopes of having a gift of healing. I had hopes of being a blessing in the church and winning many souls to Christ.

I had these hopes, but it didn't come to pass. And so after a while, you figure it's never going to happen. It wasn't God's will, whatever.

And that may not have been true at all. And I know in my own case, I wanted to serve God. When I came out of the Marine Corps in my early 20s, I mean, I was ready to go.

And I went to Bible school and I was ready to go like a house of fire and preach the word, you know. And I did some and God met me in Bible school. He gave me the message I preach today.

God gave me in Bible school over 50 years ago. But then as hard as it ought to be, we tried to start a church in Phoenix that didn't work. And finally, I could tell God was just not blessing.

And so I prayed to the Lord. I prayed and asked God, I said, you're not telling me what to do. So and you're not letting me go in the ministry, even though I know you called me.

So I'll just do what I want to do. And you steer me. You steer me.

And I didn't give up on God. I said, you just steer me. So I decided what I wanted to do was to teach music, composition and harmony in college.

That's what I wanted to teach composition and harmony in college. So I put in my application in Arizona State University at Tempe and I was accepted on a music scholarship. A piano.

Something's working here. And by this time I was in the middle of my 20 years old. Anybody in here about 25? So you can picture about Angela's age there.

Audrey says, I'll work. You go to college. So I went to college.

And of course, I was no foolishness. By that time, I mean, I was ready for business. So I got through the four years and three years in Arizona State.

So got right out, got a job teaching music in Globe High School, in Globe, Arizona. And I still, all I want to do is preach the gospel. You have to, you know, pray to God.

And so then I was there a year and I said, no, that isn't going to get me in teaching music in college. So I applied to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. And that's, that's the tops.

I never expected to get admitted to Eastman. I never expected that. But Eastman that year had a program, a quota program.

They were going to take so many applicants from certain sections of the United States. Otherwise, I would have never been chosen because, you know, that's, they turn out concert pianists and orchestra conductors and everything else. So I was accepted.

So we packed all our belongings in a red Ford sedan. And off we went to Rochester, New York. We went back to work and I started off in Eastman.

And while I was there, I ran out of money. I was still praying for, still praying for, you know, the Lord. So you never quit.

God steers you as you go. And I was, my idea, you know, I want to serve God, but you have to do something reasonable. Well, Eastman is so expensive that Audrey was keeping us in groceries.

But I mean, my goodness, in those days, and that was way back there in organ lessons or something like nine dollars an hour, which was, oh, I couldn't afford it. So I said, okay. So I took a job teaching elementary school music in Rochester the following year.

And that did it. That did it. I got in with the kids and I said, this is where I belong, is with children.

So the University of Rochester has a music college associated with the university. That college is Eastman School of Music. It's kind of like the tale of Wags the Dog, because while the University of Rochester does turn out Nobel Prize winners, it has nothing to do with the international reputation that Eastman does.

So Eastman kind of wags the, kind of wags the university there. But the University of Rochester turns out psychiatrists and doctors. There's no mean school.

But anyway, within that school, within that university, I said, I belong in the classroom teaching children. Shine the college. So I was teaching harmony and composition in college.

Forget that. I wanted to teach kids. So I transferred over within the University of Rochester from the Eastman School of Music into the College of Education.

And Audrey's still working away. And I'm going to college. But I was also working too, because I took a job teaching school at the same time.

But you know, it's amazing. I couldn't go full time, but as taking night courses and summer and everything and working, it's amazing how time goes by and the first thing you know, I had a master's degree. Well, I already had a bachelor of arts with a minor in education.

I had a master's degree in education, still teaching school and loving it. So I stayed with the University of Rochester another year and got an ed specialist in education. Cool.

So I kept going. I mean, I had some momentum going by then. So I just kept going and kept the pace going until finally I finished my final year and got a doctor of education from the University of Rochester.

And all the while wanting to preach. And God not making it possible. So I applied around for a job and got a job in a college in San Jose, State College in San Jose.

And I took another course there. I took a postdoctoral course in school law while I was acting as assistant professor in the college. All the time wanting to serve the Lord.

And so I taught the college for one year. I said, this is not for me. I love the young people.

It was great. And I had a lot of experience to bring to it because I had been teaching school for years. I had 10 years in Rochester.

And I enjoyed them. I was not like children. So the following year I went back into the grades and taught the grades.

First in, what was the name of that place? I finally ended up in Palo Alto. And God just blessed me. The parents, my child never liked school.

Now they are raving about school. What are you doing here? But it was just God. God blessed me because I was following Him.

And I had a lot of opportunities. In fact, the school where I was teaching was the first school in the world, I guess, to use computer assisted instruction. And they were using it out of Stanford University.

And the funny thing, Stanford was only a few miles from there. But the signal was going from Stanford to a satellite and back down to the school where I was. It was only a few miles.

But the Lord just blessed me. I mean, He blessed me in education until you can't believe it. And finally, here we are.

I'm 50 years old. I won't tell you how old Audrey was. I was 50 years old.

And we both knew. We both knew. You're not waiting for me any longer.

I'm waiting for you. Whoa, 50. 50.

But we had kept ourselves ready. I used to, when I was teaching school, I used to get up in the morning and walk around Palo Alto for an hour praying, God, I want to preach the gospel of the kingdom to the ends of the earth. And teaching the fifth grade.

See, you never lose. You don't, just because time goes by, you're probably thinking, well, I'll never be 50. I mean, by the time I'm 50, the millennium will be here and over.

Don't kid yourself. It's amazing. In my heart, I'm a Gen X. I don't look it.

Don't laugh. Your day is coming. Your day is coming.

So be quiet. But you don't change inside unless you let yourself change. I can still today, I can relate easier to children and animals than I can to grown-ups.

Because of my heart. I have a child's heart. But I never, you don't let go.

Because God didn't answer, and I had to wait 25 years, doesn't mean he didn't hear. Because I was praying a wild prayer, I want to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Every place in the world.

You know, that's nearer now than it was then. Because I saw the day when I was teaching down at El Cortez Hotel in the Morris Cirolo School of Ministry and contacting students from all over the place, especially third world countries. How'd that happen? God hears and answers prayer if you don't quit.

Never lose your idealism. Never say, oh, I'm too old. You're not too old.

You're not too old unless you tell yourself you're too old. I was looking at a man, a magazine the other day. He's 101.

And he still competes in track events. Can't compete in racing and things because he's got a bad knee, but he does the shot put and does the other things. And he wins every time.

You know why? Because no one else in his age group can beat him. But there's a picture of this old guy, 101 years old. He's got the shot put, he's going to put it.

It's how you view yourself. See, you're never too old until you tell yourself you're too old. And there's people in their 80s that climb mountains, believe me.

There's no stopping people if they don't lose their hope and their joy and their idealism. So don't ever, now he says here, don't bother me. The door is already locked and my children are with me in bed.

I can't get up and give you anything. Period. End of prayer.

Gave up. It wasn't God's will. Yes, Matt? That's what I'm trying to say and you just summed it up beautifully.

It's what I call it, this is the way you can remember it. It's the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. It's the sword.

It isn't, the Lord will not do it by himself. You can't do it by yourself. But see, the Lord uses people that want to be used.

Sometimes He uses people that don't want to be used, like Moses and Gideon. But ordinarily, the odds of your being used by the Lord go up into the stratosphere when you are praying every day and saying, Lord, I want to be used. Bring someone across my path today.

Fill me with your spirit so I can give them life. If we don't do that, it won't happen. It may not happen that very day, but you keep that up.

And see, God will guide your prayer. You have to learn how to pray. One of the things of learning to live in the Spirit is learning how to pray.

The Lord teaches us to pray. When you're a novice in prayer, it's a pain in the neck. I mean, you'd much rather do anything else than pray.

And all the kids said, Amen. And maybe not all the kids either. But when you learn how to pray, you learn to, Audrey and I sometimes talk about as taking up your parable or turning your little prayer wheel.

You get down there and you learn to kind of interact with God. And pretty soon, five minutes isn't enough because it gets to be fun. And pretty soon, ten minutes isn't enough.

And pretty soon as you stay with it, God begins to show you stuff. Even a child. God will begin to show you stuff.

And then it really becomes fun. Then you begin to really look forward. But if all you know about prayer is to get out and, Oh, I wish this was over.

Bless my mother. Bless my father. Bless my aunt and my uncle.

Bless my grandmother and bless my dog. And that's all I can think about, Lord. I'll see you later.

Naturally, you're not going because you're thinking of a million interesting things to do. That's no fun. I mean, it's like, well, I'll give God five minutes, but it isn't much fun.

Well, God, you know, he likes to have fun. God likes to have fun. Who created fun? It wasn't the devil.

He didn't know how to have fun. He couldn't have fun if he tried. He's so tied up in knots.

God has fun. He comes skipping around and he likes to have fun. Why do you think he created puppies? He didn't have to.

Why do you think he created little kitties that like to get a ball of yarn and run around the front room? There was nothing left but yarn and no ball. He created that. That's when you see a little kitty playing with a ball of yarn.

That's God. Now he creates tigers, too. I mean, God is a very multifaceted person, but God likes fun.

He likes variety. You look at the fish in the sea and the weird things. God likes that.

He enjoys that. He's a God of fun. Believe me.

And he wants prayer to be fun. He wants it to be enjoyable. And then when it is, you get hooked on prayer.

Pretty soon you'd rather pray than do anything else. And so you don't just get down and recite off your list to God. You get down and say, Good morning, Lord.

How are you doing around here? And pretty soon you begin and then you think, What do I really want to pray for? I don't feel like praying for my mother and my father and the people who understand him. I'm tired of praying for that. And think about what you would really like to pray for.

You never heard that before, did you? I can tell. Think what is it that you want in your heart? Because God answers the cry of your heart. He hears all these words going up like a Tibetan prayer wheel, you know, just spin it and it goes on and on and on as the breeze blows.

And God waits till you pray what you really want. And sometimes it isn't until someone in the family gets sick and we want them healed that we really begin to pray. And the other time we just do our duty and that's no fun.

Why don't you try going window shopping with God? I used to like to go window shopping, especially around stores where they have guns, but I was always crazy about guns, which isn't cool in the day in which we live because people are nuts. But before people got nuts, guns to me were fun. And I couldn't afford them.

And I'd go and look and I'd think the bigger and the more powerful, you know, an elephant gun. Oh, if I only had an elephant gun. But I was just dreaming.

I used to sit in my high school physics class. And while the professor was going on and on about humidity or whatever it was, I'm drawing pictures of high powered guns. I can still remember that West Haven high school.

Because that's where my heart was. That's what I enjoyed. Well, I don't enjoy that now.

I wouldn't kill. I wouldn't kill an ant now, but that's a change of heart on my place. I just like guns.

Well, that was something I genuinely like. I don't have time for it now. I certainly wouldn't kill anything, but I did really like them.

And they still turned me on somewhat. But that's window shopping. I couldn't afford them.

When I was a boy, I had catalogs, I guess, from probably half of the gun makers in the world. And there's a lot of them in Connecticut and in New England. So I had them all over my bedroom, all these wonderful, colorful brochures.

I just look at those and drool. But I didn't have the money to buy any of them. But I did finally get a .22. I went down to New Haven, bought my own .22 right from the Mossberg Company.

Mossberg .22 in New Haven. That's window shopping. Window shopping.

How many here have ever gone window shopping? Do you ever look through catalogs? Maybe some of you like cars and you look through and you saw a real sporty car, maybe $75,000 or something that you thought, man, I'd love to have that. But you can do that with God. Search your heart.

What would I really like? I had to do that. That's how I came up with this college composition and harmony thing. Because I love that.

I really wanted to do that. I searched my heart to see what I really wanted to do. Because God wouldn't let me do the ministry.

So I prayed to find out what I really wanted to do. And I decided on that. That's how it all started.

And I finally ended up doing the two things that I hated when I was a boy. One was being in church and the other was school. The two things that I detested.

But you have to be in motion. Sometimes young people make a big mistake. They go and sit in a closet and fast and pray for God to speak to them.

You get more deception doing that. You don't do that. You just live your normal life and just give some time in prayer, do some window shopping.

Lord, I'd sure like that. So maybe a nation's on your heart. Or maybe you'd rather work with children or old people or whatever it is.

Be a school teacher or teach literature in high school or whatever it is. Go wild. I'm praying.

I was teaching in the fifth grade saying, Lord, I want to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Every place where people breathe the air. There was no computer in those days.

There was no personal computer, no internet, nothing. Now it's possible. It wasn't possible then.

Maybe that's why God let people invent the internet. Stranger things than that have happened in the world. See, Jesus said, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done.

But see, we ask for something, we don't get it, and we lose hope. We don't pester God. And God said, well, they don't really want that.

Yes, Abby? So, you better just find the know and you get to know Jesus Christ. Yep. What you usually do instead of saying no is to show you this.

Now, this is kind of complicated, but he shows you that what you were asking for, you thought you really wanted, but that really wasn't what you wanted. And then he gets you down to what you really want. Like I had this great desire to work in the police department and work with ballistics.

That is where they study when there's a crime, they get the bullet and they study it and see if it came out of this revolver or whatever. Great desire. But you see, God knew that would never satisfy me because my nature as such is to work with people and especially with children and young people.

That's my nature. That was prophesied over me at this last retreat. You might say, well, you've got one foot in the grave.

But what was prophesied over me was to teach young people. More than I heard that, wow, they are hearing from the Lord. So, sometimes what you think you want, God in his goodness reads your personality and says, that isn't really what they want.

Might be a little boy and what he wanted to do was be a fireman. But God knew in his heart he wanted to be a poet, but he just didn't know it at that time. So, he does that, Abbey.

What he does is when he hears your prayers, you're a ship now, you're in motion, you're sailing east, but God knows you're supposed to go west. So, he doesn't scold you. He says, okay, she's in motion, she cares, she believes, but very slowly your sailboat will turn and start going in the direction where God wants.

If anyone ever told me when I was your age that I would enjoy teaching children, forget that. You are out of your gourd. You must be on something.

I hated school with a passion and played hooky every chance I got. Then I ended up being a school teacher, I tell you. Yet, he will not get up and give him the bread, and notice this, because he is his friend.

So, the friendship with God wasn't enough. Isn't that interesting? Take note now. This is a very revealing thing, and the same thing in Luke, I mean in Matthew, I think the fifth chapter is here, when it appears twice in the Gospels, it's very important.

I tell you, I can't give you anything. He will not give up, but because of the man's boldness, now that Greek word there can be translated persistence, King James calls it importunity, Tony says it's used today to mean something that's obnoxious, in other words, you're a pest. You can translate it as because he's a pest.

Now, God said this, Jesus said this, so it's got to be important. So, after we've obeyed God and been a friend of God and been a nice person, after that there's a place to pester God. And see, God knows if you're all wrapped up in your own life and your own things, you're not going to spend time pestering God, you're just not that interested.

Pestering God shows you're really interested. Wow, they really are interested here. I know in hiring school teachers, when I was a principal, the person that would get hired would be the person, okay, you have your interview, and I'll notify you, you know, because others have applied and everything, but if someone calls up two weeks later and says, how's my application, I'm really interested in your school, I really think that's just the place for me, makes a difference, makes a difference.

You don't call them up three times a day and then call them at home in the middle of the night. You've got to use wisdom. But you see, you're showing an interest, and maybe nobody else did that, and the principal feels, you know, that person might just, there was others that I thought might be a little more qualified, but they have sized up this school and they feel that this is where they want to be, maybe I better give them a shot and see how it is.

Here you've got a hundred people in a church and there's one of them, God, they keep telling the Lord, I need more of your Holy Spirit, Lord, I need more of your Holy Spirit, Lord, I need something to give to people when I come across their path, I need more of your Holy Spirit, no one else in the church is praying like that. God says, you know what, maybe I'll just do something for that person. Does that make sense to you? All right.

Because of the man's boldness, his willingness to, the Jewish term is chutzpah, he goes after what he wants, he goes after what he wants. He will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and the idea is, keep on asking, keep on asking, and it will be given to you.

Now if that isn't true, then John 3.16 isn't true, because the same man said it. It will be given. Well, I didn't get it right away.

It will be given. Can I count on it? God said it will be given. Don't say maybe or anything else.

It will be given. And as I say, you've got to learn to interact with God so you can tell the Lord, if you're open to the Lord, he'll show you whether what you're asking for is what you really want and what will bring you joy, or whether there's something better for you, in which case he will steer your prayer till it's zinging along, till it resonates with his desire for you. That's why you have to be sensitive when you're praying.

You just don't get down and go through your list. Bless this one, bless that one, and everything, keep us all safe, amen. You don't know how God is feeling about things.

You've got to interact with the Lord just like you would with a person. You know, am I on the right track, Lord? This seems good to me, so I'm going to ask for it. Your will be done, but this is what I would like.

You know, show a little class. Yes? Ask like you're telling your most... Telling your secretest secrets. That'll work.

She said it's like telling your best friend that you trust your secretest secrets. Your most secret secrets. Alright, knock, seek, that is look for, and what? The old find.

The old find. This even works out in the world where people, we know of people, like the man that laid the cable across the Atlantic Ocean and the Wright Brothers and so on, things are legion where people have, Madame Curie extracting radium from the ore, pitchblende, until her whole backyard was full of tons of pitchblende. Talk about ruining the landscape.

But she finally was able to isolate radium, and there's a lot of stories like that of people that are not even Christians, they just have some kind of faith and they go after things and everybody laughs at them, but they finally come up with the goods. How much more? Because I guess this principle works, whether or not you're a Christian. Seek and you'll find.

Keep looking and you'll find. Get a purpose in life. First of all, get in touch with the Lord, find out what it is you think you really want.

And go for it. And if it's not the best, God will steer you. Just like he did me, he steered me all over the place.

But you can't just sit back and say, well maybe if God wants me he can speak to me. Because in our culture that's so attractive you're going to get siphoned off into all kinds of things. If you don't, keep with the Lord, keep praying.

Any questions about that? Yes, John? We never pray to the Holy Spirit. That is not scriptural. That is not scriptural.

It's done today because people want to use the Holy Spirit. And that is not right. We do not use the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is a person. He's not a person like we understand a person. We'll never see the Holy Spirit.

If we see him he'll be as a river of water or something of this kind. He's not a person like we think of a person. Yet he is a specific individual.

I'll show you some scriptures here in a minute. He is a person that you can come to know. And I want you to cultivate that.

I want you to realize that the Father is a person and Jesus is a person and the Holy Spirit is a person. Jesus is like us. We can understand Jesus because he became a man.

We cannot really understand the Holy Spirit. But when we pray and ask Christ for the Holy Spirit he will give us the Holy Spirit. But we never pray to the Holy Spirit.

That is not scriptural. There's not one verse in the Bible that tells us to do such a thing. Yes, Zyra? I know it's people that want to use the Holy Spirit for their own gain.

A big church or maybe a noble desire such as to win souls or whatever. But see you can't go away from the scripture and prosper. You cannot do that.

We pray to Jesus. You can pray to Jesus or to the Father in Jesus name. Those are both scriptural.

Yes? That's right. We don't use the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us gifts and we are responsible for those gifts to use them.

And they are under our control. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are under our control. The Spirit himself is God.

He is God. When we are baptized in water, we are baptized. I know you have a choice in the Greek in the preposition in or into.

I much prefer into because if it says we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit it sounds like somehow we are, I mean it's just not that clear. But you can use the term into which is an acceptable translation. It makes a lot of sense.

We are baptized in water into the name of the Father who is a person. Into the name of the Son who is a person. Into the name of the Holy Spirit who is a person.

I'm accenting that because in Pentecost we've gotten into the habit of viewing the Holy Spirit as tongues or a good feeling. And we in Pentecost need to go back to the drawing board and realize just because we are speaking in tongues does not mean that we are living in the fullness of the Spirit of God. There are people who speak in tongues one minute and gossip about their neighbor in the next minute.

In other words, out of the same fountain is coming salt water and sweet. Out of the same fountain, one minute they are talking in tongues and the next minute they are gossiping and criticizing. That's not the fullness of the Spirit.

That's a residue. That means the Spirit has passed by. If we are going to have the Spirit and have fellowship with the Spirit and obey the Spirit, listen to the Spirit, we have to cultivate the Spirit.

We have to do that by praying each day to the Lord Jesus for the Holy Spirit, asking for the Holy Spirit, and listening for the Spirit so that we can obey the Spirit. He does not obey us. We obey the Spirit.

Separate me, Saul and Barnabas. Barnabas and Saul. Yes.

Yes, I know. This is the Lutheran hour. Back to the Bible.

Alright. And to him who knocks, the door will be opened. And you don't knock once.

You just keep knocking, knocking, knocking on the door of heaven. Knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking. One of these days, God is going to say, I am sick of this, and open the door.

It shall be open. Not maybe, might. It shall be open.

It shall be open. Okay? You've got to get one thing and stick with it. And be amenable to change.

Be ready as the Lord leads you. Because He will never lead you from a place, listen, of greater joy to a lesser. Never.

He always leads you from the lesser joy to the greater joy. Have that confidence in God. He's not out here to make you miserable.

Sometimes we have to have our desires deferred while God is teaching us things, shaping our soul. But even during those dark nights of the soul, we keep on, we don't forget, what we prayed to God. I want to preach the gospel of the kingdom.

Wherever people breathe the air, whatever you ask in my name, I will do. So ask largely. Ask largely.

Because He hears you. The minute you pray, God hears you. But this is an aspect of it that I felt distress.

Notice what he says, which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will he give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit? Who gives the Holy Spirit? The Father. You don't command the Spirit. The Father and Christ.

Christ poured out the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. We do not command the Spirit. We pray to the Father and we pray to Jesus.

We pray to the Father in Jesus' name. That's the scriptural. And then they give us the Spirit.

The Father gives us the Spirit. He will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. So you don't just say, well, if God wants me to have the Spirit, He'll give it to me.

He gives the Spirit to those who ask Him. How many here would like to, when God brings people to you, be able to minister life to them? Well, we all would. And so the way you do that is pray for the Holy Spirit.

You do that. You say, how long? Until you retire, you don't retire. You do it until you breathe your last.

As long as you're breathing, you're asking for the Holy Spirit. People give up and retire. And the first thing you know, they just fall apart.

They just fall apart because we're made to be used. We use our body, we use our mind, we keep ourselves right up to snuff. And the minute we decide to sit down, put on our slippers, get in the rocker and watch the TV, we begin to disintegrate.

You want to keep yourself alive physically? Move. When you're older, you've got to force yourself to exercise. Even if it's only get around to walk from the front room to the kitchen, you've got to force yourself to move.

Move. That's just the way God has made nature. What isn't used just disintegrates.

It's the way we are in our minds, in our emotions, in our spirit, in our body. Acts 1.8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses. See, this is much more than speaking in tongues.

Much more. This is power. And we in our church, individually and collectively, need to keep that before God.

We need power so that we can bear witness. God gives us power to bear witness by the Holy Spirit. Then in John 10.10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. See, there are degrees of eternal life. There are degrees.

If you pray and serve God, see, our goal as people is to live in the fullness of the Spirit of God. There are only two ways that a human being can live. Only two ways.

One way is in the flesh, that is in our fleshly reasoning in our body, and the other way is in the Spirit. And most of us in here spend part of our day in the Spirit and part of our day in the flesh. Maybe most of our day in the flesh, but part in the Spirit.

Part of the time we are praying and singing hymns to the Lord and so on, and more in the spiritual. But our goal is to live like Jesus, holy in the Spirit of God. That is our goal.

That is what we are pressing toward, so that everything we do, say, and think is in the Spirit of God. But let the flesh go hang. There is nothing good that comes out of the flesh.

Nothing. That is what Jesus said. It doesn't profit a thing.

But the Spirit is life and peace and joy and righteousness and health and every good thing that you can think of. So as we pray and ask for the Spirit, we are moving toward a life lived in the fullness of the Spirit of God. All right.

1 Timothy 6.12. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life. You have to every day make an effort by prayer and obedience to take hold of eternal life, because the flesh will be pressing on you all the time to spend your time in the flesh, doing fleshly things.

Everybody is all hyped about the election. Well, we are good Americans. We should pray for whomever we think is God's candidate.

We should do that. But listen. Did you ever stop to think we ought to pray and ask who God wants to be president? I wonder how many Christians are taking it for granted that they know who ought to be president.

I think it is a step up to pray and say, God, whoever you want to be president, make president. What do you think about that? Because we really don't know. See, the person we think should be the one may not be the one that God wants.

How many want the next president to be the president God wants? Well, pray for that. And then vote whatever you think is best. That's fine.

That's your duty. But beyond that is to pray for the president that God has chosen. I'm not sure I know.

God hasn't spoke to me about it. But I do know this, that God doesn't want us to be brought down into the level of haggle-baggling about politics. He wants us spending our time in the Spirit, living in the Spirit.

Then the Spirit will tell us who he wants to be president. What do you think of that? Well, is that going to go? That's a little different, isn't it? All right. Now listen to this carefully, young people, because you're going to be tempted to drink alcohol or take drugs.

You're going to be tempted to do that. You know, the kids say, oh, what are you? You're a nerd. You don't do drugs.

You don't drink alcohol. Boy, you're a loser if there ever was one. Who wants you? And the girls say, oh, I don't want to be unpopular.

I might grow up to be an old man. I'm already 16. You don't want to be a nerd, and you don't want people to be looking down at you.

You know, what kind of a twerp have we got going here? So I want you to notice the Scripture carefully. It is, oh, I didn't put in the reference. It's, do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery.

Where is that? You know, you don't have the reference here. Do not, this is what the Bible says, do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

I don't know if you can see that, what he's saying there. He's saying that you can choose to find your joy in drugs and alcohol, or you can choose to find it in the Spirit. See? Instead of getting drunk, get filled with the Spirit.

Yes, Lloyd? Ephesians 5.18. Ephesians 5.18. Here we go. Ephesians 5.18. I want you to see this. I want to tell you something that I know.

One drink of alcohol, wine, beer, or hard liquor, one drink, and when you prophesy or do something in the Spirit, I can hear it. Because it affects your central nervous system, and that's where the Spirit operates. And that's why on the day of Pentecost they said, all these guys are drunk.

It is because being filled with the Spirit acts very similar to being filled with alcohol. And that's why that contrast is there, see? Instead of getting drunk on wine, get drunk on the Spirit. They both operate in the central nervous system, and whenever you take any alcohol or any drug into your system, you minimize your ability, your effectiveness in bearing witness.

Right then, you're not a soldier of Christ. You're not ready. You're not able to follow the Spirit because the alcohol or drug is acting in your central nervous system.

And that's why those two are in juxtaposition there, the alcohol and the Spirit. If you don't have any other reason for not drinking, just remember, if you want to be filled with the Spirit of God, don't touch alcohol. Remember John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from the time he was born.

You read what it says, he did not touch wine. He didn't touch, even though that was a custom in that country, he did not touch any alcohol, just like a Nazarite, because it interferes with the Holy Spirit. And it befuddles you.

I've heard people prophesy, try to prophesy when they've had wine for their evening meal. You could hear it. It just didn't come out.

It didn't work. See, it was polluted. It was not right.

So remember that. If you're a serious Christian, you want to bring bread to your friends when they come, don't touch alcohol. You say, well they won't accept me unless I'm like them.

Then don't be accepted. Just don't be accepted. If they won't love you and be with you unless you drink, then you've got the wrong crowd.

And you'll never minister to them by being like them, by drinking, because the Holy Spirit won't do it. So you're there trying to tell them about the Lord, and the Holy Spirit's not present, so you might as well save your breath to cool your oatmeal, because it isn't going anywhere. When you drink, you are not being a true Christian, a soldier of Christ.

Well, I'm saved by grace. Well, if God, in his goodness, puts out grace on you, you're going to end up in big trouble until you learn not to drink. God does not want soldiers that drink.

You say, well, when I'm on the job, you're always on the job. You never know when God's going to use you. You never know.

You never know. Just the time you get careless will be the time your opportunity came to bring someone to the Lord. Just the very time.

And there you weren't ready. So don't drink. You don't need it.

You can have the joy of the Lord. You do not need it. The world, they probably need it, but we don't need it.

Yes? I can hear the question, where Paul tells, I think it's Timothy, to use a little wine for your stomach. Well, I think it applied to Timothy. If the Lord tells you to drink wine for your stomach, well, I'm not going to argue with God.

But there's a lot of things like that that are focused on individual things, like the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. You just, every drunk knows that verse. He drank a little wine for his stomach's sake.

But see, the Apostle Paul didn't tell him to do that. When the Apostle Paul tells you to drink a little wine for your stomach's sake, you're home free. You drink a little wine, what happens? You're going to have trouble with your stomach.

As God will say, you should not do that. Don't ever do it. Don't ever do it.

In our day, I believe that we drink Coca-Cola when we go on the field so we don't get monosemous revenge. Oh, all right, you drink Coca-Cola. But don't drink booze, whatever you do, it's ruined so many homes.

Matthew 12, 28, but if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, it's become fashionable in Pentecost and casting out demons to yell and scream, talk in tongues, flail arms around and everything else. That's because we don't have the Holy Spirit. When we have the Holy Spirit, we can speak the word and the demons will go.

They are deathly afraid of the Spirit of God. All right, I'm just about through here. I'm going to let you out early tonight.

Mark 3, 28-30 goes like this, Mark 3, 28-30, I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He is guilty of an eternal sin. He said this because they were saying he has an evil spirit.

That's Mark 3, 28-30. In another parallel passage he said you can speak against the Son of Man, against Jesus, and he'll be forgiving you, but not against the Holy Spirit. That shows you that the Holy Spirit is a separate person.

He's a person and you do not look at the work of the Holy Spirit and say that's the devil. You don't do that. It's blasphemy.

Of course God is gentle with people and people call tongues of the devil and everything, but be careful what you call of the devil. Just be careful. But I didn't say that to scare you to death.

I'm telling you that to show you that the Holy Spirit is a person in his own right. Mark 13, 11. Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say.

Just say whatever is given you at that time, for it's not you that's speaking, but the Holy Spirit. If the day comes when you're under persecution and you're brought into court or something for the Lord's sake, the Lord said don't plan in advance. The Holy Spirit will give it to you at that time.

Don't worry about it. See how he's a person? I'm just about through here with this. John 20, verse 22.

20, 22 of John. But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own.

He will speak only what he hears and he will tell you what is yet to come. Who do you think the Holy Spirit hears from? He hears from the Father. See, he does the Father's will.

The Holy Spirit does the Father's will. He hears from the Father and he repeats it. He's a servant of God.

He serves God. It's difficult for us to relate to the Holy Spirit, but know that he is a very real person. And I'm going to finish up with these last two.

Acts 13, verse 2. I want you to notice this. If you didn't hear anything else I said tonight, Acts 13, 2. Acts 13, 2. I want you to notice the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit as God. You'll see that he's not just a good feeling.

He's not just speaking in tongues. He is a person in his own right charged to make a bride for the Lamb. He is charged to make a bride for Christ.

That's why the Holy Spirit never speaks of himself. Whenever you hear meetings where people are saying, the Holy Spirit this and the Holy Spirit that, he does not want that. He does not want that.

He does not want any praise, any adulation, any recognition, or anything. He has come for one reason, and that is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. And whenever you hear the Holy Spirit being exalted, those people are off the track.

And the Spirit does not care for that and will not honor it. He will not swerve from his purpose. It's like Eliezer of old going to get the bride for Isaac.

He will not swerve from his purpose. He does not want adulation. He does not want to be exalted.

He has come for one purpose. He's been charged by God the Father to get a bride for the Lamb, for Jesus Christ, and that's all he's about. And he does not want to be seen or noticed.

Just like Eliezer said, let me alone, let me go back. If you want to give me a bride, fine. If you're not, let me out of here.

Because he was charged by Abraham to get a bride for Isaac. That's where the Holy Spirit is. So we never exalt the Holy Spirit, pray to the Holy Spirit, sing about the Holy Spirit, or anything else.

Try to use the Holy Spirit. Just Jesus. And when we exalt Jesus, the Holy Spirit is very pleased because that's his job.

Notice the authority of the Holy Spirit. And try to get a feeling for this. Set apart for me, for me, the Spirit says.

Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul. See, that's more than tongues and a good feeling. See that? That's God.

That's a member of the Godhead. Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. See that? That's not a human talking.

That's a Spirit talking. Can't even understand it, you know? We use figures, like we say, well, God's like a battery and the Holy Spirit's like electricity. But all of these symbols and figures and everything always fall short.

We cannot grasp it. We just say it's so, we obey Christ, and he gives the Spirit to those who obey him. And finally, finishing up here with 1 Corinthians 12.11. 1 Corinthians 12.11, all these, speaking of the Spirit, all these, referring to the gifts of the Spirit, are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one just as he determines.

See? So, what do we learn tonight? We learn that the Holy Spirit is a person, not just a feeling, not just a blessing, not just tongues. Our goal is to be filled and live in the Spirit, and he has authority, and we learn one other important thing. What is it? Make him ask.

He tells you, ask. Keep on seeking. God will give you his Holy Spirit if you ask, and then you'll have bread for your friends.

Shall we stand? The Holy Spirit is among us now. He's exalting Christ among us now. Father, we come unto you in the name of Jesus.

Oh, hallelujah. Father, we love you and we trust you. We believe in your word and we go by your word.

And Father, tonight, Lord, we honor Jesus, and in his name we pray that we might have more of your Holy Spirit, Lord, so that we can have to give to others, so that we can overcome sin, so that we can fellowship with God. We just pray for more of your Holy Spirit than we have, Lord. Hallelujah.

Individually and collectively, so that our church may be filled with the Spirit of God. So the words that are spoken here are spirit and life. Hallelujah.

Lord, each one of us, we want to be filled with the fullness of the Spirit of God, just as John was and as Jesus was, filled with the fullness of God. Oh, hallelujah. That's our prayer, Lord.

We know that's where the joy is. That's where the ministry is. That's where wisdom is.

Defeat of the devil. Everything is through your Holy Spirit. We thank you, Lord, for your Holy Spirit.

We thank you for giving us of your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, that we might understand your word and your person, Lord. Through the Counselor, the great Counselor, who is here while Jesus is in heaven. He has sent the great Counselor among us, that we might have that fellowship of the Spirit.

Praise your holy name. The wonderful sense and joy of God's Holy Spirit. Holiness unto the Lord.

Thank you, Father, for your Holy Spirit that you have given to us liberally and that we hope to be able to give to others in Jesus' name. And now, Father, we pray that as the young people celebrate Halloween, that you'll be with us the rest of the evening. Keep us all safe and healthy on the premises and on the highway, that we may have a good time and rejoice and praise the Lord.

Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, everyone said, Amen.