Jan. 20, 2025

Historical and Doctrinal Errors Have Led to a Weak and Emaciated Seed - (Enmity with the Seed – Part 4 – From Indwelling to Quickening) – Episode 42

Historical and Doctrinal Errors Have Led to a Weak and Emaciated Seed - (Enmity with the Seed – Part 4 – From Indwelling to Quickening) – Episode 42

Send us a text Can today's church truly thrive without embracing the person and workings of the Holy Spirit? Join us as we challenge the status quo and explore the stark contrast between Spirit and law within modern Christianity. Reflecting on the transformative impact of the Azusa Street revival, often dubbed a second Pentecost, we dive into how historical missteps have led to a spiritually weakened church. Drawing insights from Apostle Paul's teachings in Galatians 3, we make the case for a...

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Send us a text

Can today's church truly thrive without embracing the person and workings of the Holy Spirit? Join us as we challenge the status quo and explore the stark contrast between Spirit and law within modern Christianity. Reflecting on the transformative impact of the Azusa Street revival, often dubbed a second Pentecost, we dive into how historical missteps have led to a spiritually weakened church. Drawing insights from Apostle Paul's teachings in Galatians 3, we make the case for a reawakening to the true power and essence of the Holy Spirit, essential for a vibrant faith community.

In a world obsessed with convenience, what does it mean to genuinely follow a Spirit-led path? Our discussion uncovers the critical roles of faith, grace, and obedience in nurturing a deeper connection with God. Through compelling biblical examples, we highlight how the persistent cycle of hearing, believing, doing, and obeying fuels spiritual growth. By prioritizing the Holy Ghost over human effort, we urge you to trust in divine guidance for true transformation, pushing against the prevalent culture of superficial spirituality.

The current state of mainline Pentecostal churches raises pressing questions about leadership and authenticity. Have we traded the pursuit of the Holy Spirit for social acceptance and legalism? Our exploration critiques 'hireling' leadership and the drift from foundational spiritual practices, urging a return to Spirit-led principles. By examining the historical shifts in theological education and church practices, we call on the faith community to reclaim the powerful, sacrificial connection with God that once defined true Christianity. Get ready to challenge the norms and reevaluate spiritual foundations, as we advocate for an authentic, Spirit-led church experience.

00:00 - Spirit vs Law in the Church

14:38 - The Path to Spiritual Obedience

25:10 - Rejecting the Holy Spirit for Flesh

39:18 - Rejecting Spirit-Led Christianity for Legalism

56:12 - Spirit-Led Church vs. Hireling Leadership

WEBVTT

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Well, bless God, bless God, bless God, Hallelujah.

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Thank you, Lord, Praise God.

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Thank you, Jesus.

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Glory to God.

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I want you to turn with me this morning to the book of Galatians, chapter 3, and we're going to look at a different aspect of what has happened to the church.

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We talked for several weeks about that the church had become ungodly, not necessarily and not only in the sense of doing ungodly things, but they have been increasingly ungodly in the way that they present God.

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They present him in an ungodly way.

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What do I mean by that?

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They either present him in ways that he does not present himself, or they present him in ways they do not present him in ways that he does present himself.

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For example, John the Baptist called Jesus the baptizer in the Holy Ghost.

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He will baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire.

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Amen, but fully.

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More than four out of five people that profess to be Christians on the planet do not believe that.

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They do not believe in such a thing as the baptism in the Holy Ghost.

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They do not believe that the Holy Ghost still fills believers with the evidence of speaking in and out of the tongues as the Spirit of God gives the utterance.

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They don't believe that they don't believe it, they don't practice it, they don't even know what you're talking about.

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And if they do know what you're talking about, many times they will attribute that work of God to the devil.

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They will attribute that work of God to the devil, which the Bible says is the ultimate blasphemy and the one sin that cannot be forgiven.

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The Bible says that all sins will be forgiven, men, except the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

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Hallelujah.

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This is serious stuff.

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It's a serious stuff when men basically teach people that God is not who he says he is, or that he is something that God never said about himself.

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I'm here to tell you today, if you don't hear anything else today, hear this God is fully able to introduce himself to people.

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He is fully able to tell people who he is and what he does, Amen.

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And if he has not yet revealed that to man, man has no right to make up stories about God and start telling people that this is the way he is, when God has not said that, Amen, Hallelujah.

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That's what I'm talking about when I say that the church has been ungodly in that it is presenting God in a way that he has not presented himself, or it's just a complete fabrication.

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Praise God, Hallelujah, we're going to turn a corner and we're going to look at another manifestation of the church in these days, in this 21st century.

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Amen, that has happened to the church because of the rejection of the Holy Ghost at Azusa Street in 1906.

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I am thoroughly taught by God that what happened at Azusa Street was a ground zero experience.

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It was, it was, in effect, the second Pentecost.

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It was exactly what Pentecost was like, except that it happened in Los Angeles, California, of all places, Amen, and set the stage for something that could have taken the world and changed it dramatically had the church of the Lord Jesus Christ accepted the Holy Ghost.

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But they did not.

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And because they did not, here we are 125, 120 years later.

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Here we are 125, 120 years later and we are living in a church world that has been dominated by the rejection of the Spirit, and that's just simple fact.

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Amen, Hallelujah, Praise God we're going to talk about today.

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One of the manifestations of the church in this day is that it has become weak and carnal and emaciated.

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Weak and carnal and emaciated.

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You know what emaciated is, don't you?

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Somebody that's starved to death or they're parched.

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They have no moisture, their body gets gaunt, their face gets drawn, their eyes go back in their sockets, their teeth look elongated.

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They just become a caricature of what a person really should look like Amen.

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But if you're in a group of people that look like that, you think it's normal.

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It would never occur to them that there's something wrong with them because they all look the same, Amen.

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So in Galatians, the third chapter, in verse two I want to use this as the verse to start off from glory to God Paul says something very interesting at the beginning of that verse.

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He says this only I want to learn from you Now.

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If you stop right there, just don't go on.

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We'll get there, but just stop right there.

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The Apostle Paul was arguably one of the most intelligent people that have ever lived, that has ever lived, and one of the most highly trained people that had ever lived.

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He was trained.

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We often we think of him so often as just being trained in the law, which he was.

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He was highly trained in the law.

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He was trained in the law beyond anybody, any of his peers.

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He sat at the feet of the leading rabbi in Jerusalem, Gamaliel the leading rabbi in Jerusalem, Gamaliel and studied at his feet, became a student of the law.

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Without comparison.

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There was nobody that excelled like he did.

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But that wasn't the only thing.

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He was also fluent in the Greek classics and the Roman classics.

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He studied not only in Jerusalem, but he studied where he lived, in what was the city?

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He was from Tarsus.

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Yeah, he studied there and he studied in Greece.

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He was fluent in Greek, Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew Amen.

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You know somebody's fluent in two languages?

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That's impressive.

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I mean, he was fluent in four languages that are basically not joined together.

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They're completely different kind of languages.

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I mean one you read from left to right, one you read from right to left.

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You know different kind of an alphabet, different kind of phonetics.

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Glory to God, Hallelujah.

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So Paul, talking to the church in Galatia, which is a bunch of people from Europe that happen to live in Turkey.

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They came from France and they set up a province in Turkey.

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Okay, I mean these people.

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We don't have any evidence of any kinds of systems of education or any kinds of systems of religion or anything like that.

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Amen.

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In other words, what are these people going to teach Paul?

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That would be nothing, because Paul was their teacher, Paul was their apostle, Paul was their master, if you will.

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Amen, Nothing wrong with this.

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Paul was sent as an apostle and as an apostle he was going to instruct them in the ways of the Lord.

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So there wasn't anything that he.

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He didn't go there to learn about French customs.

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He didn't learn to go cook French food, you know.

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He didn't learn that to go, you know, and eat and and and figure out how French culture and Middle Eastern culture was going to blend.

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He didn't care anything about that stuff.

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Paul was so single-minded Listen, folks, he did not go on tours when he went into these areas.

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He didn't take a day off and go.

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He was so focused and so intent.

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Amen, it's hard to imagine that Paul would need to learn anything from these people.

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And yet he says there's one thing I want to learn from you.

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You know why he wanted to learn it?

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Because he couldn't understand it.

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He couldn't come to grips with it, he couldn't get his hands around it.

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As hard as he tried, it didn't penetrate him.

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The answer to this question he said I have one thing, only one, just only one thing I want to learn from you.

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Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the works of the flesh?

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And the reason he asked that question was that they were starting to act like they did and he didn't understand it.

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So this is what we're going to get to today, because this is the church we live in.

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We live in this church that is trying to achieve the things of the spirit by the works of the flesh the law or the works of the law and those two things are interchangeable.

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Because the law was given to restrain the flesh.

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The law is not spiritual, it is not of faith.

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So the law does not pertain to the realm of the spirit, although it's spiritual, Paul said, even though it's spiritual, it doesn't have anything to do with the spirit.

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It was spiritual because it was given by God, but it's not spiritual in the sense that it pertains to the spirit.

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The law is given to restrain the sin in the flesh of Adam, Simple as that.

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The law does not belong to us.

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The law does not belong to us.

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The law is not given to us.

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We operate under a different and a higher law that does pertain to the spirit.

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It is the law of the spirit, of life in Christ Jesus.

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That's the law that we operate under man.

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We don't operate under the law of Moses.

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It has nothing to do with us.

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When Jesus went down into the river Jordan to be baptized by John, he went down into the river as a Jewish prophet under the law.

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He came up out of the river as the son of God.

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Amen, Not of the law, but of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

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He came down as a son of Mary.

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He came up as a son of God.

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He went down as one who needed to be baptized by John.

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He came up as the bapt needed to be baptized by John.

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He came up as the baptizer in the Holy Ghost.

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Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.

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So here's the question Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or the flesh, or did you receive the spirit by the hearing of faith?

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What's the answer to that question?

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Absolutely.

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The only way that we can do anything in the Spirit is by the hearing of faith.

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The Bible says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, that the things of the Spirit have to be spiritually discerned.

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The things of the spirit are foolishness to the flesh because they are spiritually discerned.

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You can't, in other words you're not going to, if you think you're going to, get the things of the spirit by these ears, these eyes, these fingers.

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You know you're wrong.

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It just doesn't work that way.

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It has to come by the discerning of the Spirit.

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Faith does not come by reading.

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Faith comes by hearing the spoken Word of God.

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Now, everybody that does not have the Spirit doesn't know what I'm talking about.

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They think you're nuts.

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You hear from God.

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What does he say?

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You hear God speak.

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What does he sound like?

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They just act.

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You know.

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They just can't.

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It's incomprehensible.

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So they ask you ridiculous questions.

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You understand what I'm saying.

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They ask you ridiculous questions.

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You understand what I'm saying.

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Listen.

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Never let that dissuade you nor discourage you from pushing in deeper and hearing more.

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Just because they don't, that's not your problem.

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If God wants to have a meeting with them and teach them his voice, he can sure enough do it.

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Amen, Glory to God.

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About.

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The only thing you get to have any possible responsibility in that is to lead them to the Lord, but there's no guarantees in all that they still may continue to be reprobate that way.

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This is a strong spirit, that spirit of unbelief, that spirit of stupor that people have about this.

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The subject is unbelievably strong.

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What we're to God, even in listen, even when when demonstrable, obvious, powerful miracles are done in their presence, they still will not believe.

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What are you going to do?

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Amen.

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Your arguments aren't going to win the day If God can't win the day with a show of his power.

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You know, hey, this is not new stuff.

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Look at what the children of Israel did after he led them through the Red Sea and led them through the plagues in Egypt they still went into apostasy as soon as Moses went up the mountain.

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Amen, Praise God.

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So do you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or the works of, or the hearing of, faith, Since faith comes by hearing the spoken word.

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That's the only way it works.

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Without faith, it is impossible to please God.

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When faith comes, grace always comes.

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Grace and faith work together.

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Faith comes to believe, Amen.

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Grace comes to believe.

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Amen.

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Grace comes to do what you're believing, Amen.

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Faith comes to hear.

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You can't hear without faith, and faith comes and it brings grace with it, so that what you hear, there's a doing as well as a hearing.

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Are you with me so far?

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Now, when faith and grace come and you can believe and you can do what you believe, then there's an obedience to the Spirit and that comes.

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Okay, so you hear it, you got, we got this, we got faith, we've got grace and we've got obedience to the Spirit.

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Those are the three things that make life in the Spirit possible.

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You hear, you believe, you do and you obey Amen.

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Peter says this in 1 Peter 1, 2, he says that we are sanctified by the Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood, so we are sanctified To obey the Spirit.

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And how does that work?

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It works by hearing faith, grace.

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Then comes obedience.

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Okay, Now, the more you hear, the more you're going to believe.

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The more you believe, the more grace comes.

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The more grace comes, the more obedience comes, comes until this becomes a seamless, ongoing, never-ending process of hearing, believing, doing and obeying Hearing, believing, doing, obeying, Hearing, believing, doing, obeying, Hearing, believing, doing, obeying, Hearing, believing, doing, obeying, Until it's just all one life of God in the spirit.

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You don't have to go in the corner and wait, wait, wait.

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I got to hear from God and then, as soon as you hear from God, you go wait, I got to make sure that's God, and then you go wait, I got to wait for grace to come, because I can't act too fast, you know, I don't want to be presumptuous here and then, and then not wait, wait, wait.

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I don't know if I want to.

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I can't say I can't tell anybody I'm, I'm obeying the spirit by his voice.

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They'll think I'm really weird.

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You know what that's like.

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That's like those silly laws that say you have to keep the ammo, you know, in a completely different room, locked up, and the bad guy's breaking in your house.

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Wait, wait, just a minute.

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I got to go over here and unlock the safe.

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I got to get the ammo out, Got to get find the gun, I can't remember what.

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You going to be dead 10 times over before that happens and you're going to miss the moving of the Holy Ghost if you put all those stops and breaks in this process.

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This is not what God's trying to teach you to do.

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God's trying to teach you to be fluent in the Spirit.

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I'm just telling you how the steps work so that you don't interject yourself into it, Because that's what religion wants to do.

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Religion wants to interject your flesh in the middle of this and break up the continuity and the rhythm, so that you never do what God wants you to do because you're always thinking about it.

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Amen, Think less, believe more.

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Oh, hallelujah, how do you think.

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Your mind is going to be renewed, Not going to be renewed by thinking.

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It's not going to be renewed by thinking holy thoughts.

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It's going to be renewed by the Holy Ghost.

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Hallelujah.

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Praise the Lord that verse 22 of that same chapter, 1 Peter 1, verse 22 says you have purified your souls, or your soulish realm, in obeying the truth through the spirit.

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So you're not listen, you're not going to clean up Adam.

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You've heard me say this a million times.

00:20:42.317 --> 00:20:52.596
You are not going to clean up Adam by trying to be spiritual according to the rules and the regulations of men.

00:20:52.596 --> 00:21:02.599
You are only going to purify the soulish realm by obedience to the spirit through truth.

00:21:02.599 --> 00:21:05.053
Are you getting this?

00:21:05.053 --> 00:21:08.561
The spirit's going to be the one that does the purifying, not you.

00:21:08.561 --> 00:21:12.098
You're not going to think your way to pure thoughts.

00:21:12.098 --> 00:21:19.474
That in itself is a bad thought.

00:21:19.474 --> 00:21:21.660
That's an an unpure thought.

00:21:21.660 --> 00:21:23.222
You're not going to do that.

00:21:23.222 --> 00:21:25.474
You've got to yield that thinking.

00:21:26.136 --> 00:21:29.250
Take every, how many thought, how many thoughts are you going to take off?

00:21:29.250 --> 00:21:29.951
How many?

00:21:29.951 --> 00:21:31.534
How many?

00:21:31.534 --> 00:21:34.517
Every thought that comes up in your brain?

00:21:34.517 --> 00:21:50.781
You're going to take it captive to the obedience of Christ by the Spirit, Amen, so that your thinking is conformed not to your standard, but to the truth of God.

00:21:50.781 --> 00:21:53.026
Yes, Hallelujah.

00:21:53.026 --> 00:21:56.659
See, your thinking doesn't have anything to do with this.

00:21:56.659 --> 00:21:57.121
Amen.

00:21:57.121 --> 00:22:01.700
You haven't had a thought yet that has impressed God.

00:22:03.990 --> 00:22:05.455
I've tried it out, you know.

00:22:05.455 --> 00:22:06.859
I said what'd you think about that?

00:22:06.859 --> 00:22:09.930
Not much Matter of fact.

00:22:09.930 --> 00:22:11.594
I didn't think anything about it.

00:22:11.594 --> 00:22:12.557
I thought what?

00:22:12.557 --> 00:22:17.771
That was low, oh, where'd it go.

00:22:18.574 --> 00:22:23.163
And then this is what the Holy Ghost has to say about that whole process.

00:22:23.163 --> 00:22:25.512
Are you so foolish?

00:22:25.512 --> 00:22:38.500
Now, look, there are a bunch of people in the Bible that probably wish that God had not remembered them and put them in the Bible, or at least some of the things that they did.

00:22:38.500 --> 00:22:40.223
You know, I'm, I'm.

00:22:40.223 --> 00:22:45.181
You know there's probably, there's probably some things that that Peter still cringes over.

00:22:45.181 --> 00:22:47.172
I wish he hadn't put that in there.

00:22:47.172 --> 00:22:49.717
Glory to God.

00:22:50.679 --> 00:23:01.142
But I'm telling you one thing you don't want to be in the church that God calls a church of fools, and and, and I'm telling you what.

00:23:01.142 --> 00:23:06.957
Some of the things that God told the Galatians are off the scale in terms of revelation.

00:23:06.957 --> 00:23:11.565
You would not know that Isaac was the Christ.

00:23:11.565 --> 00:23:30.551
You would not know that that seed, that perfect seed that came out of Abraham by Sarah seed, that perfect seed that came out of Abraham by Sarah, which was immaculately, by any stretch of the imagination, was a miracle beyond all belief.

00:23:30.551 --> 00:23:31.634
They were, you know, he was 100, she was 90.

00:23:31.634 --> 00:23:38.864
The Bible says her womb was dead and more or less says that Abraham was no longer interested.

00:23:38.864 --> 00:23:47.636
And yet God knocks on their tent door and changes the tent of Sarah into the tabernacle of meeting.

00:23:47.636 --> 00:23:50.713
Oh, glory to God, when all things are possible.

00:23:50.713 --> 00:23:53.040
Hallelujah.

00:23:53.040 --> 00:23:56.549
Glory to God, Jesus, Hallelujah.

00:23:56.549 --> 00:24:06.615
Are you so foolish that you began in the spirit but now you're trying to be made perfect in the flesh?

00:24:06.615 --> 00:24:13.992
And that's exactly how God sees the situation with the modern church, and I don't care if they've got.

00:24:13.992 --> 00:24:18.500
First Pentecostal holiness, you know, redeemed by the blood.

00:24:18.500 --> 00:24:30.478
First Pentecostal holiness, you know, redeemed by the blood baptized in the Holy Ghost church, of this all over the doors and all over the windows and all over the brochures and the business cards, and it doesn't matter, Amen.

00:24:30.498 --> 00:24:46.096
The mainline Pentecostal churches in this country and throughout all of the world are twice dead and plucked up by the roots, because they came out of that initial division that broke Azusa wide apart.

00:24:46.096 --> 00:24:52.030
They will not fess up to it and I know this because I've been in their churches.

00:24:52.030 --> 00:25:00.221
They will not fess, they will not take responsibility for where the church is now.

00:25:00.221 --> 00:25:10.703
In fact, they will say that what came out of Azusa Street was too strict, too religious, too much emphasis on the Holy Ghost.

00:25:10.703 --> 00:25:17.078
So we're going to tap it down and water it down and make it more socially acceptable.

00:25:17.078 --> 00:25:21.266
I mean right here, I'm not talking 15 miles away.

00:25:22.291 --> 00:25:44.351
I was in the flagship Pentecostal church of the world and they had an abomination going on for a youth group leader and it was known and it was approved the church.

00:25:44.351 --> 00:25:44.611
We left the.

00:25:44.611 --> 00:25:46.414
They said well, society announced this that we're gonna not.

00:25:46.414 --> 00:25:48.077
Not in this bible it doesn't say that.

00:25:48.077 --> 00:25:51.270
So here's what the church is trying to do now.

00:25:51.270 --> 00:25:59.602
Since they won't pursue the spirit, they have no recourse but to pursue the flesh.

00:25:59.602 --> 00:26:01.986
You can only do one or the other.

00:26:01.986 --> 00:26:19.541
You're either going to be chasing after the spirit or you're going to be stepping backwards and running and turning around and running after the flesh and trying to make the flesh the standard for spirituality in the church.

00:26:19.781 --> 00:26:33.493
So I've said this many times and I'm going to continue to say it until there's evidence to the contrary, that the church of today is not interested in forming Jesus.

00:26:33.493 --> 00:26:47.476
They are interested in forming a better version of Adam, interested in forming a better version of Adam, which is exactly what the law was given to the Jews for.

00:26:47.476 --> 00:26:47.957
This is not surprising.

00:26:47.957 --> 00:27:10.950
I'm going to just back up a little bit 1800 years of a little bit and remind you that when the church had finally got to the point where they were legally accepted by the Roman Empire doesn't mean that they had become the official church of the Roman Empire.

00:27:10.950 --> 00:27:14.472
It's just that they had become legally accepted and the emperor had professed to become a Christian.

00:27:14.472 --> 00:27:18.237
The emperor had professed to become a Christian.

00:27:19.478 --> 00:27:28.586
At that point, what happened was that the church of Rome decided that it was going to.

00:27:28.586 --> 00:27:40.181
Well, they didn't decide, but actually, who decided were the Kabbalists, the Jewish mystics and soothsayers decided.

00:27:40.181 --> 00:27:50.284
What they were going to do was they were going to take a warmed-up version of Judaism and mix it with Christianity and mix it with Babylonian paganism.

00:27:50.284 --> 00:28:31.806
And because they had an emperor who was both the emperor of Rome and the high priest of the Babylonian order of worship and was on a firsthand shake hands basis with the Pope, they merged and they turned what was the Church of Rome into this thing called the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church is a mixture of Judaism, pagan Babylonianism and Roman Empireism.

00:28:33.511 --> 00:28:37.582
Except that the Reformation didn't get rid of it.

00:28:37.582 --> 00:28:39.457
Methodism didn't get rid of it.

00:28:39.457 --> 00:28:40.744
Evangelical Christians didn't get rid of it.

00:28:40.744 --> 00:28:41.390
Methodism didn't get rid of it.

00:28:41.390 --> 00:28:44.394
Evangelical Christians didn't get rid of it.

00:28:44.394 --> 00:28:56.196
And because all of them worked together against what God did at the outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Azusa Street, amen, the Pentecostals didn't get rid of it.

00:28:56.196 --> 00:29:08.858
And so this same weak, emaciated church that is trying to make Adam better, which was what the Jewish religion was all about.

00:29:08.858 --> 00:29:16.463
Once, that Jewish element crept into the part of the Christianity and formed with it.

00:29:16.463 --> 00:29:18.857
We've never been interested in it.

00:29:18.950 --> 00:29:20.282
That's when the gifts of the Spirit were in it.

00:29:20.282 --> 00:29:22.055
That's when the gifts of the Spirit were kicked out.

00:29:22.055 --> 00:29:23.902
That's when the Holy Ghost was kicked out.

00:29:23.902 --> 00:29:25.971
That's when the baptism was kicked out.

00:29:25.971 --> 00:29:30.298
All of the things that pertain to the Spirit were out, amen.

00:29:30.298 --> 00:29:34.611
And what was in was a worship of Adam.

00:29:35.451 --> 00:29:36.714
Oh, you're not hearing me.

00:29:36.714 --> 00:29:38.959
Do you know what is in the top?

00:29:38.959 --> 00:29:45.499
What's at the top of the Sistine Chapel, which is a part of St Peter's Cathedral in Rome?

00:29:45.499 --> 00:29:47.223
It's not Jesus.

00:29:47.223 --> 00:29:52.502
It's not God touching the finger of Jesus and creating a new creation.

00:29:52.502 --> 00:30:01.988
It is God touching the finger of Adam and creating a new, touching the finger of Adam and creating a new worldly, fleshly creation.

00:30:01.988 --> 00:30:05.949
I mean, it's one of the greatest paintings that's ever existed.

00:30:05.949 --> 00:30:10.382
But it is not about the reality of the new creation.

00:30:10.382 --> 00:30:19.363
It is about the death-bound creation that came out of Adam's sin, Hallelujah.

00:30:19.363 --> 00:30:29.596
But this church, this church that exists today, this weak, emaciated, man-centered church, amen, is all about Adam.

00:30:29.596 --> 00:30:31.141
Glory to God.

00:30:31.141 --> 00:30:36.362
Let me just, can I just throw these things out to you.

00:30:36.362 --> 00:30:39.098
I mean, does it matter?

00:30:43.390 --> 00:30:50.681
At one time, Harvard University was the principal training ground for American ministers.

00:30:50.681 --> 00:30:59.472
For a long time it was the only place they could get trained, but it soon added to it Yale and Princeton.

00:30:59.472 --> 00:31:03.994
These schools were started by churches.

00:31:03.994 --> 00:31:09.758
They were started for the purpose of training ministers.

00:31:09.758 --> 00:31:12.278
And now look what's happened.

00:31:12.278 --> 00:31:28.865
They're ground zero for every kind of abomination that you could possibly think of, and the church is still there shaking hands with them, the church that calls itself a church, but it is not a church because it has rejected the Holy Ghost.

00:31:28.865 --> 00:31:32.448
You can't be a church and reject the Holy Ghost.

00:31:32.448 --> 00:31:35.871
I'm sorry, it just doesn't work.

00:31:35.871 --> 00:31:40.762
You can't reject one part of the Trinity and say that you believe the whole thing.

00:31:40.762 --> 00:31:45.695
Amen, Hallelujah, Praise God.

00:31:46.498 --> 00:31:55.138
So the question is that Paul asks is how, if you started in the spirit, how come you're ending up in the flesh trying to do the same thing?

00:31:55.138 --> 00:31:57.310
He said you can't do that.

00:31:57.310 --> 00:31:57.813
He said.

00:31:57.813 --> 00:31:59.136
This is what Paul's saying.

00:31:59.136 --> 00:32:02.615
I really want to know what the answer to that question is, because I don't know.

00:32:02.615 --> 00:32:06.201
In my world that doesn't work.

00:32:06.201 --> 00:32:12.811
In my world, if you start in the spirit, you better end up in the spirit or else you're going to end up in the wrong place.

00:32:12.811 --> 00:32:18.201
I mean, if you started in the Holy Ghost, why in the world would you want to go someplace else?

00:32:18.201 --> 00:32:21.573
It's because you don't know who God really is.

00:32:21.573 --> 00:32:24.259
So I you know, since I know him.

00:32:24.259 --> 00:32:28.393
I've seen him, talked with him, spent time in the desert with him.

00:32:28.393 --> 00:32:32.741
You know, I know God, he's my God.

00:32:32.741 --> 00:32:34.893
I don't know if he's your God or not, but he's my God.

00:32:34.893 --> 00:32:41.875
And I want to know, since I don't understand that at all, how are you going to go back to the flesh and get the same thing done?

00:32:41.875 --> 00:32:44.340
A little bit later, he's going to ask the question.

00:32:44.381 --> 00:32:45.291
He's going to ask the question.

00:32:45.291 --> 00:32:48.362
He said how did you get the miracles?

00:32:48.362 --> 00:32:52.634
Did you get the miracles by the hearing of faith or by the works of the flesh.

00:32:52.634 --> 00:32:58.153
Hey, if you can get miracles by the working of flesh, just go for it.

00:32:58.153 --> 00:33:00.520
You're going to have a steady income.

00:33:00.520 --> 00:33:07.653
But if you think you can do miracles by the working of the flesh, you're going to end up like the seven sons of Sceva.

00:33:08.415 --> 00:33:09.880
Paul, I know, and Jesus I know.

00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:10.481
But who are you?

00:33:10.481 --> 00:33:13.453
Devils are going to eat your lunch.

00:33:13.453 --> 00:33:15.459
You think you're out there doing.

00:33:15.459 --> 00:33:17.593
All you're going to be is a charlatan.

00:33:17.593 --> 00:33:20.400
You're going to figure out some way to trick people.

00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:21.682
Oh, glory to God.

00:33:21.682 --> 00:33:29.662
How do you, do you not know I mean a lot of these people that are calling out people that their trademark ministry is calling people out?

00:33:29.662 --> 00:33:31.171
Tell them what.

00:33:31.171 --> 00:33:38.162
Do you not know that there is so much of that that is fraudulent because they don't have it?

00:33:38.162 --> 00:33:46.637
I'm telling you one thing that was not a stock in trade for Paul or Jesus.

00:33:46.637 --> 00:33:49.336
They didn't do that.

00:33:49.336 --> 00:33:54.230
They could do it, but they didn't do it to everybody they met.

00:33:54.230 --> 00:34:04.075
They only did it not to impress people, but they did it to lead people past something.

00:34:04.701 --> 00:34:06.387
Case in point John, chapter 4.

00:34:06.387 --> 00:34:10.210
He read that woman's mail at the well.

00:34:10.210 --> 00:34:14.007
One day I'm going to bring this song.

00:34:14.007 --> 00:34:22.349
It's an old, real old spiritual that was done by Peter, Paul and Mary 60 years ago.

00:34:22.349 --> 00:34:25.728
And it's about that story.

00:34:25.728 --> 00:34:28.797
Amen, I'm going to bring it one time and play it for you.

00:34:28.797 --> 00:34:31.668
He told her everything.

00:34:31.668 --> 00:34:33.106
She went back and told the man.

00:34:33.106 --> 00:34:35.365
He told me everything I'd ever done.

00:34:35.365 --> 00:34:37.481
Could this be the Christ?

00:34:37.481 --> 00:34:38.523
See, that was the point.

00:34:38.523 --> 00:34:41.088
That was the point right there.

00:34:41.088 --> 00:34:52.003
The point was to lead her to the Christ, not lead her to an offering, not lead her to a sideshow, not lead her to a carnival, but to lead her to the Christ.

00:34:52.483 --> 00:35:00.824
For the most part, the church has rejected the source of power, who is the Holy Ghost?

00:35:00.824 --> 00:35:02.425
Amen.

00:35:02.425 --> 00:35:14.068
They're trying to operate this thing on the power and the organization of men and not on the power of the Holy Spirit.

00:35:14.068 --> 00:35:22.889
And because of that, if you take away the source of power, you're going to become weak and emaciated.

00:35:22.889 --> 00:35:39.592
So if you need 2,000 calories a day to survive and you need a balanced diet of fruits and vegetables and meats and proteins and blah, blah, blah, you know stuff you learn over the years, Amen.

00:35:39.592 --> 00:35:53.512
And all of a sudden I come in here and tell you OK, you're going to get two carrots, a few grains of corn, a little bit of water, maybe five, six hundred calories a day.

00:35:53.512 --> 00:35:57.795
Amen, I am taking away your what?

00:35:57.795 --> 00:35:58.936
Your source of power.

00:35:58.936 --> 00:36:11.485
You can't, you can't generate enough energy to operate this, this physical body, on that level of you're going to just shrivel up.

00:36:11.485 --> 00:36:19.903
Maybe some of us need to shrivel a little bit, but you know, we would shrivel up, we would become emaciated, we would become weak.

00:36:22.789 --> 00:36:42.150
We've all seen pictures of post-World War II, of prisoners of war coming out of their prison camps and the Jews coming out of their concentration camps and all of those people being, you know, wasted away to half of their body weight and they just look like walking skeletons.

00:36:42.150 --> 00:36:48.806
Well, that's the way the church looks to God Weak, powerless, emaciated.

00:36:48.806 --> 00:37:02.974
Because they've taken away the power source, They've taken away the Holy Ghost, they've taken away the power source, They've taken away the Holy Ghost and in doing so they may have become better organized, but they become less spiritual.

00:37:02.974 --> 00:37:08.829
And because they become less spiritual, by default they become more carnal.

00:37:08.829 --> 00:37:13.786
Even though they look emaciated, they actually have become more fleshly.

00:37:14.547 --> 00:37:29.313
Now here's what happens, of course, because he always points toward him, but they think they've got Jesus, but they don't, Because the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of Jesus.

00:37:29.313 --> 00:37:34.427
So if they reject the Spirit, they are rejecting the Son.

00:37:34.427 --> 00:37:36.253
And if they reject the Son, they are rejecting the son.

00:37:36.253 --> 00:37:39.521
And if they reject the son, they've rejected the father.

00:37:39.521 --> 00:37:46.382
Now you will never get them to admit that, because to do that then they don't have anything to stand on.

00:37:46.382 --> 00:37:47.766
They know they're just a cult.

00:37:47.766 --> 00:37:49.811
They know they're just a social club.

00:37:49.811 --> 00:37:52.447
They know they're just a religious organization.

00:37:52.447 --> 00:37:56.460
You know they're not really the body of Christ.

00:37:56.460 --> 00:38:04.884
And if they just stood up on Sunday morning and said, well, bless God, starting today we will no longer be the body of Christ.

00:38:04.884 --> 00:38:12.530
Because we realize now that since we've rejected the Holy Spirit, we've also rejected the other two persons of the Godhead.

00:38:12.530 --> 00:38:23.423
And so we're just playing games around here, we're just singing happy songs and we're just thinking happy thoughts and we're just going to have happy times in Adam.

00:38:23.423 --> 00:38:30.864
Because all of this, really, if they stood up there, even in today's church, they'd run them out of town.

00:38:30.864 --> 00:38:32.708
They know they can't do that.

00:38:32.708 --> 00:38:34.313
They have to play the game.

00:38:34.313 --> 00:38:36.940
Them out of town.

00:38:36.940 --> 00:38:38.704
They know they can't do that, they have to play the game.

00:38:38.724 --> 00:38:43.751
I'm sorry, folks, but I'm taking about two months out and risking everything.

00:38:43.751 --> 00:38:58.135
I am going to shout loud and I'm going to spare, not because we are living in a world that is a fake Christian world.

00:38:58.135 --> 00:38:59.822
It's not.

00:38:59.822 --> 00:39:02.490
It doesn't even try to be real anymore.

00:39:02.490 --> 00:39:05.981
Now I'm not saying that nobody's doing it, Nobody.

00:39:05.981 --> 00:39:07.907
There are people winning the loss.

00:39:07.907 --> 00:39:10.268
There are people baptizing people on the Holy Ghost.

00:39:10.268 --> 00:39:12.268
There are people doing genuine miracles.

00:39:12.268 --> 00:39:16.170
I know that and I'm not talking about them.

00:39:16.170 --> 00:39:28.748
I'm not saying the church is 100% this way, but I am saying that by the numbers it's approaching 90% and this is what God's got to deal with.

00:39:28.748 --> 00:39:57.447
And this is why I keep saying that the only way we can have any impact at all is to, is to or is to speak into the spirit world and send forth intercessors and and beg for the Lord to, to organize and marshal these intercessors in such a way that we're doing so much damage in the realm of the spirit that that whole 90% can't do anything against us.

00:39:57.447 --> 00:40:02.184
But we can't do that with 10, 10% against 90% just on.

00:40:02.184 --> 00:40:05.489
In the world of Adam is a losing situation.

00:40:05.489 --> 00:40:10.815
In the world of God it's not Hallelujah.

00:40:12.202 --> 00:40:18.512
In this modern church, power has been substituted for powerless convenience.

00:40:18.512 --> 00:40:21.626
Let me just give you one example.

00:40:21.626 --> 00:40:27.001
It's a convenience to have a babysitting service at your church.

00:40:27.001 --> 00:40:49.128
So we have turned what used to be a nursery class for young toddlers and kids into this extensive youth program, so that people under the age of 18 never go to church.

00:40:49.128 --> 00:40:59.101
Their whole experience of from the time they're little kids to the time that they graduate from high school.

00:40:59.101 --> 00:41:02.525
They have never sat in a church service.

00:41:02.525 --> 00:41:07.534
There's always some place for them to be part.

00:41:07.534 --> 00:41:17.170
And if you ask the parents why you do that, Well, I can't keep them under control for an hour in the church service, so we have to have them someplace.

00:41:17.170 --> 00:41:19.427
What kind of an indictment is that?

00:41:20.681 --> 00:41:21.304
I knew a man.

00:41:21.304 --> 00:41:30.811
His sons and I were very good friends the whole time through growing up, Went to the same church, knew each other, played together all that stuff.

00:41:30.811 --> 00:41:34.971
His younger son could not sit still in church.

00:41:34.971 --> 00:41:38.722
Well, we didn't have a youth service.

00:41:38.722 --> 00:41:48.342
Children were expected to be in church what a strange notion, you know and parents were expected to keep their children under control.

00:41:48.342 --> 00:41:51.668
Wow, really, yeah, really.

00:41:51.728 --> 00:41:53.068
And you know what that man did.

00:41:53.068 --> 00:42:10.625
He took that young boy home and he would sit with him for minutes, sometimes as much as an hour, and just sit with him and talk with him and and when he'd start to get fidgety on his lap, say, no, we're not going to do that.

00:42:10.625 --> 00:42:18.333
He'd just be real peaceful with him and he trained him to sit still.

00:42:18.333 --> 00:42:33.771
So the next time they went to church he would do the same thing he did on that chair in the church pew he would sit him on his lap, hold him like that, and he trained him to be still in church.

00:42:33.771 --> 00:42:35.394
That was his solution.

00:42:35.394 --> 00:42:42.211
His solution was not to ship him off to somebody who had no interest in the kid whatsoever.

00:42:42.211 --> 00:42:48.748
You know, it was to train up a child in the way that he should go.

00:42:48.748 --> 00:42:54.105
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.

00:42:54.105 --> 00:43:01.460
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.

00:43:01.481 --> 00:43:05.672
We have substituted real power and real discipline for powerless convenience.

00:43:05.672 --> 00:43:13.489
When you send kids out of church until they're 18, why would you expect them to come back to church when they become 18.

00:43:13.489 --> 00:43:13.489
?

00:43:13.489 --> 00:43:15.594
Well, there's no place for me to go.

00:43:15.594 --> 00:43:18.108
Oh, you're supposed to go into here and into church?

00:43:18.108 --> 00:43:19.173
No, I'm not.

00:43:19.173 --> 00:43:21.581
You've always been sending me out of it.

00:43:21.581 --> 00:43:26.108
My training has been to get out of church.

00:43:26.108 --> 00:43:32.585
My training has been send them out of church, Send them away from church.

00:43:32.585 --> 00:43:34.710
Oh well, it's children's church.

00:43:34.710 --> 00:43:38.623
Oh, yeah, really Show me that someplace.

00:43:38.623 --> 00:43:52.331
And all the time you're telling me how anointed the pastor is and how anointed the music is and how anointed the turning down to the lights is and how it just gets you into the spirit and everything.

00:43:52.331 --> 00:43:53.920
Well, why aren't you bringing your kids into that?

00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:55.003
How it just gets you into the spirit and everything.

00:43:55.003 --> 00:43:55.987
Well, why aren't you bringing your kids into that?

00:43:55.987 --> 00:44:00.563
Why are you sending them down to something that's more like a bar or a romper room?

00:44:00.563 --> 00:44:08.760
I mean, it's not anybody ever think that they're training their kids to stay out of church.

00:44:09.601 --> 00:44:21.456
We've substituted power, real power that's obtained by sacrifice for powerless and painless living.

00:44:21.456 --> 00:44:26.248
These churches don't call on days of fasting.

00:44:26.248 --> 00:44:28.411
They don't call on sacrifice.

00:44:28.411 --> 00:44:31.001
They don't call on getting alone with God.

00:44:31.001 --> 00:44:31.681
They don't call on prayer.

00:44:31.681 --> 00:44:32.882
They don't call on any of this stuff.

00:44:32.882 --> 00:44:34.143
Getting alone with God, they don't call on prayer.

00:44:34.143 --> 00:44:34.983
They don't call on any of this stuff.

00:44:34.983 --> 00:44:39.086
They just, you know there's no, there's no sacrifice involved.

00:44:39.086 --> 00:44:41.889
There's no, there's no giving up of anything.

00:44:41.889 --> 00:44:43.971
It's always as you are, just.

00:44:43.971 --> 00:44:44.751
You know.

00:44:44.751 --> 00:44:49.856
Just bring your baggage, you know bring, you know bring bring it all.

00:44:49.856 --> 00:44:51.536
You know, just lug it around with you.

00:44:51.536 --> 00:45:02.347
We don't want to, we don't want to bother you by, you know, any indication that you might have to give up something, you might have to sacrifice something.

00:45:02.347 --> 00:45:03.849
Glory to God.

00:45:03.849 --> 00:45:07.192
There's no power without sacrifice.

00:45:07.192 --> 00:45:13.460
There's no power, there's no life in the Spirit without sacrifice Hallelujah.

00:45:14.182 --> 00:45:31.853
You know, I thought, I thought you know when, when, when I first started to to be willing to be taught, to be to hear, I thought, oh, you know, surely the Lord's going to be really impressed with, with getting up at five o'clock, you know.

00:45:31.853 --> 00:45:42.550
Until he said, well, while we're doing this, I want you to get your, I want you to get three concurrent PhDs.

00:45:42.550 --> 00:45:46.820
I said what I said when am I going to do that?

00:45:46.820 --> 00:45:50.931
You've got me up at five o'clock in the morning and I'm sure you'd like to see me at four.

00:45:50.931 --> 00:45:55.677
You know, teaching me stuff that nobody else is going to teach me.

00:45:55.677 --> 00:45:59.068
So you're going to teach me and you want and now you want me to do this.

00:45:59.068 --> 00:46:00.512
He said yeah, you can get up at two.

00:46:00.512 --> 00:46:04.192
I said why do I even bother going to bed?

00:46:04.192 --> 00:46:10.467
He said well, if you don't want to, you don't have to, but you're going to have to get up at two in order to get this done.

00:46:10.467 --> 00:46:20.739
I said, I said to myself done.

00:46:20.739 --> 00:46:22.465
I said, I said to myself this is not I and I could.

00:46:22.485 --> 00:46:24.713
I could hear him say at one time that I wasn't there for a while.

00:46:24.713 --> 00:46:25.635
I could hear him say I've been waiting.

00:46:25.635 --> 00:46:43.634
When I got, when I went back to get up at five o'clock, again said I've been waiting every morning and I knew he was going to be waiting at two o'clock and I knew he was going to count the days and I knew he was going to be there, Because that's just the way God is.

00:46:43.634 --> 00:46:54.054
He knows and he's trying to teach us that there is power in sacrifice, there is power in self-denial.

00:46:54.054 --> 00:46:55.960
There is power in doing things that you don't want to do.

00:46:55.960 --> 00:46:56.233
There is power in self-denial.

00:46:56.233 --> 00:46:57.550
There is power in doing things that you don't want to do.

00:46:57.550 --> 00:47:04.884
There is power in learning that you don't ever submit until you start doing things that you don't want to do.

00:47:04.884 --> 00:47:09.673
Otherwise, it's not submission, it's just volunteering.

00:47:09.673 --> 00:47:14.525
Well, I'm going to tell you, nobody volunteers to get up at two o'clock in the morning.

00:47:14.525 --> 00:47:20.693
Well, I'm going to tell you, nobody volunteers to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning, Not even me, and I get up at 3 sometimes.

00:47:20.693 --> 00:47:29.070
If I wake up at 2, I'm going to probably go back to sleep, because I'm thinking that's still my sleep time, Although I don't get very much of that at all anymore.

00:47:30.579 --> 00:47:46.503
Praise the Lord, Power that is received by obeying God's commands, what he speaks to us and tells us to do, has been substituted by obeying the commandments of men.

00:47:46.503 --> 00:47:48.867
We're more interested in keeping denominational purity and all of this stuff.

00:47:48.867 --> 00:47:53.884
I mean, you can listen I don't know if you've had this experience, but you can almost.

00:47:53.884 --> 00:48:00.335
There's some people you know exactly what churches they go to, just by the way they talk Glory to God.

00:48:00.335 --> 00:48:07.994
I mean, they can't talk to you at all about Jesus without saying once saved, always saved.

00:48:07.994 --> 00:48:14.067
Well, that may be true, but that's not the foundational truth of things.

00:48:14.067 --> 00:48:26.307
That just happens to be a foundational truth that juxtaposes you against other denominations Hallelujah, Well, anyway, praise God.

00:48:27.079 --> 00:48:35.105
Christians try to obey God through the obedience of the flesh and through the obedience of the mind and not the spirit.

00:48:35.105 --> 00:48:35.907
I made a decision for Jesus.

00:48:35.907 --> 00:48:38.318
Okay, the obedience of the flesh, and through the obedience of the mind and not the spirit.

00:48:38.318 --> 00:48:45.641
I made a decision for Jesus.

00:48:45.641 --> 00:48:46.523
Okay, what kind of a salvation is that?

00:48:46.523 --> 00:48:46.864
Is that a spirit?

00:48:46.864 --> 00:48:49.088
Is that a spirit conversion or is that a mind conversion?

00:48:49.088 --> 00:48:59.885
I made, I made a decision, Like I made a decision to walk out the door, or I made a decision to eat breakfast, or I made a decision to walk out the door, or I made a decision to eat breakfast, or I made a decision to get in the car.

00:48:59.885 --> 00:49:02.088
You know that kind of a decision.

00:49:02.088 --> 00:49:15.731
I mean you'll find out if you stay around God long enough that what seemed to be your decision was the Holy Ghost making a decision for you.

00:49:17.153 --> 00:49:22.083
I was laying on that bed in a hospital hallway and I said Lord.

00:49:22.083 --> 00:49:26.612
I said I have no idea why you saved my life, but I'm yours.

00:49:26.612 --> 00:49:28.467
That wasn't a decision.

00:49:28.467 --> 00:49:30.547
I didn't make a decision to follow Jesus.

00:49:30.547 --> 00:49:42.565
I didn't say Lord, I finally broke through, I'm going to live for you, and I just said I give up, I surrender.

00:49:42.565 --> 00:49:46.570
You rescued me right out of death.

00:49:46.570 --> 00:49:54.548
The ambulance drivers, all of them looked at me and said this boy should be dead, but he's not dead.

00:49:54.548 --> 00:50:00.244
So the one who saved me had a right to my life.

00:50:00.244 --> 00:50:02.208
That's not a decision.

00:50:02.208 --> 00:50:09.985
That's just staring reality right in the face, a spiritual reality, Amen.

00:50:09.985 --> 00:50:15.255
It may have been a spiritual decision, but I didn't make a decision to follow Jesus.

00:50:15.255 --> 00:50:28.572
Jesus made a decision to lay his hand upon me and keep me when I didn't deserve to be kept and I didn't deserve to be held and I didn't deserve to be protected, but he kept me.

00:50:28.572 --> 00:50:30.094
Glory to God.

00:50:30.094 --> 00:50:43.809
Every response to God that's real is going to be a response in the Spirit, because that's the only source of power.

00:50:44.639 --> 00:50:47.951
Now, because of the way the church is, amen.

00:50:47.951 --> 00:50:56.250
They've got no power to resist the works of the flesh, nor do they have the power to resist the doctrines of men.

00:50:56.250 --> 00:51:00.050
They have no power to resist carnality in the church.

00:51:00.050 --> 00:51:04.981
They have no power to resist carnality in culture.

00:51:04.981 --> 00:51:10.443
They have no power to resist carnality in the society.

00:51:11.364 --> 00:51:45.163
I can remember in my town, my little village, you know, you couldn't, you know the school much to, and it just drove our band director crazy because he was, he was one of these real high driving guys and we had real high performance band and you know all this kind of stuff.

00:51:45.163 --> 00:51:47.431
And he just didn't know why.

00:51:47.431 --> 00:51:50.802
You know he couldn't have band practice on Wednesday night.

00:51:50.802 --> 00:51:56.253
Thursday night wasn't enough, you know, to get ready for the Friday night football game he had.

00:51:56.253 --> 00:51:56.954
We had to have.

00:51:56.954 --> 00:52:00.771
You know he wanted practice on Wednesday but you couldn't do that.

00:52:00.771 --> 00:52:02.664
Cause why?

00:52:02.664 --> 00:52:03.166
Cause?

00:52:03.166 --> 00:52:04.570
Church, Amen.

00:52:04.570 --> 00:52:08.690
Do you think that that would be an issue today that wouldn't?

00:52:08.690 --> 00:52:11.347
Nobody would even think twice about that.

00:52:11.347 --> 00:52:18.702
We've got we've got eight year olds playing little League at 10 o'clock at night, on Wednesday nights.

00:52:18.702 --> 00:52:20.769
What kind of insanity is that?

00:52:20.769 --> 00:52:22.255
Well, we can't play.

00:52:22.255 --> 00:52:27.085
I guess it's because of the weather.

00:52:27.085 --> 00:52:27.407
I don't know.

00:52:27.407 --> 00:52:29.309
And you know what the result of that was.

00:52:30.391 --> 00:52:36.512
The result of that was that the churches quit having church on Wednesday nights because nobody came.

00:52:36.512 --> 00:52:41.452
Once they opened the door and said we're not going to take that stand.

00:52:41.452 --> 00:52:46.407
Then everybody said, oh great, we're going to go to Little League practice.

00:52:46.407 --> 00:52:49.289
We're going to go to you know, this meeting at school.

00:52:49.289 --> 00:52:50.525
We're going to do this at school.

00:52:50.525 --> 00:52:55.204
We're going to do this, this, this and this, this, this, this, this, this, but we're not going to go to church.

00:52:55.204 --> 00:53:00.681
And pretty soon there wasn't enough people to keep the doors open on Wednesday nights.

00:53:00.681 --> 00:53:01.423
See how this works.

00:53:01.423 --> 00:53:15.110
When you give up your power of doing things in the spirit, even a little bit, give that up, it'll come in like that and take over.

00:53:15.110 --> 00:53:22.086
When the church becomes so weakened and emaciated like it is, it has no power to resist, it's just going to give up all over.

00:53:22.086 --> 00:53:32.028
Case in point, case number 5,420 through 10 million was COVID.

00:53:32.028 --> 00:53:36.715
The church had no strength to resist.

00:53:36.715 --> 00:53:45.884
I'm going to come out here and I'm going to come back in and I'm going to say it again the church had no strength to resist, they just caved.

00:53:45.884 --> 00:54:06.894
They just caved, Instead of saying you have no right whatsoever by the First Amendment in this country, and no right whatsoever by the First Amendment in this country, and no right whatsoever by the authority of Almighty God to close our meetings.

00:54:07.496 --> 00:54:08.217
You have no right.

00:54:08.217 --> 00:54:10.525
Well, it's the right.

00:54:10.525 --> 00:54:10.925
You know.

00:54:10.925 --> 00:54:12.050
You have no right.

00:54:12.050 --> 00:54:19.550
The people have a right to stay away if they choose, but you do not have the right to close these doors.

00:54:19.550 --> 00:54:29.032
That is a violation of the First Amendment and we as a church, will not go along with it.

00:54:29.032 --> 00:54:37.320
You can arrest the preachers, you can do whatever you want, but you know what we're going to meet next week.

00:54:37.320 --> 00:54:43.280
If you come and you station police around the door, we're going to meet in the parking lot.

00:54:43.280 --> 00:54:46.628
If you seal off the parking lot, we're going to meet out in the street.

00:54:47.150 --> 00:54:49.302
Do you get what I'm saying?

00:54:49.302 --> 00:54:55.434
You have no right to tell us that we cannot assemble.

00:54:55.434 --> 00:55:02.728
We have unrestricted freedom of assembly, especially when it comes.

00:55:02.728 --> 00:55:12.672
We have unrestricted freedom of peaceable assembly and we have absolute right to meet as a church.

00:55:12.672 --> 00:55:20.423
It is never a convenience for a church to meet, it is always an inconvenience for society.

00:55:20.423 --> 00:55:23.530
That's why there is a first amendment.

00:55:23.530 --> 00:55:25.773
You're not hearing me?

00:55:25.773 --> 00:55:31.867
Amen, If society had its way, it would never let church meet.

00:55:32.768 --> 00:55:38.416
Church has, by definition, has to have a God-given right.

00:55:38.416 --> 00:55:42.224
It is a God-given right to meet.

00:55:42.224 --> 00:55:44.007
You can't take that away.

00:55:44.007 --> 00:55:56.126
Oh, I mean by the multiplied millions they closed because they chose to obey the commandments of men rather than the commandments of God, to obey the commandments of men rather than the commandments of God.

00:55:56.126 --> 00:56:00.550
Hallelujah, Praise God, Praise the name of the Lord, Hallelujah.

00:56:01.112 --> 00:56:28.349
This world of religion that we live in, amen, is so unspiritual that you have to go somewhere You'd have to search it out to be able to find a church that was actually led by a pastor and not by a hireling.

00:56:28.349 --> 00:56:36.250
The church has become so unspiritual that all they can do is hire people to lead their churches and, by definition, a hireling does not love the sheep.

00:56:36.250 --> 00:56:41.773
Now, you can, you know, you can put robes on them, but they're still hirelings.

00:56:41.773 --> 00:56:48.791
You can send them to to to Bible schools and seminaries, but they're still hirelings.

00:56:48.791 --> 00:57:00.427
Amen, If they, if they, if they are brought in by the deacon board or by some other kind of board and they can be fired by that deacon board or some other board.

00:57:00.427 --> 00:57:05.315
They are a hireling Glory to God, Hallelujah.

00:57:06.481 --> 00:57:22.471
You would be hard-pressed to find a church that is apostolically and New Testament ordered and that tells you something apostolically and New Testament ordered, and that tells you something that tells you how little the Spirit is in control of the organization of the church.

00:57:22.471 --> 00:57:27.021
And if the Spirit's not in control, then whose church is it?

00:57:27.021 --> 00:57:36.295
It is not the Lord's church, because the Lord will put the spirit of Jesus in control of the church.

00:57:36.295 --> 00:57:41.170
Where the spirit is, there is liberty.

00:57:41.170 --> 00:57:45.039
Amen, Praise God, Hallelujah.

00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:50.253
Where the spirit is not, then there is not liberty.

00:57:50.253 --> 00:57:51.766
And what is not liberty?

00:57:51.766 --> 00:57:53.985
Bondage and slavery.

00:57:53.985 --> 00:57:55.981
And that's the world we live in.

00:57:55.981 --> 00:57:58.686
Amen, Praise God, let's stand.