In this sermon, the preacher begins by highlighting the harsh realities of life for children in China and Cameroon, emphasizing the bondage and darkness that exists even in sophisticated villages in the United Kingdom. He then focuses on the concept of liberty, explaining that true freedom is not the ability to do whatever one wants, but rather the freedom to live a holy and godly life centered on God and Christ. The preacher emphasizes that this freedom comes from being set free from the manipulation of Satan and the grip of habitual sin. He concludes by emphasizing the role of the Holy Spirit in making the promises of God a reality in the lives of believers, guaranteeing and guaranteeing the ongoing working of what Christ has accomplished.

As we have your New Testament with you tonight, I'd like you to turn with me into the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians. And I'm going to read chapter three, but not confine myself to it. To Corinthians, chapter three. One of a number of letters that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church because he had such a concern for them. He desired that they should grow and develop and mature. They had their fair share of problems, but he never despaired of them and never came down heavy upon them. We tend to measure on the fact that they had defects, that they had problems, that they fell short of the mark. If you read the first chapter of the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, you will find that everything that he has to say to them is encouraging. He praises God for who they are and what they are and tells them that they are things that they could hardly believe were true. He spoke to them in faith. The way Jesus looked at people, it's the way Jesus spoke to people. And he looked at the woman whom he met at the well. He didn't look at her as the harlot of Zica and he didn't talk to her like that either. He saw her as the bride of Christ and spoke to her from that position. And because he ministered positively into her heart, she was plucked up out of a filth and squalor and degradation that had been her lot for so long. And God was able to effect a miracle in her heart and make her another woman. Because at last she had met someone who wasn't down on her, who did not despise her or reject her. And grind her into the mire one degree further, but loved her out of a pure heart of servitude. And ministered that spirit of love to her that lifted her up out of what she was and what she was in and made her another person. And how all of us need to be encouraged. Do we not? The devil's a past master for condemning us and grinding us into the mire. But God isn't. God loves us. Amen. And he speaks comfortably to the heart of each one of us. It says at the end of the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, He sent Jesus to bless you. It's very easy to say God bless you and not realise what you're saying. It's trite on the lips of many, but never on the lips of Jesus. God sent Jesus to bless you. My great fear in these days is that God will come amongst us and bless us and lift us up. And get us out of the doldrums if that's where we've sunk into. And deal with those things that crush us and frustrate us and hinder us. Hallelujah. You come with a heart that's all open, full of expectation and anticipation that God is going to speak to you. Minister into your heart and love you right up into himself. Amen. Let's read, shall we? Chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians, verse 1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves, or need we, as come others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? You are our epistles, written in our hearts, known and read of all men. For as much as you are manifestly declared to be the epistles of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ God, were it not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. But our sufficiency is of God, who also has made us able ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stone, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelled it. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious, seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. And not as Moses which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, but their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day when Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open faith beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. A little phrase that has captivated my heart in these days, as I've waited upon the Lord and looked to him for his word tonight, is this little phrase, the spirit of the Lord is. Where the spirit of the Lord is, praise God. The one great thing that we need to know, as we gather together in the presence of the Lord in these days, is that the spirit of the Lord is here. Regardless of what our experience is or isn't, that is the thing that we need to know over and above everything else, that the spirit of the Lord is here. Now praise God, many of us know that by the grace of God the spirit has come and made his abode in our hearts as a permanent residence. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. There was a moment in time when that transpired and we knew that it was true. There are others in this meeting tonight, I'm sure, who don't know that. And they're in that great realm of what the old Puritans called the prevenient activity of God. That is the spirit of God working upon and in our life, preparatory to that sacred moment when the spirit of God comes and makes himself real and glorifies Jesus within our hearts. There are others who know, and by the grace of God live in the good of the present reality of the spirit of God in their heart, but for some reason or another has lost something of the wonder and the glory and the charm, the awareness. The New Testament does warn us that we should not quench the spirit, we should not grieve the spirit, which is indicative that that is possible. And that for one reason or another people do lose out. There are many people who say to me, we are not what we were in some time ago. Now you can say that, make that as a general statement, or that can be the confession of your own personal position, that you are not enjoying the reality, the fullness, the liberty, the wonder, the glory of the realization of the presence of the spirit of God in your heart at this moment in time. There may be people who have come to this conference having once enjoyed, yet have come with a heavy heart. Things have transpired, things have happened, that have dulled, tarnished and caused that original wonder and glory. Not that we can live on the mountaintop all the time, Jesus took them down into the valley, but that wasn't with the thought that the present reality of his spirit should diminish. In fact you need it more in the valley than you do on the mountaintop. But there are people who for one reason or another are not living and enjoying the good and the wonder and the glory of that original encounter with the spirit of God. Not where you were once upon a time. Now I believe that one of the purposes of gathering together like this is that you and I should come to a new realization, for some an entering in, for others a consolidation and realization of the wonder and glory of what it means to have him within, and for others a renewing, a refreshing. I don't mind what you call it. We can be very accurate, very precise, doctrinally correct in our terminology, but fail to live in the reality of the things that we speak of. The important thing is that we know that the spirit of the Lord is here, where the spirit of the Lord is. Amen. That's where things will happen. That's the urgency that we discover in the heart of the apostle when he went to a place called Ephesus. You'll read it in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where there was gathered a company of people together, twelve men. Whether there were women there or not, we are not told, but assessing modern meetings I should imagine there were more women than there were men, but we're told that there were twelve men. And the first question that he asked them was, have you or did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? To him that was the most important question. To him that was the fundamental thing that they needed to know and be living in the reality of. Or did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? Or if you want to take the authorised rendering of it, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? The actual translation is when you believed. And of course they said we do not know whether there be any Holy Ghost. And then he goes on to ask them, then what were you baptised into? And they said into John's baptism. They were Jews. They had not yet become Christians. They were seekers. They were disciples. They were living in anticipation and expectation that there was more to have and know and live in the reality of. But they had not come into that personal experience and relationship with the Spirit of God. He was still outside. Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? To the apostle that was absolutely fundamental. And for you and me it is fundamental. Unless we receive the Holy Ghost, unless we know the presence of the Holy Ghost, unless the Holy Ghost come amongst us in these days, beloved, even our gathering together is in vain. Where the Spirit of the Lord is. Amen. That's my great desire in these days. That the Spirit of God shall come amongst us. That he might come into us. That he might make his abode with us. That he might pour out himself upon us. That he might work works of grace within our lives. That he might meet the needs of human hearts. That he might solve the problems that have dogged the feet of men and women for years who come to conferences like this again and again and again and again and never find their answer or their solution. We need the Holy Ghost to come amongst us. We need the power of the Spirit to come upon us. We need the Spirit of God to flood us through and through and meet us and swallow up and solve those needs that are present amongst us. Amen. That's why I come to you. Praise God. I confess, beloved, there came a day in my life when God baptized me in the Holy Ghost and filled me so full of himself I didn't know whether I was on earth or whether I was in heaven. And I praise God that over years he has maintained and sustained that by the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and graced me with grace and caused me to enjoy him and know him and love him and serve him and follow him. And I rejoice in him tonight. I am satisfied, but I'm not. The paradox I know. Satisfied, fulfilled, knowing the reality of the Spirit of God within and yet knowing that there is so much more to have. Glory be to God, where the Spirit of the Lord is. Amen. Is he here, beloved? Well, if you've got the Spirit of God living within you, then he should be here. But are you consciously aware that he's here? Are you living in the expectation and anticipation that he's going to come and demonstrate, manifest himself amongst us in these days to meet our needs, whatever those needs are? And God alone knows what they are. Many of us have not even the ability to articulate our needs. I often say to people, how long have you had this or that problem? They said, I don't know. As far as I'm aware, it's always been there. No explanation. We can analyse. We can question. But often we're beggared for explanations and answers. We need the Holy Ghost to come. Glory to his name. That's my desire on this first night of the conference, that you and I should know that the Holy Ghost is here. Where the Holy Ghost is. Amen. Now, there's some tremendous things in the early chapters of this lovely epistle that are associated with this tremendous talk. Where the Spirit of the Lord is. First of all, in chapter 1, verse 18, But as God is true, our word towards you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay. But in Him was yea. For all the promises of God in Him are yea and in Him are men unto the glory of God by us. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, the promise of God finds its fulfilment. Glory to his name. God is a God of promise. That's why we read at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles in the first chapter, wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, you have heard of me. Acts chapter 1, verse 4, And being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, you have heard of me. And there he is speaking of the promise of promises. I don't know how many promises there are in the book, Amen, but I know that all the promises of God in Him are yea and are men unto the glory of God by us. That God does not speak, God does not promise, which is sung in His teachings. When God makes a promise, it is with the commitment of His heart to fulfil it and outwork it in the lives of the men and women who will believe it and receive it and come into the good of it. Turn into the Hebrew epistle, chapter 6, where the writer speaks of this great truth. It's in relationship to Abraham. He was a man who staggered not at the promises of God to one belief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. You'll read that in the Roman epistle. He staggered not at the promises of God and the odds against him were formidable, especially when you think of a hundred years old and still waiting. Of course, there are those who argued with the apostle Peter and said, God's gone to sleep. And Peter said, God is not snap concerning His promise that some men can't snap, that He's long-suffering to us, we're not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. God is not snap concerning His promise. What God says, God will do. What God promises, He will fulfill. Amen. And where the Spirit of the Lord is beloved, God ratifies His promise. Listen to it in Hebrews, chapter 6, verse 12. But ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, saying, surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. So after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater, and the oath for confirmation is to them the end of all strife. Wherein God willingly, more abundantly, to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by note that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge. And may hope hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, which enters into that who is in the veil. Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, maid and high priest, forever after the order of Melchizedek. It is impossible for God to lie. You'll read the same lovely truth in the first chapter of Christ. It is impossible for God to lie. God is the God of promise. His promise is immutable, it's irrefutable, it's incontestable. What God has promised, He will fulfill. Glory be to His name. Peter talks about the precious promises, doesn't he, in his second lesson? He talks about the precious promises whereby we are made partakers of the divine nature. That's probably the most magnificent truth that the Apostle Peter ever penned. You and I are made partakers of the divine nature based upon the integrity of God's promise to men and women. Glory be to His name. I wish I had time this evening to illustrate to you from my own personal experience and knowledge the integrity of God and His ability to do exactly what He says He will do. God does not mock us. God does not taunt us. What He says He will do. And when Peter says we are made partakers of the divine nature, he is talking about the promise of promises. That promise for which they were told to wait. Wait for the promise of the Father. And then in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles He says the promise is unto you. I love that. When I read a statement like that I'd love to go round to every single person in the room and look them in the eye and say Brother, the promise is for you. Sister, the promise is for you. It's this personal application, this tremendous ability that God has of addressing His word to men and women individually and personally. And that's why we need the Spirit of God to come to illuminate us. Amen. And cause us to personally understand that He is a God of promise to you and me and that we can enter into that promise of promises that will open up the floodgates, beloved, for us to begin to appreciate all the other promises. The promises unto you and to your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. Praise God, beloved, if you have appropriated the promise and made it your own. Amen. What about your children? What about all those who are far off? What about all those who have come to our conference this year who have not entered in, who do not know how? Have you faith, beloved, to align yourself with the word of God and facilitate, I used this expression yesterday morning, lubricate the way for the Spirit of God to come amongst us and find entrance and access into the hearts and lives of men and women that they too shall enjoy the wonder of the promise. It was that promise, beloved, for which Jesus died. Glory to His name. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, it's there that the promise of God is ratified and fulfilled in the hearts and lives of men and women. It's no longer a statement in a book. It's no longer the experience of someone else that you admire, but that which has become your own. Blessed be His name. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, the promise is ratified. Amen. Jesus put it like this, didn't he, when he was talking in the terms of New Birth, and said, The wind bloweth where it lifteth thou, heareth the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit of God. We cannot manipulate it. We cannot engineer it. Amen. But we can align ourselves with the Word of God and the promise that comes from His precious heart. Amen. And resolve, beloved, within our heart, if that is what God did, if that's what God has promised me, then I will enter into it and have it, and I will not give up the disposition of Jacob, beloved, when he wrestled with God. I will not let you go unless you bless me, unless God finds that in you. And in these days, beloved, related to the things that he's going to say, they'll never become our own. There are some things that only God can do, beloved, sovereignly. Only God can do. Only God can regenerate you. Only God, beloved, can rid you of your sin. Only God can baptize you within the Holy Ghost. But there are some things, beloved, that even God can't do for you. Only you can do them. Amen. God has promised, behind God's promise, behind God's word, beloved, is God's person, is God's nature, is God's power, is God's ability, is God's integrity, is God's faithfulness. It's all behind what He says. He has the ability to perform it, but He can't receive it for you. You've got to be of the disposition of Jacob that wrestles with God as needs be and say, I will not let you go unless you bless me. That's the position I came to, beloved. That's how I got baptized in the Spirit. I had no one to teach me. I didn't know anyone to teach me. I'd gone to all my evangelical friends and shared with them the burden, the agony, the despair of my heart. Shared my problems. And they told me it was normal Christianity, that I'd have to learn to live with myself. I said, if that is so, then Christianity is a great hoax and I don't want it. And I was a minister of the Gospel by this time. And I came to a place, beloved, where I resolved that unless God met me, unless He made what His words said, what I believed in my head, what I preached with my lips, real in my life, then I was through. There was no point to live. My time has come to find out whether that spirit of desperation has left. I will not let thee go unless thou bless me. God is a God of promise. And the promise of promises, beloved, is that He will baptize men and women in the Holy Ghost so that you will know where the Spirit of the Lord is. Not up there in the ethereal blue, beloved. Not remote and distant somewhere along one way. Not encastrated in a building or a book. Or confined to the limitations of a comfort that has become a reality in the depth of your own being. Amen. If you come, beloved, with a heart like that, I tell you, God will fulfill His promise. Amen. Are you desperate? God has to work on some of it a long time. He did on Jacob. Amen. Bless the Lord. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, the promise will find its fulfillment and ratification in the hearts and lives of men and women like you and me. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, verse 22 of chapter 1, He who hath also healed us and given us the earnestness of the Spirit in our hearts. Now that's what happens, beloved, when God comes and baptizes us in the Holy Ghost. This is how Paul talks about the baptism of the Spirit. He doesn't use the terminology of the Acts of the Apostles. He uses this wonderful descriptive picture of healing. You'll find it again in the Ephesian epistle where we have this lovely cameo of the Gospel in chapter 1, verse 12, that we should be to the praise of His glory. That's a repetitive statement in the first chapter. He keeps on saying that, that you should be to the praise of His glory, that you should be to the praise of His glory. I was preaching at a wedding this afternoon and told them that the ultimate in the heart of God concerning every marriage was that the glory of Jesus should be manifested. Amen. You should be to the praise of His glory. He keeps on saying it in this first chapter and here in verse 12, that we should be to the praise of His glory, who first hoped, your version probably has trusted, but in fact the word is hoped. First hoped in Christ, in whom also after that you heard the word of God, the word trusted is not in the 13th verse, in italics if you have a good Bible, in whom you also, after that you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that you believed, you were filled with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory. First we hope, then we hear, then we believe, and then we are filled. Now that's the Gospel, beloved, in a nutshell, bracketed with this lovely phrase that we should be to the praise of His glory. First we hope, then we hear, then we believe, and then we are filled with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest, the down payment, the introduction to this great life of personal relationship with the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Amen. We are sealed. Now the modern translation of the word sealed is signature. We don't use sealed these days except in legal circles. It's a signature. God writes His name. We sing about it. We read a book about it in the book of the Revelation that God gives us a new name. He writes His name upon us. Glory to His name. Now when God seals you and me, when the Spirit of the Lord comes, Amen, and brings you and me into the good of that glorious promise, the Scripture says, then He seals us. And the seal, first of all, is the declaration of His approval that what God has done totally and completely for you and me, He approves of. Amen. Bless the Lord. That's what the Spirit of God comes to do. He comes to do in you and me, or reproduce in you and me, what He did in the person of His Son, bringing it to perfection at Calvary. Amen. He comes to bring it into the good and value of the precious blood. He comes to bring it into the good of the power of God unto salvation, which is to God. He comes to bring it into the good of the glory and wonder of resurrection living. And when God sees that by His Spirit we have responded to that promise and received that divine nature, God puts His seal of approval. He says, I approve. I'm satisfied. Then God saw the perfection of the sacrifice of Jesus at the throne of grace. It reads in the Scripture, He was satisfied. I want to say tonight, if God is satisfied with what Jesus has done, you have every reason to be satisfied as well. We cannot add to it. We cannot take away from it. What God has done for you and me and Jesus is sufficient. It's adequate to meet all of our need. The reason why many of us, beloved, go on with our problems and difficulties is because we haven't fully appreciated and understood the provision that God has made for us in Jesus. And therefore we end up by bringing additions and appendages, beloved, as if we could add something to what God has done. I want to tell you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, that what God did for you and me in the person of His Son through death and resurrection unto glorification is sufficient and adequate, beloved, to meet every single need within this tent tonight. Glory be to God. We don't need anything added to it. We dare not take anything away from it. When the Spirit of God comes, beloved, where the Spirit of God is, this is what He comes to do, to make real in you and me what He's accomplished for us in Jesus. Amen. And when He sees you and me responding to that glorious work, beloved, then He will put His seal upon it and say, I'm satisfied. Amen. The other great meaning to the word seal, beloved, is guarantee. Amen. Not only does He approve of what's been accomplished through His Son, the Lord Jesus, but He guarantees the reality, the power, the ongoing working of it. He guarantees it. When you buy a good watch, beloved, it has a guarantee. Usually maximum five years. And you think that you've got a very valuable watch. They guarantee it for five years. And if it breaks within the course of five years, beloved, you can send it back and they will renew it or they will give you a new watch. I've got a nice watch. I didn't buy it. I couldn't have afforded it. It was given to me because I have a friend in Sicily who has a clock shop. He said to me, it's half yours. Amen. I'd like to own half the shop. He has the finest clocks and watches produced in Switzerland and Germany and all the famous places where they make the most beautiful clocks. He said, it's half yours, brother. Choose what you like. Take any watch in the place. Amen. And he gave me a lovely watch. And I know that it had a guarantee of five years. And I thought, marvellous. But what is five years to be compared with eternity, beloved? God guarantees that what Jesus has done for you and me is not just a temporary thing to alleviate a problem here and a problem there, but so, and not only so, beloved, but maintain you and me in liberty and freedom. Glory to His name. We devalue it. We underestimate, beloved, what God has provided for us in Jesus. And often we don't enter into it or understand it because we don't appreciate, beloved, the reality of the presence of the Spirit of God. That's why Paul wrote to the Corinthians. He said, I have not seen nor heard, neither have entered into the heart of men the things which God has prepared for them that love Him, that God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit, where the Spirit of the Lord is. God will open our inward understanding and cause us to have revelation and appreciation, beloved, of what He has really done for us in Jesus. I dare not underestimate Him. But we do. That's why people lose out, beloved. That's why people fly. That's why what comes afterwards was so wonderful once upon a time. Loses. It's lost. It loses. It's glitter. Loses. It's reality. You may fall into that context. I know many people, beloved, who once seemed to be in the seventh heaven. Or should I say the third heaven? That's more scriptural. And no longer are. For one reason or another. God's not here to condemn us, beloved, and hit us over the head. But He's here to encourage us and to tell us and to remind us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, the promises of God, the promise with all the accompanying promises, He is prepared to ratify and make real that all that He's done for us in Jesus, He's prepared, beloved, to come, feel, to burn, and guarantee. Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? Have you been baptized in the Holy Ghost? Amen. It's very easy, beloved, to slide into a fellowship context or a church context and enjoy the benefits on the periphery without entering into the reality and having an inward conviction and assurance that you know where the Spirit of the Lord is. Within. Blessed be His name. The glorious truth of feeling, beloved, is repetitive in the writings of the Apostles. Feel that the Holy Ghost breathes, not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption. He writes in the Ephesian epistle. And He writes that in the context, beloved, of the way we use our tongue. You read it in the fourth chapter. I read it for the people who gathered together to pray yesterday morning. And one of the things that quenches the Spirit of God and causes people to go into an avalanche of despair is perhaps an inadvertent word, a critical statement, a bitter, judgmental word that comes from your lips. Read the context. If you weren't there yesterday morning, read the context where it says quench not the Spirit of God whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption. James has a lot to say about the tongue, beloved. It is a little member. It's like the rubber of a chip. It controls the whole. And often it can be just a word. Beloved, in these days as we live together, as we fellowship together, let us make sure that our conversation, that our talking is edifying, is life-giving, is up-building, rather than being critical and judgmental. You know, so often we make judgments about situations, beloved, of which we really know nothing about. We've heard one side of the story, here or there, and it's all sound so plausible and wonderful until you hear the other side of the story, and then you don't know who is right and who is wrong, and find how helpful it is, you ask so often, even to make an assessment, unless God gives you revelation and insight into it. Beloved, we can quench the Spirit with a single word. I remember the day that the Lord spoke that word to me, that you one day, every idle word, you will have to answer for every idle word that you speak. So I put a clamp on my mouth. There is a scripture in the Old Testament which says, set a watch before my mouth that I may not sin against you. You shouldn't have to pray that, beloved, if you know where the Spirit of the Lord is. If the Spirit of the Lord is in you, watching your heart, Jesus said, will come out of your mouth. You shouldn't have to be constantly going around putting your hand over your mouth, thinking, living on the knife edge of so-called Christian experience. Blessed be his name. But so often we do give occasion to the wicked one, and the devil, beloved, doesn't need much scope to take advantage of the situation to grieve the Spirit of God. That doesn't mean to say that God quit. I often refer to Hanson as God's delinquent, God's juvenile delinquent. He had all the problems that modern young people had today. He had parent problems, had girlfriend problems, had hair problems. You name it, beloved, he had it, didn't he? He wasn't going to read the Bible, brother, it's the most contemporary book that you'll ever pick up. Bless God, he had all the problems. And he quenched, he grieved the Spirit, beloved, but at the moment of his death he knew the reality of God's power greater than in the moments of his life. God hadn't quit the sin, God hadn't given up on him, God hadn't dispensed with him, and God doesn't. Amen. We've all been delinquent, we've all been prodigal, we've all gone away into the far country. Amen. As I say, you've only got to give the devil an inch, but what do you take a mile? Grieve not the Holy Spirit of promise whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, he comes to seal, he comes to recite, he comes to guarantee what he's promised. Blessed be his name. Go down into the 17th verse where our text is found in chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians. Now, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Glory to his name. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, there is liberty. And he's not necessarily talking about shouting and waving your arms and jumping up and down or rolling on the floor, that's not necessarily what he's talking about. It could mean that, beloved, it could involve that and most of us are so straight-faced that we find all the arguments as to why we shouldn't. I hope you haven't come to this conference with all the preconceived ideas as to what the Spirit of God is going to do amongst us in these days. If you do, beloved, you've quenched the Spirit before you've started. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The Spirit of God has sovereign rights to do what he likes, where he likes, when he likes, how he likes, whether we like it or whether we don't. Lots of people ask me, what do I think about No comment. Amen. All I know is, beloved, that many people have been blessed. I also know, beloved, that the enemy is all too eager to take advantage of any situation and make a mess of it. But whatever you do, beloved, don't try to manipulate the Spirit of God. If God does something sovereignly, wonderfully, hallelujah, let him have liberty in your heart. Amen. Now that's not an invitation to excess, beloved, and abuse of the things of God. God is a God of order. Let this be his name. But I sometimes think that what we call order and what God calls order, beloved, are two entirely different things. Hallelujah. God won't take advantage of you. God won't make a fool of you, beloved. He'll do you good. He'll bless you where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Amen. He will liberate you, first of all, beloved, from the bondage and troll them of Satan. Amen. You'll read that in the Hebrew crystal. Chapter 2, verse 14, where he says he was manifested. No, that's not how it goes. Let's read it properly. Where ground has been afforded and disadvantages have been experienced by men and women even before they were born. The agony, beloved, into which some people are born is indescribable. Children born of narcotic parents. Their introduction to life is cold turkey. What a beginning. Beloved, children today in China begin their life in a plastic bag on a rubbish dump, in a garbage tip. When I was in the Cameroon, and Les could tell you far more about this than I do, he lived there for eight years. Women there. One woman, the 307th child of her father. And another dear woman up the road, the 139th child, daughter of her father. With all the legacy of tribalism and bondage and darkness. Amen. But you don't have to go to Africa, you don't have to go outside of the United Kingdom. You don't have to go outside, beloved, of some of the sophisticated little villages here in Devon to find bondages and darkness. The powers of Satan at work. Witchcraft. Amen. And some of it is so sufferable, so many people are so utterly gullible and feel it or think it all so harmless. There are many people, beloved, who need to be set free. They need to be set at liberty. They need to be delivered from the power of Satan. People who live in constant gloom and despair. People who live in bondage, beloved, the fear. It's what it talks about here. The fear of death. Abnormal and irrational fears that manifest itself in abnormal and irrational behaviour, beloved. Glory to His name. But the stillness of the Lord is there, is liberty. The stillness of God, beloved, has come to make the reality of what Jesus did at Calvary. He didn't just deal with sin there. He dealt with Satan. He bruised the serpent's head. He fulfilled the first great Messianic prophecy ever recorded in Scripture in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. He bruised the serpent's head. He allowed him that had the power of death, that is the devil, to deliver men and women who have been all their lifetimes, all their lifetimes, subject to bondage. Subject, that's your state and condition. It's good news for you. You will be free. And you don't have to wait till the end of the week to get free. You'll be free tonight if you'll believe God. Glory to His name. Jesus said, Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. The truth will make you free. And the truth is, beloved, is that Jesus died to set you free. He liberates us from Satan, beloved. He liberates us from sin. That's the context of John chapter 8, which I just quoted. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. The truth will make you free. The Pharisees, beloved, were arguing to accommodate sin. They didn't believe that it was possible for a man or a woman, beloved, to be delivered from the power of sin. And that's why they called, that's why Jesus told them that their father was the devil. And they didn't like that. And that's why they crucified Him ultimately. Amen. He just set a woman free, both from the bondage of Satan, beloved, and the power and stigma of sin. She'd been thrown at His feet in the temple. And all He said to her, Woman, does no man condemn thee? She said, no man, Lord. Isn't that wonderful? She knew what she was. She knew what she'd done, beloved. She didn't need telling. She didn't need anyone to tell her that she was a sinner, that she was in trouble, that she was in a mess. Been sold into it, probably. Driven into it, beloved. Amen. How many people are driven, driven into it? Jesus said, does no man condemn thee? She said, no man. He said, neither do I condemn thee. Glory be to God. Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. She didn't have to have hours, beloved, of deliverance ministry. She was emancipated there on the spot by the power of the Word of God, the promise being ratified under her heart because the Spirit of the Lord was there. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. We apologize for it. We analyze it. We psychoanalyze it. We give it other names, beloved. But there it is. I love the simplicity of the Gospel. It liberates us from ourselves. And probably that's the biggest bondage with which we have to grapple. Amen. I think they did. Men don't have problems. So it's the proof, beloved, that you haven't died. Amen. Or you won't lie down. Amen. Isn't it wonderful, beloved, that God should come and talk to us like this on the first night of the conference and not leave it until Friday night? Hallelujah. How does it do with me, beloved? I'm only sharing with you what God has already shared with me. And He's sharing a lot of it with me as I'm talking. Blessed be His name. And it thrills my heart, beloved, to know that we can gather together like this and whatever our problems, whatever our needs, however remote the Spirit of God may seem or had seemed to be, beloved, He is prepared to come amongst us and liberate men and women from the bondage of Satan, from the bondage of sin, from the bondage of self, from the bondage of our circumstances, and give us the liberty, beloved, to be the children of God. Turn into the Galatian epistle. Chapter four. No, chapter five. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Blessed be His name. Then further down in the chapter it says in verse 13, For brethren, you have been called unto liberty, only use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Lots of people think that liberty is that you can do what you like. That's not liberty, beloved, that's bondage. Liberty is doing what God likes. Amen. It's the freedom, it's the liberty to live a holy, godly, pure, God-centered, Christ-like life consistently, day by day, because you're no longer being manipulated by Satan. You're no longer being crushed, beloved, by habitual sin that grinds you into the mire and causes you to feel defeated. You're no longer, beloved, obsessed and preoccupied with yourself. So often when we quote that scripture from the Philippian epistle, My God shall supply all my needs, we say. Well, the pastor didn't say that. He said, My God shall supply all your needs. Wonderful. That's an entirely different way of looking at one of the most misquoted verses in the Bible. My God shall supply all my needs, beloved. So much of our ministry, so much of our worship, so much of our gathering together is all around ourselves. My need, my problem, my difficulty. Well, bless the Lord, beloved, we have to get the bean out of our own eye before we start trying to handle the most in someone else's eyes. But may we begin at the, right at the beginning of this conference, beloved, and get rid of that wretched bean, or rather let the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord, rid us of the bean, beloved, and set us free so that we can give ourselves to Him and give ourselves to other people. Blessed be His name. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Amen. Let us set you free from yourself, beloved. You won't worry about what people think about you, what they say about you. You may have a voice as choked and cracked as mine, beloved. Boy, you either got to sing or you don't. If you're up here on the platform, you have no choice in the matter, you poor people. Amen. You'll have to endure some others in the course of the week because I'm not going to do it all. Amen. There are lots of musical people in our midst, beloved, who have abilities and gifts from God that I haven't got. Amen. Now I'm going to take advantage of them and they're trembling in their seats. One brother said that his throat went wrong from the day he got my postcard and that was over three months ago. He's still laboring under the same problem but he's in for trouble. Amen. Bless the Lord. Another brother who's designated to preach to you tomorrow morning said he hasn't slept for three nights. Poor fellow, he's here tonight. Perhaps he's getting some courage. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Beloved, are you liberated? God sets you free. Whom the Son sets free is free. Are you free? Amen. To love the Lord. To be available to Him. Dispensable in His hands for Him to accomplish and do what He likes. Don't think about the distance, beloved. The thing that God is concerned about is now. Amen. The only guarantee that you'll be free tomorrow is that you'll be free tonight. We all have this tremendous thing of purpose, putting it off, believing that it'll happen some other time. I was reading Oswald Chambers the other day and he said God's purpose, God's ultimate purpose is now. And if you're right now, and go on being right now, now, now, you'll be right then. Glory be to God. That will be the proof, beloved, that you've entered into the liberty of the true sons of God and that you're living. Most people don't live, beloved. They exist. Jesus said, I come that you might have life and life more abundantly, beloved. That's the life in the Spirit. That's where the Spirit of the Lord is. That's the proof that you've been liberated. You're living. They say, I don't always feel like that. No, do I, beloved. That's nothing to do with it. Amen. I quite often feel like death warmed up. Do you ever feel like that? I felt exactly like that before the meeting. Amen. I've been up to Exodus most of the day, ministering in the wedding. Not exactly the best preparation for a conference. Hallelujah. Came back feeling identical to death. It's nothing to do with how you feel. Glory be to His name. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, there is liberty. And then it goes on in the next verse, marvellous. Let me all with open, tasty holdings in the grasp of the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory unto glory even by the Spirit of the Lord. That's what happens, beloved, where the Spirit of the Lord is. We're changed. We're changed from one degree of glory unto another, conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. That's what it's all about. It's not a static experience. It's not some spiritual high, beloved, that then immediately begins to deteriorate. But it's a glorious relationship that is initiated by God when He ratifies His promise within your heart and seals it up unto you by the Holy Ghost. And suddenly causes you to begin to realise, beloved, what He's really done with Satan, what He's really done with sin, what He's really done with you, what He's done with the circumstances in which you find yourself. Blessed be His name. And He's able to then really work on you. Changed into the same image, transformed, transfigured, the same glorious word that described Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Here it is now that some of you have heard me say it before. Amen. It only appears four times, twice in the Gospels, beloved, in the Synoptic Gospels, once here and once in the twelfth chapter of the Roman Epistle. Changed. Translated in three different ways in the English version. The great disadvantage, beloved, of being English is you've been born Greek. Amen. This glorious word, changed, transformed, transfigured, conformed to the likeness and image of Jesus Christ. From glory under glory. Amen. Has He changed you? Has He transformed you? Has He transfigured you? As if you just now used to be to the praise of His glory. Amen. Has He transfigured you? They beheld His glory. Beloved, men and women should behold the glory of God in you and me. That's what Paul said at the end of the first chapter of the Galatian Epistle. He said they glorified God in me. They didn't glorify Saul. They didn't glorify Paul. They glorified God in him. Read it over in the next chapter, beloved, of the same epistle to the Corinthians where he talks about, it is in verse 10, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. Manifest, magnified, he says in the Philippian Epistle. Hallelujah. Where the Spirit of the Lord is beloved, you're changed, transformed, transfigured, to be conformed to the likeness and image of Jesus Christ. Not to stop from glory unto glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord. Isn't that wonderful? Not just an experience, beloved, that deteriorates and dwindles away, but a relationship into which you're brought that grows and develops and increases so that every day is better than the day before. Glory to his name. That's what happens, beloved, where the Spirit of the Lord is. That's why everything is always new, always fresh. That's why when Jesus talked about the coming of the Spirit, he used the terminology of the river. He didn't talk about a pool. He talked about a river. He didn't even talk about a well, beloved. He talked about a spring, where everything's new and fresh and vital and invigorating all the time. Constant, continuous. That's what Paul meant when he wrote the Ephesian Epistle, to be being filled all the time with the Holy Ghost. Hallelujah. That's why he said, beloved, you can be satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. Praise God, if you're just satisfied with the experience or the blessing you've had, beloved, you're in for a big disappointment because you haven't really understood what it was that the Lord introduced you to and you've quenched the Spirit. If you think that you've got it, you have got it, but you haven't got it. As I say, we can be very pious with our doctrines. I've been baptised in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God lives in me, I don't need anything more. You do, beloved. Both Scripture and Christian history ratifies that. Blessed be his name. We have to be real. We need the Spirit of God to come. You say, he's come. I know he's come. But we need the Spirit of God to come, where the Spirit of the Lord is. Amen. Further up in the chapter he says, in verse 6, he is able to make, he has made us able, ministers of the New Testament or the New Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit, or the letter killer, but the Spirit giveth life. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's life. And where there is life, there's growth. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's life. Amen. No longer the letter of the Word. No longer the legal documentation regulating human behaviour, telling us what is right and what is wrong, but the Spirit of life. To cause all that the law says to spontaneously find its expression in our lives. The Apostle Paul tells us very clearly, brother, he didn't come to abrogate the law. Jesus says exactly the same thing. If you want to see it in the words of Jesus, you have to turn into the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 5, verse 17, where Jesus said, Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Lots of people find excuses for it, for breaking God's laws. Jesus said, I didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets I came to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Heaven and earth pass one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, except all righteousness exceed the righteousness of the slight and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Turning to the Roman Epistle, where Paul simply ratifies what the Lord Jesus says. We live in an age that is libertine, beloved. Theologically, it would have been called antinomian. That is, love God and do what you must. Break the law. Disregard God's word. Blessed be His name. And at the end of chapter 4 of the Roman Epistle, Paul says, Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law. Romans chapter 8. For the law of the Spirit of life, verse 2, in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. That is the awful legal system. Amen. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, there comes the liberty to live in the spontaneity of obedience that does what God's law says. God is not a different God in the Old Testament than what He is in the New Testament. He is the same God. He has not changed. He doesn't say, don't murder in the Old Testament but you can in the New. Don't steal in the Old Testament but you can in the New. Men and women, beloved, were incapable of fulfilling God's law in the Old Testament. They had no ability. Jesus came and fulfilled the law of God. Righteously. And then by the Spirit, beloved, came to put within you and me the ability to do what He had done. Glory be to God. I tremble for this nation, beloved, that stays fast and loose with the word of God and the laws of God. I know that you cannot govern an unregenerate life, beloved, by Christian principles. Amen. But men who will not live under the grace of God will suffer the law of God. Do you believe that? If men will not receive God's grace, then they become the subjects of God's law. Hallelujah. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, there is a spontaneous desire, an ability, to fulfill God's law. You won't steal. You won't commit adultery. You will honour your parents. You will honour God's day. You will do what God says, beloved. And you cannot select one and leave out another. You will do it, not because the law said you must do it, but because the Spirit that inspired it, beloved, lives within you. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, there is that ability to do what God's law says you should do. Amen. And you don't try to find some way of getting around it. Glory be to God. That's why Jesus said the perfection of the law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself. And if you love God like that, beloved, and love your neighbour as yourself, you won't steal, you won't commit adultery, you won't do all the things that the law says you shouldn't do. Because the nature of Jesus within you doesn't. You won't lie. Look into 1 John. There's a lovely statement in 1 John. Chapter 2. Again, talked paradoxically. It absolutely blows the mind, beloved. In verse 7 of chapter 2, Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you. He goes, first of all, I don't write a new commandment. I write an old commandment. I don't write an old commandment. I write a new commandment. And you wonder what he's saying. Well, the thing is, beloved, nothing's new in God. Amen. It's only new for us. When God opens our eyes and pours his in, we think it's new. It's like people think an experience in the Holy of Holies and the Spirit was new. That's why people thought the charismatic renewal was something new. It wasn't new at all, beloved. Its origins are in God. It is old as God. Glory be to his name. He says again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you? Because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. What was true in him, beloved? John, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, says it's true in you. Wonderful. Wonderful. That's an amazing statement. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, beloved, it's true. The Spirit that once lived in Jesus living in you will cause you and me to do and behave as Jesus did. Simple as that. It's not a question of trying, striving, struggling, trying to live up to an impossible standard. Call it the Sermon on the Mount if you like. The Sermon on the Mount is simply a description of normal Christian living. Glory be to God. It exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees because they were trying to live by the letter. You and I, beloved, have the ability to live by the Spirit that preceded the letter. Amen. And that's why down in verse 3 of chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians we read this lovely statement. For as much as you are manifestly declared to be the epistles of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone but in the fleshy tables of the heart. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, the Word of God becomes incarnated in flesh and blood again and again and again. Jesus was the Word made flesh. And by the Spirit of God, beloved, He wants to flesh out His Word in you and me. Write it upon the fleshy tables of our hearts. Incarnate His Word, His truth in you, in me. To make us a living embodiment, beloved, and ratification that what He says is true, that it works. That's why when He wrote to the Thessalonians He said things like this. One Thessalonians. Chapter 2, verse 13. For this cause we thank God without ceasing because when you receive the Word of God which you heard of us you receive it not as the Word of men but as it is in truth the Word of God which is sexually workers also in you that believe. And that's why in the preceding chapter He was able to write and show that you were ensembles unto all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia for from you sounded out the Word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia but also in every place your faith to God is spread aboard so that we need not speak anything. Oh men, what an amazing statement to write to a young church. He said you heard the Word of God you didn't hear it as the Word of man. You heard it as the Word of God. It became effectually working you to the degree that it was manifesting for everyone to see to the point that we don't even have to come and tell them anymore. They've become the embodiment of the words that He's spoken to them. Amen. And that's what the Spirit of God comes to accomplish brother. He wants to incarnate His Word in you and me. Where the Spirit of the Lord is the promise of God is fulfilled. Where the Spirit of the Lord is God will seal and ratify His Word. Where the Spirit of the Lord is beloved there is liberty emancipation from Satan, sin, self and circumstances. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is conformity to His likeness and His image increasingly. Where the Spirit of the Lord is it's no longer the letter of the law but the fulfilment of it in you and me. Where the Spirit of the Lord is the Word takes on flesh and blood that men and women can see and touch and handle and know that God is true. Where the Spirit of the Lord is. Amen. I could go on. The book is endless in these things. Where the Spirit of the Lord is is He in you beloved. Have you come with that expectation anticipation? Do you want to go on from one degree of glory to another time? Blessed be His name. Where the Spirit of the Lord is He's here. Can you say He's here? Are you living in the good in the reality of what you say is here? Are you satisfied or content? Or is it something in you tonight that hungers for more and more and more? Just stand and pray. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory be to God. As I say we have a week laid out in front of us. But you don't have to wait to the end of the week to appropriate the Word and promise of God to your heart. You can do it where you stand tonight. Blessed be His name. So that He can build on it and develop it and increase it as the days go by line upon line precepts upon precepts as the Spirit of God comes and unveils the truth of His heart to us. Open your heart to the Lord now. Hallelujah. Open your heart. Be utterly honest as to where you are. Confess your sin. Glory to His name.