This sermon emphasizes the importance of responding to the Holy Spirit's promptings and allowing our tongues to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. Drawing parallels between Genesis 1 and Acts 2, the speaker highlights the need for daily renewal and transformation through cooperation with the Holy Spirit. The message stresses the power of words spoken under the authority of the Holy Spirit to drive out darkness and obstacles in our lives.

I want to turn, first of all, to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis 1, you have often heard me say that the first chapter of the Bible is, in a nutshell, the message of the whole Bible. And that is a world that was created perfect by God and something happened between verse 1 and 2. Sin came into the world through the angels and resulting in the earth becoming shapeless, empty, and dark. And then immediately we read the Holy Spirit begins to move. That's very important to notice that the Holy Spirit begins to move on the surface of the waters, beginning to bring restoration. And verse 3, we read God's Word went forth. So the joint operation of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that continued throughout all those days, first day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day. It was a joint operation of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God every day. See, God could have, you know, in a moment rectified everything. But he didn't. He did it over a period of time. And then at the end, by the way, every day he examined the work. He says he looked at it. Was it good? Good. And then on the last day, when everything was done, he looked at it and there was man in his image. And God looked at everything and said it was very good. So that's the message of the Bible. That God created man perfect and the devil came and made him fall into sin. And the result was, like it says in verse 2, his life became shapeless. That means he lost the image of God. Empty. And when man is empty, he tries to find... empty means God had gone out. Now when man becomes empty of God, whom he's supposed to reflect, he begins to search for satisfaction for that emptiness. It's like a vacuum inside which he's trying to fill with the pleasures of sex or with money and possessions and getting power in the world or position or getting power in a church. All this fighting that goes on in the world where people pursue after sex and internet pornography and politicians fighting for power and businessmen trying to cut down one another and believers trying to cut down one another to promote themselves in the churches. All because there's a vacuum in the heart. And if you find yourself doing that, you can be pretty sure the vacuum is still there. There's an emptiness. When that emptiness is filled with God, you don't seek after these things. You can't get rid of your love for the world by fighting it, fighting it, because something has to fill that vacuum. You remember what Jesus said? You cast out a demon and keep that heart like an empty vacuum. There's a proverb in the world which says nature hates or abhors a vacuum. You know, anywhere there's a vacuum, something will rush in. It doesn't take time. You know, if you have a bottle where vacuum as soon as you open the cork, air rushes in. It's like that. There's a vacuum in our heart and if you don't fill it with God, I assure you, you'll spend all your life trying to battle this sin and that sin and the other sin. It's all trying to get in. There's no way to keep it out. So man became empty and he became dark. There was darkness. There was no light. That means he couldn't see the proper way, even though he may have been very intelligent. Man was very intelligent, but darkness came in and that's what happens to clever people, intelligent people. They're dark in their spirit. So that's a description of man and then God doesn't leave man like that. He immediately begins to work with the Holy Spirit and that's so important to see that. The Holy Spirit moving gently, you know, the Spirit of God moving over the surface of the waters. In the New Testament, it's you see the Holy Spirit coming like a dove upon Jesus. There's a gentleness about the Holy Spirit. Anything rough is not of God. It's of the devil. Whenever you hear of people who deal with you roughly, you can be pretty sure they're inspired by the devil. The Holy Spirit is very gentle. He doesn't yell and scream and shout at you. It's the devils who do that. Demon-possessed people yell and scream and shout and Jesus was not like that. He may have raised his voice to emphasize the point, but this yelling and screaming and shouting that you hear a lot of preachers, I'll tell you they're not inspired by the Holy Spirit. I mean, if you want a little guideline to protect yourself from deceivers. The Holy Spirit moves gently always. That's why we don't have to be afraid of him. He's like a dove and he moved upon the waters. I don't know why people are afraid of the Holy Spirit. It's so gentle. You should be more afraid of the devil. The next thing is God's word comes to man and God's purpose in giving his word to man like he's doing right now and the Holy Spirit moving like he's also doing right now is to change you. To change man not in a moment. He could do it. He could change us in a moment. He could have changed the world in a moment. Made it perfect in one second. Why did he do it day by day by day by day? There's something God accomplishes in his great wisdom. He's decided that transformation in our life is going to come gradually. In our case through years. But the ultimate goal is not heaven because at the end of chapter Genesis 1 what you see is not heaven. At the end of Genesis 1 you see a man in the image of God and that's what God's ultimate goal is. It says in Romans 8.29 he's predestined us, written a destination for us already on our tickets to become like Jesus Christ. So that's Genesis 1.31.2 that we become completely like Jesus Christ in the image of God and only then will God say very good. In between he encourages us day by day by saying good, good, good. You know God never says not good enough. Foolish fathers, foolish teachers say that. God never. If you're a foolish father or mother you'll say that to your children. Not good enough. God will say good but tomorrow will be better. That's how it was. The first day was good, the second day was better, the third day was even better. And like that till the came the final day and said excellent, very good. Try that method with your children. You'll see a lot more results and that's how God is. You know there are a lot of things we can learn from God in the Bible. How he behaves and the first impression that our children have of God and authority is in their parents. And as soon as they are born and soon after I think from about less than a year onwards they start picking up impressions even before they can speak or understand. There are impressions they get from their parents and that affects their character. So it's very important that from early in life we give our children an impression of what God is like. That's very, very important. I believe parents are failing their children because they have not, even Christian parents, they haven't recognized that the first knowledge of God that our children have is from us, from their parents. And then they go on to see as they grew up what the Lord himself is like. And the same in a church. The great tragedy in Christendom today is that Christian leaders are not like Jesus Christ in their behavior, in their conduct, in the way they talk to people, in their attitude to money, in their approachability, humility, everything. I mean I'll tell you in my younger days I hardly found anyone whom I could look up to as saying there's a man I'd really like to be like. I think I met about one in the whole country of India in my younger days. Imagine with so many millions of Christians that it's so difficult to find a man or a woman that other Christians can say there's somebody I'd like to be like. Not in his wealth or cleverness or even in his gift but in his character, the way he conducts himself, the way he speaks, the way his attitude to everything in the earth, his godliness. You know you can be like that. So don't get discouraged if everything doesn't happen in a day and don't get discouraged if in one year you haven't suddenly become like Christ. But God's will is that the second day should be better than the first. There's no backsliding in Genesis 1. It's not that the second day became worse and the third day became better and the fourth day became worse. You know that's this up and down type of experience that a lot of Christians have. The first chapter of the Bible says that is not the will of God and if that is your experience just write across it that is not God's will. Start there. Don't get discouraged by that but just say to yourself that's not God's will and I remember saying that because my life was exactly like that up and down and if I had said oh well that's normal I would be like that today. But I kept saying to myself for years that is not the way God wants me to be and that's what changed me. If you accept that as normal you'll remain like that forever. It's not normal. Every day was better till finally it became very good just like a like the Bible says the path of the righteous. Proverbs 4.18 is like the shining light that shines brighter and brighter and brighter till the perfect day. So the first day, second day, third day, fourth day and the perfect day on sixth day. Very good. Then God could rest. That's wonderful. God is not going to rest until we have become totally like Christ and he's going to do if you cooperate with him he's going to do everything possible to make you like Christ. If it requires trial, financial difficulty, sickness, thorn in the flesh, he'll do anything to make you like Christ if you submit. But the principle in which God deals with us is always I stand at the door and knock. There's one difference here between the way God deals with us and what we see in Genesis 1 and that is free will. When God said let there be light there was no resistance in nature saying no I'm not going to respond to that. Immediately the light came. Or when God said let the earth sprout vegetation the earth didn't resist and say hang on I want to think about that. No. There's the difference between inanimate creation and man. When God says something to man, man says let me think about it. Or yeah that's not so serious. I've seen so many believers who read something in scripture and say I mean that's not the main thing. The tree should bring forth fruit. Yeah that's not the main thing. The earth didn't say that. If God said the tree should bring forth fruit, it brings forth fruit. See that was the difference and you can all of us can learn something from the response of earth and heaven to God's word in Genesis 1. There was never any delay. I'll think about it. I'll pray about it or that's not important or you know some people read some part of the New Testament and say that was for that culture 20 centuries ago. We are in a more advanced and you know civilized culture. Yeah you can say all that. You'll remain in darkness emptiness and shapelessness. You remain in Genesis 1 verse 2 all your life. And I've seen believers like that. They're so clever. They think they know so much of the Bible but look at their lives. Shapeless unlike Christ. The way they lose their temper. The way all that dirty thoughts have gone in their mind. What darkness. What is the reason? They have begun to argue with the word of God. God says something and they say oh that was for that culture. It's not for us. Or this particular thing. That's not the main thing brother. Learn something from it that the earth responded immediately. No delay. And I'll tell you something. You know how we can pick up habits. You can pick up good habits like brushing your teeth so that after a while you don't even have to think. Automatically you get up in the morning and brush your teeth. The same thing with bad habits. You can pick up some bad habits and they carry on your life. You know why you just don't hang up your clothes. Probably just throw it around. You do that all your life. There are good habits we can pick up and bad habits and I've noticed one thing that when Christians begin their life and they are reluctant in obeying something God has said to them. It becomes a habit. God says go and ask forgiveness from your wife. You think about it for five days and you do it. I tell you all your life you'll be like that. Let there be light. After five days the light comes on. It came on. You're better than those guys will never respond. But you'll be like that. It'll take you a million years to become like Christ but you don't have a million years to live. There was a plan for each day and every day I want to tell you in Jesus name God has something for you to do where you'll become a little more like Christ towards that final day. Let me show you 2nd Corinthians 4 and verse 16. 2nd Corinthians in chapter 4 and verse 16. Therefore we don't lose heart. We don't get discouraged. It's a great word. We don't get discouraged. Paul says that more than once. Verse 1. We don't just get discouraged. Verse 16. We don't get discouraged. So which means Paul was facing the temptation to be discouraged. Every Christian faces the temptation to be discouraged but Paul did not yield to it. I remember the years and years in my life when I used to yield to it but it's finished. It's gone from my life I don't remember whether it was 20 or 30 years ago that I lost God discouraged. It's gone because you refuse to accept it. We do not get discouraged. We have authority over it. We decide I am not going to get discouraged. We don't lose heart but though our outer man is decaying you see there's nothing you can do about your outer man decaying. They say once you cross the age of 25 you're going downhill. You see these great athletes and sprinters and all they reach a peak and then it's downhill and somewhere around the age of 25 we reach our peak and then our body starts decaying physically and brain cells start dying out and as you grow older your memory is not so sharp and bodily functions become weaker. You can't do anything about it. You can make it worse by bad habits like bad eating habits and bad life habits and quicken the decay of your body. A lot of foolish Christians do that particularly by bad eating habits and but the inner man it says here is being renewed. That doesn't happen automatically. That's the difference. The outer man decaying is automatic. You cannot make you can make it worse and by good habits you can slow it down but you cannot stop it. It will decay but the inner man renewal depends entirely upon how you respond to the Word of God and how often is the inner man supposed to be renewed according to this verse day by day. That means every single day first day, second day, third day, fourth day and if you live for 10,000 days on the 10,000th day it has to keep on going and if you live for 20,000 days or 30,000 days keeps on going in 70-80 years keeps going every day. So look at the tragedy of so many Christians who never change even in a year. You see them after a few years they're just the same. There's no greater graciousness in their life. There's no greater humility. There's no greater knowledge of God. There's no greater faith. There's no greater love. They're just the same. I hope your children can see and say to your parents, dad, mom I see a change in you. You're different. In the Proverbs it says if you have animals even the animals will recognize a change in you if your character changes. Yeah it's day by day. Now if you say that's impossible according to your faith be it unto you it will be impossible for you but not for me. I believe what scripture says day by day. You know there's one thing about scripture. God doesn't force you to accept what he says. I mean if God forced people nobody would be in hell. You know that? Think of the hundred thousand people or more who died in the last 24 hours around the world who went to hell. Did God stop any of them? Hey don't go. No. You want to go? Go. Look at the number of believers say in the last 24 hours who committed some sin some serious sin. I hope nobody here is like that but even if you did did God stop you? No. Did God puncture the scooter wheel of the man who was going to commit adultery? No. The scooter ran perfectly all the way to the place where he committed adultery and came back. Did you suddenly become blind when you clicked on that pornographic site? No. Your eyes were wide open. I said it's perfect. God doesn't stop you from destroying yourself. No. That's a terrible thing because he doesn't force you. That's the difference between Genesis 1 and man and the earth God spoke and responded immediately and that's a lesson for us. It's demons who force people as you've often heard me say. Demons possess people. The Holy Spirit fills people. The demons never fill people and the Holy Spirit never possesses people. You'll never see that expression in scripture. The difference is demons possess that means when a demon possesses a person you see demon possess people they have no control over themselves. I mean sometimes they look self-controlled because the devil is sort of sitting quietly saying I won't do anything now so that people don't you know people think this person is normal. He's not normal. He's demon possessed. But he gets stirred up if a man of God comes in front of him. You know how Jesus used to go to the synagogues and all those demons who sat quietly when the Pharisees were preaching suddenly got worked up. How do they not get worked up for all these 30-40 years when the Pharisees were preaching? It's because the demons saying ah who are you? But when Jesus got into the pulpit they all got worked up. Suddenly one fellow would cry out I know who you are and Jesus would tell him to keep quiet. Get out of there. So demons control people. The Holy Spirit never. He gives you power. He says you can use it if you want. You can use it to overcome sin. You can use it to live a godly life. You can use it to bless other people. You can use it to control your tongue. But if you don't use it to what you like. That's the difference and that's why we have to live in fear. God's given us power but we may not use it. You know two people can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Ten years later one is a godly man and the other is an ungodly man. How is that? They both may have had a genuine baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire at the beginning. But in one person it all went out. He lost it. The other person faithfully responded. So that's the difference. Day by day renewal. So coming back to Genesis 1. We find that day by day by day God moved. Changing things and making it better and better and better. And that applies not only to our personal life. I believe even in our married life. I often tell young couples who get married in the church. I say you guys are luckier than me. When I got married I never knew these truths. I never had anyone there like a spiritual father to explain to me how I could have a wonderful happy married life. I never had anyone explain to me how I could bring up godly children. I had to sort of struggle and struggle and struggle for many years and learn from scripture and through making many mistakes. Mistakes that you don't have to commit. No. We can discover it straight away without making the mistakes because we can learn from others. You see that's how in science. There's a phrase called don't reinvent the wheel. Many years ago in the stone age some man invented the wheel. And it became easier to push things around. But I think they experimented a lot before they invented a simple thing like the wheel. Today we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We already have it. We move on from the wheel to discover other things. And science is always you know progress. Because it has learned from the mistakes of others. The trouble with Christians is we don't learn from the mistakes of others. We go and repeat them ourselves. It's like reinventing the wheel. We got to learn it all over again. Why do you have to? Your children don't have to repeat the same stupid mistake you did in your teenage years. No. Do you want them to do that? No. So when your children say oh dad mom how were you in your teenage years? Yeah I say I don't want you to do the stupid things which I did in my teenage years. Everything is advanced. So in the same way in the Christian life if we can learn from the mistakes of others and move on. That's what I say to young married couples. You're so lucky. You can live a godly life from day one. Especially if you were married in the church in day one and you have not lived a godly life from that day every single day. You should hang your head in shame put your face in the dust and say Lord I'm probably just increasing in knowledge in CFC. And I want to say possibly it is the same today. You may think you're becoming more spiritual because you're listening to so many wonderful truths. You're not. If you were responding to everything you heard especially those think of those of you who were married after you came to CFC or you heard these truths. How has your life been since then? Didn't you hear so many wonderful truths before you got married? You didn't take it seriously and that's why there's been so much conflict and up and down and so many problems in your relationship with your parish partner. Now I want to tell you it's not going to be any better now because what is the proof that your attitude to the word you're hearing today is going to be any different from the attitude you had to the word of God 25 years ago. Maybe the same. We have to take it seriously. We have not responded to the word of God that we heard in past years as we should have. Now I want to say to young people don't think that increase in knowledge is increase in life. Increase in knowledge is just your head getting bloated and bloated and bloated. I remember seeing a little baby once with a huge head which is about the same size or bigger than the size of its body. It's a disease called hydrocephalus where the head is don't think it's a big brain it's water. I've seen only one baby like that but I've seen a lot of Christians like that. Lots and lots of them. So much knowledge and their life so little. Such babies don't last long and such Christians don't last long either because there's no development. It's a huge head with so much information and so much knowledge and I want to say that is one of the great dangers of people coming here and listening to these messages every Sunday. Listen to it on CDs and the internet and in the church. The great danger is that your knowledge can increase and you can be like that hydrocephalus baby with a huge head and a wee tiny life. Just examine yourself. It wasn't like that in Genesis 1. As soon as it heard something happened. So let the earth come out of the waters. The earth came out of the waters. Let the trees come up from the earth. The trees came out. Let the trees bear forth fruit. Came up. Let there be fish in the waters immediately. There was no delay and that's what I'm trying to say. This is where God we can say is frustrated and disappointed with most of his children. And why do we delay? Because listen to this. If you delay in obedience to God's word, it's because you think you know better than God. When you're planning to click on an internet site which is filthy and you hear a prompting you shouldn't do that. But you do it. You think you know better than God. God doesn't have to do. I know. I know what's good for me. That's why transformation doesn't take place and that's why Christians bring such reproach on the name of Christ in this country and everywhere. And we should hang our head in shame because the Lord says my name is blasphemed among the non-Christians because of you. Have you ever heard that word? Many times I have fallen before God and said Lord let your name be honored in India. Let your name be honored in India. I mean that's a prayer he taught us to pray. Hallowed be your name. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. And it has to begin with you. It's got to begin with me first. Lord let everything in my life hallow your name. And if you have that burden you'll find that gradually a transformation takes place. There's another thing I want to say here. The Holy Spirit and the Word of God together. That's the old creation. You go to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2 is the beginning of the new creation. It's very similar to Genesis 1. Here was something new. Man, corrupt, spoiled. 4,000 years in sin. Not much change. Great men of God like David commit adultery. Kill the woman's husband. Marry the woman. This is what happened. Great men of God Elijah get depressed when some woman frightens him and sits under a tree and say Lord take away my life. I don't want to live. Great men of God like Moses coming down with the tablets of stone from the mountain gets angry and throws it down and breaks it. You know what that is the equivalent of? That's the equivalent of taking the Bible and tearing it. Moses tore the Bible in anger. These are the great men of God in the Old Testament. They didn't have the Holy Spirit within. Don't think you're better than Moses because you never tore a Bible. The standard is much higher today. The Holy Spirit comes within. Today if you commit adultery you can't make David your excuse. If you get angry you can't make Moses your excuse. If you get depressed you can't compare yourself with Elijah. We've got the Holy Spirit. A new creation. Something new. After 4,000 years of man's failure God says now I'm going to do something and Jesus comes dies rises up ascends to heaven and sends the Holy Spirit. The day of Pentecost has come. The Holy Spirit came and filled them. Now I believe that one of the great tragedies among Christians is the tragedy that took place in Israel when Jesus was there walking for 33 years. That was the second person of the Trinity came down to earth 2,000 years ago and lived around in Nazareth for 30 years. Nobody recognized him. Nobody fell at his feet and worshiped him. They didn't know. He's just a carpenter. Looks like the rest of us. They didn't know. Imagine if the Son of God were living in the house next to yours and you didn't even know it. For 30 years. Wouldn't that be a tragedy? And then he moved out in ministry with such fantastic miracles that God did to confirm this is the second person of the Trinity. And still they were blind. They called him Beelzebul, Prince of Devils, Samaritan, Demon Possessed, what all names they called him. How is that possible? It's very easy to think of the mistakes of another generation. How did the Anglicans persecute John Wesley? How did the Methodists persecute William Booth? It's very easy to look at the mistakes of another generation. In every generation you'll find the true prophets are always called heretics, false teachers, because that's the way the devil keeps away Christians from the truth. In every generation. It's happening in this generation too. But after that prophet dies, then some years later they'll discover, ah, he was a prophet of God. Very few people recognize the prophet in their generation. So all these people, you know, it's very easy for us to look at another generation and say, ah, we wouldn't do that. But we could be doing it now and not knowing it. The second person of the Trinity walked around in Israel and people didn't recognize him. Today the third person of the Trinity is on earth. How many Christians acknowledge him? How many Christians value him? How many Christians recognize him? How many Christians long, I mean, if you you'd say, oh, if I were in Israel I would have longed to be with Jesus all the time. Well, another person just like Jesus is here. Did you know that? Jesus said, another helper just like me, the Holy Spirit. How much do you long, long to be with him, to be ruled by him, to be controlled by him, to listen to him? It's very easy to say, if I were in Nazareth, I would have listened to Jesus. I would have done everything he said. It's like saying in another generation, this is the words of the devil, fooling us. You were not living in Palestine 2,000 years ago, but you are living today. And the same God who walked on earth is here in our midst. But I see Christians have ignored the Holy Spirit. They don't crucify him. They just ignore him. Yeah, okay. I really believe that. And that's the reason why there's so much failure in our lives. That's why Israel failed. They ignored the Son of God when he came into their midst. And Christians today do exactly the same, ignoring the Holy Spirit. I want to say to all of you, my brothers and sisters, if you want daily renewal, honor the Holy Spirit. What a work the devil has done by turning people away from the doctrine, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, by all the fanatical extremes that we see in some Christian groups, where people speak some gibberish and call that speaking in tongues. No, that's not speaking in tongues. That's just somebody repeating two or three syllables back and forth. A tongue is a language. I mean, even if you didn't know a language, supposing somebody got up here and spoke in Romanian, you may not understand a word of it, but wouldn't you be able to make out it's a language? Or if somebody spoke in Chinese, you wouldn't be able to understand it, but wouldn't you be able to make out if it's a language? Can't you make out a language from the little gibberish that your little baby speaks? Sure. And a lot of so-called tongues today is like the gibberish babies speak. It's not a language at all. Real tongues, I tell you, is a language. It's a gift of God. So you see all this counterfeit going on. I look at it and I say, boy, dishonoring the Holy Spirit, making the Holy Spirit an object of ridicule. People laughing and kicking their legs and lying on the floor. Can you imagine Jesus lying on the floor somewhere and kicking his legs and laughing? I can't imagine that by any stretch of my imagination, but insulting the Holy Spirit saying, this is Jesus. This is how Jesus would behave. They get some verse from Acts chapter 2 where the unbelievers said these people are drunk and say, oh, when you're filled with the Spirit, you'll act like a drunken man. You don't listen to the words of those unbelievers and live on that? Who said that? A lot of Christians, I tell you, their fundamental problem, please listen to me, is they don't read the Bible. That's why they deserve to be deceived. Read the Bible, my brothers and sisters. It's God's Word. It's the thing that will bring transformation along with the Holy Spirit in our lives. So in Acts chapter 2, it says the Holy Spirit came and filled them. Just like Genesis 1, the Holy Spirit began to move. Something new was beginning to happen, and from this day onwards, people could be renewed day by day. If the Apostle Peter didn't become Christ-like in one day, he made a lot of blunders even after this, and so did the other apostles. But a transformation began, and they needed to be filled with the Spirit again and again and again and again. They honored the Holy Spirit. It's like if you were living in Israel, in Palestine, in those days in Israel, in the 2,000 years ago, you'd want to go and be with Jesus again and again and again. Some neighbor would say, hey, you went with Jesus yesterday, man. Why do you want to go again? No, I want to go and see him again today. And you go and see him again and again and again and again, and some neighbor says, you guys are fanatics. Say, yeah, I'm a fanatic when it comes to the second person of the Trinity on earth. How many of us long to go to the Holy Spirit like that? You know, Jesus said to his disciples, it's good for you that I go away. Because if I don't go away, we could say, he could have said like this, I'll only be in Nazareth or Galilee all the time. What about all those people in India? They won't have me. Or the people in Africa, they won't have me. But it's good that I go away, because if I go away and I send that the third person of the Trinity, who's exactly like me, another helper will come. Comfort her, strengthen her, encourage her. He'll come. And then he can be everywhere. And not only he can be everywhere, if I'm here, I won't be able to come and live inside you. I can protect you from storms and sicknesses and all that. But what about, you know, this desire to fight with each other, to see who is greater. You know when the disciples were discussing who was greater? When Jesus was sitting right there. You can have Jesus sitting right in front of you, and you can have a fight as to who's greater. But you can't do that when he's inside. So that's the other thing, is it is good that I go away, because then I'll come inside. It's good that I go away, because then I can be everywhere. That is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. And I believe with all my heart, Christians today have ignored the Holy Spirit, just like the Israelites ignored Jesus. Just like those Jews, we can look at them and say, ah, how is it they didn't recognize the second person in Trinity? I look at Christians and say, how is it you don't recognize the third person of Trinity? Trying to move in your midst, trying to fill your life, and you don't respond to him. If you were living in Israel, and Jesus came knocking at the door of your house one day, would you open it? Sure. What if he came the next morning and said, what if he came after one year, every day, again, what do you say? Oh, come on, I have already opened it one year for you. Would you say that to him? Or would you just ignore it? Ah, that's just Jesus, I know. You know, that is how people are treating the Holy Spirit. You may not even realize it. Ah, Holy Spirit, yeah, yeah, he's there. No wonder, my brother, sister, your life is so shallow. And yet, there may have been a time in the lives of some of you, I'm sure, when you honored the Holy Spirit, when you longed that you might be filled and possessed by him. But you become familiar, like the proverb which says, familiarity breathes contempt. That means you become so familiar with a person that now you just ignore him. That's happened. I never want it to happen in my life. I, every day, I long to say, Lord, fill me, Holy Spirit of God, I want you to fill me. I want to open my being to you. I don't want to ignore you, not only every day, I don't want to ignore you any time of the day. I want to respond to you. It's not conscious prayer. It's more like breathing. It's more unconscious. An attitude of willingness to respond immediately. We can get an illustration from Genesis 1. God said, let there be something, and something happened, and then 24 hours, no more word. Okay. And then after 24 hours, let the earth bring forth vegetation. Fine. So it doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is speaking to us 24 hours all the time. No. But what it does mean is, when he speaks, we respond. And then for a while, I may not hear anything. Then he speaks, and we respond, particularly in temptation. Times of temptation, he responds. So the thing I wanted to see here is the connection between the Holy Spirit and our tongue. If you go to the average Pentecostal and ask him, what is the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit? He'll say, Acts 2-4. They all spoke with tongues. If you come to me, ask me, what is the sign of the fullness of the Holy Spirit? I'll first say Acts 1-8, which Jesus said, that you will receive power. But I'll say, all right. If you want to connect the tongue with it, I say, Acts 2-3, not Acts 2-4. Let's go to Acts 2-3 before we go to Acts 2-4. In Acts 2-3, it says, there were tongues of fire resting on each of them. I know that's one of the things that happened in my life, when the Lord filled me with the Holy Spirit. My tongue got set on fire. That means, it got under the control of the Holy Spirit. That means, I began to be able to control my anger. Forget about speaking in another language. That can come next verse. But first, Acts 2-3. Why jump to Acts 2-4 before you go to Acts 2-3? Supposing I say, the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit is that you stop getting angry. Not many Pentecostals would accept that. But that's in the Bible. Acts 2-3, a tongue under the control of the Holy Spirit. Dear brother, sister, long for it. Because it will give you such a tremendous power in your life. Because just like God spoke words, we can speak words with our tongue. Yeah. And things can happen, if you allow your tongue to come under the fire of the Holy Spirit. You remember how Jesus said in Mark 11. Mark 11, verse 22, 23. Sorry, Mark 11-23. Let me paraphrase it. Whoever uses his tongue and says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea. And he doesn't doubt in his heart. Imagine a mountain moving and dropping in the sea. It's not a literal mountain. I don't gain any benefit by moving the Himalayas into the Bay of Bengal or anything. What do I gain from that? But there are other more problematic mountains in our lives, which stand in the way of our doing God's will. Which I do want to get out of my way. And I don't sit there and say, oh what to do brother. There's so much obstruction. I can't move on. This thing is happening. That thing's happening. This person's against me. The devil's doing this. Devil's doing that. No. You're supposed to speak to that mountain to get out of the way. That's the meaning of this verse. But if you want to speak that with your tongue, your tongue has to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. You can't be spending the day gossiping with your wife, speaking evil about others, and getting angry, and yelling, and screaming, and all that. And then suddenly speak to a mountain to get out of the way. The mountain will say, who are you? I don't recognize you. There's tremendous power which Christians are missing if you don't allow the Holy Spirit to control your tongue all the time. Let me show you two verses. First of all, Jeremiah 15. Jeremiah in chapter 15. The Lord told Jeremiah in verse 19, in the middle of that verse, if you extract the precious from the worthless, you will be my mouth. You will be my spokesman. For their part, they may turn to you. You, you must not turn to them. What it means is, in your conversation, in all your conversation, 24 hours a day, get rid of the worthless. My dear brother and sister, I challenge you to take me up on this word and see if it does not work in your life. From this day, make a concerted effort, a serious effort, to get rid of worthless things from the conversation you have at home with your wife and husband. The useless gossip, which does not change people in any case, but just destroys you. What a fool you are to speak evil about people. It does not make them better or worse, but it destroys you. I mean, you got to be, it's like those, that mad gathering demoniac who cut himself with knives. I've seen believers who do that, destroy themselves, gossiping, backbiting. I say, these guys are demon possessed. Who else would harm themselves? I mean, worldly people try to harm others, but here's a man harming himself. Crazy. Get rid of the worthless things. It's like saying, get rid of the garbage and speak words. And like the message Bible says, use words truly and well. Only then will you speak for me and let your words change others. Don't change your words to please them. And I want to show you Matthew chapter 8. Matthew chapter 8, there was something which the Roman centurion recognized when he saw Jesus. He was, his servant was sick and he came to Jesus and said, please heal my servant. Roman, Matthew 8 and verse 6. And Jesus said, yeah, I will come to your house and heal him. And he said, no, Lord, I'm not worthy. I'm just a non-Jewish military man. I'm not worthy that you should come to my house, but just use your tongue. Speak the word. It'll happen. You can stand here, speak the word. And there, five kilometers away in my house, my servant will be healed. Power of a word. And I'll tell you why, Lord, I am saying that. Because I'm a military man. I'm used to commanding soldiers. Come. And I don't have to repeat it. Left turn. Right turn. About turn. Quick march. You never hear that repeated in a parade round. Once. Go. And he said, Jesus, I know that you can speak like that too. And he said, the reason is because when my senior officer tells me, come, I go immediately. He doesn't have to call me twice. When my senior officer says, go, I go immediately. When my senior officer says, come back, I come back. He said, Jesus, I know. I don't know what authority is, but I can sense as a military man. You know, military people can usually recognize other military people. There's something about the bearing of military people which is different. And so this man said, this is a military man. I recognize. I don't know what authority is with general he's ruling under, living under, but he's a military man. There's a bearing about him. There's a dignity about him. There's an authority about the way he speaks. I know, I don't know who it is, but Lord Jesus, you must be listening to somebody. And because you're listening to somebody, I know that when you speak, things will happen. You know why things don't happen when we speak? Because we are not listening to the Holy Spirit when he speaks to us. Our senior officer says, come. I say, yeah, I'll think about it. I've got something important to do right now. I'll come a little later. And then we come out in Jesus' name. Nothing's happening. Yeah, brother, sometimes it's not the will of God. We say, we excuse ourselves. I'm spiritual, but maybe it's not God's will. It's not because it's not God's will. It's because you have no authority. You have no authority because you don't listen. And the Holy Spirit says, let the earth bring forth vegetation. Say, I will think about it. What tremendous power we have lost in our life for so many years. Now, I'm not talking about the word of faith type of thing, which a lot of charismatics are speaking about today, where we say all types of things. Very often, they speak things in order to get some personal benefit. But I'm taking the example of Jesus when he was tempted in the wilderness. And the devil came to him and said, turn these stones into bread. Satisfy yourself. Speak the word. Get something for yourself. He said, no. Today, a lot of charismatics are speaking in order to get money for themselves. I know I can use my preaching gift to make money. I know that. But I also know that I'll destroy myself in the process. And I'll lose the anointing and the grace of God. And I've seen that happen to so many people. I fall on my face and say, oh God, please save me from it. Don't let me even accidentally touch this wretched thing that I lose my anointing. I tell you to lose the anointing. It's not worth billions of rupees. Definitely not. A lot of people sacrifice it for just 30 pieces of silver. But Jesus said, I will not use this ability God has given me to get something for myself. Bread or money or honor or position or fame or nothing. I will use it to drive the devil away. That's what he used it for. It is written. And the devil went. He'd come back. It is written. He'd go away. Again come back. It is written. That's what we've got to use the word of God for. Not to get honor for ourselves as a great man of God, great healer and all that. That's a counterfeit what goes on on Christian television. What I'm talking about is the use of the tongue to drive the devil out. It's the devil that needs to be driven out of your home. The devil's doing more damage in your home than that fever. Even if somebody's got cancer, that won't do as much damage in your home as the devil. It's the devil we got to drive out of the church, of our home, of our life. So brothers and sisters, respond to the Holy Spirit. Live under the authority of the Holy Spirit like a military man. Every day when he says, don't go to that internet site, don't go. Don't waste your time browsing the net for hours and hours and hours and getting nothing out of it. Read the Bible a little bit. Respond. Respond. Go and apologize to that person, your wife, your husband, your child. Do it. Be like a military man. Come, you go. You come, go, you go. I tell you, if you take my word, your life will be changed and there'll be a power in your tongue that demons will tremble before you. When you speak a word, the devil will flee. I want to live that type of life. Lord, we have to admit the devil's fooled us for many years, but no longer. The light is shining. The light is shining, brother, sister, Heavenly Father, thank you for light. Your light which drives out the darkness. We don't live in a world of imagination, but a world of reality. We believe your words are true. Mountains can get out of our way when we speak the word. If we live under the authority of your word, help us.