In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of our spirit and the need to pay attention to it. He explains that the main functions of our spirit are communion, intuition, and conscience. Communion refers to our ability to communicate with God, which is re-established after we are saved. The preacher also highlights the importance of obeying the inner voice and teaching of our spirit, as it guides us in making righteous decisions. The sermon is based on biblical references such as 1 Timothy 4:8 and Romans 8.

Will you please turn to 1 Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verses 23 and 24. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 23. 2 Now the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and your whole spirit and soul and body. 3 Be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 He is faithful who calls you, who will also perform it. Proverbs, Proverbs, chapter 20, verse 27. Proverbs, chapter 20, verse 27. 5 Man's spirit is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the inner parts of the belly. I'll repeat it. Man's spirit is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the inner parts of the belly. Let's have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee for what Thou has done for us. We thank Thee that Thou has perfected forever salvation. Thou dost save to the uttermost, and we thank Thee that Thou has called us into this glory. So we pray, Lord, as we continue in Thy presence, that Thou will by Thy Spirit quicken Thy word to our hearts. That we may not only understand, but we may enter in. We commit this time into Thy hands. May Thy name be glorified. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen. We begin to have some fellowship on 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 23 and verse 24. We find that we have all been called. What calling has God called all of us? And God's calling actually is that we may be wholly sanctified. And our whole spirit and soul and body be preserved, blameless, at the coming of our Lord Jesus. Now that's what God has called us to. We mentioned last time that sanctify or sanctification, holy or holiness, actually is the same thing. Holy is very unique because it is the character of God that He alone has. Now last time, I said that in the Korean, this word holy, in Arabic, not in Sanskrit, has never been used. It is only we find it in God. He is the holy one. He is the one who is separated from everything that is common. He is unique. He is all by himself. And that is what holiness really means. And yet, we thank God that it is His will that He wants us, who are His people, to be holy. That is to say, He wants us to be so separated from anything, everything that is common, ordinary, worldly, natural, fleshly. And to take upon us His own character of being extraordinary, unique, all by Himself. That is to say, to be like Him. And that is what God's purpose is for us. That is what we are called to. And He said He will perform it. Because nobody can do such a work. But He said He will do it. So what we need is to respond to Him. To be wholly sanctified. Spirit and soul and body. You know, when God created us, He created us in such a unique way that we are a tripartite. We are made up, our being is made up of three parts. Spirit and soul and body. Spirit gives us God consciousness. Because God is spirit. And we can only communicate with God if we have a spirit. Soul gives us self-consciousness. We are conscious of ourselves, of our being. And then body gives us world consciousness. To be conscious of the physical world around us. That is how we are made up of. And God said He wants our spirit to be wholly sanctified. Our spirit to be preserved, blameless, at the coming of our Lord Jesus. So this is something that really concerns every one of us. And this is something that we should seek after. Last time we just laid the foundation. Now this morning we would like to concentrate our meditation on man's spirit. Do you know you have a human spirit? Do you know that you are different from all the living animals in the world? You have a body. The other living animals all have a body. You have a soul. You are conscious of yourself. You can think. You can feel. You can decide. You have a personality. So all the animals. You look at these animals. They have a soul. They have a limited amount of thinking, of feeling, even of determination. Now what makes man different from all the living animals? Because we are created with a soul, with a spirit. We are the only living things on the earth that can communicate with God, the spirit. So our spirit is very, very important. According to divine order, our spirit is like a master or a mistress who decides, who commands. And our soul is like a steward. We receive what is decided, commanded, and pass it on, transport it to our body. And our body is like a servant, a slave. We work out what is being directed and communicated. So in God's order, man's spirit stands at the top. Even though our soul is the center of our being, because that's what we are. In the Bible, oftentimes you find soul and man are equivalent. But our spirit, because it is able to contact God's spirit, therefore in God's purpose of creation, he wants our spirit to take the lead. Then our soul will follow, and our body will also follow. So it is very, very important that we know our spirit. But you know, a human spirit is a substance, but it is not a material substance. It is immaterial, incorporeal, not our body. Our body is made of matter, and it can be seen. But our spirit is immaterial, is not physical. But not because of that, it is less real. As a matter of fact, our human spirit is more real than even our human body. Why? Because our body is temporal. Scientifically speaking, every seven years, all the cells of your body totally change. So you have a new body every seven years. And not only that, but this body is a mortal body. One day it will pass away. When you are resurrected, it is a spiritual body. So the spirit is eternal. It is much more real than even our body. But unfortunately you find in the world, people do not know they have a spirit. And in a sense, this is correct. Because their spirit was dead in sin and transgressions. Therefore, we find people say, a man is made up of soul and body. I remember when I was a boy, we had a missionary lady who stayed with us. And this lady came from Virginia. We called her grandma because she led my father to the Lord. And whenever she was exasperated, you know what she said? Oh, my soul and body. Now, where is the spirit? So you find that people in the world, they have a soul, a living soul, a living body, but a dead spirit. Now, by dead it doesn't mean that the spirit is non-existent. It simply means it is in coma, in deep coma. It has lost its ability to communicate with its proper environment that is God. But remember, they do have a spirit, human spirit. But it has lost its proper function. And that's the reason why unbelievers can communicate with evil spirit. Because the spirit is still there, but the function is completely distorted. It has lost its proper function. But thank God, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, the first thing that God does is to renew our dead spirit. He quickens our dead spirit. He takes away our sins, cleanses our conscience, and gives us a new spirit, as it were. A spirit that has been cleansed, awakened, revived. A new spirit. This is regeneration. And not only that, but after he gives us a new spirit, his own spirit, the Holy Spirit, himself comes and dwells in our spirit. That is what we usually call salvation. Now, how do you know the spirit? You cannot see it, but how do you know that it is true? Yeah, we know the spirit by its functions. We cannot see it, but the spirit has certain functions. And when it functions, we realize its existence. According to the Word of God, the main functions of our spirit are three. One is communion. The other is intuition. And the third one is conscience. So, when there is communion and intuition and conscience working, you know the spirit is alive. Communion simply means that you can communicate with God. Now, before you believe in the Lord Jesus, you may believe there is God, but he is a distant God. You may know many things about God, but you do not know him personally, because there was no contact. But immediately after you are saved, something wonderful happens. You find that communion with God is immediately re-established. So, you find in Romans 8, we are told that the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And we cry out, Abba, Father. Isn't that true? Maybe before you were saved, because you were brought up in a Christian family, you knew something about the Bible, and you even prayed. And when you prayed, you said, Our Father who art in heaven. But the feeling is different. So, I have a co-worker in China. He said when he was married, the first time he went to his parents-in-law's house, and according to Chinese custom, you call your father-in-law Father. So, when he entered that home and saw the father-in-law, well, he tried to call him Father, but he felt that it was very uncomfortable. Calling Father, the father-in-law, is very uncomfortable. It's not like calling his own father. And before you are saved, that's what you were doing. You may pray to God, but you pray to your father-in-law. But immediately after you are saved, something happens. When you pray again, the first time you pray again, there is a relationship, a closeness. He is really your father. There is a touch there. Brothers and sisters, because your spirit is being renewed. And the Holy Spirit dwells in your spirit and bears witness with you that you are a child of God. That is the proof of salvation. After you have a new spirit, your spiritual life begins. Before you have a new spirit, you may be religious, but you have no spiritual life. You may be even active in Christian works, but you have no spiritual life, because spiritual life begins in the spirit. Spiritual life is the exercise of your spirit together under the influence of the Holy Spirit. That is spiritual life. Anything that does not originate from the spirit cannot be considered as spiritual. If it comes out of your soul, if it comes out of your body, that is not spiritual. No matter how alike they look, because you will find the working of the soul and the function of the spirit in many areas look alike. But the origins are vastly different. So, dear brothers and sisters, there is one thing that we need to remember all the way, and that is, spiritual life must begin from your spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that communicates God to you, to your spirit, and then, through your spirit, influences your soul and your body. So it has to come from the spirit itself, and that is spiritual life. Anything that is outside of that area is not spiritual. No matter how it looks, it is not spiritual. So, brothers and sisters, it is very, very essential that we who are the lords, we should know our spirit. Do you know your spirit? Do you know how your spirit functions? Do you know how you can, through exercising, make the functions of our spirit sharper, more sensitive, more powerful? Put it in another way. After you believe in the Lord Jesus, you are a new-born baby. You have a new spirit, and all the functions of your spirit begin. For instance, after you believe in the Lord Jesus, not only in this matter of communion, your contact with God is immediately established, but in your daily life, sometimes you are going to do something that you have been doing all along in the past, but when you begin to do it again, someone seems to be within you saying, Be careful. Don't do it. Now, do you have such kind of sensation as if someone within you is speaking to you, telling you what the will of God is and what it is not? Now, that's intuition. Now, what is intuition? Intuition is direct knowledge, the knowledge that we know, mental knowledge. How do we have knowledge? We have knowledge by receiving information from outside. We gather data, and as we gather information, it becomes our knowledge. So you'll find that our human knowledge comes from outside. It's indirect. Then you analyze it, but intuition is direct knowledge. It does not come from outside information, not because someone has taught you. Someone tells you what to do. What is it? Is it right or is it wrong? No, it doesn't come from outside. It comes from your spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks to your spirit's intuition, and you directly receive that knowledge from above. That's intuition. So after you believe in the Lord Jesus, you'll find not only the function of communing begins, your intuition begins to function. And not only that, you'll find your conscience also begins to function. Now, what is conscience? Conscience, sometimes we say, is the voice of God. When you are doing something that is not right in the sight of God... Now, it may be right in your sight. It may be right according to the world's opinion. But when you, after you are saved, and you are doing something that is not right before God, you'll find your conscience begins to speak. And when your conscience speaks, it contradicts your thinking, because you think one way, and the conscience tells you this is not right. It accuses you. And if you are doing something right before God, it excuses you. Not accuse, but excuse you. Now, that is the work of conscience. So sometimes we say conscience is like in a car. You have to brake. When you are going too fast, or when you are having some trouble, you brake it. Now, that's conscience. God is keeping, touching your brake in your spirit. And when that happens, better listen to it. Now, do not fight against it. Listen to it. So you'll find that the moment you are saved, your new spirit begins to function. It's supernaturally natural. And that's why you'll find in the new covenant that we are in. It says you do not need anyone to teach you. Know the Lord, because every one of you, from the least to the greatest, shall know himself. Now, what does it mean? It means that after we are saved, we have the anointing. Within us. Every one of us. The Holy Spirit is the anointing. He is in us. And he will teach us in all things. Where does he teach us? He teaches us in our intuition. And whatever he teaches, the great things and the small things, and whatever he teaches is true. It is not a lie. And if you obey his teaching, you abide in Christ. That is 1 John 2, verse 27. That's about intuition. So, brothers and sisters, we need to, what we call, learn to walk in the inner way. Inward way. You know, in Proverbs, chapter 20, verse 27, it says man's spirit is the lamp of the Lord. Now, think of that. Man's spirit is the lamp of God. Searching all the inner parts of the body. Man's spirit is the lamp of God. Man's spirit is not a light of God. It is the lamp of God. In other words, it is an organ, like a lamp. It is not the light itself, but it is that vessel where the light is put. The light is God. God is light. The light is Christ. He is the light of life. The light is the spirit because he is the spirit of light. Now, God himself is the light. But where does he dwell? Where does he reveal himself? In your spirit. Because your spirit is the lamp that contains that light. And having that light within that lamp, it searches all the inner parts of the body. Now, in the old days, the body is not a physical body. The body, in the old days, represents the soul, our soul. So you find that it is the light from the spirit that searches every inner part of the soul. It searches our emotion. It searches our feeling. It searches our thinking. It searches our willing, our opinions, our determinations. And this light of God will shine through our spirit, searching all the parts of our soul and reveal what our mind is, thinking is, what our feeling is, our emotion is, what our will is, our opinion, our volition is. Whether it is from God, or whether it is from ourselves, or whether it comes from the world. We do not know our soul. Nobody knows himself or herself. The Bible says the heart is deceitful. Above all things, who knows it? Nobody knows. But it is God who searches the heart. So brothers and sisters, you find our spirit is so essential, so central to our whole spiritual life. If we neglect our spirit, then we live in our soul. We live a fleshly life, a carnal life, not a spiritual life. So dear brothers and sisters, we need to know how important is our spirit. And because it is so important, we need to pay attention to our spirit. And we need to know how to facilitate the functions of our spirit. So here is the first thing. We need to exercise our spirit. In 1 Timothy 4 verse 8. 1 Timothy 4 verse 8. For bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godliness is profitable for everything, having promise of life of the present one and of that to come. The word is faithful and worthy of all acceptation. We need to exercise our body because exercising body is profitable. A body without exercise not only will not grow properly, but it will be so weakened and very soon will lose its ability. And in order to maintain a healthy body, not only you need to eat right, rest right, drink right, but you need to exercise too. Because bodily exercise is profitable. But it is for a little. Why? Because it is just for a little time. As long as you are in this physical body. But exercise, the Bible says, exercise thyself unto godliness. What does it mean? It means exercise yourself to be like God. And what is to be exercised? Your spirit. Your spirit needs to exercise. And such exercise is profitable for all things. Not only in this age, when you are living, even in eternity. That's the profit of spiritual exercise. Now, brothers and sisters, are you exercising your spirit? Or you have never exercised it? If you have never exercised your spirit, your spirit is weak, weakened, feeble, and eventually will go to sleep. But if you exercise your spirit, it becomes stronger, keener, sharper, more powerful, and it is profitable. Not only while you are living on this earth, but the profit will go into eternity. What I'm afraid is, many believers never exercise their spirit. Not to say some not even knowing they have a spirit. But the more you exercise your spirit, the more you know your spirit. Our communion needs to be exercised. When you are first saved, you pray, Abba, Father, thank God for that. Your communication with God begins. But don't stop there. You have to cultivate your relationship with God. And how do you cultivate your relationship? To be with Him. To be more familiar with Him. So you'll find in the Bible there are many different words being used. Draw near to God. Wait upon God. Commune with God. In 1 John 1, verse 7, God is light. If we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of God's Son, Jesus Christ, cleanses us from all our sins. Fellowship. Communion. Sharing something in common. And by sharing that union, relationship with God becomes closer, more intimate, more complete. God is spirit. We must worship Him in spirit and truth. You cannot worship God just with your soul. You can pray a most beautiful prayer but God has not heard it. You may prostrate yourself on the floor but God is not worshipped if He does not come from your spirit. Worship is the result of communion with God. If in your daily life you are not in touch with God and on the last day you come to break the bread, there is no worship there because you can only worship Him in spirit and truth. No matter how loud you sing, how elated your feeling is, no matter how beautiful, well organized is your prayer, there is no worship. Just like God said to the Pharisees, you worship me with your mouth but your heart is not there. Worship is a result of communion. Even in the secular way, I mean in this world, you and your father or your mother, how do you get closer? You try to be together. You try to communicate, share your heart together and the more you do that, the closer the relationship, the stronger the relationship and the same thing is true with our God. In our daily life we need to cultivate our friendship with God as it were. Draw near to Him, closer to Him. Now why do we pray? Why do we read the Bible? Why do we have so-called morning watch? I wonder if you have morning watch. Why? These are only means. These are not the thing. The thing is through these means you communicate with God. You can pray without touching Him. You can read the Bible without knowing Him. When you have your morning watch, when you get up in the morning, you are before the Lord. How do you draw near to Him? I like a hymn by Evan Hopkins. Evan Hopkins is well known as one of the theologians of the Catholic Convention and he wrote a hymn. I can only tell you about the first verse if I can repeat but the general idea. It's a beautiful hymn. I often use it in my morning prayer. Before I pray, nothing between, Lord, nothing between. Let me Thy glory see. Draw my soul near to Thee. And hear Thy voice of love. Nothing between, nothing between. That's the preparation for communion. When you begin to pray, do you just start praying, Lord, bless me, bless my family, bless my work. Amen. Or are you trying to draw near to Him? Let nothing be between you and Him. You want to see His glory. You want to hear His voice. You just do not go Him and pour out everything and after you finish, you say goodbye. You do not try to hear from Him. There is no communion. You are not exercising your spirit. Brothers and sisters, we need to learn how to exercise our spirit in communion. Before you start to pray, draw near to God. Wait upon Him. Be quiet. You know the Bible uses all kinds of words. When you come to the presence of God, soften your steps. Be still. Wait upon Him. Lift up your spirit or if you cannot distinguish, lift up your heart. Draw near. Lift up your heart before Him. Ask Him to examine you whether there is anything between you and the Lord, that there be nothing between. And then you begin to commune with Him. The same way in reading the Word of God. You know, you just say today, every day I want to read say four chapters. If you read four chapters, you will cover the Bible once again. And you just read and after you read, that's it. You forget all that you have read. But when you are reading the Word, are you just reading it with your mind or are you reading it with your heart? Is your heart open to His speaking? You know, to read the Word of God is to let Him speak to your spirit. To hear His voice and even to see His face. These are means. But the important thing is you are in communion with God. So you remember that there is a term called practice the presence of God. Now actually what it means is you practice, you exercise yourself. So you learn how to be in His presence all day long. When you are free or even when you are busy. Maybe you stop for a few seconds. Lift up your heart towards the Lord. That's practicing the presence of God. You know, helping you to know that you are in His presence. Now these are ways and means of exercising your spirit. And the more you exercise your spirit, the more you know God. The more you love Him. The more you see His glory and the more you worship Him. How worthy He is. You will put Him in the rightful place and you will put yourself in your proper place too. Now that's worship. That's communion. And all our worship should come from the spirit. Marry the mother of Jesus. Say, my soul magnifies the Lord. But don't forget, He said, and my spirit has rejoiced in Him. It begins from the spirit. And the spirit begins to overflow into our soul. And our soul begins to take it up. And our whole being will be involved. And then you'll find God is worshipped. Communion. We need to exercise it. Intuition, the same thing. I do not believe that any true believers, the Holy Spirit who dwells in him or in her, never open his mouth. Never speak to you. Sometimes people say, well, how does God speak to me? Do I hear it with my ear? No. You hear it with your inner ear. A still, small voice. This is the way. Go you. Hear it. This is another way. Don't go there. Brothers and sisters, I believe every believer must have experienced these things. Sometimes you are speaking. And probably before you believe the Lord, you know, you like to boast. You like to magnify your thing. It's natural. But after you believe in the Lord, when you are beginning to boast, someone within you says, you better stop. Do you still go on? Well, you may. We all do because we have to learn. But after you go on, what happens afterwards? You feel uncomfortable. You have to repent and claim the blood of the Lord Jesus and then you are able to go on. So the important thing is learn to obey the inner voice. Learn to obey the inner teaching. Don't neglect it. And the more you learn to listen. You know, sometimes we are all so busy. We are all so loud. You know, with our own thinking, with people's opinions, that we cannot hear the still small voice. We are thinking like Elijah to hear the thunder. And there's a God here speaking. Or the fire or the earthquake. God is not there. It is in a still small voice. God says, what are you doing here? Brothers and sisters, learn to exercise it. Exercise your intuition. The more you exercise it, the keener it will become. And that is where spiritual discernment will come. You know, God's people today lack spiritual discernment. It is because you do not exercise your intuitive power. Same thing with our conscience. Listen to your conscience. Obey it. And if you do, what will happen? Let me put it this way to help you to remember. Communing leads to worship. Intuition leads to walk. Conscience leads to testimony. If you return to 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1. Verse 12. For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and sincerity before God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in God's grace, we have had our conversation, that is our life, our walk, in the world and more abundantly towards you. Our conscience leads us to testimony that we may have a good testimony before God and man, that we are really not living according to fleshly wisdom, but in God's grace. So, brothers and sisters, a believer's conscience is very important. When your conscience is lost, your faith leaks out. It's a shipwreck. So, a believer's conscience is very important. And the standard of our conscience, of course, is God himself. He is the standard of our conscience. That is the first thing. Exercise your spirit. The second thing you'll find in the Word of God concerning our spirit is we need the strengthening of our spirit. Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3. In Paul's prayer for the believers, he said in verse 16, chapter 3, verse 16, in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man that the Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts, being rooted and founded in love in order that you may be fully able to apprehend with all the things what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of the Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled even to all the fullness of God. In other words, our spirit needs strengthening. We need the Holy Spirit who dwells in us to strengthen our spirit. And why? Because this is the only way that you can convert a vision to evocation. Convert your inner knowledge, the knowledge that you receive by intuition into your daily experience. How do we apprehend? Not only know, but apprehend. In other words, not only you have the spiritual knowledge, but you have the spiritual power to really apprehend it, possess it, experience it. It is through the strengthening of your inner man. The inner man speaks of our spirit. It needs to be strengthened. Why? Because our outer man, the soul, that soul life is so strong. Oftentimes you'll find your soul life is so strong that your spirit is not only subdued, but sometimes quenched by your soul. To put it another way, our spirit in the past was in captivity by our soul. So when our spirit is renewed, it is still young, it is still weak. It cannot overcome that old Adam life in us. You have the knowledge, you are willing, just like Romans 7. In Romans 7, his mind is renewed. He knew the will of God. He even had the will to do it, but he does not have the power because his flesh is so strong. You remember Luther said, I do not afraid of the poops, but I'm afraid of the poop within me. And how are you going to overcome your self life? How are you going to dethrone yourself from the throne of your soul and let Christ be enthroned in your soul? That is what he said. When you are strengthened in your spirit that Christ may dwell in your heart. In other words, Christ will come out of your spirit and displace self from your soul and he instead sits on the throne and begins to direct all the functions of the soul to express himself instead of expressing self. You need that strengthening. Brothers and sisters, do you feel, do you sense the weakness of your spirit? Do you cry out to the Lord? Oh, wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from this body of death. You need spiritual power and spiritual power is when your spirit is energized by the Holy Spirit and all your visions will be translated into vocation to apprehend. You begin to experience what you know inwardly. So we need to pray this prayer that our spirit may be strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the opposition, the tyranny of our self-life and let Christ be enthroned Let Christ be enthroned in our soul so our soul will express him not express ourselves. Strengthening of our spirit. And then the third thing is our spirit needs to be purified. 2 Corinthians 7 Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in God's fear. Probably we think that our flesh can be polluted and our flesh has been polluted and corrupted. We may never think that our spirit can be defiled. You know, there is something very, very dangerous going on in the Christian world. Some people have the wrong idea. Whatever comes from the spirit must be of God. That's not true. It is true that it has to come from the spirit. But not everything that comes out of your spirit is right. Because our spirit can be polluted can be defiled. So the Bible said we need to purify even our spirit and then we will perfect holiness. Otherwise it is not completely separated unto God. Let me use some illustration. You remember Moses? The meekest of men. But once his spirit was provoked and when his spirit was provoked he got into anger. You remember that story in Numbers? The people cried for water and God said take the staff before the ark. Take it with you and then speak to the rock and water will flow. He was so provoked in his spirit, so angry he lost his temper. He told the people, you rebels I give you water and he struck that rock twice. Now that is Aaron's rock that budded. So when he struck the rock he spoiled it. But God is faithful. Water still came out but God said you cannot enter into Canaan. No matter how he cried to the Lord, the Lord said don't ask me again because you misrepresent me. His spirit was polluted. You remember Elijah? How God used him? Fire came down from heaven burned up the sacrifices and all these priests of the idols were killed. Such a victory and the people said God Jehovah is God, Jehovah is God such a victory. But when Jezebel said tomorrow I will have you he fled. His spirit was overheated so overheated that he became self pitiful. When God said what are you doing here he said they kill everybody and they want to kill me. I'm not better than my ancestors. Pride. Self pity. His spirit was polluted. You remember Jonah? His spirit was so prejudiced that even though he had to obey God but he wanted God to do differently. And he told God everything I do is right. You have to go to the book of Jonah I don't have the time to do it. And you remember in the New Testament in Luke chapter 9 our Lord was on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified. He passed through Samaria but the village would not receive him. So James and John came to the Lord and said Lord do you want us to call fire from heaven to burn that up? How dare they not to receive you. Zealous for the Lord. Lord. You remember what the Lord said you do not know what kind of spirit you have. Our Lord's spirit is the spirit of the land going to be sacrificed and the disciples spirit is a spirit of arrogance. In other words our spirit can be polluted. Our flesh can invade into our spirit and take control. Ourself can come in and overpower our spirit. Even the world is able to come in and so tempted and cheated that even Demas at the last minute loved the world and went back to Thessalonica. And also the evil spirit can oppress our spirit to such an extent that it can hardly breathe hardly function. You remember our Lord said my spirit was oppressed. When he came to the garden his spirit was oppressed. The power of darkness was oppressed upon his spirit. And the only way is to pray otherwise we'll fall into temptation. So dear brothers and sisters we need to be careful. If it is from the Holy Spirit it's always right. But if it's only from our own spirit be careful. We need to humble ourselves before the Lord all the time. We need to ask the Lord to examine us, search us, shine your light upon us that we may have our spirit purified perfecting holiness in the fear of God. That will help us to be humble. You know some greatly used by the Lord have very tragic end because their spirit began to be polluted. Pride. Popularity. All these things, power can pollute our soul, our spirit. Not only our soul, our spirit. So this is a warning that we have to take and be careful. Now this morning we just go over the spirit in a very general and basic way. And hopefully that will start us on the journey towards the spiritual. Let us pray. Dear Lord, we confess there is so much that we need to learn. Pray that we may be humble enough to come to thee and allow thee to work out thy full salvation. That our spirit may be wholly sanctified and be preserved blameless by thy grace at the coming of our Lord Jesus. We give thee glory in thy name.