In this sermon, the preacher discusses the gospel of the grace of God and how it can awaken both longing and resentment in human souls. He emphasizes that while people may be willing to give their lives in martyrdom or consecration, they struggle with accepting the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. The preacher also highlights the importance of having the Holy Spirit in control of one's life, as it brings joy and fulfillment. He references Bible verses from Isaiah and John to support his points and concludes with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to enable him to speak the word of God clearly.

Isaiah said, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. He also said in Isaiah 58, one of the verses there, one of my chapters that God has given to me for revival ministry, he said, if thou shall draw out thy soul to the hungry, satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday, and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. Heavenly Father, we praise your name, we thank you for your love for us, we thank you for revealing to us the Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank you for the Holy Spirit, who indwells us, and who guides us, as you said to Isaiah, that he would guide them. Father, we commit the time to you today. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would enable me to speak the word of God clearly, I pray that you would enable our ears to hear, that you would anoint my tongue to speak, and our ears to hear that which you have for us today, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I'm glad to be back with you again today, by way of radio, hoping to get back down live and visit with the folks down there, but it seems like this week I can't make it, and maybe next week I had something come up. God's been opening up doors, we've been having a good time ministering to different folks and different pastors, had a chance to visit with a man up in another state, and some men have spent a day in prayer, first Monday of every month, with some of the pastors in this area yesterday, had a good time with sharing and opening up what God is doing to us, and literally that's what it is a lot of times, what God is doing to us to get us turned around to do what he wants us to do. My, we have a good time in the Lord. What a thrill it is to talk to people about Jesus. Oh, he's life. If you don't have the Lord Jesus Christ, you don't have life. You know, I want to talk with you today about the Holy Spirit. It's been brought to my attention that maybe you might not understand something that I'm saying. When I say this all the time, I say Jesus is all you need, but is Jesus all you want? God has prompted me to take a little time to share with you what does it mean in this area that Jesus is all you need, and what does it mean when I say is Jesus all you want? I think it's very important that we understand that the Jesus that we're going to love, the Jesus that we're going to know, the Jesus that we're going to obey is going to be the Jesus that's going to be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, we have nothing. We see nothing. And just to say Jesus or God doesn't mean anything unless the Holy Spirit is involved in on it. A lot of people say they love God. A lot of people say they love Jesus, but no one can say that they love the Lord and mean it and have that reality in their life except by the Holy Spirit. Charles Spurgeon said the greatest, strongest, mightiest plea of the Church of God to the world is the existence of the Spirit of God in its midst, and the works of the Spirit of God are the true evidences of Christianity. They say miracles are withdrawn, but the Holy Spirit is the standing miracle in the Church of God today. Amen. A quote by Charles Spurgeon. Many places that I go and you probably go, maybe you're in one of those places, the Holy Spirit does not show up on Sunday. One of the things that the men and I do in the church that I'm here when I'm here on Sundays with these other elders is we meet together and we pray. We pray that the Holy Spirit will show up. We go down in a little furnace room and sometimes we're belly-to-belly down there, eyeball-to-eyeball packed in there, praying for the Holy Spirit to show up because we know that if the Holy Spirit does not show up, we've just had a meeting. And sad to say that's what's happening in a lot of places. So Jesus is all you need, and Jesus I hope is all you want, but there's more than just Jesus. There is the Holy Spirit. You know I told you I was going to talk to you a little bit about Christ the Vine, and I might start off on this, but you know the scripture says in John 15 in verse 4, and if I can get over here in time, if you want to turn there too, get your Bibles, John 15 verse 4, John relates to us that Christ is the Vine, all right, but the Lord Jesus said, abide in me, in that verse, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the Vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. He says abide in me, and I in you. What is the abiding power? You know that abide means to remain, it means to dwell together, it means to stay together. He's talking about the Holy Spirit, because if you go back over to John chapter 14 and verse 10, after he'd been talking to Thomas, you know, he said, Thomas, he that seen me seen the Father, you come down, and Philip said to him, excuse me, it was Philip, said unto him, Lord show us the Father, and it suffices, it will satisfy us. He turns to Philip, he looks at him, and he said, have I been so long a time with you, and yet hast thou not known me? Philip, he that had seen me, hath seen the Father. And how sayest thou then, show us the Father? And then he says this in verse 10, Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, the works that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. That's the same word for abide. It's the Holy Spirit that brings us together in a living union with God the Father, and with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the Holy Spirit. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the works sake. Now he's saying I don't speak of myself. He's saying that the Spirit of God is speaking through him. If you go over to verse 17, might start off in 16, in that same chapter. He said, And I pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide. That's that same word for dwelling, that he may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. So the Holy Spirit, he's the water. You know the Holy Spirit is like what the water is to the tree, the vine and the branch. The water is the life. So the Holy Spirit is the life that we have. And so if you, if Jesus Christ is all you want, then you will be satisfied with the Holy Spirit. I'm going to take you into something that's missing in a lot of our lives, and that's the joy of the Holy Spirit. If he is in residence and in control, there's going to be an enthusiasm and a joy of life, and a joy of living, and it's going to be radiated in your life. Now we're not saying you're going to be perfect, because the Spirit of God is perfecting us. He is bringing about the process of sanctification, of conforming us into the image of Jesus Christ. It's a process, when you're born again, we're not born again completely perfect, and that's proved out pretty well. That one's true. But he's, it's a process, and he's, he's gently leading us on, and teaching us, and, and bringing us around to show us areas of the life, of our life where he does not have control. So if Jesus Christ is all you want, you will want the Holy Spirit's abiding presence, and his controlling power in your life. Now in verse 23, it's living down in John 14, he went on, he said, Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. Now if you know much about the Scripture at all, you know that God the Father is in heaven, on the throne, the Lord Jesus Christ is at his right hand, making intercession for us. Well who then comes and makes his abode with us? It's the person of the Holy Spirit. So he says, we will come, he's mean, he's meaning that we will establish this union, this fellowship with you, by the Holy Spirit. If you go to verse 26, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, this is what he's talking about, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I've said unto you. So the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, he goes right on in, he slips right on, 27 he talks about his peace, the Holy Spirit will give us his peace, and then he goes right on in to chapter 15, and talks about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relation of the vine to the branch. That's what he's talking about. And I don't know if I'll get back to this, to John chapter 15, I don't think I will, because I want to talk to you specifically about the Holy Spirit, and the abiding and the dwelling is the Holy Spirit in us, a wonderful thing. So when I'm talking about Jesus Christ being all that I want, and all that I need, I'm talking about abiding in the presence of God, listening to the Spirit of God talk to my spirit. And he talks to us very gently, he's a very sensitive person, and he nudges us here and there, and only when we get off into sin does he begin to nudge very firmly, and sometimes he'll go pick up the stick, the rod, and come give us some chastising. But we need to develop and cultivate the art of listening to God speak to us in our spirit, because it's the Holy Spirit, he's right here with us everywhere we go, if you've been born again, he is there. Now the reason that many do not hear the Holy Spirit, are not listening to the Holy Spirit, that profess to be Christians, is that because you've never really been born again by the Spirit of God. Our churches are full of people like that. I was listening to an evangelist who's done a very intensive, and a very exact study in the area of churches, and those that say they're saved, in relation to those that really are given fruit and evidence of being saved, and he's saying something like, maybe 80% of them in our Bible churches, our fundamental churches, gospel preaching churches, are probably really not saved. Now that should bother you, should make you rise up out of your chair. It bothers me, makes me rise up. The thing is, I agree with him. O.J. Vernon McGee, who's now gone to be with the Lord, who I highly respect, he said the same thing. Are we playing games with God? Do we think, do we think that we can come to church and just go through all these motions, going to Sunday school, singing our song, giving our nod to God, throw our nickel in the plate, grin around like a fool, and then go back home and live like the devil, or have strife in our churches, have something against our brother and our sister in the Lord, or either our parents, and we call ourself a Christian? Listen to what one godly man said, the gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls, and an equally intense resentment, because the revelation which it brings is not palatable. There is a certain pride in man that will give and give, but to come and accept is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom. I will give myself in consecration. I will do anything, but do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Now, you see, the problem is many of us have done this outwardly. We have accepted Christ outwardly, maybe walked the altar, maybe even shed a tear, but we have never had our will broke to where we were repentant over sin, and we were weeping for our sin, the fact that we were sin, the Spirit of God, when He comes, He will convict you of sin, that you are sin, not only that you are a sinner, but that you are, that's all we are outside of Christ, is sin. The scripture says that when Christ died on the cross, He became sin for us. He didn't become a sinner. He became sin. He died as our substitute on the cross. He died there in my place, and He did it because He loved me, and He did it because He loved you, and also He did it because that was the only way that we could have fellowship with the Father, was to come to the point where we realized that we are totally lost and destitute without Jesus Christ, and then, and only then will the Spirit of God come into our life and we'll be born again, is John chapter 3. I'm amazed how many people go to churches, have never had that born-again experience. If you haven't had the born-again experience, you haven't had the Bible experience, because when you become a Christian, you'll become a new creature. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. You're a new creation created by the Spirit of God. Oh, God, open up our ears to hear what you're saying today, going on from this man of God. He said, we have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God. We must either receive it as a gift or do without it. And that's the way it is with salvation and also with the Holy Spirit. He said, the greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute. Until we get there, our Lord is powerless. You know, I really appreciate it when you, when you write me. I appreciate it when a brother in Christ will exhort me or rebuke me. I'm not saying that, that you're always right, that my friends are always right, but I appreciate it because God has been able to use this after He broke my spirit of pride. And I reckon myself dead in Christ. I reckon myself alive in Christ, really dead and adamant, alive in Christ. I will receive that. Before I was proud, I wouldn't receive it. And only a broken man will receive, reprove and rebuke. The Lord told me to rebuke a man this week because Luke 17, three says, if your brother sins against you, reprove him. And I did. And I don't know if he was a Christian, but he goes to church. He comes to our church from time to time, bounce back and forth between another one. And I did some work for him. When God gives me time, I do carpenter work, remodeling and stuff like that. Take my boy. Boy, we love to do that. Have a good time. And spent two weeks in this home, remodeling a room, redoing a room. For two weeks, all I heard was criticalness, criticalness, criticized me, criticized everything I did. And I'm sort of a perfectionist when I work and I try to do it right. But everything, even before it was done, criticized, criticized anything that moved. His hired man was criticized and the hired man quit while I was there. And the Lord was really letting me feel. I was sensitive to what he was feeling. He was letting me feel what his wife felt. And the Lord had just taken away a child from this man a year before. And I think he's moving in on him. But the Bible says, take heed to yourselves. If thy brother trespasses against thee, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. So the Lord said, I want you to talk to him about his criticalness. I said, Lord, he won't like me anymore. Usually that's what happens if someone's got a bad spirit. But that's the risk we take in loving people and trying to love people to Jesus. So when I got done, I told the brother, I didn't even know if I'd get paid after that. I gave him a bill. And I said, brother, God's told me to tell you, you have a critical spirit. I've been here for two weeks. And all you've done is criticize everything I've done, everything your wife has done. And she has a broken, she's a beat woman. I told him that. Because of that, he sat there and he sulked like a little child. Wouldn't look at me. He sat there and sulked and pouted. And God had revealed several things to me during that time about that man that others had confronted him about some things in his life, even more serious than the criticalness. And I walked away from there rejoicing that I'd been obedient to God. So I receive it. You tell me you love me. You'll tell me if I love you. I'll tell you. And I love you. Let me tell you, folks, you're listening out there. I know I haven't met most of you. I love you. I don't have anything against you. I don't have anything against anybody. I'm just I'm just grateful to be alive, grateful that the Lord is speaking to me. But if I won't receive and all I can do is dish out, then I am not a spiritual person. And we have many, many in our churches, and I'm sorry to say this, I run into many pastors that cannot receive. And that's pride. And you will not be a spiritual leader. You will not have the power of the Holy Spirit upon your life if you will not receive, rebuke and exhort. That's what the body of Christ is for, to reprove each other, to exhort daily, lest we be hardened to the deceitfulness of sin, Hebrews says. So the greatest blessing spiritually, one of the greatest things that God has done for me is to bring me to the point to know that I am destitute. And until we get there, our Lord is powerless to work in our life. Going on to quote from this man of God said, he can do nothing. God can do nothing for us. If we think we're sufficient of ourselves, we have to enter into his kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are rich, possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit. Now, when you get saved, you receive the Holy Spirit because the Bible says, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his. But there's a difference between receiving the Holy Spirit and being filled and anointed with the spirit of God, where you walk in the spirit. So God can't do anything for us till we get hungry, till we get destitute. The gift of the essential nature of God, going on by the quote, is made effectual in us by the Holy Spirit. He imparts to us the quickening life of Jesus, which puts the beyond within. And immediately the beyond has come within. It rises up to the above and we are lifted up into the domain where Jesus lives. There's a verse there, third John five. And I haven't looked that one up, but I'm quoting to you from Oswald Chambers, November 28th, if you want to go look that up. Listen, we have to come back. Back way back to our roots in the New Testament church and see what it was like. We do not have a pattern today, so few are walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, so few energized by the Holy Spirit that we've almost lost the pattern of what it was like. We are more destitute than we think that we are. Many are complaining about our spirit, our political situation. My friend, all we're getting is what we deserve. We've turned our back on God and God's just given us what we deserve. And things are just beginning. We haven't seen anything yet. The Holy Spirit, the blessed Holy Spirit. Oh, Holy Spirit, thank you for your presence with us. Open up my eyes to see, open up our ears to hear. Over in John 16, 22, the Lord Jesus told his disciples, he said, listen to this, he loved him so much and he said, and you now therefore have sorrow. He told him, you know, he's going to die. I'm going to be crucified, he says, and you have sorrow. But I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice in your joy. No man taketh from you. Why? I'll tell you why no man could take their joy from them, because no man could take the Holy Spirit away from them. The Holy Spirit produces joy. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. John 5, 22. I was reading over in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 5 and 6, Paul writing, he said, for our gospel came not into you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And he said, we were holy. He said, we were careful the Holy Spirit was producing what you saw, the life of Jesus in our life. So we were careful to be filled with the Holy Spirit. What manner of men? That's what he's talking about. We were among you for your sake. And he says, you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word and much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost so that we were examples and examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. There's the joy of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he walked on this earth, was the most joyful man that people had ever seen. They'd never seen that type of joy hardly before. No one had ever been so joyful because Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. You know, when does the joy of the Holy Spirit start? It starts, it starts as soon as you get saved. I remember when I got saved. Oh, I was joyful. I didn't know what had happened. I didn't even really know I got saved. All I knew is that I was clean and I was filled with joy. Oh, wow. And then God showed me from the scriptures what had happened. I didn't know much. All I've done is just gone to church all my life and I didn't learn much. Thought I'd been saved because I'd been baptized when I was 10. Baloney, it didn't do anything for me, but get me wet. I had a good time with my friends. Several of them were doing it. And they didn't get any more, most of them that I know of, didn't get any more of God than I did that day. My friend, when you get the real thing, you're going to have joy in your life. My, you know, Luke 1 15 says, John was filled with the Holy Ghost from birth. Says, he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb. His mission in the spirit was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just and to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And he carried out his mission in the joy of the Lord. He was a joyful man. He had a rough mission. You know what? He was a prophet in the church today. We don't like prophets around. It's rough. It's a rough job being a prophet, but whatever your job, you can have joy. You know, a little baby is born, I believe, with a lot of joy in its soul because I believe it's just still so close to heaven coming from the mind of God. But as it grows older, it loses that joy. And unless you get to Jesus, you never do no joy again like you did as a little baby. But that's what happens when you get born again. You go right back into that joy again. The early church, they received the gift of the Holy Spirit in 138. You turn right around, you see in 41 that they were glad they were baptized. In 46, they were glad as they ate their food. 47, they were praising God. You didn't have to try to get them to let's have a praise service, brother. We're going to have a praise service. We need to get a little joy in our fellowship. My, you need to get the Holy Spirit. Then you have joy. And I'm not talking about getting some kind of an experience or something, but just having the person of the Holy Spirit being in control of your life. But for now, we're going to have to go. My time's about gone. Father, I pray that you just bless the preaching of your Word. Open up to us about the Holy Spirit, that He's all we need. In the person of Jesus Christ, we have all we need is the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Well, until next time, may God richly bless you, my friends.