This sermon focuses on the importance of getting to know the Holy Spirit as described in John 14:16. It emphasizes the ministry of the Holy Spirit, including comfort, sonship, and intercession. The speaker highlights the need for a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives, especially in times of turmoil and spiritual warfare. The message encourages believers to trust in the Holy Spirit's power and to engage in heartfelt prayer and fellowship with Him.

I want to speak to you this morning about getting to know the Holy Spirit, getting to know the Holy Spirit. I'd like you to turn to John, the 14th chapter, if you will, please. Starting at verse 16. I'll wait for just a moment until you get there. John, it's important that you see it in red. These are the words of Jesus. Verse 14, beginning, if you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments. Verse 16, and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it sees him not, neither knows him, but you know him and he dwells with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. You know him and he's going to come and live in you. Getting to know the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, it's impossible for me to preach this without your power, without your anointing, without you coming forth and manifesting this truth. You've come to glorify Christ on this earth and in our lives and Lord, you are here. You are in this place. Holy Spirit, you are here testifying to the presence of Christ, opening Christ to us. But this morning, will you lead us into a deeper understanding of your ministry? There is a ministry of the Holy Spirit and we have experienced it in this house from the day the doors were opened. And even now, Lord, we come to this hour, looking back over the years, would you give us a clear understanding for what is ahead of us and how the Holy Spirit has come to minister to us as promised by our heavenly father and by his son, Jesus. Lord, quicken our ears to hear, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Here at Times Square Church, we sing a song, a hand clapping song that we love and it goes, Lord, the very words of it, send him on down, Lord, send him on down. Let the Holy Ghost come on down. We need him, Lord. Let him come. Now, I don't know where that came from. I'm not monoguing the song and I hope what I say now will not cause the choir to put it away. Truth is, he's been here. He came at penny cost and he's never left. He came and his residence is here on earth and in your body and in mine, the temple of the Holy Ghost. We sing so many of these songs that are not theologically correct, but still are a blessing to us. He said, but you know him for he dwells with you and shall be in you. Now, I read that and this past week, I couldn't shake it off. Now, I've been preaching for 55 years now and I've preached a lot about the Holy Spirit. You know, we know the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in measure, not as we should, but we know the doctrine. We talk about the paraclete, the comforter. We talk about walking in the Spirit, living in the Spirit. We talk about the revelation of the Holy Spirit. We know the terms, but you can know the theology. You can know the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and not know him personally. Not really intimate with the Holy Spirit, not really knowing what his ministry is. If I were to ask you, have you received the Holy Spirit? Many would say, yes, I have because you can't be saved unless the Holy Spirit opens your heart and it's the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us to Christ. Yes, I've received the Holy Spirit because I've received Christ. Now that's true, but there's more to it. If I ask you that question, some would say, well, I know the Holy Spirit because I speak with tongues. I see that as an evidence of speaking with tongues. Now, I can say with Paul, I speak in tongues more than you all. Every day in my daily devotions, I pray in another language and believe that though I don't understand, the Holy Spirit understands what is being said through my vessel, through my tongue. But you see, the Holy Spirit is not received fully. Let me give you an illustration. You can invite someone into your home and you can put them in the guest room and have them sign the guest register and you can say, I've received him into my home. But if this is a king, a very important person that's common, the house is his and you put him in a guest room and you say, well, you can name him, I've received him, but you've not received him until he takes control and possession. He comes as a temple, our body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. He is not fully received until he's taken his place of ministry, until he is ministering in the ministry God said he would have when he comes. Now, how do I know? Jesus said you know him. How well do you know the Holy Spirit? What can you tell me about his ministry? You say, well, he's a comforter. Well, tell me how he comforts. What are the marks? What are the evidences so I can determine whether it's my human nature, it's the flesh, or it's the Holy Spirit at work in me? For example, some lonely child of God praying and seeking the Lord for comfort, loneliness is overtaken and overwhelmed, and they just can't seem to make it and say, I can't make it. Oh, Holy Spirit, come. You're the comforter. Holy Spirit, come and comfort me, please. And so they wait for that feeling to come. They wait for that moment where the Holy Ghost will give some kind of spiritual sedative, a sweet dulling of the senses for a few hours, and all that. I just want some relief so I can go to sleep, or just give me some relief. Holy Spirit, come, and they wait for that feeling. Folks, the Holy Spirit does not manipulate our feelings. That's not what the Holy Spirit is about. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth, and truth has to overwhelm all our feelings. No matter how I feel, there's a power that's at work in me, and it's the power of the Holy Spirit. I may feel dead. I may feel the flame has gone out. I may feel all kinds of feelings, and I can have the devil lying to us, but there's a spirit of truth. And until we come to the truth and understand how he comforts us, and there are, he has given us ways to see, how do I know the Holy Spirit? I know him by what he's doing in my life. The evidence is that he gives me. I know him by the fruits of his ministry. God has told us what he would do when he comes. He's going to edify Christ. He's going to teach Christ to me, first of all. And I know he's at work because he has planted in me a hunger and a thirst to get to know Jesus Christ more. I know he's at work in me because I'm not the husband I used to be. I'm not what I was because he's doing something, and I'll have Gwen come up here and tell you. If you think I'm boasting, I am. I'm boasting in Christ. I'm boasting in the power of the Holy Spirit because he's given me evidence I'm getting to know him, not by what I see God doing in you. Thank God for what he's doing for you. But this is a personal work. This is something that the Holy Spirit is doing, and he's changing us from glory to glory. And when I see that, and when I can acknowledge that work of the Holy Spirit, I'm getting to know him. I'm getting to know him by his ministry, by his work in me. And you can know, too, when the Holy Spirit has not been allowed to accomplish his work and take full possession of his temple. When people are mean-spirited and gossiping and all of those works of the flesh, proving that there's very little knowledge of the Holy Spirit, that he's not been able to take his place of ministry, it's an amazing thing. The Holy Spirit has come down, and the Holy Spirit abides in us, and yet we live and act as though he's somewhere out in the cosmos. We act as though he were not here, because when we do get in trouble and when we do need the ministry of the Holy Spirit, though he wants to operate and though he wants to minister to us, we walk off in the flesh, doing our own thing as if he's not there. We make telephone calls. We always have a back door to our faith. We don't have that leap of faith. We don't have that faith that says, I'm going to trust the Holy Spirit in me, no matter what happens, no matter what I feel. God said he abides in me, that he has sent him, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, will be to us everything Jesus was when he was in residence here. Everything Jesus was to his disciples. He opened the truth of the Father. He comforted them. He kept them. He gave them resources. Everything that Jesus was to his disciples. The scripture says that Jesus made the promise. That's what he'll be to you. He will be your teacher. He will be your friend. The Holy Ghost is not a spy from heaven. He is the search of men's hearts, but he does not come to search you or me to find something to get on us. He comes because he is sent as our friend. He is sent as one who searches our hearts to find the good and bring it out of us and present it to the Heavenly Father. The search of the heart, the Holy Spirit is to us. Jesus said everything is though Christ himself in body. We're here leading, guiding, directing, living in your home. That's the Holy Spirit whose spirit is spread abroad to the whole world being Christ with all the resources and everything we need just as it was in the time of Christ. Jesus said, I send to you a comforter. I want to speak about the two primary ministries of the Holy Spirit. And I'm saying you can't know him personally until you understand his ministry or his ministries. First of all, consider first the ministry of comfort. Jesus calls him a comforter. That's a phrase. He's a comforter. If I ask you, who is the Holy Spirit, you answer, of course, he's the comforter. That's the word. But you see, we have to know how he comforts. What are the evidences of that comfort? I'm going to get to the lessons the Holy Spirit's been teaching me, especially this past week, bringing it far more open to me than I've seen it before. He is a spirit, first of all, of sonship. But the comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring you remembrance whatsoever I have said to you. The Holy Spirit is going to come as a teacher, the scripture says, and he's going to teach you sonship. The spirit of his son. The Bible, he's called in the scripture, the spirit of the son of God. And here's how the Holy Spirit comforts us, by bringing us into the knowledge who we are. The spirit of the son. What is it that he will bring to our remembrance is the proclamation that Jesus made. It was the proclamation Jesus made to the devil and to the world. And this is that that kept him above the trials and temptations of the world that came to him in the wilderness and his times of rejection here on earth. He could boast. There was a proclamation in his heart. That I am the son of God. No matter what anybody said, no matter what the enemy tried to cast on him, no matter what the trial was, there was a proclamation of the spirit of the living God in him. I am the son of God. I have the father in heaven. I have a father and I'm the son of God. Folks, the Holy Ghost has been telling me to lay hold of that truth. And every time that I walk the street and the enemy comes in with a lie, every time he comes in with a temptation, every time he comes with discouragement, fear, shame, whatever it may be, there has to be something in your heart and you ask the Holy Spirit, stop if you have to and say, make the proclamation to me again, Holy Spirit, and you will hear the proclamation of the Holy Spirit because he abides in you as the spirit of the son. That I am the son of the living God. What strength, what power that is. I am not alone. I am not a victim that enemy cannot bring me down because I am the son, I am the son of the living God. That spirit of sonship that lays hold of the heart. And I walk the street anymore and I don't let those lies of the devil come anymore. Devil, I'm the son of the living God. I have a father in heaven who stands with me and he's given me the Holy Spirit to remind you, to remind me, to run my flesh. I am not going down. You cannot take control of this mind of mine because I have the mind of Christ in me. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying, Abba father, my father. Is he your father? Are you his son? Are you his daughter? Why don't you proclaim it? Wherever you are in temptation, no matter where you stand, say it out loud on the street. Everybody talks on the street anyhow. You have a right to. New York is full of street talkers who talk everywhere, on the elevators, everywhere. Nobody knows who's insane and not insane. Well, if this is insanity, give me more of it. I'm a son of the living God. Jesus said, God has loved you. John 17, 20, God has loved you just as he's loved me. Glory to God. If that doesn't put some holy zeal in your heart, nothing will. Another source of comfort is to know and believe that the Holy Spirit has come to wage war against every lust and enticement of our flesh. He has been sent to take over the battle. Let me read it to you, Galatians 5, 17. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary one to another, so you cannot do the things that you would. Now, you see, you can say, I love God and I know I have access and I claim this sonship and I'm going to walk in the faith of that sonship and I know that I'm justified, I know that I'm being sanctified through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can say all that and it can be true, but there's a war raging in the inner man. There's a warfare going between the flesh and the spirit. And let me tell you why the devil comes after you. Let me tell you why the devil comes to inflame your flesh. He comes at you because you invited the Holy Spirit to come in and take control of your vessel. And when you do that, it stirs all the powers of hell. Folks, I know that when I have made these commitments to the Lord and to walk in his righteousness and begin to seek him with all my heart and I'm allowing the Holy Spirit to change me and I have said, Lord, I'm going to walk with you, I'm going to minister to you and I'm going to allow the Holy Spirit to minister to me. The devil will inflame everything in the flesh because the flesh is warring against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. You and I are no match to our flesh. You've made promise after promise and missed and failed on every one of them. But God has sent the Holy Spirit through his son Jesus Christ to wage warfare against the flesh. Folks, this battle is going to go on as long as you live. If you think the time is going to come that, well, I've reached a place. And by the way, anybody who tells me they don't have the spiritual warfare of the inner man is already acknowledging pride. So he needs as much help as I do. You see, this war is going to go on because flesh is going to be flesh, going to be flesh, going to be flesh. Flesh is flesh is flesh. And always will be flesh. But you see, the Holy Spirit has been given to wage war against the flesh. And this, folks, demands faith. Demands confidence in the Word of God. He said, I'm a spirit of truth. And when he comes to me and he presents to me as he is now, he's presenting to you in the power of his own name. The Holy Spirit right now through the words of Jesus. Jesus presented this. That the Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth. He comes to remind you that he is there to do battle. He's your prayer warrior. He's your battling warrior. He is your strength and he is your might. He is the living power of Almighty God. We think thoughts we shouldn't think. Thoughts unworthy of Christ. We look at things we ought not to. We're tempted by things we should no longer be tempted by. We listen to what we should not listen to. And it makes us feel so unclean. Makes us feel very strange. And the Lord said, think it not strange. These fiery tests and trials that come as if some strange thing has happened. Folks, that battle that is raging in your heart. That battle against the flesh. Folks, you can't walk the streets of New York without seeing signs, filthy signs. You turn on the radio, you hear outlandish, amazing meanness coming from what they call the talking heads. You see it everywhere you turn in society today. And there is a battle that is raging. And the thought life, how the enemy comes to inject thoughts into the mind of discouragement. And all of these things that pound against the flesh. And Satan inflaming the evil desires of the flesh. And it makes us feel that we are different than the others around us. And when you go into a battle that makes you ashamed of having to face that battle because you thought you were stronger in the Holy Spirit. You thought you were further up in the ladder. You thought you knew more about Christ and this power of the Holy Spirit in you. And now you say, well, I'm just not getting it. Everybody around me is getting it. No, the scripture says these temptations are common to all flesh, common to all man. So don't think it's strange. And you can't win this battle until when you walk with Jesus and these things come against you. You're going to have to say, I'm not strange. This is not unique with me. This is common to all flesh. So I'm not going to let the devil tell me that I'm an unclean son of the living God. I'm going to trust the blood of Jesus Christ and His cleansing power in my life. And I will not listen to this lie. And the devil wants to isolate you and put you aside in a corner and say, you are the stupidest, you are the most unclean, and you are the most unworthy of all servants. You're not getting it. Everybody else is getting it. That's a lie. These things are common to all flesh. Don't build up men and look at men and say, well, there's a man who never goes through a battle. There's a man who never has an unclean thought. Well, I don't know one on the face of the earth. Not on this stage, not here looking and preaching at you. We are all subject to the sin nature. We're still, not subject, but still, that sin nature has to be dealt with through the power of the Holy Spirit. But this is what God has been helping me with. There's no temptation taken you, but such is common to all men. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able. He will with the temptation make a way of escape that you may be able to endure it. He said, yes, I'll make a way of escape that you may be able to live under it, you're able to bear it, because you know that you have the Holy Spirit in you who will not let you down. He's going to be faithful in this warfare. Glory be to God. And that's why after 76 years of age and over many, many years of serving the Lord, I can say he is faithful. He has fought battles by my side and he's poured strength in. And folks, this is not a fancy that when we tell you the Holy Ghost will come and give you power. But you have to acknowledge that power. You have to by faith say, I lay hold of it, I have to take it, and I have to receive it into my being. Yes, there's a power greater than my flesh. Consider another aspect of the ministry of the comfort of the Holy Ghost. Scripture says in Romans 8, 26, Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. I'll talk to you for a few moments about prayer. Paul is saying we don't know how to pray as we should or as we ought to. And folks, there's a lot of confusion about prayer. What Paul is really saying here, there's a lot of confusion about prayer. So many people don't know what to pray for. They don't know how to pray. And it's been so complicated by theologians and by well-meaning people. And maybe at times in my own understanding of prayer, there's been so many formulas offered, so many ways to approach the Heavenly Father. And that, I believe, is something the Holy Spirit is dealing in my heart about. Prayer has very little to do, let me put it like this. I've got to get this out. I know it's in my heart, and I want to get it out for my own sake, because I went backstage before and said, Lord, I want to preach this to my own heart, because I don't want it just to be another step in my theology. I want this to be a part of my life, because, you see, the one thing that concerns me probably more than anything else in my life is my prayer walk, because the older you get, it's harder to discipline yourself. And though there's discipline to it, I don't want it to be something that condemns me, because I don't have the time. But listen to me, folks. There are questions that arise in the Church of Jesus Christ about prayer. With all that's said and preached about it, there's still these questions. The Holy Spirit says, Jesus said the Holy Spirit is interceding for us here on earth. We have an intercessor in heaven at the throne. We have an intercessor here in the temple. When does prayer become intercession? I hear about intercession. Is intercession explained by fervency, loudness, or the time that's spent, the energy? When does prayer become intercession? That's a question I get asked a lot, and I've asked that a number of times. You hear of prayer intercessors, and there are intercessors, but there are questions. I'm to pray according to the will of God, but how do I determine the will of God? And, folks, you can be so bogged down, and that is the reason I believe many people don't pray. They're trying to get a handle on it. They're trying to get an understanding. Am I praying according to the will of God? Am I praying? What do you do about... I heard recently in Texas a Christian high school football game. This team is Christian. This is a secular football team, and this Christian group over here praying for victory. Then you go to another school, two Christian schools, and they're both praying the same prayer, Lord, help us to win. Which prayer is God going to answer? There's so many questions in what Paul is saying. There's so many questions. We really don't know how to pray, but there's a Holy Spirit in us bringing us simply to Jesus for communication and to just talk to Him. I'm finding that I am enjoying taking walks here in New York, and there's noise all around me, and that becomes my secret closet, and I shut the door by shutting out all the noise and the clamor, and begin to just talk and tell Him what I'm going through. It's fellowshipping and talking to Him. You see, I believe the Holy Spirit... The Scriptures say we're not to grieve the Holy Spirit, and I believe that He as an intercessor can be grieved just as the Scripture Paul says all of creation is groaning in travail. All of creation is groaning. The reason for this groaning is the things that are happening in the world today. Never have we seen such turmoil. Never have we seen such levels of stress as we're seeing now. The ecologists, for example, are saying that the ice caps are melting, and there are going to be floods, and New York eventually is going to be underwater and most of the East Coast. Now, I'm not mocking this. I know that sin is destroying the world, and we need to be cognizant of all of this. But you see, they say the global warming is going to intensify so much that everything green is going to go, and the world is going to become uninhabitable. Folks, what gloom, what doom. These are the gloom of doom preachers. Everywhere you find people looking for hope, there's this groaning. You look at the world situation today, and all of the turmoil, everything conspires today to take away hope, take away any hope for the future. I mean, here's the church of Jesus Christ, living and walking in the spirit. What are we going to do? How do we face this world? I have ministered all over the world, and I've come home from so many trips from South America and from Africa and other places that I've been, and even some poor European countries. And I've walked into the favelas and the slums, and I've seen the poverty, and I've seen the terror in the eyes of the children. And you go back to your room, and you just sit there stunned and say, Oh, God, how can this be reached? How can we do anything about this? And then you go to the ministers' conference, and you sit in the evening, and I preach to pastors that are looking at me by the hundreds and sometimes by the thousands, and their heads down and downcast and marriages in trouble, and I said, Where is the authority? Where is the power? Oh, Holy Spirit, there has to be something that you do in these last days. Folks, I don't believe that anything can be accomplished. On the mission field, if the Spirit doesn't give it birth, if the Spirit doesn't move in it, if the Spirit doesn't bless it, it can't be done. All of these movie stars that are going into Africa and all over the world into the slums with feeding programs, and they're raising billions and billions of dollars, and after all these years of feeding and working with AIDS and all of these things, it's just a band-aid. It's getting worse. All of the money. In fact, they're acknowledging it now. U2 or whoever he is, I guess it's U2, there's something I read, raising billions of dollars, and former President Clinton raising billions of dollars now. There's an admission now by U2 and also by former President Clinton that we're not making any headway. Not making any headway at all. The levels of stress keep rising. Folks, there's only one power. There is only one power. There's only one answer. And that is the power of the Holy Spirit. And that power comes through the prayer room. I believe this. I believe it comes through the intercessor. It comes through the Holy Spirit in us if we would allow Him. This is my greatest concern, Lord. Don't let me lose that urgency. The Holy Spirit, the Bible says, all of nature is groaning. And He said, we too who are in the Spirit are groaning, wanting our redemption. In other words, there's something that's saying, Lord, I've had enough. I want to see Jesus. And there's something in the Spirit that says even so. The Spirit and the bride say, come, there's a calling, there's a groaning. Come, Lord Jesus. But folks, we're still here. As long as we're still here, the Bible said the world groans, yes, and we still groan, but the Holy Spirit is groaning. There's something in the Holy Spirit groaning because there's a new world coming. There's a new world with new bodies. These are the birth pangs of a new age that are just coming upon us. But in this last day, the church of Jesus Christ is going to be the same fire that fell on the day of Pentecost, the same moving of the Holy Spirit where thousands were saved. It's the same Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. It's the same Spirit that is in this church. That Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead in the last days is going to raise up a new awareness of the ministry and the work and the power of the Holy Spirit. And I say, oh God, rise up. You don't have to come down, you're here, but rise up inside of us, oh God, and give us faith and confidence that you will do in the last days what you promised to do, what God sent you to do. Begin it in me. Glory be to God, the Son of the living God. I've got a warrior that stands by my side. And I will not give in to the lies of the devil. Glory be to the living God. Will you stand? Folks, just a very simple word. This message will have helped you. If you can walk out this door this morning and hold your head high and proclaim in your soul, I'm a son of the living God, I'm a daughter of the living God, and by the Spirit God in His Son Christ abide in me. The Holy Spirit manifest that. Proclaim it in our lives. Heavenly Father, thank you for sending the Holy Spirit. We want to know Him. You said you'll know Him because He's going to live in you. And little by little you will see His work and you will come under the power of His ministry. And as you do, increase your faith. Rest in Him. Rest in Him. For He will bring you to the Son and the Son will bring you to the Father. Hallelujah. Lord, you will manifest. You will be manifest in us and all things that we face on this earth in our walk. Hallelujah. Now, Holy Spirit, would you speak to those that are within the sound of my voice now in this house and in the annex that have been troubled and spirited, cast down and discouraged and feeling at the point of defeat because the enemy has come as a roaring lion, as a flood, bringing in so much pain, so many things that they don't understand. Lord, there are people here now listening to me who do not understand what they're going through. There are people that are facing loved ones who suffer and can't understand. Lord, when we're without understanding, just help us to acknowledge that there is one in us abiding, living. We don't have to go far, Lord. It's there in our innermost being. Come and manifest your spirit this morning, bringing comfort, bringing strength. In Jesus' name, amen. If you're here this morning and you... If you don't know the Lord, first of all, you can walk down the aisle with those that are coming and stand here and surrender your heart and your life to Jesus. But if you're here this morning and the enemy has come trying to bring you down and bring defeat into your life, so many things are coming against you maybe you don't understand. I want you to get out of your seat and come here and we're going to pray that the Holy Spirit will be manifest in your heart. Up in the balcony, go to the stairs on either side. Folks, it's scriptural to pray to the Holy Spirit and pray in the Spirit and through the Spirit. Would you just lift a hand or two? Lift both hands if you will and just begin to talk to the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, I trust your work. Holy Spirit, thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for abiding. Let strength come into your spirit now. You that came forward right now, just let the Holy Spirit. If He breaks you, that's because He wants to fill you. Lord Jesus, come right now by your Spirit. Come into our vessels with faith. Send faith. Hallelujah. Talk to Him. Just talk to Him. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for bringing me to Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for reminding me and teaching me who I am in Christ. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Give Him thanks. Just give Him fruit of your lips. With the lips, with the heart. I'm not trying to work something out, but with your heart, with your lips. Give Him the sacrifice of the calves of your lips, the calves of our lips. Father, thank you for sending the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for abiding in me. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for coming to me. Thank you for filling me with the Holy Spirit, O God. Thank you for the filling of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit's in you, He will be praising Jesus right now. Lord, we praise you. Jesus, we honor you. Folks, this is the Holy Spirit doing His work, testifying of Christ. He's doing His work in our hearts right now, drawing us closer to Him, drawing us to His love and His mercy and His grace. Hallelujah. Lord, thank you. Holy Spirit, thank you for bringing us closer to our blessed Lord and Savior, for drawing us to the heart of the Father and His love. We give you praise. We give you thanks. Can you thank Him now?