In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the main purpose of the church, which is to spread the gospel and share the good news of Jesus Christ. He highlights that many Christians are focused on their own survival and spiritual existence rather than reaching out to others. The speaker identifies the three enemies of the church as the world, the flesh, and the devil. He emphasizes the need for the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome these enemies and experience true victory in our lives. The speaker also shares personal anecdotes and encourages the audience to remember who told them about Jesus and to continue spreading the gospel.

I want to start a series today on Sunday, which I'll continue whenever I'm speaking here, and this is going to be from the book of Acts. I don't think we've ever gone through that historical book of the Bible, but we will now. Not every verse, but the high points of it so that you will be familiar now with this most important of books. Anybody know who wrote the book of Acts? Luke. Someone said Acts, and there's nobody named Acts in there. It's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and then Acts. As we're going to see, Luke wrote that, and what was Luke? Luke was a doctor. Luke was a scientist, as it were, very descriptive historian too, and he wrote the book of Luke, and this is his follow-up to the book of Luke. Luke, he begins to tell what Jesus did when he appeared on earth, and then Jesus died on the cross for our sins, ascended to the right hand of the Father after he resurrected, and now the great question is what will this church look like that he spoke about in the Gospels? We heard from Tony Evans last Sunday afternoon, those of you who were here, that famous verse, and upon this rock I will build my what? And the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. So as our friend Tony Evans pointed out, the battle is not between God and Satan. That would be unfair, because who could defeat God? What Satan's battle is against God's representative on earth, which is the church. Just as Satan attacked and tried to hinder Jesus Christ, even tempting him to sin, and waited for a more convenient season to come back again, there wasn't just one temptation, so Satan is set against the church. But what is the church? We learn from the book of Acts about the church, the called out ones, what it looks like, what God intended it to be. You know, God could have said, here's how Christianity will be. Everybody will serve me individually, have prayer time with me, study the Bible alone, and never gather together, and there'll no be no pastors or shepherds or teachers. God could have designed anything he wanted. He's God. But God designed the church. The church, that's us meeting here, but it's made up, as Pastor Tim prayed, of all of those who are born again. The church is universal, and in that sense, it's invisible. No one has ever seen the church of Jesus Christ, because it's in Africa, it's in China, it's in South America, it's in Bolivia, it is in New York City, it's in California, it's everywhere. So what we have are local assemblies that represent the church universal. Now, when we read this, from Acts 1 in a second, it's a challenge, I think unlike any other in the Bible, to get out of us preconceived ideas and definitions of what we think things mean. See, when someone says Jesus, the only way to know Jesus, you make up your own Jesus, or you go to the Bible and find out the real Jesus. Remember, Paul warns the church and says, you've received Jesus, but not the Jesus I told you about. And there's a lot of Jesuses. There's a, you know, white conservative Republican Jesus, there's a black Jesus, Latino Jesus, Chinese Jesus, a left-leaning liberal Democrat Jesus. You know, everybody makes up their own Jesus, but the only Jesus that's real is the one that's in the Bible. How many say amen? So when we want to know who Jesus is, you don't go talking to people and say, who do you think Jesus is? You go to the Bible, God's authoritative word. Now, where it really gets hard is church, because a lot of us, some of us, have grown up around church, some Catholic church. My assistant, Faola, she has only known one evangelical Protestant church, and that's this church. She got saved, and God landed her here. All she knew was Catholicism. So to her in those days, church meant mass, meant a priest. It meant statues. It meant candles flickering. That's what church meant to her. To some of you, wherever you grew up, you had some concept of church, negative or positive. Or you went to a church, or you went to a church, and you grew up, and when somebody says church, you don't go to the Bible. You just think, yeah, that's what they do in church. I know what a church is. And maybe you and I went to a church that was more cultural than spiritual. It was more a certain kind of, I went to all white, Eastern European dominated. My mom's here. She's Polish. My dad was Ukrainian. And the church was made up of people who were mostly Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Slav people. And that was church to me. Met on a little, tiny little building on Quincy Street here in Bed-Stuy. And that was church. Is that what God intended church to be? No, I can assure you. Because people from other races were not wanted there. So that was not God's church. Some of you grew up in a black church experience. And all you identify is that your limited experience of church. But it's the only thing you knew. So that's when you say church, you say church. And a lot of times, it's a social thing. It's a cultural thing. It's an American thing. It's a building thing. But what did God intend the church to be? We only learn that in the book of Acts. The epistles talk about it. The letters of Paul and Peter and John and others. But in the book of Acts, we find out how was the church born and what did God intend the church to be? Because especially it's incumbent upon me as a pastor, I don't want to lead the people into culture or into me or denominationalism. We want to have a Christian church. How many want to be a vibrant member of a vibrant, blessed Christian church? Lift up your hand. In other words, whatever God's purpose is, we want to get that. That's why when you hear pastors, which I hear often pastors say, here's my vision for the church. I didn't know we were supposed to have a vision. I didn't know it was my church. I didn't die for you. Who died for you? So he's the only one who can say what the church is supposed to be like. Since when could I say, this is my vision for the church? What's your vision? I don't know. I look in the Bible. That's my vision. Let me say amen. Otherwise I've met people who have peculiar visions for the church and it goes against the Bible and they have a vision of an all white church or an all black church or a social club church or whatever kind of church. But then when I stand before the Lord at the end of my life, what am I going to say? And he'll say to me, what were you doing down there? I don't know. I was just, you know, hanging out. No, I called you in the ministry to build my church, my church. Church doesn't belong to a pastor. It doesn't belong to a denomination. Doesn't belong to the board of deacons. The church belongs to Jesus. So now let's learn how he started the church. Okay, let's look. We're going to read it twice through. In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven. After giving instructions, notice, through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and he gave many convincing proofs. This is Jesus appearing to them after he rose from the dead, that he was alive. Luke went back and researched the whole thing. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days, off and on, by the way, and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with what? The Holy Spirit. So when they met together, they asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? They wanted to know dates and times about prophecy. So when they met together, they asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, here's a good thing to remember. It's not for you to know the times or the dates that the father has set by his own authority. Forget your chart. Don't figure out the days. That's not your business. Wouldn't that be good for all of us to learn today? Haven't we learned something already? So when will the Antichrist appear? What's going to happen with Israel? What's going to happen? It's not for you to know those things, but here's what your task is. But you will receive power when? When the Holy Spirit comes on you. That word power is dunamis, where we get our word dynamite. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And after he said this, those were his final words, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid them, hid him from their sight. And they were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them, angels. Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. Praise God. That's the second coming of Jesus Christ. I want to pick up the NLT right around verse 4. Can we do that? Chapter 1, right there. During the 40 days after his crucifixion, this is a New Living Translation, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive, and he talked to them about the kingdom of God. And once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but just in a few days you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom? He replied, the Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses, telling people about me. I like that. And you will be my witnesses. What do witnesses do? They give evidence, telling people about me everywhere. In Jerusalem, that's where they, where Christ was crucified. Throughout Judea, that's the province where Jerusalem was. In Samaria, that was north of Judea, in people that most Jews didn't want to be around, and to the ends of the earth, which would imply going to more than Jewish people. After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. Men of Galilee, they said, why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go. And all the people said, even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. So now Luke tells us how the church began. And the church began, actually, it starts in Acts 2, we'll get to that. But notice how the stage was set for the birth of the church. Jesus has risen from the dead, and he's appearing off and on to the disciples, showing that he's truly alive. And he was so alive, they were willing to die for him. So someone who says this is all hocus-pocus, this is all made-up fiction, boy, you got to be crazy to find people who would die for a lie. It's hard enough to die for the truth. We heard about Chinese Christians on Tuesday night from Brother John Bechtel from Hong Kong, and a man whose finger is really on the pulse of the church in China, both above ground and below. And he told us that they're arrested sometimes, and they're given a choice. You can deny and curse Christ, or you can go free. And someone said to me later on at the night, said, you know, I was thinking about that. Everybody wants to live. That's a tough one. You know, we can say in the safety of church, I'd say, I'm for Jesus. I'm for Jesus. Come on, you come and kill me. When the moment comes, you got to dig real deep. These men dug real deep because they had seen Jesus. Who would die for a lie? Nobody's going to die for a lie. And now, as they were asking prophecy questions, Jesus tells them what their concentration should be, not figuring out dates and times. No, Jesus says, it's not for you to know that, but you're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you're going to tell people about me everywhere. Now, before he said that, he talked about the Holy Spirit being the one that the Father had promised, and he said, that's the one that I've told you about. Going back into John, before Jesus went to the cross, Jesus started telling the disciples things like this, very hard for them to accept. It's good for you that I'm leaving, and they were going looking at each other, time out. We've been with you three years. We saw you walk on water. We saw you do all kinds of amazing things, and you're telling us it's good that you're leaving. No, it's not good for us that you're leaving. You've been our rabbi. You've been our teacher. You've been our Lord. You've been the one that we look to for everything. Without you, we're lost. We'll flounder. And Jesus said, no, it's good for you that I leave, because unless I leave, I can't send the Holy Spirit. And they're going, Holy Spirit, what? What are you talking about? So what Jesus was saying, it's better to have the invisible Holy Spirit, who will be in you, than to have me physically with you. Because notice, Jesus being with them was very limited in what he could do. Let's look at Jesus's three years of ministry. What did he produce? Did he produce any strong spiritual men? Let's be honest and reverentially say this. Did he produce strong believers? No. When he was arrested, they all fled, and one denied him and cursed and said, I don't even know who he is. And he had been sitting under Jesus for three years, seeing all those miracles. So somebody says, oh, if I only saw a miracle, if I only saw somebody walking on water, if Pastor Simba could just levitate and float around the building for about 20, 30 seconds, I will believe. No, you won't. No, you won't. No, you won't. All people say, miracle mongers, if I just see a miracle, I'll believe. They saw all kinds of miracles, but when push came to shove, they were weak. And even when he rose from the dead, they weren't even sure they could believe the girl's report who had seen him. So now Jesus is saying, no, I told you that I am going to send the Holy Spirit, and when the Holy Spirit comes, he won't be physically with you. He's going to go inside of you, and he's going to start to do things in su corazon, in your heart. He's going to change you from the inside out. My teaching was on the outside. That's why it couldn't change you. Anything on the outside can't ultimately change me. It's got to go where I really live. Notice also what the goal of the church is. I don't care how you grew up or I grew up, let's face it. The main object was the church was, and you will receive power, dynamite, dunamis, not separate, but connected totally to the Holy Spirit. It's the power of the Holy Spirit. You can't get power separate from the Holy Spirit. You have to have a relationship and openness, a surrender to the Holy Spirit. There's no such thing as, I want more power. You say, I want more of the Holy Spirit's control because he gives the power. And why do we have power? So that you will be my witnesses, you will tell people about me everywhere. That's the main reason for a church, not praise and worship, not Bible studies, not picnics. Yes, minister to the body of Christ. Yes, disciple people. Yes, praise and worship. Yes, let's study together. But the main purpose of the church, you must tell others what you know, that I love them and I died for them. You got to tell them in your neighborhood. You got to tell them in the projects. You got to tell them in the Bronx. You got to tell them in New York state. You got to tell them everywhere, everywhere. That's the main goal of the church is to spread the gospel. What's the gospel? The good news that God so loved the world that he gave Jesus Christ as our savior. And he died as a substitute for your sins and my sins. That's the main goal of the church. Do you think that's the main object of most churches? Do you think evangelism and getting more people to hear about Jesus is the main goal of most Christians? No, most Christians are just trying to survive. They're trying to eke out their spiritual existence. They're not living in power with a goal, with a commission. No, most churches, most Christians are just help me Jesus through another day. But how about the guy down? You've heard about Jesus 50 times. That guy hasn't heard about Jesus ever. Look, you know, God bless him, but I gotta, man, things are hard. Devil's attacking. No one knows the trouble I've seen. Come on, am I speaking the truth or not? Other people, well, let missionaries do that. Let Billy Graham do that. He can't do that anymore. It's too old now. He's laid up in the bed. I just talked to someone close to his situation. He can barely get out of bed now. So who's going to tell the people? Who's going to tell your cousin? Who's going to tell everyone? Who's going to tell people in China? We learned on Tuesday, there's 500 million people, 500 million people in China who have never heard the name Jesus Christ. And people that you work with, you think they know? They only know Christ this way. For Christ's sake, get out of my face. Ah, Jesus Christ. That's all they know about. So that's the goal of the church. And God said, when my church will do that, they will experience the power. This is why a lot of Christians don't experience the power, which we'll get to now as I close. It's because we're not doing what Jesus said to do, which requires the power. We're having church. We're having meetings, talking to each other. And that's great. And God blesses and God moves. He wants to build up his church. But the power was promised in what connection? And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon me, and you will tell people about me. That power will drive you. That power will move you. And you will get out of the me, myself, and I syndrome. And my wedding, and my marriage, and my troubles, and me, and my race, and my family, and my island, and my country, and my ethnic background. I'm going to break all of that through the power of the Holy Spirit. And I'm going to send you out. And as you tell people about me, and as you pray for people in my name, I will be with you, and you will see power in operation when you're doing what I asked you to do. Come on. Let's put our hands together. Say amen. My wife said to me, 30 years ago, after a Sunday morning service, going to a restaurant with a visiting preacher, 30 years ago, she said to me, Jim, have you ever noticed that when a church loses a desire to win souls, it gets strange? My wife is deep, right? Girl is deep. That's true. When a church stops doing what Christ said the church should do, and we circle the wagons, and we're going to have church, and with the kids, and everything, and that's great. That's fine. Disciple, of course, we got to grow. But if you missed that note, you've missed the note. Now you're having church. You ever hear ministers say that? They're almost bragging. Praise God, we had church. And they don't know it's something to almost be embarrassed about sometimes. I'm all for church, but how about the masses that Christ died for? Because God loves them just as much as he loves you and me. Why would he love them less than he loves you and me? Now, what started then, let's bring this to closure. What started that day is the reason you're here. To show you how important this is, I am looking right now at my friend Ward Bruckner. He's a deacon of the church. You know why he's here? Because somebody has kept true to the goal of the church. The church was born, and they started telling. Then other people told other people. Went from one generation to another. And enough people kept saying, we got to keep telling people. That's why we're here. Got to tell people. And it's come down 2,000 years, and somebody told Ward, or else Warden wouldn't be here. And now he's told his son, his other two children, and they're here. The only way the gospel is spread, the only way you're here today, is that they started talking back then, and they're still talking. Come on, how many remember who told you about Jesus? Lift your hand. Can you remember who told you about Jesus? Half of you don't have your hands up. How'd you get here today? Come on, lift your hand. Didn't somebody tell you about Jesus? Some mother, some father? Look, I heard it from my parents. No stranger walked up to me. But you know how my mother got saved? And her mother, my Polish grandmother, that's how the family found the Lord. My mother had nine siblings. And you know how they heard? Some minister came out to this poor Polish mining town in Pennsylvania where my mother's family was, and there was a person connected to the family who was sick. Mom, what was the disease that the person had that they prayed for? Seizures. Person had eczema and seizures, and nobody could help him. And a minister, simple, Eastern European, couldn't speak English very well minister came, but he had this on his mind, and he prayed, and the person was so miraculously healed that my grandmother, my mother, and the whole family got saved. Can we put our hands together and thank God? Now, if you met the man who was the minister who went out there, you would say, no, you know, that man is not much. He's not educated. Guess what? Because of him, I'm here. Because it came through there. Somebody's talking, praying, and when you do that, there's power. All right, power. Let's close, because I want to pray. You will receive power. You can't do God's work, and you can't be a victorious Christian without power, because we're involved in spiritual warfare. And the first verse in Ephesians 6 that's noteworthy about that is, be strong in the Lord, in your relationship with the Lord, have strength in you, and in the power, dunamis, of his might, not you. In other words, in spiritual warfare, it has nothing to do with your strength. Your IQ, your college degree, doesn't mean a thing to Satan. He'll run over that like a truck. Now, the power of the Holy Spirit, that brings us into a different territory. Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. Now, power. Jesus looked down the corridors of time and saw the mission of the church, saw that what they would have to do, saw all the opposition of the enemy, all the discouragements, all the distractions, all the frontal attacks, all the side attacks, all the demonic people, all the people who are bound in their minds, in their emotions, substance abuse, alcoholism, hatred, prejudice. He saw all the mission field, and he said, here's the thing, you have the right message. I've been with you off and on for 40 days. You know now that I died. You know why I died. You know what my blood means. You know I was raised again from the dead, but you can't go yet. You got the right message, but a right message is not enough. You got to have power. This is probably the greatest hindrance to the church in the world today. Churches are not making an impact in their community. Churches are closing up. Two or three of the leading denominations in America are in negative growth for the last seven, eight years now. Negative growth since 9-11, where people have been more conscious of life and death and eternity. They're in negative growth. That means they're not gaining people. They're losing members to their church. They're losing their young people, and pulpits, more pulpits are empty now in some denominations I could mention to you because their leaders have told me, lamented to me. We have more empty pulpits. Nobody, they're just leaving the ministry. 1,500 pastors are leaving the ministry every month in America. That's while we're worshiping today, 50 are resigning. 1,500 a month, and now for every 10 ministers that go in the ministry, only one retires still in the ministry, retires still serving the Lord, doing what he can in the ministry. Others have dropped out, discouragement, sell insurance, sell cars. I can't take it anymore. They're fighting among the board members, this, that, whatever. I can't, no member, nobody comes, nobody comes, nobody wants to pray, nobody gets saved. I never baptized anybody, so what am I doing this for? There's a great lady sitting here behind me, and her mother, her dad and mom, both in the ministry, and her dad was in the ministry, and he ended up driving a car, a bus, in his church, or some of the people wouldn't come unless he picked them up. Saint of God he was. And what's the main reason for all of that? It can't be that there's not enough sinners around. Just walk outside today and come back to me tonight and tell me what you see. How many know the fields are ripe to harvest? Come on, lift your hand up. Are there people all around us who need the Lord? And they're hurting, and they're empty, and they don't know where to go, and the church is just not even looking toward them. They're just blocked in, just ourselves, or just so like on life support, spiritual life support. So am I not speaking the truth? Choir, am I speaking the truth? Most people are just, it's about me. The world, what Jesus said, you'll receive power and you'll tell everyone about me? No, that's not for me, that's for some other class of people. So power. Power over what? The enemies of the church. What are the enemies of the church? We'll tell you very simply. The world, the flesh, and the devil. Those are the three enemies against the church. The world is against the church, the spirit of this world, this present world, the people who curse God and don't believe in Christ and mock anyone who believes in Jesus. It's the world, and they can be very obnoxious. The world, and there's the flesh, there's what we have to deal with ourselves, our selfish tendencies that want to be gratified. Some to make money, some to get education. We don't care about Jesus. Make money, that's what I care about. Some of it is sexual. I'm going to indulge my sexual desires. I don't care what the Bible says. Immorality, straight immorality, homosexuality, and those habits get so strong, and Jesus said, the only way you'll overcome that is power. The flesh is too strong, the world is too strong. The world will squeeze you in its mold, and you won't convert the world. The world will convert you. There's all kind of churches now. To get a crowd, they have rap artists come, and singing artists come who are posing with hardly any clothes on, and who are making albums that have every profanity, every sensual, immoral thing, and they're appearing in churches, and people come and go, that's all right, God loves everybody. But God does love everybody. Doesn't make it right. Am I correct or wrong here? All right, so, and then finally, there's the devil, so let's just think of that as we close. There's the world. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, we will give in to fear, and we will not be bold, and this is what happened to the disciples. They went from being afraid, and denying Christ, and after Pentecost, you'll, as we read through the book of Acts, there's a different Peter, there's a different James, there's a different John, there's a different, there's a whole different group of people, and Jesus isn't on the scene, but the Holy Spirit has given them power, and now they're willing to stand. They don't care about anything. They don't care about anything. You judge whether we should obey you or God. You can threaten us all you want. We're going to do what we have to do. So there's that power of the Holy Spirit made them bold instead of cringing fear. The Holy Spirit also gives you the power to love people that are very unlovable. There's some nasty people out there. Anybody ever meet one here in New York City? How many have run into some obnoxious people in your life here? And Christ died for them, and we're supposed to love them. How do you love people? I don't want to know about that person. No, with the power of God's love, you can love the unlovable. Come on, let's say amen to that. You can love people who are unlovable, and I know that's possible because God loves me, and I'm unlovable, and that same love, agape love, he puts it in our heart. That's the power of love. This is all part of that package. You will receive power, power to be bold, not be afraid to open your mouth, power to love people who are unlovable because how can you minister to people if you don't love them? If you're angry at people and you're fed up with people, how in the world can you minister Jesus to them? You could yell truth at them, but you'll just make it worse. I'll make it worse. And then there's the flesh. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can break the grooves of the flesh. You can have preachers yell at you. You can have people say you're going to go to hell. You can hear, be sure your sins will find you out. You can have all kinds of legal stuff thrown at you, and it should get your attention, but the actual breaking of that power, actual victory over your temper, actual victory over that lie, those lies that you have gotten in the habit of telling. I had a guy in college. I met a lot of different kind of people in college, but University of Rhode Island where I went there on a basketball scholarship, there was a guy in the hallway. He lied whenever he spoke. He amazed us because he would lie when there was no reason to lie. He couldn't tell the truth. It's habitual. And then we cry, and we say, I'm sorry, God. I know I shouldn't do that. I shouldn't go on the internet and look at that. I shouldn't be gossiping. I shouldn't be doing those things. And we cry, and we ask God to forgive us, and then 72 hours later we're going, why'd I do that again? I don't want to do that. Come on, we all know that battle. Only the Holy Spirit can break that. For if you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For sin will not have dominion over you. For you're not under the law, you're under grace. That means God's gift is in you. If you walk in the Spirit, you let him control you, you have the ability to say no. You'll be thinking different thoughts. He'll give you a different thought. This is all promise, power. And finally, there's the devil. The book of Acts, as we find out, is going to be a story of men and women, simple men and women, who had been failures just recently, and they are now begin to speak. Listen, his last thought. They're going to be speaking now with power in Christ's It is amazing that Jesus said in one place in the Gospels, if I by the power of the Spirit, if I by the Holy Spirit cast out demons, you mean the Son of God in human form had to depend on the Holy Spirit? Yes. How much more for you and me? And when he spoke those words, he spoke them with Spirit-empowered phrases. And as Jesus promises now these disciples, you'll receive power. Part of that power, and you'll tell people, is you will confront Satan and the demons that exist. Satan is one former angelic being created as an angel. He can only be in one place at one time. He is not everywhere, and he doesn't know what's in your mind. He's not God. He has, their source is a mystery. He has hosts and hosts of evil, unclean spirits that are in the atmosphere and that are attacking Christians and binding people all over the world. They are called demons or unclean spirits. And Jesus came, he said, the Son of Man has come to seeking to save that which was lost, and I have come to destroy the works of the devil. And now I'm leaving, and you now, I am the head, you are my body, you are the church, I am giving you power, and you have my name too, that you are to go and set people free. And you're to resist the devil, and he will, let me tell you something I haven't done enough of in my life. I've done it, but not enough, and that's speak to evil spirits. God has granted us power, and the power most times is expressed through speech. Peter preached, they were pricked in their hearts, and thousands got converted. And if you study the book of Acts, yes they prayed, they prayed spirit birth prayers, but they spoke to situations, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, they were able to discern what Satan was doing, they were able to get God's timing of what to do, and then when they spoke, Satan had to back up. Come on, do you agree with me? Do we agree with God's word? Now, it's not wrong to pray about something, but since demons do not know what's in your mind, since they are not, and Christians are attacked and oppressed by evil spirits. The Bible says, don't be angry and go to bed with your anger, or you'll give place to Satan. That means a stronghold in your life can begin through demonic activity. You can't be possessed and be a Christian. There's no way that a Christian can be possessed, but Christians attacked by evil spirits? How many of you know that you've been attacked by evil spirits? Come on, come on. One night in my room, my wife was down in Florida for 17 weeks taking care of her mother, passing away from pancreatic cancer, and I had all kinds of pressure on me, and this building wasn't yet done, and we needed millions of dollars. It was a cost overrun, or whatever was going on. We needed $800,000 in 72 hours, so the people were going to walk off the job and say we're not coming back, and the building wouldn't be done, and I wouldn't be able to bring you in here, and we couldn't enjoy it, and all of that, and I'm trusting God, but I was very vulnerable. My wife was away. I was lonely, this, and in the middle of the night, I woke up, and I started to like sense what is going on here, and I'm telling you, I'm not saying Satan. There was a demonic presence in my bedroom. Oh, yes, it was. It was as dark as could be. It was dark because there were no lights on, but there was something evil in my room. You say, no, you're a man of God. Man of God are not. Demons don't care that you have reverend before your name, so I had to walk around my room and say, no, the blood of Jesus is against you. No, the blood of Jesus is against you, and I paced and walked. How many ever had a battle like that? This is the power that God promised because demons don't know what you're thinking. You can be thinking, I want this spirit out of the way, and it's not wrong to pray that way, but that's not really the Bible formula. It's to resist the devil. How can you resist him unless you speak to him? He doesn't know what you're thinking. To speak, to speak over a person, to be able to discern and pray for them and see a deliverance, a setting free, a pushing back of the enemy. Jesus said, that's what I've been doing for three years, and then I gave my life. Now my church is going to go out, and I'm going to give them power, and they know the message of the gospel, but they're going to have power to do it. Now, you don't have to ask God. We don't have to come to God. We're going to sing, come Holy Spirit, but we don't have to be going like, oh God, please, I want more of the Holy Spirit. I know you don't want to give it to me, but please. No, no. God promised us before we got it. What do you think God was waiting for us today? Do you think he wants to fill us and control us and bless us and impart power, or do you think he wants to just stand down up in heaven and criticize us? What do you think kind of God we serve with all the needs around us? I was talking to a young person this week. I've gotten drawn into all these cases with young people lately, and I thought what I saw was there's an oppression there. As I left and drove back home, I'm thinking, what did I just sense when I looked at him? I missed my opportunity at that moment, but I'm not going to miss it next time. He's oppressed by the devil. You could say it's anger. It's this. It's that. Yeah, but did you know there are spirits that incite anger? There are spirits that incite all kinds of things, and God said, I'm going to give you the power. Will everybody get saved? Well, I'm asking you when Jesus was here. Did everybody get saved? No, but will people get saved? Will the church go ahead? Will there be joy in the camp? Will there be singing and rejoicing? Will we be baptizing people until our arms get tired? All in favor, clap your hands and say, I. Close your eyes with me right now.