This sermon emphasizes the importance of absolute surrender to God and being filled with the Holy Spirit for effective ministry. It highlights the need for believers to allow God to control their lives completely, leading to a transformation that impacts others and brings revival. The message stresses the power of a Spirit-filled life, lived in prayer and Christ-likeness, as a testimony that convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Into the office, he called, Keith, you come here now. Everybody sat fearful. Our manager didn't scream. He was angry. So I walked in there thinking, what am I in for now? Sat down and he says, What have you done to the man? It's you, I know. Everyone knows. I said, what do you mean, sir? He says, The owner of the firm, he says, I've always hated him. I've always lived in fear of him. For 30 years, I've worked for him. And he's sitting there with a Bible open on his desk. And you know what he says to everybody coming into the office? He says, What do you want? Don't you sit. Tell me what you want before you sit. So we've got to say what we want. And he says, It's not good enough. You can sort it out. You're not keeping me from business. Can you believe God can change a man like that? You know, to the day he died, that man never allowed anyone to sit before he asked him, What do you want? And most people, he said, Go away. That's not important enough. I want God's word. Brother, sister, you think God isn't using you because people are still in their sin. People are not sleeping. People are not enjoying their sin. People are groaning. You don't know what they're going through, no matter how much they laugh in front of each other. If you're just vital with God in the morning and the night. If you just meet with God and you make this life being consumed by prayer beginning in the morning. If you walk with God through the day, don't listen to the devil that says you're not being used. He anoints the word to the degree that that word is soaked in prayer. And the preacher is soaked in prayer and the people he's to preach through is soaked in prayer. He anoints the word to the degree that the message is soaked in prayer. And he anoints the life to the degree that the life is soaked in prayer. Don't doubt that. And to the degree that you soak your life in prayer, beloved, so will God convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment without you bringing them near a preaching or a sermon. Your life becomes a sermon. You are our epistle known and read of all men. You have been declared to be the epistle of Christ, the message, the letter of Christ, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God. Do you know that the outworking of the Scriptures in a life is used by God the Holy Spirit to virtually stagger and condemn the consciences of them that have no open ear to the word of God? Your life is written. You write. God writes the word of God. You live it. It's more powerful sometimes than the spoken word of God, if it's lived, but to the degree that you consume it in prayer. But there's one more thing. You can pray until you're blue in the face, preacher, and you can pray until you're blue in the face, soul that loves Christ, but you will not be used by God to convince the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment because the initial anointing after salvation is when you're filled with God, the Holy Spirit. And that's missing from the pulpits today. Name the preacher that moved the world to God and you will find that after salvation he came to a place where he absolutely surrendered to God and let God control him, fill him with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is not a glass of water. Half filled. And now you fill the other half. The Holy Spirit is a person. He dwells in you completely as a person, not half of the Holy Spirit. So what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? If the Holy Spirit dwells with you and is filled in its complete entirety, all it means is you don't fill the other half empty. You just become controlled. And you're not controlled by the Spirit with salvation. No one is. He comes in you. But you all become aware there has to come a moment of absolute surrender in your life as a Christian. Andrew Murray said, unless this comes in your life, you will become a grief to God and man, even if you're saved. Every saved person will eventually become a grief to God and man unless he comes to a place of absolute surrender whereby God fills and takes control. And only when you're absolutely surrendered can he take control. When you give up the fight and say, God, what's left of life? I'm not going to fight anymore. I want the fruit of the Spirit to be the vital evidence that I'm filled, controlled by the Spirit. That's the other one, gifts. Gifts get in the way most of the time. You know why? Because we bypass the fruit. And read 1 Corinthians 13 to see what a grief gifts are to God and man if there isn't fruit. Oh, the fruit is the vital evidence spontaneously in every reaction. Not by effort of my own, no matter how trying the circumstances, you spontaneously react with the fruit. Christ-likeness. The fruit of the Spirit is Christ. And as you soak your anointed life, your spirit-filled life in prayer, Christ is revealed to a greater degree as you soak to the degree that you soak in prayer. The greatest preachers that ever moved the world to God can tell you when you read their life, they all came to a place of absolute surrender and where they trusted God to fill them with the Spirit. And the anointing of God came upon their ministry from then onward. Modi on the street, falling on his knees as God filled him with the Spirit. But from that on time onward, millions came to God. Nations came to God. Same preacher, anointed as he prayed. John Wesley, Hudson Taylor, William Booth. Name them. The men that moved the millions of the masses to God. Charles Finney. Name them. These men were filled with the Spirit of God and then anointed by that anointing to the degree that they prayed. Now I want to speak to every one of you sitting here tonight. And I know this is going to cost you, but it's going to cost you far more if you don't heed to God. How many of you are saved? Probably everyone here. I doubt looking at all of you from the godly homes you seem to come, but when were you absolutely surrendered to God? When did God anoint your life with the Spirit of God? He's in you, but he's not controlling you. When, preacher, did your ministry become anointed by the Holy Spirit? When did you absolutely surrender and absolutely control? God controls you. You're not perfected in that moment. Before, it's a life of ups and downs, more downs than ups as a saved person until you absolutely surrender. From then onwards, it's just a consistent grow. That's what is vital for you to be. Growing more and more into the image of God. More and more effective for God. But until absolute surrender in a Christian's life, you'll have more downs than ups. You know, you'll pray yourself blue in the face. You've got to come to absolute surrender. Preacher and Christian, young and old, when will you find the initial anointing of the Spirit of God in your life? Be filled with the Spirit of God. Carry in Jerusalem for the Spirit's descent upon you that you may be witnesses. Not before. How many of you, how many of you need to say, God, what's left of life? I absolutely surrender. I lay my whole being in the altar of God and I ask you to fill me by faith. I trust you to take control of me, God. Thou art not in control. I'm in control, God, of this life. I'm saved. But what a mess I've been making and witnessing and trying to do God's work and trying even to pray. I'm not anointed. I need to be filled with the Spirit. I absolutely surrender so that I can be taken control by the Spirit, that the fruit of the Spirit of God can be there. And tonight I want that anointing so that as I pray, God can anoint my life to convince the world to do the work of the Holy Spirit through my preaching and through my living God. How many of you need desperately to say to God tonight, I'm saved, God, but I'm not sanctified. I'm not filled with the Spirit. I'm not controlled. I'm not I haven't got this anointing and I want my life to be. I've prayed for revival, God, but tonight I need to pray differently. God, begin this revival I've been praying for in others. Begin in me, God. Here's the one who has the need. Let me become the instrument of revival that I've been praying for and expecting to come in others. Begin here, God. Otherwise I have no right to pray for anyone who isn't right as a Christian. God, revive me.