Look at all them notes. Fasten your seatbelt. Wow, it's good to see you all.
So Lord, help me not to get too emotional here, but I just want to say, I just want to say thank you, Jesus, that I get to be here with you all. I want to say thank you, Janice, for your wonderful support through my COVID experience. To my children who stood by me so faithfully when I was reaching my lowest.
My two daughters immediately, well, my three daughters, actually, two daughters from South Dakota immediately got airline tickets to fly out here. My daughter from Tennessee got an airline ticket to fly out here. And the support I received from my children was just amazing.
And my wife and my siblings, my relatives, people were praying. My church family, I was so humbled. I was so touched that you would start a 24-hour prayer chain for me.
And I want to say, there was fervent prayers offered here in behalf of others that also face COVID. And God and his sovereignty took some of those people home. And his sovereignty, their time was finished here.
Their tasks were completed and they're in the presence of the Lord now. And I want to say that looked pretty inviting for me in those last couple days before I went to the hospital. The last two nights at home, I just could not get enough of breath.
And I would sweat and sweat and could not sleep. The last night at home, Janice and I got up around 1 a.m. and took in some oxygen, nebulizing some silver, seeing if I could somehow possibly get enough of breath. And then I took some sleep aid.
And thankfully, I did sleep a little bit. I wasn't sure which side I was going to wake up on. And that morning, I knew this is it.
I'm going to the hospital. And my children supported me. There was a unity.
And I went to the hospital. And I want to say, they treated me so well. And they honored our wishes.
There was some medications that we did not want to be partaking of. We gave that to the doctors right away. And they honored us and treated me very well.
When I got to the hospital, I was very dehydrated. And they began intravenous treatment. And I don't know what all they put in that stuff.
But my wife said, Aaron, you're like perked up. And within hours of getting fluid into my system and medications, we did an X-ray that showed that I had double COVID pneumonia. Doctor showed it to me.
Didn't look very pretty. My lungs were just very dark on the X-ray. They were very filled to the top.
So they said, you need an X-ray or a CAT scan or is it an MRI? CAT scan? CAT scan to see whether you had blood clots or not. And so we did a CAT scan a little later. And praise God, I did not have any blood clots.
And I want to say I'm very grateful today for all you brothers and sisters and the counsel and the wisdom that was given me and the support to support my immune system with up to a gallon plus of liquids and supplements per day. So I want to say thank you for the investment that different ones made in my life in that way. So God has me here yet.
Why? God, is you here yet? Why? I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries and I will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all of your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them and you shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers and ye shall be my people and I will be your God.
I will put my spirit within you and my Holy Spirit within you will cause you to walk in my statutes and commandments. My Holy Spirit within you will empower you to walk in my statutes and my commandments. It will not be as it was in the old covenant that though I was married to you and you departed from me and kept not my commandments, I'm going to do something new.
This is the covenant that I will make after Israel in those days saith the Lord. I will put my spirit within you and ye shall walk in my statutes and my covenant. How? Because I will cause you to walk in my covenant.
I will enable you. I will empower you. Oh this is beautiful.
Turn now to Genesis chapter 1. I was just so encouraged when I saw this. We were in Ezekiel 36 there and the word cause is an interesting word. It is Strong's number 6213.
Now it is used very broad and general in the scripture so I want to be faithful to declare that to you. It's not a word that only appears once or twice and has a very narrow specific meaning. The word cause has the meaning to cause you to do or to make or to bring to pass or to perform.
It appears in the Bible 2286 times according to my study scriptures that I use. This word cause appears again and it appears many places as I said but it appears again in Genesis in the very beginning in Genesis 1 and we'll begin reading in verse 11. Are you there? Genesis 1 verse 11 and God said let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was so and the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind and God saw that it was good.
Now the word that is the same 6213 in this Genesis account is the word yield and the word yield in this case is the power to produce fruit and the amazing thing here is that the herb yields seed after its kind and it produces fruit after its kind. I would like two volunteers to come up here and help me. It can be any age I don't I don't mind just let's do it hastily.
Two volunteers to help me. All right here's one need one more. All right yes we have a young gentleman and we have an older gentleman.
Dear brothers this is wonderful. Thank you very very much. Now let's see here.
What can we give to you? Why don't we give you this? All right now John Mark what is it that you're holding there? Honeydew or something like that. Okay do you see something in the middle of it? Yes I see seeds. Ah you see some seeds.
All right what do you want your mom to get? Seeds. Yes all right now question when you plant those seeds do you think you'll get what John Mark's holding? No. Why not? Because they have fruit on them.
Uh-huh this is a different kind of seed than that one? Yes. Okay so the scriptures tell us that this the power is in the seed to produce after its kind. So here's a question can the fig tree bear olive berries? Yes.
Can the fig tree bear olive berries? Yes. John Mark can the fig tree bear olive berries? No. Good try sorry that was a hard one maybe.
Or do men gather grapes of thorns? No. Ah good answer no way. Or figs of thistles? No.
That is right. You know why not? Because every seed and fruit bears after its own kind. All right thank you men you may be seated.
Yeah that was wonderful very good. I have a little fruit basket up here and we could look at a lot more. But I want us to really really get this.
So let's pray. Father in heaven creator of the heavens and the earth and all that in them is. Creator of every fruit and every herb.
Oh wise almighty God creating such a beauty and powerful demonstration of the seed in the fruit in the herb that bears after its kind. Every seed causes to produce the fruit according to its kind. Oh Lord God I pray in Jesus name open my eyes open the eyes of my dear brothers and sisters.
Open our hearts our eyes to hear to see the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In Jesus name it will bear fruit after its kind. It will produce it causes to come to pass a reproduction true to the seed.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit or bad fruit. And a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit. It is impossible.
So my dear brothers and sisters have you been born again by the spirit of the living God and the spirit of God deposited into your very heart and nature. We now have a new nature. I'm a new creation.
I'm not what I used to be. I now am filled with the Holy Ghost because his spirit dwells in me. You know it's possible here this morning someone under the sound of my voice has just tried to do better and has become more religious.
But you have no life of Christ in you. You must be born again by the spirit of God. You must.
You cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven according to Jesus teaching in John chapter 3 to Nicodemus and to all of us. You must be born of water and of the spirit. Have you had a spiritual birth? If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is not of his.
And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Oh this is so wonderful.
I strove and I tried and I took medicine and I took counsel but I was still my old wretched sinner fearful bound in iniquities and sins until Jesus came into my life until the Holy Ghost came into my life. Brethren if the spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he shall also quicken your mortal body by that same spirit. Let's be honest with ourselves.
Let's be honest with ourselves and God. Am I being led by the spirit of Christ Jesus the Holy Spirit making me holy quickening me quickening this body or am I dead in my trespasses and sins? I'm a pretty good Pharisee man I can fool most of the people most of the time. I'm a pretty good hypocrite.
I can cover my sin real well but I'm being controlled. I'm yielding my members unto the lust of the flesh. Don't deceive your own heart my dear friends my brother my sister.
Whomsoever you yield yourself servant or yield your member servant to obey his servant ye are. And Jesus Christ came to deliver us and set us free from the bondage of the corruption and the filth of sin and from our idolatry. Well maybe today you're just a pretty good person.
Yeah you don't offend no one. You don't disturb anybody. He's just a really nice person.
But you're lost dear brothers and sisters. My dear brethren we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh for if you live after the flesh ye shall die. But if you through the spirit demortify the deeds of the body ye shall live for as many as are led by the spirit of God they are the sons of God.
Brethren we are debtors. Allow me to take the clause out of the middle that talks about living to the flesh. Brethren we are debtors not to the flesh.
We are not debtors to the flesh but we are debtors to the spirit of the living God. We are bought with a price with the precious blood of Jesus and we are indebted and owe our whole life to Jesus. I am a debtor not to the flesh.
The flesh shall not have dominion over you. Satan shall not have dominion over you who belong to Christ because he has made us free. He has delivered us from that law of sin and death by the same power of the spirit of the living God that rose Jesus from the dead.
Oh yes. Therefore brethren we are debtors unto the Holy Ghost of God and unto our Heavenly Father to live our lives unto him. I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and you will yield forth fruit after the kind of spirit you are.
Now listen to me. You will yield fruit and seed after the spirit that is within you. If you're an adulterer you will contaminate not only your own life but the life of your family.
If you're a backslidden lukewarm Christian this morning and you're just haphazardly going through life loving pleasure loving money and what it can buy you are going to yield fruit in your family. You see seeds have the unique ability to produce after their kind and I might be able to fool some people but I'm not fooling the Lord. Do not be mocked.
God isn't mocked I'm sorry. God isn't mocked. Do not be deceived what you sow you are going to reap.
If you sow to the flesh you are going to reap from the flesh corruption death decay. Oh but if you sow to the spirit oh yes sowing to the spirit you shall reap life everlasting life life. You know us husbands us dads we have such a tremendous awesome platform of influence that our children can't help themselves hardly but to be majorly affected by what spirit I am of and what spirit I am sowing to and what spirit is active activating responses and decisions of my life.
What kind of fruit are you bringing forth today? I want to leave us with a promise. We've already read many promises but I just want to leave us with a promise. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.
You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Well who's going to be filled with the spirit? As it says in Ephesians 5 I'm going to ask you a question today and I want you to answer honestly before God. What are you drunk with? What is possessing you? What is motivating you? Be not drunk with wine but be filled with the spirit.
What are you full of? What are you drunk with? Are you drunk with love of money? Are you drunk with your own reputation? Are you drunk with yourself? Are you drunk with the lust of the flesh? Are you drunk with pornography? Are you drunk with ease? Ease. Take thine ease. Eat, drink, be merry.
God's going to judge those who sit on their knees and are at ease in Zion. God's going to judge them. Oh dear brother, sister, I am not bringing a message today to tell you you need to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
You need to try to do better. I'm bringing a message today of the word of God, of the power of the resurrection life of Jesus. When you're full of the Holy Ghost and his spirit dwells in you and then your life is a cause of the power of the resurrection of Jesus in your life and you no longer are bound in the flesh, it's God which worketh in you.
Ah yes, I work out my own salvation with fear and trembling but I quickly hasten to say it's God working in you. It's God co-laboring with my feeble effort and my faith in God to do the impossible. It's God working in me.
It's God working in you brother, sister, to both to do and to will of his good pleasure. It's God who does it both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Leave you with his promise.
So who's going to get filled with the Holy Spirit? Ah yes, oh it just happens automatically when you get born again and then that's it. You got all it's going to ever be, that's it. Just just come on, settle down, don't get so excited here now.
This is it. Did you ever meet a Christian who really challenged your theology, really challenged your life experience? Because they were on fire for God. They had an oozing out of the spirit of Christ Jesus that just makes you jealous and you wish you could have it too.
Well you can, you can. Here now Israel, here O my servant Jacob, I have made you, I have formed you from the womb. I have chosen you.
I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. What are you thirsty for? What are you hungering after? What are you longing for? What does your life consist of? What does it, what does it revolve around? Ah the promise, the promise, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty. The words of Jesus, you know a father who gives good gifts to his children, that's that's great, that's a wonderful thing.
But God, our Father, is so much better than any earthly father and gives good gifts to his children. How much more shall your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him than a good earthly father? How much more shall he give the Holy Spirit? Just look into your life and be honest. Jesus stood and cried at that great feast.
It's not often in scripture that Jesus stood and cried. Pay attention at that great feast where they were all gathered together, Jesus stood and cried. What did he cry? If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink.
He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Oh glory to God! I want to be a partaker of those rivers of living water. It's the promise of our Savior.
It's the promise of our Lord Jesus. And he tells us in plain clear words, the source of the river. I so like the way Jesus was so clear in his teaching.
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. It could seem pretty prideful and boastful for me to say, yeah, boy, rivers of living water flowing out of me.
But I want to say this morning, let the Spirit of God have free course in your life. Seek deeply, thirstily, longingly for all of the down payment that Jesus has left for us upon the earth. He said, it is expedient for you that I go.
And because when I go, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit and he shall be with you and he shall be in you. The seed. Yes, the seed bears after its kind and he shall receive the Holy Ghost and he shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.
This Jesus spake of these rivers of living water that they which believe should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified. And we could go to acts. Referencing Joel, I this is this is the fulfillment of what the prophet Joel said, I'm going to pour out my spirit and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, you know, to all of us here today.
What what for fruit am I producing? What for fruits coming out of my life? I want to urge us today. I'm not going to give an invitation for you to come and acknowledge your need of the Holy Spirit and have you have you confess that. But I want to encourage you to seek earnestly the Lord and be honest in your own heart, whether or not the spirit of the living God is leading you on to life and truth and victory.
And if you're living a defeated Christian life this morning, I want to tell you that God has something better for you. There is deliverance. He will wash you and cleanse you from all of your filthiness, as we read, and he will cleanse you from all of your idolatry, all your idols.
And he'll put his spirit within you and he'll cause you to walk in his statutes. He'll enable you, he'll empower you by the Holy Ghost. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you.
Well, I thought we're going to take this lesson home with us today. So I asked some dads if they would allow their sons to help me. So all of those sons know who they are.
You sons go right now, go out the back door and you will find a white pickup truck with a blanket over it. And under the blanket is what you're to bring in here right up to the steps. You're dismissed right now.
Go quick. All six of you. Yes.
Oh, thank you. Fine young men. Yes.
The power to reproduce after it's kind. Dad, as you're full of the Holy Ghost and the spirit of Christ, you shall produce after your kind to your children. I will pour out my spirit upon your sons and your daughters.
So dad, if you have a lust problem or a bondage this morning, I beg you to get earnest with God for deliverance, because you will bear after your kind. Do not pass to your children the works of the flesh, the lust of the flesh. Pass on to your children the goodly inheritance and heritage of the Lord, of a Holy Ghost anointed father.
Oh, thank you. Park that one right over here all the way on the end. OK, and then put the next one right down here.
Yes. And then that one right here. Oh, great.
Oh, thank you, young men. Put that one right there in the middle, Clark. Yes.
Thank you very much. And we'll just sort of spread them out. Put that one right there.
Yeah, that's good. And then you can drop that one right there. All right.
Thank you, young men. Yes. Praise the Lord.
You may go back to your parents. Is it quarter after twelve? We are going to send you home with this admonition. Dads, you take this apple in your devotion time with your children today or tomorrow and you cut that open and you carefully look at those seeds and you bring this back to remembrance that when you plant an apple seed, you're not going to get a cantaloupe.
You're not going to get a thistle. You're not going to get an orange. You're going to get an apple.
If you are full of the Holy Spirit of God indwelling in you, you shall reproduce spiritual fruit. Ah, yes. So we're going to bring this to a close and everybody who's got enough of teeth to chew an apple gets an apple.
If you've got teeth enough to chew an apple or if mom can cut it with a knife and you can suck on it, that's OK, too. I think we have 300 apples. I don't think we have quite that many people.
So everybody, as we bring this to a close in the service, you come and get your apple. Everybody. Everybody come and get your apple and take it on home with you.
And I have one rule. No eating it in church sanctuary. Now, if your dad says you may eat it on the way home in the van, that's OK.
But then you're under your father's authority. If he says wait till we get home, then that's how you do it. All right.
Lord, we thank you. Stand with me. Lord, we thank you.
Lord, we praise you for the gift of eternal life through Jesus. We thank you, Lord God, for the comfort of the Holy Ghost that you have sent. And Father, we thank you for the resurrection power through Jesus Christ, our Savior, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwelling you.
He shall quicken your mortal body and he shall cause you to walk in his statutes and to produce fruit after its kind. Father, we are done with trying harder. We are done with striving.
But Lord, I pray that today in faith we would lay hold of the promise and we would seek you diligently. This we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.