August 6, 2025 • 66 mins
Abiding in the Lord brings His empowerment to be fruitful for the Kingdom of God. The infilling of the Holy Spirit involves yielding and obedience, resulting in a dynamic transformation that leads to us having the Lord’s character and active service guided by the Spirit’s power.
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Firefall Talk Radio episodes are archived, allowing you to download them for future listening or to share with others. Feel free to share them with others as the Lord leads.
Please help us spread The Word.
If our teachings have been a blessing to you, please let us know by using the contact button on our website.
If you would like to support what we do, there are ways to do so on the main page for Firefall Talk Radio. We appreciate your support and encouragement.
Follow us on YouTube at The Firefall Network.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Oh Hello, Welcome to the Porch on Firefall Talk Radio.
I'm Richard Grund. This is when we get back to basics,
(00:30):
the uncompromised red letter basics of the Word of God.
We focus on the Book of Acts Church to see
how they serve the Lord. In doing so, we find
the Church the Lord intended, not the one Man created.
The Porch is a non denominational, full gospel approach to
the Bible based on the examples from that book of
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X's Church, which aims to restore the priesthood of the
believer while regaining the world shaking influence that the early
Church had. The church age isn't over. The Upper Room
experience is as much for today as it was on
the day of Pentecost. It's yours if you want it.
We offer you the Word as the Apostles would have
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to the Jewish and Gentile believers of their day, using
both Yeshua and Jesus. When speaking of the Lord, we
prefer the term Messiah rather than Christ, as it more
accurately reflects how he was referred to by those who
knew him. Additionally, when necessary, we provide definitions in Hebrew, Greek,
(01:35):
and Aramaic, getting back to basics. Isn't just our motto,
it's a mandate from the Lord. Links to all of
our social media and streaming sites are on the main
page at Firefall talk radio dot com. Subscribe to us
wherever you listen so that you'll know in a new
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(01:55):
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you want to mail your blessing, Please do not hesitate
to contact us if you need further information. We appreciate
your prayers and your support and your encouragement. Thank you
for being a part of the Porch. Contact us if
you need prayer or you'd like to pray for others
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in the community. Remember we care about you. Please remember
to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world,
and continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, which
of course means the return of the Prince of Peace,
because there can be none without him. So Father, we
come to you in the name of the Prince of Peace,
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your son Ya sure, we come to you as your
children crying out Ourba Father, Papa, Daddy, thank you, thank
you for loving us. Thank you for forgiving us. Thank
you for allowing us to have access to you once again,
so that you could have access to your children. And
the only reason that happened is because you sent you
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see a, your only begotten son, to die on our behalf.
Thank you, Thank you Lord for shedding your blood, for
enduring the pain, the shame, and everything that they did
to you that day on Calvary. Thank you for setting
us free from the curse of sin and death. Thank
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you for sending the Holy Spirit back to empower us
and to walk with us, teach us and guide us.
Thank you for all that you've done, all that you're doing,
and all that you're going to do. We pray your
head for protection around us, our homes, lands, families, pets, possessions,
everything we hold. Dear, we thank you for being the
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shield about us, the glory and the lifter of our head.
We ask you to bless this time, cover us, Bless
the technology, Bless this word, Let it go forth and
do what you desire it to do. And we ask
all these things in your Shoe's name. Amen.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
These lessons are proprietary information, except where not of the
information comes from outside sources. The combination of that information.
The manner presented is exclusive, cannot be repeated or used
without permission. The date of this broadcast serves as the
registered date of the following information. Okay, open those Bibles,
those apps, whatever it is you used to follow along.
(04:51):
Colossians one, starting verse nine says this for this reason,
we also, since the day we heard it, not cease
to pray for you and to ask that you may
be filled with the knowledge of His will and all
wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of
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the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work,
and increasing in the knowledge of God, being filled with
the knowledge of His will, walking worthy of the Lord,
being fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge
of God. If that happens, then the way you live
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will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives
will produce every kind of good spiritual fruit, and all
the while you'll continue to grow and get to know
your heavenly Father better and better.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
That's what the Holy Spirit does for us and with us.
We're still talking about the Holy Spirit this time, the
Holy Spirit in you, being empowered, being empowered. Remember what
the Lord said, John fifteen seven if you abide in
me and my words abide in you, you will ask
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what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
That name it enclaimed, Is that hocus pocus? No, it's
not what it is. What you ask will line up
with his will, will line up with his word, and
will line up with his ways. Therefore he will act
upon it. Abide me and I and you, believers that's us,
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are to remain in your shoe, abiding, living permanently in
the vine. It's spoken as a command with an ongoing emphasis,
not a single act. It continues, it can remember, the
Holy Spirit is self replicating power. It keeps going so
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abiding for the disciples, just as for us as believers
today is a constant, moment by moment decision to follow
the Lord. It's not passive. We're not passive. We don't
just sit around and abide till we die. No, we're active.
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We're doing something. We have to put action to everything
he's said to do, even disunion with him, long term, continuous,
and this fruit that we produce will be a practical
expression of the indwelling Holy Spirit in our lives. And
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when that happens, that fruit attracts people to the vine
and allows us to share that with him. I am
the vibe, and you other branches, the Lord, says John
fifteen to five. He who abides in Me and I
in him, bears much fruit. For without me, you can
do nothing. Apart from me, the Lord says, if you're
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cut off from a vital union with me, you can
do nothing. You can't do anything. There's nothing that you
can do of any value. If you're apart from him,
it'll have no permanent spiritual value. People produce a lot
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of things that have no spiritual value. It's not from him.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit means you're being controlled
by the Holy Spirit, not that you're a robot and
he lifts your arms and your legs and forces you
to move forward. It means that every choice, every decision,
every action flows through him. It's an abiding state of
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fullness of the spirit, producing a character of life that
is essentially our spirituality. Our spirituality shouldn't be different from
our life. Our life should be spiritual. We should be
naturally supernatural in everything we say and do. I think
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that's why Paul and to the Church of Ephesus and
Ephesians five, starting verse fifteen, says this look carefully than
how you walk, live purposely and worthily and accurately, not
as unwise or witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people,
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making the very most of the time, buying up each opportunity.
Because the days are evil. Preach it, Paul. Therefore, do
not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and
firmly grasp what the will of the Lord is. Firmly
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grasping what the will of the Lord is. And do
not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. But
ever be filled and stimulated with the Holy Spirit. Speak,
speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and
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spiritual songs, offering praise with voices and instruments, making melody
with your heart to the Lord at all times and
for everything, giving thanks in the name of our Lord,
Jesus the Messiah, to God the Father, speaking out, singing
songs praising him, making melody in your heart, always, always
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in praise, always in love, always in connection, that permanent
union with the Lord. In how we walk, in what
we say and what we do, and how we think. Think.
The Holy Spirit by Charles Riery says, when we say
of someone that he is quote full of himself, we
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mean that he himself is the substance or the content
of his life, and he does this by himself. To
sum up Beard, filling is both the spirit's sovereignty controlling
someone for special service and the spirits filling the believer
with his capital h his own character. Don't be full
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of yourself, be full of him. There's a lot of
people out there in the church behind microphones, up on
pulpits that are full of themselves. That's not what I need.
I need someone that's full of Him. That in everything
they say and do, how they live their lives, every
word that comes out of their mouth is from Him.
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One John two, verse six says he who says he
abides in Him, meaning Lord ought himself also to walk
just as He walked. Whoever says he lives in Messiah,
that is, whoever says he's accepted him as God and Savior,
because that's what that means, ought as a moral obligation
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to walk and conduct themselves just as He walked and
conducted himself. Follow Me, says the Lord. That's what he
said to the disciples. Follow me. Could have said walk
this way, and it took him time. They had to
figure out how to do it. They had to make
their mistakes. But we have the Holy Spirit from the
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moment we start to follow him. So be ever filled
and stimulated with the Holy Spirit. That's what it means
in Ephesians five eighteen. Be filled. It's an imperative be
filled in the Holy Spirit, be filled by the Holy Spirit,
to be continuously filled, over and over and over with
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the Spirit. It's continuing requirement every day when you pray,
every time you turn to heaven, every time you speak
to the Lord. Stir it up, get it moving, keep
it going. Here lies the problem. We can disobey. We
can take back control of areas of our lives, and
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when we do, we simply repent and yield again to
the Spirit's control of those areas. It's a daily thing.
It's a struggle. We're always battling against this flesh. We're
battling against the world. We're battling against the things of
this world, natural and supernatural. So, if feeling means the
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control of the Spirit in one's life, so whether you've
given him sovereign since saying sustained I'm sorry, control that
results in spiritual character. That means we have to yield,
We have to be obedient. It can't be about you.
It's got to be about him. You have to give
up your will to him, not my will, but yours
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be done. The Believer's Study Bible says, in order to
be spirit filled, there must be dedication of life. Such
dedication concerns the basic relationship to the will of God
in Toto completely and not especially just the specifics within
the will of God. It's complete. A dedicated life involves
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two things, beginning it and continuing it. That's it. Once
you begin your life in Him, you continue your life
in Him. So the filling of the spirit should result
in absolute control of your life by the Holy Spirit.
If you are yielded to the Lord, if you have
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given up your control, your desires, your will to him,
the spirit goes. I can use that, I can work
with that. So your prayer each day, my prayer every
day is to be filled overflowing, the spirit, to be moving,
to be churning, to be percolating inside of me. I
call it like a nuclear reactor, just always. They're always empowered,
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always ready to flow out. It's a present verb action.
Now there will be special times that the spirit will
flow extra to you from the Throne room. Maybe in
times when you need just a little bit more, or
you need to be fired up, you need some help,
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He'll do that. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit
is once and for all. But the filling, the active
feeling of the Holy Spirit to flow from Heaven from
Him to you is constant. Start seeing it that way
and watch your life change. Start seeing it that way,
and watch the activity of the Spirit change in your life.
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You're struggling with I don't understand this whole concept, Richard, Okay,
let go control. Stop trying to understand. Say, Holy Spirit,
flow through me. Use me do whatever it is you
want to do with me. I give up control. Romans twelve,
verse one. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice
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holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And
do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove
what it is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God. There it is again, the perfect will of God.
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You see it. It. Want to die as horribly as
he knew he was going to die. But then he said,
not my will, your will be done. So it becomes
a dedication of your entire life, everything, the known, the unknown,
the good, the bad, whatever he decides and desires. I
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won't tell you it's easy. I won't tell you it's comfortable,
but i'll tell you the blessings are pretty good. And
it's not just okay. In one sin at a time,
we'll eliminate this. We'll snip a little bit here. Now
you have to ask this question, maybe every day. Who's
going to run my life, the Lord or me? And
that word conformed presents an image of a cheap veneer
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finish of the world on top of a very expensive
vase filled with the Holy Spirit. So we've taken something
so precious and so valuable, and we've smeared this covering
of the world on it. We've conformed it to the world.
We've transformed it to the world. And the Lord the
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Spirit say, no, you be transformed in the way you think,
in the decisions you make, continual transformation being always non stop.
I pray that for you right now. I speak it
upon you right now in the name of your Suhamashield,
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Jesus the Messiah be empowered, always, continually, non stop until
the Lord returns. How do we do this well, we
do it with the declaration like that, we speak it out,
we believe it, we receive it. We do it through
fellowship with the Lord, that stirs it up, that keeps
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it flowing, keeps it going. We do it with fellowship
with other believers. However you need to even if you
have to do it, you know, through FaceTime or webcams,
or however connect with somebody who thinks like you do
and wants to stir the spirit up. You do it
by studying the word. We do it every week, constantly
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stirring it up. We getting the word going. We're receiving
it precept upon precept, lying upon line, and we're building,
we're growing, we're going. And then you do through prayer
and praise, which edifies the inner man. Prayer and praise
try to always tie the two of them together Ephesians four,
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starting verse fourteen, So that we are no longer children
spiritually immature, tossed back and forth like ships on a
stormy sea, carried about by every wind of shifting doctrine,
by the cunning and trickery of unscrupulous men, by the
deceitful scheming of people ready to do anything for personal profit.
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But speaking the truth and love in all things, both
our speech and our lives, expressing His truth. Let us
grow grow up and all these things into Him by
following his example, who is the head of the Church.
From him, the whole body, the Church and all its
various parts are joined and knitted friendly together by what
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every joint supplies when each part is working properly. Because
the body causes the body to grow and mature, building
itself up in unselfish love. See if we're going to
be a body, if we're going to be a singular
living entity, every part does something different, but the blood
is always flowing, the energy is always flowing. It's always
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knitted together in mature growth and edification. Again, the word
edification means building up, and it's always done in love,
love for God, love for one another. So two things result.
When believers reach spiritual maturity. They will no longer be children,
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because immature believers are always deceived by every wind of
false doctrine. And on the positive side, they will grow
up into Him, fully grown in all aspects of being
a believer, living as a believer, through doctrine, through conduct,
through service, and so on, speaking the truth and love
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and being willing to lovingly teach the truth. So being
a mature believer is attained in part through what we're
doing right now, the instruction of sound, doctrine, and the
loving manner. If you can't tell from the sound of
my voice, if some of you have never seen me
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in person speak or teach or preach or do what
I do, you would know you would see in my eyes,
and hopefully hear my voice his love. Even when I
speak correction, even when I share things from Him that
may seem harsh, his love is always behind it. And
we've been fitted together, we've been joined together. He's united
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us with himself. And when he does that, it's always
in harmonious relationship the Lord. Everything he says and does,
every action is in harmony, harmony with Him, with each other,
with the Church as a whole. There's never discord, there's
never harshness. So that if you've ever heard a guitar
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or a piano or something that hits the wrong chord
and it's like chewing on tinfoil, it just jars. You know,
when the spirit's flowing and going there's a harmony, there's
a naturalness to it. There's a soothing vibration, if you will.
I hate using that word because it reeks a new
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age and the occult, but it's what it is. Because
he's sitting on the throne, his very essence is flowing
out through the universe, flowing to us on this planet.
So we're in union with him, We're in harmony with him,
We're resonating with him. And when we do that, his grace,
his undeserved favor, is given to each one of us.
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So Messiah joins us together as believe, He unites us
in a divinely ordained ministry of believers to the world.
Each one of us has special spiritual gifts. We need
to exercise them. We need to use them among the
church and also among believers for the common good. In
the church's spiritual growth, this ongoing growth. Remember, wherever the
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Holy Spirit is, the wind is moving, the spirits moving,
there's life. This fruit is growth. It continues through our
actions through one another, which gets us to do what
to employ our spiritual gifts. Now we're going we'll talk
about the gifts, whether next week or the weeks ahead.
But I'm trying to develop in you a movement of
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the spirit, a presence of the spirit, an ongoing relationship
with the Holy Spirit, so that when you look to
employ spiritual gifts, they're always plugged in, They're always empowered.
Ifsians forced during verse seventeen. So this I say, Paul says,
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and solemnly affirmed, together with the Lord as in his presence,
that you must no longer live as the unbelieving gentiles
live in the futility of their minds and in the
foolish emptiness of their souls, For their moral understanding is
darkened and their reasoning is clouded. They are alienated and
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self vanished from the life of God, with no share
in it because of this wolf ignorance and spiritual blindness
that is deep seated within them, because of the hardness
and insensitivity of their heart, and they, the ungodly and
their spiritual apathy, have become callous and unfeeling, have given
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themselves over as prey to the unbridled sensuality, eagerly craving
the practice of every kind of impurity that their desires
may demand. But you did not learn Messiah in this way.
In fact, if you have really heard him and have
been taught by Him, just as the truth is in
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Yasu or revealed in his life, personified in Him. That
regarding your previous way of life, you put off your
old self. You completely discard your former nature, which that
former nature is being corrupted, decaying through its deceitful desires,
and you be continually renewed in the spirit of your mind,
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having a fresh, untarnished mental and spiritual attitude, putting on
the new self, the regenerated, renewed nature created in God's image,
in the righteousness and holiness of the Truth, living in
a way that expresses to God your gratitude for your salvation,
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renewed and regenerated, walking out the life of the abiding
presence of the Holy Spirit, walking out of life with Him,
walking with you. See, Paul was battling something in Ephesis,
something demonic, something supernatural that had gotten into the church,
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a worldliness, a fleshliness, a demonic sensuality, if you will,
that we see in the church today. I'm sorry, it's unfortunate,
but I have to point that out. He says further
on in Ephesians fourth thirty, verse twenty nine. Let no
corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, or what it's
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good for, necessary edification, building up that it may impart
grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy
Spirit of God by whom you are sealed for the
day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger clamor an
evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
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This world, the things we watch, the things we hear.
The examples were given by leaders politically, society. Even in
the church. We let things flow out of our mouth
that never should happen. We're always battling this old nature.
I know, I do. I grew up first of all,
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I've told you this. I was short, I was overweight,
I was picked on. I couldn't defend myself with my hands,
but I could defend myself with my words, with my tongue,
with my lips. I was quick. I could cut you
ten or twelve times before you even realized I was
doing it. I would get people so frustrated that their
brains would overload. So it's always a battle to not
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allow that nature to rear up. It's always a battle
to not be caustic or sarcastic or double you know,
on tondras or whatever. Andy it's funny. It's funny in
the world, but it's not funny spiritually, it's really not.
Let no corrupt word seed out of your mouth. Lord,
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right now, touch us in our lips. Take a coal
and cleanse our lips. Purify us so that we can
speak your words, that we can speak love, that we
can speak heedification. Help us to edify one another, to
impart grace to one another, Oh boy, and help us
to not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we were
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sealed from the day of redemption. Holy Spirit, you even
have to help us do that. Don't let there be
any bitterness or wrath, or anger or evil words. Clean
us from head to toe. Therefore seesions five to one. Therefore,
be imitators of God. That's what we're talking about, right,
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Being an imitator of God. Copy him, follow his example.
Walk as the Lord walked as well, beloved children, Let's
imitate our father. Walk in love, esteeming and delighting in
one another as Messiah loved us and gave himself for us,
a slain offering a sacrifice to God for us, so
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that it became a sweet fragrance. That's exactly what Israel
was meant to be an Ezekiel twenty, verse forty one.
But they never wore, they never became that fragrance of
God to the world. So he had to do it
with us the church verse three. But immorality, sexual advice,
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and impurity, lustful, rich, wasteful living, greediness must not even
be named among you, as is fitting and proper among saints,
that God's consecrated people. Here he goes again, Let no filthiness,
obscenity and decency, nor foolish and sinful, silly, corrupt talk,
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nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting or becoming. But
instead voice your thankfulness to God. For be sure of this.
No person practicing sexual a vice or impurity in thought
or in life, or one who is covetous, who has
lustful desires for the property of others and is greedy
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for gain, for he or she is an effect an idolater.
Not think at all they have any inheritance in the
kingdom of Messiah and of God. Paul goes on, Let
no one delude and deceive you with empty excuses and
groundless arguments for those sins. For through these things the
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wrath of God comes upon the sons of rebellion and disobedience,
so do not associate or be sharers with them. See.
One of the things that I have seen seep into
the church in these thirty plus years that I've been
saved is a worldliness, a secular I don't know how
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to call it, a virus that has infected us in
what we do, how we do things. We've been tricked
by others through false teaching that it's okay. God wants
you to be that way. He wants you to be free.
Grace is grace, all his grace, you're forgiven. No, I
want to be an imitator of the Lord. I want
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to mimic his speech, his walk, his life in words
and choices. I want to be an imitator of the
Lord in spirit. Because when we don't, when we exhibit
the things that Paul's talking to the Ephesians about, we
pushed the world away. They start to think, well, why
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would I want to be like them? They're just like us,
They're no different than the world. In fact, some of
them are more worldly than I am. I've had people
tell me that, I've had people that I've witnessed to
tell me, Okay, yeah, but this is what I know
this pastor did this, that person did that, And I go, yeah,
you're right, they're not living the life that they should be,
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and they're a bad example. But that's not what I'm pointing.
I'm pointing you to him, to his example Ephesians five
to eleven. Take no part in have no fellowship with
the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead let
your lives be in so contrast as to expose and
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reprove and convict them. What was going on in Ephesus
at this time that Paul would bang this drum so
loudly for so long, take no part in have no
fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but instead expose them.
One of the things is something called the Bacchanalian rights,
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which was extreme hidden depravity, things that went on in
the caves in the dark, secret places, pain of death,
if you told anybody about it, to be kept a secret.
Bachanalian mysteries, worshiping Dionysius. The things that went on was
so immoral in those caves, and those parties in the darkness,
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so abominable that by one of these six BC, the
Roman Senate banished those practices from Italy. And the characteristic
rituals done by these worshipers and their drunken behavior. There
were orgies, violent outbursts of the worshipers. They would rip
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animals apart by hand, and a religious festival of wine,
women in song. They would have parades. See I'm visualizing
marti gras, parades and procession, ceremonies celebrating immorality. Things were done,
performed that shouldn't have been done, and performed at public
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Plato talks about seeing the entire population of Athens drunk
at these festivals. Clement of Rome, one of the early
church fathers in the third or fourth century, he wrote this,
and what's interesting, and I want to preface this, a
lot of what I'm describing that they're describing is happening today.
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We see it today, go online, turn on TV, constantly
being bombarded with this. It's coming into our minds in
what we see, and we're constantly battling, pushing it out,
rejecting it. This is what Clement of Rome said, But
in the process of time, the worship of God and
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righteousness were corrupted by the unbelieving, in the wicked. Remember
he's speaking to the church of that day. As we
shall show more fully by and by moreover, perverse and
erratic religions were introduced, to which the great part of
men gave themselves up by occasions of holidays and solemn events,
(35:06):
instituting drinkings and banquets, following pipes and flutes and harps
and diverse kinds of musical instruments, and indulging themselves in
all kinds of drunkenry and luxury. Hence every kind of
error to grice. They invented groves and altars, filets and victims,
(35:31):
and after drunkenness, they were agitated, as if mad with emotions.
More likely they were possessed by this means. Powers were
given to the demons to enter into minds of this sort.
This is amazing to come from somebody who I'm not
sure really understood what he was saying. The power was
(35:52):
given to the demons sin, but the people were projecting
the demons or feeding off her to enter into minds
of this sort. So they seemed to lead insane dances
and to rave like Bacchanalians. Hence were invented the gnashing
of teeth and bellowing from the depths of their bowels.
(36:15):
Again demonic manifestations, terrible continents, face expressions, and a fierce
aspect with drunkenness that had subverted them, and a demon
instigated and those people believed, he says, and were deceived
(36:35):
that they had been filled with the deity, they'd been
filled with God. I've seen some things in the church.
I've not talked about them in a while, not that
I'm ignoring them. I just don't pay attention to some
of the fringe elements of the church. But I see
behaviors and videos that people think, Oh, that's the Lord,
it's the presence of the Holy Spirit, and I'm going no,
(36:58):
it's a demonic manifest station. You're making a clicking sound
of a snake. Your body language is the same body
language I've seen done by people possessed by the Kundalini spirit.
I see things from my background in the New Age
and the occult manifesting in the Church under the guise
(37:20):
of worship that I clearly know is not from the
Lord and from my heavenly Father. A man named Athanaeus
was a Greek teacher and an author around two hundred
eight D. He said the Ephesians were addicted to luxury,
a feministy and sexual vice. A beautiful woman of a
(37:41):
sect of Socrates, Aspasia would bring in vast numbers of
beautiful women into the country as prostitutes. Why well, according
to phil Demosthenes, this is what he said. I want
you to think about him saying this in twenty twenty five.
We have whors for our pleasure, harl is for daily use,
(38:04):
and wives for procreation of legitimate children, and faithful preservation
of our property. That's the world we're living in. That's
what's going on around us. We've seen soorys of the
news of you know, things that go on in these
mansions and at these Hollywood parties, some of which in
(38:24):
the past I've witnessed. So what do we do. We
put our head in the sand and we act like
it's not there. We cover our eyes, cover our ears,
cover our mouths, stare at our screens. No, we live
a life so full of the Holy Spirit and so
(38:44):
full of the Lord. We expose their sin, We convince
them that it's sin, and we could convict them, inspiring repentance.
And that's the purpose of the Holy Spirit, exposure, conviction
and repentance. And I'm not talking about Bible thumping them
(39:06):
upside the head. I'm talking about glowing and going in
the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. So
they just look at you and see him in your
eyes or hear him in your voice. For you and
I were once darkness, but now we are light in
(39:27):
the Lord. Let's walk as children of light. For the
fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth.
Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord Ephesians five
eight through ten. The fruit of the Spirit, goodness, righteousness,
(39:48):
and truth. How we going to bear fruit through the
Holy Spirit by being empowered by the Holy Spirit. But
there can be things short circuit that I don't know
if you've ever had this happen. A remote suddenly doesn't
work and you open the backup and you realize some
(40:10):
corrosion has gotten on the terminals. So the battery, which
is probably dead, is not working, or your car battery
has corrosion around the terminals and it won't work properly.
So what do you have to do. You have to
clean the terminals. You have to clean the battery. Corrosion
keeps the flow from happening. And what is that corrosion?
(40:33):
That corrosion is sin and The natural corrosion is a
process that occurs when metals and other materials undergo this
chemical reaction with their environment, which results in a gradual deterioration.
Happens over time. Well, worldliness and sin does the same
(40:56):
thing in our lives, a slow corron of the terminals,
and the next thing you know, there's no flow of
the Holy Spirit. If you're not feeling him, well, you
did once, and you moved in the gifts once, and
you're not now, then you have to stop, say Lord,
cleanse me of anything that is hindering me from interfering
(41:19):
with you working through me. I want to walk as
a child of light. I want to produce the fruit
of the Spirit, goodness, righteousness and truth. I want to
live a life acceptable to you Lord and be an
example to others. But I can't do that a fallen
(41:41):
world if I'm constantly fighting a corrosion. Of course, that
we have to allow. It doesn't just happen. There's an
effort to this. There's a choice you and I have
to make. What goes into my eyes, what goes into
my ears? What do I accept? It's a choice you
(42:04):
and I have to ask every day, what are we
gonna do. Are you gonna use me, Lord just as
I am? Probably not, You're gonna You want me to
be clean. You want the terminals clean. You want to flow.
You want to be able to bless others. You want
to speak a word, a good word, and do season.
You want to help others. You want to lay hands
on the sick so they recover. You want to be
(42:25):
able to drive out those demonic spirits by a word
or a look, not by a ritual or an icon
or all these you know actions. Oh, you want us
to be like you. I get it. That's what Paul
was doing for the church. That's what Peter and James
and John were trying to do for the church. You
(42:48):
notice that they're focus. We'll see it in this next scripture.
In first Thessalonians, for they weren't focusing exactly on what
they were doing. The gift they were using, they mentioned,
and Paul teaches them, but it was more on the
ability to manifest more on not moron, more space, Come on,
(43:16):
the ability to manifest the power in the presence of
the Lord. How is that going to happen? First Thessalonians four,
starting verse three, For this is the will of God
your sanctification, that you should substain from sexual immorality, That
each of you should know how to possess his or
(43:38):
her own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion
of lust, like the gentiles who do not know God.
That no one should take advantage of and defraud his
brother in this manner. Because the Lord is the avenger
of all such as we also forewarned you and testified.
(44:00):
Here we go. For God did not call us to uncleanness,
but in holiness. God did not call us to uncleanness,
but in holiness. Therefore, he who rejects this does not
reject man, but God reject all the instructions that he
(44:23):
just said, who has given us his Holy Spirit. Always
remember that's not a name, that's a description, Holy Spirit.
He's holy. He wants us to walk as the Lord did.
In the Greek culture, there was no idea of moral purity,
(44:48):
so therefore to the new believers of that day, there was.
They didn't understand what the Lord expected of his church,
and that's why Paul's teaching this to them. The call
to a holy life dedicated to God's will in line
with the nature of God as well as the holy
nature of the spirit. In one Thessalonians five nineteen, he
(45:12):
says something very short scripture, very powerful, which will block
the flow from being empowered. Do not quench the spirit. Okay, okay, one, two, three, four,
five words, do not quench the spirit. Believer of Study
Bible says the phrase do not quench the spirit may
(45:34):
be rendered stop quenching the Spirit, suggesting the cessation of
an action which is in progress. This verse addresses manifestations
of the Holy Spirit of one's private life as well
as the assembly of believers. The present tense of the
command exhorts them to stop bringing the working of the
(45:59):
Holy Spirit to a halt, and the metaphor quench suggests
that the activity of the spirit conveys a warmth, even
of fire within a fellowship. I've seen flows of the
Holy Spirit and a fellowship so powerful it made you
think you were in a book of ax church, you
(46:20):
were maybe in the upper room. And then I've seen
that same fire get quenched by bad decisions, by sending
the camp by a lot of different things. And there's
nothing more jarring and more upsetting than seeing that happen.
So I'm going to cut out anything any corrupt word,
(46:44):
any words that don't edifyre offer grace. I'm not going
to grieve the Holy Spirit. I've been sealed by Him
for the day of redemption. Therefore, I have to consciously
let all bitterness, wrath, anger, climber, and evil speaking be
put away. We have to consciously be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
(47:05):
forgiving one another, just as God Messiah forgave us no
corrupt word. That word corrupt in the Greek sapros sap
ros futrid, rotten, decayed like in flesh or fruit, unfit
for use. Again, I'm not going to say that this
is easy to do in a world that encourages otherwise,
(47:30):
but I believe it's worth trying. Do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God, do not offend or vex or
sadden him. How would I do that by doing the
forbidden things Paul's talking about. And what's amazing is you
know it's wrong. The conviction is there, and it depends
(47:50):
on how far down the road you've gotten with this.
I believe. I believe the reason that the Lord had
me teach us this wasn't what I was going to
teach on. I was going to get into the specific
gifts and fruit and go down that road. He's still
talking transformation. I believe the move of the Spirit that
(48:11):
he's trying to give us to be a part of.
Now hear me, Please, This move of the Spirit that
I am encouraging, that I am consciously working on, walking
and living, manifesting is unlike anything the Church has seen
since the day of Pentecost. And even this, I believe
(48:34):
will be more powerful because that's what it's going to
take to stop the move of the demonic and the
satanic going on in the world right now. It's going
to take a remnant set apart for him, filled with
the spirit, walking, talking, standing, believing in a way that
(48:58):
the enemy has not seen before, in a way even
I have not seen before. And you've heard me talk
about what I've been a part of or what the
Lord has done through me. You've maybe read the book,
maybe you've seen the videos. Now that that's nothing compared
to what's coming. And I understand why the enemy's fighting
(49:18):
it so hard. I understand why the Church is fighting
it so hard. But I get here every week I
sit down. I do this to help you individually and corporately,
because I believe if you're listening to these Bible studies
and you've hung in there with me, that he's got
(49:38):
something special for you to do. Stop putting yourself down,
stop thinking you're not worthy, stop thinking you're a spectator,
start believing your Participantshua talks about this sanctification. He talks
about what we're battling in Mark seventh, verse twenty through
(50:01):
twenty three. What comes out of a man that defiles
a man? For from within, out of the heart of
men precede evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lewdness and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these things,
he says, come from within. They emanate from the heart
(50:24):
and defile a man. When the teachings I've done at
the Sea conferences, I explained to you the brain, the
computer in the brain, the computer and the heart, what
they're capable of manifesting, what they're designed to do. So
to get to the heart of the matter. Literally, base
(50:46):
and malevolent, malevolent thoughts and schemes come from the heart.
Acts of sexual immorality start in the heart. Theft's, murders,
adultery starts in the heart, acts of greed and covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
unrestrained conduct like we talked about in Ephesis, that starts
(51:08):
in the heart, envy, jealousy, slander, profanity, arrogance, self righteousness,
and foolishness, poor judgment that begins in the heart. All
these things, all these schemes, all these desires come from
within us and defile us and dishonor us. And him
(51:28):
be transformed, be changed in the renewing of your mind.
Let him change your heart, which means you have to
let go of things, you have to forgive. So this
kind of thinking, this is before the Holy Spirit, this
is before the cross. He's telling these people this. He's
(51:50):
basically saying, this is what's coming. This is the change
that the prophets talked about, of God writing himself on
our hearts, of the Father writing himself on our hearts.
But to do that we have to have a change
of heart. There's another thing that can short circle the
Holy Spirit, very controversial thing. The Lord talks about it
(52:15):
in Matthew twelve first and verse twenty four to set
up the story of the Pharisees. Hear the people talking about, oh,
this is the son of Man because he's casting out demons,
he's healing people. And the Pharisees just said, this fellow
does not cast out demons except by bee al Zebab,
the ruler of demons, basically saying that's not holy, it's unholy.
(52:39):
In the Lord's response, very clear. Therefore, I say to you,
every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but blasphemy
against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who
speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will
(53:01):
be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit,
it will not be forgiven him, either in this age
or in the age to come. So what is that blasphemy?
What is that unpardonable sin? As it's called it's an
insulting remark or a curse, or even attributing the works
(53:23):
of the Holy Spirit to Satan. It's unforgivable, especially if
it's done maliciously and knowingly. Now, Paul in one Timothy
one thirteen says he was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor
an insolent man, but he obtained mercy because he did
it ignorantly and unbelief. But there are people that claim
(53:46):
to know the Lord. There are people that claim to
be saved and born again that would speak of somebody
like me, and I've heard this, They would take somebody
like me and the things I've done for the kingdom
and the things I teach, and saying it's demonic, it's
not of the Holy Spirit, that the things I do
(54:07):
are of the kingdom of darkness, not the Kingdom of God.
And I've said every time you've just entered a very
dangerous place, you might not want to go down road.
So the Holy Spirit's fire can be put out, be
put out by a wrong attitude, by wrong thinking, by
(54:29):
wrong choices. Like first Thessalonians five twenty through twenty one,
do not despise prophecies, but cast all things hold fast
to what is good. What was he saying The Church
in Thessalonica was rejecting prophecies, They were treating them as worthless.
They began to develop an arrogant, disdainful nature toward prophecy.
(54:52):
And perhaps, just like today, some people who clean this
gift didn't measure up to the Biblical standards of holiness,
or they were speaking out of their own desires, personal
or otherwise or enthusiasm, rather than from the Holy Spirit.
(55:12):
So what do you do? Such prophecies again, are without meaning,
and what's predicted might not be fulfilled. That's fine, I
leave it up to the Lord. But to have contempt
or arrogance or be angry about it doesn't work. That's
not the work of the Holy Spirit. So reject them.
(55:36):
Hold on, say, let's see the Lord confirm them and
test them. Are they from God? Do they line up
with the Word? Does it sound like something the Spirit
would say and the Lord would do one Corinthians fourteen
twenty nine. And let two or three prophets speak, and
let the others judge. People make mistakes, they say things
(55:58):
that they think are of God, and it's really of them.
They've got to deal with the fallout. But I can't
reject all prophecy because of false prophets. I can't reject
all teaching because of false teaching. I have to be
in the spirit through the Holy Spirit. Another word. One
of the interesting things about Paul's teaching is he rarely
(56:20):
mentions the Kingdom of God in his writings, probably because
he believed that God's rule that kingdom was already working
through the Holy Spirit. So what does he do? And
I believe this is what the Lord's doing these weeks.
He's emphasizing the Spirit's role in preparing for and ushering
(56:44):
in the coming Age. That's what the Holy Spirit's doing now,
through us, through you and I. It's preparing us for
the ushering in of the coming age. What the Bible
says about the Holy Spirit says this, This hope of
seeing is again made the Early Church more conscious than
ever of the necessity of carrying on his work and
(57:07):
the power of the Spirit. In this age. The Holy
Spirit is the only one who could minister life power
and the person of Yeshua to us. Let me say
that again. In this age, the Holy Spirit is the
only one who can minister the life power and person
of Yeshua to us. Whether you call him the Spirit
(57:29):
of God, of the Spirit of Peace, the Truth, whatever
it is, he's always the same Holy Spirit who makes
Yeshua real for us. As the Lord propheside and continues
his work, so the Spirit teaches us, he prays for us,
He directs our efforts for the purpose of the Kingdom.
(57:49):
He directed Philips to the Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts eight.
He sent Peter the Holy Spirit did to the House
of Cornelius. In Acts ten, he gave instructions to the
church in Antioch about sending out Paul and Barnabas initiating
the missionary work to the Gentiles. So the spirit's in control.
(58:11):
He's the one doing these things. The Spirit points us
to Yeshua. The Spirit pours out the love of God
into our hearts. We're to live in the spirit and
by the Spirit. If we're truly in Messiah. And you
know what, there's no aspect of our lives, no aspect
of our needs that lack his touch. That's what the
early Church, the first century believers. That's how they lived,
(58:34):
that's how they worked, that's how they worshiped, that's how
they hoped and even suffered from Messiah. That's what he
wants us to do. So, no matter what it is,
whether you wear a work apron or a sweat clothes, whatever,
He can use us to minister healing today. And most importantly,
(58:54):
he wants to make us one in the Spirit, one
in Messiah. As we join in fellowship with him. He's
present in our lives every day to guide us. And
whether we receive special manifestations of His gifts or revelations
or not. Doesn't matter, because some people believe that if
they're not in the spirit, if they don't receive a
(59:16):
new revelation or a special guidance. Every day I was
supposed to live. It was supposed to breathe, it was
supposed to think. It just as your heart beats. It's
supposed to be natural. And then every time he needs it,
he can manifest it. It's always there, it's always flowing,
It's always ready in you, the constant empowerment of the
(59:37):
Holy Spirit. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice
wholly acceptable to God, which is what your reasonable service. Again,
I know I've read this before, and reading it again,
I want you to get it now from the perspective
(59:58):
of what I said, do not be con to this world. See,
if I'm conformed to this world, none of those things
I said would happen. But I'm going to be transformed
and the renewing of my mind. That way I can
prove what is a good and acceptable person will of God.
I'm not going to copy the behavior and the customs
of this world with its superficial values. But I'm going
(01:00:21):
to let God, my heavenly Father, transform me into what
he needs, a new person by changing the way I think,
the God appeace himself, sanctifying you completely, your whole spirit, soul,
and body being preserved blameless at the coming of our
Lord Jesus the Messiah, because he who calls you is faithful,
(01:00:45):
who will also do it first Thessalonians five twenty three
to twenty four. So I want to bless you now
with first Peter one three through seven. I want you
to listen. I know you are, but sometimes you listen,
but you don't hear. I do that. I want you
to hear. I want you to listen to the words.
I want you to receive the words. I want you
(01:01:06):
to take this word as I'm speaking it and absorb
it into your spirit. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, who, according to his
abundant and boundless mercy, has caused us to be born again,
that is, reborn from above, spiritually transformed, renewed, and set
(01:01:29):
apart for his purpose to an ever living hope and
confident assurance. Through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah from
the dead, born anew into an inheritance which is imperishual,
beyond reach of change, undefiled, unfading, reserved in heaven for you,
(01:01:52):
who are being protected and shielded by the power of
God through your faith, for salvation that is being reveal
for you in the last time. In this you rejoice greatly,
even though now for a little while, if necessary, you
have been distressed by various trials, so that the genuineness
(01:02:15):
of your faith, which is much more precious than gold,
which is perishable, even though tested and purified by fire,
may be found to result in your praise and glory
and honor at the revelation of Jesus the Messiah. I
want to shine, I want to glow. I don't want
to just be ready to go. I want him to
(01:02:36):
look at me and realize that I'm his, that I've
done the best that I could, but that there's nothing
of this world in me, there's nothing of the enemy
in me. I want to be someone that the work
of the Spirit produces fruit for the Kingdom being. That's
(01:03:00):
what this has been about, the Holy Spirit and you
being empowered by the Holy Spirit, which will do what
lead to actively being fruitful in worship and prayer and fellowship,
which does what creates spiritual growth or unity in the
(01:03:20):
body of Messiah, with the Spirit guiding and empowering us
for every good work. And when I say we're going
to shake this world one last time before the return
of the King, that's what I mean, not just getting
people saved, heal and delivered, not just by the signs
and the wonders, but by being this powerful presence. There's
(01:03:43):
resonance of the Holy Spirit that when people look at you,
they realize they're different. Oh Jesus, she was in their life.
When the enemy looks at us and realizes, Okay, this
isn't going to be easy. We got to fight on
our hands, and more than likely we're going to lose
because the King of kings and the Lord of lords
(01:04:06):
is in them. Maybe we should retreat, Maybe we should
run away right now. And even if they don't, you
know that the battle's already been won. You know that
greater is he that is in you than he that
is in the world. You know that greater is He
in you than that which he them whoever are against you,
(01:04:30):
be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Receive it right now,
Father I pray for my brothers and sisters. I pray
for myself right now, Holy Spirit, through your fire, burn us,
purge us clean of anything of this world, of anything
that has hindered us, of anything that has tarnished us,
of any even neer that has allowed us to conform
(01:04:52):
rather than be transformed. Of every false teaching and false teacher.
Every word spoken of over us, that us and from you,
clear our minds, unstop our ears, open our eyes. Bless
us now, Lord, with the fullness of your promise. Bless
us with everything that we need to be, what you
(01:05:12):
need us to be, what we want to be. In
this hour. We ask this of you, as your children,
as ones who love you and you see his name. Amen.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the
Lord make his face to shine upon you and be
gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance
(01:05:33):
upon you and give you peace. Give you shall O.
I am Richard Ground And this has been the porch
on Firefall Talk Radio stop
Oh Hello, Welcome to the Porch on Firefall Talk Radio.
I'm Richard Grund. This is when we get back to basics,
(00:30):
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We focus on the Book of Acts Church to see
how they serve the Lord. In doing so, we find
the Church the Lord intended, not the one Man created.
The Porch is a non denominational, full gospel approach to
the Bible based on the examples from that book of
(00:51):
X's Church, which aims to restore the priesthood of the
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the day of Pentecost. It's yours if you want it.
We offer you the Word as the Apostles would have
(01:13):
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both Yeshua and Jesus. When speaking of the Lord, we
prefer the term Messiah rather than Christ, as it more
accurately reflects how he was referred to by those who
knew him. Additionally, when necessary, we provide definitions in Hebrew, Greek,
(01:35):
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(02:18):
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to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world,
and continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, which
of course means the return of the Prince of Peace,
because there can be none without him. So Father, we
come to you in the name of the Prince of Peace,
(02:39):
your son Ya sure, we come to you as your
children crying out Ourba Father, Papa, Daddy, thank you, thank
you for loving us. Thank you for forgiving us. Thank
you for allowing us to have access to you once again,
so that you could have access to your children. And
the only reason that happened is because you sent you
(03:02):
see a, your only begotten son, to die on our behalf.
Thank you, Thank you Lord for shedding your blood, for
enduring the pain, the shame, and everything that they did
to you that day on Calvary. Thank you for setting
us free from the curse of sin and death. Thank
(03:25):
you for sending the Holy Spirit back to empower us
and to walk with us, teach us and guide us.
Thank you for all that you've done, all that you're doing,
and all that you're going to do. We pray your
head for protection around us, our homes, lands, families, pets, possessions,
everything we hold. Dear, we thank you for being the
(03:47):
shield about us, the glory and the lifter of our head.
We ask you to bless this time, cover us, Bless
the technology, Bless this word, Let it go forth and
do what you desire it to do. And we ask
all these things in your Shoe's name. Amen.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
These lessons are proprietary information, except where not of the
information comes from outside sources. The combination of that information.
The manner presented is exclusive, cannot be repeated or used
without permission. The date of this broadcast serves as the
registered date of the following information. Okay, open those Bibles,
those apps, whatever it is you used to follow along.
(04:51):
Colossians one, starting verse nine says this for this reason,
we also, since the day we heard it, not cease
to pray for you and to ask that you may
be filled with the knowledge of His will and all
wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of
(05:11):
the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work,
and increasing in the knowledge of God, being filled with
the knowledge of His will, walking worthy of the Lord,
being fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge
of God. If that happens, then the way you live
(05:36):
will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives
will produce every kind of good spiritual fruit, and all
the while you'll continue to grow and get to know
your heavenly Father better and better.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
That's what the Holy Spirit does for us and with us.
We're still talking about the Holy Spirit this time, the
Holy Spirit in you, being empowered, being empowered. Remember what
the Lord said, John fifteen seven if you abide in
me and my words abide in you, you will ask
(06:17):
what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
That name it enclaimed, Is that hocus pocus? No, it's
not what it is. What you ask will line up
with his will, will line up with his word, and
will line up with his ways. Therefore he will act
upon it. Abide me and I and you, believers that's us,
(06:42):
are to remain in your shoe, abiding, living permanently in
the vine. It's spoken as a command with an ongoing emphasis,
not a single act. It continues, it can remember, the
Holy Spirit is self replicating power. It keeps going so
(07:07):
abiding for the disciples, just as for us as believers
today is a constant, moment by moment decision to follow
the Lord. It's not passive. We're not passive. We don't
just sit around and abide till we die. No, we're active.
(07:27):
We're doing something. We have to put action to everything
he's said to do, even disunion with him, long term, continuous,
and this fruit that we produce will be a practical
expression of the indwelling Holy Spirit in our lives. And
(07:52):
when that happens, that fruit attracts people to the vine
and allows us to share that with him. I am
the vibe, and you other branches, the Lord, says John
fifteen to five. He who abides in Me and I
in him, bears much fruit. For without me, you can
do nothing. Apart from me, the Lord says, if you're
(08:16):
cut off from a vital union with me, you can
do nothing. You can't do anything. There's nothing that you
can do of any value. If you're apart from him,
it'll have no permanent spiritual value. People produce a lot
(08:37):
of things that have no spiritual value. It's not from him.
Being filled with the Holy Spirit means you're being controlled
by the Holy Spirit, not that you're a robot and
he lifts your arms and your legs and forces you
to move forward. It means that every choice, every decision,
every action flows through him. It's an abiding state of
(09:01):
fullness of the spirit, producing a character of life that
is essentially our spirituality. Our spirituality shouldn't be different from
our life. Our life should be spiritual. We should be
naturally supernatural in everything we say and do. I think
(09:22):
that's why Paul and to the Church of Ephesus and
Ephesians five, starting verse fifteen, says this look carefully than
how you walk, live purposely and worthily and accurately, not
as unwise or witless, but as wise, sensible, intelligent people,
(09:43):
making the very most of the time, buying up each opportunity.
Because the days are evil. Preach it, Paul. Therefore, do
not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and
firmly grasp what the will of the Lord is. Firmly
(10:04):
grasping what the will of the Lord is. And do
not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. But
ever be filled and stimulated with the Holy Spirit. Speak,
speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and
(10:26):
spiritual songs, offering praise with voices and instruments, making melody
with your heart to the Lord at all times and
for everything, giving thanks in the name of our Lord,
Jesus the Messiah, to God the Father, speaking out, singing
songs praising him, making melody in your heart, always, always
(10:48):
in praise, always in love, always in connection, that permanent
union with the Lord. In how we walk, in what
we say and what we do, and how we think. Think.
The Holy Spirit by Charles Riery says, when we say
of someone that he is quote full of himself, we
(11:08):
mean that he himself is the substance or the content
of his life, and he does this by himself. To
sum up Beard, filling is both the spirit's sovereignty controlling
someone for special service and the spirits filling the believer
with his capital h his own character. Don't be full
(11:31):
of yourself, be full of him. There's a lot of
people out there in the church behind microphones, up on
pulpits that are full of themselves. That's not what I need.
I need someone that's full of Him. That in everything
they say and do, how they live their lives, every
word that comes out of their mouth is from Him.
(11:52):
One John two, verse six says he who says he
abides in Him, meaning Lord ought himself also to walk
just as He walked. Whoever says he lives in Messiah,
that is, whoever says he's accepted him as God and Savior,
because that's what that means, ought as a moral obligation
(12:12):
to walk and conduct themselves just as He walked and
conducted himself. Follow Me, says the Lord. That's what he
said to the disciples. Follow me. Could have said walk
this way, and it took him time. They had to
figure out how to do it. They had to make
their mistakes. But we have the Holy Spirit from the
(12:34):
moment we start to follow him. So be ever filled
and stimulated with the Holy Spirit. That's what it means
in Ephesians five eighteen. Be filled. It's an imperative be
filled in the Holy Spirit, be filled by the Holy Spirit,
to be continuously filled, over and over and over with
(12:57):
the Spirit. It's continuing requirement every day when you pray,
every time you turn to heaven, every time you speak
to the Lord. Stir it up, get it moving, keep
it going. Here lies the problem. We can disobey. We
can take back control of areas of our lives, and
(13:18):
when we do, we simply repent and yield again to
the Spirit's control of those areas. It's a daily thing.
It's a struggle. We're always battling against this flesh. We're
battling against the world. We're battling against the things of
this world, natural and supernatural. So, if feeling means the
(13:40):
control of the Spirit in one's life, so whether you've
given him sovereign since saying sustained I'm sorry, control that
results in spiritual character. That means we have to yield,
We have to be obedient. It can't be about you.
It's got to be about him. You have to give
up your will to him, not my will, but yours
(14:02):
be done. The Believer's Study Bible says, in order to
be spirit filled, there must be dedication of life. Such
dedication concerns the basic relationship to the will of God
in Toto completely and not especially just the specifics within
the will of God. It's complete. A dedicated life involves
(14:25):
two things, beginning it and continuing it. That's it. Once
you begin your life in Him, you continue your life
in Him. So the filling of the spirit should result
in absolute control of your life by the Holy Spirit.
If you are yielded to the Lord, if you have
(14:45):
given up your control, your desires, your will to him,
the spirit goes. I can use that, I can work
with that. So your prayer each day, my prayer every
day is to be filled overflowing, the spirit, to be moving,
to be churning, to be percolating inside of me. I
call it like a nuclear reactor, just always. They're always empowered,
(15:10):
always ready to flow out. It's a present verb action.
Now there will be special times that the spirit will
flow extra to you from the Throne room. Maybe in
times when you need just a little bit more, or
you need to be fired up, you need some help,
(15:31):
He'll do that. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit
is once and for all. But the filling, the active
feeling of the Holy Spirit to flow from Heaven from
Him to you is constant. Start seeing it that way
and watch your life change. Start seeing it that way,
and watch the activity of the Spirit change in your life.
(15:53):
You're struggling with I don't understand this whole concept, Richard, Okay,
let go control. Stop trying to understand. Say, Holy Spirit,
flow through me. Use me do whatever it is you
want to do with me. I give up control. Romans twelve,
verse one. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice
(16:19):
holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And
do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove
what it is that good and acceptable and perfect will
of God. There it is again, the perfect will of God.
(16:42):
You see it. It. Want to die as horribly as
he knew he was going to die. But then he said,
not my will, your will be done. So it becomes
a dedication of your entire life, everything, the known, the unknown,
the good, the bad, whatever he decides and desires. I
(17:03):
won't tell you it's easy. I won't tell you it's comfortable,
but i'll tell you the blessings are pretty good. And
it's not just okay. In one sin at a time,
we'll eliminate this. We'll snip a little bit here. Now
you have to ask this question, maybe every day. Who's
going to run my life, the Lord or me? And
that word conformed presents an image of a cheap veneer
(17:28):
finish of the world on top of a very expensive
vase filled with the Holy Spirit. So we've taken something
so precious and so valuable, and we've smeared this covering
of the world on it. We've conformed it to the world.
We've transformed it to the world. And the Lord the
(17:48):
Spirit say, no, you be transformed in the way you think,
in the decisions you make, continual transformation being always non stop.
I pray that for you right now. I speak it
upon you right now in the name of your Suhamashield,
(18:09):
Jesus the Messiah be empowered, always, continually, non stop until
the Lord returns. How do we do this well, we
do it with the declaration like that, we speak it out,
we believe it, we receive it. We do it through
fellowship with the Lord, that stirs it up, that keeps
(18:31):
it flowing, keeps it going. We do it with fellowship
with other believers. However you need to even if you
have to do it, you know, through FaceTime or webcams,
or however connect with somebody who thinks like you do
and wants to stir the spirit up. You do it
by studying the word. We do it every week, constantly
(18:54):
stirring it up. We getting the word going. We're receiving
it precept upon precept, lying upon line, and we're building,
we're growing, we're going. And then you do through prayer
and praise, which edifies the inner man. Prayer and praise
try to always tie the two of them together Ephesians four,
(19:14):
starting verse fourteen, So that we are no longer children
spiritually immature, tossed back and forth like ships on a
stormy sea, carried about by every wind of shifting doctrine,
by the cunning and trickery of unscrupulous men, by the
deceitful scheming of people ready to do anything for personal profit.
(19:36):
But speaking the truth and love in all things, both
our speech and our lives, expressing His truth. Let us
grow grow up and all these things into Him by
following his example, who is the head of the Church.
From him, the whole body, the Church and all its
various parts are joined and knitted friendly together by what
(19:59):
every joint supplies when each part is working properly. Because
the body causes the body to grow and mature, building
itself up in unselfish love. See if we're going to
be a body, if we're going to be a singular
living entity, every part does something different, but the blood
is always flowing, the energy is always flowing. It's always
(20:22):
knitted together in mature growth and edification. Again, the word
edification means building up, and it's always done in love,
love for God, love for one another. So two things result.
When believers reach spiritual maturity. They will no longer be children,
(20:43):
because immature believers are always deceived by every wind of
false doctrine. And on the positive side, they will grow
up into Him, fully grown in all aspects of being
a believer, living as a believer, through doctrine, through conduct,
through service, and so on, speaking the truth and love
(21:06):
and being willing to lovingly teach the truth. So being
a mature believer is attained in part through what we're
doing right now, the instruction of sound, doctrine, and the
loving manner. If you can't tell from the sound of
my voice, if some of you have never seen me
(21:27):
in person speak or teach or preach or do what
I do, you would know you would see in my eyes,
and hopefully hear my voice his love. Even when I
speak correction, even when I share things from Him that
may seem harsh, his love is always behind it. And
we've been fitted together, we've been joined together. He's united
(21:50):
us with himself. And when he does that, it's always
in harmonious relationship the Lord. Everything he says and does,
every action is in harmony, harmony with Him, with each other,
with the Church as a whole. There's never discord, there's
never harshness. So that if you've ever heard a guitar
(22:13):
or a piano or something that hits the wrong chord
and it's like chewing on tinfoil, it just jars. You know,
when the spirit's flowing and going there's a harmony, there's
a naturalness to it. There's a soothing vibration, if you will.
I hate using that word because it reeks a new
(22:34):
age and the occult, but it's what it is. Because
he's sitting on the throne, his very essence is flowing
out through the universe, flowing to us on this planet.
So we're in union with him, We're in harmony with him,
We're resonating with him. And when we do that, his grace,
his undeserved favor, is given to each one of us.
(22:57):
So Messiah joins us together as believe, He unites us
in a divinely ordained ministry of believers to the world.
Each one of us has special spiritual gifts. We need
to exercise them. We need to use them among the
church and also among believers for the common good. In
the church's spiritual growth, this ongoing growth. Remember, wherever the
(23:20):
Holy Spirit is, the wind is moving, the spirits moving,
there's life. This fruit is growth. It continues through our
actions through one another, which gets us to do what
to employ our spiritual gifts. Now we're going we'll talk
about the gifts, whether next week or the weeks ahead.
But I'm trying to develop in you a movement of
(23:43):
the spirit, a presence of the spirit, an ongoing relationship
with the Holy Spirit, so that when you look to
employ spiritual gifts, they're always plugged in, They're always empowered.
Ifsians forced during verse seventeen. So this I say, Paul says,
(24:03):
and solemnly affirmed, together with the Lord as in his presence,
that you must no longer live as the unbelieving gentiles
live in the futility of their minds and in the
foolish emptiness of their souls, For their moral understanding is
darkened and their reasoning is clouded. They are alienated and
(24:25):
self vanished from the life of God, with no share
in it because of this wolf ignorance and spiritual blindness
that is deep seated within them, because of the hardness
and insensitivity of their heart, and they, the ungodly and
their spiritual apathy, have become callous and unfeeling, have given
(24:46):
themselves over as prey to the unbridled sensuality, eagerly craving
the practice of every kind of impurity that their desires
may demand. But you did not learn Messiah in this way.
In fact, if you have really heard him and have
been taught by Him, just as the truth is in
(25:07):
Yasu or revealed in his life, personified in Him. That
regarding your previous way of life, you put off your
old self. You completely discard your former nature, which that
former nature is being corrupted, decaying through its deceitful desires,
and you be continually renewed in the spirit of your mind,
(25:30):
having a fresh, untarnished mental and spiritual attitude, putting on
the new self, the regenerated, renewed nature created in God's image,
in the righteousness and holiness of the Truth, living in
a way that expresses to God your gratitude for your salvation,
(25:51):
renewed and regenerated, walking out the life of the abiding
presence of the Holy Spirit, walking out of life with Him,
walking with you. See, Paul was battling something in Ephesis,
something demonic, something supernatural that had gotten into the church,
(26:12):
a worldliness, a fleshliness, a demonic sensuality, if you will,
that we see in the church today. I'm sorry, it's unfortunate,
but I have to point that out. He says further
on in Ephesians fourth thirty, verse twenty nine. Let no
corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, or what it's
(26:32):
good for, necessary edification, building up that it may impart
grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy
Spirit of God by whom you are sealed for the
day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger clamor an
evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
(26:53):
This world, the things we watch, the things we hear.
The examples were given by leaders politically, society. Even in
the church. We let things flow out of our mouth
that never should happen. We're always battling this old nature.
I know, I do. I grew up first of all,
(27:16):
I've told you this. I was short, I was overweight,
I was picked on. I couldn't defend myself with my hands,
but I could defend myself with my words, with my tongue,
with my lips. I was quick. I could cut you
ten or twelve times before you even realized I was
doing it. I would get people so frustrated that their
brains would overload. So it's always a battle to not
(27:40):
allow that nature to rear up. It's always a battle
to not be caustic or sarcastic or double you know,
on tondras or whatever. Andy it's funny. It's funny in
the world, but it's not funny spiritually, it's really not.
Let no corrupt word seed out of your mouth. Lord,
(28:03):
right now, touch us in our lips. Take a coal
and cleanse our lips. Purify us so that we can
speak your words, that we can speak love, that we
can speak heedification. Help us to edify one another, to
impart grace to one another, Oh boy, and help us
to not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we were
(28:25):
sealed from the day of redemption. Holy Spirit, you even
have to help us do that. Don't let there be
any bitterness or wrath, or anger or evil words. Clean
us from head to toe. Therefore seesions five to one. Therefore,
be imitators of God. That's what we're talking about, right,
(28:46):
Being an imitator of God. Copy him, follow his example.
Walk as the Lord walked as well, beloved children, Let's
imitate our father. Walk in love, esteeming and delighting in
one another as Messiah loved us and gave himself for us,
a slain offering a sacrifice to God for us, so
(29:09):
that it became a sweet fragrance. That's exactly what Israel
was meant to be an Ezekiel twenty, verse forty one.
But they never wore, they never became that fragrance of
God to the world. So he had to do it
with us the church verse three. But immorality, sexual advice,
(29:31):
and impurity, lustful, rich, wasteful living, greediness must not even
be named among you, as is fitting and proper among saints,
that God's consecrated people. Here he goes again, Let no filthiness,
obscenity and decency, nor foolish and sinful, silly, corrupt talk,
(29:53):
nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting or becoming. But
instead voice your thankfulness to God. For be sure of this.
No person practicing sexual a vice or impurity in thought
or in life, or one who is covetous, who has
lustful desires for the property of others and is greedy
(30:15):
for gain, for he or she is an effect an idolater.
Not think at all they have any inheritance in the
kingdom of Messiah and of God. Paul goes on, Let
no one delude and deceive you with empty excuses and
groundless arguments for those sins. For through these things the
(30:36):
wrath of God comes upon the sons of rebellion and disobedience,
so do not associate or be sharers with them. See.
One of the things that I have seen seep into
the church in these thirty plus years that I've been
saved is a worldliness, a secular I don't know how
(30:56):
to call it, a virus that has infected us in
what we do, how we do things. We've been tricked
by others through false teaching that it's okay. God wants
you to be that way. He wants you to be free.
Grace is grace, all his grace, you're forgiven. No, I
want to be an imitator of the Lord. I want
(31:17):
to mimic his speech, his walk, his life in words
and choices. I want to be an imitator of the
Lord in spirit. Because when we don't, when we exhibit
the things that Paul's talking to the Ephesians about, we
pushed the world away. They start to think, well, why
(31:39):
would I want to be like them? They're just like us,
They're no different than the world. In fact, some of
them are more worldly than I am. I've had people
tell me that, I've had people that I've witnessed to
tell me, Okay, yeah, but this is what I know
this pastor did this, that person did that, And I go, yeah,
you're right, they're not living the life that they should be,
(32:01):
and they're a bad example. But that's not what I'm pointing.
I'm pointing you to him, to his example Ephesians five
to eleven. Take no part in have no fellowship with
the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead let
your lives be in so contrast as to expose and
(32:25):
reprove and convict them. What was going on in Ephesus
at this time that Paul would bang this drum so
loudly for so long, take no part in have no
fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but instead expose them.
One of the things is something called the Bacchanalian rights,
(32:48):
which was extreme hidden depravity, things that went on in
the caves in the dark, secret places, pain of death,
if you told anybody about it, to be kept a secret.
Bachanalian mysteries, worshiping Dionysius. The things that went on was
so immoral in those caves, and those parties in the darkness,
(33:13):
so abominable that by one of these six BC, the
Roman Senate banished those practices from Italy. And the characteristic
rituals done by these worshipers and their drunken behavior. There
were orgies, violent outbursts of the worshipers. They would rip
(33:35):
animals apart by hand, and a religious festival of wine,
women in song. They would have parades. See I'm visualizing
marti gras, parades and procession, ceremonies celebrating immorality. Things were done,
performed that shouldn't have been done, and performed at public
(33:59):
Plato talks about seeing the entire population of Athens drunk
at these festivals. Clement of Rome, one of the early
church fathers in the third or fourth century, he wrote this,
and what's interesting, and I want to preface this, a
lot of what I'm describing that they're describing is happening today.
(34:21):
We see it today, go online, turn on TV, constantly
being bombarded with this. It's coming into our minds in
what we see, and we're constantly battling, pushing it out,
rejecting it. This is what Clement of Rome said, But
in the process of time, the worship of God and
(34:42):
righteousness were corrupted by the unbelieving, in the wicked. Remember
he's speaking to the church of that day. As we
shall show more fully by and by moreover, perverse and
erratic religions were introduced, to which the great part of
men gave themselves up by occasions of holidays and solemn events,
(35:06):
instituting drinkings and banquets, following pipes and flutes and harps
and diverse kinds of musical instruments, and indulging themselves in
all kinds of drunkenry and luxury. Hence every kind of
error to grice. They invented groves and altars, filets and victims,
(35:31):
and after drunkenness, they were agitated, as if mad with emotions.
More likely they were possessed by this means. Powers were
given to the demons to enter into minds of this sort.
This is amazing to come from somebody who I'm not
sure really understood what he was saying. The power was
(35:52):
given to the demons sin, but the people were projecting
the demons or feeding off her to enter into minds
of this sort. So they seemed to lead insane dances
and to rave like Bacchanalians. Hence were invented the gnashing
of teeth and bellowing from the depths of their bowels.
(36:15):
Again demonic manifestations, terrible continents, face expressions, and a fierce
aspect with drunkenness that had subverted them, and a demon
instigated and those people believed, he says, and were deceived
(36:35):
that they had been filled with the deity, they'd been
filled with God. I've seen some things in the church.
I've not talked about them in a while, not that
I'm ignoring them. I just don't pay attention to some
of the fringe elements of the church. But I see
behaviors and videos that people think, Oh, that's the Lord,
it's the presence of the Holy Spirit, and I'm going no,
(36:58):
it's a demonic manifest station. You're making a clicking sound
of a snake. Your body language is the same body
language I've seen done by people possessed by the Kundalini spirit.
I see things from my background in the New Age
and the occult manifesting in the Church under the guise
(37:20):
of worship that I clearly know is not from the
Lord and from my heavenly Father. A man named Athanaeus
was a Greek teacher and an author around two hundred
eight D. He said the Ephesians were addicted to luxury,
a feministy and sexual vice. A beautiful woman of a
(37:41):
sect of Socrates, Aspasia would bring in vast numbers of
beautiful women into the country as prostitutes. Why well, according
to phil Demosthenes, this is what he said. I want
you to think about him saying this in twenty twenty five.
We have whors for our pleasure, harl is for daily use,
(38:04):
and wives for procreation of legitimate children, and faithful preservation
of our property. That's the world we're living in. That's
what's going on around us. We've seen soorys of the
news of you know, things that go on in these
mansions and at these Hollywood parties, some of which in
(38:24):
the past I've witnessed. So what do we do. We
put our head in the sand and we act like
it's not there. We cover our eyes, cover our ears,
cover our mouths, stare at our screens. No, we live
a life so full of the Holy Spirit and so
(38:44):
full of the Lord. We expose their sin, We convince
them that it's sin, and we could convict them, inspiring repentance.
And that's the purpose of the Holy Spirit, exposure, conviction
and repentance. And I'm not talking about Bible thumping them
(39:06):
upside the head. I'm talking about glowing and going in
the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. So
they just look at you and see him in your
eyes or hear him in your voice. For you and
I were once darkness, but now we are light in
(39:27):
the Lord. Let's walk as children of light. For the
fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth.
Finding out what is acceptable to the Lord Ephesians five
eight through ten. The fruit of the Spirit, goodness, righteousness,
(39:48):
and truth. How we going to bear fruit through the
Holy Spirit by being empowered by the Holy Spirit. But
there can be things short circuit that I don't know
if you've ever had this happen. A remote suddenly doesn't
work and you open the backup and you realize some
(40:10):
corrosion has gotten on the terminals. So the battery, which
is probably dead, is not working, or your car battery
has corrosion around the terminals and it won't work properly.
So what do you have to do. You have to
clean the terminals. You have to clean the battery. Corrosion
keeps the flow from happening. And what is that corrosion?
(40:33):
That corrosion is sin and The natural corrosion is a
process that occurs when metals and other materials undergo this
chemical reaction with their environment, which results in a gradual deterioration.
Happens over time. Well, worldliness and sin does the same
(40:56):
thing in our lives, a slow corron of the terminals,
and the next thing you know, there's no flow of
the Holy Spirit. If you're not feeling him, well, you
did once, and you moved in the gifts once, and
you're not now, then you have to stop, say Lord,
cleanse me of anything that is hindering me from interfering
(41:19):
with you working through me. I want to walk as
a child of light. I want to produce the fruit
of the Spirit, goodness, righteousness and truth. I want to
live a life acceptable to you Lord and be an
example to others. But I can't do that a fallen
(41:41):
world if I'm constantly fighting a corrosion. Of course, that
we have to allow. It doesn't just happen. There's an
effort to this. There's a choice you and I have
to make. What goes into my eyes, what goes into
my ears? What do I accept? It's a choice you
(42:04):
and I have to ask every day, what are we
gonna do. Are you gonna use me, Lord just as
I am? Probably not, You're gonna You want me to
be clean. You want the terminals clean. You want to flow.
You want to be able to bless others. You want
to speak a word, a good word, and do season.
You want to help others. You want to lay hands
on the sick so they recover. You want to be
(42:25):
able to drive out those demonic spirits by a word
or a look, not by a ritual or an icon
or all these you know actions. Oh, you want us
to be like you. I get it. That's what Paul
was doing for the church. That's what Peter and James
and John were trying to do for the church. You
(42:48):
notice that they're focus. We'll see it in this next scripture.
In first Thessalonians, for they weren't focusing exactly on what
they were doing. The gift they were using, they mentioned,
and Paul teaches them, but it was more on the
ability to manifest more on not moron, more space, Come on,
(43:16):
the ability to manifest the power in the presence of
the Lord. How is that going to happen? First Thessalonians four,
starting verse three, For this is the will of God
your sanctification, that you should substain from sexual immorality, That
each of you should know how to possess his or
(43:38):
her own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion
of lust, like the gentiles who do not know God.
That no one should take advantage of and defraud his
brother in this manner. Because the Lord is the avenger
of all such as we also forewarned you and testified.
(44:00):
Here we go. For God did not call us to uncleanness,
but in holiness. God did not call us to uncleanness,
but in holiness. Therefore, he who rejects this does not
reject man, but God reject all the instructions that he
(44:23):
just said, who has given us his Holy Spirit. Always
remember that's not a name, that's a description, Holy Spirit.
He's holy. He wants us to walk as the Lord did.
In the Greek culture, there was no idea of moral purity,
(44:48):
so therefore to the new believers of that day, there was.
They didn't understand what the Lord expected of his church,
and that's why Paul's teaching this to them. The call
to a holy life dedicated to God's will in line
with the nature of God as well as the holy
nature of the spirit. In one Thessalonians five nineteen, he
(45:12):
says something very short scripture, very powerful, which will block
the flow from being empowered. Do not quench the spirit. Okay, okay, one, two, three, four,
five words, do not quench the spirit. Believer of Study
Bible says the phrase do not quench the spirit may
(45:34):
be rendered stop quenching the Spirit, suggesting the cessation of
an action which is in progress. This verse addresses manifestations
of the Holy Spirit of one's private life as well
as the assembly of believers. The present tense of the
command exhorts them to stop bringing the working of the
(45:59):
Holy Spirit to a halt, and the metaphor quench suggests
that the activity of the spirit conveys a warmth, even
of fire within a fellowship. I've seen flows of the
Holy Spirit and a fellowship so powerful it made you
think you were in a book of ax church, you
(46:20):
were maybe in the upper room. And then I've seen
that same fire get quenched by bad decisions, by sending
the camp by a lot of different things. And there's
nothing more jarring and more upsetting than seeing that happen.
So I'm going to cut out anything any corrupt word,
(46:44):
any words that don't edifyre offer grace. I'm not going
to grieve the Holy Spirit. I've been sealed by Him
for the day of redemption. Therefore, I have to consciously
let all bitterness, wrath, anger, climber, and evil speaking be
put away. We have to consciously be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
(47:05):
forgiving one another, just as God Messiah forgave us no
corrupt word. That word corrupt in the Greek sapros sap
ros futrid, rotten, decayed like in flesh or fruit, unfit
for use. Again, I'm not going to say that this
is easy to do in a world that encourages otherwise,
(47:30):
but I believe it's worth trying. Do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God, do not offend or vex or
sadden him. How would I do that by doing the
forbidden things Paul's talking about. And what's amazing is you
know it's wrong. The conviction is there, and it depends
(47:50):
on how far down the road you've gotten with this.
I believe. I believe the reason that the Lord had
me teach us this wasn't what I was going to
teach on. I was going to get into the specific
gifts and fruit and go down that road. He's still
talking transformation. I believe the move of the Spirit that
(48:11):
he's trying to give us to be a part of.
Now hear me, Please, This move of the Spirit that
I am encouraging, that I am consciously working on, walking
and living, manifesting is unlike anything the Church has seen
since the day of Pentecost. And even this, I believe
(48:34):
will be more powerful because that's what it's going to
take to stop the move of the demonic and the
satanic going on in the world right now. It's going
to take a remnant set apart for him, filled with
the spirit, walking, talking, standing, believing in a way that
(48:58):
the enemy has not seen before, in a way even
I have not seen before. And you've heard me talk
about what I've been a part of or what the
Lord has done through me. You've maybe read the book,
maybe you've seen the videos. Now that that's nothing compared
to what's coming. And I understand why the enemy's fighting
(49:18):
it so hard. I understand why the Church is fighting
it so hard. But I get here every week I
sit down. I do this to help you individually and corporately,
because I believe if you're listening to these Bible studies
and you've hung in there with me, that he's got
(49:38):
something special for you to do. Stop putting yourself down,
stop thinking you're not worthy, stop thinking you're a spectator,
start believing your Participantshua talks about this sanctification. He talks
about what we're battling in Mark seventh, verse twenty through
(50:01):
twenty three. What comes out of a man that defiles
a man? For from within, out of the heart of
men precede evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lewdness and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these things,
he says, come from within. They emanate from the heart
(50:24):
and defile a man. When the teachings I've done at
the Sea conferences, I explained to you the brain, the
computer in the brain, the computer and the heart, what
they're capable of manifesting, what they're designed to do. So
to get to the heart of the matter. Literally, base
(50:46):
and malevolent, malevolent thoughts and schemes come from the heart.
Acts of sexual immorality start in the heart. Theft's, murders,
adultery starts in the heart, acts of greed and covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
unrestrained conduct like we talked about in Ephesis, that starts
(51:08):
in the heart, envy, jealousy, slander, profanity, arrogance, self righteousness,
and foolishness, poor judgment that begins in the heart. All
these things, all these schemes, all these desires come from
within us and defile us and dishonor us. And him
(51:28):
be transformed, be changed in the renewing of your mind.
Let him change your heart, which means you have to
let go of things, you have to forgive. So this
kind of thinking, this is before the Holy Spirit, this
is before the cross. He's telling these people this. He's
(51:50):
basically saying, this is what's coming. This is the change
that the prophets talked about, of God writing himself on
our hearts, of the Father writing himself on our hearts.
But to do that we have to have a change
of heart. There's another thing that can short circle the
Holy Spirit, very controversial thing. The Lord talks about it
(52:15):
in Matthew twelve first and verse twenty four to set
up the story of the Pharisees. Hear the people talking about, oh,
this is the son of Man because he's casting out demons,
he's healing people. And the Pharisees just said, this fellow
does not cast out demons except by bee al Zebab,
the ruler of demons, basically saying that's not holy, it's unholy.
(52:39):
In the Lord's response, very clear. Therefore, I say to you,
every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but blasphemy
against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who
speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will
(53:01):
be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit,
it will not be forgiven him, either in this age
or in the age to come. So what is that blasphemy?
What is that unpardonable sin? As it's called it's an
insulting remark or a curse, or even attributing the works
(53:23):
of the Holy Spirit to Satan. It's unforgivable, especially if
it's done maliciously and knowingly. Now, Paul in one Timothy
one thirteen says he was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor
an insolent man, but he obtained mercy because he did
it ignorantly and unbelief. But there are people that claim
(53:46):
to know the Lord. There are people that claim to
be saved and born again that would speak of somebody
like me, and I've heard this, They would take somebody
like me and the things I've done for the kingdom
and the things I teach, and saying it's demonic, it's
not of the Holy Spirit, that the things I do
(54:07):
are of the kingdom of darkness, not the Kingdom of God.
And I've said every time you've just entered a very
dangerous place, you might not want to go down road.
So the Holy Spirit's fire can be put out, be
put out by a wrong attitude, by wrong thinking, by
(54:29):
wrong choices. Like first Thessalonians five twenty through twenty one,
do not despise prophecies, but cast all things hold fast
to what is good. What was he saying The Church
in Thessalonica was rejecting prophecies, They were treating them as worthless.
They began to develop an arrogant, disdainful nature toward prophecy.
(54:52):
And perhaps, just like today, some people who clean this
gift didn't measure up to the Biblical standards of holiness,
or they were speaking out of their own desires, personal
or otherwise or enthusiasm, rather than from the Holy Spirit.
(55:12):
So what do you do? Such prophecies again, are without meaning,
and what's predicted might not be fulfilled. That's fine, I
leave it up to the Lord. But to have contempt
or arrogance or be angry about it doesn't work. That's
not the work of the Holy Spirit. So reject them.
(55:36):
Hold on, say, let's see the Lord confirm them and
test them. Are they from God? Do they line up
with the Word? Does it sound like something the Spirit
would say and the Lord would do one Corinthians fourteen
twenty nine. And let two or three prophets speak, and
let the others judge. People make mistakes, they say things
(55:58):
that they think are of God, and it's really of them.
They've got to deal with the fallout. But I can't
reject all prophecy because of false prophets. I can't reject
all teaching because of false teaching. I have to be
in the spirit through the Holy Spirit. Another word. One
of the interesting things about Paul's teaching is he rarely
(56:20):
mentions the Kingdom of God in his writings, probably because
he believed that God's rule that kingdom was already working
through the Holy Spirit. So what does he do? And
I believe this is what the Lord's doing these weeks.
He's emphasizing the Spirit's role in preparing for and ushering
(56:44):
in the coming Age. That's what the Holy Spirit's doing now,
through us, through you and I. It's preparing us for
the ushering in of the coming age. What the Bible
says about the Holy Spirit says this, This hope of
seeing is again made the Early Church more conscious than
ever of the necessity of carrying on his work and
(57:07):
the power of the Spirit. In this age. The Holy
Spirit is the only one who could minister life power
and the person of Yeshua to us. Let me say
that again. In this age, the Holy Spirit is the
only one who can minister the life power and person
of Yeshua to us. Whether you call him the Spirit
(57:29):
of God, of the Spirit of Peace, the Truth, whatever
it is, he's always the same Holy Spirit who makes
Yeshua real for us. As the Lord propheside and continues
his work, so the Spirit teaches us, he prays for us,
He directs our efforts for the purpose of the Kingdom.
(57:49):
He directed Philips to the Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts eight.
He sent Peter the Holy Spirit did to the House
of Cornelius. In Acts ten, he gave instructions to the
church in Antioch about sending out Paul and Barnabas initiating
the missionary work to the Gentiles. So the spirit's in control.
(58:11):
He's the one doing these things. The Spirit points us
to Yeshua. The Spirit pours out the love of God
into our hearts. We're to live in the spirit and
by the Spirit. If we're truly in Messiah. And you
know what, there's no aspect of our lives, no aspect
of our needs that lack his touch. That's what the
early Church, the first century believers. That's how they lived,
(58:34):
that's how they worked, that's how they worshiped, that's how
they hoped and even suffered from Messiah. That's what he
wants us to do. So, no matter what it is,
whether you wear a work apron or a sweat clothes, whatever,
He can use us to minister healing today. And most importantly,
(58:54):
he wants to make us one in the Spirit, one
in Messiah. As we join in fellowship with him. He's
present in our lives every day to guide us. And
whether we receive special manifestations of His gifts or revelations
or not. Doesn't matter, because some people believe that if
they're not in the spirit, if they don't receive a
(59:16):
new revelation or a special guidance. Every day I was
supposed to live. It was supposed to breathe, it was
supposed to think. It just as your heart beats. It's
supposed to be natural. And then every time he needs it,
he can manifest it. It's always there, it's always flowing,
It's always ready in you, the constant empowerment of the
(59:37):
Holy Spirit. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice
wholly acceptable to God, which is what your reasonable service. Again,
I know I've read this before, and reading it again,
I want you to get it now from the perspective
(59:58):
of what I said, do not be con to this world. See,
if I'm conformed to this world, none of those things
I said would happen. But I'm going to be transformed
and the renewing of my mind. That way I can
prove what is a good and acceptable person will of God.
I'm not going to copy the behavior and the customs
of this world with its superficial values. But I'm going
(01:00:21):
to let God, my heavenly Father, transform me into what
he needs, a new person by changing the way I think,
the God appeace himself, sanctifying you completely, your whole spirit, soul,
and body being preserved blameless at the coming of our
Lord Jesus the Messiah, because he who calls you is faithful,
(01:00:45):
who will also do it first Thessalonians five twenty three
to twenty four. So I want to bless you now
with first Peter one three through seven. I want you
to listen. I know you are, but sometimes you listen,
but you don't hear. I do that. I want you
to hear. I want you to listen to the words.
I want you to receive the words. I want you
(01:01:06):
to take this word as I'm speaking it and absorb
it into your spirit. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, who, according to his
abundant and boundless mercy, has caused us to be born again,
that is, reborn from above, spiritually transformed, renewed, and set
(01:01:29):
apart for his purpose to an ever living hope and
confident assurance. Through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah from
the dead, born anew into an inheritance which is imperishual,
beyond reach of change, undefiled, unfading, reserved in heaven for you,
(01:01:52):
who are being protected and shielded by the power of
God through your faith, for salvation that is being reveal
for you in the last time. In this you rejoice greatly,
even though now for a little while, if necessary, you
have been distressed by various trials, so that the genuineness
(01:02:15):
of your faith, which is much more precious than gold,
which is perishable, even though tested and purified by fire,
may be found to result in your praise and glory
and honor at the revelation of Jesus the Messiah. I
want to shine, I want to glow. I don't want
to just be ready to go. I want him to
(01:02:36):
look at me and realize that I'm his, that I've
done the best that I could, but that there's nothing
of this world in me, there's nothing of the enemy
in me. I want to be someone that the work
of the Spirit produces fruit for the Kingdom being. That's
(01:03:00):
what this has been about, the Holy Spirit and you
being empowered by the Holy Spirit, which will do what
lead to actively being fruitful in worship and prayer and fellowship,
which does what creates spiritual growth or unity in the
(01:03:20):
body of Messiah, with the Spirit guiding and empowering us
for every good work. And when I say we're going
to shake this world one last time before the return
of the King, that's what I mean, not just getting
people saved, heal and delivered, not just by the signs
and the wonders, but by being this powerful presence. There's
(01:03:43):
resonance of the Holy Spirit that when people look at you,
they realize they're different. Oh Jesus, she was in their life.
When the enemy looks at us and realizes, Okay, this
isn't going to be easy. We got to fight on
our hands, and more than likely we're going to lose
because the King of kings and the Lord of lords
(01:04:06):
is in them. Maybe we should retreat, Maybe we should
run away right now. And even if they don't, you
know that the battle's already been won. You know that
greater is he that is in you than he that
is in the world. You know that greater is He
in you than that which he them whoever are against you,
(01:04:30):
be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Receive it right now,
Father I pray for my brothers and sisters. I pray
for myself right now, Holy Spirit, through your fire, burn us,
purge us clean of anything of this world, of anything
that has hindered us, of anything that has tarnished us,
of any even neer that has allowed us to conform
(01:04:52):
rather than be transformed. Of every false teaching and false teacher.
Every word spoken of over us, that us and from you,
clear our minds, unstop our ears, open our eyes. Bless
us now, Lord, with the fullness of your promise. Bless
us with everything that we need to be, what you
(01:05:12):
need us to be, what we want to be. In
this hour. We ask this of you, as your children,
as ones who love you and you see his name. Amen.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the
Lord make his face to shine upon you and be
gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance
(01:05:33):
upon you and give you peace. Give you shall O.
I am Richard Ground And this has been the porch
on Firefall Talk Radio stop
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