The Porch - The Way of the Spirit

The Church has always struggled with the battle between the flesh and the Spirit. The fruit that the Church has produced isn’t always what the Lord desires, and correction is needed. The letters to the Church in the New Testament show us this and give us the way of the Spirit.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Oh hello, and welcome to the Porch on Firefall Talk Grady,
I'm Richard Gruned. This is where we get back to basics,

(00:31):
the uncompromised head 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 and not the one man created.
The Porch has always been here to restore the priesthood
of the believer and regain the world's shaking influence that

(00:52):
the early Church had. Because 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, pray for it, ask and you shall receive.
Links to all of our social media and streaming sites

(01:13):
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(01:37):
If you need more information, just reach out to us.
We'll be glad to answer. Thank you. Thank you for
being a part of the porch. Thank you for being
with us all of these many years that we have
been able to share the word, share the gospel, shine

(01:58):
the light into the darkness, and set the captives free.
The newsletter and the praise report prayer went out. Check
for it. If you don't see it in your inboxer
and one of the other folders, let us know and
we'll send it out again. If you need prayer, Oh,

(02:18):
you want to be on the email prayer list, let
me know and I will plug you in. Remember we
care about you. You're not alone. Speaking of not being alone,
we're always connected to the Throne Room and the Father,
and the Holy Spirit and the Lord. So why don't

(02:40):
we start out with some praise and some prayer. So Lord,
I praise you. I appraise you for the healing of
my hip, for seeing the doctor today that performed the surgery,
being told everything looks great. I'll see you in a year.
So Lord, that's you help me to heal, to do

(03:03):
what needs to be done, to strengthen, to make sure
that the other parts of my body don't need man's help.
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven
and earth. Thank you for your love, Abah Papa. Thank
you for your grace and your mercy. We praise you
for that. We praise you for you sure for the blood,

(03:30):
the cross, the empty tomb, the upper room, all these
things have been your gift, your grace to your children.
Thank you for restoring us into right relationship so that
we could come home now spiritually and eventually physically, when
there'll be no more death, no more sickness, no more sin,

(03:55):
just be us and you forever. Thank you, Lord Unna.
Thank you for what you did for us. Thank you
for being there for us every day. We ask that
you well join us tonight, but be with us all
the time through your Holy Spirit. Speak to us, touch us,

(04:17):
guide us, protect us. We clear our minds. Right now,
we take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Messiah.
Claiming the mind of Messiah, we cast down every vain
imagination that would exalt itself above the knowledge of l
On God most High, our Father, Let your word go forth.

(04:41):
The spirit, do as you will. Protect the technology, watch
over us and all of our homes, family's pets, possessions,
Inspire us and empower us, and let us go shake
this world one last time for the return of the King,
and I pray all these things. Can you shoe his name? Amen?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
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Speaker 1 (05:43):
Okay, open up those Bibles, however you had them, have
them tangible in print, digital, whatever you're doing. Follow along.
Go to One Corinthians twelve, Verses thirty and thirty one,
and then we're going to go to First and Things thirteen,
eleven and thirteen. I'm gonna tie the two of them together.

(06:05):
Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues?
Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts? And
yet I will show you a more excellent way. When
I was a child, I spoke as a child, I
understood as a child, I thought as a child. But

(06:27):
when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now I see in a mirror dimly, but then
face to face. Now I know in part, but then
I shall know just as I am known now abide, faith, hope,
and love. These three, but the greatest of these is love.

(06:51):
That's what we talked about last night, fueled by love,
by the power of love to the Holy Spirit given
to us by the Lord. And I thought that's what
I was going to continue onward. But during prayer and
spending time with the Lord, and he took control of

(07:14):
the situation, which he's always in, and at any moment
he can come along and say, no, we're not going
to do that this week, and that's what he did.
So tonight we're going to be talking about the way
of the Spirit. And I kind of like the way
that sounds. It sounds very you know, like it's flowing
like martial arts the way of the Spirit. But that's

(07:38):
really not what it is. It's about the way of
the Holy Spirit. But to understand the content of what
I'm about to share with you, we need to understand
the context in which it was presented. So the Apostle
Paul went to Corinth right after a stinging defeat, and

(08:00):
Athens about fifty five AD. And in Athens he was
able to convert a few and he mentions them by name,
but he couldn't start a new church fellowship. So he
heads to Corinth alone. Silas and Timothy would join him later.
But you can tell by his writing to the church

(08:21):
in Corinth. When he writes back to them later on,
he was feeling a little defeated. One Corinthians, true verse one.
And I, brethren, when I came to you, I did
not come with the excellence of speech or of wisdom,
declaring to you the testimony of God, which kind of
hints to me what he was doing in Athens. For

(08:43):
I determined not to know anything about among you except
Jesus the Messiah and him crucified. I was with you
in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my
speech and my preaching were not with perplasive war words
of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit, capitaliss

(09:05):
and of power, that your faith should not be in
the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now,
if you got a book of acts and you see
his experience in Athens, I think he tried to reason
with them with wisdom. He tried to convert them through
the intellect, and that never works. People don't make intellectual,

(09:26):
not real intellectual decisions about Yeshia. It comes from the heart. Now,
the city of Corinth rows from the ashes of Roman
subjection to become a bustling point of commerce with large,
magnificent harbors. Population around that time was between six hundred
thousand and seven hundred thousand, and it was mostly slaves,

(09:49):
and the streets were filled with travelers and merchants from
all over the world, and it was a pretty distinctive place.
The International Standard Bible Encyclo gives us a great picture
of Corinth during this time. It says, even in that
old pagan world, the reputation of the city was bad.

(10:12):
It was compared to an amalgam of new market and
I think new markets in London, but I'm gonna sure
I should have looked that up of new markets Chicago
and Paris probably contained the worst features of each At night,
it was made hideous by the brawls and lewde songs

(10:32):
of drunken revelry. In the daytime, its markets and squares
swarmed with Jewish peddlers, foreign traders, sellers, soldiers, athletes and
training boxers, wrestlers, charioteers, racing men, betting men, cortisons, slaves, idlers,

(10:53):
and parasites of every description. I don't know. It sounds
like New York City. The rupting worship of Aphrodite, with
its hordes of worshipers and servants, was dominant, and all
over the Greco Roman world, the phrase to behave as
a Corinthian was a proverbial synonym for leading a low,

(11:18):
shameless and immoral life. Very naturally, such a polluted, idolatrous
environment accounts for much that has to be recorded of
the semi pagan and imperfect life of many of the
early converts. So that's where Paul winds up and he

(11:42):
leaves Athens, and before he plants the church, he plants himself.
He tells us that basically in Acts eighteen one through four,
and after these things the things of leaving Athens with
a few converts made mentioned in Acts seventeen thirty three

(12:03):
and thirty four. Paul departed from Athens and went to
Corinth and he found a certain Jewe named Aquila born
in Pontius, who had recently come from Italy with his
wife Priscilla. Because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to
depart from Rome, and Paul went to them, and because

(12:25):
he was of the same trade, he stayed with them
and worked for by occupation. They were tent makers, and
he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded both
Jews and Greeks. So what he does, rather than jumping
right back into it. He finds a fellow believer, stays

(12:47):
with them, goes to work with them, and just begins
to speak to people. Goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath,
talks to the Jews, talks to the Greek, and slowly
converts start happening. Later on, in Acts eighteen, he says
he departed from there and entered the house of a
certain man named Justice, who worshiped God, whose house was

(13:11):
next to the synagogue. Then Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue,
believed on the Lord with all his household. The many
of the Corinthians hearing, believed and were baptized, so very
organically spontaneously the church is born. The International Standard Bible

(13:35):
Encyclopedia goes on to say he made deep impressions and
gradually gathered around him a number who were received into
the faith. The converts were drawn largely, but not entirely,
from the lower or servant classes, including Crispus, Sascenes, the

(13:56):
rulers of the synagogue, Gaius Stephanus with his household, which
they call the first Fruits of the Keia for Corinthians
sixteen fifteen. And Paul regarded himself joyfully as the father
of this community, every member of which seemed to him
like his own child. So he literally has birthed this

(14:20):
fellowship and he plants it somewhere between fifty and fifty two.
He stays there for eighteen months, and then he goes
on to Ephesus, and things don't go well after that.
By AD fifty four fifty five, the church is struggling,

(14:41):
so Paul writes them two letters, first and second Corinthians.
Those letters are written to Corinth about fifty four fifty
seven a d. But then we see almost forty years
later Clement of Rome has to write similar letters to

(15:02):
the church in Corinth. So maybe during the forty year
period between the two letters the two corrections, there was
spiritual growth. There was the spread of the name of
the Lord and the Roman Empire. But the church and
Corinth has got some deep seated problems that now have

(15:23):
to be addressed by Paul. So he writes this letter
from Ephesus to the brothers and sisters in the church
in corinth that were literally tearing the church apart. So
go with me. First Corinthians one, starting verse ten of
this is why I'm setting this up for you to
get a picture, get the picture, to get the picture

(15:47):
of why he had to explain to them about the
gifts of the spirit and about love, because what they
were doing was not in life. One Corinthians one. Ten.
Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of
our Lord Jesus the Messiah, that you all speak the

(16:09):
same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but
that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind
and in the same judgment. For it has been declared
to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household,
that there are contentions among you. Now I say this

(16:30):
to each of you who says, I am of Paul,
or I am of Apolus, or I am of Cephus,
or I am of Christ or Messiah? Is Messiah divided?
Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the
name of Paul. I thank God that I baptized none

(16:52):
of you except Christus and Guias. Lest anyone should say
that I baptized in my own name, so baptized the
household of Stephanus. Besides, I don't know whether I baptized
any other, for Messiah did not send me to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with the wisdom of words,

(17:13):
lest the cross of Messiah should be made of no effect.
So the spiritual gifts are exploding in a community of
people familiar with the supernatural. The paranormal was normal in Corinth.
Most of these people had believed in pagan demonic rights,

(17:35):
possibly even participated. And one of the things I remember,
especially Christian heritage, there was a point where the gifts
were exploding. The pews were being filled, people were getting saved,
healed and delivered, Praise and worship went on, you know,
sometimes for hours everything was the spirit was moving, and

(17:58):
the enemy came in with division, with backbiting, with a tax,
with sexual siner just like Corinth. It's amazing how Satan
doesn't change his tactics. It's always the same verse Go
Indians twelve, verse one. Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I

(18:18):
don't want you to be ignorant. You know that you
were gentiles carried away to these dumb idols, however you
were led. Therefore I make known to you that knowing
no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Yeshua
a curse, and no one could say that Yeshua is
Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are diversities of gifts,

(18:43):
but the same spirit. There are differences of ministries, but
the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but
it is the same God who works all in all,
but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each
one for the profit of awe. To one is given

(19:05):
the word of wisdom through the spirit to another, the
word of knowledge through the same spirit to another. Faith
by the same spirit to another, gifts of healings by
the same spirit to another, the working of miracles to another,
prophecy to another, discerning of spirits to another, different kinds
of tongues to another, the interpretation of tongues. But one

(19:30):
in the same spirit works all these things, distributing to
each one as he wills. So he opens up with
a statement now concerning spiritual gifts. That wording indicates to
me that he's been asked about it because of the

(19:50):
problems that they're having. Life application study Bible says the
words spiritual gifts refer to special abilities given by the
Holy Spirit every believer that are to be used to
minister to the needs of the body of believers. Look
at that, clearly, it's not the world to the church.

(20:11):
The word gifts in the Greek is charismata. It comes
from the same root word as grace. Charis freely bestowed
by God. The gifts are a special endowment given to
believers to enable them to do extraordinary work for God.

(20:33):
Paul didn't want believers to be uninformed about these gifts,
but rather to understand and use them for God's glory.
It's amazing how when the gifts begin to begin to move,
it becomes for Man's glory. People start to build up

(20:54):
their names instead of His name. So they were on
its pagans and in this case non believers. When it
says gentiles non believers believing in evil spirits and their influence, well,
in this case, evil spirits had done the influencing and
was leading them astray. And one of the things about

(21:18):
the occult and the cult religions, if you will, evil
spirits would speak through the followers in what was called
ecstatic or inspired speech. Yes, the enemy has their own
tongues too. I've heard them, as I've told you. I've
had them call me up on the phone and say
it to me or leave messages in them. And Satan's counterfeit.

(21:43):
He's always going to counterfeit with God does. So evil
forces were at work in the world, and the Corinthians
needed to understand that what they had experienced as tongues
or inspired speech in their pagan religion was completely different
from speaking in tongues through the experience of the Holy Spirit.

(22:07):
And I get very offended, annoyed, and angry when I
see Hollywood try to equate the two, try to mock tongues,
try to compare it to that as if it's the same.
Of course they would do that, but it gets very annoying,

(22:32):
very annoying. So the Church had a problem with the
influence of the enemy on what was going on. And
if you were around any growth or any spiritual dunamus explosion,
the enemy is going to get involved. So they needed
some help. They needed some guidance from the father of

(22:55):
the congregation, Paul, and he was trying to get them
to understand this that I want you to understand and
I don't want to belabor the point, but this is
really about the Holy Spirit, about how important he is
to what we do. And if you find yourself in
the midst of a struggle, if you find yourself in
the midst of some issue with your flesh or something

(23:19):
going on, and the enemies got you riled up, I
can almost confirms somewhere in the midst of that, you
stop listening to the Holy Spirit and started listening to
the voice in your head, your own head. That's all
we have to stop. That's why we have to pray.

(23:41):
That's all we have to turn on the praise and worship.
And if that doesn't work, we've got to reach out
to somebody and say, hey, pray for me, pray with me.
So the Spirit was there to assist them in affirming
their faith and publicly and acknowledging you see Ahma Shiah,
Jesus the must as lord. The phrase Jesus is Lord, Lord,

(24:06):
not Lord. And I'm sorry, I think my speaker's talking
to me. It's telling me it's turning itself off because
I've ignored it. That's pretty creepy, wasn't The phrase Jesus's
Lord was probably one of the earliest declarations of faith

(24:27):
in the church. When Peter professed that Jesus was the Messiah,
the son of the Living God, you show it, replied
in Matthew sixteen, Verses sixteen and seventeen, Blessed are you
Simon Barjona, For flesh and blood has not revealed this
to you. But my Father, who is in heaven. All

(24:52):
who truly have the Holy Spirit in them will say
that Jesus, you show it is Lord, Lord of their lives.
Is their Lord Lord? That's the key. The enemy will
never say that, Demons will never say that. People may
acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, but then you have to

(25:15):
ask them, but is he your Lord? Is he your
Lord and Savior? And when you get specific with people,
you'll find out the truth. The Life Application Study Bible
says anyone can claim to speak for God, and the
world is full of false teachers. Paul gives a test

(25:36):
to help believers to discern whether or not a messenger
is really from God. Does he or she confess Jesus
the Messiah as Lord. Does the confession ring true with detail?
And is it backed up with action? Meaning it's their fruit?
Naively accept the words of all who claim to speak

(25:58):
for God, test their credentials by finding out what they
teach about Messiah. And you might say, oh, I don't
to make people uncomfortable, make them uncomfortable, ask them questions.
So he says to you all, you know, I've accepted
this whole Jesus thing, this whole you should I stepped

(26:20):
two a year. No, no, no, have you accepted him
as your Lord and savior? Are you born again? And
the Corinthian Church needed to be reminded of this, so
I'd mentioned this before. Clement of Rome was one of
the earliest bishops and elders of the church in room
and about ninety five AD, he's got to write a

(26:41):
letter to the church in corinth And what he's doing
he has to address a rebellion in the church where
a vocal minority of arrogant people are trying to force
out the elders and put themselves in place. I've seen
this actually happen, and if you don't have a strongly
it will happen. This is what he says to them, owing,

(27:06):
dear brethren, to the sudden and successive calamatus events which
have happened to ourselves, we feel that we've been somewhat
tardy in turning our intention to the points respecting what
JE consulted us, and especially to that shameful, detestable sedition

(27:27):
utterly abhorren to the elect of God, which a few
rash and self confident persons have kindled to such a
pitch of frenzy that your venerable and illustrious name, worthy
to be universally loved, has suffered grievous injury. That kind
of indicates that the time between Paul's letter and this,

(27:50):
things might have gotten straightened out. So Clement is expressing
grief over the damage to their reputation called venderable and illustrious.
They took Paul's words to their hearts. Whether they took
his heart, I don't really know. Church has got a

(28:11):
problem with that kind of stuff. So during the time
of Paul, Corinthians had made two mistakes regarding spiritual gifts,
mistakes that are common in every fellowship I've ever seen
where the gifts are used, and in action, they prioritized

(28:39):
a spectacular but less significant spiritual gifts in their meetings. Yes,
I said it, spectacular but less significant. It was the
least of all the gifts. Everyone should have it one
Corinthians fourteen one through five. Pursue love and desires spiritual gifts,

(29:01):
but especially that you may prophesy. For he who speaks
in a tongue does not speak to men but to God,
for no one understands him, understands him. However, in the
spirit he speaks mysteries, but he who prophesies speaks edification

(29:22):
and exhortation and comfort to men. He who speaks in
a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more
that you prophesied, for he who prophesies greater than he
who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets that the

(29:46):
church may receive edification. If that's not crystal clear on
the gift of tongues, I don't know what is. Everyone
should speak in tongues. I wish you all did, Paul says,
But more than that, seek to prophesy, seek to edify,

(30:09):
seek to exhort and comfort. And if you do speak
in tongues, and we'll go on later to say, and
we'll talk about this another time, make sure you can
interpret or there's somebody there that can so what they
had done. And every person who comes out of the
occult and gets saved is guilty of this in some

(30:34):
form or another. They carried over some of their teachings,
their pagan notions about the things of the spirit, and
in the pagan world, ecstatic utterances were remark us spiritualities,
a special closeness to God. All these things, the gifts,

(31:00):
the achievements, the abilities, the empowering are brought about by
the one and the same Holy Spirit, distributing to each
one individually just as he chooses. The Spirit gives as
he chooses. And if the Holy Spirit is present, the
gift of tongues in accordance with the word will be present.

(31:22):
But it doesn't mean they're any more special than anyone else.
I've been in churches, fellowships, groups that have exalted tongues
to some high position. Oh my gosh, they're so special.
You're so special. No. No, unless you can hang on

(31:45):
the cross, lose every drop of blood, die and rise
from the dead, you're not special. I have no tolerance
for that. I will not tolerate that, and I will
speak out about it if I have to. That's what
Paul's dealing with. He deals with the issue in Corinthians
thirteen about how do we recognize a special closeness to

(32:11):
God and ourselves or in others love? How do they
act with the gifts? What do they do with the gifts?
Everybody wants the closer connection with the Lord, but without understanding,
we may mistakenly pursue external experiences like speaking in tongues,

(32:34):
or feel some kind of condemnation because we don't because
it's presented to us that way. I'm now one of
those people in the church, in the charismatic church. Are
you born again with the evidence of speaking in tongues? Well,

(32:55):
I got born again in October of nineteen eighty eight,
but the tongues didn't happen until April of eighty nine.
So what he's saying, huh huh, huh? What are he's
saying nothing? You're saying nothing. It will come if you
allow it, and if you allow it, the Spirit will

(33:17):
give it. Remember he gives as he will seek the
close connection. Seek the gifts that he wants to give you,
activate them, use them. But we shouldn't seek external confirmation
without internal affirmation because people are likely to listen to

(33:45):
somebody who's got unusual experiences, gifts, or prior activity in
the spiritual world. There's some kind of mark of divine favors.
I'm sorry, it's just one of my pet beeves. You're
not all that. Stop Stop putting these people up on stage.

(34:07):
Stop putting them up on pedestals just because the Lord
uses them. He can use a donkey if he wants
to so. Paul, one of the believers in Corinth, to
recognize the priority of the more important gifts, but he
wanted them to understand true spirituality through love. He pretty

(34:29):
quickly identifies the problem that the church in Corinth is
still worldly, it's still carnal, it's still caught up in
its First Corinthians three, starting verse one, Dear brothers, when
I and sisters, when I was with you, I couldn't
talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I
had to talk to you as though you belonged to

(34:51):
this world, or as though you were infants in Messiah.
I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food,
because you weren't ready for anything stronger. And you still
aren't ready for You're still controlled by your sinful nature.
You're jealous of one another and quarrel with each other.

(35:12):
Doesn't that prove that you're controlled by your sinful nature?
Aren't you living like the people of the world. When
one says I'm a follower, Paul, I'm a follower of
a poluse, aren't you acting just like the people of
the world, You're still unspiritual, having the nature of the

(35:35):
flesh under the control of ordinary impulses, fleshly impulses. For
as long as there is envying and jealousy and wrangling
and factions among you, you're not unspiritual, and you're of
the flesh, behaving yourselves after human standards like mere unchanged people. Amazing,

(36:03):
How I've seen that too. Oh, I was baptized by
a pastor so and so you know, I did this,
and I did that with this person. And I have
this diploma from this place and this plaque of my
wall from this place. YadA, YadA, YadA, big deal. How
many people have you got saved, healed and delivered? What

(36:27):
have you done for the kingdom? Have you done it
in love? What was the what was the reason you
did it? So the standard for the church, it's real simple,
it's living by the Spirit's power. So I say, let
the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be

(36:50):
doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants
to do evil, which is just the opposite of what
the spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that
are opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two
are constantly fighting each other, so that you're not free

(37:12):
to carry about your good intentions. But when you are
directed by the Spirit, you're not under the obligation of
the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of
your sinful nature, the results are very clear. Sexual immorality check, impurity,

(37:34):
check lustful pleasures check idolatry. This at the church in
Corinth and Galatian churches today. Sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outburst
of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, wild parties,
and other sins like these. Well, let me tell you

(37:57):
again as I have before, anyone living that sort of
life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Anyone living
that sort of life doesn't have the Holy Spirit in them.
There's still like the church in Corinth, Babes babes in Messiah,

(38:17):
and most of the church still is there sitting in
pews like little birds with their mouths open, saying feed me,
feed me, drop the little worms in my mouth to
the word for me. I don't want to have to
chew it. You chew it for me. That's a pretty
gross visual, and I did it on purpose. Open your bibles,

(38:39):
get into the commentaries. If you can't afford it. Bible Gateway.
I think it's like thirty nine dollars a year. You
can have access to every commentary there is. I should
see if they have a way that I can promote
it through the porch, because I've been doing that a

(38:59):
lot from the years, and you know, become a sponsor
benefit from it somehow in the ministry. But there's no
reason for you not to be feeding. I give you
a lot every week. And I'm not saying this for
condemnation or criticism. I have the same handful of people

(39:20):
that give me feedback. Maybe that's just the nature of things.
I saw that in Christian Heritage with Pastor Shelley, and
as I've said often in I give a clear visual
of that in my book. He laid out this banquet,
this mortgage borg of the Word of food, and people

(39:41):
would nibble and look at their watches and I'd be
gorging more. I want more. No, no, no, don't. It's
too early yet. We got sixty more seconds. Don't cut
it short. Hey, how about we go over. I just
wanted to feed. I wanted more. I wanted to hear
more about this person that gave his life for me.

(40:04):
I wanted to hear more about this holy spirit that's
going to allow me to live a better life and
do more dramatic, wonderful things than I ever did with
demonic power. And folks, I did some stuff. The church
in Corinth, very much like me, is somebody who came
out of the occult. They wanted the spiritual gifts. They

(40:27):
wanted to experience them. They wanted to manifest them in
their flesh, though, and that's what they did. They attempted
to exercise spiritual gifts in the body, in their flesh.
And I just saw this visual. Paul used this thing
about being babies can't cheot real food. I gotta give

(40:47):
you milk. Oh. I'm going to take this sword, this
two edged sword that's really sharp, and I must start
swinging it around Yeah, you're likely to hurt somebody else
and yourself, and that's the problem, more than likely what
they were doing. Folks, that's not the way of the spirit.

(41:08):
There's a more excellent way that Paul introduces is the
way to a deeper walk in the spirit. That's in
and with love, a gape, divinely inspired, empowered love. Love
is the key to our growth towards maturity. Love is

(41:32):
the indication of true spirituality. Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I've become sounding brass or clanging symbol. And though I
have the gift of prophecy and understand all the mysteries
and all knowledge, And though I have all faith so

(41:54):
that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I
am nothing. Though I bestow all my gifts to the
foot to feed the poor, and though I give my
body to be burned, I'm willing to sacrifice myself, and
have not love. It profits mean nothing. Sounding brass, those

(42:16):
large empty vessels I talked about on the stage, to
get the people in the back to be able to hear,
to amplify the actors' voices sound coming from them, empty sound,
the clinging of the symbols of the simple prostitutes on

(42:38):
their clothes, spiritual prostitutes with the empty words, making a
lot of noise without love. Any gifts they manifest are
not only nothing, but they're an embarrassed meant to the Lord.

(43:01):
They embarrassed the kingdom. How many of you have experienced
the gifts used without love and you have wounds from it.
You've been places that did that, maybe you've been driven
out of those places. Been there done that? Too many
shirts to prove it? How foolish, How foolish believers are

(43:30):
to confuse being gifted with true spirituality. So Paul introduces
this call to love because he knew firsthand that that
kind of love was purely supernatural, It was spiritual, it
wasn't carnal, and it would be the motivating power to

(43:57):
seeking the gifts, to build up others, to further the kingdom.
Fruit creates more fruit. The seeds of one fruit grows
the fruit of the next, and the next, and the
next and the next. So none of the gifts, none

(44:22):
of the spiritual gifts acting in and of them, are absolute.
There's only one love. If you have love, if you
do things in love, if you're not doing it for
selfish gain or promoting yourself or a grandizement. I like
that word. What's the problem. He's got a serious case

(44:44):
of a grandizement. Here's my prescription. Read your Bible. And
that takes maturity to get there, because you think you're
all that in a bag of chips. When those gifts
start flowing, it and the demons start running and people
start patting you on the back, and oh you're going

(45:05):
to be on stage. You're going to be traveling the world.
Thank goodness, that didn't happen. Be open to the gifts
of the spirit. Sit down with them every day. What
do you want me to understand today, Holy Spirit? What
do you want me to pray for? What do you

(45:27):
want me to seek? Take me to the word. Show
me areas that are hindering me from having what you
want me to have. Then show me how to receive
them gracefully, without fear or condemnation or hearing the words
I've heard before. Then show me how to exercise them

(45:51):
in grace and humility, in love. Show me the way
of the Spirit. I want to walk this way. You're
sure it was telling his disciples that, and he showed
it to them, and he shows it to us, because

(46:14):
when you're walking in the way of the Spirit, when
you're living in the way of the Spirit, what you're
really doing is being Him. And isn't that the ultimate goal?
I want to be more like you Lord, less like me,
is sure, says in John fourteen, verses fifteen through seventeen.

(46:39):
And then I'll jump to twenty six. I'll put them
all together as one thought. If you really love me,
you will keep you'll obey my commands, and I will
ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter,
a counselor a helper, an intercessor and advocate, a strengthen her,
and a standby that he may remain with you forever.

(47:05):
He's not going anywhere. He's going to abide with you.
The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, cannot
welcome or take it to his heart, because it does
not see him or know him and recognize him. But
you know and recognize him, for he lives with you
constantly and will be in you. But the comforter or

(47:31):
the counselor the helper, intercessor, the advocate, the strengthen and
stand by the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send
in my name in my place to represent me and
act on my behalf. He will teach you all things,
and he will cause you to recall. He will remind
you of bring to your remembrance everything I have told you.

(47:58):
Think about that. That's what the Holy Spirit does for us.
He teaches us, he reminds us, he encourages us. But
the world cannot receive it. They can't understand it. Stop
expecting them to stop being surprised when the world gets offended.

(48:22):
If you lay hands on them without asking first, or
start speaking in tongues while you're praying over them, show
how super spiritual y'all. Don't do that. Be meek. Be
conscious of the fact that they don't know what that is.

(48:44):
If we live in him, if we abide vitally united
to Him and his words will be in us and
continue to live in our hearts. That happens, Lord says,
Ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.

(49:05):
When you bear, when you produce much fruit, my Father
is honored and glorified, and you shall improve yourself to
be true followers of mine. I'm in John fifteen seven
through ten. I have loved you just as the Father
has loved me, Abide in my love, continue in his
love with me. If you keep my commandments, if you

(49:30):
continue to obey my instructions, you will abide in my
love and live on in it, just as I have
obeyed my father's command and live on in his love.
You will bear much fruit. You will produce much fruit
of the spirit. If you don't tie the whole word together,

(49:54):
if you don't take all these thoughts connecting fruit of
the spirit with the fruit he's talking about of the spirit,
producing fruit, love, joy, He's long suffering, kindness, goodness, gentleness,
self control. Think I left out faith? You want that

(50:21):
one too, Don't leave that one out. Bear much fruit
of the spirit. Live in the way of the Spirit,
and you'll have a life of fruit. If you do
it in love. If you love him with all your heart,
with all your soul, all you might mind, all your strength,
and everything that's in you. If you love your neighbors yourself,

(50:43):
you'll bear much fruit because you'll be doing it out
of love. You'll be loving your neighbors yourself, be seeing
them with the eyes of love His love. Oh, I'm
not saying the flesh isn't going to rear its head
and do some dumb things sometimes, or repaint, put it
under the blood. Move on. But when the comfort or

(51:03):
the counsel, or the help or the advocate, the interest sets,
or the strength through and the standby comes. Who got
sent to us from the Father connects us to the Father,
because it emanates from him. When the spirit of truth comes,
he will testify regarding your sure not of any man,

(51:27):
not of any school, not any denomination. He will testify
of the Lord, and you and I will also testify
and be his witnesses, because just as the disciples were
with him in the beginning, physically, once we're born again

(51:48):
and spirit filled, we're with them through them through the spirit.
Fruit is an indicator of the Holy Spirit and a
confirmation of the Lord. And even before he talked about
all this, even before there was a pall to teach

(52:11):
on it, he was warning us about bad fruit. Matthew seven,
verses fifteen through twenty. Beware of false prophets who come
disguised as harmless sheep, but are really vicious wolves. You
can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the
way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes

(52:36):
or figs from thistles. A good tree produces good fruit,
and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree
can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce
good truit. So every tree that does not produce good
fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes,

(53:00):
just as you can identify a tree by its fruit,
so you can identify people by their actions. What kind
of fruit do they produce? How do they act carnally
or spiritually? Is it fruit of the flesh or the
fruit of the spirit. I mistounded at how many are

(53:22):
so fooled by these televangelists and the preachers and some
of the people and social media hanging on every word
when it's so obvious the fruit that they're producing is
not fruit of righteousness and not fruit of the spirit.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
You know, if you'll give me one thousand dollars during
the past, over a season, what that's going to do
for you is that thousand dollars we'll get you an angel,
I'll get all your prayers answered. That thousand dollars will
keep the enemy from you. It's just a thousand dollars
If you.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Send that to me. Now, Oh, you think I'm making
that up. You think I'm joking, you think I'm being facetious.
I just quoted a fameless, a famous female televangelist right
now that put out a video for this past overseason
that said exactly that, what is it about the thousand dollars?

(54:20):
There was a guy back in the eighties, Robert Tilton,
that was his name. That was the thing, thousand dollars.
Well at your thousand dollars perish with you, paula repent.

(54:42):
The Holy Spirit links the Father and the Son and
links us, and he's an active spirit. He's a counselor.
He's always with us, he's walking with us. The Spirit's
role in this age was so important that you Shoul

(55:05):
had told his disciples, it's good for you that I
go away so that I can send him back, because
without him, you're not going to get this job done.
You're not going to survive the coming battle, the coming war.
And I say that to you Church. I've said it before,
and I've been rebuked and said many ugly things about

(55:27):
when I've told the church you will not survive what's coming.
Without the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the gifts
and the fruit of the Spirit. You might as well,
just pray, Lord, take me. It's for your good that
he went away, because without him going away, the Holy

(55:51):
Spirit wasn't going to be here. But it did. After
the death, the resurrection of the ascension of the Lord,
it was activation time, it was go time, and he
sent the Spirit and he hit him with it in
the day of Pentecost, and he filled them with it,
and he's been filling believers with it since then. So

(56:16):
the death of the flesh of the Lord, its resurrection,
and his return to the Father made the Holy Spirit
the bridge between man and God. That's how important this is.
The Bible tells us so many things about the Holy Spirit,

(56:37):
what he does for us and in us. But he
is the agent of our transformation towards being like the Lord.
He's the one who gives liberty in this world. The
Lord paid for the liberty, the Holy Spirit delivers it.

(56:59):
Tewond Corinthians three seventeen. Now, Lord, the Lord is the Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.
Lord dies, goes to the Father, Holy Spirit gets sent
back in his name on his behalf liberty speaking. This

(57:21):
is the second letter to the Church in corinth Still
trying to get them to understand too much bondage, too
much division, too much strife. Holy Spirit brings liberty, doesn't
bring division and bonded and strife and sectarianism and this
denomination and this abomination and this person's the name up
in lights. That's not the Holy Spirit. When that starts

(57:43):
to happen, you would want him to correct things. You'd
want him to slap some people around. It's not how
he does things. He just says, Oh, okay, you don't
want me here, I'll be going now. Sorry. His presence
gives us the power to live a righteous life, to

(58:08):
be free. Look what it says in Romans eight one
through eleven. I almost didn't want to read the whole thing,
but I couldn't let the thought go or cut it short.
Now there is no condemnation for those who belong to
Messiety is you of because you belong to him. The
power of the life giving Spirit has freed you from

(58:31):
the power of sin that leads to death. The Law
of Moses was unable to save us because of the
weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the
Law could not do. He sent his own son in
a body like the bodies we sinners have, and in
that body, God declared an end to sins control over

(58:51):
us by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins.
He did this so that the just requirement of the
law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer
follow our sinful nature but instead follow the spirit. Those

(59:12):
who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things,
but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think
about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful
nature control your mind control your mind leads to death,
but letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life

(59:34):
and peace. So the sinful nature is always hostile towards God.
It never did obey God's laws and it never will.
That's why those who are under the control of this
sinful nature can never please God. But you, speaking to
the church and roman to us, you are not controlled

(59:55):
by your sinful nature. You're controlled by the spit if
you have the Spirit of God living in you. And
remember that those who do not have the Spirit of
Messiah living in them do not belong to Him at all.
Messiah lives within you. So even though your body will

(01:00:16):
die because of sin, the Spirit will give you life
because you've been made right with God. The spirit of God,
the Roka Kadesh, who raised your Shoa from the dead,
lives in you. And just as God raised Messiah you
shoe it from the dead, he will give life to

(01:00:37):
your mortal bodies by the same spirit living within you.
Let me say that again, and I want you to
hear it, and I want you to receive it. Just say,
right now, Lord, I received this word. And if the
spirit of Him who raised up Jesus, who raised up
you shoe It from the dead, dwells in you, then

(01:00:58):
he who raised up Saihi is sure from the dead,
will also restore to life your mortal body, short lived
perishable bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. So, then,
brothers and sisters, we are debtors, but not to the flesh.

(01:01:19):
We're not obligated to our cornal nature to live a
life rule by the standards set up by the dictates
of the flesh. For if you live according to the
dictates of the flesh, you will surely die. But if
through the power the Dunamus of the ro kak Kadesh,
the Holy Spirit, you are habitually constantly putting to death,

(01:01:41):
making extinct forever, deadening the evil deeds prompted by the body.
You shall readily and genuinely live forever. Fruit of the
flesh must die, fruit of the Spirit must grow and go.
He is the source of our gifts and the abilities

(01:02:02):
to minister to each other and to enrich to body spiritually. Remember,
the gifts aren't for the world, it's for the Church.
But the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the
Holy Spirit, the work which is presence within us accomplishes

(01:02:24):
is love. It's joy, gladness, it's peace, it's patience and
even temper of forbearance, its kindness, goodness, you know, benevolence, faithfulness,
It's gentleness, meekness and humility, self control, self restraint. Against

(01:02:46):
there there's no law that can bring a charge, because
those who belong to the Messiah have crucified the flesh,
the godless human nature, with its passions and appetites and desires.
Oh yeah, we kneled it to the cross. It died
there by the cross. The cross, Oh yes, the cross.

(01:03:07):
If we live by the Holy Spirit, let us also
walk by the Spirit. If by the Holy Spirit we
have our life in God. Let us go forward walking
in line, our conduct controlled by the Holy Spirit, and
let us not become vainglorious and self conceited, competitive and

(01:03:29):
challenging and provoking and irritating to one another, envying and
being jealous of one another. Now, let's walk in harmony.
Let's live in harmony with the spirit. Let's let him
produce in us that fruit of love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

(01:03:55):
self control. Give us the gifts of the spirit. Lord,
so that we can have the fruit of the spirit.
Show us how to love, Show us how to live
in harmony as a group, not getting irritated, not letting

(01:04:16):
the flesh take us in directions it shouldn't go. Let
us hear your voice at those moments. Let us act
right with one another. It was almost scripture. I was
going to use and think I'll save it till next time. Now,

(01:04:37):
we want to live a life right now, Lord of
unity in the spirit, because we know in Matthew twenty four,
one of the things you told us, I guess I'll
use it anyway. You told us that many would be
offended and repeled and begin to trust and desert you

(01:04:59):
whom they ought to try and obey. They will stumble
and fall away and betray one another, and pursue another
one another with hatred, and many false prophets will rise
up and deceive and poison us with their fruit and
lead people into error, many people into error, and the

(01:05:21):
love of the Body will grow cold, the love of
people will grow cold, the love of the Lord will
grow cold because of the multiplied lawlessness and iniquity. But
we who endure to the end will be saved. That's

(01:05:43):
the good news of the Kingdom. That's the gospel, and
it will be preached throughout the world as a testimony
to all the nations. And then the end will come.
The final phase of the Signs of the Times includes lawlessness, sin, rebellion,

(01:06:06):
no love for God or the things of God, and
no love for one another. Remember, he's speaking to the church.
To believers, there'll be no unity in the spirit. There'll
be discord, conflict, tension, unrest. But if we listen and

(01:06:31):
we walk in love, and we walk in unity, and
we walk in harmony, if we care about one another,
if we do these things and produce the fruit that
he wants, that's the way of the Spirit. And that's
the way I want, and I hope you want it
to Father Abbah, Papa Daddy help us to be this

(01:07:01):
way in our flesh. It's so difficult. It's so difficult
not to be offended when we get hurt. It's so difficult. Lord,
to let go of these wounds, to stop picking at
those emotional and spiritual scabs. Let it heal enough, let

(01:07:22):
it go. Set us free of all that bad programming
and all that's been done to us. Help us to
walk in the spirit and not fulfill the flesh. Help
us to have the fruit of the spirit. Help us
to walk in the way of the spirit. We need that.

(01:07:42):
We need it now. We need it in our lives
and our families and our fellowships, in your body. And
I pray all these things for me and everyone listening.
And you shoe his name a man. May the Lord

(01:08:05):
bless you and keep you. May the Lord man, I
don't know, I make his face to shine upon you
and be gracious to you. May the Lord, I don't know.
You're sure how much I'll get lift up his countenance
upon you and give you peace. Give you shallam. I'm
Richard Grund. This has been the porch on Firefall Talk Radio.