Now tonight I want to preach on the subject of being filled with the Holy Ghost, and this
morning I talked about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and as we get into this subject,
the first thing that I want to make sure that we understand, go quickly to Acts 1.
I'm not going to review much of anything that I talked about this morning.
We got a little bit into the fullness of the Holy Ghost this morning, but I want to go
a lot deeper into it tonight, but look at Acts 1 verse 8, and let me just show you briefly
a very important point.
It says in Acts 1a, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.
And I want you to notice that phrase, the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost
part of the earth.
Flip over to chapter 2 verse 4, and in Acts 2, 4 the Bible reads, and they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
What I want you to see there is that the fulfillment of Acts 1a is found in Acts 2 and elsewhere
throughout the book of Acts, and notice that the Bible uses the term the Holy Ghost upon
you or the Holy Ghost coming upon you or the Spirit of the Lord upon you.
It uses that term synonymously with being filled with the Holy Ghost or being filled
with the Spirit.
And so I want you to see that those two things are the same thing, and neither one of them
is the indwelling that we talked about this morning, and I won't re-preach that sermon.
But in Ephesians 5 18 where we were, if you would turn to Colossians 3 16, but in Ephesians
5 18 it said, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,
which shows us that being filled with the Spirit is not automatic.
Christians are admonished to be filled with the Spirit, and one way that they will be
filled with the Spirit, the Bible says, is speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
The Bible says in Psalm 22 3, But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of
Israel.
The Bible said that God inhabited or lived in the praises of Israel.
And so we need to understand how important music is when it comes to being filled with
the Spirit.
He said be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs.
Look down at your Bible there in Colossians 3 16, the Bible reads, Let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Now before we get back to that, stay there in Colossians 3 16.
But a few examples from the Old Testament.
You remember when Elisha asked for a minstrel to be brought, and when the minstrel played
with his hand and music was played, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.
Remember when King Saul was troubled by an unclean spirit, by an evil spirit from the
Lord.
And if you remember that David played with his harp, and when he played with his harp
it caused the evil spirit to depart.
Now there is an association between music in the Bible and spiritual things.
And so singing hymns throughout the week is a way for you to be filled with the Spirit.
And if you are on a daily basis singing the psalms, singing hymns, and singing spiritual
songs, this will change your spirit.
And this is not just something, well I'm just not that type of person, I'm not a musical
person.
Well the Bible commands us to speak to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and
the Bible commands us to be filled with the Spirit by doing so.
You know a lot of your bad attitude about life, and your negative attitude could be
cured by singing hymns and singing spiritual songs throughout the week.
I don't know about you, but there have been times when I was in a very bad mood, I was
very upset, I was not happy, I was not spiritually where I needed to be, I was in the flesh,
and you know I just started singing the hymns, I just started singing the psalms, and it
just, a change came over me, just an instant change spiritually when you sing the right
type of songs.
And you know, singing the wrong type of songs is going to have an adverse effect, it's going
to have the opposite effect.
But look down at your Bible there in Colossians 3.16, I don't really want to emphasize the
musical aspect tonight, and I'm not really going to emphasize the prayer aspect, because
there definitely is a teaching in the Bible of praying that you would be filled with the
Holy Spirit, and praying for the power of Christ to be upon you, and the power of the
Holy Ghost to be upon you.
But look at this aspect of it in Colossians 3.16, now remember, in Ephesians 5 it said
be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Notice the different wording in Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
So what has changed?
If we compare Ephesians 5, 18 and 19, and we compare it to Colossians 3.16, what has
changed?
Well, being filled with the Spirit has been substituted with, let the word of Christ dwell
in you.
And what I want to show you, and I want to show you a lot more verses that illustrate
this, that being filled with the Spirit is very closely linked with being filled with
the word of God.
Let me prove that to you.
Go to John chapter number 3, John chapter number 3, and while you're turning there,
I'm going to read for you from John 6.63, the Bible reads, it is the Spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh profiteth nothing, watch this, the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit,
and they are life.
Did you get that?
The words that I speak unto you, Jesus said, they are Spirit and they are life.
Let me tell you this, it is impossible for you to be filled with the Holy Spirit if you
are not filled with the word of God.
Let me prove that to you with a lot more scripture.
Look down at John 3, verse 34, the Bible says, for he whom God hath sent speaketh the words
of God, for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
You see, Jesus Christ had the Spirit upon him without measure, basically infinity.
He was maximum filled with the Spirit.
He had the maximum power of the Holy Ghost upon him at all times, and the Bible says
that he spoke the words of God, for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
You don't have to turn to these, but let me read you several scriptures, Proverbs 123
says this, turn you at my reproof, behold I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will
make known my words unto you.
Notice that pouring out his Spirit unto you and making known his words unto you are both
one and the same there.
They both take place in the same way.
He said in Isaiah 59, 21, as for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord,
my Spirit that is upon thee, because remember we're talking about the Spirit upon you or
the Holy Ghost upon you, my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in
thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out
of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord from henceforth and forever.
That's a great verse on the preservation of God's word, by the way.
When he said that God's word would be in Isaiah's mouth and in his seed's mouth and in his seed's
seed, forever, and that means even today Isaiah's seed are still speaking the words of God and
they have not ceased to exist on this earth.
Now look, as you study the Old Testament, you'll notice that when the Spirit of the
Lord comes upon somebody, one of a few things happens, right?
What's one of the things that happens when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon somebody?
They usually end up killing a bunch of people.
You know what I mean?
The Spirit of the Lord comes upon them and they go to battle, right?
And they take up the sword and they fight a battle against the Lord's enemies and they
win a physical battle through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Lots of examples like that, Othniel, Samson, Saul, Jephthah, and the list goes on and on.
Now we today in the New Testament, we don't have a physical battle.
The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places.
But we see that battling aspect of the fullness of the Spirit in the Old Testament.
Another thing that you'll often see happen when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon someone
is that they will prophesy, right?
And often they will, the Bible will tell us that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them
so that we will know that what they said was the Word of God.
Because a lot of times people talk in the Bible and it's their words.
And then there are other times when people speak in the Bible and it's God's Word.
And a lot of times in the book of Acts, for example, it will tell us that one of the apostles
was filled with the Holy Ghost and spake saying, Thus saith the Lord.
And so you'll notice that throughout the Old and New Testament, when someone's filled with
the Holy Ghost, they begin to speak God's Word.
Again, tying in the fact that being filled with the Holy Spirit is the same as being
filled with God's Word.
And the two go hand in hand.
The Bible says in 2 Samuel 23, 2, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his Word was in
my tongue.
Go to Isaiah chapter 11.
Isaiah chapter number 11.
And the reason I'm explaining that is just to let you know that if you don't read the
Bible and you don't memorize the Bible, you're not going to be filled with the Spirit.
No matter how many songs you sing and no matter how much praying you do, you know, an essential
component of the fullness of the Spirit is being filled with the words of God.
And you know, I think that the person who is filled with the Spirit is the person who
meditates on God's Word day and night.
That's the one who's Spirit-filled.
The one who God's Word is just continually flowing out of their mouth.
And I believe that a Spirit-filled preacher, listen to me now, I believe it is impossible
for a Spirit-filled preacher to get up and preach and it's all his Word and maybe one
verse comes out of his mouth in an hour of preaching.
How could you say he's Spirit-filled if God's words are not flowing out of his mouth?
Look, when you're Spirit-filled, you can't help but accidentally preach more than that
in one sermon.
I mean, you get up to preach and Scriptures are flowing out of your mouth that aren't
even in your notes because you're just filled with the Spirit.
And God's Spirit is going to lead you to speak God's Word.
Remember this morning's sermon about how he will take the Word of God and bring it to
remembrance and he'll show it to you and he'll make you recall it and preach it and speak
it.
And look, when you get around somebody who's just constantly speaking God's Word, that's
a sign of being filled with the Spirit.
But when you hear a preacher who uses very precious little of God's Word in the sermon,
that should just tell you right there, this guy isn't Spirit-filled.
Otherwise God's Word would even if he didn't write it into the sermon.
Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
And think about when you're full, that's an abundance, isn't it?
When you're filled with the Spirit, that's an abundance of the Spirit.
And when you have an abundance of the Spirit in your heart and you have an abundance of
God's Word in your heart, it can't help but come out of your mouth.
Because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
And so this thing of being filled with the Word of God is tied in very closely with being
filled with the Spirit.
Look at Isaiah 11 verse 1.
This is a great prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says, And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch
shall grow out of his roots.
This is a prophecy, of course, about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Bible says in verse 2, And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.
No question about the fact that the Spirit of God rested mightily upon Jesus Christ.
And it says this, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
So here we have various aspects of the Spirit of the Lord upon you.
When you have the Spirit of the Lord upon you, that's going to manifest itself in wisdom.
That's going to be manifested in understanding.
And of course, how are you going to have wisdom and understanding without a thorough knowledge
of the Word of God?
He says, The Spirit of counsel, again, what does counsel mean?
Advice.
Right?
You know what is right in a given situation.
That is what counsel means.
And might.
What does might mean?
Power.
And of course, being filled with the Spirit is always associated with the power of the
Holy Ghost.
Being filled with power.
Sometimes in the Old Testament that manifests itself as physical power.
Samson comes to mind and many other warriors.
And then next he says, The Spirit of knowledge.
Again, a knowledge of the Word of God.
And he says, of the fear of the Lord.
Now here's what's interesting about this.
This is a prophecy about Jesus, right?
Well in Revelation, four different times, reference is made to the seven spirits of
God.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
You know, the seven spirits that are before his throne.
And what's interesting, in Revelation 3 verse 1, the Bible says, unto the angel of the church
and Sardis write, These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God.
And who is it that's speaking there?
It's Jesus Christ.
Jesus is giving his message to the seven churches and he says, These things saith he that hath
the seven spirits of God, and the seven stars I know thy works, that thou is the name that
thou livest and art dead.
And if we look at this passage in Isaiah 11, you know, if you count off all the spirit,
you know, the various descriptions of the spirit there, you basically in verse 2 have
the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of
counsel, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the
Lord.
Seven spirits are mentioned in that scripture.
All of them upon Jesus Christ, all of them embodied by Jesus Christ, he said that he
had the seven spirits of God.
And when you're filled with the spirit, you know, these things are going to be evident
in your life.
Understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, the fear of the Lord, and just the personality
of the Lord himself will be coming through and shining through in your life.
You know, this is what it means to be filled with the spirit.
Go if you would to Luke chapter number 4, Luke chapter number 4.
And while you're turning there, let me remind you of Psalm 51.
We touched on it this morning, but I'm going to give you another aspect of Psalm 51 that
I did not mention this morning.
Psalm 51 is the scripture where David has committed sin with Bathsheba.
He's committed adultery, he's also committed murder, and obviously God is very upset with
him.
God's very displeased.
And David is afraid of God's spirit being removed from him.
Again, not talking about the indwelling of the New Testament, but talking about the power
of the spirit upon him.
He is afraid that the spirit of God is going to be removed from him in the way that it
was removed from his predecessor, Saul.
He didn't want the same thing to happen to him.
And so when he's praying to the Lord and confessing his sins, he says,
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Notice he hadn't lost his salvation, you can't lose your salvation, but he had lost
the joy of his salvation.
And when you live a life of sin, that's not a life of joy.
And the Bible tells us that the fruit of the spirit, while we're talking about the fullness
of the spirit, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, meekness, faith, temperance.
I got those in law order, but I got them all, I believe.
Against such there is no law.
And so we see that he'd lost the joy of his salvation.
And he said, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
So notice David is saying that when God creates in him a clean heart and renews a right spirit
within him, the result of that is that he will teach transgressors God's ways, and sinners
will be converted unto God.
And so the result of being filled with the spirit is soul winning.
Look at Luke 4.18.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me, why?
Because he hath anointed me.
Why has he anointed me?
To preach the gospel to the poor, do you see that?
That tells me that if I'm going to go preach the gospel to the poor, I want to have the
spirit upon me.
I want to be filled with the spirit.
I want to be filled with the Holy Ghost, that I might be effective as I go out to preach
the gospel to the poor, and that tells me that if I'm filled with the spirit, and I'm
not preaching the gospel to the poor, I miss the point of what it is to be filled with
the spirit.
And so part of the purpose of being filled with the spirit is preaching, and here especially,
preaching to the lost, preaching the gospel to the unsaved.
He says to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at
liberty them that are bruised.
But not only that, the Holy Spirit's power is there in order to allow us to do a different
kind of preaching.
Go to Micah chapter 3, minor prophets toward the end of the Old Testament, Micah.
And while you're turning there, I'll read for you another scripture.
Isaiah 58 says this, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.
You say, what does that mean, to preach like a trumpet?
Well trumpet is one of the loudest instruments there is.
You don't need an amplifier, you don't need a microphone.
A trumpet is like the opposite of a guitar.
You know, you play a guitar and it's really quiet.
And a guitar is great if you're in a really small room and there's not a lot of noise.
But man, if we had a guitar playing while our congregation is singing, you can't even
hear it without amplification, without some kind of a microphone, some kind of an amplifier.
You know, whereas a trumpet, a trumpet is very, you have to put a mute in the end of
the trumpet just to quiet that thing down because it's so loud.
And God says to a preacher, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.
He's saying, you should sound like a trumpet when you preach, I mean it should be loud.
Lift up that voice.
You say, why do you yell when you preach?
Why don't you get a bar stool and just sit in it with a cup of coffee and a turtleneck
and share with us?
Because the Bible tells us to preach loud.
And you know, you say, well I just don't like this loud preaching.
Well you wouldn't like Isaiah, you wouldn't like Jesus.
Jesus stood and cried and he preached in the spirit of the Lord.
You see, preaching should be done loudly.
It should not be weak, it should be strong.
It should not be quiet, it should be loud.
The Bible says to lift up the voice like a trumpet.
Ezekiel was told to smite with the hand and stomp with the foot when he preached.
These are not things that are just done for theatrics.
No, it's what God has commanded us to do as preachers.
Why?
Because what we're preaching is important, we ought to be fired up about it.
We ought to care about it and it ought not be delivered in a way that seems like it's
not important or that it's not urgent or that it's a weak message.
No, it's not a weak message.
It's a powerful message, it needs to be delivered in a powerful way.
It is an urgent message, it needs to be delivered with urgency in the voice and so this is why
I preach the way I preach.
But compare that famous scripture.
You probably all heard Isaiah 58.1 before, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like
a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins.
Compare that to Micah 3 verse 8.
But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord.
Where does the power come from in preaching?
It comes from the Spirit of the Lord.
It comes from being filled with the Spirit.
It comes from the Spirit of the Lord upon you.
He says I'm full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgment and of might.
Why?
To declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.
That's exactly what Isaiah 58.1 said.
Show them their transgressions and show them their sins.
That tells me a Spirit-filled preacher.
He's not just going to preach the gospel, he's also going to preach against sin.
When the power of Christ is upon you and the power of the Spirit is upon you, you're not
just going to preach the gospel.
Oh, that's part of it.
That's what happened in the book of Acts in Acts chapter 2.
That's what we see in Luke 4.
That's what we see in Isaiah 61.1.
But we also see Spirit-filled men of God throughout the Bible rebuking sin and a preacher that
is never rebuking sin and never preaching against sin and never showing people their
sins is not a Spirit-filled preacher.
Spirit-filled preacher is preaching a lot of word because the word is in his heart.
A Spirit-filled preacher is preaching the gospel to the unsaved.
He's out soul winning.
And a Spirit-filled preacher is going to show people their sins.
That's what the Bible says.
You say, I don't like this hard preaching on sin, this rebuking of sin.
You know what?
You don't like a Spirit-filled preacher.
And the Bible says in Galatians 1-10, for do I now persuade man or God?
Or do I seek to please men?
For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
You know, a preacher that wants to please man and preach what man wants to hear should
not be the servant of Christ.
That's what the Bible says.
He needs to get another job.
You say, oh, what's wrong?
Look, I'm not saying you're a horrible person, I'm just saying you need to get another job.
Because a person who will not stand up and rebuke sin, and look, show people their sins.
That means you're preaching on sin that pertains to people in the auditorium.
It's pretty easy to preach on sins that you know that nobody's doing and that don't pertain
to anybody that's here.
But you know, when you start getting into the nitty-gritty of sin, and when you start
really hitting the nail on the head and getting specific from the Word of God, and I'm not
talking about teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, but I'm talking about God's laws
and God's Word, and when you bring that home and apply it in 2012, you're going to step
on some toes, guaranteed.
But the Spirit-filled preacher isn't worried about that.
Because the Word of God is just flowing out of him, and he's not stopping to worry about
whether people want to hear this or not.
That's the last thing on your mind when you're filled with the Spirit.
I mean, when you're filled with the Spirit, it's like in Acts 4.31 when the Bible says
when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and it
says that they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the Word of God with
boldness.
Being filled with the Spirit, God's Word is what's on your mind, not the reaction of the
listener.
God's Word is what is front and foremost, and it's all that matters.
You're filled with the Spirit.
You don't have room for anything else to determine what you're going to preach.
But not only that, go to Exodus chapter 31, Exodus chapter number 31.
Exodus 31 talks about a man who is filled with the Spirit.
He's also mentioned later in chapter 35, but this man is named, let me find my place here,
this man is named Bezalel the son of Uri, go to Exodus 31, beginning in verse number
1.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri,
the son of her, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God.
Now that right there is something that we should immediately take notice of.
When the Bible tells us that God has filled this guy with the Spirit, and it says in wisdom,
and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning
works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set
them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.
And I, behold I, have given with him a holy ebb, the son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of
Dan, and in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted, I have put wisdom, that they may make all
that I have commanded thee.
And so the Spirit-filled person does not have to necessarily be a pastor or preacher.
We know that the fullness of the Holy Ghost is something that's commanded for every man,
woman, boy, and girl.
The servants and the handmaidens, men, women, young, old, all are commanded, not suggested,
not, this will be a bonus in your Christian life, but no, we're commanded to be filled
with the Spirit.
It's not optional, this is something that we should, you say, I'm not interested in
the sermon.
You ought to be interested in the sermon because it's something that you're commanded to do.
You need to be filled with the Spirit.
You need to be singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
You need to be meditating upon the Word of God day and night.
You need to be praying and asking God, let me ask you this, when was the last time you
prayed and asked God to fill you with his Spirit?
And if you have not done so, you are remiss because the Bible has told us and commanded
us that we should pray for boldness, that we should ask the Father to give us the Holy
Spirit.
We should pray after David's example that the Holy Spirit's power would not depart from
us, but that we would be filled with the Spirit.
That should be something that we think about and that enters our mind and that is a part
of our life.
Say, well I'm just trying to make it through this week.
Get filled with the Spirit and you'll do better through the week.
Listen to this.
Knowledge, my friend, is what we need today.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Knowledge is what we need.
Knowledge comes through the fullness of the Spirit.
Understanding, you say, man I want to understand the Bible.
The more somebody understands the Bible, that tells me that that person is Spirit-filled.
Person who doesn't understand the Bible and is constantly misunderstanding the Bible,
that person's not filled with the Spirit because the Spirit of understanding is not resting
upon them.
That's why they're struggling to understand the Word.
Wisdom, when people are constantly making foolish decisions and they don't have counsel
of what is right and what is wrong in a certain situation, you know what?
That's going to be corrected by being filled with the Spirit.
When someone is weak, when preaching is weak, when the flesh is weak and a person is constantly
failing, you know what?
They're not filled with the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit will give us the victory.
It will give us power.
It will give us might.
It will give us strength.
It will give us knowledge.
It will give us wisdom.
It will give us cunning.
It will give us craftsmanship.
It will give us the answer to what we need.
And look, even this guy, we don't really see any record of him doing any great preaching,
right?
I mean we don't really see him prophesying.
We don't see him taking up the sword and fighting a great battle.
We see him being used to build important aspects of the tabernacle in the book of Exodus.
And God didn't want any old person to do this because he wanted the tabernacle to be a certain
way.
He made it clear to Moses that the tabernacle was supposed to be built according to the
pattern that was shown unto Moses in the mount.
And so he wanted to make sure that the tabernacle was built according to his exact specifications
because it was supposed to represent the tabernacle in heaven.
And he wanted the things on the earth to look like and to resemble the things in heaven.
And so he chose a man, he filled him with the Spirit, and he said that this man is filled
with knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and with all manner of workmanship.
And so God gives wisdom to the wise.
God gives us cunning.
God gives us strength.
Look, all these things come from the Word of God.
Now let me ask you this.
Do you think that the world, and when I say the world, I'm talking about ASU, I'm talking
about the state university, I'm talking about the junior college, I'm talking about the
public high school, I'm talking about the public elementary school, let me ask you this.
Do you think that they have some vital knowledge that if I don't go to them, I'm going to be
missing some important knowledge that I need to live my life biblically?
I mean, is there some workmanship or is there some knowledge or wisdom or understanding
or cunning that I cannot get from the Word of God, I cannot get from the Spirit of God,
I cannot get from the people of God, I cannot get from the house of God, but rather I have
to go unto the world to get that training?
I don't believe so.
I believe that the Spirit of God can give cunning to my right hand and allow me to build
what needs to be built.
I believe that God's Spirit can teach me science, knowledge, history, understanding, wisdom,
and I believe that my children growing up in a homeschooled environment where they're
being taught by mom and being taught by dad and where the Word of God is the first and
foremost thing that they're taught, yes they're taught math, yes we teach them science, yes
we teach them history, yes we teach them English, yes they do spelling and handwriting, and
I will match up their cunning and their knowledge and their workmanship to anything that the
public school is putting out today.
I'll put my 11 year old next to their 11 year old all day long and let's see who has more
knowledge.
Let's see who's smarter.
Let's see who's wiser.
I'll put my nine year old, I'll put my seven year old up against their nine year old and
seven year old and it'll be like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they'll be found to
be ten times better than what the world can produce because God's Spirit is the source
of knowledge, God's Spirit is where wisdom comes from, God's Spirit is where knowledge
comes from, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding,
and what was the seventh of those seven spirits mentioned in Isaiah 11?
The spirit of the fear of the Lord.
That's the spirit that I want to exist in my house.
That's the spirit that is the cornerstone of their education and the cornerstone of
my education.
Look, we need to understand that knowledge, wisdom, skill, understanding are all things
that God says that He gives.
He said to Daniel that He would give him skill and understanding.
He said, I am come here, O Daniel, to give you skill and understanding.
I can give you knowledge, I can give you wisdom.
And let me ask you this, if you have knowledge, wisdom, skill, understanding, cunning, workmanship,
is that not going to get you through life?
I mean explain to me how you're going to fail to get through your life with all those things.
What is it that school is seeking to give you?
Knowledge, wisdom, skill, understanding, cunning, workmanship.
These are the things that God's spirit gives in greater abundance.
And so that's why I don't feel like my children are shortchanged by being homeschooled.
I believe that they're getting a first rate education.
It's better than a first rate education.
I mean you can't even compare the education that they're getting to what the world gives.
It's a silly comparison.
It's like putting up a junior high basketball team against an NBA team or something and
saying let's compare the two.
Let's see which one is playing better.
It's a whole different league, my friend.
And people today, they're emphasizing the wrong things when it comes to education.
Bible colleges are all emphasizing the wrong things.
Christian schools are often emphasizing the wrong things.
And we need to understand that the fullness of the spirit is the number one thing.
That's what matters.
That's what matters to me as a preacher.
Only one question at the end of the day, you could really boil my whole ministry down to
one question, am I filled with the spirit?
You could really boil your whole Christian life down to are you filled with the spirit
today?
Were you filled with the spirit yesterday?
Will you be filled with the spirit tomorrow?
I mean that answers everything.
The spirit of God is where the power, the knowledge, the wisdom, and all these things
comes from.
And so I ask you, are you filled with the spirit?
To do a self-check.
And you say, I don't know.
I'm probably not as filled with the spirit as I could be.
Well, what are you going to do to correct that?
And here's what I say to do to correct that biblically.
Number one, pray and ask God to fill you with it.
I mean God filled Bezalil with the Holy Spirit.
Pray that he'll fill you with the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your father, who is heaven, give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Doesn't it say that in Luke 11 13?
And so pray that the Holy Spirit would rest upon you.
Pray that you'd be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Secondly, replace the worldly music in your life with singing, not listening, I didn't
say listening to, with singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
And honestly, I'll say this, I do not have a collection of Christian music that I listen
to.
And it's not because I don't like music, because I actually love music.
I really enjoy music.
And I spend a lot of time playing the piano, playing my harmonica, singing songs, and look,
anyone who's in my family right now could testify to you that I go through the house
singing every day.
Is that not true?
Throughout the day, every day, every hour of the day, I sing in my, it might sound silly
or stupid and sometimes maybe some people in my family might think that it's a little
silly, I don't know, if it gets a little overboard, but I am telling you not a day goes by that
I do not sing.
I sing every single day.
And I know I'm not some stellar singer, I'm not some fancy singer, I don't have a great
single voice, but I sing every day, and when I'm driving down the road by myself, I sing
all the time, I'm constantly singing psalms, I'm constantly singing the hymns, I am constantly
every single day singing.
It's something that God wants us to do, he wants the praises of God to be in our mouths.
So number one, I'd pray to be filled with the Spirit.
Number two, I would start singing and shut off the radio, shut off the CD player, shut
off the tape and just sing.
You say, I don't have a good single voice.
You know the more you sing, your voice will improve.
Just like anything else, practice makes perfect.
And so singing needs to be a big part of your life if you want to be filled with the Holy
Spirit because that's what he said.
That's the most famous passage in the entire Bible, the most famous verse about being filled
with the Spirit says, be not drunk with wine, we're in his excess, but be filled with the
Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and singing and
making melody in your heart below.
We've all heard that verse, if you grew up in church or if you've been in church for
a long time, you've heard that verse many times, haven't you?
It's a famous verse.
It's very, very common, very well known.
But is it being put into practice?
Or are we putting in that CD from Nashville instead of singing with our voice that God
gave us?
You say, well I don't like my voice.
Who made the tongue?
God created your voice.
Look, I love to hear my children sing whether they're off-key or on-key.
Don't you think God's the same way?
Our Father in heaven, doesn't he like to hear his children sing?
I guarantee you he gets much more joy out of hearing his children sing off-key, making
mistakes, than he does some paid professional musician who is not even indwelled by the
Holy Spirit, in many cases.
Not even saved.
A lot of unsaved musicians have sung the hymns throughout the years, just because some of
the hymns are popular.
And a lot of musicians have made a lot of money singing Amazing Grace and singing In
the Garden and singing songs like that.
But you know what?
I don't think that's what God is pleased with.
I think God's pleased with his children singing it, maybe not as glamorous, but you know what?
In his ears, I guarantee you it's a better sound.
It's a sweet sound to his ears.
So number one, pray.
Number two, sing the songs.
And number three, last but definitely not least, you get in the Word of God and you
read it and read it and read it and memorize it and memorize it and memorize it and talk
about it and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it when you get up and talk
about it when you go to bed and meditate upon God's Word day and night.
That is the formula for being filled with the Spirit.
It's not a spooky, charismatic, Pentecostal, rolling in the aisle experience as some have
made it out to be.
No, it's work.
It's pray.
It's sing.
It's read.
It's memorize.
It's study.
It's think about it, meditate upon it.
That's what it is.
It's not some kind of a feeling or emotional thing that's going to come over you.
And when you do, you'll notice the difference.
You'll see the difference in your spirit.
You'll see the difference in your soul winning.
You'll see the difference in your preaching.
You'll see the difference in your attitude.
You'll see love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance
begin to manifest themselves in your life.
You'll begin to have wisdom, knowledge, might, counsel, power, fear of the Lord.
These things will all become a part of you.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your Word and we thank you for the indwelling of your
Word.
And Father, we also thank you for the power of the Holy Ghost that you've made available
to us to rest upon us, to fill us.
Father, please help us as a church to be a Spirit-filled church, a church that is filled
with the Holy Ghost.
Help it to be said of Faithful Word Baptist Church, exactly what was said of that early
church in the book of Acts, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
Help that to be our testimony as a church.
They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.
And in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.