What Do You Believe?
Sunday, December 7, 2025
Covington Missionary Baptist Church
Scripture for the Day: 2 Timothy 1:7 AKJV For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2nd Scripture for the day: Habakkuk 2:14 AKJV For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
Sermon: What Do You Believe?
Good morning! Let us lift our hands in praise to the Lord our God! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Do you love your neighbor? Do you love your pastor? Do you love our Lord Jesus Christ with all of your mind, your heart, your strength, and your soul? Holy Spirit you are welcome here today Sir. Rise up in us and shine forth on us. Raise your hands in praise. Can you feel a tingling in your fingers running down your arms. For me, that is the presence of the Holy Spirit in me. He actually emanates from your belly.
Here is a prophetic word from Prophet Robin D. Bullock, whom I follow and like very much. He gave this on October 9, 2025, during his program called The 11th Hour. Although it is addressed to pastors, I believe that it applies to all of us, and so I share it here. Here is the link to the full broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/live/VpE911M_uaw?si=Abfao0C-GMf5Wi8t.
A Message to Pastors:
The greatest weapon that Satan has that he uses on the church is that he believes what the church won’t. For instance, if the church does not believe in the nine gifts of the Spirit, he does. The devil knows it’s true, so he takes what the church won’t believe and starts a religion out of it, and with it he creates a form of godliness, but it denies the power thereof. Once Satan finds out what you won’t believe, then he believes it, and now he’s ahead of you. This fallen, dark being has gotten ahead of you.
On this side of the page, we must believe the full Gospel. We must believe the extremities of God’s power. In Matthew, Chapter 3, when Jesus was being baptized, the Father declared, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” To be the Son of God declared with power would have to come with a lot of wild looking power: power like stones commanded to be made bread, angels given charge over Him to bear Him up, lest He even dash His foot against a stone, all the kingdoms of the world being under His dominion. Wild beasts wouldn’t hurt Him. Wild power, authority that would look ridiculous to the average person. The enemy needed to do what he had done with every religious leader of Jesus’ day. He had to find something about his position that Jesus wouldn’t believe, so he could set up a false religion about the Masiah. Remember, the enemy will believe what you won’t. So let’s believe the power of the Holy Ghost and say on this side of the page—like Jesus said in Saint John, Chapter 14, verse 30: “Hereafter, I will not talk much with you for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.” The Amplified says, “No power over me, nor anything that he can use against me.” Let’s believe it all. Shalom and Shalom.
My question to all of you is: What exactly do you believe when it comes to the scriptures? When someone asked Franklin Graham whether he believed in the Bible he said, “Yes, every word of it.” I join him in that belief. We must believe that the Bible is the anointed Word of God….It’s very simple: 1. The Bible is the anointed Word of God. 2. The Bible is the Word. 3. Jesus is the Word made flesh. 4. All that we know about God, we know from the Bible. 5. When we gave our lives to Jesus, we were anointed with the Holy Ghost. As is written in
1 John 2:27 AKJV
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
The Holy Spirit is your teacher by virtue of your having been anointed by him when you gave your life to Jesus. I know this to be true, having witnessed it many times, even in the preparation of this sermon.
Hallelujah! Let’s praise the Lord and give Him all praise honor and glory for the amazing God that He is. Let us begin our Sunday with a look at the first of the 37 miracles that Jesus performed, this one at Cana of Galilee. Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, I am going to go through each miracle to understand what Jesus is trying to teach us. It might take me a while, if I preach one Sunday a month, and I am ever so grateful that you all are along for the journey. I know that whatever I uncover on this side of Heaven only scratches the surface of what I will come to know in eternity.
John 2:1-11 AKJV
2 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: 2 and both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. 5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. 6 And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. 7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. 9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, 10 and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. 11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.
“And the third day”…does not this wedding foreshadow the marriage supper to which all of us who are born-again, spirit filled Christians will be invited? Our Father in Heaven is showing us here at the beginning what will be in the end. Recall this scripture:
Ecclesiastes 3:15 NKJV
That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been; And God requires an account of what is past.
We who are alive now are closer than mankind has ever been to the marriage supper. Are you ready? Have you given your life to our Lord Jesus? If not, I’ll do an altar call at the conclusion of the service, and you can do so then. Just because you have sat in church all your life, does not mean you are saved. You have to believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, only then will you be saved. See Romans 10:9-10. AKJV.
In thinking about Cana of Galilee where this marriage supper takes place, I am struck by what “Cana” means. The Greek definition is “reed.”[1] Reeds generally are hollow, and you can blow through them. You can use them to fill….This brings to my poetic mind the image of God filling man with His breath, known in Hebrew as Ruach, literally the breath of God. The word Galilee in Greek means “ring” or “circle”[2] and so you have the image of a smaller circle within a larger one—looking at the reed within the circle—recalling man literally within God—as we were before the dawn of time—and this miracle of turning water into wine foretells the purification of man through Jesus’ blood. Water within the stone pots—here we go with another circular container—most definitely can symbolize man before the sanctification and redemption by Jesus shedding His blood for us at the cross. The number six is significant here, six being the number of man.
Jesus’ mother Mary in this scripture not only tells us to pay attention to this miracle here at Cana, but to all subsequent miracles whenever and wherever they occur. In that sense, she is a herald for all the miracles to come.[3] By Jesus asking this simple question, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” He is actually subtly imploring us to pay attention. To use a grammatical analogy, His rebuke is not only a comma, but an exclamation point! Hallelujah! After all, who rebukes his own mother? Certainly not the spotless, sinless lamb of God.
Moving along, let us consider the command “Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.” The drawing out is the day of judgment wherewith we all must be called to account for our lives, and only those who have given their lives to Jesus, who have been purified by the blood of Jesus, will be considered good. The governor is our Father in Heaven, the ultimate judge. Hallelujah!
Now we come to the servants who play a key role in this feast. They are the heavenly host, even guardian angels, who bring the stone pots now containing the wine to the ruler of the feast. We are told: “When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;)” this would make sense, because the Father, after we are saved cannot see our sin. He has no memory of it, but the heavenly host, especially our guardian angels, see everything from the moment of our birth to the moment of our death.
Continuing on, consider the sentence, “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse[.]” Our Heavenly Father is telling us here what is the fate of all those who are not saved. We begin life as a child, uncorrupted by the sins of the flesh, but ultimately that corruption sours us as it is the nature of the sin in our lives to compound. Not so with those who give their lives to Christ. Our spirit man is purified and becomes exactly like that of Christ. After all, in 2 Corinthians 5:17 AKJV, we are told,
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
The challenge for us during our lifetime is to bring our soul and our body in conformity with our spirit man. None of us is perfect and we know there was only one perfect man. Every man is composed of three things: a spirit, a soul and a body. Our soul is where corruption enters in if we give Satan an entry point.
The marriage supper at Cana is the first of Jesus miracles. The 37 miracles comprise four different types: miracles of nature, miracles of healing, miracles of exorcism and miracles whereby the dead are raised.[4] I put this first miracle in the first category: changing one substance into another. I know from many of Robin Bullock’s sermons that the miracles Jesus performs grow more and more complex during the course of his life.
This sermon began as a post for this Tuesday’s prayer group. As I began to analyze John 2:1-11, I could not contain my enthusiasm. It might have been the hot chocolate I drank after dinner, but I couldn’t sleep. I hope what I have written here resonates with you. I think that what I have uncovered here is one of what Robin Bullock calls “mysteries hidden in God.” When I originally contemplated writing about this miracle, I saw it as a daunting task. I prayed in the Holy Spirit (tongues) for Jesus to show me revelations through the power of the Holy Spirit, and He surely did. Those of you who remain skeptical about praying in tongues, look at what the Holy Spirit has revealed here. I am truly amazed and ever so thankful to Him. Initially, I saw some clues in the Reformation Study Bible that I have cited below, but suddenly these scriptures just spoke to me. I couldn’t write fast enough. I am sure there is more here, I just don’t have the time to discern it now. More than ever, I understand what is meant by the scripture 1 John 2:27 AKJV,
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
If you would like to come to the altar and give your life to Jesus, now is the time. Simply repeat this verse with me:
Romans 10:9-10 AKJV
9 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
And now let us say this simple prayer: Lord Jesus, come into my heart and cleanse me of all unrighteousness. Live in me. I give you my life. Take my life and do something wonderful with it to further your kingdom.
Now go forth and let the light of the Lord shine through you. Remember the anointing that Jesus gave you through the Holy Spirit is on you now and you can transfer it to through your every word, deed and action. You can pick up a glass at the restaurant where you are going to eat this afternoon and anoint it in the name of Jesus Christ. The anointing will stay there—no matter if the glass is washed 1000 times.
Thank you all.
[1] Bible Gateway
[2] Ibid
[3] The Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible, p. 1512
[4] Ibid p. 1513
The Prodigal Son
Sunday, November 16th, 2025
Covington Missionary Baptist Church
Scripture thought for the day: 2 Corinthians 5:7 (for we walk by faith, not by sight:) AKJV
Additional scripture: Psalm 37:4Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. AKJV
First, a little story. When we lived in Summit, we had a maid (That’s what they called a woman who worked as a housekeeper back then.) named Sadie Carter. After she died, I learned that she was from Troy, North Carolina, and at least in later years she attended Troy Missionary Baptist Church. She’s buried here in Troy, and if time permits, I hope to visit her grave. She was a lovely woman, filled with love for Jesus, and she had a deep love for all of us four children in the Bristol family. She never complained, and to my knowledge, she never missed a day due to illness. As a small boy, I distinctly remember her singing softly, “Je-sus, Je-sus, Je—sus” often while she worked. I needed a lot of care and attention when I was growing up, including multiple weekly visits to physical therapists and doctors some as far away as New York. Sadie took care of me as if I was her own—often accompanying me to the physical therapist. She was a true gem of a person. I cannot wait to meet her in Heaven. Sadie’s memory and my love and respect for her has led me here to Covington Missionary Baptist Church.
Pastor Hewett and I have been talking on the phone for a number of years. I liked him from the first conversation. Yours is a small church, but a faithful one, and that’s what counts. As is my custom, I’ll ask any in the congregation if you want to come forward and give your lives to Christ. In my experience, far too few churches give altar calls anymore, which make no sense to me. After all, everything begins and ends with Christ. Wouldn’t you agree? Recall this scripture:
Matthew 10:32 AKJV
Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
On a profound, yet simple level, isn’t this what Sadie was doing every day when she would softly sing “Je-sus, Je-sus, Je—sus” while she was working? On any given day, she could be ironing, dusting or making lunch for me to take to school. (Remember I was 5 years old.) I can show you the cut on the side of my right index finger I received when I tried to peel an apple. All the while, she was confessing His name before me and ensuring that Jesus would confess hers before His Father in heaven. I also like to think she was sowing a seed within me, one which would later sprout to the benefit of so very many whose names I don’t even know yet. Hallelujah!
“Before I get too far along, let me invite the Holy Spirit to be here with us. Holy Spirit rise up in me. Come out on me. Let me be a witness to Your glory. Holy Spirit you are welcome here today, Sir. Praise the Lord!”
Are you a Prodigal Son?
I don’t know about you, but my answer to that question would be a resounding yes. I would have to admit my guilt. Caught red-handed. Guilty as charged. No use hiding my catalogue before God. I’d rather not go through the Ten Commandments. I’ve broken every one, except maybe murder, unless you count horseshoe crabs and earthworms. My God knows me. He watched in horror as I committed every sin. Every single one. My guardian angels probably had to turn their faces and cover their eyes innumerable times. To be sure, I am not proud of my blemished record. Only by Jesus’ grace given to me at the cross am I even able to stand before you and preach. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the Word says, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (AKJV) Can I get an Amen and a thank you Jesus on that?
Shall we explore The Parable of the Prodigal Son? Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke 15:11-32 wherein you might see yourself as one of the two sons. I most definitely find myself in the person of the younger son, the one who wasted his inheritance on riotous living. (Ask me what I was doing in Colombia, South America.) It’s only by the grace of God that I have anything now upon which to live. Thank you Jesus!
11 And he said, A certain man had two sons: 12 and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. 13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. 14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. 15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. 17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 19 and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. 20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: 23 and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: 24 for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.
25 Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 28 And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. 29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: 30 but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
Here Jesus tells us about “a certain man.” Those words always connote a specific historical reference. Most people assume that this reference refers to God the Father. I am no different. From there, I see the younger son as the current church, the Body of Christ in this day and age. Look at how we have squandered the gifts we were given! There have been at least six revivals in the 20th Century; one of the last in the 1970s happened when I was younger. It touched me when I was 13 or 14. I remember a former sailing instructor named Trip who was caught up in that revival. The young girls followed him around, which made me quite jealous at the time. Looking back on him, you might say that he was a Jesus Freak. Now, I am one! I also remember a young man who approached me in a country clothing store Saniterian’s in Bucks County, Pennsylvania to tell me about Jesus. An imposing white concrete structure, it was the only local place to buy blue jeans and corduroys. Confused for a minute, I thought he was a friend of my next-door neighbor, Roger. I so remember his eyes. It’s like he knew me, and I knew him. I now realize that the Holy Spirit was in him and he had the anointing from Jesus. I know, because I have that same anointing. I suspect that many of you have it also; although, you may not have known it until today. See 1 John 2:27: But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. (AKJV) You can transfer this anointing permanently to any surface you touch. It’s in your speech, in your emails, in your phone conversations. Can I get an Amen on that? Your touch can work in an unbeliever’s heart. Wow! That’s power directly from the Lord himself. Prophet Kat Kerr taught me about the anointing. Back to the Prodigal Son.
Can’t you just see the younger son squandering the wealth he was given? He fell right into Satan’s trap, as I myself did. As the Bible reminds us in 1 Timothy 6:10 AKJV:
…the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Armed with his inheritance, the younger son abandoned his father, his brother, his family, thought only of himself and his pursuit of pleasure as he delved into reckless and loose living. His older brother didn’t mince words when he said, “he devoured your estate with immoral women.” In polite conversation, my late father used to call them, “ladies of the evening.” Not that either one of us ever visited with one; although I did have lunch with one without knowing what her profession was when I was in Colombia, South America. She kept saying, I have all afternoon. “Great, I thought, but I only invited you for lunch.”
Look at what the modern churches have done! They have abandoned the Holy Spirit, forced Him out and in a sense journeyed into a distant country, distant from the Father, almost like Hell, but not quite, as we still can repent and receive forgiveness. Meanwhile, the elder son who I think represents the Jews has continued to abide by the father’s teachings. Just like the Jews whom The LORD refers to in Exodus 32:9 as “a stiffnecked people.” (AKJV), the elder brother “was angry [with deep-seated wrath and resolved not to go in. Can you say stubborn? His father had to come out and to “plead with him.” Here we are in the last days and the Jews in Isreal have yet to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
The essential lesson of the Prodigal Son is one of God’s mercy, of God’s forgiveness. We see the father as overjoyed that the son whom he thought was dead has returned. The son is repentant, and his father forgives him. When we gave our lives to Christ did not we repent of our sins and ask forgiveness of our Lord and Savior? Are we not told that the angels rejoice in heaven over the saving of one soul? Luke 15:10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. (AKJV)
As I am an evangelical minister of the gospel, I would like to ask those of you who are not yet saved to come forward and give your lives to Christ. Before I do, let’s do something. Turn to you neighbor on the left and tell him or her that you love him or her. Do the same thing on the right. Now speak to the person behind you and tell that person that you love him or her. Last, but not least, lean forward and tell that person that you love him or her. Since we have all just told each other that we love one another, none of you should have any fear about coming forward. If you do, you fear your neighbors’ judgement more than you fear Hell. Imagine that. Does that make any sense? Remember, “If the living knew what the dead know, every person on earth would be a follower of Jesus Christ.” I wish I could tell you who taught me that, but I don’t remember. The pastor who led me to Christ has a more memorable way of saying it, “When you die, you either fly or you fry.”
If you have not given your life to Christ, today is the day and now is the time. How much time have you got? In the words of Johnathan Cahn a messianic jew, “One heartbeat.” If your heart should fail in the next minute or even later today, you’re lost, not just lost, but eternally lost. So come forward. If you don’t want to come forward, then stay in your seat and repeat this scripture with me: Romans 10:9-10: that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (NKJV) If you’re not sure if you’re saved, then you haven’t given your life to Christ. If you want to be sure, then you come forward and give your life to Christ. If you’re worried about what other people will think if you come forward, then either you or the people who are watching you are concerned about the wrong things. Perhaps both! Once you’ve said that scripture, then say this simple prayer with me: “Lord Jesus! Come into my heart. Cleanse me of all unrighteousness. I repent of my sins. I make you the Lord of my life. Take my life and do something wonderful with it.” If you said that prayer and you meant it, then congratulations, you are a born-again-spirit filled believer in Christ. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! The Holy Spirit has led you to Christ and now the Holy Spirit lives within you. The Holy Spirit, the Man of Fire, lives within you.
Before we close, let’s do one more thing. Why don’t you recognize the Holy Spirit who came to live inside you when you gave your life to Christ? The Holy Spirit is literally the Spirit of God. The fact that He doesn’t have a voice, is because you haven’t yielded to him to give Him one. His language is that of tongues. Maybe you have relatives who can speak and pray in tongues. Maybe not. I’ll give you an example: (Pray in tongues.)
Repeat this prayer: “Lord Jesus I love you and I want to pray in the Spirit with the evidence of praying in tongues as the Spirit so moves me.” Now just open your mouth and move your tongue as you feel the Spirit rising up within you. Each of you will sound different. There is no right or wrong. Hallelujah! That’s it!
Let me leave you with this scripture:
1 Peter 3:18 AKJV
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit[.]
If you don’t yet know Him, if you haven’t given your life to Christ, I invite you to come forward. If your still nervous, see me after the service.
Thank you profoundly for this opportunity to share the gospel with you. I feel like Sadie would be pleased that her little boy has finally come home.
May God richly bless you all!
Who is the Holy Spirit?
Good morning again! I greet you in the name of our risen Savior Jesus Christ. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be found pleasing in your sight, Oh Lord! How are we all today? Ready for something different? Before we do anything else, turn to your neighbor on the left and on the right and tell him or her that you love them. Turn behind you and greet him or her. Now, lean forward and do the same. Now that we’ve all established that we love each other, you should feel at ease in front of your friends.
I am an evangelist minister. I lead people to Christ. Leading people to Christ is my passion. Many will sit in church pews all their lives thinking that church attendance and service is the way to heaven. Sadly, they are mistaken. We are warned in the Word in Ephesians 2:8-10 that it’s not by works that we are saved, but by grace: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (AKJV) As the pastor who led me to Christ, Bill Bakkeby, put it: “We do good works not to be saved; we do good works because we are saved.” There is only one way to heaven and that way is through Jesus Christ. John 14:6 declares: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (AKJV) That’s on my business card, if you have a copy. I think of it as a starting point for a conversation about Christ.
Let’s do an altar call first thing. Most churches don’t do this. It’s essential. How can you go into all the world and preach the gospel, fulfilling The Great Commission, if you are not saved? If you have not given your life to Christ, today is the day and now is the time. How much time have you got? In the words of Johnathan Cahn, “one heartbeat.” If your heart should fail in the next minute or even later today, you’re lost, not just lost, but eternally lost. So come forward. If you don’t want to come forward, then stay in your seat and repeat this scripture with me: Romans 10:9-10: that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (NKJV) If you’re not sure if you’re saved, then you haven’t given your life to Christ. If you want to be sure, then you come forward and give your life to Christ. If you’re worried about what other people will think if you come forward, then either you or the people who are watching you are concerned about the wrong things. Perhaps both! Once you’ve said that scripture, then say this simple prayer with me: “Lord Jesus! Come into my heart. Cleanse me of all unrighteousness. I repent of my sins. I make you the Lord of my life. Take my life and do something wonderful with it.” If you said that prayer and you meant it, then congratulations, you are a born-again, spirit-filled believer in Christ.Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! The Holy Spirit has led you to Christ and now the Holy Spirit lives within you. The Holy Spirit, the Man of Fire, lives within you.
Now, let’s learn about the Holy Spirit. Most people sitting in churches today repeat the Apostles’ Creed and give little or no thought to who the Holy Spirit is. The devil likes it that way. I would say he loves it, but there is no love in the devil. The Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is a part of the trinity, a manifestation of God. He’s a person, but He is not a separate from God. The Holy Spirit is where the power is. A church without the presence of the Holy Spirit is a dead church. Dead. Dead. Dead. You can have everything a modern church has: a pastor, a congregation, a food pantry, a children’s program, a beautiful choir, even ministerial outreach, and your church is destined to fail without the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Ruach Hakodesh. Literally, the “Breath” of “The Holy One.” The Spirit of God.
At this point, I want to make something clear to you. I don’t care if you agree with what I preach. It’s not a popularity contest. For most modern churches, the Holy Spirit is uncharted territory. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I am not here to make you happy, I am here to bring you the Word of the Lord to the best of my ability. If I make you nervous, that’s good. I want you to think about your salvation, where you will spend eternity. I may never get another chance. Heaven or Hell, you choose. As the pastor who ordained me, Macolm Batts, says, “When you die, you either fly or you fry.” Makes the point rather succinctly, don’t you think? Perhaps another way to say it is this: “If the living knew what the dead know, every person on earth would be a disciple of Jesus Christ.” Think about that. If you have made Jesus the Lord of your life, you have nothing to worry about. If you haven’t, today is the day.
The first time the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Bible is in the scriptures is Genesis 1.2:
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (AKJV) Here we see the Holy Spirit as the one who gives life. Literally, in Hebrew the Holy Spirit is hovering or brooding like bird, one author suggests an eagle1 over these waters. We understand not only the act of creation here, but also of caring for and nurturing, much like a mother. Speaking of mothers, Happy Mother’s Day!
Here is another way of looking at the Trinity: The Father is the father, the one who spoke the world and all that we know into existence, thereby giving voice to the Word, The Son, the Lord Jesus is the Manifester (the seed), the Word Made Flesh. The Holy Spirit then is the power, the Spirit of God who gave rise to it all, the Mother figure. We can look at the words in Genesis 1:2 as a time of incubation. Thank you for this insight, Prophet Robin Bullock and others.
Pentecost is a just 28 days from today, so let’s look at Acts 2:1-21:
And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilæans?And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judæa, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:for these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. 16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: and I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (AKJV)
The question I have for you is this: would you be ready if the Holy Ghost descended upon you? For some of you here today, he already has. You can speak and pray in tongues. Would you welcome Him or be frightened? Are we not living in the last days? Have we not seen blood moons? I have dreamt dreams, powerful dreams that I know come from God, and heard sons and daughters prophesy. I have even heard one prophet in Trinidad prophecy over my life.
Let’s look at Acts 19: 2-7, wherein through Paul 12 disciples in Ephesus receive the Holy Ghost:
[H]e [Paul] said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve. (AKJV)
Note that they received the baptism of repentance through John, but though Paul, after he explained to them the baptism of our Lord and Savior, they were baptized and gave their lives to Jesus Christ. All that was necessary for the Holy Ghost to come upon them was for Paul to lay his hands upon them, once they had given their lives to Christ. This is because the Holy Spirit lives within each and every believer in Jesus Christ. Paul laid hands on them and conferred upon them the power of the Holy Ghost just as he had seen Jesus lay hands upon those He healed. There is certainly plenty of evidence of Jesus laying on hands in the Bible and conferring power in the form of healing unto those to whom He ministered.
For those of you who are ready to receive the Holy Spirit, all you have to do is yield. I cannot teach you the Holy Spirit, but I can lead you. I’ll pray in tongues, and you just give voice to the sounds that rise up out of your belly. (Praying in tongues.) Don’t be afraid. You’ll get better at it as you practice. Adam and God spoke in tongues until Adam sinned and fell from grace. The beauty of this language is that the devil cannot understand a word that you are saying, so your prayers go directly to God. They literally search the mind of Christ for the answer to any problem. You can also pray in tongues and read scripture and anything else and understand every single word. This is because the Holy Spirit is authoring the sounds and not your conscious mind. When you pray in tongues, you build yourself up in your most holy faith as it says in Jude 1:20: But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost[.] (AKJV) Scripture assures us in 1 Corinthians 14:4 that He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. We can discuss this in depth at another time. (AKJV)
The late great evangelist T. L. Osborne, by way of one of his many sermons, taught me this quotation: “Christianity without miracles is just a philosophy.” How true! Isn’t that’s what’s missing in most of our churches today? When is the last time you saw a miracle at Larison’s Corner? I know one: my friend Zena . She was diagnosed with abnormal cells and when she was operated on, they were tested and found to be benign. Want to hear of another one? This one I saw with my own eyes. About a month ago, I went to Trinidad to take part in a crusade. I had never been on one, and Pastor Matthew, who was here last week, was eager for me to go with him. I scrambled to get my expired passport renewed—that in itself might qualify for a miracle—and I went. I think it was the second night that we were there that a man named Winston came forward to get baptized. I believe he was also led to Christ at that time. Our baptismal pool was actually a cut-off black water tank about 4 feet high common in Trinadad. Entrance and exit are accomplished with stepladders, one in the tank and one outside the tank. Winston climbed in “drunker than a boiled owl” as they say in Alabama. Matthew warned the guys who were doing the dunking—if memory serves, Michael Landry and Kaden Matthews, not to hand him the microphone, which he ultimately got despite the warning. In Winston went—under the water—and when he came out he was a new man—stone cold sober—and he knew it. Freed from the demon of alcoholism he had been. He wasted no time celebrating and began running back and forth in front of the stage, hands raised high above his head praising Jesus. I don’t know how long he did it, but it seemed like an hour, perhaps more. Winston’s sobriety is a miracle, the fact that it took place in an instant. Matthew’s wife Christin, whom you all have met, is another one. When she and Matthew married, the doctors told them that she could not have children; she didn’t have all the equipment. Both She and Matthew prayed, and they prayed, and they prayed. You met their two sons, Eli and Juda. Can you say miracle?
Here is another: My friend R.L. Hewett. R. L. is 92. For many years, he has suffered from G.I. bleeds, and has been in and out of the hospital.. Just before I left, he suffered a massive bleed which almost killed him. The night before I visited him in the hospital, he had been rushed to Novant Hospital in Bolivia with bleeding so serious that the doctors didn’t think they could save him. By 3:00 a.m. that next morning, the doctor who was attending him came out and put her arms around Nancy and said, “I am so sorry,” meaning, “it’s over.” He was bleeding out. “He’s not going to make it.” The nurses didn’t think he’d make it through the night. Long story short: He not only made it, but I have a picture of him sitting up in bed smiling. Thriving. Can you say miracle?
Back to our discussion of the Holy Spirit. Miracles and the Holy Spirit are intertwined. Jesus is the authority, and the Holy Spirit is the power. Jesus did not perform miracles in His ministry until the Holy Spirit had alighted upon Him after He rose up out of the Jordan. Let’s go to Matthew 3:16-17: Thank you, Pastor Kent Christmas for a more complete understanding of the Holy Spirit: And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
From this point forward in the scriptures, the Holy Spirit lives in Jesus. It abides in him.
Before I leave you, let’s talk about your ministry: You don’t have to go far to spread the gospel. On Friday, as you know, I bought a new vacuum for the sanctuary. Your current vacuum spits dust that could be from the Philistine Empire. When the woman came out of Home Depot to deliver it to my truck, I gave her my business card, which she immediately homed in on. I knew because when I gave her a Larison’s Corner business card, she said, “A church not in North Carolina?” I told her the church needed people like her. You do. She’s probably in her 40s and had a tinge of pink in her hair. If she comes, you all welcome her. God loves the speckled and spotted sheep. She has a lovely personality -very kind and she even handed me a PayDay candy bar. Right after my interaction with her, I got gas from the BP station across the street from Larison’s. I met a young Sikh wearing a black turban. Very nice young man who even remembered me from the other day. Recalling that I had about 30 Bible keychains in the back seat of my Red F 150, I gave him two, one for him and one for a friend, telling him that it was the Bible in 1806 languages. I was reasonably sure that it had the Sikh language, but told him that if it didn’t, I would make sure that it did. When I asked him if he knew about Jesus, he proceeded to tell me the story of Jesus on the cross, referring to the piercing of his hands and feet. He said his religion had the same story. (He taught me something I never knew.) I proceeded to tell him it was because that story had been stolen from us, meaning Christians. I told him that I was from the church across the street and that if he had questions, he should contact me. So, Home Depot and the BP gas station may lead to new congregants for Larison’s Corner and someday converts to Christ. This is seed planting. I may not be the one to harvest, but rest assured there can be no harvest without seed planting. If you have Jessus in your heart, and you can talk to people, you can spread the gospel. This is your charge as we shall see in Mark 16:15-18 and Matthew 28:16-20 This latter scripture is known as The Great Commission.
Prophetic Pastor Dutch Sheets goes into great detail in one of his excellent Give Him 15 podcasts about the difference between revival and reformation, noting that it’s not enough for the church or the body of Christ to have just a revival, there must also be a societal reformation. This is why the Jesus Revolution of the 70s failed to change society. There was no reformation of society’s institutions. The devil saw an opening and he wasted no time in reforming society one institution as a time, from education to business to arts and entertainment. We see all around us the fruits of his efforts.
In Mark 16: 15-18, Jesus tells his disciples:
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (AKJV)
Who here needs a miracle? Anyone want to come forward?
We are to go into all the world, not just Ringoes and Flemington, to preach to every creature, human and otherwise. Demons take note: we outrank you. As born-again, spirit-filled believers in Christ, Jesus confers upon us the authority to do four things: Cast out devils, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, and lay hands on the sick, noting that they shall recover. It most certainly does not say here that they might recover, further it does not say that only some of us who are specially called to this task shall heal the sick. As one author put it, Jesus knew that His disciples would be going into foreign countries and places where they faced not only poisonous snakes—think of the Apostle Paul on the Island of Patmos—bitten by a viper, and people who might want to harm them by way of poison. Healing is for everyone. Healing is the children’s bread. as we read in Matthew 15:26. As Richard Roberts teaches, the prayer of faith shall save the sick (James 15:5), meaning make sure of your faith before you lay your hands upon someone to heal them. You must believe that they are healed. Further Richard Robers teaches that Jesus is the one who heals, so if healing doesn’t take place, then that has to do with God and not with us as long as we have reached out in faith. As my great friend Betty Biache put it, “Before you pray, believe.”
In Matthew 28:18-20, we see that Jesus has charged us to reform all nations. Note here that Kenneth Hagin makes an excellent point about how the word ‘power’ in this verse actually refers to authority. You can certainly read it that way.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power [authority] is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (AKJV)
Our mission is clear. First revival and then reformation. What are we doing? Furthering the kingdom of God and preparing His bride without spot or blemish for our eventual wedding.
I hope you have learned something today. No preacher is perfect, and I might have missed something. If so, it was unintentional. I am still young enough in the faith that I can say without embarrassment, “I am new at this.” I always encourage further study, as I was taught, So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans 10:17 NKJV.)
I have a new saying: Jesus First. Let’s all put Jesus first. If you remember nothing else from today’s sermon, remember these two things: “Before you pray, believe” and “Jesus first.”
In the name of our risen savior Jesus Christ, I wish you all a blessed and happy Sunday and Mother’s Day.
1 https://howard-carter.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-holy-spirit-in-creation-and-new.html
Holy Spirit’s Voice
This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24.) Are we glad to be here this morning? Before we start today, let’s invite the Holy Spirit into this house of worship: Holy Spirit Sir, You are welcome here today. Fall afresh on us that we may come away refreshed in the word and with a new understanding of the work Lord Jesus would have us do to further the Kingdom of God.
When we speak about the Holy Spirit, we’re talking about the Spirit of God, literally the Spirit of God, and when we give our lives to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes upon us, and the Holy Spirit—I’m searching for a way to say this—the Holy Spirit touches us when we invite Christ into our hearts, To be clear, it’s the Holy Spirit that has touched us. And once Christ is in our hearts, the Holy Spirit then lives inside us. The fact that the Holy Spirit does not have a voice is not because God didn’t give us the ability to speak in tongues. The fact that the Holy Spirit doesn’t have a voice in us once we receive Christ is solely because we have not yielded to the Holy Spirit. People often make the mistake of saying something like this, “Well, if God wanted me to have the ability to speak in tongues, then He would have given it to me.” Wrong. Rest assured, I myself made a similar mistake in judgement.
When blessed the Holy Spirit blessed me with faith in Christ, the pastor who led me to Christ Bill Bakkeby was after me to speak in tongues, and I didn’t fully understand what he was talking about. I thought that God would actually move my tongue. (He didn’t.) I thought God would move my tongue; I remember driving home one night after visiting the Bakkeby’s, and I was literally in my car at a stoplight in the dark with my mouth open, and much to my chagrin, nothing would happen. (Had anyone seen me, I would have looked like must have looked like a fool to the car next to me.) Then one day I was on the phone with Pastor Bakkeby, and I said to him, “Well, sometimes I speak to my cats, and I say things, and it’s just, nonsense.” Looking back, I’m not sure I used the word nonsense, but words, unintelligible words or silly things. I remember now: (I said, “Sometimes I speak to my cats. and it doesn’t make any sense.”) And so he said to me, “Well, pretend you’re talking to your cats.” And so I just opened my mouth, and I uttered some syllables: [Speaking in Tongues]. They didn’t sound like those, but I’ll give you an example: [Speaking in Tongues]. It was less complex than that, because I had just demonstrated the ability, and with time your syllables become more complex as your vocabulary increases. Pastor Bakkeby said, “Do that again. So I repeated myself: [Speaking in tongues]. Pastor Bakkeby wanted to make sure it wasn’t a one-time phenomenon. I was elated that I could now speak in tongues.
Speaking in tongues is the beginning of your journey into the Christian supernatural—when you yield to the Holy Spirit, you can speak in tongues. It is truly a blessing from God, because Satan can’t understand a word you’re saying when you speak in tongues. It’s called praying in the Spirit. Satan is utterly dumbfounded. He can stand right next to you perplexed and madder than heck. (Isn’t that a great place for Satan to be.) When you start speaking in tongues, Satan has no idea what you’ve just said, nor does he have any idea what the Almighty replied to you, Now, you’re going to say to me, “Great Sandy, I don’t have any idea what I just said either.” That may be true; however, you can interpret your own tongues, but that’s a lesson for another sermon, another time. The first time I tried to interpret my own tongues using a method taught by Richard Roberts, Oral Roberts’ son, I came up with “Hello God or God Hello.” Looking back on that momentous occasion, I believe I was just greeting God or He was just greeting me. That was years ago, and I have been so busy for the kingdom, I haven’t pursed self-interpretation. The important take-away is to understand that when you speak in tongues, you are in direct communication with God the Father. The Holy Spirit literally searches the mind of Christ. I’m almost quoting Prophet Robin D. Bullock as opposed to his wife, Pastor Robin R. Bullock, but I’m quoting in saying that the Holy Spirit searches the mind of Christ for the answer to your prayers. Imagine for a moment what is in the mind of Christ. Are we talking about the knowledge of a trillion supercomputers? More! After all, He created the world, all life, whether plant or animal, us and everything that surrounds us. Not only that, but every law that governs the operation of the whole kit and kaboodle.
Sometimes when you pray in the Spirit as it is known, you are just lifting praise to the Lord. Other times when you speak in tongues, you may be praying for someone in Afghanistan or Sri Lanka, or maybe your next-door neighbor or somebody who just had a car accident on a highway that you’re unfamiliar with a few states away from you. Your prayers—you are aligning your prayers with the wishes of God, trusting him with your prayers. And that’s a beautiful precept to grasp. Praying in tongues is true intimacy with God. You are in his mind, and He is in yours.
To more fully understand this idea, we must understand that we’re co-laborers with God on this earth. So, when people say things like “God is in control,” well that’s true. God is in control, but God is in control in heaven: He’s the pilot up there, we’re the co-pilot up there. (Think of the cockpit of an airplane.) While we’re here on the earth, during this time, we are the pilots and God is the co-pilot. In the Words of prophet Robin Bullock, “God is in control where God is put in control.” He’s the one who taught me the pilot-copilot analogy. I ask you to make that last statement a revelatory part of your understanding, so whenever you hear somebody say, “Well, God is in control,” make sure that you make them understand that “God is in control where God is put in control.” If we say, “God is in control,” that means every single thing that happens on this earth is ultimately His responsibility. Well, that conflicts 100% with the idea that “God Is Absolutely Good.” (Also a quotation from Robin D Bullock.) He wrote a book by that same title based upon a revelation that God imparted to him. For scriptural authority, let’s go to the first book of Genesis. You can read it for yourself, but let’s sum it up in the Words of the Almighty himself: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” Genesis 1:31 AKJV) God who is absolutely good made everything and all of what He made was good.
I must introduce some of you to the radical idea that there must be no doubt in your mind that God is absolutely good. We can all agree that Satan is the father of lies, and Satan is absolutely evil. See John 8:44 in the AKJV: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” Well, the converse of that verse is Robin’s statement “God is absolutely good.” And that means that there is no evil in God. God doesn’t say, “You know what, I’m going to trip Sandy today, because I think he needs to prove to Me that he can make it through that obstacle. He, God, doesn’t do that; He never does that. What a cruel God He would be if He did; wouldn’t you agree? Imagine if we had a friend, and again I’m loosely basing this on Robin Bullock’s teaching, but what if we had a friend and we were walking with that friend and suddenly for no discernable reason our friend stuck his foot out in front of us so that we would fall and hurt ourselves. Would we walk with him again? No. Trust him, No! We would not; if we walked with him again, we would be on our guard whenever he was around. Well, so keeping that thought in mind, how ludicrous is the idea that God is in control and responsible for everything that happens on the earth? All the bad? What about us? A criminal robs a bank, and you want to blame God? Back to our analogy: You can see Satan or one of his demons tripping you. Remember, Satan is the one that is the father of lies. He’s the author of all mischief, mayhem, malfeasance, and murder on this earth. He’s responsible for every single death on this earth. In a war, pestilence, famine, God does not kill people. People will often say, and again, I’m going to base this on Robin Bullock’s teachings, Let’s say, you have a funeral for someone who died, and then right after that members of that family come to Jesus. Well, you can’t say, “Well, it’s because it’s, you know, God, God took so-and-so in order to lead the rest of the family to Christ.” No, God did not do that. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He was the only one, was, is and forever will be the only one. Your friend was not one of the thieves on the cross. That’s totally wrong. The correct way to look at people coming to Christ after your friend’s death is that his friends and family were devastated by his death, their hearts were open, and they yielded to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit coming into them, and they gave their lives to Christ. They saw what happened to their friend, and they began to worry about their own eternal lives, their own journeys. So, I want to make this clear to you because there’s a lot of misinformation, and you really have to start to look at the Devil for the rascal that he is—capital D only to distinguish him from minor devils or demons—and the mayhem and the mischief that the Devil has caused in this earth. The Forever Loser, as Apostle Tim Sheets calls him, has us thinking backwards. We say things like, if there’s a tornado that takes out a house, we say, “Well, that was an act of God,” “No.” A ferry boat sinks in some port in a faraway land, “The sinking was an act of God!” “No.” Satan’s fingerprints are all over these two acts and billions, perhaps trillions or quadrillions of others. Only Satan and Elohim know the true number. Will there be justice for all these acts of evil? Yes, and this leads me to my next teaching.
Now we must make this distinction between Elohim and Jehovah. Elohim is God the Father. God Supreme. Jehovah is really a manifestation of Christ; He is God in His system of seed, plant and harvest. In other words, if I sow for good, then I’m going to reap good. If I bless people and I bless people, and I bless people. I visit hospitals; I visit the sick; I go to prisons; I send bibles into prisons; I help little old ladies cross the street. My life is totally composed of acts of selflessness, then, I’m sowing for good.
On the other hand, if I sow for evil; if in fact I am so far from The Lord that I don’t even recognize what I am doing, I am sowing for a bad harvest. Here are just a few examples of bad seeds: I mistreat my cat or dog. I’m cheating on my wife, or I’m cheating on my girlfriend, or I’m shacking up—I’ve lived with somebody but I’m not getting married. I haven’t brought the woman under a covenanted relationship with the Lord. Then, There is no marriage covenant blessed by God. When I go to raise a family with her, I’ll find out I have problems. (If I can even raise a family.) Perhaps I suddenly get into a car accident or a string of car accidents. Perhaps, I find I can’t keep a job. I mean, there are all these different ways people screw up. (Have you ever met someone whose life is just one calamity after another?) See, I’ve sown evil into my life. I’ve sown bad seed into the earth. So when that comes up, then it’s going to be harvested. Jehovah is the LORD L-O-R-D of harvest. Because of this, Satan has a perfect legal right. to come into my life and make things worse for me. This is a concept people don’t understand and they need to understand it.They need to understand this scripture and to live by it: Galatians 6:7-8: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
People are always, well I shouldn’t say always, and that’s another we precept have to worry about, be very careful when you use absolute words like always and never. Make sure you use them in the right context. If you say something like, “Things never work out for me,” then guess what? Things are never going to work out for you because you’ve declared to the universe, you’ve declared to the universe that you don’t have any luck, or God’s not in your life. Satan takes notes and he uses your own words against you in the Court of Heaven. God doesn’t sit there and say, “You know what? I want to make things hard for Sandy. I really want to make it tough on him, because he’s a slacker. He doesn’t say that. Sandy makes things tough on Sandy because he doesn’t follow God’s Ten Commandments, and he doesn’t sow blessings. He sows the opposite; He sows misery and grief, and he reaps a harvest of misery, grief and sometimes premature death, a harvest of evil. I’m just giving you a hypothetical example, but one that’s very important for us all to understand.
I hope this sermon has blessed you, and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me now or later on. My calling is as an evangelistic pastor, and I delight in leading people to Christ. I have met people who say who are lost because they don’t know Christ, but on top of that, they have no idea how to be saved. They think that just attending church will gain them a place in Heaven. If you are in this crowd, I’m going to help you understand what your responsibilities are. So, if you turn in your Bibles to Mark 16:15-18 These are the words of Jesus: ”…[H]e said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (AKJV)
These are the Master’s own words, Jesus’ own words, so let us take them to heart. So that’s Mark 16:15 through 18, if you’re taking notes. Then just to follow it up: “So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God.” Mark 16:19. Those were the last words he spoke to His disciples. He charged them to go and make disciples. “And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.” (Mark 16:20)
We, my bothers and sisters in Christ, have work to do for the kingdom. So you’ll say to me, “That’s wonderful, but what do I do? What do I say? How do I do that?” Well then, of course, we move to Romans 10, 9 and 10. And here is the prescription, and what I recommend is read this yourself and make sure you understand it. You might want to read it in the English Standard version or a simpler wording just to imprint it in your mind. But I’ll read from the Authorized King James version. Romans 10:9-10: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10For with the heart, thou shalt be saved. man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Now what I usually do if I meet somebody in the street and I’m not sure of their ability with the English language I’ll read definitely from a simpler version of this scripture. Basically you have to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and that He— that is that the Father—rather raised Him from the dead that we might have eternal life. Now notice I said might and it’s not an absolute guarantee. If you say these words and you don’t believe them in your heart, then it’s a false confession. You must believe them in your heart, and let Christ come into your heart. You believe unto righteousness, as it says, and you confess out loud unto salvation. After the person has said this, what’s known as the sinner’s prayer, then I will ask them to pray a prayer. To me the prayer consecrates this act completely and I usually will say a prayer or something that says words along these lines. “Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Cleanse me of all unrighteousness. Lead me on the straight and narrow path that leads to you, to salvation. Lord Jesus, Forgive me of my sins. I repent of my sins. Wash me clean of them. Pour out your precious lamb’s blood over me that I might be a holy and living sacrifice to your glory. Thank you. From this day forward, I give you my life. Take my life and do something with it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” Thank you. So once I have done that, now I think it’s important to add this prayer when you’re talking with someone whom you are leading to Christ, a prospective believer.
Now that they’ve given their life to Christ, Christ’s going to come into their heart, but they might say, “Well, what does He expect of me?” People often express a thought similar to this, “The 10 Commandments, they’re so hard; who can keep them all? I just can’t do it.” Well, as with any endeavor in which you want to succeed, you have to say that you can do it. You have to believe you can do it. A beautiful way of living your life is to take the word of Matthew 22:37-46 to heart. Consecrate them: “Jesus said unto them, again, the words of the master: “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart. And with all thy soul and with all thy mind, this is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself on these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets.”(AKJV) And this was in response to a question posed by one of the Pharisees. He was a lawyer, and he asked the question—the Bible infers he was tempting Jesus—so we know Satan was involved. “Master, which is the great commandment of the law?” He was expecting a recitation, and he got one. Thank you. As we ourselves live our lives, it’s much easier to follow the Ten Commandments if we keep these two commandments, I call them Jesus Two Commandments in our hearts. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self. Think of it. Think of it. This precept of the first two commandments obviating the others is something I learned from Pastor Bakkeby: If we love our neighbor as ourself, then we wouldn’t commit adultery and steal our neighbor’s wife, right? If we keep that commandment in mind—we love our neighbor as ourself—we don’t have to remember thou shalt not commit adultery because it’s covered by this commandment. And in addition it’s covered by the first commandment. If you love the Lord your God, and God is absolutely good, you’re not going to break any of the commandments because you don’t want to displease the Lord.
I hope this sermon has helped you to clarify things in your own mind as to just a little bit of what the Lord expects. If you have any questions, I’d certainly be glad to answer them, or if you want to talk further about what I’ve discussed here, I’m happy to do so by phone or by email. I want to wish you all a blessed day. Let us keep the Holy Spirit in our hearts and let us give Him a voice. Let us walk humbly with our God the Father and always have respect for our Lord Jesus Christ, for our neighbors and let us keep the Father in our hearts. In Jesus name, go in peace. Amen.
Scriptural Citations in this lesson:
Psalm 118:24
Genesis 1:31
John 8:44
Galatians 6:7-8
Mark 16:15-20
Romans 10:9-10
Matthew 22:37-46
Originally given November 17, 2024 at Servants’ Tabernacle Ministries from notes preached July 31, 2024.
Dry Bones
Sermon Sunday May 26, 2024
Servants’ Tabernacle Ministries
We’re not going to close Servant’s Tabernacle Ministries, are we? Let’s consign that thought to the ask heap of history to paraphrase Ronald Reagan.
Who can tell me Jesus’ first two commandments? As he says in Matthew 22:37-39:
37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Now I want you to turn to the person on your right and say, “I love you.” Turn to the person on your left and say “I love you.” Turn to the person behind you and say, “I love you.” Tell the person in front of you that you love them. Now that we’ve all established that we, as the body of Christ, love each other as we are commanded to do, no one should have any hesitation about coming forward and giving their life to Christ. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed, because we have all declared that we love each other. We are Christian brothers and sisters. We are a family.
Is there anyone who would like to come forward?
I want to give you some spiritual precepts which you may not have heard. The first one is “God is Absolutely Good.” This revelation comes from Robin D. Bullock who is a spiritual mentor of mine. Think about God. How do you look at Him? Does He scare you? Do you believe that God kills people? No, He doesn’t. That’s Satan’s job. John 10:10 says, 10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. We must get it through our heads as the body of Christ that God is Absolutely Good. He doesn’t have an evil thought toward us. There is no evil in God. He in the very opposite of Satan. Satan is pure evil. In Proverbs 9:10 the verse reads:
10The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. This being an Old Testament scripture, we have conjured up the image of a terrible, , vengeful, wrathful God, the one who wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah. We must understand here that the word fear is translated more appropriately as the Greek translation renders it, fear meaning respect. That makes all the difference, doesn’t it?
Please turn in your Bibles to Ezekiel 37:1-14. Let’s read that, shall we? 1The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, 2 and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. 3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. 4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: 6 and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. 8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. 9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. 11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our
parts. 12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, 14 and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
Ezekiel 37 IS THE DEFINING SCRIPTURE OF MY LIFE. DO YOU HAVE ONE?
The LORD here is spelled capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Whenever you see this all-capital spelling, it’s referring to God in his system of seed, plant and harvest. This is the immutable law that governs the operation of everything in the Universe. We see the same all-capital spelling in the Book of Job. You’ll see that beginning in Job 1:6: 6Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. This is a subject for another sermon, but always remember that Job was simply reaping a harvest of fear and that is why all that happened to him happened to him and his family. The Bible tells us not to fear 365 times, as in this example from the book of Joshua: Joshua 1:8-10 8 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. 9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
Let’s look at Ezekiel 37 verse 4, not only is Ezekiel prophesying here, but he’s prophesying the Word of the Lord. This is the moment when life enters into these dry bones:
6Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
Let me describe to you the path of consecration that I have been on since I gave my life to Christ back in 2012. I didn’t know what to expect when Pastor Bill Bakkeby together with his wife Elaine asked me to give my life to Christ. We had been talking and building a friendship for quite some time. I met them on an inbound trip to Bald Head Island where I live, and they seemed like very nice people. Pastor Bakkeby has been a minister of the Gospel for over 40 years. I gave my life to Christ in the same dining room where I am presently typing up these Sermon notes. Curiously, it’s been 12 years.12. During that time, I have grown exponentially in my knowledge, though not always under the supervision of Pastor Bakkeby. As he said, “You fed yourself.” He’s right. Every spiritual discussion before and after many a dinner with the Bakkeby’s, every scripture, every book—most especially The Harbinger II, by Johnathan Cahn—has led to more spiritual growth, then consecration, then more spiritual growth, much like the dynamo that Prophet Robin D. Bullock described in our Bible study one night. The more power an engine has, the faster it goes, and the faster it goes, the more power it has. That’s called bootstrapping power. I am an example of bootstrapping power enabled by the Holy Spirit.
Armed with just a few scriptures that Pastor Bakkeby recommended, five or six at the most, including Psalm 91, Ephesians 6:10-20, Psalm 25, Psalm 100, and Psalm 103, I began my walk with Christ; although, at that point, I had been wearing a cross around my neck for about 11 years. As Pastor Bakkeby had predicted, immediately, the devil challenged me, by interrupting my prayers with all manner of attacks, inappropriate thoughts, doubts, painful memories reliving the sinful moments of my life in my head,
just to name a few of his tricks. He would distract me whenever possible. Early on, I was praying and stopping to ask forgiveness for old sins every few seconds; that happened until I caught on—much better to keep praying and pay the devil no mind. Now, I just rebuke him and send him and his demons on their way to the outer darkness. I rebuke the devil daily.
One afternoon, as I was driving my golf cart on the island, I heard a voice in my head say, “This very night thy soul will be required of thee.” At first, I ignored it, but then 30 seconds or so later, I heard it again and then again. This voice, I thought, was God. I cannot remember exactly, but these were my thoughts: “Sandy, you are going to face God, and whatever your punishment, you’ll have to accept it.” Gravely concerned, I pulled my cart over on a center crossing and thought about what to do. “Who would I call?” I thought. No time to say good-bye, and to whom? Family would think I was nuts if I told them the voice I had heard, and most of the time, I don’t think they care. As a name went through my mind of a woman upon whom I had an inappropriate crush, I was a little surprised it wasn’t she. Maybe, I wouldn’t say anything to anyone and just accept my fate quietly. Pastor Bakkeby came to mind, and so I resolved to call him I called him then and there—still in my golf cart by the side of the road—and told him that I loved him. Man to man, the way a son feels toward his father. Of all the names I could have called, calling him seemed a bit strange to me—until I thought about it. After all, it was he who had led me to Christ. If I had any chance at eternal life, he had given me that chance by having introduced me to Christ: He showed me the road. He wasn’t worried at all and told me that he appreciated and understood my sentiment toward him, and that he was sure that the voice I had heard was that of the devil. He told me to call him in the morning. The next day I called him around 10:00 a.m. He answered the phone and with characteristic Bill Bakkeby understatement, he said in his booming minister’s voice: “Welcome to Heaven!” We both had a good laugh over that. After he led me to Christ, Pastor Bakkeby had been after me for quite a while to speak in tongues, but I didn’t really understand what this gift was all about—initially I was terrified to be surrounded by him and his wife speaking over me in a language I could not decipher. Eventually, I calmed down. Still pondering and puzzled, I thought that God moved my tongue. I recall opening my mouth and waiting, and much to my chagrin nothing would happen. One night after dinner at the Bakkeby’s, I was driving home in my King Ranch trying and trying to speak in tongues; I’d open my mouth and wait. Nothing would happen. Thankfully, it was dark outside, as I would have looked silly to anyone who pulled up beside me and looked through my driver’s side window. One day on the phone to him, I confessed that I sometimes spoke to the cats Raleigh and Georgia using words that didn’t make any sense. His reply, “Pretend you are talking to the cats,” whereupon I opened my mouth and out tumbled the voice of the Holy Spirit. He asked me to repeat myself, just to make sure that I had the gift. Impressed, he congratulated me. Straightaway, he warned me that the devil would try to convince me that what I was doing was nonsense, so I was prepared for this attack; however, God had a foolproof way of convincing me that I authentically spoke the voice of the Holy Spirit. The Devil’s attack came in the form of my running short of breath while I spoke in tongues. Undaunted, I continued to speak in tongues, and eventually Satan gave up.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I should tell anyone—don’t want to be bragging and risk being struck by lightning (talk about a breach of structural integrity)—so all I would say to my great friend Diane was, “Yesterday, God for me became four-dimensional.” He became three dimensional the day I found a dollar bill between Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel 37 in my childhood bible. Folded haphazardly, and sandwiched between the two verses, the date on the bill was 1974. I was stunned! I At that time being in the process of funding the renovation of Larison’s Corner Presbyterian Church in Ringoes, New Jersey, I reasoned that if God could place a dollar bill in my Bible in precisely that location, He could do anything. I looked up at my dinning room ceiling and I told Him so, “God, it you can put a dollar bill in my Bible, You can do anything. I’ll never doubt you again.” Of course, being human, I did.
As I recall, I slept on my news. The next day I thought to myself as I headed out the driveway, “Don’t be surprised if you don’t see Billie today.” Must have been the Holy Spirit’s voice. She’s closer to me than either of my sisters, a born-again spirit-filled believer and greatly responsible for preparing the ground for Pastor Bill Bakkeby. After I had seen my friend Diane at her office, I turned to go to the post office, and who should I see walking down the walk from the post office, but Billie. Excited, I called her over and I told her my news. She was thrilled and told me that she had the same gift. In the course of our conversation, she said, “You know Sandy, I wasn’t supposed to be here today.” At first, I thought she meant on my side of the island, but her husband Lynn told me later that she wasn’t even supposed to be on the island this day. God had completely rearranged her schedule so that we would meet. Think of that! I knew Billie’s and my meeting was the Holy Spirit confirming my gift was real. When Lynn had said what he said, I had ironclad proof. Lynn’s remark was the clincher. Take that, Satan!
The devil has met me at every new level I have attained, but thankfully, our Father in Heaven being the supreme authority—Elohim—He has always been ahead of the devil and ultimately victorious. Think about your favorite scriptures. Any one of them jump out at you? Have you thought about the plan that God has for your life? Let’s have some good examples: _______ Each of us has a track that we’re on, a race to run for the Lord. You’ll find that if you stick to that track and remain strong in your faith, everything you need will be provided for you. Let’s talk about giving, looking at examples of Luke 6:38 and Malachi 3:10. 38 give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. 10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. 11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. 12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.
Did you know that if you are a tither, the Lord will rebuke the devourer for your sake? This means He will stop Satan dead in his tracks. He cannot move against you. He cannot do anything. What a great gift! Listen to what the Lord says here in Malachi 3:10-12. Let’s talk about the blessings. As you leave church today, may you be richly blessed with God’s abundance, which he promised in John 10:10. I leave you with these scriptures: Philippians 4:8 8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. James 1:19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath[.] Go in peace my Christian brothers and sisters!