Scripture

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.