Holy Spirit - Part 1 — Keith Daniel

Music as a Gateway for the Meeting

And thank you for the dear man that led the meeting singing here. Well, the way you led it, sir, was something very precious. And I would love to have got to know you. I was speaking today to our dear brother about how the meeting can be destroyed by the singing.

And I would say he bore something in my heart that I'm starting a sermon. I've written a whole sermon since your conversation, brother. I better not preach that now. If you ever let me back, I'll preach what you bore in my heart this morning or at lunchtime, dear Don.

Brother Don, I agree with you. Somehow today the church has allowed the world into their music. And the man who has the music in his control controls the whole meeting. He can destroy anything God could ever do from that moment to the day to the moment the meeting stops.

Or he could pave the way. And I wonder what percentage of evangelical churches have no hope of God visiting them because of the very music and those in control of the music. Don't let the world into the church, America.

You don't win the world by becoming like the world. The world wins you always. There's not one case when the world tried to be like the church, like it tried to be like the world, that the world didn't win them.

And all we have now is the world and the church. And the church and the world, tragically, starting off with the music. The next thing, we look like them. We go to the places. We try and grip them by the way they grip by the world with their entertainment, their type of music, their type of entertainment.

Entertainment is sin in the pulpit of God and in the church. There's no place for it. Be careful. Be careful. If you're not sure that you are so sanctified by God and through the Holy Ghost and prayed through as much as a preacher before you stand before God's people with a message from God so soaked in prayer and a life that gives you the right to sing it, and you're sure that that's going to make entrance to the preacher's sermon and to the whole atmosphere and to people seeking God, don't ever get up and sing.

Don't ever get up and play any instrument. Go to the theater if you want applause. Why come to the pulpit? Well now, that's a rebuke, isn't it? And I was only going to say thank you. My wife says when you're tired, Keith, you go a mile around.

And she's not here to remind me that I'm going a mile around tonight. But it's just as well because people are still all arriving, so God knows what He's doing. Thank you sincerely, every one of you who traveled a long, long way.

And I bless the Lord for you. Now, I know the cold hit this area like I don't know what hit me. But I appreciate your braveness, and I appreciate your courage in facing this weather and still staying on and coming out into this bitter cold and the snow and the ice all over the place.

And I think those that have come are those who really want God's best. So I thank you for coming. Can I also just ask you one other thing? My wife sends out a newsletter. It's not like American newsletters, you know.

We in Africa don't have the beautiful magazines that you send out as newsletters. We just have a piece of paper. We're from the jungle, you see. And my wife sends it out every couple of months to many, many people all over the world.

And these people mostly pray for us daily. And I thank God for that. And I wonder if you'd like to pray for me and my family. I'll be very grateful. I know that you mustn't put your name and address down if you're not a prayer warrior, if you don't groan before God for souls.

Please don't give me your name or address. If you don't groan before God for the Church of Christ, for revival, if you don't know what it is to groan before God for others and not yourself, then please don't put your name down, because it'll just be a wasted piece of paper coming to you that you won't want in the end.

But if you know what it is to weep for souls, if you know what it is to groan for souls, because if you groan, if you're a warrior on your knees for the lost and not just consumed in prayer about yourself, then I would be deeply grateful if you would put your name and address on a piece of paper, your postal address, and you just give it to dear Brother Don who's trying desperately to let me read something in the back, but he doesn't know I'm half blind.

Oh, it is a piece of paper. Okay, Brother. At least I saw the page. Wonderful, Don. Thank you. I saw the page, but I didn't dare tell you at first that I can't read. I can't see much anyway, but it's good that I can't see your faces while I'm preaching, you know.

I might stop. Anyway, there's a piece of paper back there at the back, two yellow pages, and if you just take a pen and you'd like to, put your name and address down and give it to our brother. I'm not staying after the meeting because I've got to get up rather early tomorrow and be in a plane at 6 .30, so I won't tell you what time I have to get up then just to do all the things I have to do, but I have to leave straight away after.

I'm going to perhaps just shake a few of your hands as I walk out, but I want to say thank you now and God bless you for coming from my heart. I'm deeply grateful for America giving me so many opportunities to come back here again and again.

And the way they are spreading tapes and videos all over the world. I get letters from China, so many countries where the Americans have sent videos, and these churches say we've just brought all the people, and just sitting down listening to all these messages.

And I am grateful the way America and the American Christians have such vision and have given me this great privilege of coming here every now and again, and then they just spread the messages, hundreds of thousands of tapes all over.

I do thank you for that privilege you've given me. Will God wonderfully bless every single one of you. I really mean that. Now I'd like to pray and then bring the word God put in my heart, I believe, for our hearts tonight.

And if I fail to say thank you to everyone I should have, please forgive me. Can we just bow before the dear Lord, please, in a moment of quietness. Our Father, we praise Thee for the wonderful word of God that Thou hast entrusted into our hands and hearts.

We thank Thee for the Holy Spirit, and we ask that by Thy grace and mercy tonight Thou would come and make this a holy, sacred place for the hearts of men and women and children. That Thou would wash me now in the blood of Jesus, that I may be clean, that Thou would fill me with the Holy Spirit in grace and mercy, and that Thou would come and keep us under the blood of Christ, safe from the powers of darkness, and cleanse the atmosphere of this place with the blood of Christ.

And pour Thy Spirit here, Lord, upon us, that we may know we have to do with God and not with men. Visit Thou us, Lord, quieten us, still our hearts and our bodies and our minds. Come now, Lord, in mercy on us, especially on me, and bless this hour.

The Holy Spirit Glorifies Christ

In Jesus the Christ's name, in Jesus Christ's name, we all ask these things of Thee, our Father in heaven. Amen. I would like tonight to speak to you about the Holy Spirit, and I'm very careful in starting by telling you that the Holy Spirit is some word in the Bible that somehow we have got all confused about.

It is not the gospel of the Holy Spirit. And many churches today, in this generation especially, have the gospel not according to the gospel of Christ, but the gospel of the Holy Spirit. They make more of the Holy Spirit than of Jesus.

They make more of the gift than the giver. And everything is centered around the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit Himself. And this holy book, this holy book has told us that the Holy Spirit shall not speak of Himself.

His whole work is to glorify Christ. His whole work is to make us into the image of Jesus Christ, that we may be conformed into the image of God's Son. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit. I read a book when I was shortly saved by R. A. Torrey.

Torrey was D. L. Moody's theologian. Moody was the man who won millions to Christ. And Moody was probably the greatest soul winner in earth's history, him and Charles Finney. Millions and millions came to God through these men, but Moody brought nations to God.

Scotland turned to God. John Knox brought Scotland away from Rome, but Moody brought Scotland to God. Moody brought a king and a queen to God. I don't know of any evangelist in history where God did that through a man who never went through a theological seminar in his life, who had no degrees.

But Queen Mary knelt with Moody and gave her heart to Christ, and King George followed and gave out tracts, literally hundreds of thousands of tracts to generals and the leaders of the empire were handed by Queen Mary.

On Moody's recommendation, she gave out safety, certainty, and enjoyment. She was a soul winner. She was a prayer warrior. And Moody was the man God used, but Moody wasn't the great theologian. That was Torrey who God gave to Moody and to the millions throughout the world that had sought God.

Now, here was a man who suddenly had an academic. We don't despise the academic achievement. We don't despise men who can academically go into theological seminars and come out with fire, not deadened through doctrine.

I pity the man who goes and gets degrees that take seven years and he can't win his soul to Christ. I pity the man who doesn't realize that the God of Moody didn't need the degrees. He just needed fire, reality, and no compromise on this book.

That was Moody. But the book that Torrey wrote, the Holy Spirit, the person, the work of the Holy Spirit, the personality and the work of the Holy Spirit, I got that when I was just saved and I was transformed into my understanding of God and His ways.

And I would recommend that book to anyone. There are many books on the Holy Spirit which teach us. We can't bury the fact that the Holy Spirit is mentioned throughout the Holy Bible and we need to know His work without diverting from Christ, but rather honoring Christ.

If you go to a book like R .I. Torrey wrote, you'll find he takes the basics, the things most of you sitting here have come aware of as you've gone through the Scriptures from cover to cover again and again, and I hope you've done that.

You will become conscious of the things Torrey would speak of and these other books would speak of, of the work of the Holy Spirit. It's God, the Holy Spirit's work to take this book and to make it alive.

It's dead. It's dead without the Holy Spirit. The letter killeth. That's a strong word, but the Spirit giveth life. This book in the hands of an unsaved man kills what God could do. This book in the hands of a man who has no revelation, by God the Holy Ghost of what he's reading, well, all it does is destroy.

It's very seldom in the history of the Church that an unsaved man holding the Word of God ever did anything for God. But the moment a man is born of God and anointed by God and given the right to preach, ordained by God, this book becomes a throbbing life to souls.

The letter kills. The letter kills to people who are not even saved. It's just a dead book in many aspects. But the moment they're saved and the Holy Spirit's in them, the natural man can't receive the things of God, but the spiritual man, the moment he's saved and the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, Christ in you is the hope of glory.

That man suddenly, this book grips and every word is alive, suddenly weeps across the pages. Whereas before he was saved, he was dead, dead. The letter killeth. It can do nothing without the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit giveth life, and it's God's book that God the Holy Ghost uses to give eternal life.

Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. The faith by which you are saved, by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourselves, that faith is the result of the Holy Spirit giving revelation to your heart in your darkness, in the unsaved state you are.

And so faith is worked by the Holy Ghost, by giving life to this book. And then when we are saved, it's the Holy Spirit's work to bear witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.

You know you've passed from death unto life. We know we're saved. He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself, God says. He that believeth not, God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son, and this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you, that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe in the name of the Son of God.

You must know that you have eternal life, otherwise you don't have eternal life. You must know you've passed from death unto life, or you haven't passed from death unto life. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.

He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself. And so that is the Holy Spirit's work. We could go on and on. He teaches us how to pray. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit, God the Holy Ghost, teaches us to pray as we ought to pray, with groanings that cannot be uttered.

That's not speaking about tongues. Groanings that cannot be uttered. So when the Holy Spirit's in you, the grief you have you never had before for the lost or for the saved. It's His grief. It's His groan.

It's His hurt that puts you to your knees, and you pray for things that you wouldn't pray unless the Holy Ghost was there. It's His burden. It's His people that He longs to be revived and not to compromise the world.

And the grief you feel when you see the church compromising with the world is God's grief. And you pray, for God teaches you to pray as He shares His burden. He teaches us to pray as we ought to pray, with groanings.

You and I can't work up. You don't work up a burden. Any Christianity that works themselves up, they land up in the mental home, where they should go there in the end. It's what you dedicate, God consecrates.

All we do is dedicate ourselves to God. God takes control by the Holy Ghost. Even in our prayers, we don't work ourselves up. We don't work burden up. We don't work compassion up for the lost. It's the Holy Spirit in us that drives us to the lost, that drives us to our knees, that groans in our prayers.

It doesn't mean you've got to groan to say that God's praying for you. Some people don't have anything but a whisper. But that's the groan, the way you whisper from the heart. The Holy Spirit is the comforter.

The Holy Spirit Comforts Through Scripture

I love that. I can try and comfort you, brother, when you're broken and smashed by the church itself. It's so out of touch with God. I can try and comfort you when you're excommunicated because you've been born again.

I can try and comfort you when the hurts in your family throw you out or discard you or bury you or disdain you for coming to Christ and changing your lifestyle in their home. I can try and comfort you when your son wants the devil and not Jesus.

But my comfort's not good enough unless I comfort you with a comfort wherewith I was comforted by God. And God the Holy Spirit comforts through the Word of God. 99 .999, it isn't just some feeling flowing through you of a divine wave of love to give you peace.

His comfort comes through His Word. And this Word must always be open. And God will comfort as you're wounded by God's people out of touch with God, not through with God. You will find comfort that you don't become bitter and twisted.

You will find comfort that no matter what the devil brings against you, you don't come out bitter and twisted. The healing of God's Word. The healing of God's Word by the Holy Spirit. He comforts through His Word.

And you're able to comfort others with a comfort wherewith you were comforted. What from this Book burned into your heart will burn from your lips. And what burns from your lips will burn to the hearts of those that hear you.

And so to the degree that God the Holy Ghost comforts you through this Book, to that degree you can comfort the church. He is the comforter. And I could go on, but all these things you will find explained more eloquently and with more depth by godly men like R .A. Torrey.

Get those books. Learn about the work of the Holy Spirit, the personality of the Holy Spirit. Tonight I'd like to bypass all those things and I'd like to speak to you about one aspect of the Holy Spirit's work that you're not going to hear being preached very much these days in any pulpit.

Conviction of Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment

Because it's a word that seems to offend. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, when He has come will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And D .L. Moody said, if that hasn't happened to you, he doubts that anything has ever been done in your life by the Holy Ghost.

You can't bypass this. You talk of all these things of the Holy Ghost in your life, Moody says. If this was not the first thing that happened in your life, he doubts that anything has ever happened in your life that was the Holy Spirit.

In truth, He will convince, He will convict literally the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. When did He do that in your life? Young man, old man, preacher who teaches like a blind leader of the blind.

Do you think Christ said that wasn't possible? And all that will happen is you who are blind will fall into the ditch, but all your leading will fall into the ditch with you. You'll take them to hell if you haven't been saved.

The Holy Spirit, when He has come, will convict the world of sin. And only then will you know that you're a sinner and of righteousness, that you can become righteous. He will convince you, He will convict you, that you don't have to remain in sin, though you are a sinner.

That you can be made righteous by God. And your life can be made righteous, that you can become a new creature in Christ where all things pass away and all things become new. It's the Holy Spirit's work to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment, if you don't turn from the sin to become righteous.

To seek God's righteousness, you'll face judgment. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit. And I agree with Moody. How can you be saved, sir, if you didn't know you're lost? How can you cry out to God to save you from hell if you don't know you're going to hell or judgment?

How can you cry to God to set you free from a life of sin if you're not convinced your sin will take you to judgment? And if you're not convinced in your heart by the Holy Ghost that you can be made righteous.

The Holy Spirit's work is to convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. But you know, one of the greatest tragedies of our era and time is that we try to do the work of the Holy Spirit.

And we just destroy the work of the Holy Spirit as Christians. We try to do the convicting work of God the Holy Spirit today everywhere. And we destroy His work by not trusting Him. That it's His work, not ours.

But not trusting Him that He can convince the world of sin without us interfering. I was once preaching as a young preacher some 30 years ago. A lot of fire, a little wisdom, doesn't matter. So long as you're on fire, just so long as you've got a little bit of wisdom and you're on fire.

That's all God needs to turn the world upside down. No good in having a lot of wisdom and no fire. You just turn them to hell. But I went around preaching. And I soon learned about how people try to do the work of the Holy Spirit and the damage they do.

I was warned by other young preachers and evangelists in my country who knew me. And when they heard I was going to a particular town with another young evangelist, they warned me about a man there. They said, there's a very strange man there.

He's so strange, but he's really on fire. He tries to do the work of the Holy Spirit. He's so desperate to get people under conviction of sin. Well, they warned me, but I didn't know I was in for such a hard time.

The Old Man Who Tried to Convict the Congregation

When I stood in the pulpit, there was this old man, an old ummi, we call him. That means uncle, a boor, a farmer. And he sat in the front row of this meeting. And there he was, listening. And all the people, and I was preaching, and the moment I named a particular sin, this man said, oh!

And I looked at him. I'd named a sin. And he turned around and he pointed. It's you! It's you! I looked at this man, and everybody who was pointing was sitting there, you know, all looking a bit upset.

How do you preach on? But I tried, and I named another sin. And he said, oh! No, no! That's our opera concert, you know. No! You want to preach when someone's trying to do the Holy Spirit's work? You see, this man was desperate.

There was no truth being preached in the town, or any pulpit of the town. And when truth was come, he was in such a state that he couldn't bear the thought that people wouldn't come under conviction of sin, now that somebody was preaching about sin.

And he made sure they got knowing, you're not going to bypass it if it's meant for you. But all he did was damage. I mean, nobody could be bereached when a man tries to do the work of God like that. All you do is want to get out of the building, and the preacher wanted to get out of the pulpit.

Brother, don't do the work of the Holy Spirit. Can I warn all you zealous Christians? Can I warn all you zealous Christians? It's His work. Trust Him. All you do is damage. Trust Him, brother. The Holy Spirit's work is to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, of judgment.

Not yours. We had a missionary lady in our missionary society, back home in Africa. And she's quite a character. She married one of the godliest men in our land's history, a Mr. Russi Fenta. Her name was Kuba Fenta.

But she was a character. Oh, my, you didn't play the fool with this woman. She was really a character, though she was a missionary. And she was needed. In a mission, everyone's needed. But this dear lady, when she was a young missionary, there was someone who felt that there was something in her life, in Mrs. Fenta's life, that was very unacceptable to be in the life of a young missionary serving God.

There was something in her life that really was unacceptable to be in a missionary's life in the AEB, the mission I serve in. So this older Christian, this older missionary lady, who'd been a longer time, it seems she came up to Mrs. Fenta in despair in the end that this thing wasn't being dealt with in her life.

And she looked at Mrs. Fenta and she said to her, You know, there's someone in the AEB who does this thing. And Mrs. Fenta, of course, looked at this lady and she thought, Oh, my troubles here. The lady said, Yes.

So Mrs. Fenta said, Oh. So the lady said, Yes, and she's in the AEB. And she does this thing. She shouldn't do it. She's a missionary. She shouldn't do it. So Mrs. Fenta, of course, feeling very uncomfortable, said, Oh.

And the lady looked at her in despair, you know, and she said, Yes, and she's in the AEB.

She shouldn't do it.

In the end, the lady despaired so much she lost it, you know.

She said, It's you. You're the one that does it.

So Mrs. Fenta, of course, she looked at her feeling wounded and smashed and crushed and she said, No. Now, I don't know what no means. I don't think it's very victorious in the Christian vocabulary. But I think maybe it was trying to say, Shame on you for not waiting and leaving the Holy Spirit to do that in His time when I'm ready.

Leaving Conviction to the Holy Spirit

Do you know how many Christians are stumbling for the rest of their lives because we jumped the gun? Sir, do you know how long it took you to get you where you are? Have you forgotten the patience God had with you, lady?

And you look at these younger Christians and in one moment they better toe the line and be everything you are or you'll grieve and you're going to do the work for God. And all that you do is get them to stagger and stumble for years and years over something if you just left it to God.

They would have let God have His way when the Holy Spirit convicted them. Another danger, another danger is how many people try to do the work of the Holy Spirit in a prayer meeting on their knees. They don't pray, they preach.

They don't speak to God ever. It's just one stance of hypocrisy. That's their opportunity to speak. And so they're going to get everybody under conviction of the things they think the people need to hear so they can speak now.

So they're going to pray at people. You don't pray at people, you pray for people. You don't pray to people, you pray to God for people. Otherwise your sin is more of a grief to God than their sin or their inconsistency.

Don't doubt that, it's one stance of hypocrisy. It's a grief to God and man. Don't think you're spiritual, sir, if you don't pray to God in a prayer meeting. You pray to people. That proves how carnal you are and how little you trust the Holy Spirit.

I was in a prayer meeting where a man who had been a missionary for many years, somehow he just lost control. And on his knees in his prayer meeting full of evangelists and preachers and missionaries all over the building from all over southern Africa.

This convention, this half-night of prayer, he was praying on his knees. Suddenly he started praying in such a way that grief came upon the whole meeting. I mean such grief that it was the end of the whole convention virtually.

He destroyed a convention on his knees. He decided to pray at people. So he started speaking his mind on his knees, things he should never have said. He started crying out, God, there's a slug in the grass.

Now, you don't know our language back home. That means there's a snake in the grass. Everybody's thinking, who's he speaking about? You get uncomfortable when a man starts praying that. You know, there's sin in the camp.

That's why the things are going wrong in the missionary society. That's why the blessing of God is not what it should be. There's sin in the camp. It must be dealt with. It must get out. It must deal with the sinner.

Oh, my, people were getting grieved. He went on and on and on. You know, I thought it would never end. And a cloud of grief fell upon that conference. And they closed the whole prayer meeting, not for the half-night of prayer anymore.

They just closed it when he said, Amen. He just destroyed that night of prayer. No one wanted to pray after that. Everybody was on their knees groaning in grief, thinking, who is he speaking about? Who's in sin of these preachers?

Who's bringing the curse of God upon us? Well, I went outside, and by the time I got outside, I was saying to the Lord, Lord, does he think that about me? Has the devil told him things that he's, is it me he's thinking about?

Before I could think too long, another person came to me, and they thought it was them. Within a few minutes, there was about 12 people who came to me, all thinking it was them. Maybe he thinks it's me.

He had the whole lot of us under conviction. I think the only person that wasn't under conviction was the person who was meant for. I'd be surprised if the person who was meant for got convicted, because it wasn't God the Holy Ghost guiding that man.

So, don't pray about people in front of them. Be careful what you do and what you say if you do. Don't pray about sin in someone's life if they're there with you. Pray to God about people before you single out someone, sir, that's hearing you on your knees.

Because all you're doing is sinning a greater sin than the person you think is a grief to God, who's become a grief to you. Don't doubt it. Don't doubt it. You are a grief to God. I don't know how many prayer meetings I've been in, in the last 32 years.

And I've been in many, many, many hundreds. And I don't know how few I ever attended where there was no one praying at people, preaching at people on their knees. Suddenly, there was someone, someone there, the devil made sure, destroyed any blessing there could be in the prayer meeting by someone who wasn't praying to God, but praying to people.

Don't do the work of the Holy Spirit. It just tells God straight. You don't trust Him. You're going to have to do His work for Him by lying, by lying that you're speaking to Him and you're so unspiritual you're only speaking to people.

A Testimony of Conversion and Spirit-Led Guidance

My brother is also a preacher. My brother was the first one saved in our home. And our home was destroyed by sin. We lay in ruin, but God took hold of my dear brother and saved him in the most amazing way.

He suddenly found himself sitting in a meeting under one of the greatest men of God that had ever lived in this world. I have no doubt of that. A man who influenced thousands throughout the world to walk with God, a holy walk, just by his life.

People have said to me all across the world, as I've gone to different countries, who know as they hear me preaching of him, you can never recover if you just stand in His presence. If you just stood in His presence, your conscience wouldn't allow you to recover until the day you die.

That God could make a man so holy. You know, he was the only man that I ever met in my life that I wept by just standing looking at him. I wept. I trembled at the consciousness of how God could make a man that holy, this side of heaven.

If you let Him. He shone. He shone, not with a superficial shine like we think of Moses, you know, to find just some glow, no. Integrity and purity and godliness and the character and the nature of Christ was just shining through with every reaction that people would weep, standing in His presence.

But he was the preacher, the most holy man of God I ever knew or was privileged to know in my life. And I've met many of the godliest men in this world and prayed with them. But never did I know a man that could come near the godliness of this man.

Will McFarlane was his name. And he was in our country preaching. And my brother, by some amazing miracle, not seeking God, was found in that meeting, dragged, not wanting God, not being there for God.

And under the anointed preaching, as very few have ever been anointed through his life, my brother was so crushed by conviction. By the end of that sermon, he couldn't stand. When he stood, he fell. He was like someone who had become drunk under conviction.

He was so crushed at the consciousness of God. But somehow my brother made his way, weeping, and fell on his knees. And this godly man knelt beside him and cried out to God when he saw the brokenness of this boy.

He put his arm around him and cried out to God for him to save his soul. And oh, God saved my brother that night. Oh, God saved my brother. He became a new creature in Christ. But that godly man left and flew to another country, back to Canada.

Three months later, my brother heard that this godly woman, Mac Farland, was in South Africa again. And he made a phone call and said, I hear Mr. Mac is there. This godly, godly woman, Mrs. Ellen White, where all the godly preachers would go across the world.