05-24-2020 (Online Church Service)

Park Meadows Church iconPark Meadows Church

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Pastor David Mitchell

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06-14-2020

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All right, guys, so good to have you with us. Let's have a quick word of prayer, and we will get started with the message.
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Lord, we just thank you for the things that you've shown us during this time.
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You've put us in places where we have to be quieter and places where we have more time with you.
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And you showed us how quickly you can change everything in the world in a moment. And Lord, we know that you work all things together for good to those who love you and who are called according to your purpose, which we know is the same group.
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Lord, we know we didn't love you until you called us, but we thank you that your Holy Spirit opened our eyes and our ears and our minds and our hearts to love you and put that love in our hearts.
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Thank you that you first loved us so that we might love you. Lord, we ask you to go with us during our time of Bible study now and bless it and be our great teacher.
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In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, here's where we are.
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We're verse by verse through Romans, and we've gotten down to around verses 26 through 28.
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And I've listed about 10 topics of prayer that I teach from time to time.
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That's not by any means all the topics in the Bible, but those are a few very familiar ones.
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And the 10th one is actually the one we're teaching on here, because it's found right here in Romans 8, 26 and following.
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And we've made our way to this passage. It is important to know the context that everything is in when we study it, and the context of this greatest of all teachings on prayer, in my opinion, is in an interesting place.
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And we've talked about that a little bit in the past. I always like to review a little bit. Some people think I review too much, but I always learn even more about what we're talking about when we review.
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So some of you guys weren't here last time either. So let's take a look. Now I've narrowed this down instead of 10 points, because we're going to touch on point number three a little bit, especially today.
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And then eventually we'll get to touching on point number nine and how they relate to point number 10.
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We have to hope that I don't lose my voice today. But number 10 is the main thing that we're talking about, because it's right here in this passage.
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All right. But with regard to that number three, the power of praying as an envoy, I want to remind you of this.
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Jesus said this, truly, truly, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also in greater works than these shall he do, mainly because there are more of us.
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Right? And we're all indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And that's what he meant when he said, because I go to my father.
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But look at this, whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do.
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He didn't say that might I do. He said, I will do it that my father may be glorified.
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So now there is definitely a teaching on prayer that we go to often, and I call it praying as an envoy.
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In other words, praying in his name means that we're here. He has us here as part of his family business, if you want to put it in business terms, which
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I like to. He's working in us and through us and with us to do his work on this earth with his money and with his people and with his time and everything, all of it is his work.
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And he's placed us here. And so when we do pray, we should be praying for something that has to do with his work and that he would sanction, because we're not the owners of any of this.
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We are stewards. We work for our Lord and with our Lord, and we should pray in his name.
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And that's what the concept is talking about. But he said when we properly pray in his name, it will be answered.
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Now that's interesting, isn't it? Now let's look at another one. Oh, he finished it off, by the way. Just make sure we understood it clearly.
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If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. Wow. All right. Now look at this one.
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Here's how Jesus prayed. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. So Jesus prayed in God's will.
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What did he say in the garden when he said, if possible, Lord, let this cup pass from me.
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Make it where I don't have to be separated from you, and you can still save your people if possible. But what did he close his prayer with?
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Nevertheless, thy will be done, not mine, didn't he? And then this, the apostle
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John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said this in 1 John 5, verse 14. And this is the confidence that we have in Christ that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.
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And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired.
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So here we have two concepts interrelated, praying in Christ's name, praying in God's will like Jesus did when he prayed.
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And Jesus said in both those cases, the prayer will be answered. And I think the implication is the prayer will be answered, yes.
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Now I understand Jesus tacked on, nevertheless, thy will be done, not mine, and he did go to the cross, well, but his prayer was answered, yes, because he said, thy will be done, not mine.
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It was answered, yes. And your prayers, you and I know that we've had a lot of prayers, we prayed, and the answer was no.
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This lesson is talking about today how to get a yes, all right? How do we get yes when we pray to the
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Lord? Well, here are two ways the Lord Jesus said we get a yes, but here's the problem.
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Have you ever honestly asked yourself, how do I pray like this? Well, I think our number 10 point up there, the power of prayer while in the presence of God in Romans 8, 26 through 28 is the answer, the great answer to that question.
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Now when you look at this passage, though, on prayer, you have to look up above it because we need to take it in context.
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And the immediate verses right above it have to do with faith, not sight.
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In other words, walking by faith, not by sight. And so when we understand the context of that, it kind of helps us to understand the passage a little bit better as we move on.
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And we know that we live in a day where people want to see miracles. People want to see miracles in every church service. The problem is the
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Lord never promised He would operate that way, especially not in the church age. And I'm not a hyper -dispensationalist, by the way, but when
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I say church age, I just mean the time of the church, right now, until the Lord comes back, between now and when the Lord comes back.
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Or you could say between Pentecost and when the Lord comes back. I mark it at the point when the
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Holy Spirit began to indwell God's people as opposed to just dwelling upon them and with them as He did in the
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Old Testament. From the point that He began to indwell His people until He comes back, let's just call it the church age.
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We don't have to mean anything theological by that. It's just the time period we're talking about.
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In this time period, believe it or not, the Scripture indicates this, but so does church history, is that it is not a time of sight so much as it is a time of living by faith.
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Now I'm not saying we don't see miracles and get answers to prayers, because our little country church has seen probably more than its share of wonderful answered prayers for healings, for all kinds of things that we've seen throughout the history of our church.
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Amazing things all of us could testify to, but I don't believe that the Lord any longer heals through the touch of David Mitchell's hand like He did when the apostles were with us, nor do
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I believe there are any apostles still on the earth, because I know what the qualifications of an apostle are given by Scripture.
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So we have to let Scripture be the authority on these things. There are no apostles now, and I don't heal by the touch of my hand.
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God heals, and He heals through the prayers of His church and through His own work and through us working together with Him and Him working together and through us, and He does mighty work still today.
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So I'm not saying that He doesn't, I'm just saying the way that He does it has changed. But answered prayer, though it does manifest itself in the world of the seen, here's the point that Romans 8, 24 through 28 teaches, it doesn't originate on the earth.
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Now that may seem strange, it manifests itself on the earth in time and space, but it doesn't originate here, because we've always thought it originates with us thinking up something to pray, right?
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Well, that's not how it works, and once you grasp this truth, it will totally change your prayer lives.
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I guarantee you, and you'll see answered prayers more often than you ever saw them in your whole life.
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So prayers don't originate from us, from the earth, but they originate from the world of the unseen, from the heavenlies.
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Therefore, hope, in other words, faith, they're virtually synonyms in the Greek, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen in Hebrews 11, 1, this is the key to answered prayer.
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Now, we're still reviewing a little bit. Last time, we actually broke down this passage in Romans 8, 24 through 28 into these components, the greatest secret of having answered prayer, and here were the points.
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Number one, in verse 26, we saw that there must be an impartation of spiritual knowledge.
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Likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities, for we know not what we ought to pray for as we ought.
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We don't even know what we're supposed to pray for, but we think we do. The Bible tells us we don't, and so we must have the impartation of spiritual knowledge from God to us.
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That's obviously from heaven to earth, from God to his servant, us.
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We have to have that. Number two, well, this has some subpoints. He has to give us strength to pray because we have infirmities, we have inabilities.
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The Greek means we're feeble, and he needs to give us the strength to pray, and then he needs to give us the knowledge to pray what we're supposed to be praying for.
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Those points we covered last time, it's pretty incredible that we don't even know what we're supposed to be praying for, but he has to let us know, and he will.
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That's the beauty of this. Number two, we have to have the intercession by the
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Holy Spirit on our behalf before the throne of God to have answered prayer. And we find this in the second part of verse 26, but the
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Spirit himself makes intercession for us. And then the third thing is we have to have translation.
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We have to have our feeble language, our finite language translated into God's infinite language, and the
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Holy Spirit does that for us. It says that he prays with us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
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And we talked about last time what that means. It doesn't mean what a lot of people try to take this out of context and teach that it's modern tongue speaking.
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That's not, listen, it's not what this is talking about. We can debate that some other time in scriptures where it does talk about speaking with languages.
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That's not what this is talking about. This is talking about the Holy Spirit translating our meager, feeble prayer language into God's infinite language, and the
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Greek shows it. We talked about that last time. The fourth thing is we need revelation. What we ought to pray for, in other words, prayer in God's secret will, which we don't know is secret will because it's still in the future, but we need to pray within that and towards that, and we can't possibly do it unless the
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Holy Spirit reveals to us what to pray for. And this is what most people miss. They don't understand that God, listen, your prayers don't change
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God's sovereign will. Your prayers don't change history because then you would be the sovereign.
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And besides that, your neighbor's praying for the opposite while you're praying for pretty weather so you can go play golf, your neighbor's praying for it to rain so his crops will grow.
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Listen, men don't determine history. God does. But does that mean we just shouldn't pray at all?
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Of course not. That's like saying if you believe that God is sovereign, you should never witness. That is such a straw man argument.
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I mean, nobody, none of us that believe God is sovereign also believe we shouldn't witness. And I challenge people that hit me with that all the time.
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And I said, how many times have you knocked on the doors in your town? If you, you know, if you if you don't believe
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God is sovereign or you think that because I think that that I don't believe in witnessing, how many times have you knocked on the doors in your town?
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OK, because Charlotte and I have knocked on the doors in Little Mahea a lot of times, more than three times, about four times.
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And in Corsicana at least once. So, yes, we believe in witnessing and yes, we believe in praying.
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But how does it work together? Because God is, listen, how many times have you prayed and God said no and you didn't get it?
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Something else happened. You got to admit it. Admit it. Raise your hand. I can see your responses.
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Hit the chat button and say, how many times have you prayed and you didn't get that? You got something different. So everybody out there just about raising their hand.
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You know why? Because we asked to miss. What does that mean in the scripture? You have not, for you asked to miss, because we asked not according to God's secret will.
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Put it all together, it fits. But listen, that doesn't mean we shouldn't pray. What it means is we have to spend more time walking with the
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Lord to pray effectually. We have to have a relationship with God that is so close that we can immediately call upon the
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Holy Spirit to bring me the mind of the Father and what his program is on this earth. And let me get in line with it.
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Let me be a help in this. Let me work together with my father and with Jesus and with you and work together in your business, accomplishing what you want to accomplish in my life, my family, my church, and in this world.
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Please show me where we're headed. Guide my prayer. That's what this is talking about, and he reveals to us
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God's secret will. And it says it here in verse 27, he that searches the hearts, that means he searches the
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Holy Spirit, searches God's heart and our hearts, he knows what is in the mind of the
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Spirit. That's talking about the Father, who is pure spirit. He knows what's in the mind of the Father, and then he makes intercession for the saints according to what's in the mind of the
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Father. Isn't that what it says? There it is. I mean, listen, nothing makes things more plain than Scripture.
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Theology, seminaries can mess things up a little. I think it's helpful to have teachers, no doubt in my mind, but we have to understand we men are fallible.
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But when we just look at Scripture, it's commonly written for farmers and children, right? Not for PhDs.
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It's simple. It says what it means. And when it's allegorical, it normally tells us it's allegorical.
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And this clearly says that the Holy Spirit goes to the Father's mind, grabs the
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Father's will, his secret will, his projects he's working on and about to work on, and he makes intercession for us according to the will of God.
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Wow. Do you know that was in there? And then the fifth thing is receiving answered prayer.
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And here's verse 28, most commonly misused out of context verse in the whole Bible. People just pull this out and quote it.
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But it's right here in this passage, greatest passage, in my view, on prayer. And we know that all things work together for good.
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How do we know that? Because we follow these guidelines, understand it, and we draw close enough to the
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Lord to live this, to live this way. And when we live this way, where we care more about God's will than our own will, when we literally trust
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God to deal with our loved one who's ill, maybe dying, and we trust him more than ourselves and we put it in his hands spiritually and in prayer and we ask the
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Holy Spirit to, if we pray, if we start out praying selfishly as we always do, which is fine, we should, we should be praying for our loved one to live, right?
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To be healed, right? We should be. That's where we start. But if we're honest, we ask the Holy Spirit, please guide my prayer correctly into the correct praying mode as we go here, as we go through this time period in life, reveal to me what the
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Father is doing, what his will is, that I might pray correctly. And you know what the Lord will do? He will adjust our prayers sometimes and the adjusted prayer will always be answered, yes.
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Isn't that amazing? And that's why all things can work together for good to those who love the
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Lord and who are called according to his purpose, because now we're within his purpose. Now we love him more than we love ourselves.
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Now we care for his desires on this earth and in his history more than what we want to see happen.
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And then we're alongside of him in our prayers and we're a warrior with him. And our prayers are powerful and meaningful as they go before the throne of God as a sweet smelling savor rising up into the heavenlies as the
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Holy Spirit takes it there and intercedes for us and translates our words into God's magnificent language and after he's already revealed to us what to pray for.
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All right. So there's review. You see why I like to review, right? I mean, to me, that's just that's awesome.
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I preach that 10 Sundays in a row. But now let's talk about the new information. So, you know,
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I love to talk about the 10 rules of proper Bible interpretation. One of the greatest rule is let the
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Bible interpret the Bible. You cannot have a standalone truth.
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It usually is not a truth if it's the only place you think you see it, because the whole of Bible is interwoven together.
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The whole of the Bible is interwoven to where each truth will be. God will lay down layers upon layers of colors of meanings to that same truth in other places, both
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Old Testament and new, all around the Bible. And so it's great to look for parallel passages to make sure you're interpreting something correctly.
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Well, how do we know we interpreted that passage correctly and David didn't just make that stuff up? Well, we got to let the
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Bible speak to us because, listen, when we're studying on our own, we can say, well,
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I think it means this. And then we get attached to it because it's what we think it means. But if there's other scripture that contradicts it, we need to let go of that and change it and get it in line with the rest of the whole of scripture.
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That's a great rule of Bible interpretation. So I like to find parallel passages. If I don't find any,
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I get a little bit concerned about my interpretation. So turn with me in your scripture or flip on your phone or whatever you do to find 1
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Corinthians 2, 9, OK? And I want you to see this is scripture. This is scripture.
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This is not David's sermon. This is God's word. Look at this, 1 Corinthians 2, 9.
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But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard nor has entered into the heart of man the things which
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God has prepared for them that love him. Boy, I like this context.
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God has prepared things for us that is part of his secret will that we don't know anything about. In fact, we cannot even conceive of it.
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Some of that, I'm sure, has to do with the heavenlies when we're beyond the rapture and going off into age and to age with the
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Lord and seeing these things we cannot imagine. But some of it has to do with right here tomorrow, maybe five minutes from now on this earth, in space and in time as we walk together with our
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Lord. And he has things prepared for us each moment of each day because we love him, because he called us to himself and gave us that love, put the love in our heart for him, which we did not have two minutes before that happened.
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So it's a miraculous event when he regenerated us. The Holy Spirit opened our eyes while we were yet in our sins.
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Hath he quickened us or brought us to life? What a miracle. But at that point, the
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Bible says we have a hard time even imagining what he has prepared for us. Now, all of these things that he has prepared for us will come to pass.
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And if we find ourselves praying for them, those prayers will be answered. Yes. Would you agree with me on that? So let's keep going.
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But God has revealed them unto us by his spirit. I could stop there and rest the case, don't you think?
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Isn't this talking about the same thing we just studied in Romans chapter eight, one of the most awesome of all chapters, the whole
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Bible. But here we find it in First Corinthians, God, the Holy Spirit, God, through the
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Holy Spirit, revealed these things that he has prepared for our future to us by his spirit.
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How? Well, there has to be this relationship between us and the Lord so that we're walking spirit filled or he will not reveal it to us if we quench him.
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If we grieve the spirit, he won't reveal these things to us. And we will continue to ask amiss and our prayers will not be answered.
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But when we walk with him hand in hand, we just reach out and grab the hand of Jesus and say, where are we going today?
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And we try to walk that way throughout the day. And when we find ourselves reverting to the old man, ask the
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Holy Spirit to show us that and go right back and confess our sins and go right back.
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By the way, that just means agree with him that it's not right to walk in the flesh and grab his hand again.
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Just like Peter, you come right back up out of the water, you can walk on it again and get back in the boat with Jesus.
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I mean, that's how our walk is every day. And when we're in the mode of walking on water with Jesus, we'll get our prayers answered.
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Now, this word revealed where it says that God reveals it by the Holy Spirit, it literally is the same word that is used to name the book of Revelation, Apokalupto.
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And it means to take the cover off. Now, listen, why do we call it God's secret will?
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Because we have two kinds of God's will. We talked about this last Sunday. We have God's revealed will, which is the word of God.
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And we have God's secret will, which is his sovereign will that's going to come to pass.
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Both in the past it has and in the future it shall. And that part we don't see till we step into it each moment, moment by moment.
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And this concept that we can get out of God's will is falsely created by seminaries and books. It's not even real.
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You can't get out of God's will. Can you disappoint him? Yeah, you can sin and disappoint him, but you don't get out of his will.
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Adam and Eve were not out of his will when they ate the fruit. How do I know that? Because the Bible says
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Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world. It was part of God's plan. Now, did he disappoint the
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Lord and did sin bring cross in their fellowship? Yes, it did. We can do that, can't we?
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And, you know, I've learned a long time ago that men do what they want to do and God holds us accountable for it. So there's our responsibility.
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And that's what happened to Adam and Eve. And yet here we are. We find ourselves in this state because Adam and Eve asked that we know not only just good but also evil.
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So now we get the beauty of the waterfall, the beauty of the ocean, beauty of our wife or husband or our grandchildren and children.
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But we also get bad things that come with it because Adam and Eve asked to have both. So we got what we asked for.
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That's responsibility. That's the will of man in action. It's very real. Our choices are extremely important.
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Now, that doesn't sound like a hyper -Calvinist talking, does it? But neither was Charles Spurgeon, but he was a
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Calvinist. All right. But he was not a hyper -Calvinist. He just understood that God's plan won't be thwarted by man, but man's choices are extremely important and we're held accountable for each one of them.
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And now we see that the very will of God, God takes the cover off of it so we can see it and pray according to it.
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Is that magnificent information? So the first point I see in this little passage is that God reveals things to us by spirit.
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Exact same thing we saw in Romans chapter eight. All right. Now, First Corinthians 2, 7, if we go back in the context of this very passage we're looking at right now, just a couple of verses before verse nine, it says,
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But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom of God ordained before the foundation of the world.
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Wow. So you have God's ordained history, his ordained will, which he ordained before he made anything.
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And Paul is saying he speaks by the wisdom of God in a mystery according to this hidden wisdom, which
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God ordained before the foundation of the world. Why did he ordain it? Well, so that we can also have glory.
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All right. Not just the Lord have glory, but God's children, as we have answered prayers, the world will see it and his light will shine through us.
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So here we see it's discussing the secret will of God right before we get to verse nine, our passage for today.
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And it concerns each of us, this wisdom that was ordained before the foundation of the world.
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Now, look at the second part of verse 10. I'm going to read the first part, but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit for the spirit searches all things.
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Now, now we see second point here, the spirit searches all things. So what does that include? I'd like for you guys to use your chat technology and tell me some things all could include.
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The spirit searches all things. What are some of those things? Would you mind naming a few of those?
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Send it out there to me. It says Raymond raised both his hands. Well, praise the
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Lord. It's awesome. Personal thoughts, our heart, our hearts, intentions, our intentions, life, liberty and prosperity.
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What things does he reveal? What things does he search? Our intentions, a man's heart, our hearts and God's heart.
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Oh, I like that one, Philip. Our heart and God's heart. You're getting it. All things.
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I love it. Thanks, guys. All actions. Okay. Yeah. So it would certainly include that he searches our mind, right?
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Your mind, my mind. And, you know, we're all connected together by the Holy Spirit and connected to Jesus and the
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Father by the Holy Spirit. We're connected. That's why we're worshiping in spirit together from all over the country because we are connected.
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So not only my mind, he sees your mind. And when we corporately agree on something to pray for it, it's powerful.
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That's one of those 10 points that I had listed earlier. But what about Jesus' mind? Does the
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Holy Spirit search his mind right now? I'm not talking about when he was walking on the earth 2 ,000 years ago. What about right now?
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He's seated at the right hand of God. Does the Holy Spirit search his mind right now? Does the Holy Spirit know what pleases
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Jesus today? Right now. Absolutely. What about the Father's mind? Listen, no man has seen the
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Father except Jesus, and the Holy Spirit's there. But Jesus is the only one who's ever seen the
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Father, been in the presence of the Father, and the Holy Spirit knows the Father's mind. What about all circumstances, all things past, all things present, all things future, all needs present and future, and all desires even?
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Does he search? When you see the word all and it says he searches all things, would it at least include the things you guys have mentioned and these things that I mentioned?
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Yeah, it includes all of it. And even the last part of verse 10 says, yea, even the deep things of God.
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And I want you to think about that a minute. That's the secret will of God that you and I cannot know in the flesh. We can only know by our spirit being connected to the
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Holy Spirit. And as the scripture says, we then become one spirit. And that's how we can know.
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No other way to know. That requires a walk with the Lord, though, which requires not just being indwelt by the
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Spirit and saved, but it includes having to be filled with the Spirit, which is a choice of your own moment by moment.
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And the more moments you can put together in a day and in a week and in a year, then people will start to see more light in you and me, right?
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But we'll also see more answered prayers because of the same thing. As the Holy Spirit dwells within us, but also fills us, he brings the mind of the deep things of God into our heart and mind, and he translated backwards.
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You remember, we talked about translating our feeble language to God's infinite language.
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He takes God's infinite language and puts it in words in our little feeble heart and mind that we can understand and says, here's what
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God's thinking and here's where he's going. Let me put it in a few adjectives and nouns and verbs for you so you can see some of it.
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And he does that for us. The deep things of God, this word deep means profound, secret things, mysterious things in the
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Greek, bathos. It's a deep word. And the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
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So the third point I see, first of all, God reveals things to us by his Spirit. Secondly, the
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Holy Spirit searches all things, including, number three, the deep things of God.
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So what's now, you know, let's, let's stop and think a minute, let's, let's get our chat buttons handy again.
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We ask, what are some of the things in us and in our world that he can search?
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What are some of the things, the deep things of God that the Holy Spirit could search and find out about and bring to our minds?
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List a few, if you can think of a few. Well, our enemy's minds, boy, I like that one, Frank. Thank you.
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That's, that's amazing. And yeah, the
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Lord knows every step our enemy's going to make before he makes it. He can tell us, he can tell, listen,
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Paul said, I am not ignorant of the strategies of Satan. Why do you think he wasn't ignorant?
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Because the Holy Spirit told him what Satan was about to do in the future. Paul was a step ahead of him.
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You can be too. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
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Yeah, knowing the things of God and keeping those in the forefront of our mind helps us to avoid sin.
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How about God's will? I like that, Jeff. And the Holy Spirit within us, that's who does all this work.
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The intentions and motives of our hearts, but also understanding God's heart. What's the best for us, the wisest for us, and what good thing does
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God have for us? Thank you, Tori. All these things are great, great answers. And yes,
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I'm in agreement with all of these. You guys did a great job. So now think about what's happened here.
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The Holy Spirit lives within us until the day of redemption, till the Lord comes back.
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He's indwelling our body and our body becomes the temple of the living God. He then goes into the heavenlies and searches the heart and mind of the deep things of the
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Father. He translates that back into a language we can understand. That's how
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I know it's not talking about gibberish or modern tongues. It's a language we can actually understand with our intellect and our heart.
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And he puts that in our hearts and minds, and he adjusts our prayer life to fit God's will.
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Now that's exactly what's happening. And what happens here when we get into this mode is our prayers will be answered, yes.
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So it includes God's secret will, these deep things of God. It includes letting us know what
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God loves as opposed to focusing so much on what we want and love. It also shows us what
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God hates. That's important to know. The modern world didn't think he hates anything. They hadn't read the scripture if they think that though.
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It lets us know what God is about to do with and through and by and to you and me.
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That's pretty powerful. It also shows us what he is not about to do. Now, listen, let's get a little practical here.
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I gave an example in my life last time. Let me give another one. Charlotte and I had some dear friends and I still have these friends in the world, but they don't live here anymore.
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But when we were young couples, we were doing a lot of stuff together. Well, the female part of the couple, her mom was amazing golfer.
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So naturally I spent time with her mom because I wanted to learn some things from her and I did. Her name was Nell, very athletic.
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She literally had a room full of golf trophies and one of the most amazing players
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I've ever seen or played with in my life. But there was a day that they got a call that her mother,
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Nell, was in the shower and all of a sudden just blacked out and fell and they found her and took her to the hospital and she had had,
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I believe if I remember right, an aneurysm. And they rushed down there up north,
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I should say not down there, they rushed up north to where she was and they were at her side and she was unconscious in a coma.
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And as the day, one or two days go by, our friend was calling us and telling us what she was seeing.
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And she was saying that my mom's head has swollen so large it's as big as a basketball. And she said,
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I just, she's not going to make it. Well, Charlotte and I had been praying for Nell from the very moment we learned this had happened while our friends were traveling on the highway to get there.
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We were praying and we started out asking the Lord to heal her and save her life for our friend's sake and for her sake.
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And that's a selfish prayer, but it's very normal, isn't it? That's where we all begin.
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And I'm saying it's appropriate. It's where we should begin. I think the Lord expects us to begin there.
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He made us, He knows us. Of course, we're going to pray for her to be, it'd be abnormal and unnatural if we didn't pray for Nell to be saved and healed and brought back to her family, even to play golf again, all of that.
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And so we began to pray that, but as we prayed, Charlotte and I did something we learned many years earlier.
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We said, but Lord, as the moments go by, may your Holy Spirit adjust our prayers, adjust our prayers to where we're in perfect alignment with what you're going to do and what your desire is for Nell.
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And we sincerely meant that. We knew we meant it. The Holy Spirit knew we meant it. And he took that prayer to the throne of God.
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He came back the next day or two to me and Charlotte and let us know that he was going to heal
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Nell. And her daughter was calling us at the very time we're sensing this and knowing it with all of our being.
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That's what we call being given faith. It's a gift, right? He gave us the faith that he was going to raise her up, but the daughter was calling, saying she's not going to make it.
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And we kept telling her, look, don't give up on the Lord. We believe she's going to play golf again.
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And I just don't because, of course, she was looking, going by sight, looking at her mother who was on a ventilator.
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Her head was swollen as big as a basketball, and she looked like she was dying. She was going by sight and who would blame her?
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But Charlotte and I had the advantage of being a few thousand miles away and just asking the
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Lord, what's happening here? How do we pray? And he let us know, you pray for her to be raised up. So we kept praying that.
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And sure enough, it wasn't just a matter of weeks and she went home. And within a matter of months, she was playing golf again.
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Now, that is an example, and I give it only for this reason. I want you to learn the practical aspect of praying for what you want, but adding, like Jesus did, nevertheless, thy will be done, not mine.
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Adding at the end, say, look, but Lord, Holy Spirit, go to the throne of God and bring back to me and redirect my prayer so that I may pray in God's will.
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That's a practical way to pray and is so powerful. All right. Try it if you've never tried that before.
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Now, we continue in this passage, 1 Corinthians 2, 9 and 10.
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Here, we've seen this and we see the first point came from that, that the Spirit searches the deep things of God.
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Now, look at verse 11. For what man knows the things of a man.
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Now, God's going to use an example in the world. A lot of times he'll use farming examples, agricultural examples in the world to teach us a spiritual truth.
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It's something we're really, really familiar with to teach us something spiritually we cannot understand.
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And he's doing it here. Only this is not agricultural. What he's saying is, for what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him.
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Now, let me stop for a moment. All right. That is talking about not the
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Holy Spirit, but your spirit. The Bible teaches us clearly that we're a triune person.
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We are a spirit and a soul, and we live in a body. Spirit, soul, and body.
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This is talking about our own spirit. That thing that makes me David Mitchell, the thing that makes you, you, that spirit, the spirit people recognize in you when they see you, and the spirit that the
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Holy Spirit sees all the time, the reality of who we really are. Men only see what we show them.
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He sees the reality of everything that we are. But that spiritual being that you, all right, nobody, nobody around you, not your spouse, not your own children, certainly not your pastor, knows you like your own spirit knows you.
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Would you agree with that? I mean, it's just obvious, right? You know, listen, you know, when you're being hypocritical and I know when
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I am, when we're covering something and sometimes it's just kind of the other person to cover it, right?
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Because they can't forget what we say to them, right? They'll never forget it. And I remember brother Otis used to teach me,
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David, only give people the amount of information that they need. Think about that.
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That'll change your life and your family and business life. But that is, that's not lying to people, but it's like they can't handle everything.
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They're not God. They can't forget anything you're going to say. So be careful what we say, but just think about it.
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Nobody knows you except your own spirit and of course
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God, right? But it's using your spirit as an example. So look what it says. For what man knows the things of the man except the spirit of that man, right?
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Now he says, now let's liken this, let's teach a spiritual truth. Just like that is true, even so that just like that's true, the things of God knoweth no other person except the spirit of God.
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So think about what it's saying. You and I certainly have never seen
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God, the father. He is a pure spirit being who is not in a place and he's not in space and time.
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And he only comes here by his Holy spirit or Jesus. He, if he came here, the elements would flee from him because he's now all the time to dwell in time can be problematic.
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Now we certainly, so we can't see him. So how are we going to know
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God, right? And every seminary has God in a box. They know
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God and they differ on all these points and argue with other seminaries and denominations and Roman Catholics against Protestants.
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And, you know, everybody, everybody against everybody because of the seminary teaching, because you have to put
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God in a box and feel comfortable that we know God. Listen, no man knows God except the spirit of God.
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All right. You can know little parts of an infinite being, but you don't know him. And neither do
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I, but the Holy spirit knows him. The Holy spirit is the spirit of God.
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Just like your spirit is your, is the spirit of you and knows you totally because it's you and the
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Holy spirit knows the mind of God in that same fashion. That's what verse 11 means.
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That's pretty interesting information. So the example that's given in verse 11 is who knows the mind of a man better than the man's own spirit.
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Right. And if that's true, that's true of God too. And that's what the Lord is teaching us. Even so, no man knows the things of God, except the spirit of God is the only one who knows the things of God.
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Especially if you're talking about the future that God has ordained already. The Holy spirit's the only one that knows that. Satan doesn't know it.
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We don't know it. The Holy spirit knows it. Now that presents a great conundrum, doesn't it?
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How then can we pray within God's secret will as Jesus instructed us to do and said, when you do that, all your prayers will be answered when they're in line with his will, how do we do it?
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If only the Holy spirit knows the mind of God, I bet you're getting ahead of me, aren't you?
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So we see number three, point number three, unless the spirit of God reveals
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God's mind to man, man cannot know it. No man can know it, but look at verse 12.
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Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the spirit, which is of God, that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God.
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So there are some things the Holy spirit freely tells us about God and God's will and God's mind.
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Praise the Lord. The Holy spirit does reveal these things to us and allows us to pray within God's will.
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Isn't that magnificent? So now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit, which is of God that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God.
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So the spirit searches the deep things of God and he reveals them to us when it is time for us to pray for these events.
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Why? Now I want you to hit your chat button again, if you're not getting too tired,
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I can't see you. So at church, when they start slumping off, I quit, but I can't see you.
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So I'm going to assume you're just seated right on the edge of your seat, wanting to hear more, right? So send me some things here.
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He reveals them to us when it's time for us to pray for these events that are going to happen.
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Why would God do that? Give me some thoughts. If you would. I see
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Sharon Bland, one of our church members said, that was a miracle. I will never forget what happened to Nell.
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She'll say she, she testifies. I was telling you a true story. All right.
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So we can pray according to his will. Tori says you're getting it. I mean, it's, it's clear when we just stop and go slowly through these passages, it's clear.
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So we can pray in God's will. So we can get the timing, right? That's beautiful.
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I like that. Uh, let's see. Jeff said that, man, that's awesome. Uh, his timing is perfect.
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Um, we need answers to our immediate reality and you can't get it in the other way to increase our faith.
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Yes. To let us know what, what God knows. So we know what to pray for. I would say that was awesome.
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And, uh, he calls us friends and shows us what he's going to do. Tim. That's beautiful. So scriptural.
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Um, he wants to answer our prayers. Gene. I love it. I love it for his good pleasure and good purpose.
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We are one of the conduits that glorify him. Frank. That is very true. And it gives God a proper glory.
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It's not just about us. It's mostly about him, but we get the benefit of all that. Don't we? So we might help bring his kingdom here.
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That's good. That sounds like brother, Dr. Myron Golden, doesn't it? But that was, uh, I don't know what your name is.
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It says flex. You could put type your name in next time. I know who you are. And then Phil Bushy said so that the translation becomes more direct.
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Like when he's translating God's mind into our language and puts it right in our mind. Absolutely.
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Cause he moves through us in this physical world so often. Yeah. He can use other things too, like a invisible little virus, but he, he loves and prefers to work through us and for his glory.
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Dave Huber senior says, absolutely. Uh, that was, uh, Tor, Torian.
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Am I pronouncing that right? Who said he moves through us so often. That is exactly what he prefers to do.
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Patrick says so that we are in agreement with what he wants to do. Three, the three stranded cord type of stuff.
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I love that because he loves us. Carl says, and Linda says, yes, we are his children. So, all right, guys, you get it.
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That's why. And that brings us to point number three, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
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That that's why he reveals these things to us so that we can know what these things are and a little subset is so that we have answered prayers is one reason he does it.
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And another one is because God loves to work with his children and many of his wonderful works on this earth.
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It's like a big family business. He has to let us know what's happening, what the plan is so we can work with him to fulfill the plan.
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Now, verse 13, which things also we speak not in words, which man's wisdom teaches, but which the
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Holy Ghost teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Now there's some interesting information here.
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And I say this to get it right, to get our prayers right. We must compare spiritual things with spiritual.
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Now the Holy Spirit teaches us the words. It clearly shows us this. And what does it mean to compare spiritual with spiritual?
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Well, remember this. We've already seen that verse 13 talks about comparing spiritual with spiritual.
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We've already seen Romans 8 26. Doesn't it say kind of the same thing? Look what it says. This is review.
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Likewise, the Spirit also helps our infirmities for we know not what to pray for as we ought, but the
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Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
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It literally in the Greek means size. So it's not talking about gibberish. It cannot be uttered means they are unspeakable by humans.
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So this is God's language, a higher level of language, a higher order of everything.
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It's a language we cannot speak due to our infirmities. It is the infinite Father's infinite language.
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And so the Holy Spirit brings God's mind to us. We began to pray in our feeble little finite words.
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And the Holy Spirit magnifies those words back into God's infinitely glorious language.
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And that's exactly what Romans 8 26 is talking about in groanings, which cannot be uttered in a language that's unspeakable by us.
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And it's what it means in 1 Corinthians 2 13, our parallel passage where it says comparing spiritual things with spiritual and where it says, which things also we speak not in words, which man's wisdom teaches.
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Listen, you can't pray in God's language and be taught that. And so many churches have classes on how to speak in tongues.
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And I, listen, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, but you can't teach someone a spiritual gift.
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All right. And if I study the scripture correctly, it's languages, not gibberish. And I could go on and on with this.
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I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in my last four years studying this particular subject too, but it's not the subject of this message.
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It keeps trying to creep in, but I won't let it. Rabbit trail or not. Okay. So now, now we see the spirit searches the deep things of God or reveals them to us so that we may know freely the things
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God's given to us so that we can have answered prayers and so that God can work in us.
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And verse 13 says, which things we speak not in the words of man's wisdom or that man can teach us.
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But which the Holy ghost teaches us comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Now let's take a look at this to think about also, what does this mean?
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He teaches us a language to pray in comparing spiritual to spiritual.
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There's only one thing that can mean in my viewpoint. Second Timothy 2 15 study to show that self approved unto
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God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
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That's where we get the idea of dispensations. I am not a dispensationalist theologically, but I do believe there are dispensations because the
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Bible talks about it right there. We certainly have an old Testament, the new Testament, and there are others, but I also believe in covenant theology.
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There's truth in both. So I'm not going to fight with either group. Okay. I just, I received the scriptural truth from both and believe that.
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How about that? But anyway, obviously we have to study the Bible and correctly interpret it based on rightly dividing like old
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Testament. Saints had some truth that's different than ours under the law of Moses. There were some things different than under grace.
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And we know that that's called rightly dividing the word of truth. But look at verse 16, shun profane and vain babblings.
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That's teachings by false teachers that just teach junk that don't fit the scripture. They teach junk that they have no scripture to interpret their scripture.
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In fact, it contradicts all the other scripture. That's vain babblings. And those increase more and more and cause ungodliness in the church when it's allowed.
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Can't allow that. Has to fit scripture, right? So what does it mean in verse 13 when it says compare spiritual with spiritual?
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It means compare what you're thinking and believing with all of the whole of the word of God, because it is the only physical, true authority that we have on this earth.
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Everything else is subjective. If you want to look at church tradition, listen, a lot of Catholics think that we as non -Catholics only look at the
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Bible. Listen, I have read probably more Augustine than most Catholics because I have
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Catholic friends and I ask them and they say, well, I need to go read more of that because I've read a lot of it. And he's an early church father in a
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Catholic church. Listen, I believe in reading what brothers and sisters for 2000 years have thought certain passages mean, because otherwise, how do
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I know I'm not having my own private interpretation, which is forbidden? So I believe in more than just the scripture, but I don't believe any of that is inspired because I've seen both
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Protestants and Catholic authors put falsehoods in their writing that had a whole bunch of other wonderful stuff.
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But something right there contradicts scripture that I easily see it contradicts it, and so I just have to leave that part out because it's not true.
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So it's truth that we're after, but still, it's great to read what our brothers and sisters. Now, I prefer to read books 150 years old or older.
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I don't like the modern ones too much, but this verse 13 specifically means taking the whole of the word of God, everything that you've seen that God's taught you that is true, and weigh that against this thing that you believe the
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Holy Spirit is telling you to pray for and about, and does it fit that? Does it fit or does it contradict? Do you have a piece about praying for this and you feel that it could be
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God's will and in alignment with His revealed will, which is the word of God, comparing spiritual with spiritual, and also with His secret will, is it all in alignment?
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And that's what I think verse 13 is talking about. And verse 14 says, but the natural man receives not the things of the
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Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
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And so my fifth point here is that one must be a spiritual person, in other words, a regenerated, saved person, to receive all the benefits of this lesson on prayer.
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Otherwise, you're praying in the dark like a pagan. You're praying in the dark like a heathen. You're just praying for stuff you want, and you don't know
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God, so you certainly can't care about His will and what He's actually going to do, so it's impossible if you're not saved.
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Now, if you're out there and you're not sure you're saved, if you are concerned about your soul, then you're not a goat, all right?
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If you're concerned about it, you're at least a lost sheep. And listen, the
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Holy Spirit will come to you. He will open your eyes. He'll take your chin and go just like this and say, see
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Him? That's Jesus. He's your shepherd. You're a sheep and you're hungry, and He's got all the food. And He will make
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Him irresistible to you, and when that happens, just receive Him. Like a bride does a bridegroom. The bridegroom spent years and years buying candy and flowers and taking you on dates to get you to even notice
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He exists, but eventually you noticed Him and you married Him, ladies. Now, that's how that works. There is a physical example of a spiritual truth.
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David just told a parable about that. So, we need to be saved, and if you have a concern about that, just understand this.
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Jesus died for the sins of His people. That means He died in the place of His people, and He paid their sin debt for them, and He presented
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His blood at the throne in heaven, which satisfied God's justice completely, made it possible for God to save us, and lawful for God to save us.
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And then the Holy Spirit came to you and did your chin this way, and as soon as you saw Him as your shepherd,
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He applied the blood of Jesus to your personal life, and now you are saved, and that's how that works. So, we hope that you'll spend some time alone with the
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Lord if you don't already know Him for sure today and take care of that. Just between you and Him has nothing to do with coming down the aisle of a church.
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I'll promise you that, between you and the Lord. And we love each of you. We're out of time now today, and I just want to stop right here.
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It's a great place to stop. Now, we've seen two amazing passages where the Holy Spirit taught us the same points, the same exact truth about how prayer works.
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All the other nine different components of prayer, I believe this is the unifying factor behind all of them.