(The Ministry of the Spirit) in the Old Testament — Zac Poonen

Heads in prayer. Let's fix our eyes on Jesus as we seek to enter this meeting. The Lord says, be still, relax, let go and know that I am God. Let go the things you are clinging on to and the things that you are attached to.

Know that I am God. We need to know Him. We want to be open. God reveals Himself to us through His word and through His Spirit. May there be a burning desire in your heart. God answers you according to the hunger of your heart.

If any man thirsts, any woman thirsts, let him her come to me, says Jesus. If anyone is thirsty, let that person come to me. May we come to Him with a thirst tonight. With a heart that is cleansed from every defilement, do business with God, be serious, sacrifice everything, finish with the past.

Anything that needs to be confessed, confess it now. Anything that needs to be settled with somebody else, tell God you will settle it at the very first opportunity and ask Him to cleanse you in the blood of Jesus.

For shed for sinners, come to Him with boldness, confidence. Don't let the devil make you feel condemned. God loves you. He wants to draw you to Himself, Heavenly Father. We come to you because you have called us.

We are your children. We have the right to come to you. We are not strangers. We are your children and we come to you because you are our Father. We ask you Lord to pour out your Spirit on us, give us revelation as we look into your Word.

This evening we come to you in faith with hearts that are open, cleansed. We want to follow you radically. God move in our midst. We pray this evening, confirm your Word with signs following. We trust you Father, we trust you.

We are not ashamed to acknowledge that you are the Living God and we trust you that you will do more than we can ask or think. Your Spirit rest upon us. We wait upon you Lord. We have no confidence in ourselves.

We pray that you will give us the Spirit of Prophecy. Spirit of Prophecy rest upon all of us that we can hear your Word directly from your Spirit. We trust you. In Jesus name, Amen. Okay, let's take our seats.

The Threefold Ministry of the Holy Spirit

These three evenings we are going to have three Bible studies on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and we are going to see it in three sections. First of all the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and then the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus or in the Gospels and then ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church as we read in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles.

And as we study it, the important thing is not just to get knowledge but that our hearts will see something of what God wants us to have and of how God worked through the ages. First of all I want you to notice that the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the very second verse of the Bible.

It says when the earth was in that shapeless, dark, empty condition, it says the Spirit of God, Genesis 1 -2, moved over the surface of the waters and when you come to the end of the Bible in Revelation 22 -17 you see the Holy Spirit saying, Come, come and drink whoever is thirsty.

So the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the first page and the last page of the Bible and all the way in between. And when we study God's Word we must remember that without the Holy Spirit we are not going to be able to understand.

We need power from God, we need revelation from God to understand His Word, to understand His ways. So often when we are seeking to know God's will, it is the Holy Spirit who is going to guide us. The Bible says those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Those who are born of the Spirit of God, they are the children of God. Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. God wants us to grow up from being children to sons and it is all by the Holy Spirit.

And right there in the beginning of Genesis 1 you see God's Word going forth every day, God said, God said, God said. And right from verse 2 the Holy Spirit was moving on all those six days and changed that ugly earth into something beautiful.

So right there in the first chapter of the Bible you have a picture of what the Holy Spirit can do in your life. Take something which is, your life may be like it is described in verse 2, formless, that means you are ugly.

Ugly means not Christ like, is ugly, where things are not in proper place. You have got too much of one thing and too little of another. You know how some people are so strict and no grace and some people are so wishy-washy, no strictness.

It is like having one ear so big and another ear so small. It is ugly. The glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. Beauty is in balance, grace and truth the same size, ears the same size, eyes the same size.

It is not enough to have grace and truth, you must have it the same proportion. So when it says formless, shapeless, ugly, that is what the Holy Spirit wants to change. Empty. The earth was shapeless, empty and dark.

Empty. No place for God, no place for content and God wants to fill that. That is all the Holy Spirit's work. So the Holy Spirit's work there in the first paragraph of scripture is to make us beautiful, to fill us and to bring light.

Not only light for ourselves but make us a light to other people. So we have to go through this very quickly because I want to try and cover the whole Old Testament and try and point out some of the major things that we see in the Old Testament about the ministry of the Holy Spirit and how it applies to us.

The Fiery Sword and the Holy Spirit’s Work of Death

So if you have a Bible you can turn quickly, I will be going through from Genesis to Malachi. Chapter 3 verse 24, we read about the first time we read of fire in the Bible. Fire. And you know that John the Baptist said that Jesus will baptize us in the Holy Spirit and fire.

So it is good to see the first time that fire comes in the Bible here. It is after sin has come into the world and there is this sword of fire, a flaming sword going around the tree of life. It is the first time we see the Holy Spirit guarding the way to the tree of life that man does not approach it who is not willing to let that sword fall upon him.

You know I cannot receive the life of God if I am not willing to let the Holy Spirit slay the life of Adam that I have received. If we bear the dying of Jesus we will have the life of Jesus. It is no use praying for the power of the Holy Spirit if I am not willing to let that sword of fire slay something in me.

That is the way to the tree of life. Now that was not there before sin came. Before sin came there was no sword, there was no fire there in front of the tree of life. Adam could go straight to it. And if we had no sin we could have gone straight to the tree of life and partaken of God's own nature.

But we can't. Today there is a fiery sword, the Holy Spirit putting to death the life of Adam. It is there in picture, right at the beginning of scripture. And very often we don't have more, I mean people experience the Holy Spirit a little bit and don't experience more because they are not willing to let the Holy Spirit slay something in them which He shows them is from Adam, that is not from Christ.

So I want to ask you all a simple question. Do you want to get rid of everything in your life which you got from Adam? Or only some of the bad things, like King Saul wanted to kill the bad sheep but not the good sheep.

If you are serious about getting rid of everything I just want to tell you the Holy Spirit will cooperate with you 100 and you will be a different person. In chapter 6 verse 3 we read about a mention of the Holy Spirit.

God says, My Spirit will not strive with man forever. He gave him a long time, 120 years it says in this verse. It is a principle. God's patience is not unlimited. If you are patient the Holy Spirit keeps on speaking, speaking, speaking, speaking.

One day He stops speaking and that is the end. And that is when a man has committed the sin against the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit stops speaking to him and then he keeps on living in sin. My Spirit will not strive with man forever.

So don't resist the Holy Spirit. That is the message we get from there. There He waited 120 years. God waits a long time with many of us. Thank God He doesn't give up the first time we say no. He pleads, He pleads, He pleads, He pleads.

But remember every year that those people resisted, time was running out. They didn't know it was 120 years. They thought it would be forever. It was not forever. Don't think the Holy Spirit pleads with us forever.

He is certainly not going to plead with us for 120 years. But what I am trying to say is that there is a time limit to God pleading with you to set something right. He will tell you to set something right and you don't do it.

He will tell you maybe another meeting, set that right, you still don't do it. He will tell you after 6 months, set that right, you don't do it. One day He won't bother you anymore. He will not bother you anymore.

He will say, go ahead, do what you like. It's tragic. It's tragic when that day comes. That is why the Bible says, today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as they did in the wilderness.

Noah’s Raven and Dove as Pictures of Flesh and Spirit

Let's move on to chapter 8, verse 7 and 8. We see a picture of the Holy Spirit again. Noah sent out a crow, a raven means a crow, out of the ark. The waters had not subsided. The crow went round and round and never came back to the ark.

He sent out a dove, verse 8. That is a picture of the Holy Spirit. The dove rested upon Jesus. The crow is a picture of the flesh, the life of the flesh. The dove is a picture of the life of the Holy Spirit.

He sent out a dove. The dove did not find, verse 9, a resting place and came back to the ark. But the raven never came back. Why did the raven, the crow, not come back? You know why? Because when he saw, went out onto the earth, he found all these dead bodies, carcasses of animals and human beings.

He said, boy, this is a chicken biryani for me. This is a feast. I never got anything like this inside the ark. Think what Noah was withholding from me. This is where I am going to be. He rested on one carcass and another carcass and another carcass.

He never wanted to come back. That world out there covered with water, with all those dead carcasses, is a picture of today's world. And when a carnal Christian goes out from the church to the world, he finds a lot of things, dead stuff.

Movies, TV programs, dead carcasses, dirty books, pictures, internet, pornography, all of that. And this chap says, this is wonderful. We don't get anything like this in the church. It's so boring inside the ark there.

This is great. And the crow just lives out there. Maybe he comes to the ark on Sunday mornings. That's just for namesake. But his life is out there on those dead carcasses. But the dove, the one who is sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, when he goes out, after all we have to go out into the world.

We have to live there. We have to earn our living. He goes out. He doesn't find a resting place. Everything. He says, no, I don't want that. Turn around there. I don't want that. Another dead carcass of a pig or an elephant.

No, I don't want that. What shall I do? Everything in the world is so empty and dead. Let me go back to the fellowship of my brothers who love the Lord Jesus. And he comes back to find his place in the church.

There are two types of people sitting here. The raven and the dove. You know which one you are. Exodus chapter 3. The raven and the dove. Exodus chapter 3. We read about God appearing to Moses. Verse 2.

In a burning bush. Again a picture of fire. A picture of what God wanted Moses to be. God wanted Moses to be like that burning bush. Not a bush that sets itself on fire. But that receives God and God becomes the fire inside that bush.

You know that's what God wants you to be. It says that God tabernacled in the bush. God dwelt in that bush. Later on Moses never forgot it. In Deuteronomy 33 he speaks about the God who dwelt in the bush.

He never forgot it all his life. You can't forget a man whom you have met in your life who is on fire for God. You may disagree with him. You may criticize him. But you can never forget him. You know Jesus stirred the greatest emotions in people.

There were people who so fervently loved Jesus that they would die for him. And then there were people who so fervently hated him that they wanted to kill him. That's the mark of a spirit filled man. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you will draw people who love you so much they will be willing to give their life for you.

And you will also see people who hate you so much that they want to kill you and tear you to pieces. That's the mark of a spirit filled man. If you are the type of person who does not stir any emotions in anybody, people don't love you too fervently and don't hate you too fervently, I'll give you a solution for that.

Be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's what you need. To be like this burning bush, a flame for God. My brothers and sisters, just think of all of us become like this. Don't be afraid of people hating you.

They hated Jesus and Paul like anything. Because the devil hated them. And then there were also few people who loved them so much they would lay down their lives for Jesus and Paul. That's the type of person we must be.

We must not be this moderate, mediocre type of person who neither stirs great emotions of hatred or great emotions of love. When the Spirit of God, the angel of fire came into that bush, he could stop, Moses stopped and God could speak.

Ok, we got to move on. In Exodus 13 and verse 21, we see another picture of the Holy Spirit, the pillar of cloud. It says, came into the Israelites to lead them. The pillar of cloud, it was a pillar of fire at night.

Psalm 105, 39, don't turn to it, just let me mention it, says the cloud was to give them a shadow during the daytime and the pillar was to give them light at night time. It served a function. When it says in Psalm 91 ,1, he who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall dwell under the shadow of the Almighty.

That's the Holy Spirit. I want to dwell in the secret place in the cleft rock, the rock that was smitten for me because there I will dwell under the shadow of the Almighty, the Holy Spirit's shadow upon me, protecting me from the heat, like that pillar of cloud protected these 2 million people from the heat of the sun during the daytime.

Can you imagine what it is, walking for 40 years, if there was no cloud there? There was a permanent cloud over their heads, protecting them from the heat of the desert for 40 years. And that's the thing that we need to protect us from the heat of this world and the devil, the shadow of the Almighty.

And that's the Holy Spirit. And to give us light at night so that we know where to go. Can you imagine walking without a light in a pitch dark night in a desert full of poisonous snakes and what not? That's the Holy Spirit, at daytime, night time, 24 hours, the Holy Spirit.

These are all pictures. Turn to Exodus chapter 31, or chapter 17 first of all. Another picture of Christ being smitten in verse 6. And as soon as he smote the rock, the rivers of living water came out of the rock.

Those are not little trickles. Remember there were 2 million people who wanted water. Bangalore's population is 6 million. This is 2 million people. One third of Bangalore's population needed water in the desert.

It was not little trickle. It was rivers that flowed out of that rock. A picture of the Holy Spirit that flows out because Jesus was smitten on Calvary. Chapter 31, a beautiful verse that tells us that when the tabernacle was being built, when the tabernacle was being built, God called.

I have called Bethelil, verse 1. And I called by name Bethelil, the son of Uri, the son of Ur. And I filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, knowledge. I have also called verse 6, Aholia. So here was a man, in order to build the tabernacle, he had to be filled with the Spirit of God in wisdom and understanding and knowledge.

How shall we build the church today? There was a picture. The tabernacle in the Old Testament is a picture of the church and the main qualification for this guy who built the tabernacle was, he was filled with the Holy Spirit.

How foolish we are when we think that with our human ability, our musical ability, our cleverness and our intelligence, we can build the church or preach the word. Folly of follies. Exodus chapter 40 and verse 38.

It says here, throughout all the journeys of the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years, the cloud was on the tabernacle. The tabernacle is a picture of the church. And the most important thing that we need in the church is not a pattern.

It's the cloud. It's the fire. It's the fire of God that distinguished the tabernacle from all other tabernacles. How shall we say we are a New Testament church compared to other churches? Is it because we have a pattern?

That we don't have a pastor? And we allow many people to share the word in our meetings? Or that we don't have a priest? You know a lot of people get worked up by these things. Somebody calls himself a pastor.

Somebody calls himself a bishop. And somebody, they have crosses around their neck and caps on their head and all. Yeah, I'm against all these things. But I tell you, a lot of people who are against all these things don't have the fire.

So it doesn't make a difference whether you have a cross around your neck or no cross around your neck. The mark of a New Testament church is not that we don't have pastors. We don't wear crosses around our neck.

We don't wear a cap on our head. That is not the mark of a New Testament church. Or we speak in tongues. No. The mark is the fire. The fire on the tabernacle distinguished it from all the other tabernacles in the world.

And if the fire of God is in the midst of your meetings, in your home, in your life, that is a New Testament church. And I would rather go to a church where a bishop sits with a cross and there's a fire of God there, than in a church where people glory in their doctrines and there's no fire.

Any day. I look for the fire. I don't look for a pattern. Pattern is a form. The tabernacle, all the poles are the right size and the boards are the right size and the color of the curtains are the right size.

I couldn't care less for those things. It's good. We should follow the pattern. But the important thing is the fire. If you have the pattern and you don't have the fire, that means God's not happy. Remember that, my brothers and sisters.

Some people come here and think, oh, let's make a church in our hometown. We're going to gather people and we're going to follow the same pattern they have in Bangalore. It's not a pattern. It's the fire you need.

And that's a mistake a lot of people have made. We go to Leviticus. In Leviticus chapter 10, we have a warning. First of all, we read in Leviticus chapter 9 that the fire of God fell upon the offering.

In Leviticus 9 .24, the fire came out, a picture of the Holy Spirit. And then we read in the next verse that two sons of Aaron took strange fire and offered it before the Lord. Strange fire means trying to duplicate the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

That's also pictured in the Old Testament. Some people saw, hey, this is fantastic. The fire fell over there. Now, we're also preachers. Let's try and impress people. We're going to duplicate that. Lot of people have tried to duplicate the ministry of the Holy Spirit by stirring up emotions, by whipping up people's feelings and producing a strange fire.

It looks like that. But God's not happy with it. God is so angry with it. It's not just something we can ignore. It says God was so angry with them, verse 2, that the fire came out from God a second time and this time consumed both of these people and they died before the Lord.

And Moses said, this is what the Lord spoke saying, if anyone comes near me, I must be treated as holy and I must be honored. Don't try and play the fool with me and try to imitate the work of the Holy Spirit by whipping up emotions.

I have seen some brothers in our churches who've got some type of Pentecostal background or whose only understanding of the Holy Spirit has come not from the Bible but from Pentecostal churches. When I see them leading the meetings in their churches, they do exactly the same thing.

This old Pentecostal habit doesn't leave them. Somehow whip up the emotions. Somehow get everybody to say Hallelujah, Amen and get everybody excited and that's the Holy Spirit. I thought we would never see it in our churches.

We're seeing it. False fire. Don't play the fool with God. Don't try to imitate the Holy Spirit. Don't try to whip up emotions just to get everybody excited in the meeting so that they can go back and say, oh brother, that was God in our meeting.

What is the use of a hundred undiscerning people saying that this Holy Spirit was in the meeting when it was only a false fire worked up by you. God hates it. If it's not the Holy Spirit, He doesn't need your help.

You preach God's word and the Holy Spirit will do the rest. Don't try to whip up emotions. You see that in a lot of Pentecostal churches. They whip up emotions so people are all excited. It's all human.

Why do I say that? Because it doesn't deliver neither the pastor nor the people from the love of money. That's why I say it's human. It doesn't deliver them from anger. They lose their temper. What type of Holy Spirit is that?

They are not filled with love for God's people. They are filled with love for people in their own sect. False fire. Leviticus 14, verses 13 -18. We see another example of the Holy Spirit and that is, I don't have time to go into this.

Leviticus 14, verses 14 -18. We read about the cleansing of the leper. The leper is a picture of us sinners. It says here, the leper must first be cleansed by putting a little blood on his ear, thumb of his right hand and big toe.

Symbolizing the cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ all the way from top to bottom of all our sin. Then, after he is cleansed of his sin with the blood on this leper, the priest would take a little bit of oil and put the oil on top of the blood.

That is, he must put a little bit of the oil on, verse 17, on top of the right ear and the right thumb. Then he has already put the blood there on the thumb and the big toe and the ear and now he puts on top of the blood the oil.

Symbolizing that the Holy Spirit cannot work where the blood of Christ has not cleansed you first. You first put the blood and then put the oil. If you are not cleansed in your life, the Holy Spirit cannot work.

So, that is a picture of the initial ministry of the Holy Spirit when we are cleansed and we are born again. We are born of the Holy Spirit. But that is not all. After we are born of the Holy Spirit, then the rest of the oil, verse 18, he will pour upon the head.

That is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It is all there in the Old Testament. Amazingly pictured by God for those who have eyes to see. Now we go to the book of Numbers. In the book of Numbers again we see, Numbers chapter 11, verse 17.

The Spirit Distributed for Service

Moses once said to the Lord, Lord, this is too much for me to handle all these two million people. I can't do that alone. Do you think God did not know that? Sometimes we think God does not know the burdens we are bearing.

Oh God, nobody is taking any responsibility in the church. I have to do it all alone. Do you complain like that? You know, in every church in the world, we have multitudes of irresponsible children of God, born again people.

We have seen that through twenty-nine years or twenty-eight years of conferences in Bangalore. People who volunteer to take a responsibility in a conference don't fulfill their responsibility wholeheartedly.

Some do it so faithfully. Some take it casually. People who volunteer to clean the CFC hall won't turn up. The church everywhere, including the best churches, are filled with irresponsible believers. You will find ten percent, fifteen percent who take the responsibility.

What shall they say? I have seen that in the ministry of the word. Multitudes of irresponsible people who don't study the word, who don't take time to get to know God and have nothing to say. And then the burden may fall on a few people.

Are we going to go to Moses and say, Lord, you left me to bear all the burden alone. That is what he said. As if God did not know and seek God's answer. You know, Moses said, if you are going to deal with me like this, number is eleven fifteen, kill me.

I don't want to live like this. God said, no. Call me seventy men. I am going to distribute the responsibility among seventy people. And now listen to this. This is very important. When I come down, I will take the spirit that is upon you, verse seventeen, and put it on them.

And they shall bear the burden of the people. How much power did Moses have? The power of seventy people. God said, this is too much for you. Okay, I will reduce your power by one, I will reduce it to one-seventieth of what you have now.

And I will distribute it among the others. Okay, if you want it that way. That teaches me one thing. In the power of the Holy Spirit, you can do whatever you want. You can do the work of seventy people.

Amazing. And if you complain to God, He will give you seventy co-workers. Your power will get reduced to one-seventieth, about one and a half percent of what it was in the beginning. Leave it to God.

If somebody else does not do his work, God will give you a double portion to do that. And the third person does not do his work, God will give you a triple. The fourth person who is supposed to do something does not do it, God will give you four times.

Seventy people do not do their work, God will put seventy people's power on you. Do not ever complain again. It is amazing what the Holy Spirit can do. I have experienced this numerous times. When I said, Lord, how can I do this?

I wish somebody would bear that responsibility with me. Okay, they do not. God puts double, triple, four times, five times, six times. It is not me. I know it is not me. People think it is me. It is not me.

I believe that if there is a job for seventy people and sixty-nine of them are irresponsible, God will put the power of seventy people on me through the Holy Spirit. Can you have faith for that, elder brothers?

Do not ever complain that other people are not doing their job. Unless you want your power to be reduced to one and a half percent of what it is now. Okay, then we go to chapter twenty-four. Now I want to give you a little warning about the Holy Spirit's ministry, and that is, you see in the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit, it is amazing, Numbers twenty-four verse two, Balaam lifted up his eyes and the Spirit of God came upon him.

Is not that amazing? Did you ever know that the Spirit of God came upon Balaam once upon a time? That guy who later on went after money, and in the book of Joshua, he is called a sorcerer. The evil spirit came upon him.

It happened to Saul. Once he had the Holy Spirit, later on he had the evil spirit. So it is possible for a person who is once anointed by the Holy Spirit because he goes after money, to have the evil spirit come upon him.

He still may do miracles and do so many things, but it is an evil spirit. There are lots of people like that, who cast out demons, do miracles, do prophesy, and the Lord will finally say to them, I never knew you.

So that is a warning, that just because we can do certain wonderful things and the Holy Spirit is upon us, does not mean that we are godly. The Holy Spirit was upon Balaam, and the Holy Spirit was upon Elisha.

If you wanted advice, to whom would you go? Whom would you go to? Elisha or Balaam? Just because Balaam can do some miracles? No. Don't just go by the fact that the Holy Spirit is on somebody. Another verse in Numbers is 27 .18, where the Lord told Moses, now take Joshua and take a man in whom is the spirit.

See, Moses was about to die and the Lord said, now you got to get somebody to take over your job. And I tell you, I really respect Joshua. As I said earlier, he was one of those rare people who could carry on the anointing to a second generation.

I respect Elisha. He was one of those rare people who carried on the anointing in a double portion to the second generation. What fantastic examples! We need people like that, who can carry on the anointing that is on the church into a second generation and perhaps with a double portion.

He says, call Joshua. You know, the Lord was observing Joshua for many years. He didn't just pick him out from a hat and pull out a name, okay, Joshua. No, He observed all those people for many years and He said, call Joshua.

He's the one. Put your hand on him. Anoint him. So that's how Joshua was chosen. And I want to turn to another verse now in the book of Judges. In the book of Judges, we read a number of people like Othniel and Jephthah and Gideon and Samson upon whom the Holy Spirit came.

And I want you to see one verse, Judges 6 .34, where it says, the Spirit of God, the literal translation is, clothed Gideon. That's one verse that teaches us that in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God was like a shirt, a dress.

It covered a man's nakedness. Nakedness means impotence, helplessness, powerlessness. A shirt of power came upon him and with 300 people who could defeat the Midianites. Samson could tear a lion to pieces.

He could take a jawbone of an ass and kill 1 ,000 people because the Spirit of God came upon him. You read in Judges chapter 15. But he could not overcome the lust for Delilah. Within him. It was like a dress.

You see, my shirt, you know that. My shirt does not change my nature. And a shirt of power did not change Gideon's nature. Later on we read Gideon worshiped idols. Samson fell into adultery repeatedly, not just once.

Because the shirt did not change him on the inside. It gave him the ability to fulfill a ministry. And that's all it was in the Old Testament. Old Testament experience of the Holy Spirit was like a shirt.

Some people were godly like Elijah and Elisha and Moses and Joshua. Some people like Balaam, Samson and Gideon were not godly. But the Spirit of God was upon them. Okay, another verse, 1 Samuel chapter 10.

A beautiful verse where Samuel tells King Saul, the Spirit of God will come upon you and you will be changed into another person. I like to quote that verse to many people today. Beautiful verse. When the Spirit of God fills you today in the New Covenant, you will be changed into another person.

I can testify that in my life, that the timid, shy person disappeared and someone, some other person came forward when the Holy Spirit came and filled my life. And He will do the same in your life. He will take away the timidity.

He will take away the fear of man. He will take away, you know that's what happened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. The gradual deliverance over a period of ten years. One moment, they were locked inside the room for the fear of the Jews.

The Holy Spirit came upon them. They opened the doors and told the chief priests, you fellows crucified the Son of God. What was it that changed those people? It was not a pep talk. It was the Holy Spirit.

So, you will be changed into another man. Claim that promise from God. And it actually happened in verse 10, when the Holy Spirit came upon him. But you know that many times it says, like chapter 11, verse 6, the Spirit of God came upon Saul mightily and all that.