(The Mission and Ministry of the Holy Spirit) Walking in the Spirit — David Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square Church pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, Post Office Box 260, Lindale, Texas, 75771, or by calling 903 -963 -8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to friends.

Defining What It Means to Walk in the Spirit

Walking in the spirit. Paul said, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. He also said, if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. I've heard that term all my life, walking in the spirit, walking in the spirit.

Most Christians would tell you they are walking in the spirit. If I ask you that question, you'd say, I'm walking in the spirit, yet you couldn't explain it to me. I don't think there are a handful of people or Christians on the face of the earth can truly explain what it means to walk in the spirit.

It's just a term. It's vague to many people. It has no mean whatsoever. And we want the Holy Spirit to open our minds on this tonight. I ask you, do you walk in the spirit? Do you walk in the Holy Spirit?

Do you live in the spirit? And if so, tell me what that means to you. Just stop and think a minute. Tell me what it is that you believe is walking. We always get the answer, don't we? Walking in the spirit.

I want you to stop and think about it. I want you to think about it seriously, because until you know, you don't know, I'll not be able to speak to your heart. Listen very closely. I'm going to give you a simple one-sentence definition of walking in the spirit, then I want to expand on it.

Walking in the spirit is letting the Holy Spirit do in us what God sent Him to do, allowing the Holy Spirit to do in us what God sent Him to do. Now, you can't allow Him to do what He's been sent to do until you know why God sent Him.

And you've got to stop tonight and say, God, Your Word says that You have sent the Holy Ghost. He abides in me. I want to know why You sent Him. I want to know why He lives in me. What is His eternal purpose?

What is He supposed to do in me or for me? What is the reason for the Holy Spirit being in me? This is what Jesus said speaking of the Father. He shall give you another Comforter that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it sees Him not, neither knows Him.

But you know Him, for He dwells within you, and He shall be in you. The Holy Spirit has been sent down from the Father to accomplish one eternal purpose. He's not like we preachers who have so many different goals.

We have so many different ways to present truth, and though the Holy Spirit presents truth like a diamond with many rays, every one of those rays point to one eternal purpose. Every truth that is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit has to do with one eternal purpose, the reason God sent the Holy Ghost to dwell in our hearts.

And I ask you tonight to learn with me God's eternal purpose in sending the Holy Ghost to live in your heart and mine. If we don't understand this eternal purpose, we're going to be guilty of two problems, two difficulties.

First of all, if we don't know His eternal purpose and why the Holy Spirit has been sent to us, we're going to be satisfied with just one or two of His gifts, and we will take that as the whole work of the Holy Spirit, and we will miss the grand work of God's Spirit and His eternal purpose, and we'll just sit back and relax and operate one or two of His gifts and not see that it's so far beyond that.

Or see, we'll take a part of the Holy Spirit as the whole, or secondly, we will do what millions of Christians are doing and simply ignore the Holy Spirit, thinking the Holy Spirit is so vague, He is so mysterious, that it's one of those things that we're called to take by faith and never understand.

Spiritual Gifts, Prayer, and the Limits of Charismatic Experience

And that's the problem, even though the charismatic movement talks so much about the Holy Spirit, many do not comprehend His work at all. If you ask some Christians to pray in the Spirit, they immediately launch into speaking with tongues, or praying in tongues, and that to them is the limit of praying in the Spirit.

I'm sometimes bothered by Christians, I want them to pray with their understanding, I want to hear what's in their heart, because the Bible says if you're speaking in tongues, your understanding is not fruitful, and therefore you don't profit, even though the church profits, you are not profiting from it.

And we're to speak with tongues and with our understanding, and it bothers me that some people think that praying in the Spirit is simply limited to praying in tongues. It's so far beyond that, it concludes that, but it's so far, far beyond that, and I want God to open our eyes to see that tonight.

We're to pray also with the understanding that you can have gifts operating in your life and still not be walking in the Spirit. That's why the Scripture points to those who were casting out devils and healing the sick, and doing miracles, and the Lord says, and those were operations of the Holy Spirit.

He said, I don't even know you. I don't know you, because their heart was not right. Somewhere along the line, pollution entered into their heart, and there was no communion with the Lord. It is so far beyond what we've been willing to think.

For many Christians, the problem is, and I believe this has been my problem, and I faced it in the past few weeks, as the Holy Spirit's been leading me to go deeper into the knowledge of His work, I have been one of those.

Like many Christians here tonight, you have locked up the Holy Ghost in your bones. He's locked up inside. He's seldom acknowledged. Do you talk to Him? Do you pray to Him, the Holy Spirit? Do you acknowledge that He's there?

I had an experience this past week when the Holy Spirit in my prayer closet came upon me, and I knew He was there in the room, and I heard His voice saying, acknowledge me, David. Don't keep me in some locked corner of your own spirit, of your own heart, and acknowledge that I am manifesting myself in you right now.

You are experiencing a manifestation of my very person, and I'm here that you would acknowledge me. It's amazing that we acknowledge the work of Christ on the cross. We acknowledge the presence of Jesus, but we seldom acknowledge the presence and the working of the Holy Spirit within us.

It's one of those vague, oblique things that we think we cannot possibly understand. The Holy Spirit is probably talked about more than any other member of the deity, and yet He's the most ignored. He's the most ignored of all the Godhead.

He's not benign. He's not sentimental. He's not mysterious. The Bible makes it very clear, Paul the Apostle makes it clear, that we are to have an understanding of the purpose of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The charismatic movement is in danger of going into all kinds of error on all sides, because they have settled on a few gifts of the Spirit, and have not seen the eternal purpose of His coming. That's not a charge, that's something I feel very deeply in my heart, and I believe I can show it from the Scripture.

The Holy Spirit’s Mission to Prepare Christ’s Bride

What is the eternal purpose of the Holy Spirit? Why did God send Him? Why is He living in your heart and mine? Simply this, to bring us home to Jesus Christ as His eternal, spotless Bride. The Holy Ghost, mark it down in your mind, the Holy Ghost has come for one single eternal purpose, and that is to bring a Bride to His Son, Jesus.

He has come to find and to fetch a Bride. That is His single purpose in coming. And the type in the Old Testament is Abraham sending his eldest servant, Eliezer, to go find a Bride for his son Isaac. And of course, the name Eliezer means Divine Helper.

His name means in Hebrew, Divine Helper. This Divine Helper, Eliezer, is led by God. God chose the Bride, Rebekah. Keep that in mind, God chose Rebekah, and led Eliezer right to the Bride. And the purpose of Eliezer, his role, his mission, was to bring Rebekah to Isaac.

That was his whole purpose, to get her to leave everything, to become enamored with Isaac, to give up everything she had and go and be espoused to Isaac. If you think, if you and I think that we chose the Lord, we've got it all wrong.

You didn't choose Him, He chose you. You can sit here and say, well, I just got tired of my filth, I got tired of being a sinner and I just decided to turn over a new leaf and God saw I was turning toward Him, so He came down and found me, because I headed toward Him.

No, you were a sinner, you were an alien, you weren't worth anything, you weren't worth being saved. God didn't see any good in you, He saw it in Christ. My Bible says that you have not, Jesus said, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.

I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. God has chosen you from the beginning to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

You know, Moses told Israel that they were very special chosen people. He said, for thou art a holy people unto the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a special people unto Himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

They loved that message. You are special. A lot of Christians love that message. You are special. You are chosen. The only problem with Israel, they wanted the chosenness, but they didn't want the obligation of preparing themselves to make themselves worthy of the Master, worthy of the Father.

They wanted the blessing. Suppose Rebecca, you know, Eliezer had loaded her down, she had the gold bracelets on her arm, she had the golden earrings, she had the gold all around her, she had the silver, she had the beautiful raiment, her whole family was dazzled by the gifts.

Wouldn't it have been something for Eliezer to say, you've been chosen, and now I bless you with all these blessings. And he said, now will you come and go with me. Dad and mom have already said, this is of the Lord, go, take her, go to be with Isaac.

Let her be your master's wife. Suppose she would have said, thank you, I'm chosen. She tells all of her bridesmaids, I'm chosen. Isn't that something, I'm chosen. He chose me. And look what he gave me, all the, see, we, we love the best.

We'll take the gold, we'll take the silver, we'll take all the blessing and we'll take the chosenness. There comes a time you got to get up and go. You got to get up and go with Eliezer, you have to get up and go with the Holy Ghost and the Lord says, I'm taking you someplace.

I'm not just going to let you sit around and get, but I have a divine purpose. I came with a mission from God and I'm going to complete it. And just as sure as Eliezer came home with a bride for Isaac, Jesus, the Holy Ghost is going to not come empty handed.

He is coming to the father for the bride. He's coming with a bride for his son. He's not going to fail in that mission. Hallelujah. You find all that in Genesis, the 24th chapter. The Israelites never did get up and go into the promised land.

They never did move on with the Holy Spirit whatsoever. They were chosen, but never cleansed. They were special, but never separated unto God. So picture of modern Christianity, a generation that gloats in its chosenness.

Boy, that's the message today. We are chosen, special people, but a generation does not want the discipline of the Holy Ghost to prepare them in holiness for the Bridehood. You tell me you're saved. You say the Lord's chosen you to be one of his children.

You say you love him. Then the man asks you, do you have a Rebecca heart? Is Jesus the love of your soul? Are you growing in your love toward him? What if she just said, I'm sorry, I like it where I am.

I'll come later. No, the scripture says, wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. Hallelujah. I'll go. All right, follow me further. Everything the Holy Spirit does in us is related to his mission.

Every Gift and Manifestation Must Glorify Christ

Everything the Holy Spirit does in us is related to his purpose in coming. The Holy Spirit doesn't do anything disjointed or haphazard. We have the idea that this benign spirit, we think of it as a benign spirit.

He's there to get us through a crisis. He's there to comfort us when we're down, when we're lonely. The Holy Spirit, we don't bother him much except when we're in trouble. Just kind of let him lay there, just kind of dormant.

And he's there just as a, you know, kind of a backup system. He's there in case I get in trouble. I can't make it myself. The Lord will come and pump a little faith in me and get me back into the battle so I can fight it on my own.

No, the Holy Spirit doesn't do anything in us unless it's related to his eternal purpose, his mission. The reason God sent him. Everything the Holy Ghost does in us, every manifestation, every gift, every fruit, everything, he has his eye on a bride being brought, prepared, and adorned for his master.

For the master himself, for God's own son. And everything is related. I'll tell you, I don't think you can understand the Scripture until you understand that. I think the Scripture begins to unfold completely and the work of the Holy Spirit will begin to unfold when you keep in mind he has one purpose.

He's not here to tickle me. He's not here just to give gifts to the world. Every gift he gives has a purpose to it. Everything he does has a purpose to it. If you prophesy that prophecy has one purpose in mind, that's to glorify Christ and make the world fall in love with him, make the church fall in love with him.

Every time somebody is healed, everything, every gift that's in operation in the church, that's the Holy Ghost saying, hey, take a look. That's your Jesus. Isn't he lovely? Isn't he wonderful? He's healed.

Look, there's a manifestation of who he is. That's our Eliezer saying, do you love him? Look what he's done for you. Look at his wealth. Look at his goodness. Every gift, everything the Holy Ghost is pointing to Jesus.

He'll not speak of his own. He magnifies Jesus. Jesus said he'll take of everything of mine. He'll show it to you. See, the Holy Spirit is saying, you're not your own. You've been bought with a price.

You've been chosen to be a spouse to Christ. And I'm the Spirit of God. And I've been sent from the Father to reveal the truth that set your heart free from all other loves. I've got a truth that'll break every sin because I want to present you to Christ with no other love in your life.

I want you to be presented spotless. I want to present you with a passionate love in your heart for him. And beloved, that's the work of the Holy Spirit in this church. The manifestation of his presence here tonight.

Some of you may not have understood when there was a loud explosion here of praise. That's a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And every time and folks, that's why we've got to have clean hands and a pure heart in the house of God so that nothing hinders what the Holy Spirit's been called to do.

He's been called to come to his church. The church of Jesus Christ and manifest Jesus so that we will fall in love with him. And that love will keep us. My Bible said if you walk in that kind of spirit, you'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Why? Because the Spirit is enamoring your heart to Christ. You'll see more of who he is. Any Holy Spirit comes to open Jesus to make us fall in love with Christ, showing us his beauty, the beauty of his holiness.

You know, we talk so much about the Holy Ghost guiding us and we cry, Oh, Lord, lead me, Lord, show me where to go. But, you know, we're more concerned in the method. In other words, did I get it right or am I hearing right?

And when we don't get the right answer or when our guidance system goes astray, we're more concerned about investigating our hearts and say, well, how did I fail God or why am I not hearing clear? Because I heard so clear, I heard God say, and it didn't turn out the way it was supposed to be.

And so we get in this hall, we get in this little box and the whole box inside, we're just saying, well, how can I figure God out? How can I make sure I'm hearing right? Rather than trusting the Holy Ghost, that he abides, he has an eternal purpose.

And if we'll just trust him and yield to him, he'll bring us through. He'll bring us to God's plan. Hallelujah. I want you to go to, I'm sorry, honey, my wife said I yelled too much. I'm trying to settle down here a little bit.

First Corinthians, first Corinthians. Go to first Corinthians with me to the 12th chapter, please. This will slow me down. I just get so excited about the Lord. I have to slow down. I'm losing my voice.

First Corinthians, 12th chapter, verse, begin to read verse four. I was in second Corinthians. I want first Corinthians, 12th chapter. Begin to read verse four with me, please. Just follow me. Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.

There are differences of administration, but the same Lord. Diversities of operations, but it's the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all, to profit with all.

Look at me, please. What is that profit? Every gift. And he goes on to name the gifts of the operations of the gift of knowledge and wisdom and miracles and faith. And what is the purpose of the Holy Ghost bringing forth these gifts in his body?

What is the purpose? What is the profit whereby we all profit? It is to bring us to Christ as a bride. Everything he does. Keep that in mind. Holy Ghost, you were sent to me and I want, if I'm going to walk in the spirit, I've got to let you do in me what you're called to do.

And what is it that he's called to do? To bring me to Jesus as a spotless bride. So I've got to see that everything he does is aiming in that direction. The Holy Spirit never forgets it. He's not a scatter shooter.

He's not shooting in all directions. He keeps bringing his back. He's got a single eye. My call is to bring you to Christ on the day of revelation and the marriage supper of the Lamb. Hallelujah. That is God's whole eternal purpose.

And how grieved the Holy Spirit must be at the circus that so many today in churches and evangelists turning the Holy Ghost ministry into a circus. How it must grieve him when ministers try to manipulate him.

I can't even begin to explain some of the gimmicks I've heard and seen recently. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be moving in and all the gimmicks that are used to try to create a sense of the moving of the Holy Spirit and how grievous that must be to the heart of God.

Folks, you go to any healing meeting, you go to any miracle meeting, go to any meeting you choose. And I'll tell you, if what you see in that meeting does not drive you to Jesus, if it doesn't show the exceeding sinfulness of sin, if it doesn't draw you out and say, even so come Lord Jesus, if it doesn't set your soul on fire for Christ, the Holy Ghost wasn't there.

Because that's his work, is to draw out the bride. Not to entertain you, not to give you signs and wonders and miracles, just to entertain or to make you feel good or to thrill you. Every one of these miracles, everything he does is his divine purpose.

I'm preparing a bride. I'm bringing home a bride to Isaac. Hallelujah. Now, let me show you one of the most glorious works of the Holy Spirit. He's been sent to give us a foretaste of Jesus Christ now.

The Spirit’s Seal and the Foretaste of Glory

It's called the earnest of our inheritance. Now, the earnest means a foretaste before the fact. In other words, before you take the whole, I'm going to give you a part of the whole. In other words, there's coming a day that you're going to be presented to me, Jesus says, face to face.

Hallelujah. It's not going to be some day when the Holy Spirit presents us to Jesus and he says, meet your bride. Of course, he knows us, yes. But that face to face meeting, when we're going to see him, keep in mind that Jesus, when we meet him as a man, he's God and he's man.

We're going to meet a man, the man Christ Jesus. He never gave up his manhood. We're going to meet the man, Jesus, and we are going to be his new body bride. Hallelujah. It's called a bride. All of those are washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, comprise, comprise the bride.

Hallelujah. And he's going to, the Holy Spirit is not only going to, he not only found us, he fetches us and he presents us, hallelujah, to the Lord Jesus. But this is the wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit to give us a foretaste.

And in Ephesians, don't turn to Ephesians 1 .13, it talks about the Holy Spirit sealing the believers, sealed with the Spirit. Have you ever heard that term? How many believe you're sealed with the Holy Ghost?

But folks, please don't complicate it. The seal here is a mark. It's a distinguishing mark. There's something happened to these that being referred to in Ephesians. There are people that are sealed. And what that means, the Holy Ghost has done something supernatural in them that has forever marked them, that's ruined them for this earth.

They're not like anybody else. They're not tied to this world. They've been weaned from this world. Their eyes are not, their affections are not on things below, but things above. Their heart, every waking hour turns to him.

There's something marking, there's something different. They're not just Christians. They're not just saying, well, Jesus saved me years back. No, there's a mark. They're sealed with this mark. This distinguishing mark is that the Holy Spirit has come to them and he's rolled back the windows of heaven and he's given a foretaste, a foretaste of glory divine.

It can happen in a secret closet of prayer. It happens right here in this church. It happened for me tonight. I had about a 50, 60 second moment here in the service while my hands are raised where I had a manifestation of the loveliness of Jesus.

The Holy Ghost was just rolling back the veil and I was just seeing a little glimpse of the glory of Jesus, feeling his warmth, feeling his holiness, sensing his glory in my soul. And what he was doing was sealing me.

He was marking me. And you see, the more Jesus you see, the more the revelation you have, the more spoiled you are for this world, the less you want of this world. And that's why you can say, even so come quickly, Lord Jesus.

And that's the work of the Holy Ghost. He comes to a church that wants him. He comes to a church that's praying. He comes to pastors that are broken before God, who have no other desire but to see the body of Jesus Christ conformed to the image of heaven.

And he manifests himself. It's a supernatural work of God's Holy Spirit. You can feel it. You can see it. When the Holy Ghost came at Pentecost, he literally shook the windows and the doors and the whole building.

He shook it. There was Holy Ghost dynamite in that house. And I believe we're getting very close to that kind of manifestation. Folks, I'm not looking for any manifestation for the sake of the manifestation.

I'm asking Jesus, I'm asking the Holy Ghost to so reveal Christ to our eyes that we'll be totally ruined for the manifestation. I'm asking Jesus, I'm asking the Holy Ghost to so reveal Christ to our eyes that we'll be totally ruined for this earth.

That's what happened to Abraham who said, I'm an alien, I'm passing through here. Where are you from? I'm passing through. My eyes, I'm looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. He had a vision.

His eyes were open. Hallelujah. Let the eyes of our understanding be open and that is his eternal purpose at work in our heart. You say God saved you years ago. When did he save you? What's happened since you've gotten saved?

You're just going to church and going through the motions and you're not really dead, but just a little lukewarm. You don't want to get too hot because you're afraid you'd be a fanatic, but you don't want to go over here where there's death.

So you kind of play the middle of the road. I don't want that in New York City. He's sealing a people. He's sealing it. Folks, when you get in meetings where Jesus is so real that you want to go to heaven right now, he's so real that you've got heaven in your soul right now.

And there's joy and there's such, there's such a sense of his reality that not only your problems bother you, the economy doesn't bother you and you're not, you're not afraid of the devil. I mean, God's put you a holy fire in your soul and you say, this is, this is supernatural.

This is not me. This is God's spirit in me. I'll tell you folks, there's something that happened in me this past month. I hear it over and over again. Don't be afraid of the devil. Don't panic at the enemy.

Bob was preaching this morning about Gideon. But if you read the few verses before the call of Gideon, it says Israel was trampled by the Midianites and they cried out to the Lord and God sent a prophet, doesn't name his name, sent a nameless prophet.

And that nameless prophet before God called Gideon stood up before those people. And he said, I told you, God said, I warned you, don't be afraid of the God of the Amorites. And the prophet was putting his finger on the deadness.

They were hiding in caves up on the hillsides and God was putting his finger on it. He said, you're not afraid of the Midianites. You're not afraid of the Amorites. You're afraid of their God. You think their God has power.

God said, that's your problem. Folks, God's putting a fire in me and I hear it a thousand times a day, no matter what the devil tries to do in New York City, no matter what kind of new weapon he brings out.

Don't panic. Don't be afraid. Stand up against it in Jesus name. This is the end of side one. You may now passionate love for Jesus, a passionate love for Jesus. Now, I love the Holy Spirit. Yes. But you see, any love that we give the Holy Spirit, he moves on through our very lives.

Holy Spirit–Centered Love and Spiritual Longing

This passage, all gathered up in Christ, all things are gathered up in Christ. Holy Spirit's purpose is to gather everything into Christ, focused on him. This is the one, what kind of a bride do you think the Holy Spirit's going to present to Jesus Christ?

Is this going to be a half-hearted bride? Is it going to be a lukewarm bride? Is it going to be a bride that's not totally devoted to Jesus? I don't believe you can be devoted to Jesus unless he is in your mind, your waking hours.

There should never be a single hour of the day that your mind does not come back to your love. If you truly love him, he's never out of mind. He's there every moment. And that's what the Holy Spirit is here for, to keep your mind centered on Jesus, on your bridegroom, so that when you stand before him, listen, just being, when you die, dying doesn't sanctify anybody.

You don't just die in your chains. We've got a lot of Christians who believe that, well, when I die, I'm going to become this special bride to the Lord. When I die, everything's going to change. No, the Holy Ghost is here now, alive and working in this world, that you become conformed to Christ, compassionately in love with him on this side of death, before they put you six feet underground.

You are as in love with Jesus as you can possibly be on this earth. Oh, hallelujah. If the Holy Ghost is moving in you, and I'll tell you how you can tell whether or not the Holy Ghost is working in you, he's making you feel restless inside.

He keeps, just when you think you're satisfied, you know, you can be in one of the greatest Holy Ghost meetings and be so full and go home and be hungry again. And that divine dissatisfaction hits again.

And there's something there, it's not because of sin. It's the Holy Ghost saying there's more. The Holy Ghost is saying, I'm drawing you. It's the drawing out. He makes you sometimes miserable. He makes you sometimes, there's a groaning inside.

You see, it's not, the Holy Spirit only works through people. Holy Spirit's been sent. The Holy Ghost really has been sent to minister through people. It's the Spirit groaning, but it's the Spirit groaning through us.

It's our voice. It's our mind. Have you ever had this sense inside of you, you got so hungry for Jesus, you got so hungry for the Lord. It's not because you're just sick and tired of all the garbage in America.

You know, the filth and dirty television and all the crime and unemployment. That's not it. It's nothing negative. It's something very positive. You're just so anxious to be with Him. Like Paul the Apostle said, I have a desire to depart and be with the Lord.

But that's the Holy Spirit. There have been times, these groanings, these groanings, really that groan is an inner cry out of the depths of the heart, deep, deep in the very middle of our soul, in our heart.

The Holy Spirit is there constantly working. And He is producing in us a groaning. And that groaning in Hebrew is really yearning. He's creating a yearning in our heart. And you can yearn after Jesus so much that you sit in His presence and nothing comes up and, oh, it may not even be audible.

It's an utterance in the heart. It's a groaning that cannot be uttered. It's just an unspoken, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. Oh, Jesus, I love You. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Lord, You're the only happiness there is in this world.

Jesus, I've tasted and seen that You're good. And I want all of You, Jesus. All these people that sit in church with no yearning, no groaning, no hungering, no thirsting. If we were to try to find the key to what God's doing here at Times Square Church, the manifestations of the Holy Spirit that come like waves time after time in these meetings.

If we were to try to get an answer to that, all I can say is that the Holy Ghost is found to people that have allowed the Holy Spirit to take control and beginning to yield to the Holy Spirit. The more you yield to the Holy Spirit, the more this inner groaning will come forth.

It's birthed in your soul. It's in your spirit. I feel it on me right now as I stand here. I'm preaching to you, but silently inside the Holy Spirit is groaning and creating in me a hungering and a thirsting after righteousness, after Jesus, hallelujah.

Can you say right now, Lord, I'm ready to go? I want You more than my very life. Is Jesus more than life? You sing that, but do you mean it? He's more than life to me, hallelujah. So now I'm saying to you in closing, walking in the Spirit is allowing the Holy Ghost to do what God sent Him to do, and that's to fulfill His mission of bringing you as a bride to Christ.

And He's going to do that by guiding you and leading you into a groaning and a yearning and a thirsting after Jesus. He's going to guide you, but all the guidance has to do with your bridehood. Everything He guides you to, you're going to look at, if you look far enough, at heart, you're going to see what God's doing here now is making me more conformable to Jesus as His bride.

What He's doing is conforming me, preparing me, oh hallelujah. You know what the Holy Spirit's doing in this church too? He's looking over this bride that He's bringing, and our L .E .E .s are looking over and said, you look pretty fine, but did you notice this spot over here?

But Spirit, you just showed me one over here, and I just got rid of that. The Lord said, the Holy Spirit says, you were so focused here, you didn't see this one right here, and you're going to be spotless when I take you to the married supper.

You're going to be spotless. He said, now deal with that, and you deal with that, and He said, right down behind where you can hardly see, take a look behind you. There's another spot there, and this Holy Spirit, why is He doing that?

Is He picking on you? No, He's got an eternal praise, He's doing what He's supposed to do. He's convicting us of sin and unbelief so that we're ready on that day, hallelujah, washed in the blood of the Lamb, cleansed by His Word.

Repentance, Cleansing, and Yielding to the Spirit

Oh, I thank God for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is here tonight. What you sense in your heart, yield, yield to the Holy Spirit. Say, Holy Spirit, come. Talk to the Holy Spirit. Acknowledge Him. I've had to ask the Holy Ghost to forgive me for ignoring Him and keeping Him shut up in my bones.

Now I've talked to the Holy Ghost all day long. I've talked to Him all the way to church. New York, it doesn't matter, everybody talks to everybody in it. Nobody takes it, you can talk to the Holy Ghost out loud, nobody looks at you, nobody says anything, hallelujah, glory to God.

Maybe that's one of the reasons the Holy Ghost is choosing to come down to New York, because you're going to have people talking to Him all over the city, hallelujah. Let's stand, let's stand, glory to God.