If you will, open your Bibles to John 14, and although that is not the text of my message, it does have to do with my message, the subject is that we're studying is the person of the Holy Spirit, and the work of the Holy Spirit. But in John 14, beginning at verse 15, and I'll tell you my emphasis will be on verse 17, but beginning at verse 15, Christ says, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” page 1341 if you have a Bible like mine. “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” Now, “he dwelleth with you,” remember, if you been listening to me for any time, I've told you that John loves that Greek word, meno, or in this case menei, which is “to stay, to remain, to abide.” He loves that word; he uses it almost excessively and over the top. “For he dwelleth with you,” menei in the Greek, menei, spelt phonetically. And I'll show you some relevant, it's crystal clear, but if we weren't sure to make it even more clear, when he says “he dwelleth with you,” that's a verb, indicative means its factual; indicative, that means it's a fact, present, which means now and ongoing and active, “and shall be in you.” There that word, different word in the Greek, but the point I want to make is that word is future, indicative, so I gave you a little bit different order here but still a verb, future, indicative and complicated stuff here I won't get in to, but middle deponent, which is not middle voice. We can talk about that another time, but the main key thing here is it's a verb in the future, versus when he says, “he dwelleth with you,” think of the One along side, which as Christ is speaking, He is with them in their midst, but He is speaking about the Spirit of truth. And this is the mystery of the Trinity: three in one, and yet each one has their own work in the revelation of the drama of redemption. And yet here, “he dwelleth with you” now, “he shall be in you” future. Now I only show this to make a demonstration of something, although the English there is quite plain, you don't need a translator and you don't need to know Greek, the Greek gives it the absolute, you're not missing the boat here if I tell you, Jesus said, “He's with you right now, but He's going to be in you later.” That's just the way to shorten the example here. So when we talk about translation, I told you this is just to give you an example, this is not my message; when we talk about grammar and language, it's vitally important to understand that here's where we get these crystal clear ideas from the Scripture that make sound doctrine. So it's important for us to pay attention to the details. So today I want to take a look at something that I think will peel back and throw a couple of things back into the bucket of tradition where they belong. So I ask you to turn with me, a familiar passage to this church because we've been camping out there, to Acts 2. And I'm wanting to look at something that is in Acts 2 that will help us a little bit in our quest. As I've said, I'm seeking to find the truth. In Acts 2, and we are not done, by the way. I taught some on Festival about this passage, but we're not done. It's so easy to treat something and think, “Okay, well, I'm done there.” No, you're not. Now I don't intend to do what Dr. Scott did, you know, I think he did like a hundred messages on Romans 1:1, “Open your Bibles&” We had people who didn't speak Greek could say, Paulos doulos; very good! All right, so there's more than one way to teach you how to learn Greek. But, I do need to camp out here just briefly to show you something. Now we've got the event, the day of Pentecost itself, and when Peter stands up and he begins to speak, obviously there were people earlier in the few verses before that were asking, “What does all this mean? Are these men drunk? What's going on here?” And he says, his answer is, “These men are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.” Now just let me read you what is spoken by the prophet Joel, and there's a whole quote here, a long one. “It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: I will shew wonders in the heaven above, signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That's pretty much everything out of Joel. Now what's interesting here is you've got Peter, who, like the followers of Christ, would be, would have some knowledge; they were not heathen, they would have some knowledge of their Scripture. There was no New Testament yet. The New Testament had not been written yet. So all they have to operate on; imagine going into a town somewhere and all you have to operate on is what brings you from Genesis to Malachi. And if you're going to make a point to tell people about Christ, all you've got is this portion. This doesn't exist yet (including the Strong's Concordance at the back of the book, which might have also been given to Moses on Mount Sinai), but all you have is that. You're going to argue to make the point that this Jesus, “whom you crucified,” He died and this same Jesus, God raised up! You're going to prove that all from this Old Testament that this indeed was Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the one that God had spoken of in these books by the prophets and by the law had spoken of. Now I have a hard enough time preaching with Old and New, and forgive me for using the word and “convincing” people of the verity of what I'm saying. If the receiver is not turned on nothing's going to happen. But the problem is we seldom stop to think about what it would be like to try and tell people, considering that these men, starting with Peter, was an eyewitness to the life of Christ, that is to His public ministry to responding to the call that He called them, “Follow Me. I'll make you something you're not” to the three and a half years of His public ministry, including His death, His burial, His resurrection and His ascension. Eyewitnesses to this account, which by the way, quite staggering in and of itself so coupled with the fact that I'm an eyewitness, I'm putting myself in this apostle's place, I'm an eyewitness to all this, I've seen all this, and now coupled with the fact that the words of Christ, which I couldn't understand when He said, “I've got more to say, but you can't handle it now,” but He did say that when the when the Spirit comes, He will lead you and guide you in all truth. Now a lot of people think that that means you don't need to study the Bible because you'll just know automatically. No. What that means is that these men had been exposed to that portion of Scripture and things would come to their mind that would become clear to them in expounding the exegesis of Christ, who Christ was. He came, He declared: “No man hath seen the Father, but Christ hath” basically, “unhidden Him, put Him on display for all to see.” So the relevance is for us, first to shift gears and think of this isn't some random quotation, number one. And number two, equally staggering is that like any student of prophecy, and I can thank my late husband and I know he, he got this from some other giant, but I'm going to attribute it to him. He said, “Prophecy is like mountain ranges. Now when we stand and look at certain mountains we see the thing that's closest to us; we may see the thing in the distance, but from where we stand we don't see what's in the middle.” Prophecy is much like that, and the true prophets of God would speak and declare something that maybe, what appeared to be at the forefront was a telling of something that may have been much further away, or perhaps distant future, or something that was pertinent to those people at that time that was an impending doom on those people. But prophecy is never, in the Bible, is never unfolded in this neat little package where you can just follow the━reel it in and it will all make sense to you, because most of the time the prophet would give something that would be over here that's a declaration for those people over there and they may, something that's closer to the people that would affect them at the time that they're at. And the prophecy of Joel is exactly that, because I ask you the question even if we attribute, as Peter does, he says, “These men are not drunk, as you suppose, but this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.” And he goes on to quote the passage out of Joel. But the problem is this, not all of the prophecy of Joel, even of what he's quoting, has been fulfilled, and we know that for a fact. Well, “wonders in the heavens above,” possibly, and “signs in the earth beneath,” possibly, “blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke,” well, not I'm my lifetime anyway; “the sun shall be turned into darkness,” that hasn't happened! Please don't talk to me about a solar eclipse. The “moon into blood,” “Oh, I had a blood moon! This is the third one.” No, we're not talking about that, and why? Because it says, “before that great and notable day of the Lord come,” speaking of the Day of the Lord that, by the way, if you're, and we're going to turn to Joel in a minute. But it's quite interesting because if you study the prophets of old, and I'm, I fall into the camp that believes that Joel is one of the oldest prophets of Judah and within his prophecy he not only prophesies of events current to the people, but he looks far, far ahead to a time that is unfolded by the seer John the Revelator in the book of Revelation. So there are things that have not yet happened, although he's quoting them here, and this has prompted scholars to argue vehemently that the thing that Peter's saying “and this is that,” really didn't happen then. Okay, well, then you'd have a problem explaining what exactly did happen, because he's saying, “this is that.” He says, “They're not drunk; this is that.” But there's something more that's extremely important here, and that is don't be too dogmatic in your understanding of the things concerning the final days on this earth, because it seems to me that the prophet Joel says a mouthful about what will be happening on that great and notable day, the Day of the Lord, which by the way it seems as though he's the first one to initiate using this term. And it's not his inventive mind; this is “thus saith the Lord, That day,” which he is now, he's just the conduit speaking forth the thing God has revealed to him. So without going too crazy I want to show you something from the book of Acts first, so we can make some connections here. The first thing is, and I'm focusing on this, what is said in 2:17, “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh,” and if you don't read Greek, don't worry. This is what I was trying to say earlier. Sometimes people get all worked up because they see me writing Greek, “Well, I don't understand what she's doing!” Well, that's ok, that's how you learn, and I'm not thinking that you're going to learn Greek today or tomorrow, or maybe, maybe not at all. But you can say my pastor can tell me what it actually says, and if you're really highly motivated and you don't believe what I'm writing you can go check me out and I will not be offended, how's that? All right, now, some of you are like, “Okay, I've already checked you out, just get on with it.” All right, now I want you to take a look at something: “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.” “I will pour out” or “upon” pneumatos, “Spirit” mou “of me” or “mine, upon” or “on” pasan “all flesh” sarka “flesh.” Why is that important? Because the first thing is I've had people ask me, “Okay, well, you're teaching about people talking about receiving and the baptism, and how, how does this all work? Well, I'm going to show you something. The promise that Christ speaks of in the opening chapters of Acts when He says, “Go and wait for the promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me,” when He says that “the Holy Ghost shall baptize you not many days hence,” this is the promise that happens on the day of Pentecost, which is why he says, “These men are not drunk as you suppose, but this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.” And the prophet Joel didn't make this up; this is the word of the Lord that came to the prophet Joel. And he says, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” And I ask you please to just indulge me in something really simple: “all flesh,” not some flesh, “all flesh.” Now I'll come back to this because I think it's important enough, but I want you to first take a look at this Greek word which you see here for “pour out.” Now if you'll turn with me to the book of Joel. This is a very dark, very dismal prophecy from the prophet Joel, and I say dark and dismal because it's, it is highly suggestive of a lot of destruction. In fact, the 1st and 2nd chapters deal with the locusts coming to destroy and there is a lot of discussion amongst scholars of how to interpret this: should this be interpreted as the Last Days' events, which the book of Revelation talks about similar design. And the answer is yes, they need to be read in conjunction. And just as a sidebar, so that people don't think that this is too farfetched. The, the pictorial sense of locusts, it's foreign to us, okay. And again, if you read the book of Revelation we've got things that talk about locust demons and there's a good description of them. Here, I want you to get the mindset that as the prophet is speaking and pronouncing his prophecy the listeners would have to make some connection. Maybe for the future they would not necessarily understand, but the initial pronouncement they could really grab hold of. And this is why you've got; it seems like a lot of words describing these critters, right, at first. But it's important for us to understand this will also be applicable for our understanding dealing with prophecy in the book of Revelation, but to the, to the listener of that time, the mention of locusts bred horror and terror. We don't understand that, but if you've ever seen swarms; swarms of birds that cloud the sky where you can't, like a Hitchcock move or bees the same way where you just see a wall of bees. If you've ever seen that think of what this would have represented to the person listening to hear about locusts, because locusts and the prophet even goes on to describe four different stages of their life. And when they talk about them essentially marching forward because they would come through━there was, you either had rain and crops abundant and the plague of locusts, which essentially would destroy everything in its path, it would eat at everything and leave nothing or drought, that's the only way that you wouldn't have locusts is if you had a drought, because there's nothing for them to eat, so there's nothing that would even tempt them to be there. Unless they were sent as a plague by God, there's nothing that would bring them. So to these people to hear the word from this prophecy about locusts would evoke the greatest of terror because you lived on, as that society lived upon its agriculture and everything that lived outside. To hear about the coming of locusts would be a traumatic thing. So there's a lot of gloom and doom that appears here. Joel is talking about some dark tumultuous times in what I would call a national crisis of the people and a clarion call of repentance comes, by the way, in that what I'm looking at here, the 2nd chapter beginning at the 12th verse. So I've just kind of given you, I've jumped over the real traumatic stuff. We could study it at length, but I don't want to lose sight of what I'm doing here. Beginning at the verse 12 in the 2nd chapter, we'll call it a call to repent. Very similar in the line of what we might read of in the New Testament to what John the Baptist did as a forerunner preparing the way for Christ. A lot of criticism about this book because people can't figure out how this could even make sense; it just, they have to find fault with it because how could this be put out like this? Beginning at verse 12: “Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning: rend your heart, not your garments, turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God.” But here's what's interesting. Here, we've not seen, if you were reading the whole book until this point, a call for the people to turn back to God. Now if somebody's asking me what is the relevance of studying this book, which Peter lifts out just a few verses in his day of Pentecost explanation of the event there's something very significant here. The people are called to repent, and I'm now using that English/Latin word, but understand I've taught the word “repentance” metanoia that is turning from your way to God. And now here's a whole host of people who will be included: “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children,” you notice all people are being called. It's a clarion call to all people; “those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber; and the bride out of her closet. Let the priest, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?” And this is, this seems to be the utterance of every prophet. Go back to the time of Moses and Moses was referred to as a prophet, saying, “What will they say if You essentially do, Lord, You suggest You're going to take Your hand away and remove Your Spirit; what will our enemies say? They'll say, 'Where is your God? And this is all just a bunch of silliness.”" The same thing is being echoed by this prophet when he says, “Spare Your people; don't give Your heritage to reproach, lest the heathen should rule over them, and they should say, 'Where is your God, this God that you've worshiped and served.'” “Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.” All the sudden it becomes His land and His people; by the way, it always was, but once more, after the people have cried, the ministers and priests have cried, people have turned back. “Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen: but I will remove far off from you the northern army,” again, this goes back and forth. There are mountain ranges here which we cannot clearly see between, because the “northern army” is often referred to that which the passages in Ezekiel and Revelation deal with concerning the end times, the last days. And whether the northern army here; remember this is preacher of Judah, and whether the northern army here is suggestive of Joel and his day regarding attacks and sieges from the north or whether it's regarding a future time, the Lord is saying, “I will remove a far off.” Here's where you're going to know which one it applies to, by the way: “the northern army, and I will drive him into a land barren and desolate, and his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea,” this is how you know what this belongs to, “and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.” And this passage can only lead you to understand what is said in Zechariah, Ezekiel and Revelation. It cannot be of the time and the day that the prophet Joel lived in and regarding his people because there was no such thing, so that's why I said “mountain range.” Some things are already in close proximity and some things are farther away. You remember it says there's going to be a time where they're going to be picking up; essentially they won't be able to pick up the corpses that will be laying strewn because there'll be such, and there'll be such a stink because of the bodies. We're talking about end time, future time that is spoken of, “this is that which is being spoken of.” And then we come back to something current: “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of the Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain”━this is a very difficult passage to translate, “the former rain, moderately,” if you have a Bible like mine, in the margin, it says, “a teacher of righteousness; according to righteousness,” which has a double meaning to it and no one could possibly make sense of this because two or three groups of translators saw that this possibly pointed to Christ and wanted to stay away from that. So the context has a double meaning to it, “will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month&. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.” And here's what's interesting. We go from what I've called the “ministry of repentance,” calling the people to turn back, and by the way, there's nothing wrong with lining up the prophets, and the prophets who said, “Turn back to God; turn back to God.” I told you the story about Jonah; could I know what sermon he preached to the people of Nineveh that made them repent and made God spare Nineveh for a time, because it was foretold that God was going to destroy Nineveh. If not for the preaching of Jonah, yes, the reluctant preacher there, to go and preach whatever he said. I, I'd love to know what that sermon was that made the people turn back at least for a time. But we've got the ministry of repentance and then something very interesting. I put in verse 27, a note beside that verse, “And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.” This is the foretelling of the coming of Christ, and why? Because it says, “And it shall come to pass afterward,” and what's the “afterward”? After the coming of Christ, after the first coming of Christ, that's why I said “mountain ranges.” You can't see everything you're looking at. You see what you see, but in between there are those valleys that represent long stretches of time and different periods in between: “my people shall never be ashamed. And it shall come to pass afterward,” think of it as an after what? “I am the LORD your God, none else: and my people shall never be ashamed; that I am in the midst of Israel.” After the coming of Christ, “it shall come to pass afterward, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh,” I think that's where I started. All right, let's take a look. It's interesting, you can sometimes lose track of where you were real quickly here. Do you ever do that? Do you ever start studying the Bible and it's like going into a black hole in outer space? You know, you start somewhere, “Oh, I'm going to look up these words,” and you end up in some other place and you say, “How did I get there? Aw, what's going on? Where was I? What happened?” All right, that happens to all of us but let's stay on track here. So let's take a look at this from the, I wrote the Hebrew; I wrote the Greek rather, of Acts 2. The Hebrew, which won't help you too much unless you can read and make sense of what's there, but something very important here and I should write this down below. We have a direct object, et, direct object “of God's Spirit” ruach, ruachi, of God's Spirit; “I will pour out,” direct object, “Spirit of me, of mine,” and again, “upon all” al col and basar: “all flesh.” So you can see what the Hebrew looks like, but more importantly I want to point something out. If you read this carefully, and it lines up pretty close with the Greek, except, except what you have in the translation of the book of Acts, and I, I'm going to attribute this to translators trying to make this flow. In the book of Acts, it says, “I will pour out of my Spirit,” and there's a real subtle difference between “I will pour out of my Spirit” versus what is said here, “I will pour out my spirit,” not “of,” not “like,” not “akin to”" not “a portion of.” “I will pour out,” essentially, in its entirety, “my Spirit upon all flesh.” Now I don't know why the translators elected to do that, but reading straight from the Hebrew and even looking into the Septuagint, I can kind of see maybe the difficulty in wrestling with this, but you know, do you see the difference, it's very subtle, between reading “I will pour out of my Spirit,” which suggests perhaps a portion, a little bit, a small dispensation, versus what is said in the Hebrew, “I will pour out” direct object, “Spirit of me upon all flesh,” not limiting it to “of a portion” or “of an amount,” but “all.” And there, my friends, is a very important, small detail. Now why is that important? Well, there are those that say God only dispensed a little bit. He gave a little bit. And the language here becomes even more important. Remember I circled this or put a box around this Greek word, which, if you were looking to the Hebrew this is it's equivalent, but if you're going with the Septuagint, which is that translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek, you're going to find this word being used, which is the exact same word that is used in the book of Acts, so we're not dealing with two different words. Now why do I want to show you a concept that is not made just in one passage by the prophet being repeated, if you will, as a rhema, as a saying of God by Peter? But rather if you would, turn with me to Romans 5:5; sometimes you've just got to keep underscoring something to make a point. Romans 5:5, “Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Here, the word for “shed abroad,” can you see that it is indeed the same word being used for “shed abroad” as what is “poured out” upon us, upon all flesh? It's the same word, right? It would be much easier if we could see looking at the same word, like taking up a looking glass and seeing the same word? It would be much easier to attach concepts that then don't appear as a one-hit wonder back there. “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,” I'm not done with that “all flesh.” And here, the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us; which is given unto us. So we have a few concepts to look at. When people talk about this gift that is given to believers we first must look at how and here we have this poured out concept, poured out, “I shall pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,” the love of God is poured out in our hearts by what: “the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” If you want to see it one more time, Titus, if you look to Titus you will find the same thing is being━Titus 3:6, beginning at 3:5, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly,” same word. Same word, “shed on us,” “poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Are you beginning to see that the languages kind of mess us up a little bit? You see the Greek and you see the word being repeated, you recognize that this “pouring out” concept that we tend to attribute to pouring out on the day of Pentecost is the same activity and action that God has been using through and through over the course of time and has not changed. Now to make the point what happened━sorry to make you turn so much, but you know, it will separate the pages that are stuck together in your Bible. But if you read about the event that happens in the book of Acts at the house of Cornelius while Peter was preaching, and it says, and “the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word,” that's in the 10th chapter, beginning at the 44th verse, “And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out”━guess what word that is; the same word, “the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Now I ask you a question: did the house of Cornelius pray, beg, plead; did they ask, was that their initial thing? Were they asking for some 'special' gift to be seen as having received of God? No. What they were reacting to was the message and something that Paul says in his writing in Galatians which sums it up, he says, “How did you receive the Spirit? Did you receive it by the hearing of the law; the doing or hearing of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” That should settle it once and for all when people talk about “Well, how does God operate?” It all comes back to the foundation of faith, and without faith, it's impossible to please God. And we begin to see that all of this wonderful work that is happening with the Spirit of God is not by some mystic ecstasy, some special group of people. The people that preach that you're a special group because you've received something 'special,' you need to avoid those people and avoid them like the plague, because what they do is they cause division. Remember Paul said something that has nothing to do with this, but it has everything do with this when he said; “Don't despise those people who, if you sit with them and they can't eat a certain food or something, don't be a cause for stumbling.” If they can't handle essentially what you, you've come to know is clean and they can't handle it, don't put a stumbling block in front of them. That's what the, sorry, that's what the more mature saint is supposed to be cautious of. You're not to put a stumbling block in front of somebody that then suddenly they start walking around saying, “Well, there's something wrong with me because I don't have what you have and you walk around telling people that you have all this and you have all that.” At the same time, this works in reverse as well because I received a letter from an individual who said, “I'm praying to receive gifts from God.” And the problem is that most of us have received a gift, some form of a gift, but we don't understand what it is because we haven't even acknowledged, I hate to say this, but it works this way. Go back to the beginning and you'll find that right at the beginning, as I highlighted on Festival, God took two men to build the tabernacle. These are men who did not have necessarily any━they had skill, but not necessarily the skill that was needed to build a house for God, a temporary movable structure for God. God gave the information to Moses. Moses passed it on to them and it says that these were men filled with the Spirit of God and wisdom. And that is considered a gift of God. God imparted that to them, not, He could have put the whole picture of the tabernacle in their brain and then Moses wouldn't be necessary, “Why do we need Preacher Moses? You know, foot him! Let's, you know, I've got, I've got revelation from God; I don't need Pastor Moses telling me. I, you know, God put the pattern in my brain.” Yeah, okay. And then it comes out that it looks like ancient alien flying tools and things are coming out because it was your idea, not “See to it that you build it exactly to the pattern that I've shown you.” So Moses had to get the revelation and as poor of a communicator as Moses pleaded he was, he obviously communicated quite well to them for them to build it exactly according to the specifications. But look at these men and it doesn't say that God gave them the picture of the tabernacle. It doesn't say that He gave them the revelation; He gave them the wisdom and the enablement to be able to build according to what Moses said. Now there's a gift right there. There's another gift, if you want to look at it, the gift that Joshua received. And one of the greatest military advances and successes recorded in the Bible at the hand of a man who wasn't a military man. Just think about that. God had to give and impart some gift to enable him to do that. But all of these operated under one dynamic: faith in hearing what they had heard and acting upon what they had received as the word of God, not as the word of man. And there begins the foundation of every single person who says, “Well, I haven't received anything.” My guess is you have, and it's not necessarily what you think. A lot of people think, “Well, I don't know.” Why, why don't we make a gift; why don't we make something special like this, people are always talking about tongues and they're talking about━they, they pick the things that are, we'll call them 'the majestic out there things.' You know, “Why don't”━you know somebody says, well, for example the gift of knowledge. Why doesn't somebody say, “Well, I'm praying to have the gift of knowledge”? You know, you always hear people talking about tongues and healings and miracles. I'd much rather have the gift of wisdom or knowledge, because with the gift of wisdom or knowledge also probably comes discernment to be able to know whether or not that guy over there is a fraud. So what I want to go back to talk about out of this passage of Acts and Joel before I go anywhere else, first that we understand the foretelling of God pouring out His Spirit upon all flesh was seen back in the Old Testament. It was not some new revelation to Peter. It was foretold back there, and in fact, I started doing a study looking at in every single book, the use of the “Spirit of the Lord” where it says in some places God essentially clothed that individual with Himself, with His Spirit. And sometimes it's a man who is full of the Spirit of God, but you can see it in every book. Every book has something to explain to us about how God was operating before He sent His Son and the Son says, “Now I must go away for the Comforter to come.” But we have the abundance of the outpouring: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” We have the universal principle “upon all flesh.” Now let me say this so that it makes sense. It wouldn't make sense to pour out the Spirit of God upon those people who hadn't come to the faith and understanding, we're talking about the New Testament dispensation, it would make no sense, but “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh” was foretelling of those people who could hear, who by the way at the beginning of my lesson out of Joel, I said to you 'ministry of repentance.' God's Spirit will not come upon a person who hasn't turned from their ways to His ways, that turning from my way, “all we like sheep” to His way. The Lord leadeth, the Lord calls, the Lord is the One doing. In both in Acts and in Joel there's no distinction of age, no distinction of social class, for if you read carefully in the book of Acts where it says, “Upon”━let me turn back there and I'll read you exactly what it says so we can be certain of something. When it says, “Upon my servants and my handmaidens” we're talking about slaves. We're talking about slaves and concubines, people who were not labeled as “free.” In other words, when God will do this act, which He began to do on the day of Pentecost, He will be not looking at any social class of people and all you've got to do is read the New Testament and find out that He used a plethora of different people, including one Onesimus, a run-away slave. That tells you all you need to know that God's not going to start looking at “Oh, I can only pick the cream of the crop here.” In fact, I've said many times if you really want to know where God's heart is, read what Paul says: “I will pick the base things to confound the wise and the wisdom of the world. I'll pick the things that don't make sense to some. This is how I'll make sense to others, but this is how I'm going to do it.” This is by and large how He does it. Don't look for the polished one that God took His time like He picked out of a bunch of, excuse me if this offends you, but He looked upon all the 'things' that He could find upon the earth and decided to just polish one because it looked better than another. Take that however you like it, friends, because that's exactly the way I meant it. Gifts━listen; I decided to keep it real. There's no, you know, what you're going to hear from me it's not going to be some, you know, “It must be dah, dah, daaah!” No, because if you can't apply it in your life I don't know what good it is. Gifts and manifestations that are being said of in Peter's sermon; listen to this: prophesying, visions and dreams. Now, these are part of the gifts and manifestations of the Spirit being spoken of right here. And I ask you a question, and it's probably the mega-question of the ages. Why pour out Your Spirit━sorry, some of you are going to hate me because I stay away from this subject vehemently, but why pour out and go to the trouble by Old Testament criteria and now into the New, why, why “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, young men shall see visions, old men dream dreams,” on, we'll call them those who are not free, men and woman, “I will pour out in those days my Spirit, and they shall prophesy”━why pour, why specifically twice specified “prophesy” and nowhere here in this fulfillment of this prophecy does it say “and I will pour out my Spirit and they shall speak in tongues”? I just took you on an hour-long journey to show you something. This is why when people make a doctrine about something you'd better be careful about what your doctrine includes. It had better include Scripture backing itself up. Did some receive the Spirit of God and speak in tongues? Yes. But is that the prophecy here? No. The prophecy says they will see visions, they'll dream dreams and they shall prophesy. And what does prophesying, what was prophecy in the Old Testament, the burden of the Lord came to the prophet Jeremiah, the burden of the Lord came to Ezekiel, the burden of the Lord by the mouth of the prophet. And even the ones who were unlearned like Amos, you'll still read, “The burden of the Lord came to So-and-so,” and the Lord said to them regarding these people and the message was always the same: “Tell them to repent! Tell them to turn back before it's too late! Tell them that I sent you and the message is that doom is coming to you if you don't change your ways!” Is that not the message of all the prophesying of the Old Testament? Save the things that concern, jump over the mountain ranges to a future time, which is not yet fulfilled. But we're kind of living in the time that was spoken of where Paul says, “And there'll be a time where, you know, men will be lovers of themselves, truce breakers” and all the things that we see going on today. I mean we've been living in it for a long time. And then there's that future time. Prophecy in the New Testament as it's unfolding, as things are unfolding before us, had to do with events that were current to that moment apart from Revelation and maybe some references in 1 and 2 Thessalonians concerning future time. But everything else prophetically in the New Testament had more to do with the speaking forth, the Spirit of God enabling that individual to speak forth exactly what Peter's doing here in quoting the Scripture and making it essentially relevant to the point of what he's trying to convey seeing there is no New Testament about telling these people about Jesus Christ. And the whole picture of prophesying, and I've been in churches where they've had people stand up and, you know, somebody's mumbling off there back in tongues and saying something, and somebody gets up and says, “I'm, I'm going to interpret what that person said: next week we should have pot roast and a special cook-off chili celebration!” That type of stuff, it's pretty funny, but it's pretty wrong and it's pretty blasphemous because that's, there's never going to be a time, remember what I said to you, when the Spirit comes, Jesus is speaking to His disciples, “He shall speak of me, he shall glorify me.” Paul says in Ephesians, “for the building up of the body,” anything that is done to bring unity into the body, not syncretistic, “Let's just embrace every religion,” what is done to bring unity to the body of Christ and to build up the body of Christ and to magnify Christ. You want to talk to me about that, we have lots to talk about, otherwise let me just touch one more thing before I run out of time. The same folks who, back in the early days, and I got letters, man, in the first probably year of ministry, I got letters from people saying, “Well, I just, I can't listen to you because you're a woman, and the Scripture says not to listen to women.” And even back then I, you know, I was silly enough to try and present a message to show people their insanity, and then I said, “You know what? If you're that, if you're that obtuse, then maybe it's better you remain obtuse” because I happen to believe in the sovereignty of God, and the sovereignty of God is that He chose people. I go back to Moses, and Moses said, “I can't speak. Please don't use me. Find somebody else to do the speaking part,” so he chose Aaron, his brother, and that really was a swell choice, wasn't it? But God could have just as easily put the words into Moses' mouth and not need Aaron and all the glory could have been upon Moses himself, but he said, “I can't do it,” instead of saying, “Lord, I can't do it, but You can and You'll be magnified because I know I can't and I know You can.” It was kind of the first place where God said, “Aw, gee, wow, I picked a winner here,” a lot of faith going on there, “I can't, so find somebody else to do it for me, because, Lord, You possibly could not do that for me,” right? But these other people oftentimes that God chooses, including women, and I've had people argue with me that Deborah was judge “She didn't really rule over the people.” Oh no, she ruled over the people. That's what judges meant, they were before the kings and they were the people, they were, they were the people of the people for the people ruling over the people, and yes, God used her. And there are not many women in the Bible, just like I believe in today's world there are not too many women interested in preaching the Gospel, because they get tied up in every other thing that's out there. And I'm, I'm sorry if that offends some of you, but my issue is if you are called to preach: preach the Gospel. The things that are the issues of the day, believe me, if you teach people what faith in God is and you teach them about Jesus Christ, the issues that are the issues of the day; the third bathroom, what a woman should or shouldn't do with her body or what a man should do with a woman's body or another man's body; whatever it is that we think is so important will become very small in comparison to what is front and center. Jesus Christ is Lord; He died. He died for my sins, He died for yours, He was raised up the third day, He ascended, He's coming back; if that remains the center point of all of these things, faith will flow and between the faith that you have by hearing the word of God and the faith that continues from faith to faith, you build this firm foundation that just like Christ talked about. He didn't say there won't be storms, both types of foundations are listed, He says, “You build on a rock or you build on sand,” both built and only one could withstand and that was what was build on the foundation. What is build on the foundation of Christ will stay and all of these other things that are the things of the day, don't you think twenty and thirty years ago there were things of the day? And fifty years ago there were things of the day, and a hundred years ago there were things of the day; but God forbid they should overpower the things that are eternal. “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven,” forever it's preached as long as there's a voice going to preach, whether it be a man or a woman or in the case of one who had a donkey who spoke. But the Scripture's pretty plain: “I will pour out my Spirit upon your sons and daughters.” That means who God calls, He gives the voice to and prophetically no longer as a forth teller of future events, because the whole━there is no other new part of the New Testament. Christ revealed it to us. There isn't some other hidden book somewhere, as I've said many times, of other people who believe that there's some other revelation. So if there is no other revelation apart from Christ, then the only thing that the prophet today can do is keep forth telling the word of God and keep that word bubbling out and spilling out over the congregation that they may receive the words that bring faith that keep the foundation shored up that make clear you are not some oddity out there, but rather the Spirit of God, if you are a faither, has been poured out into your heart already by God through the mechanism of the Person of the Holy Spirit. And it's not going to make you a freak and it's not going to make you into some weirdo. I've told you already, we keep reading, we'll keep peeling back the layers, you will find interestingly enough that God has already given you a gift. And whether it's of the gifts that people like to talk about; nine neatly packaged gifts, or rather whether it's one of the nine or maybe God has something else, which you know, this is the remarkable thing. I said, for example, not everybody in this congregation can play an instrument. How many people apart from the musicians, apart from the musicians, because I didn't necessarily say that they could play, but━batta-boom! Alright, but I was actually talking about the drummer, but, but it's always the drummer, right? But he's used to that because we used to terrorize him on our road trips. But how many people here can say they can proficiently, we're not talking about squeaking out some sound, you know, you blow and rr-rrrrr-rr! How many people can actually proficiently, if I called up here right now, you could come up here and play an instrument? Show me your hands. Real proficiently, come on, proficiently like you're really good. I see one, I see two, I see one and a half, I see two, three, four, five, six; maybe I missed somewhere. Okay. That's━I'm not talking to you. I wasn't talking to you over there. Less than ten, right, less than ten! Now you may say, “Well, but I went to school and I studied music for ten years and I,” well, let me ask you something: who gave you the ability to learn that talent? And then if you're applying that talent to praising the Lord and worship, I think, methinks you've already found the place where God has given you a gift. And you may say, “Well, that's a weird way of looking at things”" No. There's things that, there are certain people sitting in front of me, I know they can do that I cannot, and I'm aware of that. There are things that people can teach themselves. Somebody said to me, “Did you always speak and read in so many languages?” No. I believe God gave me the gift of being able to absorb that and understand. It's almost like a puzzle being able to unfold in every language to see grammar and to see how things relate and how things work. I think that's a gift. Now that's a gift to enable me to communicate the word of God. The musicians that are playing are playing and they're playing to worship and to bring the body together in a moment, preparation for worship or preparation for what we're going to do here, but it all comes back to the same place. They're not random independent things done for some other purpose; they're all done to the building up of the body. So if you're going to be a legalist about this, I can't help you, but if you understand what I'm saying we'll continue on this, because I think it's very important that you leave here understanding something. What one person's subjective experience is, it's wonderful. That's great, but it's only great for them. It's not great for you and if you can't make doctrine out of something through the Scriptures and you can't explain exactly what it is, don't tell me about how you feel. That's wonderful to say, “I feel the Lord! I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit!” It's wonderful to say all that, but tell me from this book and explain it to me as these did when there was no New Testament and all they had was the Old. Explain it to me that way. Get my attention and get me to look in here first to reveal what exactly God has promised to me and to you, and then we'll have something to discuss that has substance and relevance in each and every one of our lives, not just in a select few over here who think they've been chosen to receive some special gift for their love gift today. It doesn't work that way! It works on all flesh; that is all faithers turning and looking unto Him. To be continued, folks. That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
