this morning as we come before the Lord to teach God's people, and I hope that we've all come to the house of the Lord with the hearing ear this morning and come in the Spirit of the Lord. And you know, you hear so many things that are going on today in this old weary world. We need the Lord. We need the Lord so bad. As far as I'm concerned, we need Him worse than we've ever needed Him. Of course, you always need the Lord. But it seems like that the devil is going to and fro, and he's devouring who he may. It's evil. There's all kinds of tragedy in the world. And we just, you know, we have been taught to look to the Lord and to depend upon God who will keep us in His tender loving care. But sometimes it seems like that we get in a mold and we drift away. And the reason, this morning I want to talk about being led by the Holy Spirit, being led by the Lord in the Spirit of God, and when we're being led by the Spirit of the Lord, that we are to heed to that call. God has called us for a holy calling. Every one of God's people are called for a holy calling while they're living in this time world and to go on to be with the Lord when they die. God is not going to fall short on His end of it, but we fall short on our end. I want to talk this morning about quenching the Holy Spirit. Now, when I say quenching the Spirit of God, that means that We let the world, we let Satan, we let the world come and have more persuasion upon us than we do God and the Holy Spirit. And when that happens to us, we can't enjoy the Lord like we should. We can't enjoy reading the Word. You know, we say, well, I'm too busy to sit down, and I'm guilty of this. I'm sure we're all guilty. I'm too busy to sit down and read the Word of God today. You've let something interfere with your exercising your prayer life. I'm too busy to pray today. I'm too busy to pray this morning. Well, you might go through the day and the first thing you know, you forgot about stopping and praying and thanking the Lord or giving praise to God for what things we have and things we need to pray about. And we've forgotten all about the Lord through that day. Have you ever went through a day like that, forgetting everything, just forgetting totally about God? I'm sure that we all have, haven't we? We get so busy in our lives that we just put God, as my wife said, we put God up on the shelf and we don't look to Him through a day or maybe two days or three days and we just keep going on. And the longer you go like that, the worse it gets. You just tend to say, well, you know, I've got too many things involved in life to even stop and think about the Lord or to pray to God or to read the Word of God. We should never do that. I don't care how busy you think you are, you should stop each day and try to spend some time with the Lord in the Spirit of God. The Lord warns us in His Word two or three different places over in Corinthians. I don't know where it's at, but He says, Quench not the Spirit of God. And that's a warning to us that when we're quenching the Spirit that we're not able to communicate with God. You ever felt that in your life where you're not able to communicate with God? You've quenched the Spirit and you've just gone on and done your thing. You've done your thing. And you've quenched the Spirit of God and you're not able to communicate with God or you're not communicating with God that day? And it's really, you're really absent from school is what you're absent. You know, you young kids, you know, when you don't go to school, they mark you absent. Well, when we don't communicate with God, God, I believe, marks us absent in the sense that we've not communicated. God knows when we are in our prayer mode. God knows when we're in our prayer closet. God knows when we're communicating or trying to communicate with Him, and He's not going to shut the door when we're in our prayer life, when we're in our spirituality like we need to be. really every moment of our life. Now, I don't mean that you're to just forget about everything that's going on in the world. You'd probably be a lot better off if you did, but we have to be concerned about things that's going on in the world. That don't mean that you're just going to float around all day long in the Spirit of the Lord and not think about things, but it surely helps when you are in the Spirit of the Lord, doesn't it? It helps when you're talking to the Lord and you're communicating with God, it helps your soul. It helps your soul. You know, there's a difference between the soul and the spirit. A lot of people don't know that. A lot of people don't see the difference between the soul and the spirit. It says the spirit comes down from God out of heaven. It enters into us. Every man has a soul, but not every man has the Spirit of God. Stop and think about that. How blessed we are to have the Spirit of God within us that we can feel the joy. Now, you can't feel that joy when you're quenching the Spirit. But I want to read to you this morning from the Ephesian letter, chapter 2. It's talking about being born again in the Spirit of God, and we'll go into some things this morning that we really... You know, I know I've preached upon this before, probably many times, But there's always something new to us, maybe not new out of the Word of God, but God reveals things as we go along and we may read the same Scripture over and over. And God, if you're in the Spirit of the Lord, God reveals things to you. Our spirit is of God, and it's a revealing spirit, and it reveals things to us. And if you're not in the Spirit of God, then you're not going to get those things revealed to you. You know, we may have a head knowledge and think we know something about what the Word of God says. A lot of people have got a head knowledge of God, but they don't really feel and know about the love of God. We know about it, we felt it, we know about it, we know about the Spirit of God, we know how it feels within us to be able to have joy in our hearts. I'm not talking about joy of the world, I'm talking about something that is supernatural. Not natural joy, but supernatural joy, something that overrides the natural joys in life. And when you have that supernatural joy from God in the Spirit, then oh, what a pleasure it is in life to be able to say, I'm living for the joy of the Lord. I'm living for my Lord and my God. And I'm able to talk to Him. I'm able to communicate with God this morning because we're in the Spirit of the Lord. Did you come to the house of God this morning asking God to bless you this morning in the Word of God, in the Spirit of God? Then if you didn't, then you need to ask God to bless you this morning in the Spirit that we have. You know, that's the only way we can worship God, in Spirit and in truth. In Spirit. And God says, in order to worship Me, you must be in the Spirit. So we need to be in the Spirit. He says in chapter 2 of the Ephesian letter, He says, and you have He quickened. We can't quicken ourselves. Only God. Only God can quicken us. So He says, and who is He quickening? Every child of God will be born again sometime in their life. while they live here in this timely world. It's not our choice, but it's God's choice when we're born again of the Spirit of God, when we're regenerated. We're born again and then we're regenerated. God shows us His love. He reveals unto us His love. So you have He quickened. The quickening here is knowing God, knowing Him, Spiritually, in the Spirit, knowing Him in the Spirit, not just to have knowledge. You know, the whole world knows God, knows who God is. I believe every human being that's ever born upon this earth knows who God is, because it says even the devil knows who God is, knows who Christ is, and so everyone knows God. They may deny, say, there is no God, but the Bible says that Everyone shall know Him from the least to the greatest. They shall know Him. Not that they'll know Him in spirit, but they shall know Him. And it says, at the end of time, every knee shall bow to Him. I believe even the wicked will bow to our Lord and our God because He is the Creator of mankind. I've often thought about this, where it says in our United States, it says, all men are created equal. Well, that's the biggest lie that ever was, because all men are not created equal. All men are not created equal. That shouldn't even be in our Constitution as far as I'm concerned. All men are not created equal in the eyes of God. Now, all men were created by God, but they weren't created equal. Some were created in the love of God before the foundation of the world. God knew them in His covenant, and some He didn't. So they're not all created equal, are they? So in that, going on, he says, "...you hath equickened who were dead in trespasses and sin." So at one time in our lives, At one time before we were born again in the Spirit, before we were given life, before we were awakened to the love of God, we didn't know about God, did we? Because we didn't have the Spirit of God. God wasn't speaking to us through His Spirit. You hath He quickened. A lot of folks say today that the only reason, and this is one reason that I'm preaching this morning upon the Spirit of God. A lot of people are saying today that the only reason that God gave us the Spirit is to be able to read the Word of God and to learn about Him. Well, I know that that part of it is true, but they say that that is the only reason that God has given us the Spirit of God. That's the most untrue thing that I've ever heard. Because the Bible plainly states, if we've got life, then we feel the joy of the Lord. And we know that God loves us. There's many things that you can attain through the reading of the Word of God that some people want to try to leave off. You know, they say, well, the Spirit doesn't do anything except enable you to read the Word of God and to understand it? Well, you know, there's a lot of people that read the Word of God who don't understand it, and then there's a lot of people who read the Word of God, even folks who have been born again, who don't understand it, because not that they don't have the Spirit of the Lord. Those who are born of God have the Spirit of the Lord, but God, I think, Time reveals things unto us. It's not just all at once. You could not handle, if you knew everything in the Word of God, you could not handle. You could not, our minds are so, and they say, you know, they talk about man's mind and how great it is and how able it is to, there's no one that really knows how far that we can stretch our minds. Well, let me tell you, there's only been one person who ever walked upon the face of this earth that contained the whole Word of God, and that's Jesus Christ our Lord. And I don't know of anyone else out of all the great men, the great preachers that ever came about, even the Apostle Paul. And he probably knew. He says he went up to the third heaven and saw things and obtained things and was taught personally of Christ and was taught of those things of God. through the Holy Spirit. But his mind was not able to contain all the Word of God. Yet he wrote some 12 or 13 books of the Bible. Paul was a very intelligent person. But his prayer was, his yearning in the Spirit was to know more about God. So you see, he didn't know it all. Because even at his death, he wanted to even when he was in prison at Rome and being tortured, his thoughts were upon God and wanting to know more about the Lord, the Word of God. Even the Word of God hadn't been written at that time. But Paul wrote some 13 books of the Bible and still yet, he didn't know everything there was to know, and no man will know it. Maybe someday when we get to heaven and immortal glory, We'll know a whole lot more than we know now. Now, I don't know if we'll know it all, because only God is capable of that. But we'll know and be happy in what we know. We'll be satisfied. You ever hear of the song, I'll Be Satisfied? We'll be satisfied with what we know. You know, never get comfortable with what you know. Never be satisfied with how much you know. You always want to know more, don't you? Some people are comfortable. Some people, you hear them say, well, I'm comfortable with what I know about God. Well, I'm never comfortable. I always want my cup running over. I always want to be able to feel the spiritual things of God and to know more about God. And that's my prayer each day as I go along through the day. Asking, Lord bless me that I might be able to know more about you because I want to know more about the Lord as I go along in life. And as I go along in life, God seasons us. The Lord seasons us. And He brings us up in the Word of God. If we are reading the Word of God, He reveals to us through the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit is not just for learning. Not just for that, but it's for feeling too. Because I didn't feel the way that I feel once in my life, but now I'm able to feel the joy of the Lord. I'm able to know this morning that the Lord, Christ died for me. He died for you. Are you able to feel that and to know that this morning? If you are, then you've been born again in the Spirit of God and Christ has been revealed unto you. You know that in your heart, in your soul. You know that in the Spirit of the Lord. You know that beyond a shadow of a doubt. You know that this morning. He says, going on a little bit further, He says, when in times past you walked according to the course of this world, you was once guided by Satan. You was once guided by the world and you didn't feel the love of God in your heart. You didn't know nothing about the Lord, His love. So in times past we walked in the vanity of our minds. You know what kind of mind the Lord says that we have now? We have the mind of Christ. What does that say to us, we have the mind of Christ, we have the Spirit of God, we are to think godly. When you say sometimes we put our thinking hat on, our thinking hat should always be thinking spiritually about God. He says everything that we do in life should be to the honor and glory of God. Sister Susie drives the bus down the road, and I'm sure that many times there's a Big old prayer on her heart as she goes along. The kids are noisy, and she's nervous maybe, but she's probably thinking about the Lord a lot of times as she drives along. I know when I was working in the mill, I would think about the Lord. There was so much things going on and stuff going on, and I'd just try to put my mind upon the things of God and thank Him, and I'd go singing a song in my heart trying to keep my mind away from the evil things that were being brought about me. That's what we need to do. So this morning, we think about being in the Spirit of God. And some people say, well, how do you know when you're in the Spirit of the Lord, when you've got the joy of the Lord in your heart? How do you know this morning about being in the Spirit of God? Well, for one thing, You know, being in the Spirit of the Lord this morning is like, it takes our mind and our heart away from the world. And being in the Spirit of God and the joy of the Lord is the joy of all joys, isn't it? So if we've got the Lord upon our minds this morning, we're in the Spirit of God. And your mind is upon the things of God. Now, we're not always in the Spirit of God, are we? We're not always thinking about the Lord. As I said a while ago, we have other things that interfere with our thinking about God. We have things coming in our lives that are more important than our thoughts upon God. But when we're in the Spirit of God, we're able to hear. We're able to hear the Word of God. We're able to joy in the joy of our salvation. That's being in the Spirit of God. When you come into the house of God, you're listening, you're at a good meeting, and you're listening to the Word of God, and you go home with a joy in your heart. I mean, you know, you feel the Lord with you, and you've heard the Word of God. You've heard it. Not just with a... with an ear, but you've heard it with a hearing ear. There's a big difference than just hearing words, than to hear them with a hearing ear. And that's why the Lord says, ye of a hearing ear, hear what I have to say. And we've tuned in, you know, we've got our tuner on, we've got our antenna up, and we're tuned in to the things of God when we're in the Spirit of the Lord. We're hearing what God has to say to us. We're knowing what God wants us to do in our life. We're hearing what God has for us in this life. So we're going along in life and we're enjoying the joy of our salvation. He says we once walked. And we didn't know these things. We once walked in trespasses and sin. We once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the earth. That's Satan. A prince of the power of the earth. That's Satan. We once walked in that spirit, the evil spirit. We once were habitual. sinners. But now then, we've been changed. Now then, we have a conscience, a spiritual conscience to know that we're not supposed to do that. You know, the Word of God says that we're not ignorant anymore of the devil's devices. We're not ignorant of those. Some people say, well, I don't know if this is right or wrong. You know, the world's doing it. I don't know if this is wrong, what I'm doing. You know if it's wrong because your conscience, the Spirit of God is telling you that it's wrong. And you're not to follow that wrong, but you're to follow the Spirit of the Lord. You know, our bodies, and what this is saying, our bodies was once the servant of sin. We were a servant of sin in that time when we were doing the things of the world. We were a servant of sin. But now we are the temple of God. So there's been a big change in our lives. I know one thing in my life, and if you felt what I felt when the Lord changed you, the old world was turned upside down. There was something new and something sweet and something different that came under your life and made you a new person. You're a new person. The Bible says, the Word of God says you're a new person and that we're different than we were then. Well now, we're still not walking around with a halo over our heads. But we are different and God has made us different. And so we see that difference in each one who has been born again of the Spirit of God. We see that difference. We know, we can tell the difference. He says you can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. So if you see a tree that's bearing forth the good fruit, that's what we are, is bear forth the good fruit of the tree. He says you can tell the tree by the fruit it bears. We want to bear forth the sweet fruit, the good fruit, the beautiful fruit, and that's the fruit of the Lord. That's the fruit that God's talking about. Well, I know we think about fruit, and the first thing probably that comes to mind in my mind is an apple, a big, red, ripe, juicy apple, you know, and how beautiful it is. You know, my wife goes to the grocery store, and she'll come home with them big, nice, beautiful red apples, and she'll shine them up, and that's what we need to do with our spirit. Child of God, we need to keep it shined up, we need to keep it in tune with God so we can learn the clean things of life, the good things of life. So we are led by the Spirit of God now, we're led God-loved. You know, we feel the love of God in our hearts now. So God's love should move us to do His will, to use our guilt with diligence and devotion. Devotion to God. Devotion to God and God's people. You know, God says, His commandment is to love thy Lord thy God with all thy heart and to love one another. We need to love one another more than we and God. And if you love God, you love one another. But we always can grow in our love. Our love toward God, we grow in that. And how do we do that through the Holy Spirit? How do we love one another more? Through the Holy Spirit. I'll tell you what, when people don't love one another, And if they are a child of God, they're the most miserable people to have ever lived on the face of this earth. They quench the Spirit. They quench the Spirit. They're always finding fault with one another in the church or always finding fault with God's people. No matter where they go, there's something wrong. You know, I read over in the book of Revelations where God spoke to the seven churches of Asia Minor. He was the judge. He says, I have somewhat against thee, didn't he? Let God be the judge. Now I'm not saying, we have a right to judge by the fruits that people bear, and we have given, God has given us the right to pray for those who are not bearing forth good fruits who we think are the children of God. That's what you need to be doing for those who are walking in the world, doing the things of the world, who we think are the children of God, who we believe that one time we've seen the evidence that they were a child of God. Maybe they've went back out into the world. Maybe they're living a life of hell. We need to be praying that God would move upon them with such spiritual power and bring them back. Bring them back. to the love of God, to know the love of God, to really know it, to be able to really feel it once again like they once enjoyed the joy of their salvation. You know, that's what David prayed for. You're talking about a man that got in the wrong spirit. David got in the wrong spirit over there and he was lusting after this woman. He was lusting after her. He wanted her more than he that he really wanted her more then than he wanted to worship the Lord, didn't he? He forgot about God. And so he started this lust, you know, he had this lust. And we've all got lust in our heart. I don't care who you are. I don't care how religious you are. We have lust in our hearts sometimes. And we want to lust for different things. Maybe it's not for the same things David lusted after, another woman. Or we may want what somebody else has. We may want a lot more money. God says to be satisfied in the Spirit. Be satisfied with what the Lord has given you. Now, that don't mean that you're just to sit down when you've got $10,000 in the bank and think you've got enough, because I'm telling you right now, nowadays, that wouldn't even take you through a month hardly. So you need to work and try to prepare. I don't believe the Lord meant for us just to stop work when we think we've got enough money to last us. Because I'm telling you, today, you don't hardly get enough money. A working person don't hardly have enough money to last. You know, to last. Some people say, well, Brother Roger, you're retired. You're supposed to be retired. I said, well, you know, as long as I've got life in me and as long as I feel like it, I'm not just going to sit down and quit. I said, I don't think that's what the Lord made the body for. You know, I think He made this body to labor. He says He did. He made this body to labor. He says a man don't work, he shouldn't eat. Well, I like to eat. So I'm going to keep on working. Keep on working. So we're to serve God in diligence and in devotion to be humble. God says to be in the Spirit is to be humble. Humble yourself in the Spirit. To be forgiving. And you have to be in the Spirit to be forgiving. To be patient. You have to be in the Spirit to be patient. Some of you folks know what I'm talking about. Those folks that are married. Those folks that have kids. You have to be in the Spirit to be patient, don't you? Or you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be. To be in the Spirit, to be patient, to be loving. You know, you can get angry if you're not in the right spirit. And of course, I know none of you is guilty of this. None of you fathers and mothers are guilty of getting so mad and angry that you just want to sometimes just shake the stuffings out of them, don't you? But you're to be in the Spirit, and you're to be loving and kind. Now, that don't mean that you're not to punish your children, because the Lord says, bring them up in the admonition of the Lord. You're supposed to do that. And He says, spare not the rod. Spare not the rod. Because He says, if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. And that's what's wrong with a lot of our young people today. You know, the law says we can't whip our children. Well, that law is man's law. I go by God's law. I go by God's word. And God's word says we are to whip our children. Now that don't mean that you can beat the tar out of them. Because when you do that, you're getting mad. You know, that's not the way you do it. But you are to whip them and then tell them how much that you love them. That you're doing it for their good. I know that they're not going to understand that right off, are they, Sister Sandy? They're not going to understand that, and they'll probably go right back and do it again, but again, you whip them again. You see these people, you know, and I see a lot of this, Oh honey, don't you do that. Now you stop that. That's not the way you correct a child. Anyway, getting back to being in the Spirit. Of course, that's part of being in the Spirit. We're to show forth the fruits of the Spirit of God. And you know what the fruits of the Spirit is. It's love, joy, and peace, and tranquility, and all of the good things that you want to enjoy in life. It's all of these things that come together. And God brings them together. And the Lord, He tells us how to have joy in life. God's people, when you're a child of God and you're not feeling the joy of the Lord, you're most miserable. You're most miserable. The way to feel the joy of the Lord is to be in the Spirit of God and be obedient to God, isn't it? We feel that joy. You know, I can tell when I'm in tune with God. Can't you tell when you're in tune with God, things just, you go through the day, you zip through the day, and there may have been a lot of things that went bad, but you just pray about it, and you just go on your way, and they're singing, joy to the Lord. Joy to the Lord. And you don't let those things bother you. This is what I'm talking about, being in the Spirit of God. So in the midst of all the tribulations and trials in life, being in the Spirit of God, you can overcome these things by being in the Spirit of God. Because God's Spirit moves. You know, it says God's Spirit moved. You know, over in the Old Testament, those men over there talked about being in the Spirit of God. You know, it says, In Isaiah and in some of the old prophets, when they would proclaim the Word of God, they would say, And the Spirit of God moved upon me. So the Spirit of God moves upon God's people. The Spirit of God. So the Spirit of God, it moves, and it has motion, and it has direction, and it has all the things that God's people need in this life if they would just obey the Spirit of the Lord. Obey. Trust and obey. That's a good song. Trust and obey. Because it's talking about trusting in God. You say, well, I don't think I can do what the Lord has called me to do. When God called me to preach, I was so mixed up and didn't know a lot of things, and I said, how in the world will I ever be able to get up and preach the Word of God? And you know, as I went along, and the Lord led me, and He'd taken some things away from me, and He pointed out some things to me that I wanted to do. You know, there's been other times that I thought, well, maybe my time is up here at Mount Zion, I need to move on. And God just shut that door just real quick, sometimes quick, and sometimes not so quick, you know. And by the way, I think the Lord has shut the door about me moving to Florida. I don't think I'm going to Florida. I think God still has something for me to do here. I have no desire to go to Florida. Of course, that's me. And I don't think the Lord has any desire for me to go to Florida. So I called the fellow last week and told him that the way it was pointing, that God wasn't pointing me in that direction. So, amen. I'm thankful for that. But when I prayed about this, I'm still praying about it and praying about it in the Spirit. I'm sure it's not vain words going up to God because I feel impressed of the Lord. So we know and what we expect from God is those things. We want to do everything our way, and then we expect God not to do things His way. You notice how folks are? We don't want to be obedient to God, but we want God. When we call upon God, He's always there, isn't He? He's never turned His back upon us. He's always been right there. God never leaves us. He's always there. So He says, you have eaten quick, and so you've been born again in the Spirit of God and need to move on a little bit. So if we turn over to Galatians, the 5th chapter of the 16th verse, then it talks about the Spirit some more. How do we know we're in the Spirit of God? You know, we ask that question. Well, and I've tried to explain to you this morning. I think I've explained it the best that I can, and I hope you've understood what I was trying to explain. How do we know when we're in the Spirit? of the Lord, and I'll go over that again. When we are in the Spirit of the Lord, there is nothing in life more important than God. There's nothing in life more important than serving God and loving Him. You let nothing in your life come between you and God, being in the Spirit of God, loving God. So that's when we know we're in the Spirit of the Lord, trying to serve Him that upholds all things. The Lord tells us that we are to love Him. So we need to be directed and we need to learn more about the Lord. And the way we do that is by being in the Spirit of God. So okay, he says in the 16th verse, the fifth chapter of Galatians, he says, This I say. This is the Lord talking. I know Paul wrote the book of Galatians, but in every book that's in this Bible, the Lord first had it in His heart and His mind, and it's been in the Lord's mind and heart forever. This is the everlasting gospel. So it's always been God's Word. So don't just say, well, this is Paul, what man has wrote, because it is God's Word. He says this, I say, walk in the Spirit. This is a commandment of God. Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. If you're walking in the Spirit of God, you're not going to be fulfilling the lust of the flesh. You know, I remember one time, I think I was in Virginia or someplace, I had preached a sermon about walking in the Spirit and how we sometimes want to lust after the flesh. And this old sister came up and she said, well, Brother Roger, you know we all probably think about things. And she said, we think about things, but we don't have to just keep our minds on it, you know. And she said, you sometimes let the pigeons light, but you don't have to let them roost. So I thought that was a pretty good saying. You know, you don't have to let those bad thoughts stay there. Even though they may come across our minds, then what do we do? Then what do we do with those bad thoughts when we've got bad thoughts in our mind? Well, what do we do? We look to the Lord and say, Lord, help me with this bad thought that I've got. Help me with the wrong spirit of mind that I've got. Help me to continue on in the Spirit of the Lord and think about You and the holy things of God. This I say, walk in the Spirit. In other words, not only just talk the talk, but you walk the walk. You know, if we say how much we love God and we say we're going to live Christian life and we make a commitment to God in the church to live for the Lord, then we ought to act like that we're church members. We ought to act like we're lovers of Christ. We ought to act like that we know Him and that we adore Him more than anything in this world. We ought to act like that. And we ought to feel like that. We ought not be just You know, we ought not to think that God does hold us responsible for what we feel and we think. God holds us responsible. You know, He holds me responsible for teaching truth. You talk about an awesome responsibility that a God-called preacher has. He has an awesome responsibility to teach the Word of God. And there's some things, you know, that maybe I may not preach or teach about. And, you know, there's some things that I've had up on my mind lately. And I said, well, would that make the congregation mad if I preached about that on some Sunday morning? Well, you know, the Lord came, as the old prophet said, the Lord came to me in the Spirit. And he says, preach my word. He said, preach my word and preach truth. Preach my Word in power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit." So we might not like to hear sometimes what the preacher has to say, but my thoughts is, and the Word of God's thoughts are, if the shoe fits, you wear it. You know, if that is your situation, and you've got a different thought about what God teaches us, then you're wrong. You're wrong. God has never been wrong. God's not wrong in what He speaks in His Word. So we have to do the Word of God. We have to do the Word of God. Amen? Okay. I've got one or two amens. He says, "...to walk in the Spirit in you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." We're to follow Jesus. We're to take up our cross and to follow Jesus. You've been called out of the world. You've been called with a holy calling. You have the Spirit of God. You have no excuse to follow the Lord. He says, and I know, and he goes on to say we've got a war. We're fighting a war. He says, for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these things are contrary to one another, so that you cannot do the things that you would, except by the grace of God. So okay, you've got a warfare going on in your life. And the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. But you know, which one in your mind is the strongest? Which one should win over? The Spirit of God. The Spirit of God, it is God's power within you, and God says that He has control over the Spirit, He sends the Spirit, and so we have the Spirit of God. He says it's the candle of light in the inward man. So it gives us light to light the way into the land of perfect day. To light our lives and to make us aware of the good things in life, to make us aware of the good things of God. You know, would you rather be aware of the good things of God, the spiritual things of God, than the spiritual things of the devil? Because if you're not in the Spirit of God, then you're not able to comprehend what God wants you to do. You're in the wrong spirit. You know, the Lord talks about being in the wrong spirit. So we need to be careful. We need to be aware of the spirit that we're in. So we have a war going on. We have a warfare. But you know also it says over in the Ephesian letter, chapter 6, that we'd have on the whole armor of God. And that's part of this. Well, it's not part of it, it's the whole thing. But if you be led by the Spirit, in other words, it says you be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law. We don't serve the law anymore. We don't serve that because we've been brought out from under the law. The law has not been done away with, but we know to obey the law, don't we? What's God's laws? We're to obey God's laws. So we're under God's laws, but yet we've been freed from those things in the sense that we've been saved by grace. Those laws used to be, you know, I say this, I know you've probably heard me say it before, but we wouldn't last two minutes under the old law, the mosaic law, would we? Because they used to stone people to death for doing things that they, you know, The man that picked up sticks on Sunday, for instance. They stoned him to death. Well, we wouldn't last two minutes under that law, would we? But God's law. God's law. And He says, to love thy Lord thy God with all thy heart, and to love one another. And if you obey that spiritual law there, you obey that law of God, then you've covered them all. You've got them all. But how hard is that to do? in our lives. It's hard. It's not easy to serve God. It's easy to serve the world, but it's not easy to serve God. You have to have a mindset. You have to have your spirit. You have to have the Spirit of God. You have to be on fire for the Lord. And I want us to be more aware, and that's the reason I'm preaching that this morning about the Spirit of God. I want us to be more aware of how we should live our lives for the Lord. On fire for the Lord. On fire. Always remember that. On fire as we go through lives every day that the Lord gives us. Our life is for the Lord. Our lives are to be given to God. Our life belong to God. They're His. You made that commitment. You made that commitment. So let us keep that commitment to God. May the Lord bless and keep you is my prayer.