hymns sung, and all of you singing so wonderfully, it's a blessing to our heart. Music in the church should be sung to the Lord, because we're worshiping him, we're not entertaining people. And also, music in the church should inspire and prepare the hearts to receive the message of God's word, and should inspire the messenger to preach the word of God. I'm gonna ask you to turn your Bibles tonight to the book of Acts chapter one. The book of Acts chapter one, and we're going to read just one verse, and that will be verse eight. The Bible says here in verse eight, and these are red letters in my Bible, that means Jesus is speaking. And you wanna listen when Jesus speaks. You want to consume the words that Jesus has to say. He never says anything that's unimportant. It's always important, always needed for us to listen to it. He says here, but ye, speaking to his church, there were about 120 members by this time, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. So it's very obvious from this passage of scripture why Jesus is giving them the Holy Spirit. He is not giving them the Holy Spirit to jump up and down and to speak in gibberish language that nobody can understand. That's not why he is giving them the Holy Spirit's power. He's giving them the Holy Spirit's power to be witnesses. And to be witnesses on a worldwide scale. These are the final words of Jesus to his church. The final words, the last thing he said before he left. He told them what his will was in this verse and give them the power to perform his will. He told them what their work as a church was to be. Their work as a church has long since disappeared in many churches. They're just clubs, associations, places to gather to be entertained. None of that was planned by the Lord and none of it was instructed to be done by the Lord. He promised them then the power to carry out his will and his work that he wanted the church to do. Thus you have the promise that's recorded here in the eighth verse of chapter one. Ye shall receive power, Jesus said. Power to do his will, power to do his work, and power to do it on a worldwide scale. Jesus said, ye, His church, not speaking to just the apostles, not just speaking to those disciples that followed Him, but speaking to the entire assembly, everybody involved, ye shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost is come upon you. In Old Testament times, the Holy Spirit did not indwell believers. He came upon believers for special occasions. The Bible often says in the Old Testament, and the Spirit of God was upon him. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit indwells the believer permanently. And that's why a person who is not saved All people who are not saved are to one degree or another possessed by demons. Satan lives in them and controls them. But when they get saved, the Holy Spirit moves in and the devil has to move out permanently, can never return, can never have that dwelling, indwelling and controlling that he has over unsaved people. That's why unsaved people act the way they do. That's why they get drunk. That's why they kill babies instead of letting them be born. Many, many things occur because the devil's in control of their life. But when you get saved, he's dethroned. and the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in the believer, which was not true in Old Testament times. Jesus started this church while he was on the earth. It didn't start on the day of Pentecost. He started it while he was here on the earth. And while he was here on the earth with the church, the Holy Spirit was not needed because Jesus said in Matthew 28 and verse 18, all power is given unto me. in heaven and in earth. So when Jesus was with his church, building that first church, all the power they needed was there, right there in front of them in the person of the Son of God. Only after Jesus told them he was being taken back into heaven, would he be replaced by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the power of the Holy Spirit was given so that the church could carry out his will and do his work. When he was with them, they over and over again witnessed his power. Time and time again, they saw Jesus demonstrate his power while he was among them. He raised the dead. They'd never seen that before. He healed the sick. And they never got sick again. Never saw that before. He gave sight to the blind that had never seen a sunset, never seen a sunrise, never seen their children, never seen their wife. All of a sudden, Jesus gave them eyesight. And all of his church saw him do that. They saw him out on the hillside preaching to probably close to 20,000 people. And he preached a long, long time because he taught them many different subjects. And the disciples said, we've been out here a long time, we're getting hungry. And none of the people complained about food, it was the disciples that complained about food, church members. The multitude didn't complain at all. So they made a search to find out if anybody had brought any food because there was no McDonald's in sight. And they found that a little boy, his mother, he said, I'm going to hear Jesus preach. And she said, I better prepare you a lunch because Jesus preaches a long, long time. and he deals with many different subjects, and a little boy gets hungry. But when they found that little boy and they found that sack lunch, he had not touched it all during that time. He was so interested in what Jesus was saying that he never thought about food. That was a miracle in itself for a little boy. And another miracle was that when they asked him if Jesus could have his lunch, he didn't say, now he can have two fish and one biscuit. He gave it all to them. That's a second miracle there that took place. How many boys would do that? They'd say, no, I'm gonna keep it all for myself. Or they might say, I'll give him one piece of fish. One piece of bread. But this little boy gave it all, the whole thing. The church watched that. They saw that miracle. And then Jesus took that bread, looked up to heaven, and he blessed the bread, and he break the bread, and all of a sudden, 20,000 people were fed, and there was leftovers. I wonder what happened to the leftovers. I'd like to imagine what could have happened to the leftovers. Do you imagine that he who gave gets? The Bible says give and it shall be given unto you. So maybe the little boy got all the leftovers. And he had to have help getting it all home. Can you imagine what his mother thought when she saw that boy bringing all that food home? What's he done now? What kind of a problem has he got himself into now? And he was able to tell his mother, oh, this is the leftovers from the little lunch you fixed me. She heard about a miracle. The church witnessed the miracle. They witnessed the power of God. The church saw on many occasions the power that Jesus had so that that power could be invested in them and while he was with them, they could do his will and his work by his power. But here, He has another job for them to do after he leaves the church and gives them the assignment that he wants them to carry on until he returns. Now, there have been people who have gathered out on hillsides, all dressed in white, waiting for Jesus to come. You're not to wait for Jesus to come, you're to be busy while Jesus is in heaven, and you're to keep busy until Jesus comes. You're not to retire. Somebody always asks me, preacher, you don't get along very good anymore, when are you gonna retire? And I always tell them, I'm not gonna retire, I'm gonna retread and keep going. Just retread. That's what they do with cars and trucks. You can do it with a human being. So now, they have the power that they saw in Jesus leaving, going back to heaven, and Jesus, before he left them, he gave them his will and his work that he wanted them to do. A church is not in existence to do its own will. It's not in existence to do its own work. It's in business to carry out the commission that Jesus gave it. And Jesus gave them that commission in Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 through 20 to take the gospel of Jesus Christ into all the world and make disciples. Get people saved. And then after you make a disciple, you baptize them by the authority of the local church. You can't just go out and baptize people. They are baptized under the authority of our Lord's church. And then he said, there's a third thing I want you to do. Teach them to observe everything I've taught you. So there is training involved. receiving Christ, being scripturally baptized, and you don't just sprinkle them a little bit, because all that does is get them wet, but not wet enough. You gotta get them under the water, because you are picturing the death of Christ. and you have to bring them up out of the water because you're picturing the resurrection of Christ, and you're also saying I'm dying to an old life and being resurrected to a new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. So he gave them this commission. It's not necessary for a church to have committees to try to figure out what to do. There are churches that do that. They got a committee for everything. And this committee meets, and this committee meets, and you end up having different opinions as to what they're to do, and so one committee disagrees with another committee, and the fight is on. Old Christian soldiers. Yeah. No, no, you don't need to figure out what you're supposed to do as a church. You have a Bible, and it tells you in the word of God exactly what Jesus wants you to do. You don't do what you want to do as a church. You do what Jesus wants you to do as a church. He said, win the loss to Christ. That's making disciples. He said, baptize them, told the church. Then teach them, he told that to the church. And he said, I'm gonna give you power because I'm leaving. You won't have my power anymore, but you'll have the power of the Holy Spirit. It's quite interesting that the Spirit of God would empower them to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. So this was a commission for missions. Another reason for us to be involved in faith promise giving. Faith promise giving finances doing the work of God, doing the will of God, carrying out missions to the very ends of the earth. You say, where is the end of the earth? I haven't found it yet, but I'm still looking. I'm still going, I've been in 70 countries, plan to keep going as long as I can. Might have to have a wheelchair or some crutches or something, but I can still keep going once I get in the pulpit, I believe I can still tell people what Jesus wants them to know. You go to the uttermost part, that is to the ends of the earth. For this and no other reason was the Holy Spirit given to man, given to the church. Go with me to the 13th chapter now of the book of Acts, Acts chapter 13. Listen to these verses, verses one through four. Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers. There was Barnabas and Simeon called Nigar, and Lucas of Cyrene, and Manon, which had been brought up with Herod the torturous, and Saul. And as they ministered, You know, God doesn't call people to missions who's not already doing something in their home church. These men were already ministering. They were already busy working in their church. Don't expect, don't sit around on the easy chair and wait for God to call you. He's not gonna do that. Bible says, and as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, The Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. So the Holy Spirit of God came to give us power and to also call into the Lord's work those that he selects and places his commission upon them to go. and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them, and when they had fasted and prayed, they, now they're talking about the church, and they laid their hands on them and sent them away. So there's a double agency here, the agency of the Holy Spirit who calls them and the agency of the church who sends them. That's why you need faith promise missions. You have to have a tool, a financial tool to send them and to get them there and then sustain them to be able to stay there. When I first started traveling, things were cheap all over the world. It was amazing what I could do with just a few American dollars in many countries because things were really cheap. Now, in many cases, it's more expensive in those countries than it is in my own country. And so it's hard for missionaries to stay on the mission field unless churches get a great vision and let the Holy Spirit use them to sustain that missionary on the foreign field. Bible says, and when they had fasted and prayed, They laid their hands on them and sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Cilicia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus." So you see, a double sending. The Holy Spirit empowers them to go, the church finances them to go and prays for them and lays their hands upon them and fasts. We don't know much about fasting as Baptists, do we? I think we just, what we do is we know how fast to eat. That's about it. Well, you see here that now the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the local church has called a missionary and the church has sent them out by the power that Jesus promised would come, the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is not here for us to abuse or misuse. He is here for us to be empowered to do God's work. Selecting those among the church to take the gospel into all the world is the work of the Holy Spirit. Separating men to take the gospel to all the world is also the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the will and the command of God that the church join the Holy Spirit in doing this work. We are to be partners with him. Bible says in verse three of Acts 13, and when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. They went by the power of the Spirit of God, but the church sent them out to take the gospel into all the world. You know, there is a big difference between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of churches get that real mixed up and they go out on all kinds of weird ideas about it. But I have a good illustration about being indwelt and also being filled. Every person who gets saved is indwelt by the Holy Spirit from the moment of their faith. But that does not mean that they are filled with the Holy Spirit. And you're not gonna do much for missions until you allow the Holy Spirit to fill you. You're not gonna make much of an effort to fill out a faith promise card until you allow the Holy Spirit to fill you Now, when I was a boy, I loved to go to my grandmother's house. She had this big house. It had a basement. It had a first floor. It had a second floor. And way up on top of that, it had what we called an attic, way up there. And it was very interesting to go to grandma's house because she had unusual doors. They disappeared into the wall. They just slid into the wall and disappeared. And I used to look, see where they went. I loved to go over there and see all those things. She didn't have electricity. She had all these lamps. She'd line them up in the morning and get the glass all cleaned so that that night she could have a lamp in every room that they used, and then they would turn that lamp on, the oil lamp. You say, did you live that far back? Yeah, I sure did. I lived a long time. But I remember my grandmother said to me, I was just a little fella, and little guys are very inquisitive. And when I went to her house, she said, now, Billy, she called me Billy because my mom called me Billy. Don't you do that. My name's not Will Williams, so it's really not a legitimate Billy. My name is Will Ford, W-I-L-F-O-R-D. I got Ford on the end of my name and they've never given me one. But that's the way it goes. She said to me now, Billy, you can go in all the rooms of the house, but you see that door right there? Don't go in there. Guess which one the boy wanted to go in? He naturally wanted to go where he was told he couldn't go. What was she doing? She was restricting me from filling her house. I could be in the house, but I couldn't fill the house. That's the way a lot of people are living their Christian life. The Holy Spirit is in them, but they are not allowing Him to fill them. And when they limit Him to fill them, then the work of God doesn't get done as well as it should, because you have several rooms in your house. You have a communication room. You say, well, Holy Spirit, you can live in me, but stay out of my communication room. I wanna look at what I wanna look at. You know, you got a treasury room in your life. You say, well, I, Holy Spirit, you can indwell me, but don't go into the financial room. Don't go in there where I have to decide what I'm gonna do with my money. And you have all kinds of different rooms like that in your life. And if you are going to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you have to yield every part and every room of your life to Him. And until you do that, you will limit your ability to be of service to God efficiently and effectively. You won't take that card and fill it out, or if you do, You'll just give God a token. Some people give God tips. Others give him tokens. Others obey him and give him what fully belongs to him. So I couldn't go in that room, but I tried to sneak in there. You know, that's the way a boy does. But my grandmother had eyes in the back of her head. Every time I went toward that room, she saw it and stopped me. I could go up in the attic and all kinds of things were stored up there that I could look at. I could go down in the basement and see all the things that were down there. I could go in all the other rooms of the house, but I couldn't go in that one. And I often wondered still to this day, what in the world is in there? And I never did find out. That's the way some people are with the Holy Spirit. He's never allowed to fill every room of your life, every room of your house. But you have been given, every one of you, the power of the Holy Spirit to give you the ability to carry on a worldwide missionary ministry, either by going or by sending. and the faith promise will only be determined to the extent that you are fully and totally filled by the Holy Spirit. So is the Holy Spirit indwelling you or have you allowed him to completely fill you? Your mind, your eyesight, your finances, everything about your life, I surrender to the Lord. Have you done that? If you haven't done that, that's what needs to be done. He's dwelling in you, but now it's your turn to turn everything over to him. And when you do that, you'll see greater work for world missions being done in a church where everybody is filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Let's bow our heads for prayer. As our heads are bowed tonight, I'd like to ask you, I assume that most everybody here are believers, You have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but can you say, I have totally surrendered my entire life, all the rooms of my life, I have totally surrendered my pocketbook, my heart, everything to the Lord. You say, preacher, I have not come to that place in my life. I wish you'd pray for me tonight. that I will completely surrender, God bless you. Anyone else, God bless you and you, yes, yes, yes, yes. Pray for me, I need to be totally surrendered to the Holy Spirit of God. God bless you, amen. Anyone else? God bless you, amen. Are there others? God bless you. Yes. Totally surrendered. Every time I bought a car, I surrendered it to God. I prayed over it. Every time I bought a house, I did the same thing. I wanted total surrender of everything I have to the Holy Spirit of God so that He can fill the whole thing. Anyone else? Pray for me. God bless you. Yes. God bless you. God bless you. Yes. Anyone else? God bless you. God bless you. Praise the Lord for these who are raising their hands. God bless you. You can put it down. Anyone else? God bless you. Yes. Amen. Anyone else? Anyone else? All right, let's stand with our heads bowed. We're going to pray and then give an invitation. And this is the invitation. It's a serious matter. In the light of faith promise offering and world missions, many of you raised your hand. I'm gonna ask you tonight, are you willing to come and just kneel here and say, Lord, I surrender all. I turn everything I have, everything I am, all the rooms of my house, I surrender to you, Lord. That's what I want us to do in this invitation tonight.