His Spirit Rests Upon You

from isaiah chapter 11 if you would turn please this passage has i've been drawn to this passage in particular the last few weeks taught some from it on wednesday night it describes this passage describes that by his spirit god intends to come upon us as humans when we are touched by god as we just have been in worship and maybe you felt a sense of peace or maybe there was power or there was victory or there was some some other manifestation of god that you felt that is never by accident god doesn't spill his love or his grace or his power but it's intentional god is intentional wanting to come up we have his attention today church we have his attention now because it's god anybody else that wants it gets it too everybody's got it they've got god's attention but he is intentional and his presence is here today and it will not be only the day but out into the future i'm going to describe some of the experiences

that god wants us to experience and to have and he wants it to come upon us not just as a transient coming and going now we come and go to services we come and go through the days of a week or a year we come and go through circumstances but god doesn't come and go we're humans we are transient sometimes we have up days and other days down but god is forever the same and in that sameness his promises are the same such as those that where he says i'm going to be with you and so the spirit has come to stay hallelujah none of us are going to have to worry about is god going to leave me he is not going to leave you there will be days when we won't feel him and brother tf 10 he used to say there will be days when we can't track him and that's when we trust him because he's always faithful and his word is always true and in this

portion of scripture he prophesies about the giftings or the powers and the abilities that are going to be at your disposal and at my disposal we have them right at our fingertips even today because of that abiding spirit so from isaiah 11 and beginning verse 1 and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots and the spirit of the lord shall rest upon him spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the lord and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the lord and this is important for us this last section of verse three all of it's important but we're living in a day where we've got to be careful that we do not judge after the sight of the eyes just on the surface what we see on the surface nor reprove after the hearing of his ears not everything we hear

is legitimate and so we can't pass a life or a spiritual judgment just on everything that we're seeing in this temporal world or hearing in this physical world but with righteousness thank god but with righteousness shall he judge the poor he will reprove with equity in other words stand in behalf of the meek of the earth he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he's talking about the power of his word he would slay the wicked and righteousness shall be the girl of his loins he's going to be wrapped in other words it's all around him you could say it this way god is bubble wrapped in righteousness everywhere you look and also faithfulness faithful and righteous is the lord god almighty and i want to preach this truth today i'm preaching about you here it is his spirit rests upon you his spirit i'm going to ask you if you would just to receive that statement right there his spirit

does rest upon you to begin right now let's thank him for his spirit and that it rests upon us lord we are thankful for your spirit every encounter we have ever had and we really can't remember all of them just at this moment but we thank you o lord and not only at encounters and experiences we can remember but you have been there every second every moment every day every situation good and bad i want to thank you that your presence rests it resides it abides it does not leave i thank you for that promise of your word and i pray you would help us to accept that and live that out now in jesus name mighty name amen and you may be seated this prophecy of verse 1 about a rod that's coming out of the stem of jesse in a branch out of his roots is a prophecy and what is called in scripture a dual prophecy in other words it has more than one meaning our intention dual

prophecies and there are several of them throughout the scripture and that's an interesting study in itself because not only does it point to something immediate or in the future only but it points to both both happenings both situations sometimes to more than one person and that's the case here first of all it references the crowning and the reign of hezekiah one of judah's best kings who ever sat upon the throne of the people of god just to give you a little idea of what a crowning reign he held he overcame an apostate family background and you've probably heard his name and you've probably read about him and maybe heard lessons are preaching about him and even with all of that and if you've never heard it's an interesting read to read the life of hezekiah now he was human he had his faults and failures but he overcame an apostate family background i just want to stop right here and say you and i with the spirit resting upon us can

overcome any kind of a background there's a lie in society telling us that our past will always dominate us it will influence us and we're not negating the fact it did have an impact but your background can be risen above by the power of the residing spirit of god he had that experience some he ascended to the throne at the age of 25 and it started a great period of religious revival that makes me pause to say i thank god for our young people and the revival that they have and that fire we were singing about a while ago that fire that they have in their soul one of the prophets during his reign was this one that we're reading from isaiah we know that hezekiah believed in prayer he prayed about the danger that he was facing the king of assyria sent an army around about him he laid a letter out before the lord he just had faith he had simple faith he drafted up a letter took it

to the temple laid it out before god and basically said here it is god here's my prayer you don't have to pray a fancy prayer for the spirit that abides upon us to reside and to give victory he laid it out and god read that letter heard that prayer and listen to this one angel slew 185 trained and armed assyrian soldiers god is greater than whatever and how many ever and whoever is coming against his people coming against you or i family may be society may be neighborhood may be work associates may be but one letter one prayer laid before the lord and god said i'm gonna respond why because his spirit rests upon you he prayed about his personal need for healing the bible says he turned his face to the wall and prayed it may take i don't know what all of that meant really i don't know right now but he turned his face to the wall it speaks to me if he just wanted to get along

with god he didn't want anything in between him and god so he may have pretended that the wall was god and he was petitioning and he turned his face to the wall and he prayed that this fatal illness would be taken care of and healed and the prophet isaiah was sent from god to tell him god was intervening he said hezekiah you're not gonna die do you know do you know if it's god's will if somebody prayed they can be healed and even years can be added to their life is that okay now it's all up to god he's the one in control and we can't go around ordering god but we can ask god and we can have faith for him to add something to our life he had a deep and strong faith and when you read some of his prayers and some of his statements he believed that god ruled in the heavens and in the earth he also believed that god was near no wonder god had

the prophet write a prophetic writing about him and his experience he did have failures and this prophecy didn't particular deal with those but dealt with his sincerity his prayer life and these descriptions in isaiah 11 that you read about in the next few verses after verse 1 are descriptions that were lived out in the life of hezekiah if he said it about hezekiah and it came to pass what he says about you and the prophecies here that can be applied to you and i they are also going to come to pass the word of god for your life is going to come to pass in your life do not ever doubt it this prophecy of course was a messianic prophecy of the coming anointed messiah and there's another one like this one in isaiah nine it's more familiar unto us the child is born son is given both of them came to pass to every detail here he's prophesying and isaiah was writing by the way almost 700 years or a

little over 700 years before jesus christ was ever born and he pegged it he hid it wasn't accidental the holy ghost moved on him the spirit spoke to the man of god the spirit still speaks to women and men of god not only those who do what i'm doing today who preach and fill a pulpit at certain places and times but he speaks to everyone who will allow his spirit to reside upon you and so he talks about his genealogy about who and what family line the messiah would come from i'm going to tell you it's fabulous just think about this here's a man just a simple man isaiah and god speaks to him and he says i'm going to tell you i'm not only going to prophesy about the messiah i'm going to tell you what family he's coming from you know all of us we we kind of enjoy to some extent figuring out who they and we know jesus christ is we try to figure out who the

antichrist is that's probably not such a great idea but i doubt we're going to figure it out unless god speaks it to us and it's more important to know who jesus christ is than who the antichrist is i've seen some folks so wrapped up and figured out who the antichrist is i'm saying just figure out who jesus is that'll be a good start and so he uses this terminology he talks about a rod from the stem of jesse notice how small just just a little rod or a piece of a stick and a stem and there's going to be a branch come from his roots the word that isaiah uses when you study it out in the original language that word for branch is the same word that is used for the name of the city jesus grew up in nazareth it's the very same he not only told what family he was coming from but prophetically he just kind of subtly worked it in he said and i know where

he's going to grow up i have trouble figuring out where i am sometimes let alone knowing where somebody's going to be 700 years off in the future i'm going to tell you the holy ghost can speak if it's 10 days before if it's 10 years before if it's seven days before if it's seven years before god that power that pinpoint accuracy of the spirit and the word there are a lot of other words by the way that he could have used for the term branch but he chose that one on purpose so that maybe part of the reason was so i could get a thrill as i was studying to say there you go again god perfection look if he's got all that figured out he's got the details of your life figured out he knew where we were going to be born he knew what was in the future i read this little article the other day don't feel sorry don't feel sorry for our fear for your kids because

the world they're going to grow up in is not what it used to be god created them and called them for this exact moment in time their life was not a coincidence or an accident here at parents raise them up to know the power they walk in as the children of god our little kids can know if i pray for mom or dad or anybody else if i pray for them in the name of jesus or if i worship the lord in song it doesn't matter if it's at church it doesn't matter if it's in the home it doesn't matter if it's in the backyard or in the playground the presence of god is going to be there they can know the power that they walk in as the children of god parents train them up in the authority of his word babe would you come here amber where are you come come here just a minute dad would you mind coming here just a minute teach them to walk in

faith teach your kids to walk in faith saying god's in control there's a fear factor plaguing our world it's plaguing parents and grandparents it's plaguing children and grandchildren and it doesn't matter what age they are y'all come up and stand by me if you would i thank god for the family that the lord granted talk about nazareth god knew i was going to be born in saint anthony's hospital there was i don't i've not been down there so long they did tear it down built a national food store on that corner i wasn't built in the fruit section either born in the fruit section but hear me god knew where you were going to be born he knew when you were going to be born he has excellent and perfect knowledge he has empowered families grandparents and parents to watch out and look over your children to teach them parents hear me now those of you online hear me right now empower those children and grandchildren to know they can change

the world i know you may be saying amen in your heart but i feel like we need something better than that we need to empower our kids they can change the world i'm preaching about the spirit that is residing upon us don't teach them watch what you talk about at home don't teach them fear or to be fearful and disheartened because of the state of the world maybe mom and dad or grandma and grandpa you probably need to talk about it because there's some things that makes us raise our eyebrows and causes our heart to i'm not saying everything's perfect out there in the world we're living in right now and the way we've come into 2021 there are some things that can raise our antenna and it could cause us to fear except that we trust in the word of the lord the pinpoint accuracy and the pinpoint power of the word of god every person in all of history has been placed in the time that they were in

because of god's sovereign plan god knew that i would be born in 1953 to everett and betty wilford and dad i am so thankful for your faith and your faithfulness you knew you didn't know what i would be you didn't know where i would go you didn't know whether or not i would serve god but you did know that you were gonna do everything that you could do i had to make my own choices as every person every student every young person does but a parent can do everything that they can do to make sure that god's order and god's sovereign choice is there every person has been placed in the time dad you were placed in the time god intended for you i'm glad he planned it so you were my dad i'm so glad i'm so glad students we need to thank god for our parents and not just students but no matter how old we are we're still somebody's kid and we can give thanks and sometimes we

can't get to them to thank them because they're going on right now thank him as much as you can before they leave thank them as much as you can but then even after they've gone you've probably said it to them scores of times thank you for your faithfulness and i'm looking around this room and i'm almost getting distracted in a good way to think of the parents of elders that i see here today and adults that i see here today i was privileged to know some of your parents don't be afraid to raise them in the fear of god here's what god knew he knew daniel could handle the lion's den he knew simon peter could handle persecution in the jail he knew paul and silas could handle a philippian jail a little damsel that spoke a word that got them in trouble he knew that esther could handle haman god knew all that when you start reading through those stories even those of us that know the rest of the

story we want to start saying uh oh god oh oh what what what what happened here what happened here god knew he knew you could handle what you're going through right now hear me somebody he knew you could handle the hour that we're living in that's not going to be an excuse to bask backslide the spirit of god is residing upon us he knows we can handle it don't be scared afraid for your children but be honored hear me be honored that god chose you to parent the generation that we are in rise up parents hear me brother brad preached it this morning in the message earlier about the importance of the home and the power and the blessing and i've talked to many of you who experience especially while we were shut down but before and after that experienced times of prayer experience times of the blessing of the lord there can be i'll go so far as to say there should be times when the blessing of the lord

comes down and every inhabitant at that home has their hands lifted maybe speaking with other tongues as the spirit of god gives the utterance it's his will it's his will it's his will let me say to adults and parents we got to help one another serve god don't get in the way of the correction that a spouse may want to offer a discipline that they might want to offer a word from god that they may have don't be afraid i speak to this congregation and i mean this while on my heart raise daniels not we are not out for notoriety notoriety i'm not saying that but somebody raise an esther i thank god they may not have the cutest dress get them as cute as you can get them they may not have the name brand if you can do it do it i'm not preaching against it i'm just preaching priorities here she dressed andrea and amber and elisa i kind of hope they're watching right now but she she'd

put those they caught the girls called them frilly dresses stick out dresses amber remembers what they were calling she enjoyed wearing those didn't yammer but i'll tell you what else she dressed him in prayer she told me this morning when we were praying as a family down here brad was talking about raising her family she leaned over and said baby you know what i remember i remember those days we knelt before they went to school we met by that couch and we'd pray one very long and very long we just prayed ask and talk to god about them in their day we had no idea amber how god would use your life and i'm going to take a little advantage of the pulpit but i feel like i this has to be for me i need to express appreciation for my family my dad my wife i'm gonna tell you what there's so much word in that house every room i go in where she is there's a sermon going now

they're not mine i'm trying to preach better but sometimes she said there but they don't have to be from a certain source they don't have to be from a certain person the word that we needs a word from god in that prayer time and that word and you convicted me brother brad and if you didn't get to hear the message you may have but if you didn't it'd be worth a hearing i want to encourage you go back and hear about the head of the house the lord is the head of this house and he wants to be the head of this temple he wants to be the head of our family but i thank god so much amber i'm thinking right now and i'm not going to finish this message god's going to finish but i i remember when i was serving as youth president we were in springfield missouri and you were just about this high probably about three years old and the service was at the conclusion and

i looked around and there was there was amber in one of those stick out dresses standing up there by me just being so good like she is today not running around all over the church taking pictures i love looking at those pictures by the way and she was just standing there i don't remember even the conversation we have but it was several years later i felt like the lord just kind of informed me what that was about i know she loved her dad but i think it was more about the things of god wanting to be as close as she could be there were other ministers and some of our elders were on that platform i feel like it was just something in that little heart you may not even know what it was amber but something in there saying i want this you parents that have children and you parents that do not yet but you will someday don't fear i'm gonna tell you there were days this lady did

the major job of how these girls turned out i probably spent too many too much time at this office not this one but the other one i can't go back and get that right now i'm gonna tell you there's an impact and i thank god don't be afraid raise an esther somebody and if your kids want to sing and or they want to speak in tongues or dress holy dress them holy start young be careful how you address them when you're three and four years old you look up here on the platform and you see our ladies and their godliness start those little girls like that start those young boys like that you will not be sorry i know i know this is not the norm and what society accepts and even what church society accepts i know it's not but the spirit is resting upon us and with his pinpoint accuracy he has designed and he has you are not a mistake your birth and any spiritual birth or experience

that you are having it is not a mistake somebody may have tried to tell you that it's an emotional experience that you are experiencing but it is not it's the fact of what isaiah wrote about right here in this prophecy the spirit of the lord shall rest upon you who and i just want to say to you amber to you and lisa to you andrea if you're watching i thank god as a dad i know they're not perfect i know but i want to thank god for the effort that you make to serve and please god and all you could do is that little three-year-old girl stand on a platform now you can make your own choice you don't have to be on a platform you don't even have to be anywhere near the house of god you can be running with your back toward god and your face away from him but you're making a choice you're making a choice i didn't know who or what we were raising when

it comes to usefulness in the kingdom of god and i probably would not have done anything different only that i would need to have been a better dad and do more spiritual things for them it's not about planning out this one's going to be simon peter this one's going to be the apostle paul it's not about that it's about saying here they are god i'm dedicating them to you and however you want to use them and i'm not going to try to pick and place them you go ahead and if they're supposed to be in nazareth you know exactly where they're supposed to be you know every detail god knows every detail about every family member and every one of us his spirit is residing upon us oh would you thank him right now for his spirit i want you to plug in and enter in right now would you pray there's a connection there's a holy connection that's happening here god wants to do a work right here would you

pray follow the holy ghost church follow the holy ghost oh god oh god oh god oh god yes yes yes yes oh i feel like we we need to pray for one another here we're going to be praying here in the next few moments we need to pray for one another follow the holy ghost don't let fear steal the greatness god has placed in you are your kids now we got to be aware of the times and we got to know what's happening and maybe things didn't fall out like we would have wished them to in the last several months covert election all of that all of that but god's still in control god is still in control i'm not listening for a verbal response but i want a verbal i wanted to express what we and don't lie if you don't think he is don't don't say it but if you believe he is god is still in control is still in control and he has ordered our steps the

steps of the good person are ordered by the lord don't let fear don't let carnality don't let popular opinion don't let what other parents or other family members or other grandparents and other kids are doing don't let that steal the greatness there's some stuff we need to take out of our kids rooms there's some movies we need to click off of there's some netflix and prime video we need to stop i'm working on a little bible study i'm i'm going to just study out some of these sitcoms that's so popular and get their themes and just make a list compare them with the word of god we could say all we want to it don't make a bunch of difference it does make difference it does make a difference we need our family saturated by the word and the spirit of god oh yes oh i know i know i i feel the tension right now it's too straight laced it doesn't have to be that way that that's all right

you are welcome to your opinion but really it's not all right because god with his pinpoint accuracy has destined that you would be touched and directed by his spirit and his faithfulness i'm going to tell you this is a remaining spirit that verse brother eric would you mind putting it back up there i've lost it here in my scripture but verse 2 there you go the spirit of the lord shall rest that means it's going to happen shall and it means that word rest means to settle down upon and remain or abide i've got some scriptures here but i'm going to encourage you to do your own study where it talks about how god abides or jesus abides or the word abides this is his intention and i'm going to tell you this holy ghost promise if you want to be filled with we got three precious folks going to be baptized here in just a few moments hallelujah mike and gloria their son is going to be baptized in the

name of jesus christ i'm going to tell you once god washes away sins like he's about to they're forever washed away and when you get the holy ghost what you've got is good it'll last now i know we talk about refilling and it's good and refreshing and we want that and we need that and that's what keeps us but my wife in prayer meeting a couple of years ago went around the room and asked about how long folks had had the baptism of the holy ghost sister hudson as of this date had has it 84 years dad just yesterday had his spiritual birthday the 6th of february 1949 72 years i'm going to tell you that's a remaining spirit sister carol kessler she's back there 70 years sister me here in 70 years whoa look at all these folks still here brother huron went on to be with the lord but he was in that meeting 66 years as of this date sister fennimore 62 brother kessler 60. sister olivia johnson

58 years she got it when she was one year old no just kidding brother smith 52 years now we get down to the babies john sykes 31 years that's pretty good when you're a baby and you're a 30 year old mature christian brother fred bradley you were the baby of the group brother fred 26 years as of today i'm gonna tell you that's the kind of babies i want spiritually mature men who just walk through a great trial but here he is on a sunday morning oh this church loves you brother fred and you've been faithful and god's mercy is what did it stand with me if you would please it's abiding i couldn't help it i was trying to find a calculator i couldn't find one so i just did it myself i think i'm right somebody'll know probably dad he probably added it all up in his v he still got that accounting thing in his brain you know how many those years were 680 years that's almost 700

oh my 600 years of abiding presence of god now used to they live that long we don't live that long anymore man i'm trying to get out of bed at 68 years old 680 years old but hear me now 680 years combined faithful god was faithful and if we let some of these elders testify they could they could spin our heads with some of the wonderful stories of the abiding presence of god i added those years up and i listed this list just let you know he intends to rest upon you and if the lord tarries i may not know you i may not see you when you're 60 or 65 or 85 but the lord will see you and the lord will be faithful hallelujah hallelujah the resting the resting the abiding and everything you read in this chapter i didn't get to the rest of the verses and i won't try to go there now but you just read them you just look at those those abilities there wisdom

and counsel might knowledge fear of the lord all of that is yours and mine if you're willing to accept it i want you to just lift your hands in acceptance god i accept whatever your spirit wants to do and whatever you want to gift me with and whatever ability you want to put lord i want your spirit to be fully active i want your spirit to be fully active oh lord oh god i want your spirit to be fully fully in freedom in my life ah god oh god just with your heads bowed i just want to talk to you for just just a moment here hear me this is going to be some important instruction right here don't balk at what the spirit prompts you we're good at coming up with excuses in our humanity moses did it god had to get pretty straightforward with moses but i just want to offer to you today i highly recommend do not balk that whatever the holy ghost i'm gonna tell you

i had at least two different people speak a word to me this week one by text and one just asked to see me for a few moments in the office and i humbly told him i receive it i receive it i receive it don't bark at what the holy ghost i'm just going to go ahead and tell you what one of them said and they were so respectful they said pastor you need to pray more now something could rise up in us and say what in the world who are you and they they said i'm not saying you're not praying what they were meaning there needs to be they weren't necessarily talking about moments on the clock although that wouldn't hurt they were talking about another dimension prayer in fact god is talking to dads right now what that person said to me the lord is saying to you you need to pray more you need to pray you need to pray more and that may mean quantity or quality whatever

it means but god has a prophetic purpose a pinpoint accuracy for you and those that you are responsible to and for hallelujah we've already expressed our willingness to the lord if you can get with your family i'm going to ask you to do that and that's your bubble and you can pray with and for them right now that god his spirit we we've got a responsibility we can do we can do some things we can do some stuff but we can't we can't do it all we need the help of god we need the help of god but you begin to pray right now and don't be ashamed don't be ashamed to pray in front of your husband or your wife or your spouse don't be afr don't be afraid to pray in front of your kids yes or in front of your parents go ahead students hallelujah hallelujah we needed god we need your covering we need that spirit to rest upon us we need that abiding god i'm so

thankful that you're not a come and go oh i'm so thankful that your blessings are not transient yes life is come and go and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's struggling sometimes it's battle and sometimes it's victory but in the battle or in the victory you're still the same uh whether we feel defeated or whether we rejoice in victory you're the same guys yes overcome us lord go ahead online pray this church is praying you you just join right in you join in holy spirit jesus god loves your family he loves your family he loves it you're special he does he does he does god's thank you let us let us your goodness let us come is is i have sounded my voice through message and tongue as a signal and a sign that i want to sound my voice in your life daily no it may not come through the operation of a gift but nonetheless however it comes through my word as you read as you allow me to

speak as you are listening in your prayer time it is the same voice speaking to you it's a signal and i am saying today that i am willing to speak to you i deeply desire to speak and talk with you so that i can express my love so that i can give you the guidance so that i can provide to you the peace that you need and the stability that you will need as you make decisions that will be life-changing and life-altering for your family saith the lord hallelujah hallelujah let's thank him i thank you for your voice god i thank you for your voice just now and i thank you for what you meant by that voice i thank you jesus thank you jesus i i just want to instruct you today think about this message in tongues and i'm talking about just the fact that it happened think about it this week my wife she records these normally so if you wanted to rehear it or read it again

you probably could but that's not really what i'm talking about so much just think about the fact that he spoke and he said that my speaking today this message in tongues was not only the message for today but it was a message to remind us that how he wants to sound his voice and speak to us in our lives it could be but it most likely i will say will not be an audible voice but god doesn't have to use that he can use his word he can use your thought impressions he can use any value or venue that he desires to use