The Local Church Pt. 2

We would call it the historic Baptist faith.

And it's Bible faith, by the way, Bible truth.

And so it's the collection of those teachings.

Our series theme verse is 2nd Timothy 2.

2.

Paul said, the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses.

The same, not different.

Don't change it.

The same things that I learned, that I have taught you.

Those things commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also.

And so we put together some other verses, and we make sure we understand and know that churches have been given the responsibility of caretaking the truths of the Bible, making sure we stay true to the word of God, not to tradition, not to man's words, but to God's word.

First Timothy, chapter 3, verse 14.

Paul says to Timothy, these things write, I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly, but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God.

We could spend a little time there.

You know, how are we to conduct ourselves?

How are you to conduct yourselves in the house of God?

And then he says these wonderful things.

The pillar and ground of the truth.

What's the pillar and ground of the truth?

The church is to be the pillar and ground of the truth again, the caretaker of the truths of the Word of God and not allow winds to blow us around doctrinally and have us change our minds, you know, not to bow to political correctness, you know, every little whim that comes along, but to stand true to the truths of the word of God.

We talked about.

It's not just about some churches use the terms core beliefs or they use the word essential beliefs.

I understand what they're saying, and I believe in the fundamentals of the faith.

Absolutely.

We believe there are.

I gave you the illustration last Wednesday about how an internal combustion engine works.

And you've got to have fire and you got to have oxygen, and you got to have something, you know, explosive to make it go forward.

Gasoline, diesel, kerosene, you know, Oklahoma water, because it's toxic.

I'm just kidding.

So there's some essentials to making a motor work, and there's essentials to the Bible as far as when it comes to salvation, there's essentials that you have to believe.

But when it comes to the Bible, all Bible doctrine, all teachings of the Bible are essential.

There's not.

In other words, we don't say, well, yeah, that doctrine.

The Bible teaches that, and the Bible teaches that.

But you know what?

I can.

I can back off on what the Bible Says because I want to be, I want to be friends with my fellow Christian of the Protestant persuasion or whatever.

I want to lock hands with every church in the metroplex and sing Kumbaya and gather around the fire, I don't know, roast marshmallows.

But the Bible says differently.

We're not to do that.

We're not to compromise our doctrine.

We're not to compromise Bible doctrine.

We're not to again be cared about way over with the doctrine.

We're not just, we're to be steadfast again.

We're to be strong, you know, quit.

You like man to never allow things to slip.

Paul said, you're letting things slip, don't let things slip.

And we see that today so much among churches, especially when it comes to morality of just slipping, just saying, well, it's just, we just ought to love everybody.

And that's true, we ought to love everybody.

But we don't condone sinful immorality and neither did we put up with it.

And so that's what we're saying.

It's these collections of truth and that the church is responsible for being a caretaker of the Bible truths and that we ought to again, the church is, ought to be the pillar and crown of the truth.

All right, Bible truth.

Let's look in here tonight at these wonderful, wonderful truths.

I'm not going to review tonight.

We're going to just go to number six.

Number six tonight as we are continuing our this particular lesson on the church.

So, so we did the church last Wednesday night.

We did the church tonight.

We do it one more Wednesday night.

We're going to give this one three because it's such an important subject and one that's misunderstood and really what's going on in the news right now, I hope tonight to help you understand a little bit what's going on when it comes to the Catholic Church.

All right, so there is one kind, so number six of the Baptist distinctives in our series of lessons is there is one kind of biblical church and that is local and visible only.

Local and visible only.

Alright, so there are a large majority of Protestant churches that believe that if you know that all the saved are part of the body of Christ and we'll cover that here in a minute.

But if all the saved are the church, the church, if all the saved are quote unquote, the church, all the differences in beliefs would be a very poor.

The church would be a very poor pillar and ground of the truth.

Think about it.

If all the saved are the church and all the differences in beliefs, then that would sure make the church a poor place to be the pillar and ground of truth.

If you got the Methodists believe in one thing and the Lutherans believe in one thing and the Baptists believe in one thing, and then individuals and all these things.

And so what is the church?

Well, is it a universal, invisible church?

Is it made up of all the saved?

Well, that's again a Protestant belief.

And some Baptists now believe that, that when you get saved that you are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ.

And that body of Christ is all the saved.

That's the church.

And I'm telling you tonight, that's not what the Bible teaches.

It doesn't teach that.

That and it will explain why.

What is the church?

I know this is one of my hobby horses.

Some of you do.

Because it's so important.

What is the church?

What is the church?

Well, the Bible definition of the church comes from the word ekklesia.

Right?

Ecclesia is the Greek word.

It means an assembly, a called out assembly.

It's the Greek word they would use when they were going to have a, I'll use the word city council meeting in town.

They were going to have an ecclesia.

They're going to have an assembly at city hall.

And so that's the Greek word.

When the translators translated from the Greek into English, ekklesia is the word they translated to church, because that's the proper translation, ecclesia, a called out assembly.

So if ecclesia means a called out assembly, and then Jesus says, I will build my church, he calls it my church, then what does that mean?

So the biblical definition would be a called out assembly of baptized believers fulfilling Christ's commands, especially when it comes to the Great Commission.

So it's a called out assembly, a born again baptized believers.

Actually saying born again baptized and then saying believers, that's double.

Double do it there.

You know what?

It probably needs a double born again baptized believers fulfilling the Great Commission.

That's the purpose.

And I gave you the hula hoop illustration last Wednesday night.

We won't go through that again.

Kevin Davis apparently listened online and he, him, Michelle decided that Kevin Davis Hula hooping would be awesome if we had the pastor do at the same time and see if that would work or not.

But again, if, if a tire company, as Kevin, I'm going to still give you the illustration as the tire company can put, you know, Goodyear Tire Company out front, put the on the sign, you know, Calzer tire, Goodyear Tire Co.

BF, Goodrich, Hankook.

But you go inside and all you see is hula hoops.

And all he wants to sell you is hula hoops.

He is no longer a tire store, he's a hula hoop store.

And he can put on his sign out front, cows or Tire, Goodyear Tire.

But the sign is meaningless because the purpose of his business is no longer selling tires, it's selling hula hoops.

And a church can put a church sign out in front of any building, or an organization could put a church sign out in front of any building.

But if they're not fulfilling the purpose and the definition of the biblical church, they're not a church.

They're a country club, or they're just a fellowship or whatever they are, they're not a church.

If they're not trying to give the gospel out, and that's not their primary purpose, to give the gospel, to share the gospel, then by Bible definition.

I'm not talking about my definition or some of the.

I'm talking about, by Bible definition, they're technically not a church.

So we see again, the assembly.

It says an assembly of born again baptized believers.

An assembly, by its definition of the word assembly, has to be local and it has to be visible.

You can't see a universal invisible assembly.

That's a whole nother thought.

I'll cover that some more in a minute.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul uses three analogies to illustrate for us what the church is and how the church functions.

He uses the analogy of the body, the human body as it works together.

You know, the brain tells the body what to do.

You know, the arm doesn't tell the body what to do, the brain tells the body what to do.

The arm can't.

Only can do what the brain tells it to.

My arm can't, you know, commit mutiny.

You know, if I tell it to move my body, my mind tells it.

It has to move, right?

It can't, it can't commit.

Nobody thought that was funny.

I thought it was funny.

It can't, can't, you know, it can't attack me.

My wife would like that sometimes.

No, no.

The body functions together.

And when one member hurts.

We'll cover that in a moment.

But when one member hurts another, you know, my toe hurts, it affects the rest of my body and so forth.

The body, the building.

It speaks about the building being fitly framed together, how a building is put together.

You know, you got to have the lumber and the nails and on and on and on.

All the materials together, sheetrock and go through the list and all that is assembled together to create a building and then the bride, the bride.

How many of y'all would like to marry a universal, invisible bride?

No, I mean, when Paul's given that analogy, he's thinking about a bride and a groom together, married, visible.

I know Brother Stewart used to always talk about, you know, how would.

If you had a picture of your future bride and you just showed up on the wedding day with a picture of her and you stood in front of the preacher and you married the picture, Is that what you want to do?

No, no, no.

I want her to be visible and I want her to be there and in that capacities.

All right, so.

And we'll cover this a little more in a moment.

But again, the Catholic belief is that of a universal, visible church.

All right, so the Catholics believe in a universal, visible church.

Most nearly every, all Protestants and some Baptists believe in a universal, invisible church.

All right, and so what was the first church?

When did the first church begin?

Jesus said to Peter, thou art Peter upon this rock.

I will build my church.

How do we know?

He was basically pointing to Peter, thou art Peter upon this rock.

He's talking about himself.

I will build my church.

Well, we know that because the Greek, the Greek says, thou art Peter, a little stone, and upon this rock a big boulder.

I will build my church.

He never ever essentially gave Peter as the key to the kingdom.

No, he gave the key to the kingdom, to the churches, to church, not to Peter.

Peter's not going to be at the pearly gates when you get there.

He's not going to be there.

He's not going to have the key in his hand.

I know that's good imagery and it makes for a good song, but he's not going to be there.

All right, just so I know I let some of you down.

I'm sorry, we're in the Bibles that say Peter's going to be at the pearly gates.

It makes for a good joke, though.

Peter stands at the pearly.

I don't know any jokes.

I can't tell it.

So who will build the church?

Jesus said, I will build the church.

And it is Christ Jesus who built the church while he was here on earth.

He used the materials that John the Baptist gathered together.

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus Christ.

He laid the foundation and the materials for Jesus to lay the foundation and to build the church.

Alright, so again, using the Bible definition, was there a Place?

Or was the church in place before the day of Pentecost?

Was the church in place before Acts chapter two?

And I know some of you say, well, this is meaningless.

Stay with me.

We'll give you some application.

But it is important that you believe and understand.

The church did not begin on the day of Pentecost.

It did not begin in Acts chapter 2.

There's no birthday candles there.

Jesus Christ began the church in the Gospels.

He started the church.

The church did not begin on the day of Pentecost.

The church was empowered on the day of Pentecost, but did not start on the day of Pentecost.

How do we know this?

Well, Acts chapter one.

We see the disciples were evangelizing, seeing people get saved.

They were baptizing and they were companied together.

They were assembled together.

That's in Acts chapter one.

We're kind of going to work our way back.

He was the pastor of the first church.

And then Luke chapter 6, verse 13, we had 12 officers designated as apostles, overseers of that assembly.

And I do want to read this one for you because I love reading it because you cannot get around this verse at all.

First Corinthians, chapter 12.

So in Luke chapter 6, what happened in Luke chapter 6, he chose out of them, Jesus chose out of his disciples Those men, those 12 apostles, right?

He chose out of them of the disciples.

He chose 12 apostles.

I'm in my.

Still do not have a hard time getting in my New Bible.

And First Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 28.

I'll look back at verse 25, that there should be no schism in the body.

So we see Paul using the analogy of the church as a body, but that the members should have the same care, one for another.

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.

Or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Now ye are the body of Christ speaking to the Corinthian Church.

The Corinthian Church is the body of Christ and members in particular.

And God.

Look, verse 28.

And God has set some in the church.

Listen to this.

First apostles.

Well, how can he set something in something that doesn't exist?

In Luke chapter six, he places them into the assembly.

He chooses them.

He chooses them.

He chose them and he placed them in the assembly.

So the church was in existence in Luke chapter six already because he placed them in the church first.

Everybody see that one?

I mean, that verse, it's hard to get around very, very Very clear.

And then so many other verses.

But again, In John chapter 4, Jesus authorizes the disciples to evangelize and baptize.

I believe that's when the church started.

I believe personally the church started In John chapter 4, when Jesus commissioned those disciples.

He authorized them to evangelize and to baptize.

They now fit the biblical definition of a church.

A called out assembly of born again baptized believers fulfilling the Great Commission.

And they really do that in John 4.

But at least by Luke chapter 6, the church is in existence.

By the way, John chapter 12, we know they had a treasury and they had a treasurer.

Maybe a little better than Brother Jerry.

No, I'm just kidding.

A lot worse than Jerry.

All right, so who was the treasurer?

Anybody?

Judas.

Right.

I should never have said Jerry's name with that.

He's not even in here.

I could pick on him.

Where's he at anyway?

But they had a treasure.

So again, everything was in place already.

Everything's in place.

The church was already in place.

Why does this matter?

Well, because truth is truth.

We're to be again the caretakers.

Every church should be the caretakers of God's biblical truth.

And when it comes to what, you know, what the Bible means on any given subject, what it's saying on any given subject, it ought to be interpreted correctly and not be given over to tradition.

And in this case, for a lot of reasons, given over to change.

When did this departure from the local visible church doctrine happen?

Well, it really began happening in, you know, around 300 A.D.

when the Catholic Church came on the scene, by the way, the Catholic Church came on the scene in around 300 A.D.

they cannot, and they could try, but they try to trace their roots back to the apostles.

It's impossible.

They began around 300 AD.

And again, the Catholic Church believes in a universal, visible church.

All right, they have about how many members?

They're really on the news a lot right now.

A billion.

Around a billion people who would say they're Catholic on the planet Earth.

What do they believe?

They believe they are the church, that they're the universal visible church.

And they believe again, in the continuation of the apostleship, the hierarchy.

That's why you have bishops and archbishops and cardinals, and then you have the Pope whom they believe is the head of the universal visible church, that he is the one and only.

The one and only they.

To a certain extent, this has kind of wavered over the years as modern people have some brains.

There was a day in which the Pope's word was as if God was saying it.

They believed that they believe if the Pope said it, God said was just as if God was saying it.

And so.

And that's still to a certain extent practiced in some of the world.

But they believe in a universal, visible church.

They believe they are the church, understand that.

That they are the church.

And that again, the Pope is the head in 3:25.

I'm not going to bore you with all this, but when.

But a little bit bore you a little bit ready in 325-ad-is when you had the Roman Catholicism really organized.

And as they began to really organize, they began to try to pull all groups into that assembly, right.

Visible assembly, and that included Baptists.

And because Baptists would not give in, the Catholic Church began to persecute them now again, also gave them names.

And so in that meeting called the Council of Nicaea, again the first effort to unite all churches under one head, the Catholic Church could not get the Baptists to come on board.

And they began to call them Donatists.

Donatists.

So you began reading after that, really the Baptists.

We would get our names from there on out from basically the Catholic Church.

And the number one name that came about through all that was Anabaptist.

Anabaptist.

And so time marched on, and that's what the Dark ages were.

Between 500 A.D.

the Catholicism was number one.

I mean, they controlled the world.

And that's why you had the Crusades and the Muslims fighting the Catholics.

And the Catholics because they believed, listen, they believe they're the one world Church, that they're the universal, visible church, then everybody needs to get under the, under the umbrella.

And then what they said during the Dark Ages, which we had to rename the Middle Ages because that's politically correct, you know, in the Dark Ages was basically, if you won't get under the umbrella, we're going to take you out, whether you're Muslim or you claim to be Christian as well.

But you won't, you know, you won't baptize babies.

You believe in immersion of believers only, you're going to fry, you're going to be killed by way of multiple types of torture.

And I would encourage you, if you haven't read the Fox's Book of Martyrs and there's many other books that you can read that historically historical accounts of the millions of Christians.

We talk about the Muslims who died at the hand of the Catholicism.

Millions of Christians died as well.

And BH Carroll in his Trail of Blood, says as many as 50 million Christians died.

And that would be based upon whether their belief, when it comes to believers, baptism and having the Bible in their own language.

William Tyndale.

There's so many who died translating the Bible so that a person could read it in English, and they died for it just because they wanted to translate it into English so the normal person who was behind the horse plowing could read the word of God themselves.

The Catholic Church said, no, only priests can read the word of God.

I'm not saying anything that's not true.

Go look it up.

It's very, very, very much a part of history.

And so again, because of all that's going on right now with the Pope dying, you can see this, you know, just behind the Catholic Church, everybody endorsing the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church is important.

The Pope is important.

And in a social, economic world, yes, I guess he is.

But when it comes to truth, Bible truth, it's heresy.

The Bible does not teach.

The Bible does not teach hierarchy.

It's not found anywhere.

And really many denominations were born out of that.

Lutheran and so many others.

They left the Roman Catholic system, but they kept some of it.

And that's why you have some of these other denominations who have bishops and they have cardinals and they have their own little hierarchy as well.

It's not found in the Bible, it's nowhere found in the Bible that some outside source should tell a church what to do.

Now, if we were still in the apostolic age, the apostles had that authority.

But the Bible, when the apostles passed, there was no more apostles.

Because again, Acts tells us, in order to be an apostle, in order to be an apostle, to be qualified to be an apostle, you had to see Jesus Christ in the flesh.

So once, about 100 A.D.

when John died, there are and were no more apostles.

And there was no need for apostles, because you had, around 100 A.D.

you had the completion of the New Testament.

When that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away with.

That's what Paul said in Corinthians.

That which is in part will be done away.

When the completed Word of God, the perfect Word of God, was completed, we no longer needed an apostle or someone there to tell us what to do.

No longer needed the gift of tongues, no longer needed the gift of prophecy.

And all those things, those gifts were done away with because we had guidance.

We had guidance on how to govern the church, how to go forward as a church.

And all those things was in the word of God.

So the universal, invisible church caught on through the Protestant Reformation.

It was no longer a universal, visible church like the Catholics believe.

But the Protestants believed in a universal, invisible church.

The Catholics believe in a universal, visible church with the Pope as the head.

The Protestants believe in universal, invisible church with Christ as the head, which sounds spiritual and whatever the case is.

But nowhere does the Bible teach that the church is invisible.

It doesn't teach that it's invisible.

Now, Christ is the head of the church.

He's the head of every church.

And the proper way to say it would be he's the head of the churches, each individual church.

Well, how can Christ have so many heads?

Well, the Bible says that Christ is the head of every man.

It's an analogy.

It's a word, analogy.

It helps us understand what the truth is.

It helps to illustrate the truth.

But you don't take it to the extent that Christ's head is literally.

You don't understand.

This crowd's not.

Yeah, anyway, all right, it's like saying the church is a bride, is the church a girl?

Is it really a bride?

No, it's an analogy.

It helps us to understand biblical truth.

It helps us to understand the, the bride and the groom analogy.

Help us to understand the relationship that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's a wonderful union that we have with the Lord.

And you could take that analogy way too far.

Yeah, it's an analogy.

It's a metaphor.

It helps us understand.

And so again, I'm a little passionate about this because the Bible is clear in my estimation on the subject and it has been distorted and against what the Bible says.

So as Protestants, if you would, the church became a mystical entity, one in which a believer is baptized into at salvation by the Holy Spirit.

So let me say that again.

The universal invisible belief by the Protestants and now by many Baptists believe that when you get saved, you are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the mystical body of Christ, this universal, invisible church.

And so, and I'm saying that's a misinterpretation.

It's a mis.

By the way, I'm saying it historic Baptist doctrine says that is a misinterpretation.

The Bible makes it clear that that's a misinterpretation.

All right, so again, in Acts chapter two, you don't have the birth of the church, you have the empowerment of the church, you have God endorsing the church, if you would.

Alright, so Holy Spirit, Baptism has been misinterpreted and for a long time now.

If you go back and you read men from 60, 70, 80 years ago, and I have many of those books in my office, and you go back and read scholars of years gone by, you'll find scholars who believe more in line with what we believe.

And especially even BH Curl, who started Southwestern Theological Seminary, understand that Southern Baptists believe this as well, that the church is only local, visible.

When the Bible refers to the church, it's referring to each individual church.

The word ecclesia, the Greek word for church, is found 115 times in the Bible in the New Testament.

Of those, a hundred of those refer to a particular church.

The church at Corinth, the church at Philippi, the churches of Galatia.

So it refers to a particular church.

Alright, so only 14 of them refer to the church as, you know, an entity.

By that we mean this is what the church is, will be like.

This is what the churches, the analogy is.

This is what the church.

It's like saying the American family.

Well, I mean, we think of the American family.

We don't think of some mystical invisible family out there.

No, we think of individual families and they have certain characteristics.

The American family has certain characteristics.

Man and wife, married, with children, living together for a lifetime.

Good biblical definition too.

Right.

The American automobile, we don't think of some mystical invisible automobile that we think about each individual.

We don't think about a Ford, we think about a Chevy or not a Dodge, but we think about, again, individual trucks.

So when the Bible's referring to churches, it's referring to the institution as an institution, but it's referring to each individual church.

We are Heritage Baptist Church is the body of Christ, but so is Victory Baptist Church in Weatherford, and so is Worth Baptist Church in Fort Worth, and so is, you know, on and on and on, Temple, Baptist and Flower Mound.

I'm just thinking about sister churches, but not just.

There are churches that don't have Baptists on their name who are also, by definition, churches.

Don't shoot me for that again.

We're going to get to heaven and go.

I just thought Baptist would be up here, but man, where did all these people come from?

Alright, so we had to be careful.

But the body of Christ is each individual church.

And that's what the Bible explains.

It explains it in my estimation very clearly.

So I'm not going to cover Holy Spirit baptism night.

We don't have time.

I'll cover it next Wednesday night.

But I do think it's important you understand Holy Spirit baptism as defined by the Bible, which is John the Baptist, defines it for us.

He says, he looks at Jesus, if you would.

He says, there's one coming after me whose shoe latched.

I am not worthy to unloose.

I'm not worthy to tie his shoes, to loosen his shoes, take him off his foot.

He that is Christ will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

That is the prophecy by John the Baptist.

Who's doing the baptizing?

Christ is doing the baptizing.

Who is the element?

The Holy Spirit.

When I get up in the Baptistry, who's baptizing up here in the Baptistry?

I am.

What's the element?

The water.

That's the element.

Understand that what most Pentecostals and Assembly of God and many of these who believe that you need to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or when you.

If you don't have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you're not saved.

And whatever the case is, they are severely misinterpreting the scripture, especially the prophecy, because they got it reversed.

They say that the Holy Spirit will baptize you into the body of Christ.

That's not the prophecy.

It says that Christ will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

And that's exactly what happened on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two.

They were in that room.

And the Bible says the room was filled with the Holy Ghost insomuch they were cloven tongues, like a fire on top of their heads, like as not literal.

And the Holy Ghost filled the room.

What does that mean?

Well, baptism means to plunge, to go under, to be covered.

It's immersion.

Right?

And so in that room, they were immersed by the Holy Spirit.

They were baptized by Christ with the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit didn't baptize them.

I almost got that mixed up.

The Holy Spirit didn't do the baptizing.

Christ did the baptizing with the Holy Spirit.

Because that is what the Bible says.

And so.

And I'm going to make the application, and that is we are not to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit was an event.

It happened in Acts chapter 2.

It happened in Acts chapter 8.

It happened in Acts chapter 10.

It happened in Acts chapter 19.

It happened four times.

All those were done in such a way for God to endorse the church.

All of those baptisms happened not just in front of Gentiles, but in front of Jews.

It was assigned to the Jewish.

In other words, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was an event.

It doesn't happen today.

In Acts chapter two, they were baptized in the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ.

Then it says, they were filled with the Holy Ghost.

They were filled with the Holy Ghost.

It was the filling of the Holy Ghost that gave them power, not the baptism.

And you shall receive power because the Holy Ghost comes upon you.

Is that what Acts 18 says?

Acts 1:8 says, and ye shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me.

And so many times they just misinterpret the verse they want to put.

Because there.

No, it was the feeling of the Holy Spirit.

After they were baptized in the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ.

Then they were filled.

And it was the feeling of the Spirit that gave them power.

You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you.

It was the feeling of the Holy Spirit that gave them power.

And that's why Ephesians 5 says, Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be what?

Filled with the Spirit.

Is that an option?

It's a command, isn't it?

So we as Christians desire for the Holy Spirit to fill us.

That's what we should desire.

We should seek the feeling of the Holy Spirit.

Now again, you don't get any more of the Holy Spirit than you got when you got saved.

When you accept Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and indwells you.

Indwells you.

And that's all the Holy Spirit you'll ever get.

When we talk about the filling of the Holy Spirit, it means, how much does the Holy Spirit have of you?

How much of you have you yielded to him?

Again, we're not to seek the baptism.

We're to seek the feeling of the Holy Spirit.

How much of the Holy Spirit?

How much of the Holy Spirit does he have of you?

What room are you keeping shut?

What room have you shut the Holy Spirit out of?

Well, Holy Spirit, you can have my life.

You can have everything in my life.

I yielded all to you, except for right.

I can remember going to youth camp, man.

The.

The youth speaker would be bouncing off the walls.

Yield your body to Christ, give your life to Jesus, blah, blah, blah.

And then he would start talking about again your house.

Does Holy Spirit have access to every area of your house?

Or do you not let him in certain closets or this area?

We as Christians ought to yield our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto him, which is what our reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable?

The perfect will of God.

So churches are the body of Christ.

Each individual church.

Each individual church.

And Christ is the head of the church.

Each individual church.

How does Christ if he's not here?

How does Christ lead?

Or how does Christ be?

How does he?

How is he the head of the church?

How can we make him?

I don't mean to, that's a poor use of words.

Make him the head of the church.

Well, we do it by following this.

If we follow the word of God, if we follow the epistles and how it tells us to govern and how it tells us to run a church, then we are yielding to him as our head.

He is the head of the church.

And there's so much more.

The body is a great analogy.

The building's a great analogy.

Again the bride.

Let's all stand.

The universal invisible church is a contradiction of term.

How can you have an unassembled assembly?

Think about that one.

The universal invisible church is a contradiction of term because the word church means a called out assembly of born again baptized believers.

Even if you don't attach my to it, if you just say an assembly ecclesia, it still has to be a called out assembly, still has to be local.

So to say universal invisible church is a contradiction of terms.

You can't have an unassembled assembly.

That's why we say, you know, you can't sit at home and say you've been at church.

If you watch tonight, I'm thankful for livestream.

I'm thankful that people who are sick or those who maybe had to work late or just trying to get to watch Praise the Lord.

I do, I think that's amazing.

But, but you cannot say that you attended church because in order to attend a church you have to be assembled and visible and that's what we are here tonight.

Heavenly Father, we love you and we thank you Lord for your love for us.

Thank you that you said you loved the church and gave yourself for it.

I pray Lord that we would as a church realize the opportunity we have as a church realize the responsibility we have.

And God, may we never forget it.

Thank you.

We love you.

In Jesus name, amen.

All right, we'll sing hymn 162.

Lord, set your heart you come away from God now I'm coming home the paths I've sinned too long I've trod Lord, I'm coming home Coming home, coming home Never more to roam Open wide arms of love Lord, I'm coming home.

Alright, please be seated.

If you do have your prayer requests written on one of those cards.

If you'd hold your hand up, there's a card in front of you.

You can fill that out if you have a prayer request.

It's good again to see Ms.

Sharon with us tonight as she recovers from her surgery.

Linda Smith tonight being prayer for her again, her recovery.

You said you have one more week before the next healing.

Okay.

So many others on the list.

Gene Gibson, Frank Riley, Chalene.

Continue to be in prayer for Chalene as she continues to go through treatments for cancer.

Ms.

Collin was telling me about a family whose teenager committed suicide.

Just be in prayer for the Ratliff family.

The Ratliff family, the church at Nakona, they had.

We had.

We had a little bit of rain.

But here a few days ago, Nokona had almost 10 inches of rain.

And it just really destroyed the roof of that church building and caved in a bunch of the ceilings.

And so be in prayer for Bible Baptist Church in Bowie, Bible Baptist Church in Nakona.

Brother Paul Sharon, the head of Baptist Builders, he drove up there yesterday to look at it.

And we'll get our church and many other churches get together.

This is a very, very small church and they don't have the money to put a roof on the building.

And so we'll be helping in that and along with many other churches helping in that.

So be in prayer for them.

Anyone else?

Do we have any more?

All right, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that you are the great physician.

Pray though, that you'd be with Ms.

Taylor in her continued recovery.

Frank Riley, we pray for Ms.

Shailene Shalene as she goes through her treatments.

We pray for the Ratliff family more.

May you comfort their heart tonight.

And Ms.

Smith again as she recovering.

I pray, Lord, that you'd be the church in the Kona or just open the windows of heaven there in a money fashion this time, Lord, and provide that need.

We love you and we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

Ushers, if you'll come forward, take up the offering this evening.

Don't forget as we continue to raise money for a piano.

And then our missionaries of the week are the Larue family there in Chile and the park family there in South Korea and pray for them that God would protect them, provide for them, and give them fruit for their labor.

We'll have Brother Taylor come and lead us in prayer for the offering.

Lord, thank you for the opportunity to be in your house again tonight and hear your teaching.

And I pray, Lord, that you would take this offering.

Use it for your honor and glory.

All this I pray in Jesus name.

Amen, man.