Don’t Be a Fool in the Church — Santosh Poonen

Three Types of Fools in the Church

1. Those Who Refuse to Deny Themselves in Secret (Matthew 7:24-27, Matthew 16:24)
   • Description: These fools hear Jesus’ teachings but fail to act by denying themselves. They attend church, hear sermons, and participate in activities but do not say "no" to selfish desires in private moments (e.g., reacting to irritation or temptation).
   • Key Issue: Lack of personal discipline in secret, where true faith is tested. They yield to self instead of following Jesus’ call to take up their cross.
   • Example: Arguing with a spouse or sibling out of pride instead of choosing humility and self-control.
     
     
2. Those Who Don’t Seek the Continual Filling of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 25:1-13, Acts 2:3, 2:39, Ephesians 5:18)
   • Description: Represented by the foolish virgins, these believers have some measure of the Holy Spirit but fail to passionately seek a continual, personal filling. They rely on corporate worship or others’ spirituality.
   • Key Issue: Complacency or lack of personal longing for the Spirit’s power, leading to an "empty flask" when tested.
   • Example: Singing and praying for the Spirit in church but lacking a desperate, private pursuit of His anointing at home.
     
     
3. Those Who Are Jealous, Fearful, or Lazy with Their Gifts (Matthew 25:14-30, Proverbs 11:25)
   • Description: Illustrated by the servant who buried his talent, these fools neglect their God-given gifts due to jealousy (comparing to others), fear (of failure or judgment), or laziness.
   • Key Issue: Failing to use their unique role in God’s kingdom, assuming their gift is too small or others have it covered.
   • Example: Refusing to encourage others or serve in small ways because they feel their contribution isn’t significant compared to visible ministries.

Complete Transcript

Sermon Outline: Worship, Salvation, and Individual Responsibility

Introduction: Gratitude for Service

• Expression of Thanks: Good morning family. I just want to begin by expressing my thanks personally but also on behalf of the elders and everybody in this church for the tremendous way in which you all served last weekend selflessly, even from many young children who found a role and a way in which they could serve. It's a beautiful picture of the body of Christ that you don't have to be an adult to be useful in Christ's body. God wants to use every one of us.

Worship Before Service

• Priority of Worship: So I hope that now we can go on to the next level of being useful and all of us recognizing that Jesus said in Matthew 4:10 that we must worship the Lord first and then serve him. Worship must always come before service. And I pray that you children also as you serve the Lord and as you grow up to continue to serve the Lord that service in his kingdom will not be the most important thing but worship.

• True Worship Defined: And I believe that we are a church that's pursuing true worship more than anything else. And from that true service can follow as opposed to seeking to serve the Lord and do something big for him without first being worshippers. And as we've heard often, a worshipper is one for whom Jesus is everything. You are my all in all. Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is nothing. And I hope you can really mean say that dear brothers and sisters and children that there is nothing, no agenda, no interest, no kingdom, no country, no political affiliation or anything else that's greater to you than Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ alone. That's worship.

Ongoing Salvation

• Salvation as a Continuous Process: Salvation is over. And in Romans 10:13, our memory verse for this week, we heard that "Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." And I wonder, dear family, if we all put that into practice this week. There is a teaching in Christendom that once you say a prayer that you don't have to do anything else after that, that salvation is over. And the Bible clearly contradicts that. Yes, each of us who are born again and have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us can have an assurance of our salvation.

• Daily Transformation: But I hope that that verse Romans 10:13, "Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved" for you and I this past week as we were memorizing it wasn't just, oh, that's for that unconverted person I know or that child that I'm hoping will be born again. Yes, that's true. But if we are not being saved every day from ourself, then we're dying spiritually. If in some way God wasn't able to transform me a little bit more into his image today or yesterday, let's say, then decay has come in. The life of God is constantly at work transforming us day by day. We read in 2 Corinthians 4 a few weeks ago and heard from that passage. That means I'm being saved. And my honest testimony, dear family, was this. This week, Lord, I want to call upon your name today. Even though I gave my life to you decades ago, I want to call upon your name today because I need to be saved. I want to truly be saved a little bit more for myself. Do you see unchristlikeness in you? Do you see selfishness and self-centeredness in you still? I hope you do. That means that the Holy Spirit is at work transforming you and saving you. So, it's a constant prayer.

Danger of Conformity

• Following the Crowd: One of the dangers as our church grows and as the Lord has caused growth in our midst, I see that one of the dangers is that we can be a people. It can easily become that if that we're carried along with the group that's moving in a particular direction. The church is moving in a particular direction. And the danger is that as the church moves, we could easily just fit in and move just like the rest of the church is moving. I don't know if you've seen videos of schools of fish as they navigate in the waters. And the way I understand it is that fish will you'll see them in schools and it's beautiful to watch them. Actually, I asked if we could show a brief 30-second video of that. If you could pull that up, please.

• Illustration of Fish Schools: Okay, I think you get the gist. And as I've read about how fish move in schools and sometimes they can be very large schools and if they're even beyond a certain size, they call them shoals of fish. The fish move in those large groups and you saw them how suddenly they would go this way and this way and almost seemed robotic that they could move in unison and it could appear that they are actually moving in unison. But fish have they rely on two things. One is their what they see. So they can see the fish in front of them and that fish in front of them darts to the right and so they dart to the right. They have quick reflexes and the fish in front of them darts to the left and they dart to the left. They also have some sensors along the side of their body, lateral sensors, I think they call them, that can sense through a change in water pressure that the fish to the side of them has suddenly moved is or is moving to the right. And then they can also follow that very quickly. So quick that you can't even pick up with your naked eye sometimes or to the left. And they're not being Oversized or malformed quote: being led by some supernatural force. It's just this I can see the fish in front of me. I can sense the fishes around me and we all move together. And as I thought about that, I saw a picture of the danger it could be in a church.

• Seeking Commonality: Often people look for a church based on where they would feel comfortable. People who think the same way or believe the same way as they do, have the same interests, the same alignment, whether it's aligned with sports teams or political parties or whatever it might be. And people in this country tend to find actually around the world find a home based on commonality, familiarity. It could be race-based, culture-based, language-based. And if you look at such a church, it could almost seem like they're moving together, but they're moving simply being influenced by the people around them. And that is a danger that we face, dear family at RLCF that we could easily be a group of people or individuals who are moving in a particular direction because that's what the others around me are doing and that's a danger.

God's Purpose for His Church

• Individual Call in Revelation: If you turn to the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, we'll see instead what God's purpose for his church is that we don't move based on what somebody else is doing. And what do I mean by that? That there could be certain words that we use, phrases, even something that's true, that's biblical and Christlike, like take up your cross, deny yourself, or be filled with the Holy Spirit, seek for unity. Those could become buzzwords at RLCF, let's say, that we start to use just because that's the kind of church we are. We preach those things and we could easily start to act a certain way, speak a certain way because we fit in and because the church is moving in this direction and we just follow the crowd as it were. It's sadly happening in most of Christendom. That's not God's will for his church. Now, we do believe in unity. We do believe in not having an independent spirit that says, "I'm going to do whatever I want to do." But that unity must come through a source, a common source, not through peer pressure or peer movement or peer popularity. It's through a common source that we have that's leading us in the same direction. And that's why we all move together as one.

• Individual Responsibility: In Revelation 2 and 3, you see letters that are written to seven churches. And even though the letters were written to the church and to the messenger of each church, that is the senior elder, you could say, the one who had the prophetic word, the messenger. And the letters were to the messenger and to the church as a whole. But at the end of every one of those letters, you see that the call is to individuals. You'll see it for example in the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:7. "The one who has an ear to hear, not the church as a whole, specifically he or she, an individual sitting in this church. If you have an ear to hear, hear what the spirit is saying to the church." And that's a specific individual call and an individual response that each of us must have. And then he goes on to say in the latter part of Revelation 2:7, to the one, the individual who overcomes, not the church that overcomes. The church does overcome. The God of peace will crush Satan under the feet of the church. He uses the church to destroy the works of Satan today in the same way that Jesus destroyed the works of Satan when he was here on this earth. But the call to be an overcomer is an individual call to the person sitting at RLCF who overcomes. I will grant to eat out of the tree of life. And so it's not to this school of fish, if you will, sitting at RLCF, but to the individual fish sitting in the middle of that school and another one there and another one there. Will you be an overcomer, brother, sister, child? Will you have an ear to hear what the spirit is saying to the church individually then to you? And you'll see that consistently in all seven of the churches, including the ones that he had no criticism about, no rebuke, the churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, even there to the church that was doing well, he said, "You individuals sitting at RLCF, do you have an ear to hear?" Yes, maybe RLCF is a church where God is speaking, and I believe he is. His presence is here. But is his presence real to you individually? Sitting here, are you hearing from him specifically and are you overcoming specifically individually today? I thought I'd talk about because otherwise if you're sitting in this school of fish as it were and you're not an overcomer, you're not hearing what the Holy Spirit says to the church, then Jesus uses a very strong word for such people. He calls them fools. There are fools sitting in churches today. There may be fools sitting in this church today.

Fools in the Church

Matthew Chapter 7

• Wise and Foolish Builders: Let's turn to Matthew 7. As you know, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 are Jesus's message inaugurating the new covenant, explaining the new covenant as different from the old covenant. Under the old covenant, your kingdom was of this world. It was a physical kingdom. It was the kingdom of Israel and Judah. Under the new covenant, Jesus said, like the children told us, "My kingdom is not of this world. I have no kingdom in this world. No political kingdom, no corporate kingdom, no sports kingdom, no earthly kingdom at all." And throughout Matthew 5, 6, and 7, you see Jesus contrasting the old covenant and the new covenant. And at the end of it all, he says in Matthew 7:24, having heard all of these things, dear, he's speaking to disciples, by the way, he sat down, there was a multitude, and he called his disciples to him, and he spoke to them. That's you see in Matthew 5:1-2. And so I believe that this message and this warning that he gives us here in Matthew 7:24 is to the church. He's not speaking about people who are still in the world who haven't committed their lives to Christ. He's speaking to the disciples to those who have committed their lives to Christ who are hearing what he is saying. Because he said in Matthew 7:24, "Everyone who hears these words of mine and something else, acts on them will be a wise person." Matthew 7:26, everyone who also hears these words of mine and does not act on them. So this parable in Matthew 7:24-27 is to people who are hearing. That's why I say it's to the churches. It's to us as a church. And within this church as well, I believe there could be two categories of people, wise and fools. Not my words, Jesus' words. And he says, "The wise are those who act on them, do them, and the fools are those who just hear. They sit in the church just like everybody else and listen to the same messages every Sunday and are part of the same Bible studies and prayer meetings, but they're not acting on them."

• Denying Self in Secret: And that's a walk in secret. And so I would describe this parable this way. Those who refuse to deny themselves in secret. Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 that if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Jesus said to his disciples, to those who are already listening, to those sitting at RLCF, if you all of you really want to follow me, not just want to be a part of RLCF, if you really want to follow me, you face a choice. You must deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. That's Matthew 16:24. You must deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. And so that's something that happens in secret. We're all hearing. We're all listening. But some are actually denying themselves. Now again, denying yourself could be one of those buzzwords that as children perhaps you think, well, I don't know what that means. And so, let me try to explain that. To deny yourself means that in secret where nobody else sees what you're doing and how you're acting and what you're saying, you say no to yourself. Deny means to say no to. To say no to yourself. That's very simply what it means to follow Jesus. So when you're tempted, dear children, to fight back because one of your siblings fought with you, you face a choice to say no to yourself that wants to fight back to hit back because they hit you or they said something irritating to you to so you say something irritating back to them. That's what yourself wants to do. And to follow Jesus is very simply to say no self. You cannot do that.

• Practical Application: Now it's easy for us to teach our children. What about us adults in a marriage? Husbands and wives. When your spouse says something that's a little bit irritating to you, you face a choice. You could be one that's just hearing or one that's actually doing it. The one who is actually doing it. When they're in that situation where something comes up that irritates them, they could say that hurtful word, they could prove their point or yeah, you're always like that or something like that. Or they could say, "I want to follow Jesus. I'm going to say no to myself that wants to speak that way or say that thing." And so there's two categories of people. The fools are those who are hearing every Sunday, even hearing like at RLCF that you must take up your cross and follow Jesus. But at home, the moment they go home, Sunday afternoon, the arguments have already started. Or maybe you can make it till Monday morning and some point you're going to face that choice. Within a few hours of leaving this building, you'll face a choice. To actually say no to yourself or to just yield and please yourself. The fools are those who just yield, please themselves. The wise ones are those who actually follow Jesus and say no to themselves. So first type of fool is those who refuse to deny themselves in secret. Now this is a secret thing. Even your own spouse may not really know whether you're actually taking up your cross. They may see evidences of it. They may see that you're just the same unfiltered words that come out of your mouth. Of course, on a Sunday morning, we're all well behaved and on our best behavior. But back at home or in the car ride home even, those conversations and those ways of speaking haven't changed. That lustful behavior has not changed. That self-centeredness, that loving of money and all these things hasn't really changed. Your spouse may be able to see evidence of it, but deep down in the attitudes and motives of your heart, they don't really know. You know, is the secret deepest area of your heart. Dear friends, dear brothers, dear sisters, and dear children, that's where the test is on whether you are actually a follower of Jesus. And the reason this is a burden on my heart is because I believe that we have become a church where it could be very easy because many in this church I believe are really seeking to walk this life that some could feel like they could be carried along. And I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't warn you about that. As the warning is for my own self that if we just get carried along because yes I'm in a good church we've entered a comfort zone maybe we've just come out of a conference where the presence of the Lord was there the word of the Lord was sent with anointing and people came here from across the world to witness what God is doing and to be encouraged and to be blessed by the fellowship but examine your heart dear friends I plead with you this morning dear family examine your heart if you're simply just following the crowd or are you hearing? Are you taking up your cross individually in secret when nobody else can see you? Are you taking up your cross? So that's a type of fool in the church. One who refuses to say no to himself or herself in secret.

Matthew Chapter 25

Foolish Virgins

• Need for the Holy Spirit: Another type of fool is one who doesn't seek personally for the continual filling of the Holy Spirit. Let's turn with me please to Matthew 25. We speak often about being filled with the Holy Spirit and we pray often for that but it's very easy for us to sit in the church and rely on the prayers of other people. You hear the elders or you hear somebody leading the singing saying Lord fill us with your Holy Spirit. Fill my cup. We can sing it. But the real test of whether you are passionate to be filled with the Holy Spirit, dear brothers and sisters and children, is in secret at home in the deepest part of your life. Is there a longing? Is there a desperate yearning, a desperate Lord, I can't let go of you until you give me a filling of your Holy Spirit? Examine your lives. Just this past week, dear friends, dear family, was there that burning within your heart? Lord, I need a fresh anointing of you. Yes, you filled me yesterday. Yes, you gave me your Holy Spirit when I was born again, but I need more of your power. In Matthew 25, we're told a fairly serious warning again about two categories of people sitting in a church. These were two groups of virgins. They were all of 10 of them were pure and sanctified. You can say they'd received the cleansing of Christ. They were virgins. They were pure. But even in among that group of pure people, half of them were wise and half of them were foolish. Again showing us that among God's people in his church or in the church you can say the different churches there could very well be and I think in many cases that is the case that there are some who are wise and some who are foolish some who are fools in the church and I would describe it this way people in the same church who all heard about the Holy Spirit and about the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Some actually experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the continual filling of the Holy Spirit, and others didn't.

• God's Willingness to Fill: And you can't fault God for that. God is eager to fill us all with the Holy Spirit. He says that over and over again. You read parable after parable. How much more will my heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? He is more eager to give you the Holy Spirit than even a good father who's evil by God's standards. Is eager to give his child bread and a fish and an egg rather than a stone and a scorpion or a snake. God is more eager. And yet in the church there are some who actually experience the fullness of God's Holy Spirit, a continual filling every day and others who don't. Those who don't are fools according to this parable. Because you read here for example in Matthew 25:3, it says about the foolish virgins, they took their lamps but they took no oil with them. Oil is always a picture of the Holy Spirit throughout scripture. They took their lamps. That means their lamps were burning. There was some a little bit of oil inside the lamp. And I believe that means that in the gatherings, in the public testimony, when they were in meetings, when they sang, when they prayed in the meetings together, they prayed just like everybody else. Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit. Fill my cup. Lord, I'll clap. I'll raise my hands and do all of those things. But in secret, they didn't actually receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. They had no oil with them. And they were fools. And you can say, "Well, Lord, you didn't give me the fullness of the Holy Spirit." The Lord will say, "I wanted to give him to you. I wanted to fill you to overflowing measure. I wanted to make you a bold witness for me. I wanted to fill you with such anointing and power that it would change you on the inside. But you held back. You weren't thirsty enough. You weren't hungry enough. You didn't have a longing enough. But the prudent, Matthew 25:4, the wise took oil in flasks along with their lamps. So they too were in the meetings praying and singing and crying out for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. But they actually received that anointing and that gift and that power as a warning for us.

Parable of the Talents

• Every Member Has a Gift: I want to mention a third type of fool. It's in the next parable that Jesus told right there in Matthew 25. Fools in the churches are those who are jealous or fearful and lazy with their gifts. Jealous, fearful, and lazy with their gifts. Every member of the body of Christ has been given gifts. Every member, if you're a member of the body of Christ, you've been given a gift. Now, you may not have realized that because you thought, "Well, no, I don't preach. I don't do I don't lead the singing. I don't do this. I'm not an elder. I don't have I don't never get up in front. And that's the devil's trick. He'll blind you into thinking that the only gifts are those that are here visible. But every member of the body of Christ has a gift. Every single member. The moment you're born again, there must be that passionate desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit and for the Lord to show you what is your gift. What is your calling? Every member in the same way that there's not a useless member in your physical body. Even the fingernail, we heard we've heard dad talk about that often. You know, even the hair has a function. Now, we may not always, some people talk about the appendix. Does it really have a function? Now, I'm curious to see when I get to eternity how God planned even the appendix to have a function. I have no doubt about it. But we may not fully understand it, how that plays out. But we must have a burden and say, "Lord, however you use me and whatever that looks like, whether other people endorse it or not, please use me and your body in an effective way. Help me to see my the gift that you've given me." Cuz Jesus told a parable here and you know the story. The point of the story is that everybody got a talent. It was three of them. And it doesn't matter whether it's three or 30 or 300 or 3,000. The number to remember is that 100% of them were given a gift. 100% of the slaves was given a gift. Some were given more than others, sure. But the point of the story was that the one who received the least did nothing with it. That's the whole point of the story. That the one who was given the least did nothing with it. And you see, so I would say that the I would summarize this parable this way. People in the church who have all been given gifts. The wise realize that they've been given gifts and do something with it. The fools sitting in the same church do nothing with it. Now, why is that the case? You read in Matthew 25:18 that this fool, the foolish slave took that gift, the one the one who received this the one talent went away and dug a hole in the ground and hid the gift that he had been given or I would say that brother or sister or child sitting at RLCF heard the message, heard the truth and on a Monday went ahead went away and thought, "Nah, yeah, the other other people have something to I'm just going to hide my gift. As I mentioned at the start of this message, I praise the Lord for how he used all of us in a way to serve others. But you know the danger in a church where many people are serving and finding a role to give to others and be useful is that I can look at all of them and thinking, well, what do I need to do? That thing's covered. That thing's covered. Oh, something else is covered. So, I'm just going to sit and watch. If that's the way we live our lives, we're like this fool bearing our gift, bearing our talent in the ground while others around us are useful in God's kingdom. I'm not here to tell you what your gift is, dear friend, dear brother. Seek the Lord for it. Ask him to show you how you can be useful in hidden ways as we hear often. A word of encouragement perhaps even on that day when you're tempted to feel discouraged and you feel there's a spirit of discouragement that's over me. Write a word of encouragement to somebody else. Maybe you're feeling heavy. Maybe the pressure of work is getting to you. You know, one way to be freed from that discouragement is encourage somebody else. Water somebody else. Proverbs 11:25, I think, is he who waters others while his ground is dry, I would say, will himself be watered. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Will you put that into practice? Dear brother, dear sister, dear children, if you're feeling heavy, you've got a you're feeling sick, you've got a migraine, or you're feeling like the heaviness of this world is on you, reach out and encourage somebody else and see if God doesn't lighten your load and water you from heaven. He dug a hole in the ground and buried it.

• Reasons for Inaction: Um, and then you skip down to Matthew 25:24. It says that he says to the master when the master calls him up and says why didn't you do something with that gift I gave you and you know I believe there are going to be many perhaps I hope not but it may be even some sitting at RLCF. He says brother sister you sat at RLCF and a lot of others around you served and gave themselves to my purpose for them and why not you what happened and this slave said master I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. Why did he think this master was hard? I believe it's because he was jealous. The people, interestingly, according to this passage, the people who are least likely to use their gift, who are the fools are the ones who have given less. Dear friend, dear brother, dear sister, it's not a matter of how much gift God has given you. He's given all of us gift. It's will you use it? And if you've been given less, if you don't have a publicly visible ministry, the danger is that you could be this slave, this fool who hid his talent in the ground thinking, "Well, Lord, if you had given me two, I could have done something with it. Or\langle

The Role of the Holy Spirit

Acts Chapter 2

• Individual Filling of the Spirit: Now keep a finger here in Matthew 25. I want to show you a verse in Acts 2. On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first came to this earth to dwell within people, we see something very interesting that I missed for many years. I'd known about this story in Acts 2. I've known about the day of Pentecost when God sent the Holy Spirit. And I picture the Holy Spirit sort of descending upon this entire gathering of 120 people in mass. But if you read carefully, you see it was very different. You read in Acts 2:3, there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. So this wasn't a corporate whole group of people being filled with the Holy Spirit. This was yes, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, but the reason for that was that every one of them, every single one of them had a burning desire. And so the Holy Spirit could rest on this person and on that person and that person and that person and that person, every single one. But if there was an individual sitting in that church among the if there was even one of the 120 that didn't have that yearning, didn't have that passion, there would have been 119 people filled with the Holy Spirit and God would have used them and that one person would have been left behind. Now, it wasn't the case then, but it is quite likely the case today. I don't say that in a finger-pointing way, but as a testimony that for years I sat in churches hearing about being filled with the Holy Spirit and the command that we have been given to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5:18, but went along with the group and never really experienced that power. Now I want to yet we see here that they were in the they were rested on each one of them and they were and so they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. The reason it was 100% was because there was a 100% desire. There was not even one person who was lacking in that burning passion. And for us, dear family, at RLCF especially, this is the danger that we hear about seeking God for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And it could just be one of those things that we shrug our shoulders at God. And the fools in the church are those who don't seek personally for that experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

• Encouragement to Seek the Spirit: Let's go back to Matthew 25. And before I move on though, I want to give you a word of encouragement. I believe that many of you have been seeking for the fullness and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Maybe some of you have experienced some of it in some measure the and a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit and then something's happened. Maybe you've grown cold. Maybe you've asked for a long period of time and somehow God didn't seem to answer. God seemed to delay his answer in giving you that fullness, that baptism of the Holy Spirit and continual experience of it and you gave up perhaps. I want to encourage you to come back and seek the Lord earnestly. Be honest with yourself, brother, sister, child. I don't care how old or how young you are. Acts 2:39 says that this promise is for you. Let's let go back to Acts 2. I missed a verse that I should have showed you. The command to be filled with the Holy Spirit is not just for those who preach or for those who do miracles or cast out demons or are elders in the churches. No. Take this verse to heart. Brother, sister, child. Underline it. Memorize it. Meditate on it. Let it become life in you. **Acts bothers and sisters and children, if you have been praying for the Lord to baptize you and immerse you, that's what baptism means, to pour out his Holy Spirit and fill you and fill more of you than he has in the days past. But you've gotten dissatisfied or you feel like the answer hasn't come. If you're sitting here and you don't have an assurance that you've been filled with the Holy Spirit, as much as you have an assurance that you're born again, if you're sitting here and you don't have an assurance that you're born again, I want to tell you as all of us would agree, you must be born again. Don't wait another minute. If you understand what I'm saying, give your life to Jesus today. Be filled with give him your life. Surrender to him. Be born again. You must be born again.

• Assurance of the Holy Spirit: Now, I would say in exactly the same way, if you do not have an assurance that God has filled you with the Holy Spirit, you must be filled with the Holy Spirit and ask him and he can give you an assurance. You must be sure of it as well. Now, that again, sometimes you can say, well, I'm sure I'm saved. I believe I'm going to go and spend eternity with Christ, but I don't know about being filled with the Holy Spirit. Am I filled? And the devil can rob us. See, the devil has come to steal, kill, and destroy. For most of the world, he steals salvation completely from them. But if he sees that you're actually born again and you've given your life to Jesus, he's going to try to steal something else. He does not want you to have 100% of what God planned for you. He wants you to be to get to spend all eternity with 99% if he can or more. And he's going to try to rob you and rob you and rob you and rob you of more and more. And if he has robbed you of that experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit, dear brother, dear sister, no more. No longer. Let it be that today onwards, you're going to seek him with a passion. And you're not going to stop seeking him until he has actually filled you with his Holy Spirit. Children, pray that. And I want to tell you, I want to encourage you, dear family, that I was one who prayed for years and then gave up. I thought ah I don't have an assurance and I just I can still live my life. In fact, I can live a pretty good outwardly looking Christian life without the power of the Holy Spirit. But thank God in his mercy, he pulled the rug out from under me and showed me this is just hollow. This is just a shell. Everybody thinks that you're a good Christian, but you know deep inside how defeated you are, how selfish you still are, how impatient you still are, how lack of loving you are, how there isn't a zeal to speak boldly. And then I said, Lord, I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to let go of you until you make this my experience. And it doesn't matter what other people think. I'm going to seek you personally. And that's who the wise people are in the church. Those who seek personally for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And so if you are here today and you don't have an assurance in your heart that you're filled with the Holy Spirit, my one encouragement to you, dear friend, is seek for him with all your heart. And if you see sought for him before and you say, "Stosh, I prayed and prayed, but I don't seem to receive him." Don't give up. Come back to God and seek him with all of your heart. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. That's God's word. And don't let the devil rob that experience from you.

• Urgency of Seeking the Spirit: Continue reading Matthew 25:7. It says that when the bridegroom came, the virgins rose and trimmed their lamps and the foolish all of a sudden realized that their experience of being in a church that spoke about the fullness of the Holy Spirit and being around wise virgins who were filled with the Holy Spirit wasn't going to stand up anymore. Dear church family, the time is going to come when it's not going to be enough that you know somebody who's filled with the Holy Spirit, that the elders in your church are filled with the Holy Spirit, or your husband is filled with the Holy Spirit, or your wife is filled with the Holy Spirit, or your parents are filled with the Holy Spirit, or your children are filled with the Holy Spirit. It's going to come down between you and the baptizer in the Holy Spirit, Jesus himself. And that's what the foolish realized. They were sitting in a church, I believe, complacent because they saw the wise virgins and they had an outward testimony of the Holy Spirit, but they knew deep down, I have an empty flask. And one day, what was inside the flask was the difference between life and death. For all eternity, their flasks are empty. I believe you know you go and read the story that he says they wanted. There will not be enough. They asked the wise for oil they said no there will not be enough there's a wonderful there's a powerful phrase here the wise say Matthew 25:9 there will not be enough for us and for you too do you know how the Lord's spoken that to me somebody else's experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not going to be enough for me being in a church and listening to godly teachers who we know are filled with the Holy Spirit and thinking, "Oh, yes. Thank God that that brother can preach to me and he's filled with the Holy Spirit." That's not going to hold up. There's not going to be enough. Somebody else's experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit just because you sit in the same church is not going to be enough for you. You and I must seek for that individually. And you know what the end of that was? That they were on the outside. They came knocking and the door was shut and the door was never going to be opened again. The time will come when it will be too late to seek for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There are people who never been filled with the Holy Spirit. I think wish they could have one more chance to seek for that to seek for him, seek by that experience. It was too late for these fools, the foolish virgins. So Jesus said in Matthew 25:13, "Be on the alert cuz you don't know when I'm going to shut the door and you don't know when you will have had the last opportunity to seek me with all your heart. Let's seek him."

Self-Examination and the Holy Spirit's Probe

• Deep Heart Examination: Now before I close, dear brothers and sisters, this is a secret area of our hearts. It's not evident outwardly. This is deep, deep, deep down. And that's why I've shared these the this message for us to examine not the surface level but to allow the Holy Spirit to send his probe deep into our hearts. There's a phrase in Ezekiel 28 that recently again from a passage we know well. Ezekiel 28 is speaking about the devil when he was the highest archangel and then he was cast down because he was because there was sin in him and he became the devil. But you read in Ezekiel 28:15, "You were blameless in your ways." Speaking about that highest archangel, "From the day you were created, you were blameless in your ways until sin or unrighteousness was found in you." And we're told in the next verse that that was found in the middle of you. In your midst is the literal word in Ezekiel 28:16. There was sin in your midst. That means as I understand it outwardly everything looked good. But as you probe deep enough and the Holy Spirit will do that faithfully. Probe probe probe probe got down to the the core of it there the Holy Spirit of God found sin in this highest archangel and exposed it and he was thrown out. And so allow the Holy Spirit's probe now to go deep into you, dear brother, dear sister, to see if deep down where nobody else knows, only you and the Holy Spirit know you've been a fool because you haven't really been denying yourself and taking up your cross in secret. You haven't really been seeking continually for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. You haven't really been using your gift and seeking God to be used that way. That at your core, let the Holy Spirit send that probe in.

• Jesus as Our Example: I'm comforted by this last verse I'll show you 1 Timothy 3:16 that Jesus also went through this experience when he was here on this earth of allowing the probe of the Holy Spirit to test him and Jesus the father says after 30 years of ministry this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased we're told in 1 Timothy 3:16 this is called the mystery of godliness Christ as our example he who was crucified in the flesh was vindicated in the spirit. It's that same picture of the Holy Spirit probing Jesus and seeing all the way to the very core he was pleasing to the father. It's a tremendous example for us. And I say, Lord, tear me apart. Rip me to shreds if you will. Show me that deepest area of my life. And let it be that you will be able to vindicate me as well by the Holy Spirit and and show that it's Christ in me all the way to the core and nothing of me. Make it so.

Conclusion: Choose to Follow the Holy Spirit

• Individual Choice: Dear brothers and sisters, I believe we have a choice in front of us. We could continue going with the crowd at RLCF or we could be led by the Holy Spirit. We could keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Jesus is leading his church and if you follow the way he's leading RLCF not simply because us elders say so not because other people are going in the same way but because God Jesus himself through the Holy Spirit has shown you this way otherwise you will sit here and forever have a complaint with this and an issue with that and I don't understand why you elders do that because you're not hearing from the Holy Spirit and if you hear from the Holy Spirit you will find that he answers all of your questions in a way that us elders can't. He will lead you in a spirit of unity. That's not, oh, okay, all the other fish are going this way, let me go this way. Oh, the fish in front of me is going this way, let me go that way. It is the leading of the Holy Spirit, but it comes through these areas that I've spoken about. Let's judge ourselves. Let's examine ourselves. Heavenly Father, will you help this to be a reality in our lives? We thank you that you're on our side against the devil. Build us up as a church of such people of individuals who are united by this alone that you are leading us and that's the basis of our unity. We trust you in Jesus' name. Amen.