The Holy Spirit: The Power of Communication - Pastor Denny Duron

Welcome to SC Church Podcast! We’re so glad you could join us. Today Pastor Denny Duron shared with us his message:

“The Holy Spirit: The Power of Communication"

Transcript

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Hallelujah. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus. I want to speak to you today on the power of communication. We're talking about the powers of the Holy Spirit. You may be seated. We're talking about the powers of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was about to be taken away from his disciples, and this is what he said to them. Go and wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father. He said, And you shall receive power. Somebody say power. After that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses unto Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Jesus never intended for those that would receive him to be powerless. We right now are in an age of communication like nothing we have ever seen. It's amazing, isn't it, how communication has changed. I'm 73, and just during my lifetime, we've moved from do you have a telephone in your house? It's true. To every member of the family owning a smartphone that can give you a wealth of information rivaling the Library of Congress. And not only that, AI tips on playing video games, as well as allowing you to talk face to face with your whole family all over the world at the same time. I still haven't gotten over that. There's even an app that simultaneously translates speech from one language to another. So communication is enhanced internationally. Communication has never been easier, but the challenges in communication for us as human beings on a personal level have never been more challenging. We find it increasingly difficult to communicate with those who disagree with us, who disagree with us about politics or philosophy or theology or sports. As with no other generation before this one, people become hostile, insulting, and threatening to those who dare share a conflicting point of view. Marriages are also disintegrating because of a lack of communication. 22% of marriages end in divorce within five years in America. 39% of marriages end in divorce by 10 years. 50% of marriages end in divorce by 20 years. And 67.5% of marriages that ended did so primarily due to communication problems. But here's the good news this morning, and I want to get right to it. One of the supernatural powers that you have access and a right to is the power of communication. Let me tell you, the Holy Spirit is God's divine power of communication. And it's first of all the power of communication from God to man. The original desire of God in Eden was to communicate with man. He would come down, the Bible says, and walk in the cool of the day in the garden. And he would communicate with Adam and Eve. And when sin entered into the world, the thing that was lost for God was the right and privilege of the Godhead to communicate with the created ones. Because now, through being polluted by sin, their mind was no longer the mind of God. Their thoughts were no longer the thoughts of God. And while he would have interaction with men throughout the generations at specific times for specific purposes, that wonderful Eden-like communication power was gone. Let me say something to all of you. Let me tell you, I have been the beneficiary of God speaking to me so many times. Don't buy that car, don't make that deal. Don't make that investment. Don't go there today. Take the other way home. You say, are you kidding? I'm not kidding. Let me tell you, I'm alive and well on this platform today, simply because early in my life I learned about the power of the Holy Spirit that would allow God to speak to me just like he spoke to his created object of his love in the Garden of Eden. God wants to speak to you. But how many of you will say, I really can't say that God speaks to me. You just need to get full of the Holy Ghost. When you get filled with the Holy Spirit, God will speak to you. It will be absolutely amazing. There's a young man in this congregation, he's here today, and he said something to me last week that so touched me. He said, I have never had a time in my life. And he said, I've been a Christian all my life. He said, where the Holy Spirit has been guiding me and speaking to me like he is now. I, for the first time, I believe, am able to hear God's voice clearly. Do you understand that you can be where you are with the silence of God today? And tomorrow morning, you could literally wake up in a brand new world simply because you invited the Holy Spirit to take complete control. God wants to speak to you. He wants to say something to you today. He wants to talk to you about your marriage. He wants to talk to you about your job. He wants to talk to you about your children. How many of us throughout any given day are gonna say, I don't know what I'm gonna do? I don't know what I'm gonna do about this. Well, I don't know. Search me. There's just no way that I have an answer for this. This is out of my wheelhouse. Man, this is beyond my pay level. No, it's not. You have access to God, and God is able to speak to you about the most minute circumstances of your life and the greatest challenges. You're a businessman, you're really good, aren't you? You make great deals, you have a sixth sense in business. I'm so glad, but there's something more. You could have God speak to you, you could have access to him where he would literally whisper to you what your direction should be. And let me tell you something: God takes this thing seriously. I've asked God throughout my life to speak to me. I'll never forget going through a little western rodeo town. I always wanted to visit this little place, I think it's in Montana, where they had these great rodeos. And I was up visiting a relative of mine, and I thought, you know, I said, I'm just gonna drive up there. It's just an hour and just see those rodeo grounds because I've heard about them all my life. So I drove through this little town and it was really worth the drive. I enjoyed it so much. So I'm driving through this town, never been there before. And the Lord speaks to me and says, pull off into that parking lot and just wait. I'm I'm gonna send somebody to you. And I went, What? I said, I'm not doing that. But what if it's God? What if it is the Lord? So I just pulled off into the parking lot, got out. So this was only a few years ago. So I'm standing with something. So I stand there an hour. Nobody comes. I got in my car to drive away, and I said, Well, Lord, I guess that wasn't you. He said, No, no, it was me. He said, I am gonna take you to a deeper level and a more profound understanding of hearing my voice. And I said, I'm certainly not gonna do that for you until I have a practice run. Let me just tell you something. God takes it seriously when he finds a man that wants to hear his voice. Do you know what it takes to hear the voice of God? Oh, yes, Pastor, it takes an amazing purity, not necessarily. Oh, it just takes someone who is all out and all in and who's just no, not necessarily. I have seen God use people that you and I wouldn't have thought were worthy. I've seen God use people that you and I probably would have judged severely, but there was one thing that all those people had in common. They just believed that anybody at any time and any place that was hungry for the power of the Holy Ghost could receive the Spirit and that they could begin to hear their God clearly. It is a right and it is a privilege, and we must get to the place where we shove back the darkness and the fog of our own deception, and we hear his voice. Oh God, please in America give us give us leaders everywhere that will hear your voice on every level of government. Lord God, that's the answer. It's not figuring something out, it's not gathering people around a table and seeing what the experts say, it's somebody that can hear the voice of God. God wants to speak to you. And let me tell you, when Emmanuel was born, communication was restored. John said it in the beginning was the word. The word was with God, the word was God, the same was in the beginning with God. And then he says this a few verses later, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. When he spoke on the earth, hallelujah! The molecules became alive again. It was back to Eden, it was back to what God had planned. God walking with men and women and speaking to them. Everything that was of sin and evil and death cringed and fled when he spoke. These were not just the words of God, this was God on the earth speaking words. Hallelujah! And God never ever gave up his edge from the moment that baby was born in Bethlehem. From that point on, when his plaintive little cries were heard in that poor little community, his voice would always be in the earth realm again. And he promised his disciples, he said, I know you're upset that I'm leaving, but I want you to understand that I am about to do something unprecedented. What you have seen in me, I am going to give to you. I will not be speaking to you with this voice on this planet anymore. But oh, I am sending the comforter. He's the one that has allowed me as a man to do what I've done. And when I get safely back to the Father, then I am going to send him, and he is gonna fill every one of you, and God Almighty is gonna speak to you just like he spoke to me. You just get so hungry, don't you? When are you gonna hear about this? Because here's the fact you're gonna walk out of here this morning saying, Wow, that was a good word, or he was beside himself. You'll have some comment, or either you're gonna say, That's what I want. God, I'll give anything to have that. To have you speak to me, to be able to have the counselor, the Holy Spirit, guide me through all of the mind fields of my marriage, to be able to have the Holy Spirit give me wisdom keys and raising my son and running my business, to be able to spend just quiet moments and literally hear from God. You see, it just makes you so hungry, so hungry. For more of God, you see, here's the fact there are people in the body of Christ, and when you begin to talk to them about the deeper things of God, they don't want to hear it. They say, Well, you know, I I'm I'm real happy with where I am in God, or I know the scriptures and I've been walking with God for a long time. All I can tell you is this if you would excuse yourself from the delight of hearing the voice of God, then you must make sure that you are free of conflicting spirits that are fighting his control. Because only a conflicting spirit of evil in us would deprive us of the voice of the Maker. He wants to be speaking to you, he wants to talk to you, he wants to guide you, he wants to give you wisdom. You're just walking through this thing, just kind of waltzing through, coming to church, doing the good things. So grateful you are to keep coming. You want your kids to be Christians, want to make sure that we don't get involved with any of the big league sins, just make sure that we're okay, but we're just so satisfied when that book is supernatural, so supernatural fire jumps off the pages. And that book has been given to us to tell us it's our right to hear from our sovereign. Dan Newman was down here at the and our precious Brenda Nichols was going into surgery, open heart surgery. She was so afraid. She wasn't afraid to go to heaven. It was just this was a very serious surgery, and she was so concerned. Now, if you don't know Brenda Nichols, Brenda Nichols is like one of the um SEAL team six people spiritually in this church, and that's the truth. But Dan felt a word. God had one of his men who hears his voice at the front. Can you imagine how God puts all this together? You know, we've uh we've seen some of the technology on television of the United States of how they can put missiles, you know, through an open window. I mean, pinpoint it, right? But somehow God's had that technology a long time before. And he always knows where his conduits of blessing are, those that hear his voice, those that have his Holy Spirit, and are able to have God speak to them. Dan's down here in the front. I think the angel of the Lord said, Well, Lord, I know you want to give a word to Brenda, your servant. She's been praying and crying out to you recently and in her bedroom and asking you to take care of things, and and she's concerned. And I know you want to can encourage her. Well, you one of our one of our agents is right in proximity to her now. God downloads something to Dan. Dan walks over to her and said, Brenda, I don't know how you're feeling about this, but the Lord just spoke to me and said, You're gonna come through this surgery with flying colors and you're never to worry again. It completely put her at peace. What was that? It's the power of communication from God to man. But also we have the power of communication that comes through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Lord has broken it down for us because he so wants us to have access to all of this. And what I can tell you is uh there are gifts of the Holy Spirit that have been given to us, and and these gifts are celebrating the power of God, of God speaking to man. And these these are wonderful gifts. The word of God says the Holy Spirit works in each person in one way or another for the good of all, and one person is given the gift of teaching words of wisdom. Do you know that God speaks to us, and then somebody say through us? Through us. So it's the power of communication from God to man, and now the power of communication from man to man. Have you ever been talking to somebody and suddenly you just knew it was hitting? Talking to them about Jesus, and you just knew. You just knew that no matter what they did to squirm out of this, that they weren't gonna be able to shake it the rest of the day. Because you had just spoken, and then but there was fire on what you said. You didn't even expect it, it just really touched them. I had a football coach that called me in one day, and he was so disturbed. He was one of my favorite humans, by the way, that Louisiana tech, and he put his feet up on his desk and lit a big cigar, and and um this was our custom of visiting. This is the way it happened. And he wasn't my position coach, but he would call me in if he thought that he needed to talk to me about anything, or maybe he was just going to encourage me. So I went in and I sat in front of his desk and he put his feet up on the desk, lit up a big stogie, and and uh filled the room with smoke, and then he looked right at me and said, Well, some people have been telling me that uh you have been saying the end of the world's coming. I said, Well, coach, it is. He said, No, it's not time. I said, Well, coach, pretty much it's time. Because the signs of the times are just everywhere. You know, Jesus is he's coming. No, just not time. He sat there a second. I didn't know where this was going. He said, Well, let me just tell you. I went to a funeral the other day, and the pastor that did that funeral, he got to the end of what he had to say, and he just left it up to us. He just left it totally up to us what we were gonna do. He didn't pressure anybody, Duran. And that's the way it should be done. And uh I looked at him and suddenly, man, God's on me. I said, Coach, I totally agree with you. It's a man's business if he wants to go to hell. Where in the world did that come from? That was not what I was gonna say. I didn't think that was what I needed to say to my coach, frankly. At that point, the Holy Spirit hit him like a flamethrower. He said, Oh. Oh my God. Put his feet off the desk, put the cigar out. He said, My God. He said, I don't want to go. I don't want to go. You see, why was that important? Because it wasn't too long after that that I was able to get on my knees with that man in his living room and hear him confess Jesus Christ as his Savior. You see, the fact is, God is not going to speak to the world without your voice. He speaks to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. And then he speaks through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, I was so rocked by this new film. I don't even know what the name of it is about George Whitfield. What's the name of that show? Somebody's what? The Great Awakening. And of course, I know the history here. Everything shown on that film falls short of what actually happened. Nothing has been dramatized past the point of the historical reality. You see, what happened? There was a young man by the name of George Whitfield that had actually been ostracized by the Church of England. He came to the United States in its very early struggling days. And he began to preach the gospel. And hundreds of thousands of people gave their lives to Christ. And there was a mighty revival. God swept through the colonies. It was glorious beyond belief. And every detail of that movie is correct, except it didn't go far enough. It was even more powerful than that. You say, how could that happen? How could there be a man like that who would stand on a balcony and his voice could be heard for a mile? How could it be that coal miners would come up out of the caves and out of the mines and they would fall on their knees immediately the moment that they heard the sound of his voice? And then how could one man actually shape the courageous response of the troops to the attack of the English? How could it happen? Well, friend, it's the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, and he wants to speak through you. The Holy Ghost gives the power of communication for God to be able to talk to us again. The Holy Ghost gives the power of communication for us to be able to speak to others. You say, I don't know what I would say. Open your mouth and God will fill it. You say, I'm afraid I don't know enough scripture. Let me tell you something. The Holy Ghost knows all you need. The Bible says, holy men speak as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost. He is the one that we're talking about. You represent Jesus because the Holy Spirit is within you. You say, Well, how do you receive the Holy Spirit? Oh, this is really revolutionary. You ask. But you must ask in faith. So what do you mean? Well, faith is a believing force, but is also a tenacious force. So you don't give up. You ask and you keep on asking. You don't have somebody come to you in a permit and say, Let me just show you the word I think you already have. Here's what I want to say to those people. I don't have what I want yet. And I am going to continue to seek the living God, the creator of heaven and earth, the sender of the Holy Ghost and fire, because I think He's capable of giving me what I ask for. I have something I want from God. That's the power of the Holy Ghost. Friend, today we're going to pray and we're going to keep praying. And we have announced that, you know, these couple of three weeks, what we're going to do is just be seeking a new experience with the power of the Holy Spirit in this church and in our individual lives. But I want you to understand we're not stopping it at the end of two weeks. This is a new era in God. And it's been declared by our pastor. This is a new era of seeking the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And ladies and gentlemen, my brothers and sisters, my children in the Lord, my wonderful co-workers and comrades, I want to tell you we can have everything we want in Jesus. Stand with me, please, all over this place. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to God. You know, wonder, I wonder, Dan, if I had not been filled with the Holy Ghost when I was 17 over in that Baptist church basement in Bouchier, that's where it happened. I don't think you would be standing here on this front row. I don't even think I'd know you. And you wouldn't know me just slightly. We'd see each other at youth camps when we're kids. But God so filled me with the Holy Ghost that I went to Lafayette to try to pick up a guitar player for my little Jesus band that I was heading up that we were gonna travel all summer before my freshman year at La Teg. And I met this guy. He was the he was the program manager, can you imagine? At 16 years old for a top 40 station in Lafayette. That's how gifted he was. A lot better than the keyboard player I had, frankly. And I said, How would you like to hit the road, buddy, this summer? He said, I'd love it. He quit his job, moved to Shreveport. He's still here. I don't think, Mary Ann, I don't know, Mary Ann, if you would be here, honestly, baby, sitting standing by that guy. If the Holy Ghost hadn't led me to radically get up on a park bench and preach open air, because there was that fateful day that you and who was with you? Debbie Lomax, I remember, yeah. You walked up to this guy preaching at the top of his voice on the college campus off of the bench. Because why? Because the Holy Spirit told me to do it. And the conviction of the Lord fell on her life. That was the day it turned around for her. Mark, I don't know if we'd know each other today. If I had made a deal with the Holy Spirit years ago, that I would walk through every door he opened up, big or small. You can't believe the kind of meetings I've done. I've done debutante parties. Man, I've done barbecue cook-offs. I've preached everywhere a man can preach on this earth. I'm gonna tell you, it's the truth. But on this day, it was a banquet for some little league teams. You were there. Something happened to you. The Holy Spirit. See, here's the thing: you don't have to be anybody special to be a conduit of the Holy Spirit. You don't walk out in your backyard and pick up the hose and say, This is the freshest, clearest, most wonderful hose I've ever had. I'm always going to be refreshed by this hose. No, no, no, no. That hose is just a conduit. It's the water we're after. And that's the glory of working for him and being his. I have never in my life, one day of my life, felt like I was special to God or or that God had to have anything I had. I I have nothing to give him outside my yieldedness. But I want him to have all of me that there is. So hungry for him that nothing means as much. It's being filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. When Rick Berlin gave his life to the Lord, he always wanted more. He wanted, he wanted everything I had, he wanted everything everybody else had. He wanted all of the Lord, he wanted God to speak to him. He wanted to be able to speak to God. Let me tell you something. In his pursuit, he had some moments that could only be described as hilarious. He had revelations about God nobody's ever received. In fact, he was able to get rid of them very quickly. But I watched him grow through months and months of seeking so hungry for God. And you know, Rick was he was an assassin. I mean, he was a tough football player, but he was a fighter, always a fighter, even in high school. In fact, when he started doing karate, our high school coach Lee Hedges said this. These are his exact words. Oh God, that's like giving a gun to a crazy man. But here's what I will tell you about Rick Berlin. Rick Berlin, when he got filled with the spirit, folks, let me just tell you, he broke before God. He wept before God. He wanted God more than his necessary bread, as Job said. He wanted him so desperately. And it was month after month after month, and he could not seem to get through to what he wanted. But I'll never forget being in South Florida, University of South Florida, and our band was doing this huge conference, Christian conference. And I, after the conference was over, I said, Where's Rick? He said, He's in the back room. And I walked in and he was lost in the spirit. You know what lost in the spirit means? That means you are so locked into God. You are so absolutely being filled with his spirit that you don't know what's going on in the room. And he didn't know what was going on in the room. He was by himself in a little dressing room in the back of the stage, and he was praying. And he was praying in an unknown tongue. Wow. Filled the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's bow our heads all over this place. Lord, the power of communication, Lord, we want you to be able to speak to us. We want you to be able to speak through us. Oh God. More than anything, we want your spirit to enhance our praise, to enhance our prayer, to enhance our intercession. Lord God, we want it your spirit to totally transform our lifestyle, our desires, our taste in life, everything. Oh God, our choices. Help us. Help us. We're so hungry for you. We're so hungry for you. These invitations are not going to be complicated, folks. We you don't get where you want to get seeking God unless you're willing to wreck your schedule a little bit. And right now, if if you are just hungry for more of him, I want you to come to this front and just stand and wait on him. Will you do it? I don't know what God's going to do or how God's going to do it. I don't I don't have any idea. I'm not trying to direct anything, not trying to manipulate this. You're just hungry for more of God. I want all you have. When you look in those scriptures, there's more in those scriptures. There's more in that Bible. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. The Bible will sporadically give us the anatomy of praise and worship. It speaks of our hands. Right now, I want you to loose your hands. You may have your Bible in your hand. That's good. Just hold that Bible up to the Lord. Hallelujah. But I want you just to release your hands right now. Maybe it's just you're just going to put them out in front of you. Maybe you want to lift them high right now, but I want you to. That which is of God, that which is not. So right now I want you to think about your heart. And I want you to feel the Holy Spirit filling your heart. Just stand before Him. We're going to just wait on the Lord here. Glory to Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Just wait on him. Glory to your name, Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We're almost ready to just tell him what we want because we have to ask. Seek and you shall find. Knock. The door will be open to you. You have not because you ask not. Hallelujah. Jesus' name. Oh God, we love you. We love you, Lord. We love you, Lord. We love you, Lord. Hallelujah. Oh, hallelujah. Glory to God. Bless your name. Bless your name, Lord. Hallelujah. Oh, God. And now, my friends, I want you with your voice. I'm not asking you to shout loudly or I'm just asking you with your voice so that you can hear your voice. The Bible says faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the word of God. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to ask the Lord for what you want in Him. If you don't have a description for what you desire, that's fine. Maybe you're going to say, Lord, I want it all. I want everything that you have for me. But I want you to spend some moments telling him with your voice. You'll say, I'm not comfortable. I'm not comfortable speaking out like that. Well, friend, number one, nobody's going to hear you because everybody around you is praying. But number two is this your voice is the key instrument of praise that God recognizes. Lift your voice just as you would speak to me, as you would speak to someone else. And I want you right now to just ask God, say, Lord, fill me. Fill me, God. Lord, give me what you have for me right now. Everyone. One, two, three. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone asking God. Now, Lord Jesus, I know you see this. Lord, this whole body of people crying out to you, asking you for more. We want more of you. We desire more of your Holy Spirit. More of your power. More of your love. Lord God, we see it in the scriptures. And that's what we want. If it's there, it can be here. And if anyone has tapped into your divine flow, we can. God, we give you glory. Give us more. Give us more. In the name of Jesus. More of you, Lord. More of you, Lord. More of you. You're going to get down into the quick of your soul where you're actually feeling that twinge of God dealing with you so deeply. Hallelujah. Bless the name of the Lord. God, we love you. God, we love you. Oh, we love you, Lord. We give you glory. Hallelujah. Rebecca. Rebecca. God, we love you. Oh, we love you. We praise you. We pray you. Thank you, Jesus. Jesus is here. Sing it. Jesus is here. Help me, help me. All things are possible. Yes. Jesus is here. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus is here. Amen. Hallelujah. All things possible. Jesus is here. Lord, I believe. I believe Lord. Thank you, Jesus. All things possible. Lord. Believe. I believe Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Lord, I believe. Thank you, Jesus. Praise God. What's gonna happen is this, ladies and gentlemen, listen. There is going to come a season of the Spirit upon us. Just like we have summers and falls and winters. There's a season of the Spirit coming upon us. This is the season when the voice of God is crying out to the nations to prepare yourself. And there are so many of us that have just walked every day out like we have in the past. Because we never heard the voice. As this season of preparation comes upon you, I'm not going to in any way begin to suggest a litany of things that might happen. Because I want you to be surprised and guided by your own journey, by what God says to you. That's part of the delight of a season of God really coming upon you. I believe with all of my heart that this is going to be a wonderful turning point in many ways for people that desperately need it. And let me just tell you, I'm one of the ones who desperately need it, okay? I want revival in my soul, and you should too. You say, Well, I'm already pretty much, yeah, and there's a whole lot more in that book you need to experience. So let's all believe that God has more. Amen. Let's believe that God has more. How many of you are refreshed in your souls? Raise your hand if you say, I like this pastor. I'm refreshed in my soul. Amen. Glory to God. Praise the Lord. Can you say amen? Hallelujah. Praise God. Let me bless you. And then we're going to leave with a focus. This is the season of God. Amen. This is the season of God. Listen for his voice. He will speak to you. I promise. Amen. May the God of Jacob protect you from all harm. May the Lord answer you when you're in distress. May He send you help from the sanctuary, grant you support from Zion. May remember all your best sacrifices, accept all your best offerings. May He give you the desire of your heart. Make all your plans succeed. And yes, we will shout for joy over your victory. Lift up our banners in the name of our God. Amen. May the Lord answer all your prayers. You are loved. Amen. Thank you for connecting with us today. The first step to a new life in Christ is receiving the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you have never received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, repeat this prayer after me. Jesus, I believe you died on a cross and rose again for me. I ask that you come into my heart and be the Lord of my life. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Whether you committed your life to Jesus for the first time today or are already on your journey of faith, we would love to stay connected with you. Please visit scchurch.com and follow SCchurch on all social media platforms. And remember, the best is yet to come.