Gateway Church's Podcast
Larry Stockstill
Still Larry Stockstills, the senior pastor of Bethany World Prayer Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's one of the greatest missions sending churches in the world. Millions and millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of churches have been planted out of this church. He'll share a little bit. He and his wife, they got married and they've been married 32 years. He and Melanie and two weeks after they were married, Brother Larry did what every new groom should do and that is he took her to the mission field for two years in Africa with no running water and she stayed with him and has been ever since. So but he's the author of multiple books. He is a in many ways a younger Jack Hayford. He is very theologically doctrinally sound, has a long reputation of integrity for building churches and building the kingdom and yet unashamedly filled with the Holy Spirit of God and has been used tremendously. This is his first time to be at Gateway Church and I am honored. Will you welcome please, Pastor Larry Stockstills. Morning everybody. Everybody doing well. All these overflows and outlying areas wherever you may be. Hey, this is a big church. I figured that out. I've been here preaching for almost three days just to get to this day, you know. Open your Bible to Psalm 92. Now I'm from South Louisiana, I make no apology for that. I'm actually from Mississippi. Everybody say help him, Lord. Robert forgot to say that I have six children and they're all saved and shankified also. And I heard in the airport, you all heard of Boudro and Thibodeau, any of you heard of them? Anybody raise your hand? Okay, great. Boudro was talking to Thibodeau down the concourse of the New Orleans airport. We overheard him not too long ago and had a voice come over the intercom. It said, "All travelers for Cancun report to Gate 23." And I heard Boudro lean over to Thibodeau and he said, "Isn't that terrible, Thibodeau?" He said down here, Louisiana, said, "We get to eat fresh coon." And those people got to eat Cancun where they're going. They're not too much on geography in South Louisiana. They were both taking the survey of international events and Boudro had one that said, "What do you think about Beirut?" And he told Thibodeau, he says, "I know about Beirut," said why he was the best baseball player in the history of the game. You men are going to need to explain that to your wife a little later, okay? Psalm 92 and verse 10, have you found it yet? "My horn, you have exalted like a wild ox. I have been anointed." Don't you like that phrase? I have been anointed with what kind of oil, fresh oil. Take the hand to somebody beside you there all across these campuses and everywhere. We're praying today for the Holy Spirit to fill us with all seven of the manifestations of the Spirit. Father, I just thank you for your word that as we study it, you're giving us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. We bind the enemy who would try to steal, kill, or destroy, or hinder or oppose. We claim this word is falling upon good ground. Producing a harvest in our lives, 30, 60, and 100-fold, we give you the glory and advance in Jesus' name. And everybody said, "Amen." I love this phrase, "I have been anointed with fresh oil." I've actually been watching Pastor Robert on the internet a couple of times getting ready to come here to kind of see what he's been feeding you. And I noticed he's been feeding you the last six weeks on the best friend in his life, and that is the Holy Spirit. And by the way, Robert's a pretty good preacher. Did y'all realize that? He's pretty good. Y'all appreciate brother Robert? Give him a hand clap. And I just, I've never preached this message before, but the Lord gave me a message about oil. And I was thinking about this phrase, "I've been anointed with fresh oil." And how the Holy Spirit is typified throughout the Scripture with oil. In fact, if you look at the parable of the virgins, the 10 virgins, five of them were wise, five were foolish. I think that kind of illustrates really today's church, because I believe even in Spirit-filled churches, about half of us sitting here or dry as last year's bird nest, if you know what I mean. I mean, we just get dry. We go through problems and circumstances, we just run out of oil. And I think it's imperative that we look at the Holy Spirit as a continual replenishing of oil in seven areas. Zechariah saw a candlestick in chapter four, right before he said, "Not by might or power, but by my spirit." He saw this candlestick that had a pipeline from two olive trees, and it was continually fed into a bowl. And those lanterns always had a fresh supply of oil, like continually. The fire was sitting on top of the supply in the New Testament in Acts 2, and they were all filled with the Spirit, a flame of fire sat on their head. But if you don't have any oil, there's nothing to burn on top of your life. So somewhere down the line, the Holy Spirit's got to replenish you. I don't know who's here today who's watching this, but you may be dry. And if you run the spiritual dipstick down in your spirit and pull it out, it may not even show up on the stick. Now, to be honest about it. So I want you to tell your neighbor next to you to tell, I think you need to check your oil. Come on, just tell him that. What kind of oil are we checking today? We're actually checking it in seven areas, and you're going to run your spiritual dipstick down in all seven of these, and you're going to figure out if you really feel with the Spirit. Because the Bible says in Revelation 4 that Jesus walks among these golden candlesticks or torches, and the seven lamps not only represent the church, but they represent the Holy Spirit. I've got a Jewish menorah here, which is a sign of the state of Israel. I know this church is very involved in reaching out to the Jewish people. We have been as well and love them. But what you see in a Jewish menorah is seven lamps. And I want to just start with this center one, because in my mind, the center one, the one that runs right straight up the shaft represents Jesus. And I want you to turn in your Bible to Isaiah chapter 11. I think I found what these seven lamps are. I often wonder, why does it say the Holy Spirit is like seven lamps? In fact, some translations say the seven spirits of God. It's really the seven-fold Holy Spirit. There's seven manifestations in your life. Am I Spirit-filled? Am I full of fresh oil? Am I really replenished on a daily basis? Seven ways that you can check that. Now in Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 1, Isaiah is prophesying about Jesus. There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse as Jesus. And a branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding. The Spirit of counsel and might. The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Now in that one verse, verse 2, I can see the seven spirits or the seven aspects of the Holy Spirit in your life. And let me go back to the first and right there in verse 2. Now look at it carefully. That's the only verse you need. The rest of the message today is that one verse right there. And you're going to check each area as we go through. First thing is the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. That's my middle branch. You know, Isaiah didn't know who the Lord was. He didn't know his name. We know his name. What is his name? Come on, say it out loud. Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus is the first lamp of the Spirit. He's called the Spirit of Jesus in the New Testament. And what I learned about the Holy Spirit is he's all about pointing me toward Jesus. He's not excited about himself. He testifies the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. And here's the thing I want you to see. When the Holy Spirit is living in you like full up, fully replenished, you have a sense of intimacy with Jesus. Intimacy with Jesus. See, I didn't say going to church. And I mean going to church is important. I thank the Lord for you being in church today. You could be out somewhere on the lake or the golf course you're here. But let me tell you, intimacy with the Lord is like when Jesus and I are connected like a vine and a branch. And he is my king, my master, my Lord, my worship to him in private is very intimate and real. My time in his word is not just going through a devotional book, but it's actually talking to me directly. The Spirit of the Lord brings my relationship to the Lord where it's very intimate and real. And Christians can go on autopilot if they're not careful. They'd be completely out of oil in this area and still go into church. I heard about a guy that didn't want to go to church. And his mama was waking him up on a Sunday morning and said, you are going to church. He'd turn over, pull his covers over. So I'm not going. And she kept going in there finally. She yelled at me. You are going to church. He said, give me three reasons why I need to go to church. She said, all right, the first thing is it's good for you. You need to be there. The second reason is you're 45 years of age. And the third reason is you're the pastor of that church. How many of you know even pastors can get dry? Did you know that? We can all get mechanical in our devotional life with the Lord. And I just learned, and by the way, angels don't pick me up out of the bed and bring me into my prayer closet in the morning. How about you? I do have to get up, but there's something about intimacy. I mean, this morning at 540, I felt the presence of Jesus. Just when I woke up, I could just sense the presence of the Lord. I don't know who's here. I don't know what you're going through. Don't leave this building with your dipstick low in the area of intimacy. Number two, the spirit of wisdom. The spirit of wisdom in my mind is order. Now, order and wisdom go together. I learned this in Solomon's reign. You know, Solomon was the most organized king. He put his kingdom in order because he had such wisdom. In the book of Acts, it says that the Lord appointed deacons who were full of the spirit and wisdom. The church was out of order. They were overlooking the Hellenistic Jews and the widows. And so he says, this is out of order. We need some deacons who are full of the spirit and wisdom. Now, this is the second area you need to check yourself in. How is the order of your life? If there's confusion, the Holy Spirit is not around. Holy Spirit is not the author of confusion. We read that in 1 Corinthians 14. That means if your checkbook is all out of whack, it's not balanced. You don't know how much money you have. You don't know, you know, I had one lady tell me, I got plenty of money because I still have checks in my checkbook. I said, no, sweetheart, that ain't the way it works. But some of you go to your house, man, your car is out of order. You'd have to use a backhoe to get in the backseat if you needed to. Your closets are out of order. Come on, somebody. In fact, you need to mow your grass in the backyard because you might find a couple of kids you lost a week ago back there. And it's just out of order. And I'm telling you, the Holy Spirit does not operate in wisdom unless there's order. You see, I learned this about money. My money may be out of order. I may not be managing my money wisely. And that's why I keep praying for more. And God says, I've already given it to you. You need to demonstrate it better. My time can be out of order. My marriage can be out of order. It's like a pump at a gas station. If you pull up to this pump and there's a sign hanging over the handle, what does that sign say? Out of order. It's because it doesn't say it's broke. It's out of order. It's not going to produce any gas. It's not going to produce any oil. And that's where order, and I just challenge it secondly. Put your life in order from closets to little garage to tools to money to relationships to marriage to kids. Work right there and you're moving in the second anointing of the Holy Spirit. Here's the third one. Understanding. A spirit of understanding. You say, well, what does that mean? Well, that's anything you don't understand. The Holy Spirit has come to help you understand things you don't understand. I read in Daniel 10 where Daniel had a vision and he didn't understand what it meant. And an angel came and said, I've come as a result of your time of 21 days of fasting and I've come to give you understanding. Now, I kind of think of it as clarity, okay? Clarity. The Holy Spirit in my life wipes the windows of my soul. Baba says we see through a glass structure. We're never going to understand everything about the will of God, but Paul says be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And I've learned that I can be kind of like a blind dog in a meat house. Now, I don't know if y'all get that expression or not. A blind dog in a meat house, he knows it's up there, but he can smell it, but he can't find it. A lot of you are like that. You know that God's got something for you to do, but you don't have the clarity about it. And clarity is when the Lord says, listen, I'm wiping the windows, and I'm going to show you a little bit further than your headlights right now. I'm going to reveal the future. The Bible says the men of Issachar have understanding of the times to know what is your law to do. And I'm claiming that for every one of you here in this building in there at NRH and wherever you are, that when you leave here today, the Holy Spirit is going to show you, and I believe by fasting, what is the will of God in your life? I have never made a major decision in my life without fasting. I didn't hear an amen there. I heard a I rebuke your devil right there. I didn't say fast food. I say fasting food. Oh, Mary, I would die. No, really, you could live off the land for about three days and never even know it. I've learned in a three-day fast. The Lord clarifies my spirit becomes alive, filled with fresh oil. My soul and my body, because it recedes in the background. And now I can begin to see, and in a lengthy protracted fast, I've really seen many things. I could tell you, Lord, help me meet with the governor of Louisiana six years in the governor's mansion. And that happened on a 21-day fast. God gave me clarity. I passed the governor's mansion. I turned and looked at it, and in my spirit, I saw a wind blow that front door open. Just as clear, and I told Melanie, Lord's about to open the door to the governor. And he called me a week later. I'd never met him. He called my office, and he'd been watching my little TV show. He said, I want you to come teach me the whole Bible in four lessons. I mean, he's a bottom line guy. I can't get into that. I'm just telling everybody to say clarity. All right, number four, the spirit of counsel. Now, here's what I've learned about this one. Counsel has to do with decisions. These are all different. First is intimacy, where the Lord brings the Word and prayer and Bible study and church attendance, where it's like exciting to you. And it seems to be here. I really sense the spirit of intimacy on this church. And secondly, the Bible says that there was order, there's wisdom in your life. Thirdly, there's clarity about direction. Fourth is there's counsel about decisions. The Holy Spirit lives in you as a green light or a red light. Now, Christians do not utilize the inward witness like they ought to. When you get ready to buy a house or you get ready to hire a person on your job, or you get ready to marry somebody or move to moose's armpit Manitoba, wherever you're thinking about moving. The Holy Spirit, living in you, has something to say about that. Joshua did not ask counsel from the Lord, and so he entered a treaty with the Gibeonites. It looked good on the outside, but really, they were manipulating and deceiving. You need to listen to the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you, a lot of the problem with the body of Christ today is the lack of discernment and a lack of good decisions. And we call this a yes or a no, because in the Old Testament, the priest had the urine and fuming. And inside that pouch, he could drop the pouch some way and it came out a yes or a no. Now, wouldn't it be nice if you had a little pouch like that? That if you needed a yes or a no, you just dropped that thing and there it is. Well, there's the mind of God, but we don't have that. It's our spirit that teaches us the fourth way I know I'm filled with the spirit is I follow my inward witness. No matter what things look like on the outside, years ago, I saw a Disney movie. And in this movie, it's called a Barefoot Executive. Did any of you see that movie besides me, you know, I have all these kids, so we watch all these silly little movies. And one of the things stuck in my mind about the inward witness, it was this chimpanzee who this guy noticed was watching TV all day, and the chimpanzee would either clap for a show or go, and he didn't like the show. And so the guy started noticing he compared the ratings with the chimp's reaction, and the chimp became the number one selector of programs in the nation. And this guy made tons of money just watching his chimp go, or he go, so I've just learned, I mean, I'm just kind of dumb like that, but I've just learned when I see things, I just wait on the Lord and after a while, here I go, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that's counsel. Really, if you want to ball counsel down, it's really the ability to make one good decision. Can you say amen to that? By the way, if you've made a lifetime of bad decisions, I'm going to give you hope today. All you need is one good decision to bring you out of the woods that your bad decisions have made you. You need counsel. That's what counselors are here for at the church. They're really not here to tell you what to do, but to help you decide a yay or a nay, a yes or no about relationships, about money, and about everything. That's the fourth manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Number five, the spirit of might. I like this one. You know, we care as maniacs, we really like this verse. The spirit of might, we always think of power. When I was a missionary in Africa, they don't say power. They say, "Power." And they say, "It is our, our of power." Try that. You'll be speaking African. It is our, our of power. Now, a lot of you don't even understand what that means. It is our, our, in Texas, our, our power. And by the way, they don't say far. They say, "Fire." Come on, Jesus, light my... Yeah. We're familiar with this fifth one, the spirit of might and strength. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you. Now, if you're dry and you're not moving in the fresh oil of the Holy Spirit, you're no different from a person who has not received the fullness of the Spirit. And, you know, you can sit up in a, you know, charismatic church or spirit field and still not feel energy, fire, life, power. You know, my daddy is 90 years old. He's been in the ministry 64 years. He was married to my mama until October of this last year, 63 years and nine months to the same lady, sitting on the love seat, loving on each other. And my daddy is 90, but he's filled with the spirit. I'll meet him every day. He lives next to me and he kicks his leg and he shouts and he praises the Lord because daddy is filled with the spirit of might. Look, Samson killed a thousand men with the job on of the donkey. Elijah outran ahab to just real. When you really think about the power of God, it's the oil of joy. It's the garment of praise. It's the ability to wake up in the morning like Fred Finstone and say, "Yabba dabba dude." Do you remember that? I mean, it's like, God, Lord, I love life. Lord, I'm excited. I woke up this morning. I looked out over the west Texas, over the east Texas sun rising and it was rising right over y'all's new building property out over there. Oh, hallelujah. And I looked at it and I thought, what a wonderful day to be alive. How many of you glad to be alive today? Yeah, I give the Lord praise. That's the spirit of the Lord. We're not down. We're not defeated. We're not in the mully grubs and the cane help us. We're not down and out and grumpy. I heard about one lady went to work and her neighbor in the little cubicle next year looked at her and her face was a little down and she says, "Man," and said, "You know, you kind of woke up grumpy this morning, didn't you?" She said, "No, I just decided to let him sleep late today." That's a good one for you ladies, by the way. You know, we don't need to be grumpy. Can you say amen to that? We're spirit-filled people. We're praising people. We have the nine gifts of the spirit. We have the prayer language. We have spiritual warfare. We are people of might and power, and I don't know if you're feeling weak and timid and fearful and powerless, but today the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is dwelling in you, and He's quickening your mortal body by the Holy Spirit. We're people of power and of fire. Amen? Number six, not only is the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge. Now you say, "Well, what is knowledge?" Knowledge is what you don't know. I think in the book of Exodus about Bezalel, how that he was given the task to build the tabernacle. Nobody had ever built a tabernacle, but it says he was filled with the spirit of knowledge, and he was a craftsman and an artisan, and he built the tabernacle. Now that's knowledge. Knowledge about stuff that you don't know how to do, but you've been called upon to do it. I got a college degree. I thank the Lord for it, but it was not in business administration. It was in ministry, and here I am managing this big church with multiple campuses and places all over the world. I don't know what I'm doing. I just have to tell you, I'm in way over my head, but thank God when I'm walking on the water, Jesus says everything that's over your heads under my feet. Amen? So I know I'm over my head, but education alone is not enough to equip you to do what God's called you to do. It's kind of like that little girl went to school, and she told her teacher, she raised her hand, she said, "Did you know that Jonah got swallowed by a whale?" This agnostic teacher was real haughty about it, and she says, "No, he did not." She said, "Oh, yes, he did. He was swallowed by a whale. My Sunday school teacher told me he was." She said, "Well, I'll have you know that whale's jaw cannot even unhinge enough to swallow human being. Plus, the esophagus is not big enough. Plus, they swallowed plankton, and plus he would drown, and plus, and plus, and plus." Says, "So there, Jonah was not swallowed by a whale." She said, "Well, when I get to heaven," she said, "I'm just going to ask Jonah if he was swallowed by a whale." And the teacher said, "Oh, but what if he's in hell?" And she said, "Well, then you can ask him." Shake your right hand if you feel the anointing now. Let me tell you, education is not everything. Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. I'm looking around this room, and you there at NRH, and you in the overflow. You're dealing with business situations, and you're dealing with kids. Raising since kids is hazardous to your health. Did you know that? You don't know what you're doing. I guarantee you if I sat down with you and asked you about what you're doing, you'd have to say, "I have this insecurity. I don't know what I'm doing, really." But here I am in this position, and the Lord says, "I'm going to give you knowledge." And I tell you, the Holy Spirit gives me knowledge about stuff, marketing, and business, and media, and we own this TV station radio. I didn't know about how to do that, but it's just the Lord. And now I'm going to bring you to the last one, Spirit of the Spirit of the Lord. I don't hear a lot of teaching about this seventh one. The Spirit of the Spirit of the Lord. What we mean by that is integrity. If I dip the dipstick down in this seventh branch of the spirits of the Lord, this is one you don't hear a lot about. That's why I wrote the book, The Remnant, because I got involved there at New Life Church. Of course, Brady Boyd, I interviewed him. We ended up making him the pastor there. What a blessing that man of God is there. But I just have seen, you know, it's not how hotshot you are, or how fast your star rises. It's how long you keep walking in purity before the Lord. And I have all presuppositions are off. All pretenses are off for me. Now, I am what you see. I live the same 24 hours a day. Integrity means hold us. It means sameness. I'm the same at seven in the morning, on Monday morning. I'm the same on Wednesday night at church. I'm the same. I live my life with purity, with integrity, and with innocence. And that's an example in a model. I'll be teaching on it in the pastor's conference. Let me tell you something. This thing is no longer about how high you jump. It's about how straight you walk when you come back to the ground. Integrity, purity, all of those things. Acts 5, Ananias and Sephira, good charismatic Christians brought some money to the church. But they were lying. They were not being truthful. They withheld a part of the sum. And Peter said, I'm sorry, but you've grieved the Holy Spirit. And you know what happened to them? I heard a guy preaching on him one time, he called him Ananias and Chef Maria. And I didn't even know who he was preaching about. Ananias and Sephira. But let me tell you something. The reality of it is there are people in this room. Now, listening to me, you, and maybe on the internet, the other campus, things are not right in your life. You may be living with somebody. It's not cohabitation. That's fornication. It's shacking up. You might be living with secret sin in your life on the internet. You might be dealing financially with some underhanded things, cutting corners, stealing a little from here, taking a few things from the workplace. And stuff is in your life. And you know, in reality, the Lord is dealing with you about it, but you're out of oil. I find it interesting to see how quickly people can slip into a pattern of compromise. I have to stay very low before the Lord. Pastor Robert, and I talked about it last night, we stay very low. I found out you can't fall when you fly it on the ground. I just humble myself. I said, Lord, I need you on a daily basis. And I'm not compromising my life for you, for myself, or anybody. I know that Jesus lives in me by his spirit, and he will guide me, and he will show me, and we call that the spirit of the fear of the Lord. Somewhere in this room, God is dealing with people, and I want you to close your eyes with me. After this prayer, I'm going to let you stand, and I'm going to have some leaders come forward at both campuses and there in the overflow areas. And they're going to pray with you. Seven areas, you say, I didn't know being Spirit Phil was all that. Yes, it is. Let the spirit search you down to the inward parts. The Bible says the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord searching the inward parts of his belly. Is there intimacy for Jesus, or is that dried up? Is there wisdom? Is there order in your life? Is there clarity? Is there ability to make decisions? Is there a power and a joy? Is there a knowledge and areas that you don't understand that you're listening for the Lord? And is there a purity in your motives, your money, your marriage? Why don't you put your hand right over your heart? Everybody do that. Now, Lord, I just pray for the precious members of this powerful congregation if they would be Spirit-filled. Lord, if there are people in this room that are not right with you, if they died in the next 30 seconds, they don't know where they'd spend eternity, heaven or hell. Lord, God, don't let a man leave here and go get in his pickup truck, not be right with God. Don't let a lady leave here with sin in her heart. Father, convict of sin, righteousness and judgment, Holy Spirit. I pray even during this invitation, people would walk forward and say, I need to give my life to the Lord. Thank you, Lord, for filling people with joy, filling people with power, filling people with wisdom that need to make decisions about a relationship in the name of Jesus. I thank you for it, Lord.