Demonstration Of The Spirit | Pastor John Greiner

In this episode, “Demonstration of the Spirit,” the speaker shares why the church desperately needs more than clever sermons and polished delivery—we need the Holy Spirit to “show off.” Using 1 Corinthians 2 as the foundation, he contrasts persuasive words with true demonstrations of God’s power that anchor people’s faith in the Spirit, not in personalities or performance. Through stories of revivals, healings, holy laughter, and unexpected moves of God, he shows how demonstrations both transform believers and convict unbelievers, bringing rest and refreshing to a weary, pressured church. Listeners are invited to yield to the Holy Ghost, step out of their comfort zone, and become active participants in cultivating an atmosphere where God can move freely in these critical end-time days.

Chapters

• 0:00 Love, Unity, And A Miracle Atmosphere
• 1:10 Paul’s Model: Power Over Persuasion
• 3:05 What “Demonstration” Really Means
• 5:30 Glory Vs. Hero Worship In Churches
• 8:20 Where Anointing Goes Missing
• 11:10 Conviction For Sinners, Not Saints
• 14:00 Signs Of An Apostle: Patience To Power
• 17:30 Malta: Shaking Off The Viper
• 19:50 Helping Or Hindering The Move
• 22:30 Physical And Spiritual Manifestations
• 25:10 Revivals That Restore What We Lost
• 28:20 From Healing To Fivefold Restoration
• 31:00 Holy Laughter And Yielding Joy
• 34:10 Running In The Spirit At Lakewood
• 37:40 How To Yield Without Fear
• 40:00 Rest For The Weary: Matthew 11

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Lift our Bibles up. Wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad say this together. So, Heavenly Father, we are so glad to be here tonight. Love plus unity equal miracles. It's a miracle atmosphere. Because we've been worshiping you and exalting the name of Jesus. Loving on you and loving on each other. Lord, what a wonderful privilege to be here in the presence of people of like precious faith. In Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Praise God. Let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Glad y'all are here tonight. We just never take it for granted. We have faithful people that love God, they're hungry for more. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, and we'll start reading with verse 1. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with the excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. Everybody shout demonstration. My preaching was not with enticing, and my margin says persuasive or persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. Why? So that your faith should not stand or be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. And so tonight just uh wanted to share with you a message entitled Demonstration of the Spirit. Demonstration of the Spirit. The word demonstration is only used one time in the Bible. It's kind of hard to believe that. But as powerful as demonstration is and was, and it was just part and parcel of the early church, part and parcel of Jesus' ministry, demonstration, uh, it's amazing that there's only there one time in the Bible. So it's easy for me to believe then that the church has missed a huge part of what it means to uh have the kind of preaching we need. Uh notice Paul said, uh, I didn't lean on fancy preaching. You know, he was an educated man. He was very educated. He had a vocabulary that was above most people. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel. He's a Jewish scholar. He forgot more about the word than most people knew. And yet he did not lean on his much learning. He said, I've I just put all that aside. I decided I'm not gonna go with that. I'm going on Jesus Christ and him crucified. That's what I'm I'm majoring in. If the Holy Ghost doesn't show up and back me up, I'm dead in the water. It's another word, another way of looking at it. He didn't have any fancy messages. And so this Greek word that's that's that's translated demonstration is the Greek word apodexis, and it's from a root that means to show off. So you could say his preaching and his teaching were accompanied by showings off of the Holy Ghost. I mean, you know the Holy Ghost loved to show off. The Holy Ghost loves to manifest himself. Another word for that is glory. How many of you want to, how many of you want the glory? I mean, we want, you know, Moses wanted the glory. Lord, show me your glory. And he had to hide him in the cleft of the rock and just kind of pass by him, and all that all the amount of glory that Moses could stand to see was just his hinder parts going past. I mean, he could not, he couldn't stand to see the glory of God. So the glory of God is demonstration of the Spirit. I like demonstration, I like demonstrated. It puts demons in dire straits when the Holy Ghost starts showing off. How many of you want more demonstration? I mean, this church wouldn't even be here if we didn't have demonstration of the spirit. This church would not exist if we didn't have demonstration of the spirit, because there's one thing we don't have, and that's fancy preaching. We don't have a, we don't have somebody up here that's got a fancy uh lexicon and can. I mean, look, I've seen guys who call themselves men of God, they were not anointed, but they could spin a fancy message. I mean, they could they could preach, they could make people go, wow, listen to him. Well, they're not looking at the right person of God, all they're all focused on the messenger, and he's nothing. He's the gravy boat. How many of you did y'all know what a gravy boat is? It's it's Thanksgiving time. We're, you know, this is the time to break out the gravy boat because your Turkey and dressing without the gravy is not much there. You've got to have the gravy. And my mother has it, we use her china, and she's got a gravy boat in there. It's it's it's first of all, it's it's a molded piece of china, and it's shaped like a boat. It's got a handle and a spout, and it's welded on, it's molded to a saucer so that when you pour, you know, all the excess runs and catches it, it doesn't get on your nice linen tablecloth. And men with that, so what we have never ever said, oh, look at that gravy boat. No, it's the gravy inside the gravy boat that we're looking for. Then I want the Holy Ghost. I don't care about the vessel. I don't care about how fancy or not fancy the message is. I want the Holy Ghost to show up and show out. Glory to God. And he does, and I tell you, he does. Paul said the reason is so that their faith would rest in the power of God rather than in human philosophy. We have so much hero worship in the culture. And that's been moved over into the church. It's been something that's that uh the church, I remember Brother Hagin had to battle that, you know, because, you know, we had, you know, Brother Hagin was a prophet of God, a true prophet. And of course, Rhema Bible Training Center, which is now a college, it's an accredited uh college now, and they have college credits. You can go on from there and get a degree, so forth and so on. But it started out just basically as a one-year thing to just get people on fire to go out and spread the word. And then it went to two years. Now it's at three years, but uh they've added on to what Brother Hagan originally thought about, but he he had in mind, God spoke to him, you know, to spread the message of faith through the whole church. You know, the church didn't have demonstration. The church at large, you take all these big ironcladded, dead tombs of denominations that skip the charismatic revival. You know, the charismatic revival touched every denomination. And the people that got touched by the baptism of the Holy Ghost and by and large left their denomination, and all the thing that's left behind is just a shell. It's dead. And a lot of them get over into the wokeism, a lot of them get over, they get away from the Bible, they get into, you know, uh the homosexual, ordination of homosexual, and all of that. I mean, they're completely Ichabod. Ichabod means the glory departed, or there is no, there ain't no demonstration there. They might have a Bible study, but it's funny papers. It's not anointed to help you. So uh Brother Hagin realized that after a number of years he went back and was finding out that his churches had just kind of, instead of having demonstration, they're they're teaching the Bible, all right. They're teaching the word of faith, and they're teaching Mark 11, 23, but they're not allowing the Holy Ghost to demonstrate and to show out, and they're not leaning on any of the gifts of the Spirit. They just kind of dried out like what I call, he didn't call it that, but I call it Word of Faith Baptist. It's no, it's no different than a Bible church. It's no different. There's no Holy Ghost there. They're preaching pretty much the same. I I never will forget the first time that I saw that, and I realized that. I went to a funeral was in our first building, and we had a young man and his wife are coming. He was an usher and his mother died. She went to a big church that was word of faith. I knew the pastor, knew of him. I didn't know him personally. But they're word of faith now. They they preach the same word that we pray, preach, and they purport to be charismatic, full of the Holy Ghost. But it's just a funeral. And so I walk in the church and the minister gets up and starts praying, and it's not the pastor. The pastor's on a trip. I didn't know that at first. I mean, I, you know, it's a big church, so the pastor's maybe not going to be able to do the funeral. I mean, you know, I can't. Back in those years, I did all the funerals, but later on, as things grew and time went on, I've delegated some, and now I'd hardly ever do a funeral anymore. And so, uh, but anyway, it wasn't anything, but I was listening for the minister to open in prayer, and it was no anointing on it. And he was, he had quoted scripture. It's there was nothing that I could hear that was wrong, but it was nut it was flat as a flitter. And what I'm used to is the Holy Ghost. I'm used to an atmosphere. And there wasn't, and so I thought, what is this? What's mat what's wrong? I mean, he's not like he's preaching out of the tower, you know, the Quran or something. And so, you know, it went on. And there, the pastor and his wife, they were on a trip and they did a video because this mother really was a mother of a church. She was really a wonderful person, was very involved in the founding of the church, and everybody knew this lady, and she was like a real matriarch of faith, and they wanted to honor her, and they did. The pastor and his wife both had something to say about this lady. I kept waiting for the anointing, and I didn't feel a lick of anointing. And I thought, what is this all about? How could this be? How could you have a church like this, have the Bible like we preach it, and not have an anointing? Well, if you don't let the Holy Ghost move, he's gonna get grieved and he's not gonna show up. You can just have your nice little fancy sermon. You can have, you can have three or four thousand, that church seat seated three or four thousand people, and they were packed on Sunday morning. And three or four thousand people, it won't make a difference because if the Holy Ghost is there and not there, I mean, they're not gonna get anything worth it, worth anything. So I'm sitting there trying to figure it out. And all the way. So then they had a minister come and actually preach the funeral. He used the words, he used the right scriptures that I would probably use if I was preaching her funeral. He did a good job, no anointing. So I went to the Lord and he said, you know, this is what Brother Hagin has come up against. He's that's why he's traveling at his age, at that time. He's he's in his 70s, and I mean, you know, he's he's thinking his traveling days are over. I mean, he's really a patriarch, he's a father of the faith. He shouldn't have to travel anymore. He traveled his whole life. Why should he have to get in an airplane or anything else and go to some podunk town and go to one of the Rhema churches and have to preach every week, every week, every week, because his, a lot of his ministers had given out and quit preaching with demonstration. Everybody say demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Why? So you're not into hero worship, that you're not putting on a man what belongs only to God. Come on, let's lift our hands right now. God, you you stand alone. You're unrighteous. There's no rival. You have no rival. We sang, we sang exactly what we needed to sing tonight for this message. Because there is no, he is, he has no rival. He has no equal. Glory to God. No, our faith rests in the power of God when the power of God shows up. Demonstration is proof that God is present. And demonstration brings transformation for believers and conviction of sin for the unbeliever. And so, for conviction of sin, see, I mean, the Holy Ghost doesn't convict the believer of sin, he convicts the unbeliever of sin. I've heard I heard a message the other day about somebody that went on and on about conviction. I was convicted. No, the Holy Ghost doesn't do that. That's not his job for believers. No. Your own spirit will let you know when you've erred, but it ain't the Holy Ghost that tells you. The Holy Ghost never will never rebuke you. He'll remind you sometimes, but he won't. Listen, that's not his job. Your own spirit will do that. And if you're so far from God that your spirit is not gonna rise up and and and get you your conscience hurts you when you've erred, you know, we're all close to God. You wouldn't be here on Sunday night if you weren't close to God. So you can't hardly do anything wrong without your conscience hurting you. And I know you're like me. When your conscience hurts you, you stop down right now. Oh Lord, I'm sorry. I I sinned. I'm sorry. Forgive me right now. You put that under the blood. I mean, right now, you put it under the blood. You don't wait till next week or next year. You don't wait to go fast and pray and go away and wait for the Holy Ghost to convict you of no, your own spirit will tell you when you've missed the mark, and that's the time when you're supposed to get right. But the Holy Spirit in demonstration will convict the sinner. And that's why, you know, when I'm on Thanksgiving or Christmas or the holidays, I mean, you know, we don't we don't try to try to mask what we believe. We let the Holy Ghost do whatever he wants to do because without him, nobody's gonna get saved. If they're here to get saved, I mean, sometimes people come in this church, we don't know everybody that comes through the door sometimes. I'm telling you, when the Holy Ghost is allowed to move, conviction can fall on the biggest sinner you ever saw, and they can get saved. I prayed here a few weeks ago. There was a young man came up, and I didn't know who he was, and we call for first-time guests, and he's a young man, about 16. It was a Sunday morning, and I'm standing down there, you know, and he comes up and he is crying, but he's trying to hide it. He was, I'm telling you, he was just, he was a young Hispanic young man, and you know, man, I'm telling you, their culture, they that man, they don't like to cry much less in front of anybody. And he can't hold it in. And I recognize immediately he was under conviction of sin. He was guilty. Oh, come on, lift your hand right now. I mean, I don't even know what I preached. I didn't preach to him, I didn't try to lasso him and get him. It was the Holy Ghost convicted him of sin. He needed to get saved, and he got saved. And I got to stand and take him out. Come on, lift your hand right now, thank God. I just I'm not gonna trade demonstration for anything. I don't care. There's no way we're gonna have it. So Brother Hagin spent the last number of years of his life going around to Word of Faith churches, Rhema churches, and correcting and taking them back to what they had learned under his roof and what he had demonstrated in service after service after service. And that's why they have, I mean, they keep real close, you know, as a as a group. I mean, they get together as former students and they come back to the, you know, every, especially winter Bible seminars, the biggest time that they all come, and but they come at other times. And he, you know, and now his son, uh Brother Hagan, uh, that's now there, and he's in his 80s already, but he goes around to Rhema churches and makes sure they've got demonstration. I'm telling you, we can't drift away from letting the Holy Ghost show out and show up. So, you know, the fancy preaching, the oratory, the homiletics, I have a word for it. I call it fluff and bluster. The adventures of fluff and bluster be like a cartoon. That's about what it's worth. You know, all this spitting and all this, you know, all this waving the hands and all that. Listen, I tell you some of the best. I Mark, Mark uh can preach like nobody. He can he likes to teach, but you know, he'll get, he'll preach teach. I I wish I could do that. I wish I could preach like he does. Man, he preaches. I just love the way he does it. Brother Osteen, in his older age, you know, he went through a heart attack and he had an open heart surgery, and so he, you know, he felt a little bit constrained, and and so he would just kind of just teach. He wouldn't let himself get too excited. And he would just teach, teach, teach. When it was wonderful. It was wonderful. I just always, brother, brother Osteen was always, I wouldn't let myself like someone else better than him. He's my father, he's my he's my pastor. I'm gonna prefer him over anybody else. Of course, right under that was Brother Haken, you know, a second. But but brother, brother Osteen, so he, I mean, you know, Gladys and I would just get the biggest kick out of his, no matter how many times we heard his stories. Oh, brother, Brother Osteen, let us let us let's tell that that's number 101, Brother Osteen. Let us tell the story. And uh he had his stories, they were so good. And he was funny. He could have been a stand-up comic. He was so funny. But one time, you know, he asked me, he said, now John, we had Family Life Institute, and he said, you know, John, I understand you want to preach on the Holy Ghost, but he said, would you mind? He said, I know you could do that, but if you would mind, I really want you to preach and teach this next eight weeks on redemption. And I said, Well, I'll do anything you tell me. I mean, I don't have to, you know, I don't have to preach on the Holy, I love preaching on the Holy Ghost, but if you want me to, I'll preach on redemption. Yeah. He said, now I did a six-part series back in the 70s. Now, John, I did this back when before I knew better. See, I know better now. I don't do this anymore, but this is a lot of preaching. It's pretty loud. And I said, oh, Brother Osteen, I know I'm gonna enjoy it. I mean, I know I will. And so he gave me these six cassettes to take home and just kind of get what he believed about redemption. And I started listening to it, and I mean that man, he did what Brother Mark Hankins does. He preached taught. He, I mean, he didn't leave the scripture out, but I mean he was present. Man, I mean, he's good, he's raising his voice, he's busting his veins. I mean, he's getting, he is spitting cotton, and he, I mean that, I mean it just, I got so tickled and I got so blessed. I went back to Brother Osteen. I said, now, Brother Osteen, please take this right, but please don't ever apologize for what you did on these tapes. I said, man, that was so good. I could take some more of this. He said, Oh, John, you know, they don't need all that. They just need good. Well, maybe so, but it doesn't hurt to have a little preaching every now and then. Glory to God. Thank you, Lord. So, fancy preaching, isn't it? It's it's the word and the spirit that brings growth and glorifies God. Now I'm reminded that 2 Corinthians 12, 12, where Paul uh he had to write them two letters. You know, they didn't get it the first time. So he had to write two letters to the Corinthian church. They had so many things wrong. And he's got your first and 2 Thessalonians, first and 2nd, you know, Peter had the same thing, first and 2 Peter, you know, John had you know three letters, you know. So not everybody caught on the first letter that they get from Daddy. But anyway, in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, uh, let's turn there. I'm talking about demonstration of the Spirit. And I know that the more you preach on this and teach on this, because you have a part to play in it, it's not all on me, and it's not all on the worship team. We all have something to do with it, whether it happens or whether it doesn't happen. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. And uh he said, verse 12. He i i at first he's going through all the trouble that he had. So let's let's look at that. Verse 7, lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. I've heard error on that too. Like Jesus or God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble. That's not what it says. It said it was given to me, and it didn't say who gave it, but we know who gave it. It's the devil. The devil was afflicting him. It was a thorn in the flesh. And really, when you go back to the Old Testament, uh, thorns and all of that were people, people that came against you, people that opposed you. It was the unsaved Jews that accompanied, it went behind him and always stirred up trouble all the time. You know, another time he said, you know, they're they're enemies for the gospel's sake, but they're the uh beloved for the Father's sake. And so, anyway, so he had all this trouble. Everybody say trouble. And it was because of the abundance of the revelations that was given to me a thorn in the flesh. And then he tells you what it was, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. I mean, the devil didn't want him to succeed. The devil is the one that's trying to knock him down. The devil's the one that's trying to discourage you. The devil is the one that's trying to condemn me. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, three times. I asked the Lord that it might depart from me. See that now that doesn't make you laugh because he hadn't been listening to my preaching then. See, he didn't have revelation yet of his authority over the devil. He had no business asking God to do anything about the devil. He's got all the authority he needs to run the devil off. So he's what is he doing? He's having a pity party. Don't look so innocent. Oh, get this off of me. No, you get it off of you. You throw it off. And he said unto me, Jesus, so sweet. He didn't thump him in the side of the head. He said, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect and weak. Most gladly, therefore. Then see he changed his attitude. Most gladly, then, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ might dwell on me. He said, In other words, the rougher it gets, the more I'm going to use my authority, and God's power is sufficient. God's grace is God's ability to do anything. God's ability came on him to rebuke those messengers of Satan. They're people. I said, They're people, not, you know, the people, not your enemy, it's the devil's inside those people. Are you with me now? So therefore, I take pleasures, verse 10, in infirmities, reproaches, and necessities, and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake, for when I'm weak, then am I strong. See, he's got to talk to himself. He's got to realize that the more trouble there is, the more power there is on him to reverse it. I become a fool in glorying. You've compelled me, for I ought to have been commended of you, for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. Then he says, Truly, the signs of an apostle will wrought among you in all patience and signs and wonders and in mighty deeds. Everybody say the signs of an apostle. See, that's demonstration of the Spirit. See, God backs him up everywhere he goes. When he preaches, the Holy Ghost shows up and says, Stamp of approval, this man is from me. Listen to him, take heed what he says. And notice the first thing, the first sign on the list of things. I mean, I used to quote it wrong. The first few times I quoted it, I forgot about the patience. Patience is the first sign of the apostle. Surely the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience. And then signs and wonders and what mighty deeds. You're sitting in a mighty deed here tonight. This land was a mighty deed. The supply of that land and how it all turned out was a mighty deed. We're going to hear about some more mighty deeds with my God votes. I mean, this is these are mighty deeds, folks. These are signs. This is a this this demonstration of the spirit and of power. So I think about another one that when Paul was on the Isle of Malta, remember, you know, the big great storm, and he had everybody rode to shore on broken pieces of the ship. And, you know, not one person died. All the ship was destroyed, all the lading of the ship was gone, all the cargo was gone, and they got over on the Isle of Malta, and it was cold in there out of that cold water, you know, and they built this fire, and and uh, you know, Paul went over there and a viper came out of the fire and fastened his hand uh on Paul's hand and hand and he shook it off. He shook off the viper into the fire and felt no harm. And then, you know, they were saying, oh, he's snake bit, he's gonna fall dead now, probably because he deserves it. He's probably not as holy. He's not a holy Joe, he's a crummy Joe. He's probably somebody that's got all, he's probably a murderer just like us, you know, blah blah blah and started. And he didn't feel he didn't feel any harm. He felt no harm. And then they decided, well, he must be a God. They started trying to worship him. They went from condemned, they went just like that, from condemning him to worshiping him. Oh, I'm talking about signs of an apostle. So what did they do? I mean, they got they've the the island, they he got introduced to the chief of the island, the head honcho, who was sick with a bloody flux, and he laid hands on him and got him healed, and the whole island had a revival before he was done with it. Everybody say demonstration. Glory to God. Revival on the Isle of Malta. I don't think they kept it. Too bad. They need we need to go back to Malta. Anybody want to go to Malta? No, I don't. Anyway, I'll go if God. I'll go if God tells me to go. I've learned not to say I don't ever want to go there. I just I know that's where I'll be headed next week. You know, we can help or we can hinder demonstrations. See, it's not just up to the preacher, it's not just just the worship team or the song selection, or you know, really, it's it's really how we individually respond. And that's why I'm teaching this, because we have new people, and I've been around so many services, I've been in so many different kinds of churches, both attending and also preaching. I mean, I preach in some dead churches. I preached in a church in Halifax, Nova Scotia a few years ago, and I mean, you talk about dead. I mean, they were the frozen chosen. And yet they claimed that they had the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but they didn't have any fruit. And it, I mean, you know, and I what was I teaching? I was teaching on prosperity, and they were just really for poverty. They didn't want to hear prosperity. And so the ch after the first morning service, I I preached and and I thought I'd I'd laid it out pretty good, you know. And uh there were a couple of businessmen that were there. I heard that they were coming to check me out, some of his businessmen that were on his board of demons or board of uh whatever they were, deacons, I guess. And uh they didn't like my message. See, they believed in poverty. They wanted to stay broke, they wanted to keep what they had and make sure that they, you know, had their status, but they didn't like this prosperity message. So Pastor called me at the hotel and says, Hey, you know, uh I had some of my deacons were at their meeting this morning. They would like to have a meeting. I said, I'm not meeting with them. I'm here to preach. If they don't like what I preach, tell them to stay away. They're hindering the meeting. As a matter of fact, I paid my own way to come here, Pastor. So if you don't like me to preach, I'll be glad to stay at the hotel and and uh eat and charge the church for my meals until I leave. I don't have to preach. I don't have to preach another minute, so just tell me. If you don't like what I'm preaching, just say no. Now's the time, though, because I'll be getting ready for the next time. But I paid my way, you didn't pay anything. And he kind of was silent, you know, you could you know Canadians, they're just so golly. Oh, if you're from Canada, I still love you. But anyway, don't go back. You're better off in Texas. But anyway, so you know the story was after three or four days, they liked prosperity. I mean, they moved. I'm telling you, demonstration hit that place. The Holy Ghost started backing me up, and I'm telling you that place came alive. But you can help or hinder demonstration depending on how you respond. You know, you sit there like this. Well, I don't know about that. I don't know. No, none of you would do that because you're here on Sunday night. But but really, I've I've I've seen all kinds, I mean, you know, I've seen people just be resistant. You can kind of read body language, you read the room, see what people are, you know, or how they're responding. And uh, and so how will you respond? Will you yield to the Holy Ghost? Even if your brain says, man, I've never seen anything quite like this. Never seen anything like this. Wow. And, you know, you ought to, you know, what I tell people, you ought to at least give us the benefit of the doubt. We've been doing this a long time. This church is gonna be 31 years old. I mean, if we if we weren't approved by God, we'd have died a long time ago. I'd be in heaven by now. That tells you something. Where churches are almost like uh Asian restaurants, you know, Asian Chinese restaurants, they open today and close tomorrow. I don't know, a few weeks ago I was hungry for something and I was looking for anything different. I'd got tired of hamburgers, you know. I mean, I'm getting tired of fast food, and I saw this Chinese restaurant, and I thought, man, I wonder if they've got some decent Chinese food in there. And so I went up to the front door and it was locked. It's one o'clock in the afternoon. And I found out all they do is just take online orders for uh DoorDash and stuff like them, grub hub and all. They don't even have a dining room. I looked in the window and there's not even any seats in there. Nobody goes in there to eat. They just go in there for an order to go. I thought, man, I ain't eating that slop. There's no telling what animal they kill to make the uh Moo guy pan. I'm not sure what was in the moo. Do they even still have that? I don't know. That was my first Chinese food that I ever ate, it was moo goo guy pan. That was all I'd ordered for a long time because I didn't understand what I was looking at. You know, if I can't understand what I'm looking at, it's hard for me to put it in my mouth and eat. I understand Mexican food. I grew up on Mexican food. I understand enchiladas, I understand reed fried beans, and I want more of that. I want more of it. But Chinese food is different. So will you respond? Will you yield to the Holy Ghost or will you resist? Will you resist and stay in the comfort zone? Well, you know, I don't know about that. I don't know about dancing. I just don't know about, I don't know about hopping around. I don't know about all that laughing. I don't know about all that hand waving. There's two kinds of demonstration, and you might be surprised to know that physical is one of them. Physical demonstration. Because the Holy Ghost will cause people who are fully yielded to him to do things they don't normally do. We'll get into that. Everybody say physical. And then, of course, there's a spiritual demonstration. And so the revivals that we have witnessed and that I've studied, all revivals will bring back that which has waned or decreased in the church that the church used to have. That's why it's revival. It's revived, it's brought back to life. It's brought back to demonstration again. After a period of time, things start cooling off. Every revival is the same way. It gets hot, it's going big guns, people are yielding to the Spirit of God, things are moving, and then gently, you know, men will try to build a fence around it and say, this is my revival, this is for my church and my four and no more, and this is what we do over here. We baptize people in the name of Jesus only, and we don't we don't like people that baptize people in the name of uh the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. We'll take it up with Jesus. He's the one that said it, dummy. You missed a religion. See, this is Pentecostal. They built a wall around the Pentecostal revival. And then they got racist about it. You know, oh no, we can't have these people over here. They're the wrong color. It's just gonna. And I'm telling you right, the Holy Ghost leaves, I mean, right now, when you start monkeying around with God's stuff. Are you with me now? So we've had revivals of doctrines. I mean, you know, for instance, salvation by faith had gone away. The Roman church had stomped stomped it out for their own personal reasons. They wanted to stay in control of the people in the pew. So all the power was in the clergy. They uh got rid of people reading the Bible for themselves, told them, in fact, discouraged, the Roman church discouraged their reading of the Bible. You can't understand it. That's why we have these priests. They go to school for 312 years and they know all about the Bible, don't know anything about life, but they know all about the Bible, and it's all fouled up. What they know is all fouled up. It's it's, you know, they've got traditions of men mixed in with the word. And so people are not reading their own Bible, so they got, they got the church was corrupt. They had these false popes. They had they had corruption in the church. Is what happens when God goes out the door and men take over. And so Martin Luther had a genuine revival. He speared the revival of the church. He broke away from the Latin church and came over and put an indictment on the cathedral at Wims, Germany, and basically brought a revival of salvation by faith alone, which is what the Bible teaches. He had a revelation that the church had gone completely out, and he began to teach being born again. He was a flawed man. He was anti-Semit Semitism. He was a flaming anti-Semite, and yet God used him to bring a revival of the doctrine of salvation by uh through faith, by grace, through faith alone. And say, how many of you glad for that? I mean, I'm glad that he lived and he brought that revival. Uh, we've had demonstrations uh, even uh, of the spirit that God brought back in, you know, just like healing, the healing revival. Healing was always part of the early church, and then it people started making up excuses for it not to occur. Well, what had happened? Well, they got rid of demonstration. Men got a hold of the church and started massaging it and and changing it, and so the Holy Ghost gets grieved, and he's not healing anybody because they're not they're not right about it. And so, you know, then you had the healing revival. You mean he quit healing? Well, it was pretty rare, and when people did get healed, they didn't give the proper uh, you know, the proper credit to who it who it was. And uh, and so then you've had you've it even had uh revival of offices. So for the longest time, you know, the only offices that anybody recognized in the church was the pastor and uh the evangelist. That's it. And really mostly just the pastor. I mean, it was pretty hard to find an evangelist, really. There weren't that many of them. And so then, you know, you had the revival in the 70s, you had the revival of the teacher, the actual Bible teacher. I'm talking about the office of teacher. I'm not talking about somebody that teaches a Bible study. We have lots of people like that, and and we have a wonderful group of folks that that are able to teach the word. I mean, really, any Holy Ghost person ought to be able to teach the word to somebody else. But then there's an office of the Bible teacher, and so that's a different anointing. That's an anointing that that that God has to give, and it's recognized by other ministers, and then you you you know, you pay the price, you start teaching, and then you're noticed, you realize you have a special anointing to teach, and and uh so forth and so on. We've got lots of wonderful teachers that we love. Uh Brother Norville Hayes was a great Bible teacher. Uh I'm thinking, you know, Charles Camps, a Bible teacher. He was the office of the teacher. Later on, I think he became something else. I don't know. But um, so in the 70s, the 60s, you had the charismatic revival in mainline denominations. All the denominations were exposed to the, and I mentioned earlier, a lot of the people that were in those denominations left and went over into non-denominational churches. That's where pla big churches like Lakewood were born from that. In the 80s, you had the restoration of the prophets' ministry. The prophets had been around and people knew that there were prophets in the 50s and 60s and 70s, but it it became underlined and you had more teaching along the prophetic way. And then the 90s was the revitalization of the apostolic. You had more light, more revelation about what it means to be in the apost and apostolic. So now you've got the church as being revived and brought back to more of a the church, the early church having all five-fold ministries. The apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher. You need all five. And that was a process that God did, and it took what? Demonstration of the Spirit. It took people to yield to that idea and not to fight against it and to flow with it. Are y'all with me now? And uh and so then, so the spiritual manifestations, the gifts of the spirit and all of that. And uh, you'll get into the physical manifestations that I mentioned earlier, you know, back in the 90s, we had uh a lot of laughing became. I remember having holy laughter, though, earlier than that. We used to have holy laughter at Lakewood. And there, but it wasn't a lot, you know, it was some, you know, like especially like first service on Sunday morning, you know, you'd you'd have some laughter. Uh anyway, uh when people weren't intimidated by the crowd, they would be more likely to yield to the Spirit of God and the Holy Ghost would come upon them and they'd just be full of joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory, the Bible puts it that way. I mean, if you're full of the Holy Ghost, you ought to be full of joy. I had to learn a long time ago that you can either you can yield yourself when the presence of God, at first I would yield myself to tears, and I'd just let myself cry. Well, it feels good to cry, but you know, I found out God wants me happy. So I flip the switch and I quit trying to cry. I start laughing even if I don't feel like laughing. And I yield myself willingly to laughter. Why? Because the joy of the Lord is your strength. He doesn't want everybody weeping and go, oh, no, no, he wants us happy. I mean, if you came into a church and everybody's crying, would you want to stay there? You'd rather go down to the funeral home and cry with all of those people out to the, you know, out to the graveyard. And let's cry out there. So you have this physical manifestation of laughing, and people, you know, I had to learn how to yield. Gladys and I, the first time it ever happened to me, I didn't know what happened to me. I mean, I just Gladys and I had a friend that was starting her ministry, and she had invited us to come to her meeting that was over uh somewhere around Greenspoint area. She had a had rented a big room, and there was probably a couple of hundred people. There's a pretty good crowd. It was a Saturday afternoon. Gladys and I both were tired, I mean, you know, but we just made it happen. We wanted to go support her, and so we went. And she wasn't preaching that afternoon. She had some guest preacher, and I'd never heard of him. And uh and so he preached a while, and he was good, you know, it was the word. Gladys and I was sitting, you know. And uh over on the front row on the side, and uh way over on the side, and so and we were both had been weary, and we were both, I don't remember what the circumstances were. We were both tired, and we were both tempted just to stay home and rest, but no, we went to the meeting Saturday afternoon. So Saturday afternoon, we're at the meeting, and he he gives an altar call. He says, Well, I want everybody that you're really, really tired and you feel just worn out. I want you to come up here. God wants to just fill you with strength today. And you know, we're not much on answering altar calls. We're we're part of the ministry at Lakewood where we're the ones that stand up front and lay hands on people like our life team does. I mean, I'm we're late, we're giving out. You know, we don't go up for altar calls. We we're hosting the altar call, if you will. That's what we're doing. That's in the mode we're in. But you know, I thought, well, hey, you know, we could stand there. Let's go up there and let this guy lay hands on us. And so we went up and he laid hands on us and we we fell out. And uh and we laid there a while, and I just thanked the Lord for strength. I he didn't say the joy of the Lord. He just started saying, you know, I'm just gonna lay hands on you. And as we fell, then he was praying for some other people. And uh and as he started praying for the other people, he burst out in song and he began singing in tongues to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb, you know. And so, well, you know, that that I mean, I'm sorry, but I never heard anything like that. I could have got up and been offended. I I could have said, This guy is nuts. And uh, you know, and I'm listening to that and I'm trying not to smile, but I'm smiling. And then he shifts gears out of Mary Had a Little Lamb into shoe fly don't bother me. I double dog dare you not to laugh at somebody singing in other tongues to the tune of shoe fly don't bother me. Don't get me to do it. I'm not gonna do it now because I've got to keep preaching. But I mean, Gladys and I both we started giggling and laughing. And we tried not to giggle and laugh, but we giggled and laughed, and then he shifted gears and sang something other, some other nursery rhyme and tongues, laying hands on people, and by that time the whole audience was wiped out, laughing their guts out. And have you ever laughed until you have cramps in your jaw? Have you ever laughed until you go like that? The lady next to me was going. And so that tore me up. I mean, I could not stop laughing. I couldn't catch my breath. I thought I was gonna have to go to the emergency room. And I realized it was holy laughter. Demonstration of the Spirit. Glory to God. That was 1988. That was way ahead of some of the other manifestations, but it prepared me for what was ahead. Are y'all with me now? And then, you know, you see people sometimes are drunk in the Holy Ghost. See, I'd never been drunk in the Holy Ghost. I got drunk in the Holy Ghost. I found out how to do it. I found out how to yield to that demonstration. I, running in the first building, we had people rolling on the floor, rolling, holy rollers. That's where Pentecostals got. They were called holy rollers because people would get over into the spirit realm and they would roll. I had a lady roll all the way up and down the front of the. One time she rolled up toward the platform. I thought she was gonna roll up on the platform. Thank God she didn't try to do that. I didn't know what I was gonna do if she rolled up there and got up on the platform with me. But never a hair out of place, never, never immodest. I mean, she had her legs crossed, or she had heels on, she had hose and heels, and her had a dress, and she didn't have pantsuit on, she had dress on and not one thing out of place, not one immodest thing. She just went whoop, whoop, whoop. The Holy Ghost was doing it. Oh, stop, stop, don't holy, don't do this, Holy Ghost. No, we'd let her let the Holy Ghost do what he wants to do. So, at Lakewood in 1992, and we didn't have a lot of that manifestation at Lakewood. Brother Osteen was baptist at heart. I know he had the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but he still, you know, he he didn't really, he didn't go into all the things that Brother Hagin would have in his meetings. Brother Hagin would have all kind of crazy stuff in his meetings. He'd have holy laughter, he had people running, he had people dancing. Brother Hagin, I mean, Brother Hagin would dance, and he was a big man. I mean, he was close to 300 pounds. And when he danced, he had big old shoes, and he would get up there and start moving. He I saw him get in the Holy Ghost one night. There's no way he could do that other than the Holy Ghost got in his feet. But he just started dancing, dancing up a storm, and the whole place erupted in dancing, and everybody's dancing. What is that demonstration of the Spirit? But anyway, one night at Lakewood, we're singing, you know, and just having a good time, you know, and it's a Sunday night service. And uh, you know, in those days, I'm open and closing the services prayer. I'm a well-known minister. I'm up on the platform, people know who I am, and I, you know, so I told the Lord, I don't ever have to do anything. If you want me to ever prophesy, you're gonna have to come and sit on me. I've got a I've got a microphone, I have a way to speak to people. If I've got something to share, I can do it. But if you want me to say thus saith the Lord, or if you ever want to move through me, it's gonna have to be a very I will do it, but you're gonna have to really give me that signal. I I mean, I don't I don't want to bring reproach on the ministry. See, I'm a man under authority, so I didn't want to I I'm willing to obey the Holy Ghost, but I need him to really let me know it's him. Are you with me now? I don't want to go against the ministry. So uh I'm sitting, we're sitting on the front row that night, and uh it was a really an anointed uh brother Gary Simons was leading the worship, and it was anointed, and about uh the second song, it was a good song and everything, and and I saw myself uh running, you know. I saw myself running, and I thought, Lord, you want me to run? And then Brother Osteen got up there and he said, Ah, praise God, that was really good. Hallelujah, you know, and he was gonna kind of kind of clap his hands and take the service back. And uh, but everybody was still hollering out in the audience, and the Holy Ghost was coming on the audience, and they didn't want to turn loose a praise just yet, and it was an upbeat song, and and so, you know, uh Brother Gary just took off and started playing it again, and we played, and everybody sang again, and it got a little higher. And I kept feeling the Holy Ghost. I said, All right, God, I and about I said, I'm willing to go. And about that time it went back down. I said, Lord, if you want me to run, get it back up again. I won't let it go. I'll I'll take off, I'll run, I don't care what it costs me. If I get fired from my job, that's fine. I'm gonna obey the, I'm gonna obey you, Holy Spirit, but you're gonna have to get it. I mean, they've already wrapped it up, brother. Brother, Brother Osteen's trying to take the service back. So it came back up, and buddy, I hit the I hit the aisle. Boom! I started running. I started running, and I didn't want to think about it. And I had a I had a blue, a blue blazer on that wasn't buttoned, and my coat just went open like that. And I hit the first aisle and I turned, and the usher did not know what to do. I I feel for the ushers. They were not prepared in their ushers' meeting for somebody like Griner to be running the aisles. Nobody ever ran the aisles at Lakeland. Nobody ever did it. And here I am running on a Sunday night, and I hit that aisle, and the, and the, and uh, Sam, was that you? I don't know if it was Sam. It might have been Sam, but anyway, his eyes got big and he thank God he got out of the way and let me go because I fixed a friction have a collision, you know. And I, you know how I mean it's a long way around the bottom floor of that building. I mean, it's a long way, and I am not exactly a track star. I'm not exactly in shape either. And so then I hit the horizontal out and I rounded that corner. There's another usher, and he don't know what to do. I went all the way around that, and I'm being people were hollering and yelling, and the song was going. I went all the way around and got to the middle again, and I just stopped and got back in in front of right next to Gladys, in between Gladys and this person that was next to me, and I'm not even breathing. And my eyes got big, and I thought, my God, I just ran all the way around this building. And the only thing I could think of was Elijah, where the hand of the Lord came upon him, he outrun the chariot all the way to Jezreel 20 miles. I think I could have run 20 miles. I should have just took off and run again, I guess. I mean, now I think I'd do that now. I didn't know it then. So anyway, you know, the service, you know, Brother Osteen kind of looked at me, but he was he was smiling. He wasn't mad. He wasn't mad. Didn't grieve the spirit. I mean, the spirit was high. And Brother Osteen preached, you know, and we had an altar call, and people came up, and so then, you know, I handed the service back to me, and I closed the service in prayer, and I came down off the platform, I had the microphone, I head over to the right, to my left, stage right, to put the microphone up, and came back to the center where my stuff was, and walked back to my center, and I and I and I saw this woman and a man next to her, and she said, John Walter. And so there's only one family in the whole world that calls me by both names, and they're my cousins. My aunt and uncle, uh, both my my dad's older brothers, both they all got in the habit of always calling me John Walter, especially the aunt. John Walter, John Walter. It's South, I guess. It's a southern thing. And so I and I looked at her and I recognized her, but I couldn't think of her name right away. But her name is Farrellyn, kind of an unusual name. And she uh, and Farylyn, I knew Farylyn. I knew that she was New Age. I knew that she I knew that she was not saved. I knew that she went to a Lulu Bird uh New Age kind of a unity Christian fellowship, Unity Church of Houston or whatever. I mean, they're wow, they're weird. I mean, they're weird. And she's kind of weird. And so, but I knew, and so John Walter, I said, Oh, uh, uh, oh, uh, Farylland, hi, glad to see y'all. And the guy that was standing next to her was grinning like a Cheshire cat. I mean, he was he was smiling. And I'm thinking, I wonder what they thought of me running all the way around this. I said, Well, I'm so glad to see you. What brings you to Lakewood? And he said, Oh, it was me. I wouldn't let her. When I found out we were having a convention, I we're bankers, we're having a banking convention. I'm a banker and she's a banker. And and we and when I found out we're coming to Lakewood, I said, I want you to take me to Lakewood. I want to go to hear Brother Ostin. He said, Oh man, I enjoyed this tonight. I said, Well, you do you, I guess I plead innocent. Uh, I mean, I plead guilty. I ran around the church. He said, Yeah, that was a blessing. Man, that was awesome. I'd never seen anything like that. That was so much fun. Praise God. He said, Praise God. And she's kind of looking at me like, gulp, gulp, gulp, you know. Oh, hallelujah. Everybody say, demonstration of the Spirit. I mean, you rejoice with joy unspeakable, 1 Peter 1.8. Rejoice with joy unspeakable or inexpressible and full of glory. And so then you've got the physical, and yes, those are important, but most important is yielding. Everybody say yielding to the Holy Ghost. Yield the right-of-way. Isn't that what we do? If you're driving, you need to learn how to yield the right of way to a four-way stop. People don't know how to yield the right of way. They come to a four-way stop and everybody stops and nobody moves. But the person on the right has got the right-of-and they're supposed to go. You know? And it's just, it goes right like. If everybody would yield the right-of-way, then there would be no hesitation. But then you take your life in your hand because you wait and you wait. And then finally, they're not going to go. I'm going to go. I'm not going to wait there all day long. Sally May, I mean, I've been waiting on you. I'm waving like this. Come on. You've got the right. They don't understand right away, neither do people in the church. Listen, let's yield the right of way to the Holy Ghost. Everything he does is right. Come on, lift your hands. Demonstration of the Spirit. Everybody say, I'm learning to respond. I'm learning to help in to usher the greater demonstration of the Spirit. People need that demonstration. Just like that day when we were so tired and I was so surprised. I went up for strength. I did not go up for holy laughter. But later on, I got to look in what Jesus said about it in Matthew 11. I'm almost done. And then we're going to let the Holy Ghost do what he wants to do. Matthew 11, verse 28. He said, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall rest find rest. There's that word again. You shall find rest unto your soul, your mind. That's where the battle is. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So that's why the demonstration of the Spirit is so incredibly important, especially right now, because the devil knows his time is short and he's wearing out the saints. He's putting pressure on everybody, maximum pressure, financial pressure, pressure in marriages, pressure with children, pressure with health. You name it, there's all kinds of pressure out there in the workplace. Pressure, pressure, pressure. He said, Come unto me and learn of me. I'm meek. Meek not doesn't mean weak. Meek. Meek is, you know, a horse has to be meeked and prepared to go into battle. I mean, they they train a horse to ignore cannon fire and gunfire and all kinds of things. We're living in the greatest opposition there is on in history right now. And if we don't learn how to yield to the Holy Ghost and get that rest and to get that ease, come all you who labor, that means fatigued and overburdened. See, fatigue is set in a lot to the church. They're fatigued. I mean, you know, every day is some new opposition to what is going on in this country. You've got the left wing of the Democrat Party. Most of the Democrats have been taken over by the left wing. There's not any moderate slave ran them all off. And so they're all crazy. And so then you have this going on over here, which is good and right, things are good, and then you've got a few of those over here on the right that are making trouble. And, you know, it's just like herding cats. And we're, well, why does that have to do with us? We have we have a lot to do with all of that. We've got to wake up the church and get the church to speak into these kinds of things and take a stand on what is right, what is correct, what God's perspective is. Fatigued. And then you will find rest. That word rest means refreshing. That's what Gladys and I had. We laughed so hard. I mean, we were so, I mean, I'll tell you, it our our fatigue turned into just such a peace that when we got home, we but we just took a nap. We were just so rested, we were so blessed. I mean, yeah, we were, I mean, you know, we took a nap. I mean, it's in the Saturday afternoon. Who takes a nap on Saturday afternoon? But yet it was a peaceful, it was a it was it was the first time we'd ever been confronted with a demonstration of the Spirit like that. Come on, let's lift our hands right now. Father, we thank you right now.