8/4/2024 - "Regeneration and Renewing" - Pastor Mark Copeland

[Music] Man, brother John Boon, I love to hear that voice booming back there, getting behind me while I'm preaching or talking or whatever I'm doing. We love and appreciate each and every one of you so much. Proverbs chapter 28 and verse 13. Proverbs chapter 28 and verse 13. If you'd stand together and honor. How many of you honor the word of the Lord? If you need to get a drink of water, use the restroom, take your child out and bring them back in, whatever, please do that quickly and get back into this auditorium because, man, I don't need any distractions while I'm trying to preach to you today. Again, I don't plan to preach long. I plan to have be able to have a great altar call because God wants to work miracles in this place today. Proverbs 28:13 says, "He that shall not prosper, but whosoever confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." There's two words here: profess or confesseth and forsaketh. You know, we don't have seem to have any trouble with that first one. It's that second one at forsaking. You can't just ask forgiveness, you got to quit. You got to quit. Somebody say, "You got to quit." You got to quit. Matthew chapter 3 and verse 8. I'm not going to leave you standing. I'm going to read three verses and then I'm going to allow you to be seated. Matthew chapter 3 and verse 8. Matthew the 3rd chapter and the 8th verse. I'm going to preach to you for a few minutes from this subject: regeneration and renewing. "Bring forth therefore fruits meat for repentance." In other words, if you really repented, show us the fruit that repentance is bringing. Show us how you've changed. Show us that you've got a different outcome. Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. Titus the 3rd chapter and the fifth verse. And I'm going to let let you be seated. Thank, thank you so much for standing in honor the word. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." I want to take those two words, regeneration and renewing, and I want to use them as my title today. Regeneration and renewing. God bless you. You can be seated now.

Lift your hands where you're seated and ask God to open your hearts and minds and spirits to the word today. God, in the name of Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, by the anointing of your spirit, I'm asking you to speak to us today. I'm asking you, talk to us in this house. In Jesus name. In Jesus name. In Jesus name. How many you, how many of you appreciate these musicians? Thank you so much. Sister Lauren Morales, I appreciate the choir, the singing. Brother Jason Davidson, the ever musician, singer, uh, thank you so much for what you do to produce worship in this generation. Many are tormented, tragically deceived. While they pray, they do not receive. And hoping they don't seem to get. And if there is a God in the heavens, then there must be a reason why this is taking place. Some are mad with depression, anxiety, fear, and woe. 1 John 5:8 gives us a little insight to this. Are, are we weary with spiritual games and amusements? Are we weary with preachers that are more for entertainment and change? Are we weary with a, a, a with this modern day church that's turned into spiritual amusements and spiritual entertainment? First John 5 and 18 says, "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not." You know, this is what we used to believe. This is how we used to preach. And I, I, I, I don't want to paint and blame everything on the charismatic movement, but the charismatic movement has taught at least America how to blend sin and church. How to go to church without changing. How to be a Christian without having to give anything up. How to, how to profess on Sunday and cuss out on Monday. And they've dumbed religion down until it means nothing to no one anymore. What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to claim that God lives on the inside of you? Well, I'll tell you one thing, God don't do the things that most Christians are doing. The spirit of God does not put his approval on how most are living. It needs to mean something to say, "I'm a Christian." It needs to me, mean, it needs to mean something to say, "I've been called out. I've been changed." I won't take time to go into this, but when you go through that Old Testament, God took a lot of time. And the Old Testament is not null and void. It just, it is a basis or a platform or a foundation for the New Testament to stand on. The New Testament is the fulfillment of a structure or a shadow called the Old Testament. And one of the things he established throughout that Old Testament is that he hates mingling. Yes, sir. He hates mingling. He said, "If you're going to wear, if you're going to wear a woolen garment, wear a woolen garment, but don't wear a linen top with woolen pants." Either be woolen or be linen, but don't be a combination. Was that the fact that it was a sin to wear two different kinds of cloth? No, it was a precedent being set in the mind of people that God don't like things to be mixed. He said, "If a, if a, if a piece of meat has been set aside as unto me for sacrifice, then don't let the meat that you're going to eat touch it, because if it touches it, then that piece of meat that's set aside for sacrifice is no longer holy unto me because it has come in contact with something that's unholy." And I don't want things mingled. And in the same spirit, in the New Testament, he says, "I'd rather you be hot or cold, because lukewarm makes me want to puke." Why? Because lukewarm is a mingling of hot and cold. He said, "Either be holy one thing or holy the other, but don't be a mixture." Man, if you're going to sin, shoot the lights out. If you're going to be a Christian, walk straight. But don't try to do both. Brother Colby Frederick, I didn't know you were here, man. I'd have recognized you. Have you been here the whole service? Just got here. Well, we're honored to have you. Full-time evangelist from this church. We were just bragging on y'all and you missed it. God probably made you late so your head wouldn't swell. He wants you to be holy, one thing on, or holy the other, but he said, "Don't try to be both." Man, I can, he, he, I can respect a sinner that'll just get out there and be what he is. And if you're a Christian, I want you to come in here and be a Christian. But don't be a stumbling block to everybody by claiming to be one thing when, and you say, "Brother Copeland, I, I thought God hated sin." He does. He does hate sin. And he says, "What's going to happen to to sinners?" But when Jesus is asking the New Testament, and I don't have time, I'm shoehorning this in. I have time to go into this, but when he was asking the New Testament about the days of Sodom, he did, he never brought up the homosexuality. He ever brought up the men that, that wanted to rape angels. I, they were wicked, they were ungodly. Because the only thing he remembered about Sodom and Gomorrah was the church people that were there that were being more affected by the world than they were him. He didn't say, "As it was in the days of the godless, reprobate homosexuals." He says, "As it was in the days of Lot." Lot was the only person in Sodom that was supposed to be a worshiper of Jehovah. And he said, "They were eating, and they were drinking, and they were marrying, and until the, until the fire fell out of heaven. They were living like Sodom." God's problem is not with sinners being sinners. And it's not with Christians being Christians. It's Christians that want to have the name of Christ, but they want to live like the world too. They, they want to know what blend is right. He said, "None come out. Be separate. Touch not the unclean thing." What, where went the power of the early church? Where went the power of the early church? Where they were casting out devils, laying hands on the sick, they were recovering. Y'all stay with me. I'm preaching to you today. Where went the profit of the gospel? We're in desperate need of spiritual discernment. Does anybody believe that we are in desperate need of spiritual insight? We need to drag our pale corpses from the dank, dark tunnels of Pentecostal tradition and go back to the power and the authority of the apostolic Pentecost. I submit to you that we're covered with the slime of unbelief, bitterness, jealousy, restlessness, with the larva of morose materialism, which has become a breeding place of discontentment and spiritual [Applause] boredom. And I believe every one of it is, every bit of it is connected to the fact that we've forgotten how to repent. I'm not just talking about the sinner. I'm talking about the saint that's forgotten how to repent. I'm talking about young people that's forgotten what repentance means. I want to stop here and tell you that just like I said earlier, if the devil can't get you to give up, yeah, he'll get you mixed up. He'll get you in one ditch or the other. And I want to submit to you, apostolic Pentecostals, that we've preached way too much about the Holy Ghost and forgotten about repentance. Man, I've heard Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost. I don't know when's the last time I heard a message on repentance in an apostolic church. I want to submit to you, the Holy Ghost means nothing without the foundation of repentance. The Holy Ghost can do nothing without the foundation of repentance. Before you talk in tongues, you have to [Music] repent. And repentance is more than lip service. Repentance is more than talking. Be seated. I got to preach to you. A preacher was greatly impressed when he went to Britain and he was able to watch the changing of the guards. And what really got his attention is as they marched. Man, I wonder if I can get somebody up here to help me march. Anybody know how to march like a British soldier? You can. You lift your leg that high. Come on, do it. Come march for me. Come up here on the platform. I want everybody to see you. I want you to march in a straight line right over there. And when, when I tell you, I want you to turn around, but you got to spin completely and march back. Can you do it? Probably so. Okay, let's see you there. There you go. That's how they do it. Turn. Come on back. He, he didn't turn 90 degrees. He didn't turn 110 degrees. He didn't make a left or a right. He made a complete 180. And that's why the British don't use the term turn, because turn can mean [Applause] anything from 10 degrees to 70 degrees. That's right. What impressed him is when it got ready for the soldier to turn, do it again. The turn, or the march, the march. When he got ready for them to to turn, he said a word that means 180. They said, "Repent." [Music] Because in the English language, repent means a 180. You turn completely around and go exactly the opposite direction. You can be seated. You know why some of you can't live for God? You didn't repent. You turned a little bit. You do a little bit better than you were doing. You're going in a little different direction than you were going. I'm telling you, repentance means you turn completely around and you're doing the opposite of what you are doing. Repent means a complete turnaround. I'm not the man or the woman I used to be. Come on. [Music] Without repentance, you're just a tongue-talking devil. Without repentance, you're just tongue-talking and on your way to hell. Wow. The Holy Ghost don't save you. Change and relationship does. Go ahead. Thank you, brother. We've got false doctrine in Pentecost that believes because you talk in tongues, you're on your way to heaven. That's not what it means. Talking in tongues is the comforter. It is the aid or the [Music] help. And we got, we got verbiage that mixes people up. Somebody goes somewhere you wouldn't go, and you say, "Well, they hadn't got the Holy Ghost." "I got her." "They wouldn't be doing that." Well, you mean there's different brands? There's different powers? There's different proofs? No, we all get the same Holy Ghost. A better illustration is, they didn't repent like I repented. They didn't change like I changed. I'm going to make a statement here that's going to shock some of you, but the power in salvation is in repentance. The power of change is in repentance. Right? That immediate change that happens to you is directly related to your repentance, not to the Holy Ghost. Repentance is what changes you. The Holy Ghost empowers you to maintain that change. And when we push tongue-talking and Holy Ghost infilling above repentance, we're going to have tongue-talking devils. Yes, sir. Tongue-talking people that can't live [Applause] right. Go ahead and sit there. I'm not preaching for your response anyway. [Applause] And I understand it's hard to say "sick" to a dog chewing on your pat [Applause] leg. But we'll never reach the world while we talk in tongues and live like the world. Where we shout and dance, but live the same way they live. The power is in repentance. The power for change is in repentance. You've got to repent. [Applause] [Music] Repentance, in our estimation, has been just reduced down to a sinner's prayer. Just something that's said. I don't want to tear down the fact that something has to be said because it has to be professed, but it does not stand alone with lip service. Not only do you have to tell God you're sorry, you have to live like you're [Applause] [Music] sorry. Hebrews 12:17. Esau had a problem. Hebrews 12:17. Esau had a problem. And the New Testament calls his problem out. And the New Testament says that that Esau could talk big, he just couldn't walk big. Wow. "For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully." He could get on his knees, he could cry big, he could tell God that he was going to be different and how sorry he was. He just couldn't walk different when he got up from the altar. [Applause] Wow. You see, throughout the Old Testament, here's what God said to all those that he called out. He said, "I want to make a covenant with you." A covenant is an agreement between two people. And there's a ditch on both sides of the the road. There is a group that says, "I can live right on my own. I don't even need the Holy Ghost." On it's the truth. And on the other side of the road is a group that says, "I got the Holy Ghost, so I don't even have, I don't have any requirements on me." But a, a covenant is an agreement between two people. Yes, sir. That's right. That each side has requirements that they got to live by. Yes, sir. And if I don't live by my part, then it breaches his requirement to do his part. And if he don't do his part, then I don't have to hold up my end of the bargain. Because the only way the covenant works is both of us do what we've agreed to. My agreement is, "Come out from everybody else. Live different. Walk different. Talk different. Touch not the unclean thing." His side is, "And I will receive you unto myself." But if I'm not coming out, he don't have to receive me. Because it is a covenant. Yes, sir. Yes. You see, Holy Ghost people want to live all, leave all the responsibility on God. Well, I got the Holy Ghost. And it confuses these kids because they say, "Well, you know, I got the Holy Ghost. I talked in tongues. I can't believe I, I talked in tongues, rolled in the carpet on Sunday, and, and, and, and Monday evening, I sat around the house and got tempted to look at pornography. I must not have the Holy Ghost." No, what you don't have is self-discipline. Is that even being taught anymore? Is self-discipline even being taught? I mean, if a kid's not doing good in school, man, if I wasn't doing good in school, the first thoughts my parents had was not, "The teachers must not be teaching." That wasn't the first thoughts my parents had. The first thoughts my parents had is, "I guess you need your little [Applause] worn out." But there's no self-discipline anymore. Our kids aren't being taught self-discipline. We're, they're being taught that everything that happens is somebody else's fault. Well, if you're not going to do good in school, we're going to go down there and talk, have a talk with that teacher. If my parents went and talked to the teacher, I was in trouble, not the teacher. I don't mean to get off subject [Music] here, but I never in my life, growing up in my house, ever heard this question one time, never. "What would you like to eat, baby?" I walked in the house, Mama cooked. Yes, sir. And you better eat it, whatever it was. Yes, sir. I didn't have any preferences. I was just hungry. I'm not trying to make you laugh. I'm trying to be real with you, sir. We have produced a generation that can't repent because they have no self-discipline. Yes, sir. I ate spinach growing up. I still don't like spinach, but I ate it. Well, why did you eat it? Because there was a belt folded up. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Laying on the table right beside my mama's right hand, sir. That's why I ate it, my spinach, sir. And I didn't complain about it because I knew better. That's, and I don't hate my mom. I'm crazy about her. I love her. Yes, sir. Come on, man. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But I didn't have Type 2 diabetes by the time I was 18 either. That's it. That's it. Because all I could eat was cereal, sir, and Hot Pockets, and pizza. I was taught for an early age what self-discipline meant, that I didn't have to have everything I wanted. That's it. That's it. Right. That one of the beauties of life was discipline, my own self. I didn't have to have somebody else discipline me. And when you give kids everything they want and they never have to self-discipline, then they don't know how. And you raise a generation that can't repent because they can't change. "If I don't get anything I want, then somebody is being mean to [Applause] me." It tells, we have no idea what moderation means. All right. Yeah. Us, no idea what moderation means. We, we don't know how to be moderate. We don't have kids that eat one bowl of cereal. We have kids that sit down and eat the entire box. All right. Go ahead. All right. 10 servings in a box of cereal, they eat the whole thing. We don't get a, have kids that get a candy bar on Saturday when the family goes to town and does their grocery shopping. Come, we have kids that have a box of them in the pantry and they eat three in a sitting. And then we have our kids at the, "I don't know what's wrong with them, doc." "I'm not brilliant." "I'd like to weigh in on that." "Chicken nuggets ain't [Applause] chicken." You're right. I'm not, I'm not here to give you a health food degree. I'm talking to you about discipline. I never one time heard, "What would you oh, I cooked this big meal and you don't like it, baby? Well, let me fix you a bowl of cereal." "What would you like, sweetie?" That's, yes, sir. We, we'll eat the greens and the chicken and all that, and we'll stay healthy. We'll kill you by the time you're 21, though. That's it. We'll have you in the children's hospital with some form of cancer because we're going to feed you all the poison you want, little darling. And then we're going to blame it on somebody else. "That teacher's been mean to you, baby." Man, I don't remember a teacher growing up there wasn't mean, but it was never an issue. I was told to go down there and figure out how to do my work and make her happy. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And the amazing thing is, is by the time I was 18, I wasn't having to climb on top of buildings and shoot presidents. And I wasn't going down the school and blowing everybody away because I didn't get in my [Applause] way. I literally learned how to negotiate and deal with people. Yes, sir. Exactly right. Because I had to as a means of survival. I found out that if I'd work hard and do my work, the teacher would leave me alone. What are you talking about? I'm talking about Esau's problem. Probably wasn't his fault. It's probably related directly to a daddy that gave Esau anything he wanted. And Jacob's problem was directly related to a mama that gave him anything he wanted. And that's why Jacob's mama was willing to sub to totally deceive Esau's daddy to steal the birthright for her prize [Applause] son. Repentance, the lack of repentance is a generational [Music] problem. Somebody wasn't taught how to self-discipline. Somebody was not taught, "You don't get everything you want in life." In fact, the way to real happiness is to discipline yourself. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Because if you don't have everything you want all the time, when you finally get what you want, you can truly enjoy it. Hallelujah. Man, I'm way off. I'm way off. I got to preach here. Y'all stand, sit, whatever, whatever you want to do. I've never had so much desire to preach in all my [Music] life. Our problem is not that our people don't have the Holy Ghost. Our problem is our people don't have repentance. That's it. That's it. That's the truth. Yes, sir. From the sinner that walks in, to the saint that's sitting on the pew, to preachers who are standing in pulpits, we don't know how to repent. Because repentance means I don't go the places I used to go. I don't talk like I used to talk. I don't view sites on the internet that I used to view. I don't, I stop doing all that stuff. And the Holy Ghost empowers me to do what I repented of. It helps me [Applause] change. Goodness. We've forgotten the, we know about the authority that the Holy Ghost brings in our lives. We just don't know the authority that repentance brings. Because they're two different things. They both bring a power in your life. If you truly repent, you want to change. If you don't truly repent, if it's just lip service, then you're like Esau and you don't want to change. You want to figure out a way to weep and cry and and let God make excuses for why you don't change. We've got to understand that repentance is much more than the sinner's prayer. Repentance means you're walking one way and you start going the other direction. Yes, sir. That's it. Isaiah 1:18 tells us about repentance. Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 18. I can remember my grandfather talking to me about fasting for 10 days to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost in an old-fashioned tent revival. Isaiah 1:18 says, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Let's go to verse 19. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land." See, this is the, they people love to quote 1 and 18, but they don't read 19 and 20. Yeah. Verse 20 says, "But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." If you'll change, I'll wash you. Yeah. But if you keep sinning, you're going to be [Applause] destroyed. My grandpa talked about working 12 and 16-hour days, pouring concrete for a bridge production, and going to tent revivals at night and seeking the Holy Ghost. And how he fasted for 10 days to receive the Holy Ghost. And I asked him one time, I said, "PaPa, it took you 10 days to get the Holy Ghost?" And he laughed and he said, "No, I got the Holy Ghost in just a few minutes. It took me 10 days to repent." Goodness. As soon as my repentance was complete, I got the Holy Ghost. I just had a process, a coming out process. It took 10 days for me to know in my heart, "I really want it to be [Applause] different." If we pray people through to the tongue-talking, Holy Ghost that don't repent, we produce reprobates. We skip right over that repentance deal as if it's not important. And somebody said, "Well, man, I didn't think people get the Holy Ghost and not repent." There's a scripture in the Bible in Acts 8, and I won't go back through it, but they all received the Holy Ghost. The whole city received the Holy Ghost. They all talked in tongues. Simon the Sorcerer was a part of those that all, because if he wouldn't have been, the Bible would have said, "Everybody, all except Simon the Sorcerer. All except one man who was a witch doctor." But that's not what it says. It says, "All received it." And then Simon Sorcerer says, "I want to, I want to buy these miracles you all are performing, man. I can see how my witchcraft office would really, man, if I could do this stuff, I could really have a lot of customers." And just a few minutes after getting the Holy Ghost and talking in tongues, the man of God points at him and says, "Your heart's not [Music] right." Here's a man that got the Holy Ghost, but didn't repent. Part of the power of your new life is in repentance. Yes, sir. And you will be a bad testimony of the Holy Ghost if you don't repent. If it is not taught, you've got to change. You've got to come out. You stop wearing stuff you used to wear. You start, stop dressing ways you used to dress. You stop going. The Holy Ghost should change you in every way. And somebody said, "What? That's one of the problems with y'all's church, Brother Copeland. That's why, that's why y'all can't grow." Oh, really? Because you demand people to live and dress and act so different? Right. Yeah. Well, let me just ask you something. Why do you think the Muslim religion is the fastest growing religion in the world? Don't you think they make them dress [Music] different? We don't even have standards of separation in comparison to the Muslim world. You carry around a prayer mat, you read the Bible completely through once a year, you put your prayer mat out and pray three times a day. Come on. You turn toward Mecca. You women wear burkas. It's totally unconnected to that. In fact, I'm going to tell you what this world's hungry for, and I'm going to move on, but I'm going to tell you what this world's hungry for. It's hungry for something that has real change to [Applause] it. You know, the draw of this church has real change. That's right. And if you don't want to change, it doesn't mean you got the Holy Ghost. It means you didn't repent. It means you're not sick and tired of this world. It means you're not sick and tired of the life you were living. That's it. But I promise you, you just keep going, the day will come that you will. Yes, sir. And I pray at that point, the door of salvation is still open. All right. Because the day will come that it'll all catch up to you. The day will come that sin and degradation and ungodliness and lying and cheating and not doing right and not living right and fooling around with drugs and messing around with prescriptions and all that kind of mess and pouring on the internet and all that. The day is going to come that it's finally going to pin you in. And when it does, I hope you've not toyed with God and messed with God and played with God. Come on. Until a reprobate mind has taken you over. Because that's what happened to Esau. When he finally wanted to change, he couldn't. Man, I feel the Holy Ghost so strong in this place. I don't, I don't, I don't want to preach much longer. Would you lift your hands and ask the Holy Ghost to move? Come on. Would you lift your hands and ask the Holy Ghost to move? Come on, everybody here. I need somebody touching heaven right now. [Music] James 2 and 26. I'm going to move on. I'm, I'm, I'm really moving toward a close. James 2 and 26. "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." And we always use this to type miracles, but that's not what it's talking about. This could say, "The Holy Ghost without change." That word "works" there is the word ergon. And the word ergon in the original Greek just simply means doing something. Faith without doing something. The Holy Ghost without changing your actions is dead. Matthew 6 and 12. I want you to look at this. Matthew 6 and 12. Many of you will will realize this is the The Lord's Prayer. He says, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." And, and because we're so limited and we don't study our Bibles, we think this is talking about money. But when you take that word "debts" and you take it back to the original Greek, it's the word ophalema. It means moral thoughts and moral failings. Forgive us our moral failings. You know what this tells me? It tells me that every day I should repent. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You see, the new birth experience is, is, is, is, is multifaceted. God's part of the covenant of the new birth is raising you to newness of life. Your part of the covenant is dying out to your old flesh. See, here's the deal. God can't kill your flesh. God won't kill your flesh. Are you understanding me? He's not touching it. One of the, one of the Nazarite vows, and Jesus was a Nazarene, right, is you don't touch a dead body. God's not going to crucify you. That's your part. Repentance means falling on an altar and not getting up until your will and your desire to sin and your desire to be a part of this world and your desire to fit in with this world is gone. Yeah. That's what my grandpa was talking about when he said, "Oh, no, it didn't take me 10 days to get the Holy Ghost. It took me 10 days to repent." It took me 10 days to know, "I don't want to be the man I used to be. I don't want to live like I used to live." And some of you talked in tongues before you died. You see, this new birth isn't turning over a new leaf, right? It's not writing a, a covenant to yourself or New Year's resolutions that don't last till February the third, right? It is a death to everything you are and everything you desire and everything you want. And a telling God, "I don't want to be me anymore. I want to be somebody else. I don't want to live the way I used to live. I don't want to talk the way I used to talk. I don't want to keep lying. I don't want to keep deceiving." That's, I want to die to everything I've been. Yes, sir. And the worst thing that can happen to you is a preacher to lay hands on you and get you talking in tongues before that process is complete. The new birth is not a doing better convention. It is a dying out to every wish and every desire. It is a bloody murder of an old man on an altar. Yes, sir. A complete dying out. Come on. Yeah. Then and only then, that's your covenant. Brother John Moon, is to die to everything we used to be. And then God's part of the covenant is, he said, "If you'll die, I'll raise you to newness of life, just like I did Jesus Christ. I'll bring you out of that grave." And we got a problem in the charismatic movement today, the spirit-filled movement today, of God's doing his part, but us not doing ours. He's given new life to people that never died. Right, right, right. That's the significance of baptism. Baptism is a burial of that old man. It means nothing if you didn't repent. Right. It means nothing if you wasn't sick and tired of being sick and tired. Let me tell you who the new birth works for. It works for people that walk up to the front of this building with tears streaming down their cheeks and they say, "I want to be different. I want to change. I don't want to resemble the person I used to be. And I'm willing to give everything up if God will change me." See, that's the problem. I got a bunch of people that's not dead, and they're trying to negotiate with God on what they can keep. You don't have the Holy Ghost. You have something, but it ain't the Holy Ghost, sir. And I'm not going to be getting a theological debate with what it is. I'm just telling you, it's a morph of something that's not apostolic. I don't want to just talk in tongues. I want to have a new birth. And you can't have a new birth without a death to the old man. You don't come in here negotiating with God. He didn't negotiate with you. He gave it all on the [Applause] cross. There's got to be a complete renewal. There's got to be a complete death. You've got to repent. Now, I'm going to move on. And then there are people that's, that's confused because it seems like the only people that really have the Holy Ghost are the new people who ran the things, who's all excited about this message on repentance. Yeah, it's the new guys. The new guys that just got the Holy Ghost. Mmm. Yeah, they got the excitement, sir. If it's not careful, we'll train that out of our new converts, the power and the excitement. What about this basic instinct and the unspoiled newborn saint that makes him love God with a God's love? He loves the lost. He's got an undying, untiring love. It doesn't matter what their station in life is. He'll go in the drug den to teach a Bible study. Y'all, and they're in the altar, and you know what they're crying? "I got to win my family. I got to win my friends. I got to win my co-workers." They're shouting at the inappropriate times. They shout while we're trying to take up the offering. They're running the aisles. And somebody says, "Well, they'll learn." Poor little darlings. They'll learn how to be a dead, dry, crusty Pentecostal. They'll learn how to sit down and relax and be like us and go two years without even teaching a Bible study. They'll learn how to sit down and be like us and go to church for years and never have a burden for the lost. Our own kids are going to hell. We're not even praying for [Music] them. What happens when it begins to wane? What happens when we die out to that fresh love and that fresh desire? Does it mean the Holy Ghost is not real? No. God planned for it to wane. Yeah. God planned for it to die out because this is about [Music] relationship. Not one visitor do you. When that Bible says, "If you'll drink from this well, you'll never thirst again," it doesn't mean one drink slakes your thirst for the rest of your life. It means you know where the well is. If some of you could have Holy Ghost and Holy Ghost power and Holy Ghost anointing without ever fasting, without ever praying, and without ever coming around the altar, you'd go 20 years and never talk to God. If it would just last that long. And so the God said, "Oh, no. This is a relationship. If they want my power, they got to come back." Yeah. And so the power is not in you sitting on that pew and getting up and walking out those back doors. He says, "Every once in a while, you got to come back to that altar. You got to lay on that altar again. You got to get the Holy Ghost all over again, just like you did the first time. You got to repent all over again." And you know what some of us need? Some of us need to run down to this altar today and lift our hands and say, "God, God, let me die. I want to die to every self-will. I want to die to every selfish desire." Musicians, come. Please lift your hands and reach out. Oh, my God. Regeneration and renewing. Real repentance and being baptized with the Holy Ghost again. It's just natural. It's just natural as a babe that every once in a while, with those little eyes closed and that mouth open, suck, searches, sucking for the breast of its mother. It understands, "If I got to live, I got to go back to the life source." Name Jesus. It's like newborn birds that open their mouth every time there's a flutter at the side of the nest. Oh, in the name of Jesus. I read not long ago, God, I read not long ago about eagles. And I, I learned this about birds when my kid daughters were younger and they had these little budgies. And they told me, "It's very important that you hang this stone in the cage." And I said, "Well, I don't understand that. Why, why does a rock have to be tied to the cage?" And they said, "Because if they don't scrape their beaks on that rock, they will naturally know, it'll be a, it will be a natural process. They don't have to be taught." They're not sharpening those beaks to bite. Yeah, those beaks will grow so long that they won't be able to get their mouths open to eat. That's right. And they will die because they did not have the process of [Music] renewing. Ever so often, eagles, ever so often, eagles go into a place in the mountains, a cave or ravine or hiding [Music] place. And the first thing they'll do is they'll, they'll hit their beak against that rock until finally they knocked their beak completely off. God, they were going to a time of fasting. Then they'll never leave that cave. And finally, that beak will grow back brand new. The first thing they do with that new beak is they pull every feather out of their body. And they sit there for days, completely naked, until their coat feathers grow back. It's called a molting process. And when they come out of that cave, out of that cave, they may be a 10 or 15-year-old eagle, but they look like they're a year or two old. They have comp, had a complete new birth. Yeah. That's good. That's good. And God said, "I'm not going to give you the Holy Ghost as a neat little package that you tie up and put in the safe and don't worry about for 20 or 30 years." This is a covenant. It's a relationship. If you'll keep dying out, I'll keep raising you [Applause] up. Name Jesus. Speak, God. A few years ago, there was at an animal sanctuary, a group gathered around the cage of a [Music] python. They were the men were in there. You know what? I'm, I'm telling you wrong. It was not a python. It was some kind of poisonous snake. I'm telling two, I'm getting two stories mixed up. It was a very poisonous snake. They said that the, just the least little venom of this, or the venom of this snake, the least little venom of this snake could kill 12 men. It was poison enough to kill 12 men. And the problem was the snake was going to die. And the reason that the snake was going to die is because in a battle with another snake, it got a scar on its head. And that scar was stopping the molting process. My God. And these handlers had to get in this cage and cut that snake around that scar to where he could shed his skin. Because if he could not molt, he could not live. I'm going to tell you why people in this church are struggling. It's just been too long since you died [Music] again. I'm going to tell you, when the rapture takes place, the Bible says, "This mortal is going to put on immortality." And I'll never have to deal with that old man again. Renewal will no longer be a process. Brother Colby Frederick, I'm just amazed at how I truly got the Holy Ghost, but there's an old man that likes to come back around and he wants to teach this new man some of his old tricks. Right, right. He wants to remind me of what I used to be. My God, have mercy. Now, I'm telling you what people all over this building need. It, it, it doesn't mean that you're not cut out for this. See, there's some of you said, "I just can't live what you live. I'm just not cut out for that Pentecost. I'm just not cut out to be what y'all are." That's not the deal. We could all feel that [Music] way. What Pentecost needs worse than anything is not a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost. We need a fresh revelation of what real repentance means. Of what it really means to lift our hands and say, "God, I want to change. I want to be different." And then I need you to fill me one more time with a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost. Would you lift your hands all over this building? Come on. Would you reach out right now? The Holy Ghost wants to work miracles in somebody's life today. Come, come on, come on, come on. There's something real trying to happen right now. Come on. Come on. There's something real that's trying to happen in this house right now. [Music] I wonder from the front of this house to the back, side to side, I wonder if everybody here would lift your hands and say, "God, I want you to help me to repent [Music] today. I want you to help me turn around today. I mean, I want to be different, God." Come on, somebody. Come on. God wants to fill you with a brand new baptism of the Holy Ghost, but we got to die first. Come on. We got to die out. I don't want to be the man I used to be. I don't want to walk like I used to walk. I don't want to talk like I used to [Music] talk. Come on. We don't need to debate over what's right and wrong. We don't need to debate over what's sin and what's not. We don't need to debate over what's a standard and what's not a standard. We need to repent. Most of our issues would resolve if we just repent. If we would just die out to worldly desires. Come on, somebody. God wants to fill somebody with the Holy Ghost [Music] today. Come on. God wants to fill somebody with the Holy Ghost in this house [Music] today. Come on. If you'd reach out to the Lord, he'll talk to you today. Come on. If you reach out to the Lord, he'll visit with you [Music] today. Forgive me, God. Wash me, God. Forgive me, Holy [Music] Ghost. Come on. There's something powerful trying to happen today in this house. If you'll reach out to him.