Thank you so very much. So we enjoy that sing-song and that meal. Good day, did it? Yes, excellent anyway. We enjoyed it. So the choir last night too. I'm just thinking one of the most important things I believe as believers is a good attitude and a teachable attitude, teach me thy way. If we know it all, we can't say, well, learn anything else, can we? But if we are in a humble attitude and we start with who the mouthpiece may be, but we may ask the Lord to speak to us through his servants, God can bless us. So much in how we look at things and feel about things or in our attitude. We can learn from anyone if we're teachable. God help us to be a teachable people. Now tonight we announce that we will speak on the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Again we turn to Second Corinthians, Second Corinthians chapter one. And then we're going to turn to First John chapter two. These are, I believe, the two main passages in the New Testament that particularly deal with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And as we emphasize, I believe there's a great need for us to have teaching on the Holy Spirit, to have a balance, not to emphasize the truth any more than the Word of God, thus and not to neglect it, the truth. The Word of God is very prominent through the Word of God, and he's the author of the Word of God, because his great purpose was to exalt the Lord Jesus, to glorify him. But it's wonderful to think that he came to earth to dwell in us. Now, verse twenty-one of chapter one of second Corinthians Now he which established us with you in Christ and had anointed us is God, who had also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our heart. Verse twenty-one again. Now he which established us with you in Christ and had anointed us is God. First John chapter two. First John chapter two. Verse twenty. But ye have anonction. And this is by the way the same word as the anointing. The original. You have an anointing from the Holy One. And ye know all things. Verse twenty seven. but the anointing which ye have received of him abided in you. And you need not that any man teach you, but that the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie. And even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in him. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his holy word. It's been a very quick moving week. There's only one day left. It's how to realize how fast the time goes. That's how we get gray hair and lose all hair and time goes on, isn't it? Time is very, very brief. At the old hymn yesterday, it's like that, binding off the sheet. Be in time. Life in time waited for no man. Someone said, time is the stuff that life is made of. So we need to be careful how we use it. by Paul says, redeeming or buying up every opportunity vested for the Lord. I was speaking on the Holy Spirit in the evening. We spoke about the new birth on Sunday morning, how that as every believer, in order to be a believer, you have to be born into the family of God through hearing the Word of God and the Spirit of God operating through the Word of God. you're regenerated, you become a partaker of the divine nature. That in itself is a wonderful thing. You see, with our present natural nature, we just couldn't enjoy heaven. We couldn't enjoy the Lord. We couldn't enjoy, you can't even enjoy the fellowship of Christians down here. When a person is not saved and does not love the Lord, he's like a fish out of water. So when he's among Christians, he's out of his proper atmosphere. But when you get saved, you're born of the Spirit, you get the divine nature, then you feel right at home with the Lord's people. Isn't that a wonderful thing? You can meet people you've never met before, and it matters a moment, you just know each other like you've known each other all your lives. Why? Because of the blessed Holy Spirit, that divine nature that's in us, and that new nature loves the things of God, it loves the Lord Jesus, it loves one another in Christ. So any believer has been born of the Spirit, and thank God the comforter has come, and he indwells every believer. He dwells in our heart, and we gave you many, many scriptures tonight. We spoke on that to show that we have the Spirit of God. He dwells in us. You don't have to ask for him, if you're saved, you're born of the Spirit, and you're indwell. Even the kind of Corinthians, Paul, says, no, you're not. that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Then we spoke about how every believer has been baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ. That's true of every believer. And it's certainly true of every believer, too, that we have the earnest. I haven't had time to speak about that, but every believer has the earnest. It's something like an engagement ring that you give a girl, and this is the promise they know that what's going to come. It was illustrated like this one time that a man bought a flock of sheep, and he said to his hired men, now John, you go out in the clover field and you get an armful for the sheep and give it to them, and in the morning we let them out into the field. That armful that he took in to give them was the earnest. So God has given to us the earnest of the Spirit. Last night we spoke about that we've been sealed. What a grand thing that is. Sealed by God the Holy Spirit. God, the Spirit Himself is the seal and it's for eternity. He sealed us. It marks ownership. It marks some wonderful things that we mentioned last night. Now tonight we want to go on with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Now to anoint in the Old Testament it usually meant that it was to designate someone for specific position or work or the tabernacle set apart for a holy purpose to anoint someone. So the anointing, as we'll see as we go on of the high priest, they anointed him with oil. So it's the anointing of the tabernacle, setting it apart for God. So it's the anointing of the kings. They were anointed. And then they began to act like kings from then on. The prophet, remember Elijah, was told to go and anoint Elisha in his room and his bed. They were designated, set apart for a particular thing. Now he that had anointed us, that's the word of God here, is God. Isn't that a tremendous thing? God has anointed us, the believer, and we have been anointed. So the anointer, the one who anoints us is God, and the anointing is the Holy Spirit of God in us. Look again at verse twenty-seven at first John chapter two. For the anointing which ye have received of him abided in you. So the anointing is in the believer, and at the time of birth he has anointed us. You notice in these verses the earnest, the anointing, and the sealing all there together. Each one is a distinct teaching, but it all took place at the same time. Let me repeat that all these that we mentioned, including the witness of the Holy Spirit, all these are true of every Christian. with the exception of the filling that we want to speak about tomorrow night, that is the command. That's the only command. All the other are true of every believer. But it's certainly not true. All believers are filled with the Holy Spirit. And that's why God says, don't you be drunk with wine when there's an excess, but be filled or be controlled by the Holy Spirit. That's God's command to us. Now it's a wonderful thing that from the lowest to the highest, these Corinthian Christians, they were certainly not very, very spiritual, they were carnal, they were immature, and yet they were anointed by the Spirit of God. It's a wonderful thing when we get saved. I think that there's a nice picture of that back in the book of Ezekiel chapter sixteen. It's spoken in the Sort of a beautiful way of figurative language where the Lord refers to Israel in Ezekiel chapter sixteen. And there's a real gospel message in this portion. Of course, I can't say very, but a very, very little time on this tonight. He says, When I passed thee by verse six and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, When thou art in thy blood, live. And that's the word of God. The word of God moves. Then the spirit of God moves. The word of God says, Live. Look unto me all the ends of the earth and be saved. Look and live. The message of the gospel, of the time of the Lord's love. And down to verse nine, Then washed thy thee with water, ye thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee. and I anointed thee with oil. There it is. He anointed thee with oil, oil of the Spirit, and I clothed thee with the broided work, and shot thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I'll tell you, I'll tell you, friend, when we were just poor, lost, undecidable, wretched sinners, God looked upon us. He spoke to us. Live. we responded to the glorious message and God at the same time was clothing us and filling us out with the perfection, perfect righteousness of Christ, He also anointed us. Yes, from the very lowest we have all been anointed by the Spirit of God. It's marvelous, the great truth that we have been anointed. Now, I'd like to Talk a little about some of the various reasons or the purposes of being anointed. Maybe we could think about John chapter nine and verse six when the Lord Jesus came by and was this man born blind from his birth, you remember? And when Jesus had spoken to this man, he sat on the ground, verse six. and he made clay of the spittle and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay. Do you remember what happened? His eyes were open and he could see. And one of the reasons for the anointing is that we may be able to see. You have the same truth in the book of Revelation, chapter three, in the connection with the Church of Lab, the fear that was rich and so on. but it wasn't very, didn't have very good eyesight for the spiritual things. She was getting sidetracked, and it was becoming worldly and carnal and lukewarm. And what did the Lord say in verse eighteen, I counsel thee that by me gold, cried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, that rich in the true sense, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, that the shame of the nakedest do not appear, and anoint thine eyes, with eyes that thou mayest see. The Spirit of God has been sent that we might have a right perspective, that we may have a single eye for God's glory, that your eyes may be single like the Lord Jesus said, that we may really count for eternity. Oh, how many a light or soul that fades, and yet how many a light that wastes. because they're blinded by the daffle of this world, the allurements of witches. The word of God has been choked to the deceitfulness of witches. God says, I have sent, I have anointed thee, that your eyes will be opened, that you behold the things of eternity, the things that the temple, those are the things you see, but the things which are unseen. They're the eternal things. The things which are not seen, they're eternal. And the Spirit of God has an anoint us that we might truly see things in God's perspective. And you know, the older we get, the more we should realize that. How loosely we should hold on to the things of time. If we have our eyes anointed that we may truly see things in the true perspective and live with eternity values in view. Now this is similar that we have here in the altar back and first John again. You see, they were anointed to see, they may understand, to know, to discern. Verse twenty-seven. That same anointing, what it's to do is to teach you. Those errors, false teaching has come in. Now he says, you don't need to have any man teach you. You have the Holy Spirit. You can detect it. You're not very old in the faith. I imagine when I was first saved and you go to hear someone, you didn't know anything about, you know, real truth then when you first saved and you go and you're we were in the Air Force, we go into, we see a nice X doubt, or sometimes at first you go to hear men that are all the letters behind his name, and I'll tell you this, that new divine nature in you, whenever that person got up to pray and he put God at a great distance, he was detected right away. You can discern, and that bit of God has been given to us so we can discern. Once you hear somebody coming into God's presence, I remember the late Theodore Ep one night I was listening to the radio and he came on the radio and I was driving the car and he took me right into the presence of God. Others will put God at a great distance, you know, they don't know him. The Spirit of God has been given to us. So we understand we have the anointing. that we can understand and have discernment, spiritual insight. We might be able to detect there that John's gospel is full of, I know that you may know, that you may know, that you may know. And the Spirit of God has been given so we can see and understand. Then another purpose for the anointing is that we could minister and worship. Maybe I should put it the other way, to worship and to minister. The priest in the Old Testament, they were anointed to the high priest with oil so he could go into the Holy of Holies too, to fit him for that service that he was to render as well. Paul says in Philippians three, verse three, For we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We are those that can worship God in the Spirit. I just want to briefly mention we, you remember the priest were anointed in the Old Testament. Well, we are priesthood. Israel had a priest to it. The church is the priest to it. We need to get that very, very clearly. Every believer is anointed a priest. How did you become a priest by the new birth? How did you become a priest in the Old Testament by born into the right tribe? You had to be born in the family of Aaron, or you couldn't be a priest? And in the New Testament we are born by the Spirit of God into the true family. The veil in the temple was rent, and the Lord Jesus died there from the cross. And we can now enter into that rent veil. We enter the holies by the blood of Jesus. And it's a tremendous privilege that every believer is a priest. And first the holy priest, that's where we worship. We're anointed that we can worship Him. The highest occupation of a Christian is worship. And real worship is many times misunderstood. You know, Thanksgiving is a wonderful thing, but it's not worship. Giving a little word of ministry to help. Worship is good too, but it's not worship. Worship is the overflow of a redeemed heart that has no request to make. The overflow of one that really loves the Lord, the Lord loves the hearer. worship. The Father seeks at worshipers, those that are worshipped in spirit and in truth, and the Spirit has anointed us so we can worship. May I just suggest to you that you would be a worshiper, you spend time through the week meditating on him in the Word, so when you come together, what we call our worship service, you'll have something to give back to him. The overflow of the Haredi believer is the sweet. a holy priest. And then we also, of course, a royal priest church, a royal priest church. And that speaks more of our service towards man. The high priest, he first went in to the holiest or holiest there, up or up into God's presence as the holy priest. But then he came out and he blessed the people. and that we really have been in the presence of God, then we can come out and be a blessing to people. And unless we know something about spending time in God's presence, we'll never be much blessing to anyone. There's the secret. That we're the royal priests. Peter says we're royal priests to it, that we should show forth the praises of him who have called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. It's a sad thing that in Christian dumps that many of these great privileges as a God, people have been robbed of the knowledge of them. Did you tell a Christian why you're a saint? Oh, no, not me. Because yes, you are. Did you tell a Christian you're a priest? No, no, no. I've never been to school. I've never been ordained. That's the way they look at it. And there's that thing that Christians fail to know because they haven't fully understood what the anointing of all beings. Yes, and more than that. There's so much, I just can't finish it tonight, but there's something else. Well, I'm on the priesthood and so on. You know, we've been anointed to reign too. Kings were anointed to reign. David, Saul and those men, they were anointed to reign. Let me read you a couple of scriptures. connection with Saul and first Samuel ten one Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon his head and kissed him and said is it not because the Lord had anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance and he did the same with David he did the same with Solomon Solomon was renaught Samuel but Solomon was also anointed by the prophet Tadak the priest, or the priest that he took and horned out of the tap, the horn of oil of the tapenacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet. And all the people said, God save King Solomon. So anointed to reign. And friends, we are also to reign in this life. In this sense, Romans five, seventeen says, For by one man's offense, death, reign by one, much more, they which receive abundance of grace, and the gifts of righteousness shall reign in light by one Jesus Christ. Paul says, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. We are to be the victors. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. And as Christians, we can be conquerors. We are to reign. And that's right here in this light. But not only that, Paul says in Second Timothy, there's other conditions too, if we suffer, we shall also reign with him. In a measure we're willing to suffer with him. This is the day of his rejection. This is the day of privilege where we can stand for him and suffer with him like the great men of David that were with him in his rejection. But when David reigned, they came into prominence then. And so it will be today. If we are willing to suffer with him, we shall also reign with him. And the great future, Revelation five, ten, it says, And he had made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. We have been made kings and priests. Revelation twenty verse six, Blessed and holy he that part in the first resurrection, such that second death had no power, for they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And then wonderful verse in the twenty-second chapter of Revelation, there shall be no night there. They need no candle, neither light of the sun. For the Lord God, give them light, and they shall reign how long? Forever and ever. We are anointed to reign forever and forever. Wonderful, wonderful truth that the Lord has brought us into that. We spoke to that we are not only anointed to reign. I will take up a couple more because of the Time, we want to stop in time. But in the Second Corinthians, chapter one again, it says there that, now he which establishes us with you is Christ and had anointed us as God. We're anointed to be established. You know, the many times people think, right, this faith, and that's all that's necessary. I just want to go to heaven. God has anointed us so that we might put our root downward and our life may go strong upward, that we may be strong in the Lord and established in the faith. There are so many weak Christians, weak needs. God has anointed us to establish us to be solid, dependable, reliable, growing Christians. In any work by friends, you need Christians that will know how to stand for God and to stand for the truth. We're anointed to, like the Lord Jesus was, to do good. It tells us that in Acts ten, thirty-eight. God had anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good. If anybody ought to be a person that's doing good, it's a Christian. We have the resources. Can you think of anything better to do for a man than to share the glorious gospel with him? Because sometimes it is necessary to do other things for him in order to get his attention, to show him kindness and love and so on, that we might reach him with the gospel. But we're left here behind and we're anointed to do good. It never before the Lord Jesus died. He was there anointed by Mary of Bethany, Hedai. Is there spiritual Latin here for us? I believe there is. One of the things that we find many times, the immature Christians that have wear their feelings on their sleeves, are so easily offended that they touch it. And you know the reason? They haven't died. We're anointed to die. Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die in a bite of the Lord. You know what all the truth of baptism teaches? What do we confess when we're baptized? When I was baptized, I confessed, spent Christmas, and died. I've been crucified with Christ as Paul. What do you do with dead people? Let's bury them. I don't want to see that old fellow down anymore. His language or his behavior and all that. He died. And I'm raised to walk in newness of life. The Lord Jesus has anointed us with the Spirit that we might be dead to self. Oh, it's a very, very important truth. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lived in me. That life I live needs to be the life of the Lord Jesus, lived through and in and through me by the power of the Holy Spirit. And there will truly death to self and all this. It will be very easy to get along with. It will never cause any trouble. never hurt or never or feeling hurt you can kick a dead man he'll never he'll never kick you back hit him in the face and he'll never hit you back you can insult him he'll never talk back remember the words what peter said when you're these quotes right Of all transgressions of mine, I'll repay. Don't you pay back. You commit it to me. Commit it to him who judged it righteously. You leave the rest to me. We are anointed to die. There's one other wonderful thing that I think which I just bring before you. If I can see it here on my notes, and that is we're anointed to receive. The priest in the Old Testament it was in numbers eighteen. Just a very brief moment, turn to numbers eighteen. Numbers eighteen. And it's beautiful when you get the picture here. Lord speak unto Aaron, verse eight, In order to, he's speaking to, and he's speaking about the hallowed things. He says, I've given them by reason of the anointing. And then he goes on to list this meat offering, this thin offering, most other things. Verse eleven, and this is thine, the heap offering of their gifts, with all the weight offering of their children of Israel. I have given them unto thee, and to thy sons, and to thy daughters with thee, by a statute forever so on. The best of the oil, verse twelve, the best of the wine and of the wheat and the first fruit. All this because of the anointing. You know, coming down to the spiritual application of this, all things are yours, said the Word of God. Whether Paul or Paulus ceases, or the world, or life, or death, or think present, or things to come, all are yours. And you're Christ. God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavens. It's in Christ. We're seated in the heavens. Oh, friends, the things that God has brought us into. Think of the eternal and the spiritual blessings that are ours. You try to count them up sometimes. We think sometimes, count your blessings, name them one by one. Or because of the anointing, God has brought us into a wealth of spiritual and eternal blessings. We are a rich people tonight, anointed by the blessed Spirit of God, who's in us, anointing which is in you, says John. The anointing that has made us his master to us is old, so we can understand. You know, before I was saved, I tried to read this old book many times, it was dry as dark. That's like a saved, I just couldn't get it. Any moment I had when I was in the Air Force, I'd be sitting there studying, reading this word. I was hungry, starving. great thing to be born with a good appetite, isn't it? What made the difference? The anointing. The Spirit of God. To be anointed. To be his. To have all this great blessing. To be servant. For a holy purpose. So we can understand. So we can see. That the anointed of the priest. and a royal priest should decide as kings and priests, anointed to receive great blessing. God has fitted us, given us the capacity to take this in now because we're born of God, the anointing, have fitted us to receive all these marvelous blessings. There are many, many things I didn't get to say tonight at all, but we could only take it in and realize the Spirit of God. God dwells in all our hearts. He's always precious. May we give him full control and may he minister Christ to our souls who will love him more and more. Oh, sweetly Paul, is more and more in love with the Lord Jesus. What a wonderful Savior he is. How I love him. Oh, that we might love him more. The Father loves him. And the fear of God wants us to love him more and more. He wants to wean him from this world. So we enjoy the things of time and time. He wants us to have our vision opened so we can see the things that are eternal, the things that are of lasting value. That quote our brother gave, he's no fool to give up. That means kind of keep the game. That means kind of loose. What a statement. It's amended. That's our prayer. Loving Father, we thank thee for the rich grace of thine. To think that we poor sinners of the Gentiles should be anointed kings and priests unto God. to have our eyes open so we can behold the wonder thinker of thy law and behold one day that king and his beauty when we shall see him and be like him and with him forever blessed that lord we thank you for the rich portion are poured upon us help us to appreciate and live to show that appreciation by the way we act in everyday living and the way we talk. We commend this word to thee. Speak to our heart. Dismiss us now thy blessing. We pray in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.