Creflo Dollar - The Spirit of Grace - Part 10
And, see, you still think that God is in control. Did you see that? Did you see that? And you say it all the time, "Well, hallelujah, God's in control". Now let's make this straight. As soon as Jesus comes back and as soon as the 6,000-year period is over, he will take control, but right now, he is not in control. No, no, don't say nothin', don't clap, don't smile, don't do nothin', just sit there, 'cause I wanna just show you the damage that wrong teaching and religion has done to your thinkin'. I remember Charles Capps came in my office, and we were doin' a faith meeting, and I had this little sign on my desk that said, "God is in control," and Charles looked at that, and he said, "Well, you know, Brother Dollar, that's not the whole truth". And I said, "Oh, come on, Charles. Everybody knows God is in control, everybody says that". He says, "Well, fine, if you wanna keep it, now, keep it". I said, "Mm, all right, go on, tell me, what's up"?
If you read the Bible carefully in Genesis, it says this, that God has given dominion and authority over all the earth to man. You have been given the dominion and authority over all the earth, over everything that is in the earth, over creepin' thing and over every creep. You have the authority, you have the authority, but the devil has convinced you, you can't do nothin'. The devil has convinced you, you're just a human, and you don't understand you are a born-again human, and there's a difference a human and a born-again human. A human doesn't have the authority, but a born-again human understands that God has put the controls into his hands, and he has the power to bind and the power to loose, and the power to cast out devils.
See, let me give you an illustration. You keep callin' Georgia Power to come to your house to turn the light on in your bedroom. Georgia Power is not gon' come to your house and turn your light on. "Excuse me"? "This is Georgia Power". "Yes, my bedroom dark". "Well, we sent the power to your house". "Yeah, I know, but could you send somebody out here to hit the switch"? "Uh, no, we've given you the authority to turn your own switch on. We provide the power. You flip the switch". And, see, God is saying the same thing. You go to God, "God, could you come on down here and touch just a little while? Can you come down here and heal? Can you come down here and take care of this devil for me right quick"? "We've provided the power. You have the authority to flip the switch". "What you sayin', God"? "Flip the switch". And we're not doin' that, and you have the authority.
So a lot of stuff that is happening in your life and around you, I'm gon' say it real strong and radical, is your fault, it's your fault. You keep thinkin' it was in God's hands, but it was in your hands. And when you gon' get to heaven, you're gon' find out a lot of stuff that happens was when it was in your hands, and you didn't use your authority. Ken and I would be dead today had we not executed our authority that morning, 18 years ago, when we walked out of that house. It was the authority that we released that morning that allowed us to be alive here today. In fact, when that happened, we have pictures of it. When that happened 18 years ago, they didn't even call the ambulance. They called people to pick up all the dead bodies, but because we walked out of the house, before we walked out, we said, "Our life has been redeemed from destruction. No weapon that is formed against me shall prosper, and every tongue that rises up against me, I condemn right now, for with long life has he satisfied me and shown me my great salvation".
And when that truck was hit and it went airborne, when it went airborne, I said, "Oh", and I had my eyes open, and he had sent his angels. I saw 'em. I don't care what you think. I don't care what you think. I saw them with my eyes. They went past my eyes this way. He sent his angels to work on our behalf, and I went into the realm of the Spirit with my eyes wide open, and I saw a group of people, out of focus, comin' towards me, and the more they came towards me, they began to come into focus. And then a voice came between me and that group and said, "No, too much unfinished business". And my eyes were open, and I was hangin' upside down, and at that point, I knew that God had sent his angels to preserve our lives. Now, wait a minute, about a football-field length down the street, I saw a body that had went through the front windshield, legs hangin' out, and I'm lookin' in the truck, we're missin' somebody, we're missin' somebody. Well, the Suburban, the side window is about like this.
Now, you seen Minister Ken's shoulders. I realize he had got knocked out of the car through that back window, landed in the windshield, front windshield of that other car, which most of the time, you're decapitated. The people that were around reported they saw a flyin' man. Now, I can't prove this, but this is the only explanation. That angel knocked a hole in that window, pulled him out, caught him, knocked a hole in that other one, lay him down, and imagine being the lady. The lady sees this flyin' man comin' towards her, and his head is on her lap. The only thing he can remember is those angels. Somebody said, "What'd they look like? What color were they"? They were the color of light. The clothes were the exact same color as their skin, light, and I saw their eyes. They had facial features, and they were on the move. We are alive today because of the authority, watch this. Lookit there, there it is, they got pictures of it, put that up. They got pictures of the car. That's it. It knocked the wheel off. You see that? And it was upside down.
We were in that 18 years ago. He sent his angel to rescue us. Why? Because, watch this, the Spirit of God in Genesis was movin' on the face of the water, waiting to hear what God would authorize. And when God said, "Let there be," then there be exactly, when he said, "Let there be," then the Holy Ghost brought it to pass. He's waiting on you, who now have the authority, to see what you would say. And when you speak the Word out of your mouth, then he will allow, the Holy Ghost will begin to administer whatever is necessary to bring to pass what came out of your mouth. And that day, when we spoke the Word of God, the Holy Spirit was in charge of those angels coming to our rescue and doing exactly what they were sent to do, and I thank my God that I'm alive and well. I done seen him work. Did you hear me? I done seen him work.
I ain't tellin' you no fable this mornin'. I have seen him work, and if he did it once, he'll do it again. And if he did it for me, he'll do it for you, but you've got to learn how to trust in the works of the Holy Spirit, amen? So when was the last time you bound somethin' up? When was the last time you looked at a situation and say, "No, that is not happenin' to me"? "No, I forbid that to happen". "Ha, I loose favor right now in the name of Jesus". Oh, yeah, that'll happen. Your words, death and life is in the power of your words, and the Holy Spirit has been sent to execute according to the authority that you release through the words of your mouth. It's the Holy Spirit working. Now, I didn't mean to go too far for that. I'm just excited and just thank God for bein' real, amen?
Now, here's the point I wanna get to. Go to Galatians chapter 5, in verse 18. Why am I having to, now in this season, try to convince Christian people that the Holy Spirit is real in what he does? We should have already understood this. We should be proficient at it right now. What's the enemy to us being led by the Spirit? Look at this, Galatians chapter 5, in verse 18. Let's read it out loud together. Ready? Read, "But if you be led of the Spirit. You're not under the law". You're not under the law, you're not under the law based on this Scripture if you're not... what? If you'd be led by the Spirit if you're not under the law. So if I'm under the law, will I be led by the Spirit? If I'm being led by the Spirit, it's because I'm not under the law, right? Somehow or another, here's the answer to why people are not being led by the Spirit. It's the law that came from Moses. We have spent a lot of our lives in church, learning about the law that came from Moses.
"Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do this," and as a result of that, that's kept us from being led by the Spirit because we thought somehow that the law was going to make us better. And we look at movies and "The Ten Commandments," and the law is going to deliver us from our sin and deliver us from the issues of our lives. I can't be the only one that thought that, that under the law, that I'm gonna be delivered from my sins, and I'm gonna be delivered from the things that are in my life. And I am now telling you it is people's misunderstanding of the law that's stopping them from yielding to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Living by the law is living by the cheaper, and I'm not talkin' about the law of gravity. I'm not talkin' about the laws of the land. I'm talkin' about the 600-and-somethin' laws that came from Moses before Jesus came. And they consist of all the don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts.
Now listen to me very carefully. Now let's travel and see if we can get some information here. Now, first of all, let me explain this to ya, just listen to me. Let me just explain to you before I show you anything. The law was not given to make people better. It wasn't given to get rid of sin. The law acts like a mirror, it shows you what's wrong with you. That's it, it shows you what's wrong with you, and it shows the sinfulness of sin. So what the law that came from Moses, the Ten Commandments, and all the other ones, 600-somethin', it was sent because, at one time, there was no law. So men were sinning and committing murder and doin' all kinds of things, and they couldn't see the sinfulness of their sin. So he had to give the law of Moses so people could see that what they were doin' was sin, and they would understand, when they transgressed against the law, it was a sin. So I'm gonna show you in a few minutes that the law was actually given to increase sin and get you to sinnin' and sinnin' and sinnin' until you finally give up and say, "I can't do this by myself, I need a Savior".
Now, I've gotta show you these Scriptures because we've been so duped in the body of Christ and in churches that we have wrong ways of explaining even the law. The law is not bad, it was sent to do a specific thing, but we're takin' it past its purpose. It has a purpose, it had a purpose when it was sent. Now, these series of Scriptures I'm gonna take you into is gonna show you very clearly that until you understand that you're not under the law, you won't yield to being led by the Spirit of God. So the law will show you what's wrong with you, but the Spirit of God'll show you how to fix it. If you look in the mirror, the mirror will show you that a hair is out of place, but the mirror is not going to comb your hair. There is no mechanism in the mirror that's gonna straighten it out. It's just gon' show you your hair is out of place. That's what the law does, it just shows you what's wrong, but it doesn't do anything to repair it. The reason why we wanna move from living just under the law to being led by the Spirit is that the Spirit of God is going to deliver and correct and bring you to a place where you're lining up with Jesus and correcting your behavior.
All these things are happenin' because the Holy Spirit's gonna lead you to that, but you just comin' to church and findin' out eight more things to not do is not gon' change you. It's no different than there's a pink elephant in the room, and I say, "Don't look at that pink elephant. Do not look at that pink elephant. You're goin' to hell if you look at that pink elephant. Do not look at that pink elephant". What are you eventually goin' to do? Look at the pink elephant. And that's what the law does. Preachers that teach their congregations to live by the law and not be led by the Spirit, the only thing they're doing is increasing sin in their congregation 'cause the more I can get you to live by the law, the more I can get you to sin, and then, when you sin, then you're gon' try to correct it on your own, and then you're gonna fail, and when you fail, you're gon' feel guilty and shameful, and then you're gonna try to do it again, and then you're gonna miss it again, and then you're gonna feel guilty and shameful, and you're gon' create a cycle of sin, and you're tryin' to figure out, "Why is it I can't stop doin' this"?
So you're tryin' to correct the fruit but not correct the root, and the Holy Ghost deals with root issues. Are you ready for this now? All right, now, I know I said a lot. I know I said a lot of radical things. I know y'all sittin' up here, freakin' out, "Oh, my God, this is heresy". No, no, what you believe is heresy. You just sit there and listen to me, and we gon' straighten out the heresy, all right? Now listen to me very carefully. Let's go through the Scriptures real slowly. And the issue is, are we being prevented from being led by the Spirit because we are still allowing ourselves to be led by the law that came from Moses? If we can stop allowing the law that came by Moses from leading us, we gon' be okay. And let me tell ya somethin'. God has already put the issues of the law on the inside of your heart. In other words, you know what's right and wrong. Even before you got saved, you know what's right and wrong. You knew, goin' into Kroger's and slappin' that old woman was wrong before you made Jesus the Lord of your life.
So, by intuition, you already know what the law is sayin'. You already know it's wrong to hold up somebody with a gun. You already know those things by intuition, all right? But we keep tryin' to want, we were talkin' this morning, a new document to replace the Ten Commandments, and even in the New Testament, we're tryin' to create a new document instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us and to show us and to guide us. You know, the law will show you somethin' wrong with your marriage, but the Spirit of God'll show you what you need to do to fix it. And so the Spirit of God'll, you know, your wife say somethin', and you gettin' ready to reply, he said, "Shh, don't say nothin' right now". And he says, "Hm, now hug 'em right now. Shh, still don't nothin'. Back up. Okay, she just said somethin' you wanna reply? Keep your mouth closed, shh".
See, he's gon' walk you through that, and next thing you know, some things have happened, and he's gon' change your insides. The Holy Spirit's gonna give you new desires. He's gonna give you a want to, to replace the old want to, and the things you used to wanna do, you ain't gon' wanna do it no more because the Holy Spirit's job is to do that. The law is not gonna do that for you. So let's get into this. I'm about to show you the Scriptures so you can see it for yourself, and then we can do what we need to do. First of all, we need to deal with this thing about, you know, the law increasing sin and sin-consciousness. Well, let's look at Romans chapter 5, in verse 20 and 21, and now put that in the Amplified on the screen. I want people to see this as we go through this because we have got to get rid of our thinking about the place of the law today versus the place of the Holy Spirit in your life today. The Holy Spirit, it is his season now. It is his season. The law had its season. The law that came from Moses had its... now it's the season of the Holy Spirit to lead us and to guide us into the deeper.
Romans chapter 5, verse 20, he says, "But then the Law came in, only to," do what? Lookit, "The law came in, [only] to," do what? "To expand and to increase," what? "The trespass, [makin' it more apparent and exciting opposition.] But where sin increased and abounded," notice, the law came in to increase the trespass, to increase sin. The word "abound" means to increase. He said, "Grace, [God's unmerited favor] has surpassed it and increased the more and superabounded". In other words, sin is never gonna be greater than God's grace. And what he said was, even though the law was given for the purpose of increasing sin in your life, grace of God will still be able to superabound even in the increase in your life. So grace will never outdo sin. For you to say that you went to hell because you were sinning is to say that sin is greater than God's grace, it's not. So did you notice that the law was responsible for increasing sin then?
All right, let's go to another one, look at Galatians 3:19. Let's look at this in the Amplified, Galatians 3:19, "What then was the purpose of the Law"? That's what we wanna know, what was the purpose of the Law that came from Moses? "It was added [later on, after the promise, to disclose and to expose to men their guilt.]" So how do men get guilty from the law? When you can't keep it, you feel guilty. So it was given "to expose to men their guilt] because of the transgressions," the sins, "and [to make men more conscious of the sinfulness] of sin," did you see that? So the law was given so that, when you break the law, you become guilty, and then you become so sin-conscious because of what you did that it was given to make you more conscious of the sinfulness of sin.
So now, you know, I'll use an illustration of when I was in Germany. On autobahn, they didn't have a speed limit, but I'm so accustomed to havin' a speed limit here, and I'm watchin' for the po-po and lookin' at what the speed limit is that when I finally got where there was no speed limit, I had a consciousness of a speed limit which stopped me from the freedom of the autobahn because the law of speeding had so got into my consciousness, it made me sin-conscious. Now, how does that work? A lot of Christians wake up in the mornin' sin-conscious, and they ask God to forgive them for somethin' they hadn't even done yet. Where does that come from? Being so sin-conscious. You're so focused on sin that the Holy Spirit can't say nothin' to you 'cause you're so sin-conscious.
"Lord, forgive me for all the sins that I might do". God-dog, what about, "Lord, thank you that I'm the righteousness of God today"? You see what I'm sayin'? A sin-conscious man won't position himself to be led by the Holy Spirit because his sin-consciousness is leading his life, all right? Let's finish readin' that. Back up. He says, "Because of transgressions [and to make men more conscious of the sinfulness] of sin; and it was intended to be in effect," for how long? "Until the Seed, (the Descendant, the Heir) should come". So, notice, there was an expiration date on the law governing. It was to be in effect until Jesus came "To and concerning Whom the promise had been made. And it [the Law] was arranged and ordained and appointed through the instrumentality of angels [and was given] by the hand (in the person,)" watch this, "of a mediator or a go-between, [Moses, as an intermediary person between God and man]".
Keep goin'. I'm just... let's go. "Now a go-between (intermediary) has to do with and implies more than one party [there can be no mediator with just one person]. Yet God is [only] one Person, [and He was the sole party in giving the promise to Abraham. But the Law was a contract between two," come on, "God and Israel". It wasn't even involving you unless you're a Jewish person. You wouldn't even got no business foolin' around with it. I shouldn't even have to be tellin' you this because, unless you were Jewish, the contract didn't even concern a Gentile.