 Amen. I'll write over there in 1 Kings chapter number 17 just in context before we get started. Right now we are in the nation of Israel and during the reign of King Ahab which was not in the entirety of the nation. He was not the worst king but at this point in time he was the worst king so far, the Bible tells us. He was a very wicked king and he was so bad at that God actually used this prophet Elijah to cause this drought in the nation of Israel due to their sin. And so right now as we open 1 Kings 17 that is what is happening. There is a drought that is a very severe drought due to the sins of the nation of Israel. And here God is telling Elijah how he's going to take care of Elijah. He says, I'm going to send you to this woman and she's going to take care of you and you will be fine Elijah. You don't have to worry Elijah. So let's look at verse 8. Let's start in 1 Kings 17 in verse number 8. And the word of the Lord came unto him, Elijah saying, arise, get thee to Zeraphath which belongeth to Zion and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain. And so he rose and went to Zeraphath and when he came to the gate of the city behold the widow woman was their gathering of sticks. So here's this woman that God was telling him about but she doesn't know any of this. She doesn't know who Elijah is yet. She doesn't know what's about to happen. And we see her gathering sticks. You say, why is she doing that? Let's keep reading. And he, Elijah called to her and said, I pray thee a little water and a vessel that I may drink and as she was going to fetch it. So we asked her for some water and she's on her way to go get him some water. Which says a little bit about this woman already. Here they're in a, they're in a drought. That's the problem. There is no water. And here this total stranger comes up to her and asks her for some water. She goes right away to get it. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her and said, bring me, I pray thee a morsel of bread in thine hands. So now he's asking for food. Now he's asking for something else. And notice her reply. And she said, as the Lord that I got to liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel and a little oil and a cruise. And behold, I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die. So now we get a little more context here. It turns out what this woman is doing is she's basically telling Elijah, you know, I don't have any food. All I have is a little bit of oil and a little bit of meal. Meal being like flour, you know, like ground seeds to make bread. And she's saying, I just have a little bit of this left and right now I'm gathering sticks so I can take the rest of this food I have. And we're going to eat the rest of it and we're going to starve. She's starving. She's on the verge of death with her and her son. It's a very severe, severe time here. But notice what Elijah says, verse 13. Elijah said unto her, fear not, fear not, go and do as thou has said, but make me thereof a little cake first and bring it unto me. And after make for thee and thy son. Verse 14, for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, don't miss this. The barrel of meal shall not waste. Neither shall the crews of oil fail until the day that the Lord send and thrain upon the earth. So we're going to see a miracle about to happen here where Elijah says to her, you know, don't worry about that, that a little bit of flour, that little bit of meal you have in that barrel and the little bit of oil that you have left. Don't worry about that. That will never run out. Verse 15, and she went and did according to the saying of Elijah. And she and he and her house did eat many days. Verse 16, don't miss this again. And the barrel of meal wasted not. Neither did the crews of oil fail according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. So God performs this miracle here similar to, I guess the miracles that Jesus did in the New Testament when he fed people where here she has this little bit of oil and this little bit of meal and it doesn't run out. It's a limitless supply, it's a miracle that God performs. And so what I want to do this evening, the title of the sermon this evening is what never fails, what never fails. And I want to use this story here. It's just a bit of an analogy, just a little bit of an icebreaker to kind of get us thinking about some things this evening. Because here we see this woman, she is granted this miracle in a difficult time she's in. She's granted this miracle where this supply of essentially flour of bread and oil never run out. Now in the word of God, two very strong themes that you see all over the Bible in New Andal Testament is that bread, in this case the meal, bread is often compared to the word of God. The word of God is often compared to bread and man shall not live by bread alone but by every mouth, the procedure of the mouth of God. Jesus compared the word of God to eating a piece of oil is always referred to or the Holy Spirit is typically referred to as oil, is usually pictured by oil in the Bible. And so in this same way, as with this woman she had this bread and this oil that never ran out. In the same way this evening, if you are saved, if you're a Christian, if you're a believer, so with you, your supply of the Holy Spirit and the word of God will never run out. Regardless of what happens in your life or how difficult things get, those are two things that you will always have. There will be a limitless supply and you will never run out of them. So the question is, now that we know these two things, the Holy Spirit and the word of God, like in our analogy is with this woman, we know these things will never go away. How do we use them? The Holy Spirit, the word of God, I don't know about you but if I had a limitless supply of something, I wouldn't want to know how to use it. I don't want to know how to get the most out of it for myself, so that's what we're going to look at this evening. We're going to look at the word of God and we're going to look at the Holy Spirit. We're going to look at how to use these things. We know that they're a limitless supply. We know that we will never run out of those things. They'll always be there. So how do we get the most out of it? Turn to Deuteronomy 17, Deuteronomy chapter number 17. So first this evening, let's look at how to use the word of God. How to use the word of God. So we have these two things and I'll give you a few points on how to use the word of God and a few points on how to use the Holy Spirit this evening. The first way to use the word of God is this, is to read it, is to read it. You're there in Deuteronomy chapter number 17. This is essentially God giving the rules for if there was to be a king over the nation, which God, it shows God knew that this would happen eventually, God was laying out some rules here for what he wanted this king to do, what the rules were for this king, what God expected of this king that was to rule his nation. And let's look at verse 18. Deuteronomy 17, 18 says this, and it shall be when he, the king, said that upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book of that which is before the priest of Levites, and it shall be with him. And notice this, he shall read therein all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this law and the statutes to do them. So what God expected of this king was two things, to take his word, to take the book of the law and to write himself a copy of it. But in verse 19, we see the emphasis on he's to take this law of God, he's to take the word of God, he's expected to read out of it, to read part of it all the days of his life, every single day. And you read this and you say, oh, great, but I'm not a king. Let's keep reading, we'll get to that in a minute. Verse 20, you say, why was, okay, why did God want him to do this? Why was he expected to read every single day out of the word of God? What was the point of this? What was accomplished by this? Here's why, verse 20, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left to the end that he may prolong his days and his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. So for a moment, and we're gonna get to that in a minute, but for a moment, let's forget about who was supposed to keep this commandment and why, and let's just think about what was the purpose, forget who it was, forget if it was the king or the janitor or whoever it was, let's put that aside for a minute. Why did God want, what was the point of this being done? What the reading and the word of God every single day, what was the end result? What was accomplished by that? The point was so that in this particular situation, the king would not depart from the commandment to God. Now, here's the point of this. You say, I'm not a king, I'm not a president, I'm not a politician, hopefully you're not and I'm not in the charge of a nation, but here's the thing, irregardless of that, that does not change the fact that it doesn't matter who you are, if you do this, if you read therein all the days of your life, you will get the same result. You don't have to be a king, you don't have to, it's not like this was some loophole that only worked for a certain person, I don't care who you are, if you read in the word of God, if you read the laws of God, all the days of your life, you will get the same exact result that the king was to get in this chapter. And as far as not being a king, look, the reason that you say, why was the king supposed to do this, there's no, you don't see any indication that everyone else was supposed to do this, so why the king? Well, here's the reason, because when God is laying out these rules, not just these verses that we're reading, but all this entire chapter of what God wanted for the king, the reason God gave the king these rules is because God wanted his king, he expected this king to be the standard of his will for the entire nation. God wanted this king to be the example, the testimony, the mirror of what God wanted everyone to be, he wanted him to be the demonstration of that, similar to how with the pastor, the Bible, in the New Testament, we'll talk about how a pastor is supposed to be an example of the believers, meaning not necessarily to be an example to the other believers, but an example of what a believer should be. Then that is the same thing with the king. You say, well, I'm not a king, you're not a king, but as a Christian, you are expected to be the standard for what God wants for everyone else in the world. You were to be Christ-like, you were to be an example that obviously no one's perfect and no one's gonna be able to be an exact match of Jesus Christ, obviously, but as a Christian, we are to be an example of that the laws of God work, that if you follow the Bible and you do the Bible, it will work in your life. We are supposed to be a testimony, an example, a mirror of what God wants for everybody. So in that same way, you ought to be doing this. You don't have to turn there, but Joshua 1-8 says this, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein in the word of God day and night, that thou mayst observe to do according to all that is written therein. Same reason as we saw in Deuteronomy. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success. So here's the thing, you say, how often should I read the word of God? You should read it every day. Just like in Deuteronomy, it says, he was to read therein all the days of his life. In Joshua, it says to meditate therein day and night. Look, if you read your Bible once a week, if you read your Bible once a month, or whenever you feel guilty that you haven't read it in a while and then you open it up and you read half a chapter, that's not meditating therein day and night. Meditating there, in order to meditate on something day and night, you need to be reading the Bible every single day. It takes consistency. Because look, in Joshua 1-8, I'll reread part of it again. It's the same promises in Deuteronomy where if you do it, it says you will observe to do according to all that is written therein. You will make your own process. You will have good success. Look, if you don't keep the cause, you're not gonna get the effect. If you don't meditate therein in the word of God day and night, there's no guarantee that you're gonna get that promise. So we're talking about how to use the word of God. We'll get to the Holy Spirit later. But just with the word of God, how to use it? Well, one, we should read it. Turn to Joshua 8. Second, we should learn it. Not only does God expect His people to read for themselves in the word of God, but He expects them to learn it in a very specific way. There's been different ways God's ordained it. If you're sitting here in 2023, in the year of our Lord, 2023, it's the local New Testament church. That's where God wants you to learn His word and to hear His word preached. But nevertheless, we're gonna look at all these examples although there's different ways it was supposed to be done. God wanted the same points to be kept as far as how it was preached in every single instance. Let's look at that. If they're in Joshua 8, real quick, I'll read to you Nehemiah chapter 8 where the word of God is preached. It says, so they read in the book of the law of God distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading. Look when God's word is preached, when you come to church here, someone just doesn't just get up and read the chapter and we all go home. Someone gets up and then we read the chapter and we get the context and then a man of God comes up, the pastor comes up and he causes the people to understand the reading. It's not just reading the word of God, it's preaching that what God means and what he's trying to get across. They're in Joshua 8. This is perhaps, I believe this is the, if there's any verse in the Bible that embodies what biblical preaching is to be like, what God wants His word to be preached, I believe this is it. Joshua 8, look at verse 34, it says this, and afterward he read all the words of the law. Not some of the words, not the most popular words, every single word, all the words of the law and just in case we're too dumb to get it, it says the blessings and the cursings. Just in case we're still too dumb to get it, he continues and he drives in further according to all that is written in the book of the law. God says, I want every word preached, because there's many blessings in the Bible, but there's a lot more cursings. I want the blessings, the cursings, all the words, everything that is written in the book of the law. Verse 35, he continues, there was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not. And he goes into further detail, okay, I get it. God, every word should be preached, every single word, but who's supposed to hear it? Just the adults. No, it says before all the congregation of Israel. Say, well, maybe he just wasn't talking about the kids. With the women and the little ones and the strangers that were conversant among them, every single person, every single word of God was to be preached. Everyone was supposed to hear it. Isaiah 58 verse one, you say, okay, but does the pastor need to yell? Does he need to yell, does he need to raise his voice? Why can't he just have a talk with us? Isaiah chapter 58, the Bible says this, you don't have to turn there. Here God is talking to Isaiah and God is speaking to his prophet on how he wants him to preach the word of God. He says this, cry aloud. Now in the king of his Bible, that's not talking about weeping, it's talking about yelling. He says cry aloud, spare not. That means don't leave anything out. Don't spare anything, don't skip over anything. Yell it, cry aloud, spare not. Well, maybe he wasn't talking about being audibly loud. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, he says. That means be loud and trumpet is loud. When a revelation describes the voice of Christ as a trumpet, it doesn't mean that his voice sounded like the adults in Charlie Brown. It means that it was loud. Lift up thy voice like a trumpet. And you say why, why all this, why all this trouble? In Ezekiel, God tells Ezekiel to stop with thy foot. He says, I want you to yell, I want you to stop with your foot, I want you to make my point clear, but you say why all this? Why does everyone have to hear it, the women and the children and the men, why does everyone have to be preached? It continues, it says, cry aloud, spare not, lift up that voice like a trumpet. Why, why people, their transgression in the house of Jacob, their sins. Preaching is to show us our sins. Because here's the thing, as people, we can lie to ourselves sometimes. And even if we read the word of God every single day, you know, sometimes out of our own selfishness, our own heart, the heart is deceitful above all things. Sometimes we can read the word of God and intentionally steer around our sins or steer around what we need to work on. But when you come to church and you're sitting in the chair and you're hearing the unbiased man of God preach you, you're gonna hear everything. You're gonna hear everything, the things that you skipped over in your Bible reading or the things that you didn't read because you didn't read it in with, you're gonna hear all of it. And the point is to show us our transgressions in the house of Jacob, their sins. So how do we use the word of God? Well first, we gotta read it. We gotta be reading it every single day. We gotta be reading at least a few chapters every single day. I believe if you read it somewhere between two or three chapters a day, I believe you'll read the word of God in one year. That's a great place to start. That's a perfect place to start. Read it, learn it. Come to a church and by the way, not every church is going to preach like this. Not every church is going to preach all the words. When you don't, something that God wants done is not done the way he wanted, it's not preaching. A church that does not preach every single word of the Bible, that's not preaching. In the same way, if you have an ESV or an NIV, it's not the Anglo-standard version of the Bible. It's not a Bible, it's the ESV. Serving God the way he wants minus all these things that we take out, it's not preaching. It's a waste of time. A knockoff is not the real thing. Here's the third way to use the word of God, apply it. Okay, you're reading the word of God, that's great. You're learning it. There's one more thing you have to do though to make it all worth it. You have to apply it, you have to apply it. Turn to Ezekiel 33, I may have had you turn there. Ezekiel chapter 33, here God is speaking to Ezekiel and he's describing to Ezekiel the situation with his preaching. Here Ezekiel is preaching, he's with the captives of one of the first captives of Judah and he's like other prophets like Jeremiah was around this time. He's preaching of the final captivity that's going to come. And we look at verse 31, it's interesting because it's kind of a different scene than Jeremiah. Jeremiah preached and they hated him. They hated what he said, they didn't believe what he said and they actually hated him. But here we're gonna see with Ezekiel it's a little bit different where they didn't really have anything wrong with Ezekiel. They liked Ezekiel but they didn't listen to what he actually said. Ezekiel 33, let's look at verse 31, here God is speaking to Ezekiel, he says, and they talking about the people he's preaching to and they come unto thee as the people comeeth, he says they show up, they come to you, they show up to church and they sit before these my people, they show up, they sit down in the pews and they hear the words, they show up, they sit in the pews and they're listening, they hear the sermon, they hear everything. But notice this, come unto thee, sit before thee, hear thy words, but they will not do them. For with their mouth they show forth much love. This is what Jesus would end up saying about the Pharisees years and years and years later. For with their mouth they show forth much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. Verse 32, and lo, thou word unto them is a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument. He says, to them Ezekiel, they think you're talented, they think you're like, you're a famous artist to them, a famous musician to them, they enjoy hearing or preaching. They like, we have to say, for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this comeeth the past, about the judgment he's preaching about, when this comeeth the past, he's preaching to them and they're listening and they enjoy hearing it, but they don't really believe what he says. They're not listening to what he's telling them to do. When this comeeth the past, for lo, it will come, then they shall know that a prophet had been among them. This is kind of a somber verse, because this is when we, even if we read the word of God and we learn it, when we hear preaching and we read out of the word of God, but we refuse to do it, this is what happens to us. Because what he's saying with these people is they hear it and they're not doing it. So when the judgment finally comes to pass, because it will come, it's going to come, because I said so, God's saying, when it comes, then they shall know. Then at that moment, when it's too late, then they're going to know that they should have been paying attention. And it's unfortunate, because that's how sin works with us. We go and we don't listen to the word of God and we push past the word of God and we ignore the word of God and finally when it's too late and we've already dug ourselves into a hole, then we realize that a prophet was among us. Then we realize that it was the truth that was being preached to us all along. That's how it works. They hear thy words, but they will not do them. They will not do them. It reminds me of how in the Bible, when you read in the Kings and Chronicles, and it describes the fall because you have the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah and Israel was the first to fall. And when Israel falls, it's one of my favorite parts of the Bible. God kind of gives this, it's almost a chapter long, but he kind of gives this before he closes out the history of Israel. Before we close the final chapter on the history of Israel, God kind of gives this treatise of explaining, but he sent them prophets and explaining that God, it was not God's fault, explaining that God did everything he could possibly do to try to get them back and he sent them the prophets and it describes the nation of Israel as this. It describes it as what they would not hear. Just the refusal to hear. God forbid that that's us. Especially if we go through the trouble of using the word of God, right? Because look, you can read the word of God, you need to. If necessary, you must read the word of God. We can learn the word of God, which again is necessary, you must. But if we don't apply it, it's all for nothing. Matthew chapter seven, I'll read it for you. Matthew chapter seven, verse 24, Jesus gives an analogy here. He says this, therefore whosoever hath these sayings of mine. Jesus is gonna give, you've probably heard this story before, but he gives the example of the two people who built their houses. And in both scenarios of these two people, they both heard the word of God and in both cases, a storm came. Because no matter where you are in life, a storm will come, for sure. So let's look at the first person. Therefore whosoever hath these sayings of mine and do with them. I will liken him to a wise man which built his house upon a rock and the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it fell not, why? Before it was founded upon a rock. Okay, let's look at the second person. Everyone that hears these sayings of mine, same thing, and do with them not. This person read their Bible, they came to church, but they never applied anything. They didn't change anything in their life. They read it, they heard it, but they just kept going along doing the same thing they were doing before. Shall be likened to a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house. And it fell, and great was the fall of it. One person fell because, notice, he doesn't say because the framing was a strong enough. Because the structure wasn't strong enough. The reason that the one house fell was because of the foundation that it was built upon. The thing that matters most in your life is the very foundation of who you are. If the foundation of who you are and the foundation of why you do what you do and the core of your beliefs, if that's just built upon you wanting to have a pleasurable life, or you going after money, or whatever it is, if that foundation is something of mammon, of something of no worth, it will fall. Doesn't matter what the house is built on. But if your foundation is a rock, if your foundation is the Word of God, then no matter what the house is built of, no matter what the other circumstances are, it will never fall, for it was founded upon a rock. But the point being here, it's not enough to read, it's not enough to listen, although those things are necessary, it has to be applied to our life. Turn to chapter one. Hearing is the necessary step that only works if it is coupled with doing. James chapter one, so the last verse we'll look at on this subject. There in James chapter one, look at verse 22. James chapter one, verse 22, this gives a really great example of this. Verse 22 says, but be doers of the Word, and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. So now he's going to give an example, and I want you to just to pay attention to what the analogy he's getting here. For if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer. So it's saying someone here is preaching, but they don't actually do it. Here's what this person is like. He is like and do a man, beholding his natural face in a glass. Glass here talking about a mirror. So it's saying, if you hear the Word of God and don't do it, it's like you're looking in a mirror. Verse 24, for he beholded themself, you're looking yourself in the mirror, and go with his way, and straight away forget what manner of man he was. So it's saying if you read and hear the Word of God, you don't actually do it. It's like if you looked in a mirror, you saw yourself, you saw that your tie was a mess, and your hair is a mess, and your collar is a mess, you have food all over your face, and then you just walk off. That's what it's like, because verse 25, but who's so looketh into the perfect law of liberty? That's the Word of God, that's the Bible. And continue with therein, he being not a forgetful here, but a doer of work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. So the analogy is that when you read and hear the Word of God, the Word of God is a mirror to us. The perfect law of liberty is a mirror, because the Bible shows us everything wrong with us. The Bible is perfect, and so when we compare ourselves to what the Bible says, and when we compare ourselves to what God wants, we all fall short. It's like looking in the mirror, when you read the Bible, when you hear preaching, you're gonna look into this mirror and you're gonna see everything wrong with you. You see everything, that's when we see all of our sin and our faults, and if we sit in church, and we sit down, we read our Bible, and we see everything wrong with us, and everything that we're not doing, and we just close the Bible, or get out of our cares and go home and change nothing in our life, that's exactly what we're doing. We're acknowledging our faults and then we're just moving on like nothing ever happened. Turn to Galatians chapter five. So how do we use the Word of God? It's limitless to us. The Word of God is endless. How do we use it? We have to read it. We have to learn it. Most importantly, we have to actually apply it to our life to use it. So we talked about the Word of God. How about the Holy Spirit? How about the Holy Spirit? Well, let's look at a few things about the Holy Spirit. How do we use the Holy Spirit? Well, the first thing, the first way to use the Holy Spirit is this. Follow it. Follow it. If you're saved, the Bible says that you've been indwelled with the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy, you have God, the Holy Spirit, inside of you dwelling within you. What does the Holy Spirit do? Galatians chapter five, let's look at verse 16. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Theme the Bible, and we're going to read a little bit about it here, but in the New Testament where, if you're saved, you have two things inside of you that are fighting each other constantly. You have the Holy Spirit that is leading you. That's what we're going to see in these verses. The Holy Spirit is leading you into what God wants, and it's leading you into what God's will for your life is, and everything God wants from you. And then you have the flesh. This is your sinful nature that, because look, when you got saved, you didn't become perfect. You still have the sinful nature with you. You may have been given the Holy Spirit, but you will not get rid of your sinful nature until you are in heaven. You will not get rid of your sinful nature until you are standing before Jesus Christ in heaven. So you have these two things that are fighting against you in your life that constantly, and that's what it's talking about here, verse 17, for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. Verse 18, but if you be led of the Spirit, if you're following the Holy Spirit, you're not under the law. Now it's going to describe here what the flesh wants and what the Spirit wants. It's going to give some examples here. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, adultery, witchcraft, hatred, variance, relations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envings, murders, drunkenness, revelings and such like. Although which I tell you before is I've also told you in the past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Again, just speaking to the fact that when we're in the kingdom of God, we won't have any of these things when once we're in heaven. But that's not the case on this earth though. Verse 22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such, there is no law. So we see what the flesh is leading us into. We see the Spirit is trying to pull us the opposite direction. As Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, the Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Turn to first Corinthians 2. I'll read you John 14.26. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples. He says, but the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost. So Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as he called it the Comforter. But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send to my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I said unto you. Here he says that the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, it's teaching you the Word of God. It's trying to teach you what God wants for your life. So follow it. So follow it. How else can I use the Holy Spirit? Well, you can follow it. You can follow it into God's will into what it wants, but here's what else you can do. You can listen to it. The Bible says that if you're saved and you have a Holy Spirit, you have, the Holy Spirit will help you to understand the Word of God. It's a unique ability that you have that unsaved people do not have. First Corinthians chapter two, look at verse 12. It says this. It says, now we have received, it's talking about saved believers. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is God. That we might know the things that are freely given to us in God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but again, which the Holy Ghost teacheth. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. It's saying we can, we're able to, because we have the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, it says we are able to know the things that God gives us. We're able to know the Word of God. It teaches us the Word of God. And in verse 14, it explains that this is not the case with someone who's not saved. Verse 14, but the natural man, this is the man that's not saved. He doesn't have the Holy Spirit yet. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. This is why we go soul-winning and we don't just leave Bibles on people's doors. Because the unsaved man, the person that does not have the Holy Spirit, he cannot understand the Word of God on his own. He needs someone who has the Holy Spirit in them, who has the ability to understand it. He needs someone to go up to him and explain to him what it means. A great example of this is in the book of Acts where the Ethiopian eunuch is in his chariot and he's, and Philip comes up to him. Philip, the soul-winner, the same believer. And he says to him, he says, understandest thou without readers? He's saying here, this man is reading the Word of God. He's reading the Bible. And Philip comes up and says, do you understand what you're reading? And the man says, how can I accept some man should guide me? Everyone out there who is not saved do reason that there is no other way to get someone saved. Look, if that was the case, it'd be easy. We'd just go buy a bunch of Bibles, the Dollar Tree, and leave them on people's doorsteps. But it's not that simple because someone who's unsaved, they cannot understand the Word of God on their own. They need to have someone explain it to them who is saved. And that's why we must go soul-wining. But as a Christian, you have that unique ability. You have the unique ability where you have, now obviously there are certain things in the Bible that we're not gonna understand every single thing that's in the Bible. But if you are saved, you have a special unique power to sit down and open your Bible and read it and pray and ask God to help you understand it and to actually understand what you're reading. Most people don't have that. The vast majority of people will never have that. So appreciate that and use it. Turn to Romans 8. Here's the third way you can use the Holy Spirit. Romans chapter 8. You can use it to pray to God. Bible says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us to God. While you're turning to Romans 8, I'll read you Ephesians 2.18. The Bible says this, for through him, talking about Jesus Christ, we both have access by one spirit under the Father. The Bible talks about how it is the Holy Spirit where if we don't know, we're gonna read you in Romans 8, but if we don't know what to pray for, at the end of the day, we're just mortal human beings. We don't know. God knows everything about our situation and what we need and what we don't need, but we don't know that all the time. Most of the time we don't know that. And many times we don't know what to ask for. We don't know what we need. Romans 8 verse 26 says this, likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. How does it do that? For we know not what we should pray for as we are. There are times where we don't know what we need. Even if we think we know what we need, we don't know what we need. Many times this is the case with us. But look at what it says here. It says, but the Spirit itself make it intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. Say, you know, I don't know what to pray for. I don't know necessarily what I need in my life. Well, you don't have to worry about that because the Bible says that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, God, the Holy Spirit that is inside of you will intercede for you to God. Verse 27, and he that searches the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit. And he, again, may get intercession intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So if you don't know what to pray for and you don't know what you need and you need direction in your life, you have the ability to go and pray to God and say, God, I don't know what I need, but I pray you would give it to me. And the Holy Spirit that is inside of you, even if you're praying for the wrong thing, the Holy Spirit will take what you need and he will bring it before God and say, God, he doesn't know what he needs or he thinks he needs this, but here's what he really needs. He doesn't understand what to do in his life and he doesn't understand what he needs, but God, this is what he needs and God the Holy Spirit will intercede with you to God the Father. That's pretty cool. That's a very special ability. So the Holy Spirit, how can we use it? Well, we can follow it. The Holy Spirit, it will show you the word, granted you're reading the word of God and you know what the Bible says. The Holy Spirit will teach you the things of God. It will convict your conscience. That's why the Bible talks about grieving the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit inside of you is pulling you in the right direction and you'll feel this because if you start doing the wrong thing, you'll know it's wrong. You'll know it's wrong. You'll be guilty. You'll feel guilty. You'll know it's wrong because that's the Holy Spirit inside of you that's saying, no, no, no, no, you need to go this way. That's not what God wants. God wants this for you and deep down inside, even in our moments where maybe we're in denial, we know it's wrong. We know it and we can cover it up and we can act like, no, everything's fine. I'm doing fine. I'm not doing terrible, but deep down inside, we know it and that's the Holy Spirit in you. That's leading you, so follow it. But not only that, but let it teach you the Word of God as you read it. Holy Spirit will interpret the Word of God for you. You have the ability to understand what is in the Word of God because of the Holy Spirit. And course third, it will intercede with you to God. Again, you need to be reading your Bible, right? The Holy Spirit can't help you if you're not praying to begin with. It doesn't pray for you. It intercedes for you when you pray. It doesn't read the Bible for you. It helps you understand it and lead you in the right direction when you read it. So you see how these things build upon each other. They're both independently important in and of themselves, but they need to be done together to work. So we're saved and we have these abilities. One more verse on this, I'm sorry. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 519. 1 Thessalonians 519, very short verse, but I want you to read it just to close out this point. 1 Thessalonians 519. It's a unique ability to the Holy Spirit. Helps us to when we pray before God as Hebrews talks about when we come into the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace in help of time of need. 1 Thessalonians 519 says very simply, quench not the spirit. So in summary, as we're talking about the spirit and everything it does for us, the biggest way to use it is don't quench it. The Holy Spirit kind of works on its own. If you're reading the Word of God, it's going to reveal what's in the Word of God to you. If you're praying, it's just automatically gonna intercede for you to God. It's automatically going to lead you in the right direction unless you intentionally quench it. Unless you shut it off, because look, it's possible. It's possible to shut it off and to ignore it enough to where you block it out. Holy Spirit, it's like a light. And you can take a light and you can throw blankets over it and you can cover it up and you can put a trash can over it and you can cover it up if you really try hard enough. But don't do that. Use it to your advantage as a same believer. It's a very special tool that many people, most people do not have. So turn to 1 Kings 17. 1 Kings chapter 17. We'll end our story here. 1 Kings chapter 17, where we begin. So in conclusion, we talked about, we have these two limitless resources. We have the Word of God and we have the Holy Spirit. We learned on how to use them in detail. Let's look at one more main thing we can learn from this story. Verse 17, the story goes on. And it came to pass after these things that things take a turn for the worse. It says that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house fell sick and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him. Her son dies. Her son dies. And notice what she says. She said unto Elijah, what have I to do with thee, oh, thou man of God? art thou common to me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son? And so this woman here, this particular story, this woman, she doesn't necessarily blame the man of God, but you can tell she definitely is speaking to him and she's not understanding. You can tell she's talking to him like she thinks. She's basically saying to him, did you only come into my life just to cause me harm? Are you only here to call past sins I've committed to remembrance? Are you only here to harm me and to hurt me and hurt my family, to kill my son? Is that the only reason you are here? Here's the thing, we do the same thing. See, how do we do the same thing? Sometimes, look, this woman at this point, she's in the worst place the worse she began. She was in a pretty rough spot when she was starving, but now someone's actually dead. Now someone's actually dead. We're actually gonna end the story here because it's irrelevant. We know that her son ends up being raised to life, but whether or not, let's pretend that her son never came back to life. Let's say that that's just how it was. It was left like that, her son died. Here's the thing, we can do the same thing to God sometimes because what we can do is when things take a turn for the worse. When things get real bad sometimes, we can get this mentality with God where maybe we're not necessarily blaming God, but we're thinking of God. Is God only just trying to destroy me? Is God only trying to? Because look, sometimes we can, look, maybe this woman, she says, are you coming to call my sins to remembrance? We don't know. Maybe this did happen because of her sin. We don't know of past sins she committed. And sometimes maybe if we are, even if we are dealing, you know, being punished for past sins we committed, we can get the mentality of going to God like this woman went to Elijah, the man of God, and think, God, are you only just trying to cause destruction? Are you only here to cause harm? But here's the thing, at this moment, with this woman, where she is standing face to face with Elijah, her son is dead and she's faced with Elijah. She's talking and she's saying, are you only here to cause me harm? Are you only here to cause destruction? Are you only here? Do you only come here to kill my son in the darkest hour, in your worst moment of life? You know what she was forgetting? Is she was forgetting that she was in the room. There was a barrel of meal and a cruise of oil that was still, and look, we have the word of God, and we have the Holy Spirit and they will never run out on us. That is no guarantee of what your life will look like. Does not mean that you will have a, this is not a prosperity gospel. You're not gonna have a certain level of prosperity in your life. Things can still take a turn from the worst, but in the same way with you and with me, with us, when those times when life takes a turn from the worst and we're in our darkest hour and we're in our worst moment, don't let yourself go to God and maybe not blame him, but say, God, are you only here to cause destruction in my life? Because here's the thing. The Bible says in Ezekiel where God says, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that rather he should turn from his wickedness and live. Even when God is punishing us for our sins, the goal is not just to destroy us. God wants us to get right. God is still looking out for our best interest even in our darkest hour. Don't let yourself get to the point where you are looking at God and thinking that God does not have your best interest in mind. You're thinking that God is only there to cause destruction in your life because no matter how bad things get, you will always have the Holy Spirit and you will always have a cruise of oil that are full to the brim that God has given you. But those things are worthless to us. If all that limits that, it's not that it's not full, but the only thing that limits our ability to access those things is our ability to properly use them in our faith to believe that they're there. Because look, you may have those things in your life. No matter what happened in your life or whatever direction you take in life, nothing will ever change the fact that you will have those two things full to the brim in your life, but they can still be worthless to you as if they were never there if you don't know how to use them. And if you don't have faith to believe that they're there. So that's why I said with this woman, with her son, it's irrelevant, what if her son stayed dead? What if her son was never, what if this situation never got better for her? What if her situation got worse? It's irrelevant because no matter how bad things get, we will always have those two things that are there for us at our disposal only limited by our ability to use them. So this evening, let's remember that. So remember that no matter what happens in our life, we have these two things, they're full to the brim, they'll never run out, they are not limited, they are at our disposal, we just need to be sure that we use them properly. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.