 Hello, this is David Diger Hernandez, and you're watching Spirit Church here on the Encounter TV Network. Those who live spirit-filled lives will catch glimpses of the heavenly realm. The Holy Spirit speaks through visions. I'm continuing now my series, The Spirit Speaks. First, Stephen Moctezuma is here with me. He's gonna lead you in some very anointed worship, and then we're gonna get into this message here, Stephen Moctezuma. I worship you, Almighty God. There is none like that is what, I let is what, there is none. I worship you, Prince of, that is what. God, the Holy Spirit, can speak to you through visions. Now, it is up to the Holy Spirit who will speak through visions, but the Holy Spirit does speak through visions to the believer. There is not something that you can necessarily do to help bring these visions to pass, but there are things that you can do to position yourself to see heavenly visions if that's God's will for you. But first and foremost, I want to show you in the scripture that in fact, seeing visions is biblical. Acts chapter two, verses 17 through 18 say this, in the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. In those days, I will pour out my spirit even on my servants, men and women alike, and they will prophesy. Second Corinthians chapter 12, verses one through four say, this boasting will do no good, but I must go on. I will reluctantly tell about visions and revelations from the Lord. I was caught up to the third heaven 14 years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don't know. Only God knows. Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words. Things no human is allowed to tell. When you capture a glimpse of the heavenly realm, when the Holy Spirit entrusts a vision to you, you have to realize that there is a time to speak what you have seen in that vision and there is a time to remain silent. Obviously, the Holy Spirit gives us visions to either give us a message or reveal something to us personally. And there are times when the Holy Spirit will give you something to say to others through a vision. But you must use discernment and you must reverently tread on this ground. When the Holy Spirit trusts you with a vision, you must pray and you must seek the direction of the Lord to determine whether or not this is something that you will share. Now, Paul the apostle had a vision and there were some things that he saw in his vision that he said, I'm not even going to dare share with anyone. And then of course, there are other biblical examples that show us that those who receive visions ought to share what God has shown them through that vision. No doubt, this is astounding. This is a wonderful miracle that God demonstrates to his children. This is something powerful and heavenly. This is something exciting and divine. God is full of wonders. God is full of mystery. And every so often he'll allow you to capture glimpses of those mysteries. And this is, as I said, a very exciting truth. Visions are exciting, they're thrilling. But we have to remember to keep them in their proper place. As I mentioned with dreams on the last session, we must make sure that we're not putting our total trust in visions alone. The word of God is our primary source of truth. The word of God is the foundation of all truth. All visions must be measured against the word of God to determine whether or not what the message is is true or false. And we also have to remember that there is no authority given to us just because of visions. Often you'll see men and women try to, how shall I word this? They try to exalt themselves through their visions. They try to make it seem as though they have this divine authority that has come to them exclusively through their visions. It must be noted, biblically speaking, that visions do not give you authority. Your authority comes from the word of God. Your authority comes from the mantle of the Holy Spirit. Your authority comes from the abiding presence and power of the Holy Spirit within you. And when you get a vision, this is not something that you should try to use to your own benefit so that you might gain power over others. When God gives you a vision, it's for a purpose, either again for something to be spoken to you personally or it's something that God gives to you that you might share with others. But even in sharing that vision with others, this is not a means by which people gain spiritual authority. So despite what people have claimed to have seen, don't put your trust in their visions. Visions are biblical. God gives his children visions, but ultimately the spiritual authority is not given to an individual because of a vision that they had. People will try this. They'll say, I saw the Lord or I saw an angel or some heavenly being came to me and he told me I have this, this and this and now you have to listen to me because I had this vision and nobody else did. Not only is that manipulative, it's anti-biblical. Here's what the Bible says, Colossians chapter two, verses 16 through 18. So don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come and Christ himself is that reality. Don't let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud. Now of course, the scripture here is not saying that anybody who claims to have had a vision is sinful, but the scripture is teaching us here that people will try to use their visions as a means of authority and that's just not something that you should allow. Don't ever be manipulated by someone who claims to have had a vision. If they have had a vision from God wonderful, they should share that vision with you but to try to use it to gain authority, to try to use it to be celebrated, to try to use it to gain power, that's just not truly spiritual. And besides, if they really are from the Lord, they wouldn't try to exert themselves anyway because they would know that their visions are not what gives them authority but rather the word of God does. And the same is true of dreams. Jew chapter one, verse eight says, In the same way these people who claim authority from their dreams live in moral lives, defy authority and scoff at supernatural beings. So the scripture is clear. Spiritual authority does not come about just because someone has had a dream or it's because somebody has had a vision. Spiritual authority comes from the word of God and people being ordained to the ministry through the laying on of hands. So don't let anyone convince you that they have a special high rank in the spirit because of some vision they've had. Now, looking at the ways that people have encountered visions from the Lord, I wanna first note that Paul the apostle was praying when he was given a vision. So number one, Paul was praying. Acts chapter 22, verses 17 through 22 say this. After I returned to Jerusalem, I was praying in the temple and fell into a trance. Now that word right there might scare some of you but you might be surprised to know that trances are biblical and we see that here. This is not to say that we endorse new age teaching. That's not at all the truth but you have to recognize that sometimes the enemy tries to steal from the Holy Spirit and duplicate or try to manufacture or replicate what the Holy Spirit has done. So there is such a thing as a holy spiritual trance. We see it right here in the scripture but this does not mean that we should venture off into new age thinking or theology. So I'm gonna read that again. After I returned to Jerusalem, I was praying in the temple and fell into a trance. So notice here, he was praying. I saw a vision of Jesus saying to me, hurry, leave Jerusalem for the people here won't accept your testimony about me. But Lord I argued, they certainly know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you. And I was in complete agreement when your witness Stephen was killed. I stood by and kept the coats they took off when they stoned him. But the Lord said to me, go for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. The crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they all began to shout away with such a fellow he isn't fit to live. So Paul the apostle received direction or instruction from the Lord to go and begin a ministry to the Gentiles. And it was through a vision that God communicated that direction. God communicated this idea. God communicated this truth that brought about a new path for him spiritually. Now of course I wanna emphasize this again. Our foundation is the word of God. The primary source of truth is the word of God. So if a vision you have declares to you a message that contradicts anything in the word of God, obviously that vision was not from the Lord. But this does not mean that the Lord won't add specific instruction using visions. So I can't know by reading the scripture what job I should take, what school I should attend, what city I should live in, what spouse I should marry. All of these things have to be revealed specifically to me. I can't find them chapter and verse in the Bible. So the Lord will speak specifically to you through visions. Number two, John was worshiping. So number one, Paul was praying. Number two, John was worshiping. Revelation chapter one, verses nine through 13 say, I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God's kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus. It was the Lord's day and I was worshiping in the spirit. Suddenly I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet blast. When I turned around to see who was speaking to me, I saw, there's a vision, seven gold lampstands and standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. Now here we see John received revelation for the seven churches. Obviously he received more revelation than what was given to him just specifically for the seven churches but notice that he was worshiping in the spirit. He wasn't seeking a vision. He wasn't asking the Lord, Father, please open the heavens and show me a vision. He was simply worshiping in the spirit and because he was positioned in the spirit, God was able to get a vision through to him in his will, by his sovereignty, according to his timing. Now this is where the partnership works and this is how the partnership works. You see, you and I must make ourselves available in the spirit and once we are available in the spirit, then God sees us as candidates to receive special revelation by visions. Now this does not mean that we necessarily can do things as I said earlier that cause us to have visions but we can position ourselves to be available to receive visions if that's something that God wills. So number one, again, Paul was praying. He wasn't seeking. He wasn't looking for a vision. He wasn't obsessed with visions. He was simply praying. He was available. He was in the presence of God. And number two, John was worshiping. He was just loving the Lord, adoring Jesus when all of a sudden a vision comes. Now something you'll notice that they have in common is they seem to have been caught off guard by these visions. They seem to have been surprised by what they saw and that's because as I said again, they were not looking for it. They were simply doing what they should have been doing and when they were doing that, when they were available in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit deposits to them a vision. So number one, Paul was praying. Number two, John was worshiping. And number three, Isaiah was serving. Isaiah chapter six verses one through eight saying, it was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne and the train of his robe filled the temple. Attending him were mighty Seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings, they covered their faces. With two, they covered their feet and with two, they flew. They were calling out to each other, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heaven's armies. The whole earth is filled with his glory. Their voices shook the temple to its foundations and the entire building was filled with smoke. Then I said, it's all over I am doomed for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of heaven's armies. Then one of the Seraphim flew to me with the burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it and said, see this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed and your sins are forgiven. Then I heard the Lord asking, whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us? I said, here I am, send me. So number one, Paul was praying. And number two, John was worshiping. And number three, Isaiah was serving. He wasn't necessarily, as I said before, looking for a vision. He was just doing the things he was supposed to be doing and God met him there. Now what's interesting about Isaiah's vision is that he actually received the call of God to go and prophesy to a people. Of course, we know that John was moved to write. Paul was moved to take the gospel to the Gentiles. But you see, Isaiah received a mandate. Isaiah received a mantle, if you will. Isaiah received this vision of an open heaven and he was commissioned to go and carry out the ministry of the Holy Spirit through his obedience. When you capture a vision of heaven, it's possible that when God gives you that vision that you are being initiated into the ministry. Now this is a powerful truth because many powerful men of God who I know actually received a vision from the Lord as they were being called into the ministry. Now this doesn't mean that if you don't receive a vision that you're not called into ministry. But this could very well mean that because you received a vision that you are being called into ministry. For example, I remember when I was working in the sound room at my church, many of you know my testimony, that I didn't begin preaching in pulpits. I began in the sound room. I was the sound guy at a church, a very small church and my job was to make sure that the words on the screen matched up to what the worship team was singing. So I was behind the scenes on a laptop, just pushing a button, a little downward arrow to flip to the next slide. And every South and I pushed the upward arrow to go back to maybe the verse and then down to the chorus. That's all I did. But everything I did in that sound room was to the glory of God. I remember pushing the button on that computer saying Lord, even if I'm just pushing a button, I'm pushing this button for you. And I remember I would really work hard on making sure I timed everything perfectly for the worship team. And I also made sure that there were no grammar errors or sentence structure errors. I made sure that each slide had just enough words for the people to sing, but not so many words that it was hard for them to read. I really did my best to carry out that ministry, which was seemingly insignificant. And as I was pushing that button, I remember the Holy Spirit spoke to me very clearly. It was almost, I wanna say it was audible. It was that clear, but I can't quite explain this. It wasn't audible, but it was so clear in the spirit that it almost seemed audible. That's the best way I can explain it. But as I'm pushing the button, holy, and I'm worshiping, I'm singing the songs. As I'm pushing the button, the Holy Spirit speaks to me, says look. And I remember I turned left and I saw in the sound room, just maybe four or five feet away from me a bright glowing flame of fire. I saw it with my eyes. A bright glowing flame of fire. And in the fire I saw the face of a lion. And that flame, I remember the moment I looked at it, it shot over to me and went inside of me. And I remember I felt this heat and this tingling sensation all over my body. Now I don't know if that was the exact moment that God called me, but it was one of those encounters with God that marked me spiritually and helped to position me into the ministry. I remember that moment was very key for me. It was very key for me as I was continuing on this spiritual path toward the destiny that God had for me. And I'm still obviously on that path. But the Holy Spirit showed me something that day. It was that while I was serving, though to me it seemed like just a mundane act, though to me it seemed like something that was boring. Because I put my heart and soul into it, God saw it. And because I put my heart and soul into it, God took notice. You see, you may think your serving isn't spiritual, but serving is one of the most spiritual things you will ever do. It was while serving that my eyes were open to capture a glimpse of the heavenly realm. And so, as Isaiah was serving, so you should serve. Not to see a vision, not to try to become something special, but serving simply because you love the Lord. We pray because we love Him. We worship because we love Him. We serve because we love Him. And there is no other motive than that. But while we are positioning ourselves in the Spirit, we may very well be positioning ourselves to receive a vision from the Holy Spirit. I wanna pray with you. I wanna pray the Holy Spirit would open you spiritually to receive visions from heaven, not from some demonic realm, not in some new age sense, but that as you pour yourself into the word of God and you allow the word of God to get into you, as you pray and seek His face, as you worship Him, as you serve Him, that you would be open and available to receive visions from heaven. You can't force it to happen. There's no formula and please don't listen to anybody who tells you that there is. There's no formula to receiving visions. You simply must position yourself spiritually and it's up to God whether you get them or not. And don't seek visions. We don't seek visions, we seek Jesus. But we're gonna pray right now and offer ourselves to the Lord and just say Holy Spirit. I want you to say this. Say Holy Spirit, if you want me to see, show me. Show me. Now pray this, say Holy Spirit. Help me to pray simply because I love you. Help me to worship simply because I love you. Help me to serve simply because I love you. I'm available. Tell Him, say it, I'm available. Spend me for your glory in the name of Jesus. I want you to say because you agree, say Amen. Well that is it for the lesson. I wanna welcome now the new members of Spirit Church. There you are up on the screen. We love you, we are praying for you. I always say that because I always mean it. If you like information on how you can join the Spirit family, go to davidhernandezministries.com slash Spirit Church. Now hear me on this. I see some comments every now and then from people who say, hey, I signed up for Spirit Church and my name wasn't on the screen. Consider a couple possibilities. It's possible that maybe you missed it a couple weeks ago or a week ago that it was there and you missed it or consider also that it's coming up on next week's edition of Spirit Church. But if you're not getting the emails, it means we didn't get your sign up. So go to davidhernandezministries.com slash Spirit Church and put your name as you want it to appear on the screen and put your email address so that we can actually send you emails every single Sunday and be sure you're checking your spam folders because sometimes the emails will go there if your email account doesn't recognize it. But joining the Spirit family is actually now over 12,000 members strong. We're almost 13,000 members now from all around the world. It's absolutely free. When you join, you're gonna get an email from me every single Sunday with a brand new teaching and a worship cover from Stephen Mock to Zuma. So again, that's davidhernandezministries.com slash Spirit Church. Now, these are the comments from last week. The Spirit Speaks, Divine Dreams. If you haven't seen that one, I recommend you go and watch that video. Not only did I share about the ways in which God speaks to dreams, but I also shared some of my own personal testimonies with Divine Dreams that God gave to me. And I know they will interest you and inspire you. So go check that out. And while you're at it, be sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash EncounterTV. Subscribe and click the notification bell. If you're watching on Facebook, make sure you're following me. Make sure, in fact, you're following us on all of our social media platforms. Now, here are the comments from last week. If you'd like me to potentially read your comment on next week's edition of Spirit Church, then go ahead and leave a comment in the comment section right now. So here are the comments from the Spirit Speaks, Divine Dreams. Suzanne M writes, Always, always a blessing. Glory to God for this timely message. God's word is always the standard and the sweet Holy Spirit's interpretation. This reminds me of Ephesians chapter one verses 17 through 19. Thank you and God bless your ministry in Jesus' name. Sam Green writes, Beautiful worship, thank you. Perfect worship for a difficult day for me. I lost my mom this morning. Thanks for the fitting worship. It helped me a little amen. Well, Sam, I want you to know that we weep with those who weep. And right now we're grieving with you and know that you're not alone. Myself, Steve Mockezuma, the entire spirit family is with you as you grieve. And we know that the Holy Spirit will bring comfort. And we sure do appreciate the worship ministry of Steve and Mockezuma. Very, very anointed. So Sam, we're with you. Amanda S writes, This is strange. I never watched you before this week. And I had a dream last week that I had some type of bird picture in one of my eyes in my dream. I had no clue what the dream was about, but it looked exactly like this dove symbol behind you on this video. That dove symbol is the symbol for the Holy Spirit. And that's amazing, Amanda, that you had a dream about that the night before you first saw our content and the topic just so happened to be dreams. This is indeed the Holy Spirit's channel and he works as only he can. And the final commenter, Cole Deep Singh writes, I slept last night and had a dream that God was going to be involved in my morning. When I woke up this morning, I was thinking about that dream. Then I checked my inbox and there was an email from Spirit Church the subject of that mail was how God speaks to your dreams. At that time I was thinking, God is talking to me and he wants to tell me something. Thanks brother David and Spirit Church. That is incredible. And the testimonies like that are incredible. There are many more testimonies like that people writing in was saying, I had a dream about a message on dreams and this popped up. And in fact, some people said that after I prayed for them, after that lesson, that night many of them had divine dreams. So go and watch that teaching. I prayed at the end that God would impart to you divine dreams. Again, according to his will and we have to just go with God's sovereignty and trust him. And that is it for the comments. I want to talk to you just for a second. Don't turn the video off. I know it's tempting to get on to the next topic and something maybe you see around here on YouTube or Facebook or wherever you're watching from. But give me just a couple of minutes to share with you some things that we're doing as a ministry. Now I want to say first and foremost that we have the most generous ministry partners in the world. That's what I believe with all my heart. No one can convince me otherwise. We've had people calling in the ministry and saying, hey, we're going to support you. We're staying with you. And if you're watching this in 2020 then you know that right now there's a difficult time happening for people all over the world. But I want to thank our ministry partners who stuck with us. It's because of you that the content is being made available for free and we will continue to offer it for free. I know sometimes there's the temptation with things like this to charge for it because we want to make sure we're bringing it enough but our strategy has never been that. Our strategy has been simple. It's two words, trust God. And we trust that God's going to speak to you, the viewer, to sign up and support us on a monthly or one time basis. We don't charge for the content. We don't charge for the events. We want to keep it that way. Couple of things I want to announce here. Number one, very soon you're going to see and I'm very, very, very excited about this. Very soon you're going to see launched on our YouTube channel. I'm going to put a little video up just announcing it. We are beginning within the next, I would say, I want to say four to six weeks. It'll be up and operational. We are starting the Holy Spirit School Online. All of the eCourses are going to be offered for free. There are going to be eCourses with certification programs, with digital downloads and outline downloads and audio downloads, you name it. And the best part again, as I said, yes, you heard that right, all of the eCourses that are Bible-based will be free. As I promised, our partners and our supporters, I will never charge for Biblically-based content. Now, I may do a course on, I don't know, book publication or something like that. And of course, that we can charge for because it's not the Bible. But Biblically speaking, we should not charge for the Word of God. So that school, we're up and operational. You can take it from anywhere in the world. I don't care what country you're from. I don't care if you have zero dollars. You can take that course. Those courses, I should say, for free will be adding new courses all the time. The first course will be a nine-part series called An Introduction to the Holy Spirit. So be on the lookout for that. And I want to thank our ministry supporters for helping us to offer that for free. Another thing we're doing, and I know as a ministry supporter, you support the ministry because you love the ministry and you don't want anything in return. And we appreciate that. But starting in the next couple of weeks, I'm gonna be doing, Steve and I, we'll be doing Zoom conference calls, monthly Zoom conference calls for our monthly ministry partners. That's right. We will have monthly ministry conference calls. So here on YouTube or on Livestream, I'm kinda just talking to you and I can't see your face. I can't hear your voice. But on the Zoom conference calls, there's gonna be more of a personal touch. And that's gonna be offered to all of our monthly supporters at $10 or more a month. And so we wanna make sure you're taking advantage of that. But if you're not a partner yet, I encourage you to sign up to become a monthly ministry partner. Now there's two links I'm gonna give you right now. The first link is for becoming a monthly supporter. Go to davidhernanisministries.com slash partner. I want you to go and look at that website and look at all of the thank yous or all of the acknowledgements that we give to our partners. That includes the Zoom conference calls. Anyone who signs up after this video is released is gonna get a partner lapel pin, that beautiful dev logo. We designed a beautiful lapel pin that you're gonna get for signing up at $10 or more a month. Look at the different tiers of partnership. We have different ways of thanking all of our partners. But the most exciting thing I think, if you ask me, because I'm excited at least about it, is that monthly Zoom call where you and I will be able to interact with each other. So go and sign up today. You sign up to become a monthly supporter by going to davidhernanisministries.com slash partner. If you wanna give a one-time gift to the ministry, then go to davidhernanisministries.com slash donate. But all of your gifts help us continue to produce these pieces of content that we send all around the world for free. It's gonna support the Holy Spirit School online. That's a Bible education program online that we're offering for free. That is so awesome that we can offer it for free. Certification program and all and a bunch of digital downloads that you're gonna love. And that's gonna be up and running soon. And then of course our events, the miracle services are free. And that's because of your generous support. So join with us, pay it forward if you've been blessed by this ministry. Join the thousands who've partnered with us as we continue to touch the world together. And that is it for this edition of Spirit Church here on The Encounter TV Network. Until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God. Thank you for watching Encounter TV. Don't forget to subscribe and click the notification bell. Also, help us spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Make a one-time donation or become a monthly supporter by clicking on the donate link now.