 Nothing is impossible with God. We've had a major breakthrough in our ministry. I have a very, very big announcement that I know you're going to love. Make sure you watch until the very end of this video so that you can hear what God is doing in our ministry. Big announcement, don't miss it. There is no limit to what God can do with the life surrendered to the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is powerful and effective. The Holy Spirit inspires worship in us. The Holy Spirit helps us to pray. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand the word. The Holy Spirit helps us to walk in holiness and to evangelize with boldness. He is the secret to the Christian life. He is the power source to living for God. But some of us are stifling his work. Some of us are putting out the fire of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. And some of us are doing it without even realizing it. I want to talk to you today on this edition of Spirit Church here on the Encounter TV Network about stifling the Holy Spirit. I'm going to show you four things that many believers do that stifle the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. I know this message is going to challenge you and it's going to help you go the deeper levels in the Spirit. But first, Stephen Moctezuma is here with me. He's going to lead you in some anointed worship. So worship with Stephen and come right back and we're going to get into this lesson here. This Stephen Moctezuma. So the Holy Spirit wants to accomplish the work of God in our lives. I like to say that God the Father has commissioned a work of art. Jesus is the model. The Holy Spirit is the painter and your life when it is surrendered is the blank canvas upon which the Holy Spirit can paint the countenance of Christ. The Holy Spirit wants to work on you. He wants to cause you to become more like Jesus every moment of every day. The Holy Spirit wants to mold your character. The Holy Spirit wants to make you a person who is godly, who is powerful in nature. He wants to bring out the Christ in you. He wants the flesh to be done away with and he wants the characteristics of Jesus to be portrayed from your life. He wants you to emanate with the love of God and the power of the Spirit. He works in us. He does many things for us and without him we're helpless. We can't do anything without him. Often before ministering I'll whisper to the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit if you don't go out there with me when I minister to the people I'm done because I have nothing on my own to offer. Really the secret to ministry, the secret to power is to just walk around with the Holy Spirit. When you carry the presence of the Holy Spirit on your life wherever you go he goes and wherever he goes there is deliverance and freedom and healing and revelation of truth the power of the Holy Spirit moves wherever the presence of the Holy Spirit is. But as I said many of us are making the mistake of stifling the work of the Holy Spirit and I'm talking to every believer now. I'm talking to new believers. I'm talking to seasoned believers. I'm talking to ministers and pastors and evangelists and prophets. We need to be so careful as to not stifle the work of the Holy Spirit. I'm going to show you this portion of scripture here. It's one verse, a very simple verse we're going to read. First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse number 19. Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. I'll read verse 20. Also do not scoff at prophecies verse 21. But test everything that is said hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil. I want to focus in here on do not stifle the Holy Spirit. The King James version words it do not quench the Holy Spirit. That word quench in the original language in the Greek is actually talking about the putting out of a fire. It's the same word exactly that is used in the same portion of scripture in Ephesians that tells us to quench the fiery darts of the enemy. So if we are to quench the fiery darts of the enemy and not quench the Holy Spirit then we can clearly see that the Holy Spirit's fiery nature is revealed through this verse. Now here's what concerns me about this portion of scripture. This letter for Thessalonians was written to believers. It was written to those who love God. It was written to those who desired a move of God in their life. Who desired that God would have his way in their lives. And yet they have to be warned do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Here is the warning. Stifling the Holy Spirit in your life is never done intentionally. I should say rarely done intentionally. I don't think that any true believer wakes up one morning and says I want to stifle the work of the Holy Spirit in my life today. I want him to have as little influence in my life as possible. I don't think anyone does that. No I think when you wake up in the morning if the Lord is the first on your mind you're thinking Lord how do I please you today? I often say that to the Lord. Lord I just want to offer today to you as a sacrifice. That's something I've prayed since I was 11 years old. I say Lord I want you to take the entirety of my day every action every thought. And I want you to take it as an offering. And so with that in mind I live my life in a way that hopefully is pleasing to the Lord. But when I'm looking at this portion of scripture I'm concerned because I realize that the discussion here the warning here is being given to believers. So I don't think anyone wakes up and says well I want to displease the Holy Spirit. I want to displease God. No they wake up and they say I want to please the Lord. Hopefully that's what you say to him and hopefully you offer your every day as an offering to him. And so because that warning is given to believers and because we recognize that believers don't do it knowingly we need to be very attentive to what we do. I'm not saying walk in paranoia or fear or walk with a religious weight over your shoulders. I'm simply saying that we need to be considerate of the Holy Spirit and make sure that we are not stifling his work. The first thing I want to talk to you about that we do that stifles the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is number one its distraction. Now distraction comes in all forms. Distraction comes in responsibilities. Distraction comes in entertainment. Distraction comes in busyness. Distraction comes in everyday life. Work can be a distraction. School can be a distraction. Am I saying don't go to work? Am I saying don't go to school? By no means. But I am saying that we must not allow these things to distract us from what the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us. How often have we felt that pooling to the prayer room and ignored it? I can't tell you how many times I've ignored that pool into my prayer room only to look back later in the day and realize that was the Holy Spirit speaking to me. And I fail at this point. I know many of us fail at this point and maybe you fail in this point. But this is something in my life that I've determined to say I don't want distraction to keep me from experiencing the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. I don't want to put out that fire. If that fire, that passion, that zeal, that love for the things of God and doing things for God that love for worship is beginning to die then maybe you're distracted. It's possible to become so distracted by the cares of this world that we become weighed down, that we lose sight of what is important, that we lose sight of what the Holy Spirit is speaking to us in our lives. It's possible that there is so much noise around us. There is so much chaos around us that we fail to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Put away distraction. Put away the things that don't matter. Growing up, I can't tell you how many times I walked away from a movie theater or I left a gathering of friends to go home and pray because I sensed the pool of the Holy Spirit on my life. Yes, it's okay to enjoy the things that God has blessed us with in this life. But don't allow those blessings. Don't allow those responsibilities. Don't allow your ministry. Don't allow the busyness. Don't allow the entertainment to keep you from hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit. The second thing that stifles the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is doubt. Now, I'm going to give a fourth point in just a moment that can seem very similar to this, but doubt is an internal mindset. It's a state of being. It's a position. It's a posture. Doubt is living with the attitude of lack. Doubt is living with the attitude of being an orphan when we are children of God. Now, I want you to really think about this. How many times has doubt kept you from approaching the Holy Spirit? How many times has doubt kept you from seeking the Lord in prayer? Because maybe you doubted that he heard you. Maybe you doubted that you were actually forgiven. So in shame, you shied away from prayer. Maybe you doubted that the prayer would actually affect anything. Maybe you doubted that God was speaking to you. Maybe you doubted that the Lord would meet with you if only you would open the word. Those doubts keep us in a posture of being unable to receive from God. Now, here is what breaks his heart. This saddens the Holy Spirit because when we doubt him, we are indicting his character. His heart breaks because he knows he's never done anything to you that should ever make you doubt. It breaks his heart when we doubt him. Why? Because he's never done anything that should be caused for doubt. Doubt kills faith. Doubt kills those radical actions that we take that cause us to move further into the call and the destiny of God. Set aside the doubt. Don't stifle the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Move forward in faith. Don't dwell on the past. Don't worry about the future. Don't be distracted in the moment. Instead, have faith and just embrace what God has already done for you. Have faith and approach him confidently. Know with faith that the Holy Spirit dwells with you. Number three is division. When we slander one another, when we talk evil and say ill things about others' ministries, just because we don't do things the way they do things, or just because we don't necessarily believe exactly like they believe, that grieves the Holy Spirit and it stifles his work. Look, if someone preaches another gospel, cut them off. Let them be accursed. That's what the Bible says. If someone preaches another Christ, cut them off. Let them be accursed. But if someone disagrees with you on something that's not primary to salvation such as the gospel or Christ, don't cut them off and call them a heretic or a false prophet. I addressed a little bit of this last week. But in this context, I want to address it in the sense that it's something that we do that stifles the work of the Holy Spirit. He wants to unite us and cause all the believers to move as one unit, one body. He desires that we move as one in this earth and impact those who need the love of God, yet division kills the move of the Holy Spirit. There is something to be said about fellowship and unity and love. Those things, when they unite us, bring about great power. Think about the Book of Acts. Often when there was a powerful move of the Holy Spirit, it was in the midst of their unity. So number one is distraction. Number two is doubt. Number three is division. Number four is disobedience. What is the Holy Spirit spoken to your heart? What is the Holy Spirit spoken to do? He wants to work in your life. How can He bless what you're cursing through disobedience? I'm not saying God curses you. I'm not saying we even walk under a curse necessarily because we are covered in the blood of Jesus. But we by our actions work against God. You see, God is trying to bless you. God is trying to bless us. And often we work against Him trying to bless us by our disobedience. He wants you to cooperate with Him. He wants you to work with Him. He wants to use your life. He wants to mold you. He wants to shape you. He wants the image of Jesus to emanate from you. But disobedience kills that. How are we supposed to experience breakthrough? How are we supposed to experience the work of the Holy Spirit? How are we supposed to keep that passion, that fire burning when we disobey? Disobedience quenches the work of the Holy Spirit. You would be amazed at how years of obedience can be quenched with one fatal act of disobedience. I'm not playing games neither is God. This is serious business. Disobedience stifles the work of the Holy Spirit. How is He supposed to bless you? See, you know, I'm just going to say it because I love you and I want you to hear the truth. How is He, some of you are praying for a healing, but you're not obeying God by taking care of your health. Some of you are praying for God to bless your ministry, but you're not obeying God by doing the things that He tells you to do in your ministry. Instead, you go and do things on your own. Some of you are praying for breakthrough, the Holy Spirit to work in your finances, but you're disobeying when He tells you to give. Some of you are praying for the Holy Spirit to work in your family, but you're disobeying by gossiping and dishonoring and slandering and losing your temper and having fits of rage and anger and going behind people's back and not demonstrating Christian character. Some of you are praying for breakthrough and the work of the Holy Spirit to be done on your job, but you show up to work late and you're lazy and you don't do what's being asked of you. How are we supposed to allow the work of the Holy Spirit to go on when we're quenching it with our disobedience? Often our lifestyle contradicts our prayers, and when that happens, you may be praying, God do this, God do this, but your actions are telling Him, Lord, I'd rather have this. The key to living a life that is set a blaze with a passionate love for Jesus, the key to living in the work of the Holy Spirit is to not stifle Him. Don't let Him be stifled through distraction. Don't let Him be stifled through doubt. Don't let Him be stifled through division or through disobedience. Instead, say, Holy Spirit, I apologize. I'm sorry. I acknowledge my wrong and I turn from these things. Help me to surrender. I want to pray with you now. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for that one receiving this prayer now, and I ask, Lord, that they would begin to walk in the fire of the Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray you would remind us, be our constant companion, and remind us of the times that we're being distracted. Stir within us the gift of faith. Spirit of faith, do away with doubt. Forgive us for dividing and slandering and gossiping. Father, I pray you would give us the grace to obey and be our constant reminder in Jesus' name. Let somebody watching me. You're a minister. You're in ministry. You preach the gospel and you like to teach the Word. But there are some men and women of God that you've slandered with your words. You've spoken against them. And you're wondering why there's this obstruction in your ministry, why you can't seem to get to the next place in ministry. It's because you spoke against God's anointing. This isn't for everyone. This is someone very specific and you know I'm talking to you because what you said was set out of jealousy. What you need to do is two things. You need to call this person or email however you need to contact them and you need to apologize for what you said to them. You need to humble yourself. The second, you need to sow a seed into their ministry. I know this is for someone. This is not for everyone. This is for someone specific because as I'm talking, the conviction of the Spirit is coming upon you. And you know this is you. I'm not talking about a disagreement. I don't want everyone getting paranoid now. I'm talking about someone who, it wasn't a doctrinal disagreement. It was just done out of jealousy. And that's something that you need to go and get right before your brother or your sister in Christ. And that word was for someone. Well, I want to welcome now the new members of Spirit Church. There you are up on the screen. We love you and 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 now over 4,000 members strong, then again, just go to DavidHernandezMinistries.com slash Spirit Church. When you join the Spirit family, you get an email every week from me. I get, I send you a brand new teaching fresh and anointed from the Word of God that will bless your life, that will help you, that will cause you to grow in Christ. Also, we send you, Stephen Mock the Zuma's worship music. So you'll get that every week as well within that same video. And you can reply to that email that you get every week for prayer support from our ministry staff. Join the Spirit family today. It's free. I am asking though, if God puts it on your heart, you're a member of the Spirit family. Sign up to become a partner, which I'm going to talk about in just a moment. But I want to talk to you now about the comments that were left on last week's video. Now, this was an interesting week, I'll say, to say the least. It was, I was led by the Spirit to do this and man, did it stir up spirits. But we're going to read the positive comments from last week's teaching, false prophets and heretics. And so here are the comments from last week's. And by the way, if you would like me to possibly read your comment on next week's edition of Spirit Church, go ahead and be sure to leave your comment right now. Oh, and don't go anywhere. I have an announcement after I read these comments. First commenter, Joseph Valdez writes, thank you, Brother David, for this message. I usually like to read the comments section in videos I watch. The comments about false prophets, all these ideologies and doctrines have been getting to me. I just thank you for your clarification in this video from the Holy Spirit. God bless your ministry. Well, thank you, Joseph. I'm glad you encouraged. That was my goal, to bring clarity to that issue. Because there is a lot of emotion behind that subject. Some people, if you're not harsh enough, they say you're compromising. Some people, they say, if you're too harsh, you're judgmental. That's why I can't care about what people say. I have to just say what the Bible says. John Abraham writes, I am so happy to be a member of Spirit Church. I will always stay strong with the Holy Spirit every day. My Jesus, amen. Vivian Roberts writes, awesome and powerful message, Brother David. God bless you and use you mightily to touch people's lives. Maria Yurda writes, Pastor David, you nailed it here. Thank you for giving us a platform of peace to go about dealing with this very tumultuous topic. As Jesus is the Prince of Peace, those who do His will walk in a situation and can calm the storm. I see this video as the peace of Christ that calms the storm on the boat. You have an excellent gift of delivering the gospel with simplicity and pure effectiveness. I thank you for that compliment. I receive it. I'm encouraged by it. And I would like to say all glory belongs to Jesus. And really, it's the Word of God. It just clears up many situations. And the final commenter, Naomi Camille writes, a timely word. I have always been deeply grieved by this vicious infighting over doctrinal differences and the casual use of the words heretic and false prophet. Sad to say, I have been guilty of criticizing other ministries in the past too. By the way, Naomi, so have I. And I had to repent of this very thing. She goes, Naomi goes on to say, Jesus is not returning for a bickering bride. We must set aside our differences on focus on what unites us. That's true. And what unites us is this. Jesus saves. Jesus is the resurrected Lord. Jesus is God. And he is the only hope of humanity. Jesus is the only way. There are not many ways. And so this is a call that we are sending out to turn from your sin and turn toward Jesus. Repent and be saved. That's the message. It's the gospel. Of course, I could go on with it, but that's where we unite. We unite on the gospel. We unite on the essentials. We unite on the fact that the world needs Jesus. We need Him. This world needs Him now more than ever before. And let me tell you, we're expanding this ministry to respond to that. I'm so excited to announce that those of you who have been supporting us monthly and those of you who have given to our building project, I'm excited to announce that we have reached yet another major milestone within this campaign. Spirit Church, we've found our building. So I'm going to show you some pictures now. This is the facility. It's in Cerritos, California. And it is a beautiful area. It's a beautiful property. It's just right. I'm telling you, it's just right. And what was interesting here, check this out. It's been exactly as far as when we record. Today's June 14th. But I got the lease on June 13th, 2018. We were looking back through our old YouTube videos and the first day we announced publicly that we started this campaign. I don't know if some of you remember this. Remember when I was going week to week raising monthly support saying we needed a thousand new $30 a month partners? Then we got that. Now with that monthly support, we can enter in this new facility. But that has been one year exactly. We released that public announcement on June 13th, 2017. We didn't plan that. So it's been exactly one year to the day since I said we're starting to the day we got the lease for this new facility. And so we are so excited because this facility is more than just a building. Some people are wondering why are you getting a building? They're not criticizing. They genuinely want to know why are you getting a building? What's the purpose? Let me tell you, when we're able to pull all our staff in together in one place, when we're able to work daily, you see where we are right now, we can only record once a week. Think about all we've been doing with a once a week recording and we got maybe four hours in the facility. But with this new facility, we have 24-7 access. It's ours 24-7. We can film every single day of the week. We can get out more content now more than ever before. We're going to have a place for a studio audience where you can come in occasionally to a live taping and you yourself can attend in person. Stephen will lead in worship. I'll teach a lesson. We'll pray for you. You can come to those live studio audience tapings. This is going to be a place that we can pray from 24-7. We said we wanted 24-7 prayer center. That's what this is going to be. We're going to launch the encounter TV network. We're going to plan from this center now that all our staff is united. We can all come together and now more effectively plan our miracle services all around the world. So you're going to see us adding more miracle services all around the world. Bottom line, the ministry is growing. More people are being saved. Our broadcast reach is growing. Our events are growing. This is a big step. And so I wanted to give you that announcement. If you like some updates on this, you can go to davidhernanisministries.com slash project DTV. See where we are with that. We're in phase two. We need your help with that. But I'm not going to do fundraising, as I said, for the campaign anymore. I'm just going to talk now to you generally speaking for the ministry. The ministry just generally needs support. It needs support in its growth and needs support in what we do. We are winning the lost and building the believer through events and television. If you want these videos to keep coming out and look, we don't charge for them because some people can't pay for them. We don't charge for our events because some people can't pay for them. So we always want to keep some events free and at least all of our content for free. I can't remember the last time we sold an audio or video message. This is something I believe we have to get out there. And so help us. If this ministry has blessed you and if you've ever thought I want to support the ministry, there is no better time than now. Now is the season. And I believe that as you give into this ministry this anointed soil that's going to unlock that door of blessing in your life. That frustration that you've been facing is going to be appeased because there is blessing that comes with giving. Now I'm going to be doing a teaching soon on this but I want to just share a little bit in my heart. Our generation needs to learn how to sew. We need to learn how to stop thinking so small and we need to learn how to think big. So help me by becoming a monthly supporter. If you would like to help me then sign up to become a partner for $30 or more a month. If you sign up at $30 a month or more then I'll send you either carriers of the glory 25 truths about demons and spiritual warfare or encountering the Holy Spirit in every book of the Bible. You can choose any one of those books it'll be my gift to you. I will sign it and I'll send it to you. That'll be your initiation gift. Everyone else who's watching listen. Maybe you can do it one time. Maybe you're a wealthy person watching me. Maybe you have a business or something like that. We have wealthy people who give to the ministry all the time. Perhaps you're someone who's wealthy and a gift of $100,000 is something that you can do but you're like well I don't know yet I maybe I'm thinking about it or maybe you can do 10 or 5 or 1,000. Perhaps God has blessed you with this. Let me tell you something. God gave that to you for a purpose and you're watching this for a reason. I'm challenging you to release what's in your hand so that others might be saved so that you can win souls. Maybe you're watching this and you're not a wealthy individual but you can become a partner at $30 a month $100 a month $50 a month or you can sew a one-time gift of $100 $500. And you know it's not even the wealthy that have to do the $1,000 gift maybe that's something God placed on your heart. Whatever it is I make no apologies and I challenge you give to the gospel overcome that spirit amendment overcome that mindset overcome poverty thinking and say I'm going to invest in this not so that David can live in luxury not so that David can put it in his pocket I don't touch it but so that the gospel can continue to go forward and advance all around the world. So today contact our ministry by going to the using the information at the bottom of the screen. If you're watching this on YouTube wait until the end of the video click on the red button that appears at the very end of this video it'll take you right to where you can give if you're watching this on the app or Apple TV then wait for the video to end I'm sorry not on Apple TV yet if you're watching this on the app in general then use the information at the bottom screen or wait for the video to disappear and then click on the button that says partner with David if you're watching this anywhere else davidhernandezministries.com slash donate well that is it for this edition of Spirit Church until next time remember nothing is impossible with God