In Season and Out of Season

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Good day, it's Father Tom and we do this broadcast live. But Jesus had a program too. Jesus had a program too, and he said go into the city and pray until you receive power from on high. That program of Jesus was the infilling of the Holy Spirit, being led by the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit.

And yet we as the church think that we've got to do this and we've got to do that. We've got to run this and we've got to run that, rather than the plan of Jesus, which is go into the city and pray until you receive power from on high. It is the plan of Jesus until he comes back again that that precious Holy Spirit come upon people, that precious Holy Spirit come upon believers, that precious Holy Spirit come.

We're going to do this, we're going to have this fund, we're going to have that fund, we're going to have this money raising thing, rather than go into the city and pray until you receive power from on high. The plan of Jesus for the church until he comes back again is Pentecost. Whether people believe it or not, the plan of Jesus for the church is Pentecost. He says go ye therefore into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

He said that we were to make disciples, but the disciples were to be filled with the Holy Spirit and power. You see, this is the plan of God. This is the plan of Jesus. It's so simple. The church celebrates Pentecost 50 days after Easter, but Pentecost is today. Pentecost is today. The outpouring of the Spirit is necessary today for God's people today.

How can we have the vision of Jesus, which is a global vision? The vision of Jesus is global; it is not a parish. The vision of Jesus is global; it is not a ministry. It is not In Season and Out of Season. The vision of Jesus is global. Go ye therefore into all the world. And what do we have to give the world but the outpouring of the Spirit of God? And that the Spirit of God makes Jesus our contemporary.

The Spirit of God makes Jesus real in our life. Go into the whole world and make disciples. Well, the Catholic Church has done a very good job in baptizing people, but we have not done a very good job in making disciples. This is real. A disciple is one who sits at the feet of Jesus. A disciple is one who says, "Yes, Lord." A disciple is one that says, "I'll do anything, I'll go anywhere. Here I am; I come to do thy will."

That's what the disciple is. We've baptized people, and I'm not against baptism, but what I am against is that we haven't done what Jesus said: go make disciples of all nations. A disciple is different than just a baptized person. A disciple is one who sits at the feet of Jesus, who learns from the Spirit of God.

I'm going to tell you the greatest teacher that we have is the Holy Spirit. He will teach you all things, Jesus says. This wonderful Holy Spirit. In the Acts of the Apostles, it says they were together in one accord with Mary, the mother of Jesus. They were together in one heart in one place with Mary, the mother of Jesus. She already knew the outpouring of the Spirit. She experienced that outpouring in Nazareth when she said, "Let it be done unto me according to thy word." The Spirit of God came upon her.

Now they were together in one accord with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers and they waited. They waited. Then he said, "Go into the city and pray till you receive power from on high." This power from on high is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the gift of God. Jesus Christ died not only to forgive our sins and rose from the dead not only to justify us, but that we would be filled with the Spirit of adoption, that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit, that our lives would be marked by the Spirit of God.

When we read Luke, we see that he is very, very close to this Holy Spirit. He wants to talk about the Holy Spirit. He tells you about the Holy Spirit from the beginning of his Gospel. He says in the Gospel that the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah and he said, "Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel. He has come to his people and set them free."

He said that the Spirit of God came upon Mary of Nazareth and she said, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior." He said that the Spirit of God came upon Simeon. He said, "Now, Lord, let your servant go in peace for with my own eyes I have seen the salvation which you have promised in the sight of every people, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel."

He says what father among you, if your son asks you for a piece of bread, would hand him a stone? Or if he asks you for a fish, would hand him a scorpion? If you fathers know how to give good things to your children and you're sinful, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? Much more. Go into the city and pray till you receive power from on high. The Holy Spirit is just interwoven in Luke's Gospel.

And then the second writing of Luke is the Acts of the Apostles. They were together in one accord with Mary, the mother of Jesus. And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, there was a rushing mighty wind that filled the whole place. And suddenly there was a sound from heaven in the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributed and resting on each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

And we see when the Spirit of God comes upon the disciples, we see what begins to happen. We see that the preaching mission of the church begins. And Peter goes out and says, "This Jesus whom you crucified," and the "you" he's talking about are the people gathered for the feast of Pentecost, Jews from all over the world. "This Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised up to be both Lord and Messiah."

And they were stung to the heart. They said, "What must we do?" Turn away from your sins, repent, and believe. Believe in Jesus. And they were filled with the Spirit and they began to prophesy and began to speak in other languages. Jesus's method to convert the world is the Holy Spirit. And the church has deviated from that. We have this and we have that. We need to get people filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to get people baptized with the Holy Spirit. It is so important because only when the Holy Spirit comes do things begin to happen.

Things do not happen apart from the Holy Spirit. Our faith is in the Holy Spirit. I tell you today, if the Spirit of God is not active, nothing will happen. I can preach till I'm blue in the face, but if the Spirit of God does not hover over people and convict people of sin, nothing will happen. I can pray for healing till I'm blue in the face, but if the Spirit of God doesn't come, nothing will happen. I can argue about the faith until I'm blue in the face, but if the Spirit of God doesn't move in that argument, nothing will happen.

I spoke with a woman just a week ago. She goes to a Pentecostal church. She says, "Oh, I long to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit." I said, "You go to a Pentecostal church. Have them pray with you for the baptism of the Spirit." They don't do that. They don't do that. That's what they should be doing, to pray with people for this outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The Gentiles were converted when the Spirit of God came. Yes, Peter preached the Gospel at Cornelius's house, but only when the Spirit of God convicted them, they turned to the Lord and they began to speak in other tongues and prophesy. If this was the plan of Jesus for the church in its inception, it's the plan of Jesus for the church as it closes the time of the church. But we have better ideas than Jesus, unfortunately. And our ideas fall short.

Now, let me tell you why people do not want this outpouring of the Spirit. Why religious leaders don't want this outpouring of the Spirit. I'm going to be as clear as I can be. You want to know why? Because they want control. Control is always the issue where there is a lack of the Spirit of God. Control.

"I want to control what's going to happen." Because what will happen if the Spirit of God comes? I'm going to tell you what will happen. The Gospel will become real. People will be healed. People will be delivered. But do we really want that? Do we really want to see drunks come into our services and get delivered? Or drug addicts come into our services and get delivered?

I was at a most beautiful church last week. It was so beautiful, so big, so great. And the thought came to me, "When was the last time someone was saved in this church?" I hope just that day. But just because a church is beautiful, just because it's ornate, just because it's glorious doesn't say anything about the outpouring of the Spirit.

We have this beautiful doctor coming to us. I want to talk about him now. His name is Janusz. He's a Polish doctor. And I prayed with him in Rhode Island several years ago and his cancer stopped growing. And he started to come to our parish periodically to be prayed with. We need to pray for Janusz today, Dr. Janusz today, because the cancer has started to grow again.

We pray for the power of the Spirit on this man of God. He's a man of God and his wife is a woman of God. We pray today for this man of God in the name of Jesus that, by the power of the blood, all the cancer in Janusz would be healed. And anyone else who hears me who has cancer, that it would be healed by the blood of Jesus. We pray that through the power of the cross, this cancer would be healed in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord.

I call those things to be now that are not as if they are, and they are by grace that the cancer in Janusz and everybody else would be completely healed in the name of Jesus and through the power of the cross. Everything the devil wrote against this man of God, Janusz, and against anyone who hears my voice has been canceled, blotted out by the precious blood of Jesus. Be healed now in Jesus' name.

Oh, how we need the Holy Spirit because where the Spirit of God is, there is not only freedom, there is healing, there is victory, there is the power of God. And how we need the power of God. But you see, when you're a control freak, you don't want the power of God. You don't want the power of God.

You know what should be happening in our churches? Testimonies. People should be saying, "This is what's happened when I came to church. That's what happened when I came to church. I've got a new love for God. The Lord's taught me how to love my spouse." These are the things that should be happening when we go to church. Not fundraisers, car washes, whatever we do. We should be having testimonies where things happen because people are filled with God.

Jesus had an idea of a global mission, not a mission of one parish or a mission of one ministry. Go into the whole world because the Gospel is too good to be kept as a secret to one group of people. I admire so many Protestant churches that send out missionaries to different places to hear the Gospel. I admire them because they are following the demands of Jesus. Go ye therefore into the whole world.

The church by its very nature should be missionary and is missionary. But we are so content with our little patch of grass that we have in our area. We don't think of the greater good about salvation being brought to the world one at a time. And I guess that's it. We don't believe that eternally there is a heaven and there is a hell. The church should be a place where the Spirit of God is active saving people from hell and bringing them into the kingdom of God. That's what the church is all about.

It's not about this and it's not about that. It's about getting people empowered with the gift of the Spirit of God. And you don't find that many places. Our little church at Holy Rosary is just a little church. One woman said to me as she was leaving this week, she says, "I will miss this place so much." And I said, "Why?" I was thinking because of the preaching. No.

She said, "Because of the presence of God that's in this church." She says the presence of God is in this church. How many times have people told me they've come in the church and they were bereft with pain and sadness, and their son was in jail? They left weeping because the presence of God was in this place and they experienced the presence of God and the Lord did something for them.

You see, the church is all about the Holy Spirit. It's the Spirit of God that was active in the early church that should be active in the church of today. But if you want to control things, you want to know what's going to happen? Not much.

Come Holy Spirit, come. Come Holy Spirit, come. I need you. Come Holy Spirit on this ministry that it would go to the ends of the earth. Come Holy Spirit upon anyone that wants Jesus. Come and baptize people, Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. Come with your glory. Come with your might. Come with your presence. Come with the Gospel.

Come Holy Spirit. We are in need of you, Holy Spirit. We are in need of an outpouring of the Spirit that cannot be contained, that cannot be manipulated. We are in need of an outpouring of the Spirit in the church that's greater than what happened at Pentecost. Form our hearts to get ready for that. Form our hearts to get ready for this outpouring because the world as we know it is going to hell in a handbasket.

We are in need of the Holy Spirit. We thirst for the Spirit of God to come in ways that we've never experienced. We thirst that he would come and heal our country, our land. We've become so ungodly in our land. We need an outpouring of the Spirit that only God can give us.

The only thing that's going to save the United States—and let me just tell you, the Republicans aren't going to save the United States and neither are the Democrats. The only thing that's going to save the United States is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. People being brought to Jesus Christ, people who get on their knees and realize that there is one hope and his name is Jesus.

And there is power. Go into the city and pray till you receive power from on high. I wonder how many people who hear my voice have experienced that power? Maybe you did once but you've fallen away from it. Let me tell you, you can have it as real as you want it to be today if you just surrender your life to him. No matter how you've fallen away, you can have that power because it's available through Jesus Christ.

How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? The Holy Spirit has been the plan of Jesus for the church from the beginning, and it's the plan of Jesus until he comes in glory.