Saturated.

Our God is a Mighty God! He is the God of miracles.

He is so good to us. If it were not for the Lord, where would we be?

Many times has the Lord gotten us out of messes we got ourselves into? How many times have we been so low we could not pick ourselves up, and lo and behold, He once more reaches down and picks us up again? His mercies are from everlasting to everlasting.

I am so thankful today that the Lord is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all would come to repentance.

I give you an opportunity to give if we could stand together. He is so good to us. I feel a special closeness of the presence of the Lord here today.

Isaiah 55:1-13 (KJV)

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

The Lord has put in my heart today, specifically the verse that I read to you in verse 11. Verse 10, He describes something we all can understand:

“As the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven.” He is likening this precipitation, this form of virtue that falls upon the earth, to the rain and the snow.

The rain provides immediate relief. You could have a plant that is withering and looks like it is dying. Just put some water on it, and in just a little bit, it will perk right up.

Everybody has had a plant that looked thirsty. Put some water on it when it was hanging down, and its leaves were drooping. It has a miraculous effect.

But it says like the rain and the snow. Snow is the same thing as rain, but it falls in a different season. It falls in a different environment.

And the nature of the snow is it does not run off; it stacks up. And it will run off when the seasons change. When the seasons change, what was seemingly hard to access—the plants are not benefiting much, the ground is not saturated much—but when the sun comes out and the temperature changes, snow can be stacked up ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet, depending on where you are at.

And when there is a shift in the environment, all of the accumulated water will begin to flow and make mighty rivers. And the scripture says, “My word is like the rain and the snow.” And all of us have lived through seasons where we were blessed, but we did not see the immediate benefit of the blessing.

And this morning, the Lord says,

“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

This world, the Bible says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

He divided the firmament. He divided the land from the sea, and there was a place where there was a division between that which was solid and that which was liquid. But we never reach a point where there is no need in our life for the work and the word and the Spirit of God to move in our lives.

And this morning, I just want you to have in your mind this picture that the word of God is like the rain. There is a need of connection for the virtue of God’s presence to work in our life. The Lord in Isaiah says that “My word is like the snow and the rain.”

It is an outflow; it is an overflow. And Jesus stood in John chapter 7 on the last day of that great feast, and He said, “Anyone thirsty, let him come unto me and drink, and he that believeth on me as the scripture hath said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”

There is a direct connection between the word of God and the blessings of God.

And there is something about the word of God that connects us to God's blessings. You can have a five-hundred-dollar water hose that can stretch all the way around your house ten times, but if the water hose is not connected to the spigot, nothing is going to come out the end of that long, expensive water hose.

You have got to connect the end of the hose to the spigot if you want the blessing to come out where you want it blessed. There is an old saying: " Get under the spout where the glory comes out.

Jesus said, “He that believeth on me as the scripture hath said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.”

There is a direct connection to the word of God and the corresponding blessing. And we live in a world with all kinds of ideas. If you ask them, “Can you show me in the Bible where it says that?” they are not going to be able to show you, because it did not come out of the Bible.

The Bible says that in the last days, men will not endure sound doctrine, but they will turn themselves to fables. And a lot of what you hear sounds good, it has a rhyme, it has a beat, but it is not in the book. But the blessing of the Lord is when we respond to Jesus according to His word.

Someone knocked on my door the other day, on a Monday morning. I happened to be at home, and it was about 8:30 in the morning. I go, and I open the door, and these two beautiful ladies are standing there with their Bibles in their hands, and they say,

“Well, good morning.”

And I open the door and, as I will do, begin to talk to them. I said, “Well, I would like you to know that I am a Jehovah’s Witness, too.” They looked at me. I was like, “Yes. Let me tell you, Jesus is Jehovah.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” You could tell they realized I was not a Jehovah’s Witness like they were. And I asked them, “Do you believe that Jesus heals?” “Yeah.” I said, “Do you believe He heals right now?”

And I just began to quote a few scriptures. I am telling you, Jesus is a healer. And they were really ready to go. They were tired of witnessing to me.

And I told them, “You know, ladies, truth is an absolute thing. And I appreciate that you are fully persuaded that what you believe is true, and that you are so dedicated to it that you are knocking on my door on Monday morning at 8:30. I appreciate your passion.

Here is the challenge: what you believe means you think I'm wrong. But I believe Jesus loves us both and there is not two truths. There is only one truth, and the only truth is what the word of God says.

Not what my denomination says, not what the Pope says, not what my grandma said, not what some other book says, not what Charles Taze Russell said, not what the Watchtower Society says, but what the word of God says is true. And it is from the word of God there is an overflow blessing. And if you and I can just bring our lives into connection and alignment with what the word of God says, wherever we are, when we live and walk in accordance with the word of God, God is going to bless us.”

Have you ever thought you had an electric cord, went out to plug something in, and there was no power? What do you do? Well, let me go see if it is plugged in.

Sometimes in our Christian walk with God, we get to the end, and we are about to do something, and we start to do it, and there is no power. We need to go back to where we got connected and make sure we are still connected. What breaks our connection?

What causes us to reach a point where there is no flow in our lives?

Every one of us knows there are things that happen, situations that transpire, and we have got that five-hundred-foot water hose. We go to all the trouble to do whatever it is we are trying to do, and there is no flow.

And you think, “Man, I have got to walk all the way back to the spigot. I have got to walk all the way back to the plug-in.” And you get down there like, “Oh, God. Forgive me for not praying this week.

Lord, forgive me for being hard-headed. Forgive me, Lord, for getting my priorities a little off.” Jesus said, “He that believeth on me as the scripture hath said.” We live in a world where people have great professions, but oftentimes they have no connection with what the Bible says.

Believing in Jesus is great, but a simple faith in Jesus is not enough. Jesus spent three and a half years teaching so that people would know about the Kingdom of God. And He has left for us in His Word certain things.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” Jesus said. This is what, if you want to be blessed, do this.

And so you can have faith in Jesus, but if you are not doing what Jesus said, you cannot expect the blessing. There is a connection between an idea, a philosophy, this sentiment of a feel-good, and Jesus is the rock. There is something solid that requires us to integrate the Word of God, which plugs us in.

That's when we get to the end of wherever we are and where we are at that moment, we have got power because of the connection. The power comes when we are walking in alignment with what the Word of God says.

Can we pray right here?

Lord Jesus, You see where we are right now. And God, I want to be in alignment with Your Word.

If there are some things that Your ways are higher than my ways, and my ways do not look like what You said my ways should be, God, I want to walk in oneness and unity and obedience to the Word of God. There is a saturation, and God sends the rain, and God sends the snow, and there is a

desire for God to bless us.

But at some point, there are these special moments where we choose to be saturated.

Matthew 3:13-17 (KJV)

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Before the dove could ever appear, Jesus had to be baptized because righteousness had to be fulfilled. A pattern for righteousness was established with Jesus and continues to this day.

And whenever we choose to suffer it to be so, we are willing to do what has got to be done. When you do what has got to be done, the blessings of God will come.

Acts 2:36-38 (KJV)

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

God has a plan for our lives. His plan is for us to be blessed and to be a blessing. How many of you want to be blessed?

I am telling you, the Lord wants to give you such a baptism of His Spirit that you are not just going to be saturated, but everyone that you get around is going to experience a blessing because you got a blessing. And this morning, I want to just invite you, invite all of you.

I would like us to gather around the front, and I would like us to pray, “Lord, be it unto me according to Your Word. Lord God, I want to experience the baptism of water, the baptism of the Spirit, the baptism of Your will, and the baptism of Your Word.

Oh, God, suffer it to be so that all righteousness might be fulfilled.” And I am telling you today, if you have been baptized and you are not sure how you got baptized or you want to get baptized again, today is a good day to get baptized.

If Jesus had to be baptized, you need to be baptized.

In Acts 19, Paul even re-baptized folks. He prayed for them after baptism and what happened? They like Jesus received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit!

I believe it is the will of God that we do everything in our power, that we put ourselves in a position where we allow the Word of God to be fulfilled in our lives, that His blessing can be realized.

Through our obedience to the pattern and directions, specifically what the Bible commands and illustrates, we have qualified ourselves to experience the promises of God.

Where there is no obedience to the Word of God, we are disconnected to the full extent of the promises of God.

We must be willing to step down into the fullness of God through obedience.

Every step we take in faith to bring ourselves, immerse ourselves, thrust ourselves into the full power of the Spirit of God, we will experience the abundant flow of God. The flow will be so great, we will no longer just in the flow, but the flow will flow from our being.

“He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” John 7:38

Saturated!

In Him, By Him, Through Him,

Scott A. Phillips