There is a well-known story from the heart of Texas, and it's about an oil field known as Yates' pool.

In fact, during the Depression years, this oil field was a sheep ranch owned by men named Mr. Yates.

During those not so good old days, Mr. Yates was not able to make enough money off that ranching operation to even pay the mortgage on the ranch. In one stage, he was about to lose it if it were not for a small government subsidy that helped him barely put food on

the table. Day after day during that time, Mr. Yates grazed his sheep on that scrubby rolling hills

in West Texas. Day after day, he lived in worry, fear, and anxiety of how he's going to make ends meet.

Day after day, he fretted about how he would pay his bills.

He spent sleepless nights, literally in anxiety, over his dire circumstances.

Then one day a geologist with an oil company came by to see him,

and he said, you know, I have a hunch that there may be oil underneath your ranch, and would you allow us? It's a remote possibility, but if you just allow us to drill and find out, you're not

anything to lose. And sure enough, they started drilling what they call a wildcat well.

And they went down about 1,115 feet, and sure enough, they discovered a huge oil reserve.

The first well produced 80,000 barrels a day, which was a lot of oil back then.

And subsequent wells on the same property was producing almost twice as much.

Thirty years later, they went to another side of the ranch, and the oil flow was about 125,000 barrels

a day. And Mr. Yates owned it all. He owned it all. The day he bought that scrubby ranch,

he owned all of the mineral rights and all of the oil rights on the land, and yet he was living

on a small government subsidy, a multi-millionaire, and yet he was living in poverty, an oil

baron who did not have enough to eat. Why? Because he did not know that there was oil under his feet. And he owned a great

deal of wealth and blessings, and yet he did not, on his own, able to discover it and use it.

And, beloved, every time I think of Mr. Yates' pool, I think of how many believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, probably tens of thousands of believers who like him a living in spiritual deprivation, while God has already given them all of the spiritual blessings to bless them and make them a blessing. They are living

from hand to mouth, spiritually speaking, while rich gifts of the Holy Spirit are at their grasp

that was given to them the day they gave the life to Christ. And we saw in the last message

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