The Person and work of the Holy Spirit. Lesson 4 end, begin lesson 5

I tried to listen to the message last week and due to all the technical issues, did we finish on four and we're starting in five or did we get, are we starting in four? Starting at five, I thought it was five. I just want to confirm that because yeah, the recording last week was not great. I think we had about 10 minutes of the class that got recorded, so.

All right, so we are on the person work of the Holy Spirit, lesson four and question five. So what work will the spirit do during this time? And the time is during the millennium. So what work will be done? And I think right, I had a couple kind of a list of things that anybody go through that. And so what is the what work will the spirit do during the millennium? Well, I have, I wrote down mainly with Israel, but national resurrection, remission, restoration, and regeneration. Yep, that's what Rideout listed out. So, kind of interesting, national resurrection.

We haven't seen that. We don't see that. We see it on an individual basis right now. But in the millennium, it's going to be a national resurrection, which is going to be different than, like I said, what we see right now. Now, it's on an individual basis.

And then remission, restoration, regeneration. And a lot of it's going to be, and we read through some of those in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, and those what's what's going to transpire during that time where the Holy Spirit will be over the nation. There'll be the law written on their hearts, a lot of different things. So the restoration, regeneration during that time.

And yes, it's mainly what's going on with Israel. Israel will have the Spirit among them. They'll be born of God and Christ over them. And the sanctuary of God will be in the midst of them forever. So a lot of things will transpire at that time. And the Holy Spirit will have a very prominent role at that time.

So if you look in Ezekiel 43, five through seven, these are a couple of the ones that the write-out pulled out. And I can read it. And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court. And behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house. Then I heard one speaking to me from the house while a man was standing beside me. He said to me, son of man, There is this place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever. So again, this is what the Holy Spirit will be doing during the millennium. It's kind of interesting. What will we be doing during the millennium? Ruling and reigning with Christ. Yeah. And where will the Holy Spirit be for us? In us. In us. Is there a change? Like he is today. Exactly.

That's kind of a, when I was going through this again, the thought, it'll be the same as today. The only difference is we're going to shirk these shells. We're going to have a different body. But it's the same indwelling. Think about that. The same indwelling today as what will transpire in the millennia. We just get rid of the sinful flesh, which is the boat anchor on us right now. But it's kind of interesting to think of the same indwelling will happen forever. And so take just a moment to meditate on that one, that you have the same indwelling that you'll have forever, right now.

So I just thought that was kind of an interesting thought, is we rule and reign, and the same indwelling spirit will be with us. So it's kind of what, and JD sent it to me, Jeremy Camp's song about the very same spirit, the very same power is in us now. Kind of an interesting thought, that the Holy Spirit's indwelling in the power is the same today as it will be through eternity.

So, yeah, we look at this and what's happening in Israel, but I thought, you know, what's happening to us at that same time? We just have a different body at that, which doesn't drag us down. So, just kind of an interesting thought, I thought. Any other?

The other thing that's gonna happen is, because we have been the wedding feast of the Lamb, and John 17 has been enacted, which is the glory of Christ coming out of us. People will know us, and we'll be here walking around. The glory will be good. You know, it's kind of like, you know, I wonder, speculation is this, you know, like with God and Moses and the reflecting of the glory was so much, is that what we're going to be like just normally? I think so. You know, just with the glory emanating out of us.

And I also think we're going to be involved obviously with the ruling and reigning of the kingdom. This is my opinion. I think a lot of us are going to be involved because of the Millennial Kingdom law system, the Sermon on the Mount, we'll be involved in the implementation of that for the whole planet, for all people that live here under that law. Yeah, the ruling and reigning, I keep thinking about that.

What does that entail? And for the Jews, they're going to have the law written on their heart. They're going to not need anything. Right. So is this do we rule and reign on the others that during this part of it, you know, during the millennium, you know, the the because it Jews will have it written on their heart, they will. They don't need it.

And the spirit will be over them. And so the ruling and reigning is either it's going to be a really easy job, or we're going to rule and reign over the others. So that is speculation, too. Anybody have thoughts on that? But it's kind of interesting, the ruling and reigning part.

What will that look like for us? I don't think at this point we can understand exactly what that's going to be like. Our mental capacity won't hold it. I tend to agree. Yeah, I don't know. You know, it's pure speculation at this point. That's like I said, when we try and quantify what eternity is. Can't do it. So... Yeah, a couple of thoughts. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. A couple of thoughts on that.

I think I brought up a few weeks ago in Revelation 21 how It really challenges my thinking on, I mean, 21.9, the angel says, come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And then down in verse 10, what does he show him? He shows him the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, having the glory of God in her. And I'm just like, you know, he says he's gonna show him the... the bride, the wife of the lamb, that's clearly the church. And then he begins showing him the city Jerusalem and further down, you know, the temple and the almighty lamb and, you know, Art's temple. And just kind of, it's hard to wrap your head around what will be, you know, what exactly we're doing there, but, you know. Yeah, I think there are a lot of things when you look at it that gold is so pure that it's crystal clear.

Yeah. Huh? I knew Jerusalem would be 1,500 miles by 1,500 miles by 1,500 miles. Yeah. Yeah. Tiny little place, and I go to prepare a place for you. Cheryl, I agree. It's hard to wrap your head around these things. So all right, anything else on that? Otherwise, we'll go to six.

Now, I kind of like these questions about water. For some reason, I don't know why I like those questions about water. Let's see if you have good answers. No, when they talk about water coming out of the rock and things like that, That's an everyday occurrence. You get water out of rocks. I do that all the time, but not quite the same water. For those of you who don't know, my profession as an engineer is in water resources and groundwater wells, those type of things. Anyway. You don't use a staff. I'm supposed to use a staff when I go around and do that.

All right, what is water the type of in the Old Testament? Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit? Okay, others? I put down life. Okay. On page 12, it says, wherever the waters flow, life springs up. You know, so I thought, you know, spirit may represent life. I tend to look at it that way too. And strangely enough, back to my career was, you know, deciding in the civil engineering profession, there's all sorts of things. You can build bridges, you can do treatment plants, you can do all sorts of things. One of the aspects is water.

And when I was deciding, and originally I thought I was going to be building and all that kind of stuff, but it got really boring looking at bolt shear stresses and things like that. And back, it wasn't like computer. You had to look up all these table values of shear strength and all this and kind of, ugh. So in my senior year, I started to think about it and what you can't live without water.

And so I really made my decision based on that fact, is that water is life. And so my career has been, you know, everybody needs water. And especially here in Colorado, it's very dry and water is a key element. And so, literally life, life is out of water.

And so, you know that that really was how I started my career and why I got into this aspect of civil engineering was because I figured there would always be a need for it so I maybe have a job. So, it's really what. Anyway, so what, you know, I basically said it was life too.

And if you look at, I think he had in there, right out of a couple of them, Isaiah 32, one and two, and kind of the, behold, the king will reign righteously and princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in parched land. Again, just the refreshing life aspect of water and then Isaiah 32 15 until the spirit is poured out upon us from on high and the wilderness becomes a fertile field and the fertile field is considered as a forest again you can't no crops no nothing if you don't have water and so again the life aspect of it And then in Ezekiel 36, 25, which we looked at before, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. And I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

So that's another aspect of water, cleansing. It's life, it's cleansing, it's the spirit. Water represents a lot of things, and it's all about life to me. Cleaning, cleansing, so you're clean in your life. And then the Holy Spirit is poured out, poured out like water. So there's a lot of imagery in the aspect of water.

So any thoughts? You know, when you were talking about your choice in going into water. I was thinking the human body can only live about three days without water. It can live up to two weeks or more without food, but without water You're only going to live about three days.

Exactly. And that's why it is. You can go a whole lot longer without food, but you can't without water. Right. And so that is. And so water represents life. So what does water represent in the Old Testament? Same sort of thing? answer? Yes. Water water is a type uh from right out. He said, water is a type of the spirit of god in his life giving activities through the word of god.

So, he went on life and blessings through the spirit flow forth to carry healing to desolate places of the earth. Then some other ones. The bitter waters are healed and fish abound in the very lake of death. These are references in the Old Testament. The Gentiles receive life and blessing through the Spirit and Word of God. And the Spirit of God is poured out from on high and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field. Again, all their aspects of it is, again, the pouring out of the Spirit, pouring out of life, all those So another one coming up, what does the widening and deepening of the water represent?

And this he put out, Ezekiel 47, two through five, and I'll read it. And he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate, by way of the gate that faces east. And behold, water was trickling from the south side. When the man went out toward the east with a line in his hand, he measured 1,000 cubits, and he led me through the water, water reaching the ankles. Again, he measured 1,000 and led me through the water, reaching my knees. Again, he measured 1,000 and led me through the water, water reaching the loins. Again, he measured 1,000, and there was a river that I could not ford, for the water had risen enough to swim in, a river that could not be forded. So again, the picture being represented is the depth of the Holy Spirit. Basically, you wade into it and it's at some point a river that you can't afford. It's so overwhelming. So I said, so what is spreading out in the millennium like a river that is ever growing? What is that? Blessings of the Spirit. Yeah, think about that. The blessings of the spirit are like a river that is so wide you couldn't afford it.

There's just, you know, we use that term, you know, it's like drinking out of a fire hose. It's just overwhelming. Or I think Mike said, like when you blast off it at Cape Canaveral, just the amount of water that they flush is incredible during that time. And that's that's like the Holy Spirit. It's just almost incomprehensible the width and depth. of the blessings and life that we have in the Holy Spirit.

You know, Courtney, the first mention of the Spirit in Genesis is when he moved over the waters to give it the electromagnetic whatever. Yeah, he moved over the waters and and I think what is that? I can't remember it now. Where the Spirit went over there. Genesis one, three years. Yeah, I can't remember the exact reference here, but I know, yeah, where he went over the waters, and it's, again, kind of the aspect of life and maintaining life.

So the other thing that I think Wright has, the blessings, the spirit widens out in the millennium until the knowledge of the Lord covers the whole world as waters cover the sea. Only in the millennium will a nation be born in a day. Today it's one person at a time. So, and then another reference on the water side is in Revelation 22, 1 through 3.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal coming out from the throne of God and of the lamb. And in the middle of its street, on either side of the river was a tree of life, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." And so he had kind of a good conclusion at this point. And I liked it. Three different aspects.

Before Christ, the Spirit's work, as well as all God's ways, was one of preparation. So before Christ, the Holy Spirit was preparing. I liked that. And then, after the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, in connection with the Church, it was a time of realization. It's all now real. During the millennium when Christ will be displayed in glory as king of his people and over all the earth, it will be the time of manifestation. So I really like the way he broke that down, is prior to Christ, it was preparation. And you look at that like in Galatians 3, where it says the law was a tutor pointing us to Christ, that all prep, all the law, everything was pointing to Christ. Then during this dispensation, this time period, It's a realization of the Holy Spirit. And then when we get to the millennium, it's going to be a total manifestation of the Spirit over the entire globe. So I like the way he summed it up in that.

Any other thoughts? Otherwise, Mike will come up and we will jump to the next lesson. Any thoughts? Final thoughts? I hope you're reading the chapters as we go through them. We're now graduating to lecture number two. And a write out is a really, I think, an enjoyable writer. I like reading his stuff. And at the beginning of every one of these lectures, he writes a little poem, which is really kind of cool. I should just encourage you to read them.

So lecture number two, we're going to deal with four aspects of the work of the spirit. The first one is conviction. and then sealing and assurance and these are all things that are appropriate. actually to all generations but uh especially starting to focus in on us, the church. So, we're looking at uh today, lesson five. I think I'm everybody shouldn't have gotten a And the first part is conviction, which is a work of the Holy Spirit.

So, the first question I had was, what does the word salvation mean? So, let's talk about that for a minute. When you think of the word salvation, what do you think of? Being saved out of something. Saved out of something, okay. In our case, what are you saved out of?

Death. Sin. Nature. Sin. So one of the terms is for salvation. There's a lot of different meanings you'll see in the scripture. The first one is it has to do for the deliverance out of any special strait, as Paul was delivered out of prison in Philippians 1.9. It can have to do with victory over daily trials and temptations, salvation or victory. So victory is a good word, deliverance is a good word, the redemption of the body. and of the spirit, God, all of these things have to do with what salvation is. And I think one of the big issues in contemporary society is for the Holy Spirit to persuade somebody they actually need to be saved, that they've got a major problem.

And that is, like my buddy Strong used to say, this is the best hell's ever gonna be right now. You know, it doesn't get better. So, part of the convicting work of the spirit is to persuade individuals that they are in a precarious position and they need deliverance.

That's gotta happen first because none of us would say, well, I'm not interested in that if I don't think I have a problem. Why would I buy car insurance if I knew I was never going to have an accident? I wouldn't. It wouldn't make any sense. So why would I want victory over trials and temptation if I never had any?

And the third part of that is Rideout talks about salvation has to do with the redemption of our body. all of us who are getting older are getting more and more excited about this issue. You know, we get to drop this old one off and we get to put a new one on. And so, Wright made a couple of interesting things.

He said, God is the savior of all men in that he preserves and he sustains all flesh. He preserves your flesh and he sustains it, not only you, but all the animals, everything. So you could say that God is a Savior in that sense. The Father is a Savior in the sense that it's His grace and His love that gave His Son and His grace and His love that chose all of us in Him, Savior. The Son, obviously, is the Savior. He's the one that we look to as the Savior. Why? Because He's the one that laid down His life for us and accomplished a work which has both glorified God and met every need that we have. That's another aspect of salvation.

Sometimes young believers don't think that their salvation within the package of salvation that every one of their needs has been met. And I mean, has been, not gonna be, has already been met. Every single thing that we need. And so early on, the teaching of a young believer about the assurance of salvation and the fact that all of their needs have been met from God's perspective is an important aspect of walking beside a believer, make sure they understand that there isn't a single need that you're ever going to have that God hasn't met through Christ on the cross.

And the last one is that the spirit is a savior by virtue of the fact of his work of regeneration. He's the one that regenerates. And all that is connected with that, including the sealing and the assurance of salvation, he is about the business of, he regenerated us, but then he doesn't stop there, he continues through the word to assure us of everything that's happened. that He has done.

And without spending time in God's Word, you really don't know what the work of the Spirit is. You don't know what He has done. You don't know this whole concept of He sealed you. What does that mean, that the Spirit of God sealed you? What is a seal? We don't use them anymore, but... The Holy Spirit places us into Christ and seals us in him forever, safe and secure. So he personally is the one who says you're sealed, or he himself is the seal? Well, I think placing us into Christ seals us in Christ. That's just what I had always thought. that he literally puts us into safety in Christ so that Romans 8-1 will work for us.

Sure. Doug, can you make him angry enough that he would just sort of take you out of Christ? No. He can't. because he's not looking to your behavior as to whether you're sealed or not. He's looking to the work of Christ on the cross as to whether he's going to seal you or not. And he's the one. So from that understanding about sealing, any doubts you have about salvation comes from the mind of the old man. It doesn't come from the Holy Spirit. He would not say, watch it.

You better be careful. Like I say to my new dog, you better be careful. You're only here a couple of days. or you might only be here a couple of days. Mike, I also think of the ceiling too as a little different. The old was like a wax ceiling where it sealed it so nobody could open it except the person or whatever.

But it was also, it's like the king seal. It was a seal by whoever that entity was. And that's where I think this is another one. This is God, through the Holy Spirit, God stamping it. It's him doing it. So it's not only an eternal, it's his sealing. And that's important. It's not just an everyday sealing. It's God himself through the spirit putting his signature on it, basically, or his signet that says, it's my sealing.

You guys all hear that on I was going to say in the trucking, shipping industry, they still use seals on shipping containers and sometimes semi-trucks. You drive behind one, you can see when it's got a seal on the handle, nobody can open that. The shipper put that on there and the receiver opens it and the truck driver can't even open that to look in the truck. I mean, it's sealed and it's just the modern parallel of that. And in our situation, we're inside the truck, the Holy Spirit's the seal on the door.

You know, so. You know, it's similar in my profession and in writing contracts for buying and selling real estate, there's this little thing called earnest money. And the Holy Spirit is called the earnest. He's the earnest money. So it's not money in that case. And what an earnest money does is it guarantees the performance of the contract. In other words, if I said I'm gonna do these 45 things, and I'm gonna give you some money that you can hold an escrow until I get the 45 things done, and then you get the money, the Holy Spirit says, look, not only have I saved you and sealed you, but I've got all these other wonderful things, like we talked a little bit about in Courtney's class, and things to come, that I guarantee that those are gonna be true of you, and I'm the earnest money about that. So it's a guarantee that it's going to happen. It's great.

We're studying in Hebrews that when God swore to Abraham, he swore by nobody but himself because there wasn't anybody he could swear by but himself. You can say, well, I'm going to swear on my mother's grave. Well, my mother's grave is how reliable? Well, she's in the grave. But he would swear, God would swear by himself. I guarantee that what I'm promising you, I'm gonna carry out. How am I doing time-wise? Good.

So looking at question two, what were the convicting factors after the fall by the spirit? In other words, when Adam fell. There was a conviction that went on. that through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, striving not only with Adam, but with man's conscience in the Old Testament. The fall, first of all, what he was doing was he was convicting or convincing man that he did fall, that he did sin, and sin is not a bunch of bad things you do.

Sin is missing the mark that God has set out for us. and that there was a judgment of God involved in that. There's a judgment coming, or that some of the judgment was implemented right away, like with man having to toil and having to work, and the earth, when it was created, was designed to promote man's livelihood. Now that he sinned, it was all against him.

You know, all of you who have ever planted a garden know that next to those really cool looking plants, there's these things called weeds, you know, and cares have come up. The second thing that he convicts us of is that the Holy Spirit himself and God is powerful and that it all has to do with goodness. that God has put in place a provision where man can change his mind. He can come to a conclusion about the fact that God is good. One of the amazing things about studying Genesis and Exodus And there's lots and lots of consequences that God puts on people and Jews and that kind of thing. But inside all of those consequences is God's grace. And you can see it, that he will implement a consequence for the Jews, let's say, because they didn't believe him or because they did something he told them not to do.

But always in the consequence, was an element of grace someplace hidden in there. The good example I just mentioned has to do with a man has to go to work now, has to function by the sweat of his brow every single day, and he's gonna have to fight the opposition, fight the battles, Courtney calls it slaying the dragons. But at the end of the day, when a man sits down and he says, you know, I worked hard today and there's satisfaction in that.

Where'd that satisfaction come from? It came in the grace in the curse. You see that? And we were studying again on Wednesday night that a woman's, and the King James uses the word salvation, but what's the word the new American standard used for a woman's Because the curse or the consequence that was given a woman was the increased pain in childbearing. But this one little half of a verse says that her salvation will be in childbearing. There's something about childbearing in women that's grace within the curse. I've never met a mom who wasn't excited about being a mom. There's something special about that.

And even if you're like us and we didn't have our son, John, until Donna was 40, still, it was just the coolest time ever because there was such a dramatic change or an appreciation, let's say, especially in Donna's heart about having John, you know?

Was it painful? Well, until they put the, no, actually we went all the way without it. Yeah, we did. No, none of this. It wasn't painful. It wasn't painful for you at all, was it? Well, except for when Sue Ellen elbowed me in the face to get me out of the way. Move over, she's my sister.

You know, Mike, one other thing, just the differences on the demonstration of power. How is the Holy Spirit's demonstration different than, or is it different than Romans 1, where we see in nature, what do we see there? We see the power. We don't see anything about Christ or anything, but we see the power of God. Is that the same or different than what the Holy Spirit does? Demonstrating the power of God. I think he said he demonstrates the power.

Is that different than we seeing it in nature that, you know, in the Romans, one aspect of it. I was trying to think of that. I don't know the answer to that, whether it's God really in His creation doing that and showing everything in Romans 1, but I think is that also the manifestation through the Holy Spirit of us understanding and seeing that? I think it's more kind of where we see that power.

It's us realizing. does an unbeliever look at the stars and you know that. Because those verses say that man you're without excuse because the righteousness of God has been revealed from heaven. Right. And that righteousness is revealed in the creation. In the creation. And inside you.

And that's why I think that's still the Holy Spirit working, I think, by looking at that. And to an unbeliever, it's like, wow. And he's convicting him. I think it's still the same thing, the power, it's revealed. I agree. So it wasn't just in the creation itself looking at it. It's the Holy Spirit using that creation to convince. You have to really be blind to look at God's creation and not see it in there. Well, and as the Roman says, nobody is without excuse.

Everybody realizes that. That's right. And I think that's the Holy Spirit really manifesting to everybody that there is a God. Yeah, I'm of a personal opinion that there's no born atheist. You become that way by rejecting what God has revealed to you about himself. It has to be because, I mean, the scripture says nobody is without excuse.

That's right. Okay, we got to stop. I'm four minutes over. So we'll pick up and finish up on question two next week. And oh, I'm sorry, we won't meet next week because it's Easter Sunday, or I'm sorry, Resurrection Sunday. And then we'll pick up the week after that. So, let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your spirit that teaches us, reveals to us, primarily you, and that we continue to desire to grow in the knowledge and grace of our dear Savior, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name, amen.