The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, lesson 41 cont

All right, we are on lesson, what, 41? Is that right? 41. And it's on chapter 7 in the book. It begins at page 230. And we got through question 1 last week. We're on question 2 now on page 104. List the previous subjects covered up until now. Yeah. Give me one minute. OK. Get out your pencils. Question 2 is page 231. Yeah. Question 3 is 233. Question 4 is 235. Question 5 is 236. And question 6 is 237. All right. So now you can quickly look in the book while we ask the questions.

So the list of the previous subjects. I kind of went through this and right out had a very good summary of that, and I decided basically to go with his summary rather than spend the next three classes summarizing the last year and a half that we've done or two years or whatever we've done. So in order to streamline our looking at what we've done for the last year and a half. So the first subject, I can ask the question, but what was the first subject that we went over?

Anybody know that? It was the Holy Spirit and dispensations was the first ones. And then that was divided into three general categories before Christ, the present or Christian age, and the millennium. and right have it as it is. The Spirit for our Lord's first coming was necessarily one of preparation. Preparation for Christ during the present age while our Lord is exalted. His work is to make us realize the fullness there is in Him. In the Millennium, when our Lord will be manifested as King over all the earth, His Word will be one of open and manifest blessing. Thus the Spirit reflects the thoughts of God as to Christ in each of the age of the world's history."

So, that was the first one. Then the second one we did was the Holy Spirit in salvation. So, basically the Holy Spirit's involvement in salvation was first the conviction of sin. So we saw it was because the world's rejection of Christ. So his first purpose is the conviction of sin. The next is new birth was marked by faith in the Lord Jesus. And then the third was sealing. So, the sealing of the Holy Spirit was upon that faith, was simply the record of God's appreciation of those who believe.

Sealing is never connected with attainments or experiences, never made to depend upon the extent of our knowledge of truth. Where there is faith in the person, there God sets his seal of ownership upon the weakest and most ignorant believer. I think that was kind of interesting that you don't have to be the super scholar or anything to get the seal. You don't have to be somebody who knows the Bible inside and out. From the humblest beginning of your new birth, you are sealed, sealed with the Holy Spirit.

So next one was assurance. Actually, what was the assurance? I can ask some of the questions along the way. What was the assurance by the Holy Spirit? I got it here in the book. Cheater. No, that's good. He says the assurance is simply bringing home to the soul the perfection of Christ's work and His love.

Yes, thus in salvation the Spirit glorifies Christ. So the next one, the same is true in the sanctification of the believer. we find that the Spirit comes as a representative of our absent Lord. He takes up His abode in us, leads our hearts out to share the thoughts of God as to Christ, sets us apart as belonging to Him, and enables us to walk as glorifying Him. Here again, it is Christ whom the Spirit exalts."

So, you know, the sanctification too, I think, and I don't know, was it one of the The Hungry Hearts just recently about, maybe it was yesterday's or something, about trying to do our efforts in these and how futile it is when we try and do any of this on our own. It's futile. And it ends in frustration, ends in failure. It's allowing the Holy Spirit to convince us daily of our crucifixion with Christ. And so, yeah, the sanctification is His.

And that's something I think is hard and I think most of Christendom now doesn't agree with that. As we say many times, go to a Christian bookstore. How to, how to, what to do, and all these, you know, all my You know, the prayer of Jabez and the purpose-driven life, all those different things that are there to, quote, help you steer you along in what you have to do. It's the Holy Spirit's work sanctifying us and setting us apart. And again, the word sanctification is being set apart.

That's His work. And again, I think it was just yesterday or the day before, Hungry Heart basically put that out that it's not our efforts and His. A lot of times with the new believer or people, once I become a believer, now I have the power through the Holy Spirit to do all those great things. It's now my efforts and the Holy Spirit's, and it's not.

It's the Holy Spirit's job to set us apart and conform us. Using using the word and the only thing we have is by faith believing what what the word says so again the sanctifying and I think that's a very very important part of the the Job or purpose of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify us put it set us apart and it's his work.

I And if there's any comments, interrupt me. I just wanted to, I thought it was better just to go through this rather than again, spend four weeks going through the summary. Yeah. I still get the question. It's interesting that it's the work of the spirit, but what's my involvement in it? And the answer obviously is, well, I'm just to believe. That's it. And what I find interesting is, is that if, If I come from a reformed background and I've been given the law, is that what I'm supposed to believe? The law. Yeah. Am I supposed to believe that I can't implement the law so I'll trust? You see, the law never says that the spirit is going to implement the law in you. Right, and we're not under the law. That's right.

And so I learn. It seems like a whole re-education process. I find it frustrating for a lot of believers because this learning how to live by faith is a very difficult thing, at least initially, that I can just go along today and trust him for what I know. Can I trust Him for what I don't know? Yeah, I can. In my personal experience, when I first began hearing guys talking about walking by faith, and I finally came to understand the fact that faith is in God's Word, And I just kind of knew that in general, you know, we walk by faith in the Word of God. So I did gravitate towards this idea that, well, I know what the rules are. I know what the laws are.

So, you know, I trust those to be the authority for my life. And so, you know, that's what walking by faith means is that I, you know, so I kind of had this beginning this idea of, of, you know, not not being under law and yet still, it was very kind of confusing. And when you you know, you have to finally come to that point of recognizing that this walking by faith in the Spirit is not the enabling to keep the law. You know, it's not that just because we weren't able to keep the law before, now you got the Holy Spirit, now you can keep the law by faith. And it takes a while to figure that out. J.D., if you want to get up a mic, not this mic, but a mic. So a thought here is just the difference between taking in information.

We all have jobs. We all know the rules. We know where not to go and when to go there and do the things that we're told to abide within the rules of any kind of system. But the difference here, I really think, is what Reinhart talks about. He takes up his abode in us and needs our hearts to share the thoughts of God and Christ. So one of the things about keeping the law and the difference for us as believers is that Christ has put his spirit in us so that we can, he not only abides with us, but we abide with him. And keeping those things that we know them are far different when there's a relationship going on than when we're just following the rules.

We can follow rules. Yeah. I mean, we know how to do that, basically. But I also thought the interesting part of that was that He talks about sharing the thoughts of God. I've shared this a lot of times, I've said it to people, our kids even. Our life is about thinking God's thoughts after Him.

You don't do that by memorizing the scripture. You do that because the Holy Spirit teaches you to mind the So, when we're talking about sanctification and being set apart, you're set apart because you're being, there's an abidance, not an obedience alone, but an abidance, and I think that's different. So, my thoughts, you know, one of the things, and this kind of falls into it and why I think so many people don't, if you're not taught this, why they naturally gravitate to all these different things and how you do this. The flesh is the one who just loves to make you do something. And if you don't know this co-crucifixion, the flesh is there immediately telling you to do stuff. And you are so willing, unless you know that, you're wanting to do something.

That's why I think a lot of believers, just what he said, now I can do those because I have the power of the Holy Spirit, I can do that. He now allows me, and we can work together on this. And it's because the flesh is the one going, you need to do something. You really need to do more than what, it's not by grace. It's by my effort and your effort, we're going to get this thing done.

And so I think the flesh is the number one one trying to divert us from what the word says. You just said work together. Yeah. And how do you work together? What's your involvement? It's nothing. We don't. That's the whole thing. Well, but it's not work. It's not work. It's not meritorious. It's not meritorious.

I know. He hates that word. Every time. It's just one of those words. You only use it here. It's non-veritorious. You don't do anything. Yeah, you don't do anything. But, you know, that's so against what the flesh is. Totally opposite. And so it's screaming its head off trying to get you to do something.

And that's where I think so many believers get pulled off, and why the bookstores are so full of this. All these no-helps and how to work together to become Christ-like. But when I was studying this, I got to confess, sometimes it's really hard when we say this. What does it mean to just, by faith, walk with Him? You know, it's this polar, you know, I don't want to work or do anything, but does it mean I just sit here and contemplate in a room? You know, what is that effort of faith, not effort, but that faith process, how does that really work in a believer? I mean, I think it's not naturally, it's the Holy Spirit working in you to just have that peace believing what the word says. And it's just a weird thought. I just like, what does that mean to walk by faith? I'm not going to let Mike Trump this. Go ahead. I'm going to, no, Mike, I'm first.

I was going to say, Regarding Courtney, what you were saying, like Charles Spurgeon is like a giant in a sense. And he wrote this, there are persons here who seldom miss a service. and even come to prayer meetings, and yet not a bit better of it. Men of bad lives, and yet they love the preacher, yes, and would stand up for him if any spoke against him. And yet they neglect the preacher's warnings. And what is worse, they are careless concerning God and the world to come. They live in fear. They will die without Christ and without hope.

And that is like, I mean, Spurgeon's got a thousand long sermons. He's basically saying you better be doing something right or you're not going to make it. And that is like horrifying that a guy would write a million words and not get it. Exactly. He's a reformer. Hey, I totally get what Russ is saying because there are a million other words from other very brilliant people. And there are stories and a lot of them for us have been looking at the mission build and seeing the way that people work to carry out God's desire to share His message with them. And it sometimes makes you feel small. It's like, wow, how did God's entirety? That's crazy. You know, how did Corrie ten Boom do this? But you asked a really interesting question about, you know, the idea around walking with Christ.

And I think that for us, we have to realize that that's a very beautiful relationship and you're going through different stages of learning to trust him. And yeah, to say non-mandatory is maybe a little cliche, but the point is, is that your belief is a dependency on a person and that, that sets you apart, which is the point of me. Seeing what before my, you know, I was going to get to what, what I have is it's the relationship.

That's the key. The more you know Him, the more it's just manifest through you. It's not by your efforts. Your very life is His life. As you know Him, it becomes manifest. It's a process. I think it's a spiritual maturity. As you grow in Him, it's more manifest just because that's who you are. As you mature, it's less of a struggle or an effort. It's because you know Him. And you manifest in more. So I think that's where, you know, the walk and some of these things that we talk about come from, is the relationship. I found a hundred hardships talking. Oh, yeah.

And part of it is kind of on this line, the believer, when he thinks more prayer will bring sanctification, he finds that indispensable as prayer is, it's not enough. Often the believer struggles hopelessly for years until he listens to the teaching of the Spirit as he glorifies Christ again and reveals Christ our sanctification to be appropriated by faith alone.

The guy that wrote that is Andrew Murray and he was a Dutch reformer. But he's not wrong. In that case, he's not wrong. No, that's it. I mean, you can go through all the spiritual efforts, pray and do and be a service, go to mission, do whatever. But that's not where you draw close. It's knowing him. And that's the whole key to this, I think, you know, is the favorite one, John 17, about a relationship with him.

And I think as you know that, and it's again the other one in 2 Peter 3.18 where it's, to grow in the grace and knowledge of him. I think those two keys, that was the key. Grace, so you understand grace. It's none of your efforts. It's by faith only. And what is it? Also the knowledge of him. Those are the keys to the sanctification, I think, and setting us apart. I think there's one more key. You have to settle down. That is going to take a while. It isn't going to happen by some spiritual experience or some illumination that you're learning. And it's okay that it's taking time.

I've said this many times. Think of the world we're in right now. Microwave. Got to be in 30 seconds, I have my meal. Look at any commercial or any kind of TV show. the video every two seconds. Keep it going, gotta be fast. Everything is expedited now. Everything is fast. We think that way.

Spiritual maturity is a process over our entire lifetime, our life in Christ. One of the things that Mike said in that Hungry Heart quote, he mentioned the word listening. That is probably one of the hardest parts about this whole journey. is listening.

And that doesn't happen in a moment. It happens over time. You're convicted, you're convinced, and that's what the Spirit is doing. But he is bringing you to a place where he is exalting the Son. And it only happens through listening. And I can't listen very well. How do I have enough time? All these things going around. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's why some quiet time alone with the Lord and, you know, just spend time with him, you know, and all the time, just, you know, communicating with him, you know, praying to him, talking to him all the time.

And I think that's where you just get the, yeah, that again, it all fits the piece that surpasses all understanding and bring your, you know, your prayers and supplications and what he'll guard your heart. You know, all these things, if we realize what He says and believe it, we have the peace that surpasses all understanding that the world can't give to you. In this crazy world, you can have peace. And, you know, it's just by believing what He says.

And listening. You know, the listening part, too, I think about that, even with that, what is it? You know, do I have an audible word from the Holy Spirit that says, hey, buddy? I do. I listen to it every day, you know? I'm going to sit next to you. I have tried to listen to the Bible read to me, but I found that listening came from a personal conversation that eventually I had to listen to because it was going to drive me crazy if I didn't. You know?

See, and mine is, and I've said this several times, he gives you that peace. That's what convinces me. peace about scripture, peace about whatever. He gives me that peace and only He can give me that peace. And I think that's by listening, by seeing His Word or just giving me that comfort in my heart, guarding my heart, that I know that. And that's the listening part.

He's not beating it into your brain. He's encouraging you to a relationship that will glorify His Son. He's not Wrench it behind our backs and beat it over our head ten hundred times, whatever. He's simply reminding and sometimes it takes a lot of reminding.

Well, or trials, you know, trials comes and that, you know, why is that? It's not a, you know, I go back to the Romans 8, 30 sections, you know, we cannot, there's nothing, trial, persecution, everything, nothing can separate us from His love. So when the trial comes, it's in love. That's hard to understand if you don't understand He's a sovereign God and He's allowing this because He loves you.

Can I try to tie a couple of minds of thought there together? I've been thinking as we're talking, recently I've been thinking a lot about the marriage relationships that the Church has with Christ. It's a marriage type relationship and you think of those elderly couples who are just such a beautiful picture of this union that after years of marriage together, they just have this unity. They're alike in character and in quality.

And I think that's what happens as we, over the long course, spend time with Christ. We just grow and grow into this unity with Him. And then, as you're talking about trials that we go through and things, if you've gone through a trial with your spouse, You recognize how that, you know, and I think we need to recognize that when we're going through trials. Over and over in the New Testament it says we, you know, we suffer with Christ or we, you know, it's the sufferings of Christ. And, you know, we are, as we go through those things together, it's all the more bonding to Him. And we grow in this dependency on Him. And it's just, that's I think is the process of becoming like him. It's going with him, if that makes sense. Well, yeah, just being conformed into the image. Yeah. Is there something else?

Yeah, I think that the Lord will bring trials in your life to get you to abandon what you think is the answer to go to him. But then after a while, you really don't need the trial so much because this relationship has developed to the point where, well, you always go to him and talk to him about everything. And not only that, you expect him to, you know, you are indwelt by the spirit and he is glorifying Christ and so you expect him to do his job.

Well, you know, to me, again, what's been beaten into me a thousand times, sovereignty and the love. Sovereignty means he's in control of everything. That gives me peace in any situation. Because I know he allowed it. And he allowed it in the blessings, he allowed it in the trials, and the second part, because he loves me. I think with those two, it gives me that peace. Again, I go through that process, and that's what gives me the peace. It's interesting too, right there, that even though he is the all-powerful God, that he never hammers us. You know, he always woos us. He always draws us. He uses that methodology rather than saying, well, I'm almighty wham.

Yeah. Well, the other, which I struggle with, I've struggled with, I think I'm getting over it, is the fact that when I'm being blessed, I just think, what's around the corner? You know, I go back to saying this goes back way, way, way when I was in a consulting firm and my boss was a guy who just yelled at everybody. He made you, you know, work hard because you hated me.

And I'm in his office, president, and he's, he's praising me just for what I did. Praising that one of the vice president was sitting in the doorway when he was, when he was praising me. And as I'm walking out, he goes, well, You're at the top of the mountain. There's only one place to go from there.

You know, that was, that was really humbling at that point. You know, sometimes I think that, you know, the Lord, I'm being blessed and all this. I'm like, what's around the corner. And that's such a wrong thing, you know, and that he's ready to pound me and it's so wrong. And it's like, whatever he comes, he's allowing it to conform me. You know, and I just I've got more to understand that, that, you know, whatever happens, he loves me and it's good.

It's all good. Yeah. So anyway. All right. We move on. We've done the sanctification, and the next one is, In all church truth, the Spirit gives the headship to Christ. In baptism, He puts us into the body of which Christ is head. The unity of the Spirit is to make practical the unity of the body. The gifts of the Spirit are from Christ in glory, administered down here. Worship is exclusively to the Father and to the Son.

So that was the spirit of headship. Then I might repeat the same in what occupied us next. The spirit for power. Paul calls it the power of Christ and it connects it, as we saw, with the risen and ascended Lord. That's that one where I always think of the power of the Holy Spirit. We have the same indwelling, the Jeremy Camp song, you know, same power. We have that same power in us, indwelling us.

That's an incredible thought when you think about it, when you read about all what the Spirit's done over history. Paul calls it, okay next one, and we have just noted the connection between the Scriptures and Him who is called the Word. That's the last section we just went over. So, how the Word is tied to Christ in the Old Testament to the New Testament, how those are pulled together, or what the Holy Spirit does is bind those, the Word to Christ. In summary, it says, so it's no exaggeration to say that the one work of the Spirit in every connection is to present Christ before us, to magnify Him in our eyes and in order that our lives may be conformed to Him and the praise of heaven be anticipated.

I thought that was a great summary. You know, so yeah, to magnify Him in our eyes in order that our lives may be conformed to Him and the praise of heaven be anticipated. I thought that was a great summary. So, we only have a couple minutes. I guess I can at least ask the question. So, question three.

Before Christ's Incarnation, did He speak to man through the Spirit? So, first let's ask the question as stated. Before Christ's Incarnation, did He speak to man through the Spirit? Yes or no? Yes. Do we have any no's? Okay. If yes, What scripture do you base that on? Does anybody have one of those? Rydot does give one.

1 Peter 3.18. Jeter. Yeah, I know. 3.20. 3.20. 3.20. Yes, I'll read that one and then we'll get to the important questions based on this. Because Rydot points out that this is a very misunderstood section of scripture. And so we'll dive into it. I'll read it and then we'll close. 1 Peter 3, 18-20.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. In which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who were once disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah. during the construction of the Ark, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through the water." So we're going to discuss that. Who are the spirits now in prison?

So that's a real key thing, and rightfully so, to try and understand that, because it's misunderstood and it really is taking a tangent on a lot of people. So we'll delve into that next week. So you might want to look into that and see what RIDAD has and what others have on comments on that.

So let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you again just for all that we know and just the summary going through that of all that the Holy Spirit is involved with in each and every one of us and how you have used the Holy Spirit throughout time from before the incarnation of your Son to the present age and even into the future in the millennium and through eternity as we see we'll have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit throughout eternity and that's an amazing thought and we just We give you praise that, again, with the Holy Spirit in your word, we have the peace that surpasses all understanding in all trials and in blessings. We give you thanks for that fact.

And we just pray for the next meeting. I believe Mike gave him the message. We just pray for him. Bring forth accurately the word and prepare our hearts to receive it. And again, may we throughout this day honor and glorify you by all that we say and do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.