Person & Work of the Holy Spirit

Lesson 8, the last two questions. What does John 16, 13 and 14 teach us about the Holy Spirit? And I'll read it, you pay attention and then I'll give you a question. How be it when the Holy Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of or from himself, But whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and he shall show it unto you. So this scripture teaches us some of the character of the indwelling Holy Spirit and how he operates. What does he work by? What is the one thing that he works exclusively by. The truth? The truth. The truth is what? The truth is what? God's word. It's the word of God.

So he functions only on that. So if you're having some sort of spurious wild experience and you think it's the Holy Spirit, you better open up your Bible and check it out. Because he only operates from that perspective, period. He's not a freelancer. He only operates that way. And his job is to guide you into all truth. Now how does he do that? Makes you all really smart? How does he guide you into all truth? You start thinking about it and then you open a book.

Revealing Christ to believers. that the accumulation of knowledge is truth. But truth is not the accumulation of knowledge. The Lord Jesus Christ himself is truth. Truth is a person. So when you look at the word of God you begin to see that the greater intimacy you have with the Lord Jesus the greater grasp you have on truth.

See that? Now I know you look at me and say well I'm educated and that isn't what I was taught in school. That's too bad. But the Lord Jesus Christ said I am the truth or I am truth. Person. Truth. Right out says God is light and when he takes up his abode he must enlighten you. I thought that was good. Holiness of truth is an expression in the epistle of the Ephesians that suggests how it is secure. It is by the truth, even as the Lord prayed, sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. You can't separate the word, capital W, from the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't do it. They are one and the same.

So, the last thing about John 16, is to recognize that the entire purpose and work of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not to glorify himself. The Holy Spirit is not in the business of you getting in touch with him. He is about the business of revealing Christ to you. His whole focus is the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm not getting any arguments for that? Ok. Last question.

How important is the word of God to the spirit of a believer? Small s. How important is the word of God to the spirit of a believer? Now here's what Rideout says, and I really like this. He says, one, it is the spirit of a man that understands. I thought it was my wonderful mind. And this is the highest part of his being, controlling all the rest.

I think Christians have a really tough time understanding that they are spiritual beings. Because before you were saved, you were not a spiritual being. What were you? You were a soulish being. which means you operated based on mind, emotion and will, and that mind, emotion and will was infected with a sin nature, so that's what you think your identity is. But once you believed in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, you became a spiritual being, and your spirit is the controlling entity of who you are, and it's also what your identity is.

This is God's order and when the spirit engages in his sanctifying work, what does sanctifying mean? It is through the action of truth, you will notice that again and again, he will return to this fact. Spiritual truth is communicated to your spirit first, not your mind.

I remember I had a conversation with Miles Stanford one time. I said, Miles, how do you get all these great ideas? Here's what he told me. He said the Holy Spirit will give him an entire paper in his spirit in about 15 minutes. But it will take the Spirit of God six months to work it out of the spirit through his soul so he can put it down on a piece of paper so somebody can understand it. He's already got it. But he recognized in order to put it together so that other people can understand it took some time.

And I'm sure that's happened to you, it happens to me. All of a sudden you're enlightened about some truth, but you can't explain it yet. And you try to, and people look at you like you're crazy. But you have it, and you know you have it, and it's clear to you, but you can't, at least early on, you can't explain what you know. It's kind of neat that way.

What does that say to you? Your spirit is the controlling factor in your existence. Spiritual intelligence, and it's going to be tough for some of you, spiritual intelligence is the very cornerstone of piety. What's the word piety mean? Being a Catholic I just love this word. What is what? Humble. Piety. What is piety? Religion? Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I don't like the word to be honest with you. I've been around too many popes. Could you say that sentence again?

Spiritual intelligence is the very cornerstone of piety. I think piety is maybe visible sanctification. Maybe is a way to say it. The lines of teaching as to the Spirit's work cross and recross and we will find that the points of intersection are at the truth. The truth of God is embodied in his word. Nowhere else. In that we have the full revelation which he has been pleased to make of himself and his counsels centering in Christ himself.

I love this, the spiritual condition of a person may largely be gauged by his estimation of the word of God. If that be neglected or thought lightly of, no matter how high the pretensions, how ecstatic the feelings, how deep apparently the piety, there is not much true work of the Spirit of God. He ever honors the Word of God.

I just love that. Because that's really where, if you read any spiritual book Look in the book where the place where the author puts in the value in the Word of God, and then it's really got some substance. If the value is placed on experience or something like that, it's not the same. What's going on down river, what's the focus? It's the focus of the Word of God that's so exciting in that book. Questions? Well, there's something that bothers Wanda and this Wanda and that book.

You mean that if these people never heard about Jesus, never. I know you see it in, you know, the world and, I mean, whatever's around it. But I can't believe, I just can't believe that God doesn't I don't know what, give them some kind of... Understanding? Yes. I take the word of God, back to that. In Romans chapter 1 it's pretty clear that God reveals himself to every man, every woman in creation, through the creation and through their conscience. Because he says so. He said, you know, you men are without excuse. because I have revealed myself to you in my creation and in your conscience. And I require two things from you. I require that you honor me as God and that you're thankful. That's not salvation, but that's what God, the requirement that God puts on every human being. And it doesn't matter where they live, where they are in the planet. No human being can look at the creation and not see God in it. Because he's there. But they don't see Jesus. That's right.

There's a story I read years ago about a... I don't know where he was. He was a native someplace. He recognized one day that the tree in the middle of the village that everybody worshiped wasn't God. But he knew God existed, and he said, God, I want to know who you are. I want to know what your name is. And he got her inspiration. The inspiration was, there's a woman coming to your village, and she's got a little book, and in that book is my name. And within a week, a missionary shows up. And he goes up to her and says, what's the name? And the missionary said, Jesus.

I think you have to come off of the idea that mankind deserves salvation. They don't. None seek after God, not a single one. All have gone astray, every single one. So salvation has to be based on a grace principle. It has to be based on God offering it without any attachments or contingencies. Nobody deserves to be saved. Nobody.

And when you start with that premise, it really is tough to think, well, how about planned parenthood and all the destruction that they incurred? What about all of those aborted fetuses? What about people that never hear the name of Jesus? Well, if you start with the premise that they don't deserve salvation, And if God wishes that none should perish, if he didn't choose me, I wouldn't have come. I wouldn't have gone. But you didn't live in the darkest parts of it. Oh yes, I did. I lived in the United States. I expected. But you didn't live in some jungle.

The name was readily available to me. But still, even amongst all of that, if he hadn't come and gotten me, I think that if you understand that salvation is a grace based thing on God's part. He took care of everything to eliminate the barriers between him and I think if a man or a woman no matter where they are will honor God as God and be thankful he'll get the word to them. It's his job to do that.

How about predestination? God's already predestined these people before they've even been born. Okay. You will never find in scripture the word predestination used for anybody's salvation. No one is predestined to salvation. Predestination is only used for what happens to someone after they're saved. You see that? Now we had a class two years ago on election and all of that should have been here. It was a great class. But predestination is a very interesting thing because when the Bible uses it, it only uses it in regards to believers.

It never uses it to non-believers. Never. But God knows ahead of time what's going to happen. Not only does he know ahead of time, do you know he knew you personally in Christ before the foundations of the Trinity? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's kind of cool. And then predestination has a specific, it's not predestined. What are you predestined to in Romans 8? Yeah, what are you predestined to? What is every believer predestined to? Do you know? You're predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. And you will be, whether you like it or not.

That's what Romans 8 tells us. And that's the thing. It's not about the Lord picking you and not somebody else. The doctrine that Paul outlines in Romans 8 is definitely about the Lord having picked those who are saved to be conformed to the image of his Son. It's a bit of a different contrast than what you hear when people talk about Calvinism. The funny thing is that John Calvin, if you actually read his works, has some things that fly against the face of the study with standing about.

Alright, well we are going to get started this morning here after Mike, I always feel strange coming in because he does such a good job. Let's just stop and meditate. I'm not done thinking about what Mike is talking about. We'll keep moving forward. Otherwise this class will end sometime after the Lord comes. Probably just fractions of seconds. Let's let's go ahead.

Now, you guys didn't get questions for for section nine because I failed to get them printed out last week. So I apologize for that. So as we go through these questions, some of this may not be familiar to you if you've been already doing some of the reading and read through Chapter three. you should have at least exposure to some of the material. So that would be good. So we'll go through this and stop me if something is not familiar and you didn't get the questions. OK? So next week, if you want any excuses, but this week, it's my fault.

First question we have here is, how does the author describe the layout of the Book of Romans? And since you didn't have those questions, you may not have highlighted or outlined the answer to this. But how is it? How is the Book of Romans laid out? Let's just ask that question. How do we break down the Book of Romans into groups of chapters or nobody in this class? Nobody's been to Rome.

Well, it says here. The first deals with the question of sins, our actual trespasses, and of our justification, blah, blah, blah. In the second portion of the epistle, in the middle of the fifth chapter through the eighth, you have the subject of sin, the principle of evil, which controls the natural man. And then if we were to keep going, you look at Romans 9-11, you get Paul dealing with Israel. 12-15 is the believer, the body, and the world, and government. And then 16 is Paul's closing remarks.

So that's not what Rite Out is drawing attention to, is the structure of the Book of Romans. Why is Rite Out talking about Paul's order here in Romans? Why does it matter that he deals with things in the order that he does? Why does Paul give us 1 through 5 and a half before 5 and a half through 8?

It's chronological. It's chronological as far as how you're saved. He's got to deal with salvation first, right? In chapter 1, we just had the question, how does God deal with the lost person out in the world that didn't grow up in a Christian household in the United States of America. That's not quite how she worded it, but that's my interpretation of it. But Romans chapter 1 deals very truly with the issue of the pagan mind. And then Paul builds on that. And he says, OK, so then let's talk about the legalists. Let's talk about the Jewish legalists. And does the Jewish legalist have an out? They had the law, and yet they still did what? Despite having the testimony of God. They sinned. They still sinned. And did all of Israel believe? Just even the Old Testament law and things written by Moses. Did all of Israel believe? They had it. It was given to them. And they said, that's really inconvenient for me. I don't like that.

And so, then Paul finally takes him in Romans chapter 4 to what is the conclusion of Romans chapter 4 that we have to summarize. Romans chapter 4. Salvation by grace through faith. The truth of the matter is that we are saved by faith. And then Paul from 5 and a half through 8 does what? Where does he take the believer? Now that he's established salvation by faith, then what has to happen?

What do you have to understand? Sin. Okay, you have to understand sin. And this is what the second paragraph, in the second portion of the epistle, from the middle of the fifth chapter to the eighth, you have the subject of sin, the principle of evil, which controls the natural man. But then, we don't just talk about what controls the natural man, we talk about something really important. And what's that that we focus in? at Holy Heels, I would prefer it more than anywhere else.

Salvation. Salvation, okay, well we've got salvation, but it starts with an I and ends with identification. We deal with the identification truths. You were baptized next to Christ. You were baptized in Christ. You were identified with Him. And so Paul goes, OK, we've got salvation by faith figured out, but that has consequences. And then he hones in. So Rhiop brings that as the focal point.

I want to make sure that everybody's clear. Romans is structured that way. And then let's get to the next question. Is Romans the formula for the believer's freedom from all that pertains to Adam? And then explain. Explain is always the hard one. I would hate that. My teacher would say, yes or no question. Now explain why it's yes. Or no. Explain that. So does Romans, looking at 6, 7, and 8, or 5 and 1 half through 8, is the formula there for believers to have freedom from all that pertains to that? That's a yes or no question. I'm getting head nods. Just for the recording, because you can't see the head nods, it's a yes.

You know, sorry, but isn't formula kind of a bad word? Yes, that is another F word. But formula is... I did it again. Sorry about that. The formula is not a bad work, because a formula can be a principle. So there's a principle there. So we can worry about the semantics of it, but let's take it and interpret the formula to be a principle here.

Is Romans the principle for the believer's freedom from all that pertains to him? And I think everybody nodded yes to that. So now we have the explanation part. How do we explain that? What is the formula or the principle? Let's ask it that way. What's the whole contained in the identification trees?

We've died. OK, so let's say them out loud. Let's make sure that we're all on the same page. We died. We're buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated. So we've got those five pieces. Everybody's good with that? But that is how God dealt with it. That's part of it. And then what's the rest of it? Because I still, maybe you don't have this problem, but I do. I still sometimes have this urge to sing. I don't want to be recording. I don't want to be smiling.

So I'm guessing that you also deal with this issue, where we still want to sin. So how does Paul, in these chapters, how does he tell us we need to deal with sin? This is a really important question. It's one that I am faced with regularly. Well, we died to sin because of the cross. Okay, so that we died to it.

So it's no longer, what would we say that sin is no longer what over us? Reigning. Reigning. It's no longer reigning, it's no longer master over us. Everybody comfortable that we're still in Romans? We haven't come up with our own doctrine? Okay, good. Romans chapter 6 verse 6 and Rida has it here.

Our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed and henceforth we should not serve sin. It's no longer master us and we no longer have to serve it. This is simultaneously liberating and condemning for the flesh. It's liberating for the believer who can walk in the spirit and it's condemning for the flesh.

It's still, Courtney had an illustration that the captain who had led his ship incorrectly and had to be tried. The captain has been tied to the sail all the way on the journey back into port. The captain is bound to the mast yelling orders. Yelling orders. Please, we're going to do this. No, no. Untie me. Untie me. Does the captain have authority anymore because he's been deposed or been removed from leadership? Yeah, he has. But the flesh may still. You should totally do that. This will be fun. The next five minutes of your life. Until the next five minutes of your life. Does it have authority? No. No, it doesn't. All right.

So continuing on, the sixth and seventh chapter talk about the believer dealing with sin. The struggles of the seventh chapter do not enter beyond stating the bare fact that so long as the soul seeking holiness turns to the law, it finds the bonds of sin drawn tighter. Now, what does it mean by the law? In this case, it's lowercase l. So we need to know what he's talking about. He's not talking about Moses. The old man? The old man. The flesh.

And so, every time I try to do something in my own strength, is that the victorious life of Christ? No. Instead, that's the sin nature primary. Rear it's ugly head, and what's the fruit of the sin nature? The principle of law, small l, has to do with a mindset that if you tell me what to do, I'll just do it. So a believer is saved, his sins, his behavior patterns have been paid for. And now he thinks, well if you just tell me what to do, I'll do it. And what the law does, the law principle, when you get the set of rules to comply with, it inflames the sin nature to continue sinning.

And so the death of the believer is not only separated from his old man, but he's also separated from law as a principle. to inflame that old man to do you know that the best example is a two-year-old in a living room and you put something on the table and say don't touch it guess what they're going to touch it and the reason is because law inflames us in nature so God not only took care of crucifying us to the sin nature, that also included the crucifixion to the law principle so that we won't live any longer by trying to obey laws.

We shouldn't be trying to strive for something we died to. We actually have some friends in Texas that have a cute little girl, she's three, and she got in trouble recently and they asked her, why were you doing that? And her response was, you weren't watching me.

I think that's the part that we fool ourselves as believers is the thing that the omnipotent God of the universe who can see everything and when we are in dire straits and we need him desperately we say oh Lord I know you're here and I know you're watching me but when we're sinning we're like he probably turned the other direction. And I think it's that, it's in plain. And then it gets to the point of where you're stuck in it. And that's the tough part. That's the next sentence he has here.

The law cannot afford help. Sin by the commandment becomes exceedingly sinful. But there can come no help from the knowledge of this. So since we know that's not what we're under, what's the counter thing that the Lord is doing in the life of the believer with the Holy Spirit? Does the Holy Spirit enable us and help us to do righteously or to live righteously? Do we have to worry about whether or not we're saved? No, he doesn't. He doesn't help us do anything.

He does it. That's right. He does it. But his life is lived through us. When I'm walking in the spirit, I don't have to wonder if I'm sinning or not. Right? Is that a logical statement? And hopefully one that you've experienced in your own life. When I'm abiding, it's his life that's living through me.

So I don't spend a lot of time going, Jesus, I hope I'm not sinning. It's not part of the nature. They're incongruous. Everybody's familiar now that we have an identification truths principle that's coming out right here and we need to understand that in Romans that the Holy Spirit is actively involved with the identification truths in his life. It goes out through us.

So that, when we get to the next question, the question is, explain how Exodus 17, 1-7, and I'll go ahead and read that, the rock smitten is like Christ crucified. So Exodus 17, Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim.

And there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted there for water, and they grumbled against Moses and said, Why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do to this people? a little more, and they will stone me. Then the Lord said to Moses, Pass before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand your staff, with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel and because they tested the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?

So, was the striking of the rock God's provision? Yes. And is God's provision what? How would you describe God's provision for the people of Israel? It's always sufficient. That's the perfect word I was looking for. There is sufficiency in God's provision. So how is Christ like the rock that was struck? It was from God insufficient. It was God insufficient. There we go. And it changes everything. It changes the whole situation that you're in. Now here's an important question. What did Israel do and what sometimes do we do as believers?

In the situation, where did they go for their solution? Themselves. They went for themselves. They looked for someone to blame. Just like Adam and Eve. It's this woman you gave me, Lord. It's this man you gave me, Lord. It's this serpent. It wasn't me.

We follow God in faith, but now it's inconvenient. It's Moses' fault. So Christ, when the world tries to come up with salvation, where do they come up with? Do they come up with Christ? No. They need God's solution. They need Christ and His crucifixion. If they had gone to God, He would have offered the perfect solution to things.

So Christ being like a rock smitten means that we don't need to go anywhere else, do we? And that's the thing where I know that even in our own very affluent and blessed America, if I have need, where's the first place I should go and why? Christ, the internet. It's very easy, we are surrounded by a world of solutions. You need a solution from the world. No, you need a solution from the Lord.

Seeking the Lord and going to the body. I've watched so many times in this body and another body wherever the Lord has had us, where someone had need. And was that need something that God couldn't deal with? No, it was exactly what God had to deal with. And I've seen something where I'll say, I have this need, and I'll mention it, and another believer will say, oh, I know somebody who has just that.

And I didn't have to even go to the Discover Corporation and say, hey, I need a limb. I've had people recently come to us and say, hey we know you have this medical thing going on and we'd like to pay for it. Really? Yeah. So we got, we had insurance and they took care of it, which was awesome. But it was somebody saying, hey we heard you had a knee.

And they just, of course we do that, we're the body. God's solution is perfect. And it exceeds any of our earthly restraints and things that we think limit it. If one of your options in what should I do in life doesn't involve seeking the Lord, you're doing it wrong. That's the plan. The Spirit will direct you and you'll have the perfect solution that Christ is crucified.

Any questions on that? Disagreements? Things you wish I hadn't said? Talk about trusting the Lord, it's scary. Isn't it wonderful if you have a need that you can go to Christ and He truly does help? help you. A lot of times you think, well no, it isn't from Christ, I got help because of my brain. But no, if you ask Christ, he always does help.

It's amazing. It's miraculous. It's wonderful. It's a gift. I think one of the points here is what does it cost God to be generous to you? The reason God is so gracious to us is because he took it out on his son first. He took it out on the rock before the water came out. That's the parallel. So you can never forget that it's free to us, but it wasn't free to God. The provision came at the cost of the interest.

The next question we've got here is, these examples of water supplied to Israel in the wilderness are to teach us what aspect of the Holy Spirit? And on my notes I've got page 36, last paragraph, if you're looking for that. Page 36, the last paragraph. It's refreshing power. Do we, as believers, consider the Holy Spirit's power in our lives, in His life, through us? That's something that, as I was going through this, I actually asked myself. The word refreshing is what kind of struck me. Surrounded by legalism, refreshing looks really different.

Doesn't it? If you're surrounded by, you need to be righteous, you've got to be righteous enough. That's not refreshing, is it? Where's the line between good enough and righteous enough? That's not refreshing. And that really, the word refreshing, because we hear it for soft drinks, right? Or beers, whatever they're selling. That's refreshing, that's refreshing. But this is talking about refreshing in a way that's outside of the scope of our power. But it's using the analogy of water.

There's a quality of the life of Christ coming through the Holy Spirit that should cause us to stop and pause and ask, am I feeling refreshed? If not, am I abiding? Is there something worth teaching me here? There's all kinds of opportunities, but that word refreshing really stood out to me. And it sounds like, you know, it never runs out. It doesn't run out. Is God's provision infinite or is it finite? Infinite.

And that's why when we get to the definition of grace, the unlimited unmerited blessings of God, that word unlimited is really offensive to the flesh. When do I get to chipping? I'm going to actually read the whole paragraph from the book because I think there's just some good elements in there.

Thus the refreshing power of the Spirit all through our life is set forth in the water to the woman of Samaria seeking satisfaction in the pleasures of sin in the world. He promises, keeping Christ, promises not only the gift of a drought of water, but a well springing up evermore. As a new birth, we have to bestow of life by the Spirit. So here we have Him dwelling in us, maintaining and developing the life. So the Holy Spirit is dwelling, He is maintaining, and He is developing.

Those three things. The dwelling principle, we've already covered, right? Nobody's surprised at one dwell by the police chief. But he's maintaining. Now that's an interesting element. That's a daily sustaining quality. And then he's developing the life. And we're going to continue to go through the principles of how the Holy Spirit is developing as we move forward in this class.

We had dinner last night with a woman who's involved in a ministry and was concerned about the sustaining of it. And she said to us, I've always known that, you know, that God was going to take care of me. But this certain incident happened this last week in which he did.

And she said, I finally understood in my heart what that means. That there's never a time that he isn't taking care of me. I really know it now. I've always known it in my head. But now, she said, there's no question that the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit in my life, that's the way it is from now on. That's really awesome.

And then also that water helps things to grow. Like the developing part, you know, sustain and then grow. The analogy is definitely a good one. Tying that in maybe to have John 15 with the branch and the vine and the spirit working through and sustaining and growing. It's a good analogy.

So next week we'll pick up question five. We won't have time to actually go over the questions. I'm going to tell you next week there's a likelihood I will cry. It's just because there's some really awesome material in there. It will be tears of joy. But there's some good stuff. So let's close the fair real quick and we'll be back.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the time that we have had to discuss the work of your Holy Spirit in our lives and the truth of your word. We pray that as we go out, we would be walking by faith and abiding, and that your Spirit would be living through us in a powerful way that people would be able to describe as refreshing. We thank you and we praise you for this time. In Jesus' name, amen.