Person & Work of the Holy Spirit

How does one become intelligent in the things of God? Reading his word. What Wright says is that to be intelligent in the things of God you have to have the knowledge of his mind. I think that's a good place to start. Which is given in his word. To discern we must have those principles of truth only founded in scripture. The spiritual man is ever a lover of God's word. One of the criteria's of spiritual growth for a believer is that there is an increasing affection for his word. And not from a scholarly standpoint, but from a in a spiritual intelligence standpoint, and an intimacy with the Lord standpoint.

The Lord Jesus is revealed to us by the Spirit through the Word. You hear me talk a lot about the beholding is in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, what's the mirror? The mirror is the Word. So fellowship with the Lord Jesus is done via the Word. Now, Rydow says, with that word dwelling in him, not a coldly intellectual way, but as controlling his thoughts, enlightening his conscience and guiding his affections, he has placed at the disposal of the Holy Spirit the instrument by which he will be made of quick understanding. He will know the mind of the Spirit and thus be guided. Do you like that sentence? How many of you say, oh yeah, that's exactly what the experience of my life is? Shouldn't it be? Shouldn't it be? What page is that? I don't know. Anybody know what page that is? Page 78.

I must admit that I often wonder sometimes when I see all this garbage going through my mind, I don't think the spirit is controlling what I'm thinking. However, just the awareness of the garbage going through my mind is a work of the spirit. I wouldn't consider it such if he didn't make me aware of it. And at the same time, turn my thoughts to something other than the crap that's going through my mind. is 2.16, but we have the mind of Christ. When I analyze what's going on in my brain sometimes, how is that? We have the mind of Christ. But it says we have the mind of Christ. That always is just hard to grasp. It's like what Wright had to say. knowing what goes on upstairs here. It's like, really? Yeah, it's really important.

And I do think over time, the fact that you recognize the spirit of God is in you, and He is in fact controlling some of your thoughts. He is bringing to your mind, as an example, driving down the street, right? You're listening to the radio in your car, and the next thing you know, you're listening, or you're thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Was that because you just got up this morning and you're just a wonderful Christian? Who do you think put those thoughts in your mind?

He did. Whenever that happens, it's his working. You see that? It's almost like you're not even aware of it, but he's at work, focusing you in on the Lord Jesus Christ, guiding your affections, enlightening your conscience, making you aware But still, it's like we always have the choice.

Even if we didn't have those crap thoughts, that it was only good stuff going in, then there would be no choice. Well, you know, it's interesting. Number one, I don't think we know what good stuff is. I like how you say that, because the thoughts of God are not necessarily good. They're holy. I was actually reading, we talked about this maybe a Tuesday. We can't control the thoughts that come into our mind. We can't control what we do with them.

Understand that? We can't control the flow into your mind, but you can control what you do with the thoughts that come into your mind. and to recognize that the spirit of God is feeding your mind the things of Christ is a really cool thing to become aware of and it also makes you discerning because you're spiritually more spiritually intelligent you're not at a loss as to well let's see old Joe can you come to a fork in the road and take it? which way should I go? How, where would the Lord have me go? There's not a lot of thought about should I do this or do that.

We're spiritually intelligent, we know what's up with the Lord Jesus and we go in that direction. And it may not be the most pleasant one, but we know that's the right one. Because we're spiritually intelligent and that's the work of the Spirit of God through the Word. That's what he does.

Like I also think too, it's whether the right or the wrong, you know, who did I think the right one or the wrong one? It doesn't matter. God's still sovereignly in control in whatever you want to call it, the good way or the spiritual way. But you take the left instead of the right. I think that's still meant for you to grow in the grace and knowledge of God because He's exposing something by doing this. We keep saying, oh, I took the wrong direction.

Well, no, that I think he's using to show that you're not dependent upon him or he's working on this aspect of you. Sure. And you know that we have to make every right decision. Yeah. I don't I think he's solemnly in control of this. And why did you end up at this place or whatever? Well, it was for your your growth. Yeah. There's a there's a myth, a methodology involved in that process. where we learn to trust him, and he never coerces us. You ever notice that? He never coerces us. He never twists our arm or anything.

We do. We make this decision to go left when everybody thought going right would be better, but left was where he wanted us to go. Yeah, to grow. And I think we get all wound up in trying to do the right thing. wake up every morning and say, I have this laundry list. He did it because it's who he is.

And as we become more intimate with the Lord and knowing him, then those decisions, it's not, oh gee, do I, it's just I do it because that's who I am. And as you grow and mature, grow in the grace and the knowledge, you're following that path without thinking, do I go left or do I what Christ would do. But then there's that recognition like if you sin and it's like oh I want love and I sinned and I recognize that that is a sin and yeah. Well what's interesting about sinning is that when you're tempted to sin it's for your destruction. and the Lord will use that sin to approve you. You learn from it. What's great about the statement here, but as controlling his thoughts and enlightening his conscience and guiding his affections, he's placed at the disposal of the Holy Spirit.

The thing is, we do really what we want to do. I do what I want to do. And so when I make a decision what's in control is that I'm enlightened about what I'm doing, I have thoughts about it, but my affections are involved too. And I think it's really important to understand that we do an awful lot in our life because affections, like we work really hard to make a lot of money because we love money. We work really hard to create an environment where I have status. Because I want to have status. I'm not fooling anybody. I might be fooling myself, but everybody around me knows what I'm doing. Just look at me.

It's the same thing as the Lord wins your heart. You begin to change in terms of your affections. Your affections go towards the Lord now and you become more interested in that than you are in how big your bank account is, or how nice your clothes are, how much notoriety you have, how many friends you have, or whatever it might be in the world. And it becomes a heavenly thing rather than an earthly thing. And that's when it changes.

And that's what the Spirit is about in conforming us to Christ. I mean, would you in your right mind say to the Lord as a young believer, oh make me self-sacrificing? You wouldn't do it. But as you grow up in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus and that light begins to be manifested through you, the very characteristic of that light is sacrificial. It just is. It's the way it is. And you're comfortable with it. You like it that way. Or you wouldn't have liked it that way, you know, maybe a decade ago. But you do now.

So, is all ministry by the Spirit of God? Everything that goes on, all your ministry is by God's Spirit? It says guidance is largely for the closet. As we look into the eye of God, we look to God for guidance, but it's ever so important that we have intimacy with God, which is something which is to be enjoyed rather than talked about. We must ever respect the holiness of God. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. Yeah, that's right.

He says all ministry is by the Spirit of God, all of it. He says, I've already spoken of ordination and I didn't cover ordination because we don't need to be fighting that battle. And the spirit calls, he selects, he sends forth whom he chooses. He also abundantly sustains and guides them. All you that have ministries all think that way, right? Or do you think, Lord, what am I doing here? He calls, He selects, He sends forth, He sustains and He guides. He does all of those things.

And that's why you'll see people that are serving the Lord and you think, boy they're not qualified. I mean what makes them doing what they're doing is effective because the Spirit of God is involved in it. All you have to do is read the disciples So what dangers to preparation for ministry does the author elaborate on? This is going to be fun.

People and institutions. Now what does he attack? Intellectual knowledge. He attacks institutions, education. Substitute a doctorate in theology for speaking in the power of the spirit. So when we go to seminary, we really do go there with the understanding that what we are going to do there is learn how to become spiritual. Right? We are going to learn how ministry is to be conducted and we are going to be made spiritual in the process. Now he does not belittle education, does he?

No. But it's not a preparation for ministry. Who's in charge of preparing on the earth? Let me ask it this way. What instrument does the Lord use on the earth to prepare one for ministry? The major one. Institution. What institution does the Lord use here at the church? The local church. Right here is where you get prepared for ministry.

And he has not, as far as I can tell, instituted any other. And I think that's why, as you look down through, like the last 200 years of our country, why none of these places ever last. They don't stay solid. At the beginning of Harvard and Princeton, they were seminaries. But boy, they aren't seminaries today. In my short Christian life, when I first became a believer in the 70s, everybody touted Dallas Seminary. I mean, it was at the pinnacle. Not today.

Why do you think he does that? Why do you think the Lord would let a place like Dallas or Grace Seminary in Winona, Indiana or someplace like that that really was solid. And then it just sort of, you know, the founder dies and several of the solid guys die and then the guys that replace them are idiots. And the next thing you know, they're not teaching at all what was originally intended. Why do you think the Lord does it? So they can't get the glory? Yeah, ultimately that's why. That's why? Because the Lord's not getting the glory. To like refresh things, I think. Every 50 years or something. Yeah, it's interesting.

If you're a real fan of Dallas Seminary, you can get ID'd on Lewis Barry Chafer and think, oh man, he's the man. Or like those of us who knew Miles Stanford, he's the man. But those guys were very interesting. If you ever knew any of them, like Miles Stanford was Mr. Ricochet. He was always pointing people to Christ, not himself. And I think Schaeffer is the same way. The problem is that not everybody who reads and studies Willis Schaeffer understands that's what he's doing. He's pointing you to Christ.

And so, originally he traveled around the country and would have these seminary classes in different cities and he would invite young pastors to come and spend a few weeks with him where he was and he would teach and train them and give them information and then we'd go to the next city and then he decided well it'd be probably more it'd be easier if I stayed in one spot and they came to me and so that's how Dallas Seminary got going and at one time it was the same thing with like the Plymouth Brethren and certain churches and stuff like that you know But I think that God has determined that the local body of Christ would equip saints through ministry.

My job is to replace myself here. Vern's job is to replace himself here from somebody who is here now. I don't think there ever should be a pastoral search committee. We ought to know who the next guy is going to be, and the next teacher is going to be, and the next elder is going to be right from here. That's what I think. What do you think? So I'm going to look around and nominate some of you. Well, you know what? If you take that view, that could prevent someone who maybe God said to come in, And that's fine. He might bring him in and that's perfectly fine. He may come in and be a little antagonistic and that's okay too.

Our buddy Brian White now is in a Bible church in Marietta, Georgia. He's a little bit of a flint down there because the guys that Our run in that church have been elders for 30 years and the pastor is a Dallas grad. And they've gotten stagnant. Brian's in there saying, why don't we do this, why don't we do that? They're resisting. But a lot of them have a Bible study, which is, now there's a leak in the dam.

And if the Lord brings somebody in here, it would be great. We're illuminated enough to know if somebody comes in with error. But he may have some truth that's beyond our understanding and we would hopefully be illuminated enough to at least investigate it and accept it if it was true. Vern brought a lot of stuff to this church that wasn't here before. A lot of stuff.

So the answer is yeah the Holy Spirit is in charge. of all ministries, all of it. It's good for us to recognize that. So at the same time, I remember when we did the search committee for a pastor, when Hal said, OK boys, I'm going to retire, and I mean it this time. And so we formed this committee. I forget, you were on it.

Ben King was on it, and Art Lauther was on it, and so we didn't know where to go, what to do, but we ended up putting out on bulletin boards and stuff that we were looking for, and Pastor, we got what, 50 or 60 responses, and I got to tell you, That was a comedy of airs reading the responses.

Especially young guys in their late 20s coming out of seminary ready to take over a place like this. There were at least 15 guys in there that the number one thing in their resume was that they had a bus ministry. A bus ministry. In other words they were in a big church and they were in charge of running the buses over to the parking lot to pick people up or going to retirement homes to pick people up. That was their qualification to be a pastor. You know what happened? There are no buses here. That's why he was out. I like the guy that when he was given the questionnaire he said, I don't have time to fill out this kind of stuff.

It's interesting that Raida says, would it be important for us if we're called to maybe go to school and learn how to read the scriptures in the aboriginal tongues? Absolutely. As long as that doesn't become your focus. Is it important to read and study ancient history and biblical history? Yeah, but that's out here. Our focus is on the word of God right here. spiritual understanding. Is it important to be educated? Absolutely it is, but not in place of the spiritual education that you get from the spirit of God. That's the important thing. And you know what?

You don't have to have degrees, chevrons, a black cassock and a purple thing around your neck. That doesn't qualify you. God calls you, the Spirit of God calls, selects, sends forth whom He chooses. If my son John went to seminary, that doesn't qualify him to replace me.

Boy, there are a lot of churches that do that. A lot of them that do it. I hear the Crystal Cathedral is going out of business because the sun isn't doing too well. Reinhardt says let us study history, archaeology, everything that can illustrate the truths of God. Let us know more and more of that world of nature all about us that speaks of God and of Christ to the attentive and devoted soul. But these are not necessarily the preparation for ministry. The Spirit of God may use any and all of these, but He and He alone can prepare a man for ministry.

So I think that's probably one last thing he says. If we go there, it should be to doubly armed against all the subtlety of the enemy. Sad it is to give such a warning. Sadder still that there's a necessity to give the warning. So any more input on that? So what is needed? for the spirit to use one in ministry according to Rite Out. What's needed? To be a broken vessel. Here's what he says. I've got four things. The main preparation is in the secret life and with the word of God.

Now, any of you who have ever taught Bible study, I'll put it in the form of a question. If I were to say to you, I want you to teach next Sunday's Bible study. And you say, OK, I'll do it. And you say, well, how do I do it? And I say, well, you have to get prepared. Which means this week you're going to spend several hours with the Lord in the material getting ready. And then next Sunday you get up here and you teach. Which one of those two events was most beneficial to you? The getting ready part. Why?

That's the part where the secret life with the Word of God takes place. You're quietly with the Lord, you're going through the material, you're studying the Word, and the Spirit of God is illuminating you and teaching you. what he wants you to communicate to them. That's the coolest thing about teaching. Wade, and Courtney will attest to that, anybody who stands up here and teaches recognizes that the real fun in this is the prep time. Because you get this secret time with just you and the Lord.

And you learn of him. Number two, it ever remains that the Holy Spirit Amply qualifies every vessel that he may choose for ministry. Ah brethren, the man who knows one thing is the man who will speak in the demonstration of the Spirit and the power. In the prep time, the Lord will make it very clear to you that he has a couple of things he wants to communicate.

And I can remember having a conversation with Miles Stanford one time about preaching. And he said, a good preacher leaves you with one pearl that you can chew on all week. Just one. Not two, not five, just one. And how do you know which one? You spent the time with the Lord and he made it clear to you which one. You know what you're going to talk about. But on the other hand, every true minister of Christ will hunger for greater fitness and fuller knowledge. A greater fitness, better at what he does, and fuller knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because what does a teacher do? He's communicating the person of Christ. That's what he's doing. And greater fitness is what you're always looking at, although I doubt that I sit in my office and say, Lord, make me more fit this week.

I'm just eager to be there and learn and spend time with them. It will be, however, knowledge of the Word of God, which he craves, and to that he will give time and prayer beyond all else. That's really right. So, if you want to be a teacher, you might want to go in the secret life of the Lord and say, how eager am I, how much do I crave time and prayer with you?

That's really where it goes. and if you have a young family I've been reading this book about instructing parents of young families how they should sit every week with their children and teach them and that's the one thing that the author of this book has missed what a real benefit it is for the parent to get ready He's made it too easy for him, I think. He's given him all the questions and all the answers and all the everything. Question 12, last question.

What does the author say is needed for one's involvement in the salvation of souls? Spirit of God may use, realizing that this is marked the Spirit's work from the beginning, and will do so until the Lord comes. Yeah. A broken vessel. The author says it's needed for one's involvement in the salvation of souls. A broken vessel. This thought just came into my mind, how many of you are leaking? Well, I read a story once about the man that was carrying one, you know, this thing where they carry a vessel and one was cracked and he felt so bad about it. as he went back and forth, he had watered the flowers on that side. So I don't know what that's supposed to mean exactly, but a cracked vessel can...

That's pretty good because the interesting thing that Rideout is talking about here, he's not talking about the guy who has the spiritual gifts of evangelism. What's he talking about? Who's he talking about? He's talking about every one of us. He says the gospel spirit is the spirit of Christ. I don't speak of the evangelists, but rather all of us. Do we love souls? Do we long to see them saved? Then we will be ready to give the gospel to others. This readiness shows the state of soul.

It's hard to speak of Christ if we are not in communion It's hard to speak of him when we are. It's hard not to speak of him when we are. How this searches us. So my example at the beginning of class with the neighbor. You think she's ready? You think she just can't wait to speak? Or is she trying to get notches on her belt? I think too, I have this friend who's not a believer and she is having some difficulties with her daughter and it's actually sort of the same difficulties she had when she was younger and I know this person like for 20 years so I know her history and everything like that and I think the thing that's sort of preventing her from getting to God is that she thinks her sins are too much and that God forgives her, you know, and God couldn't forgive that so she's not even going to ask for it.

And I think that broken vessel part is important when, like when I sort of talk to her about stuff. that she knows my history. So if I am not a broken vessel, then I come across as just being preachy. And I think that recognition of that, I think that's actually why testimonies, I think, are kind of important. Because you remember. You're not like, oh, I'm all this. It's like, no, I'm there. I have a story about that.

When I was a young believer, I couldn't stand church, too much air spray. I ended up down with some guys in a mission down on Larimer Street. I left it down there because all of the suburban garbage was gone. The guys smelled bad, but if they came to Christ it was real. So I'm standing out in front of the mission one Sunday waiting for it to get going and this guy comes up the street, a street guy.

I get to talking to him and I'm really dumb, you know, I'm so new. I said, well, why don't you come in? He said, oh, I can't come in there. I said, why not? He said, I'm too great of a sinner. I said, nah, come on. So he had me, I didn't know. Well, an older guy in the mission who was real street savvy walked up and he was listening. And he got in this guy's face, he said, you're too proud to come in here.

I thought gee that doesn't work. He said you are so proud that you think that the God of the universe who gave his son to die for you wouldn't forgive you your sins no matter what they are. So the issue is not whether you are too much of a sinner, the issue is whether you are too proud to come in or not. Boy, that guy looked at him in the eye, and he walked away. I thought, oh, that didn't work. But you know what? He was right. The guy was too proud. I wouldn't have the nerve to tell him that. But that's really what it is. Too proud.

And it's even kind of with my friend. It's like she's sort of... the pride, then you want to hide your sin. And I think it kind of goes back like Adam and Eve. It's like, what's the first thing you do? You hide it. And so she's hiding it. And so she's hiding it from her daughter. And so then they can't have that true relationship. Not that she brings up her stuff to her daughter, but I think it's just that understanding that just because you're the parent doesn't necessarily mean that you can't still be broken.

I don't know. It's like this big complicated thing, but it's like so cool because I think it's kind of like sort of just playing itself out in front of me. The thing is this, is that what you are speaks a lot louder than what you say. And so how you live your life and how you function every day, especially with people who know you, they know.

And evangelism is more along those lines than it is having a good testimony and that kind of thing. bad habit of not locking his car. He goes out one morning and there's this drunk laying in the seat of his car. Al didn't get mad or anything. You know what he did? He took him to church with him.

I think within the heart of every believer who has a love for people and a love for the Lord, Wherever you're going, whatever you're doing, you're manifesting and demonstrating the life of the Lord Jesus in how you behave. And you can't imitate that. It's the work of the Spirit conforming you to the image of Christ. And you have. It's like my friend Mary Claire.

Don and I were talking about it last night. Boy, would I just love for her to ask or the opportunity be there that it's just the right time And so that's the only thing I prayed for her for two days, you know, and maybe go in the hospital and talk to her husband. Because now that her husband may be close to death, all of a sudden spiritual things are a lot more important than they used to be last week. And so we'll see, I don't know. I find it interesting that a couple of the quote-unquote religious neighbors are calling me up and apologizing for not doing enough. And I'm thinking, when she asks, all you have to do is do it. But they have excuses why they couldn't. And they could have, you know. You just do what's in front of you. Whatever the Lord has called you to do, you do. It's there. Do it. There's always a reason not to. You know, I go on a couple different things. One that always comes to mind, there's a song, Bruce Carroll puts it out, and one of the lyrics is, I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day.

And I think there's a lot of truth in that. But the other is, you know, I always think of your neighbor who's beating on whoever and doing all these things. I still, and it goes back to what you said several times, you're saying the right thing at the wrong time or wrong thing at the right time or whatever. I always go back to, if you believe God's sovereignly in control, it's like the guy you see at Coors Field or whatever who's screaming, you know, and we get upset about that. But is he there for one person that maybe isn't? And is it for that person to learn that maybe you don't do that?

And I just, we get so wrapped up in trying to do what's right or wrong or this or that, and I think God uses all those things for both people. And I always think it's, you know, We always look myopically one direction, and a lot of it's working on me that way. I just think a lot of these things, whether you're a broken vessel or not, you have to be a broken vessel. But if I'm worried about that, I'm wrong.

What's interesting is that the next time that the Spirit of God visits you with the hammer, let him hang around a while. Because that's how you get prepared. When you recognize that what God is doing is breaking the vessel so that you can be of use to him, let him do it. Understand that that's what he's doing. Is that the second bell? That's the considerate all joy. You can because you know he's using it for his glory and his purposes. That's exactly right. To draw you into dependency on him, to point at things, and that's how you can have joy through any kind of trial. God's not out of control at that point. He's still in control and He's doing it to draw you to Him.

I've heard stories of business acquaintances over the years who have come to Christ and they all kind of have the same story. The story is that so-and-so other business associate had something about them that was different. They had a rest in their soul that was attractive to them And when it finally wound down to where the gospel was presented, they could really see the contrast.

Who do you think did all of that? It's the Spirit of God who does all of that. And you know, with business guys whose focus is on anything other than the Lord, to see that there are guys in their life with this sort of rest in their hearts, this hope in their souls that they have that most of the other guys in the room don't have without saying a word makes whatever they have attractive and at some point they want to talk about. That's as great an influence as anything that you can do to systematically out of your own flesh, prepare to be an evangelist. Now there are some guys that are called to be an evangelist, and that's what they do. Boy, if you're standing in line at the grocery store, they're giving you the gospel. And they do it unoffensively. I've never been able to pull that one off.

Precursor to next week, we're going to talk about chapter 6. Now, we've got roughly two months to get through two chapters. So we'll probably go a little faster, but what the next chapter is going to talk about is inspiration, enlightenment, and prophecy. And I think Rideout does a really good job in these next pages talking about the Word of God, talking about inspiration, enlightenment, and prophecy. He's got a take on prophecy that you haven't heard before. that I really liked. So he'll define inspiration, enlightenment, and prophecy fairly easily.

So over the next three or four weeks that's what we'll be working on. I found in my own study that reading the next chapter kind of slowly is beneficial because he spends about 70% of the chapter on of inspiration and he talks an awful lot about the word of God, who wrote it, why it is what it is, why it's without error, and it can be trusted. So, I think it's really beneficial for us to continue on. I spent some time reading that chapter because the discussion should be kind of interesting. How many of you did read chapter 6?

So just to give you a precursor then, how did Reinhardt define inspiration? Inspiration. How did he define it? I haven't read it, but doesn't that mean in your spirit? Inspiration. It was interesting because the contrasting or comparison word would be enlightenment. We look at inspiration as though it's affecting me, but Breitdahl doesn't look at it that way.

He looks at enlightenment as unfolding to our understanding of what the Word of God is. He says that inspiration speaks of the divine authorship and the perfection of the Word of God. Inspiration meaning writers of it were inspired to write what God wanted in there. Is it in Genesis that God made man to breathe in? Breathe in the breath of life? Yeah. Is that like inspired too? Yeah, absolutely. And that's what he says.

He says God breathes into the word. Father, we thank you for the work of your spirit in our lives and that we may be used of you as broken vessels, not only to lead the lost to the saving knowledge of your son, but also may he come alongside believers and walk with them that they might grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus. We thank you. We pray in your son's name. Amen.