Good morning. If you'd like to
open your Bibles with me to this seventh chapter of John, John
chapter 7. We're going to be looking at
verse 39 in particular, the first hour this morning. So let's pray
together. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
thank you for the promise of your Holy Spirit. Thank you,
Lord, for enabling us to believe and to come before thee in worship. In the power of your spirit,
we're reminded in this hour how needful we are and how dependent
and how blessed we are that you would meet with us, that you
would speak to our hearts, that the comforter would come down
and reveal to us more of the glory of thy dear son. Lord, bless this hour to his
glory and to our good, we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Recently, a friend shared some
of our messages with their pastor. And after listening to the messages,
their pastor said, well, I agree with everything that he said,
but there was no application. There was no application. And by that, what he meant was
he didn't give us anything to do. I would say a couple of things
about that. Number one, nothing is more practical and nothing
applies to the life of a child of God more. than the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He himself is our life. And I
need to hear a message that doesn't direct my attention to something
that I'm doing or not doing. I need to hear a message that
directs my attention to who he is and what he's done. I find no comfort in looking
to myself That having been said, if there is an application to
this message, I would like to begin with that application. Because my prayer and my hope
this morning is that after we look at what the Lord has revealed
about the Holy Spirit, that we will find ourselves either in
the place where David was in Psalm 51, when David prayed, return, restore unto me the joy
of thy salvation and take not thy spirit from me. Or we might
find ourselves in the place of Nicodemus when the Lord was speaking
to him about the need of the Holy Spirit in the new birth
and that we would be applying this message by asking the Lord
to send his spirit in power to open the eyes of our understanding
and enable us to believe on Christ. Or the application may be for
some and for many, I hope. Lord, thank you for the comforter. Thank you for sending your Holy
Spirit in power to speak truth and grace and peace and comfort
to my heart. So that's the application. I
hope that by God's grace that he will take his word and bring
us to that place. You have your Bibles open to
John chapter 7. I've titled this message, The
Promise of the Holy Spirit. John chapter 7, verse 39. Well, we have to read verse 38.
We considered it last Sunday when the Lord said, if any man
thirsts, let him come unto me. He's at the Feast of the Tabernacles,
and he is revealing himself as the water of life. And he says,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Meaning that
we will find ourselves satisfied with him. Just as the belly represents
the flesh that can never be content and never be satisfied, out of
That same belly will flow rivers and we'll drink from that river
of life and we'll be satisfied with Christ and who he is and
what he's done. He will be all that we will need
in this life and in the life to come. And then he explains
in verse 39, but this spake he of the spirit. So this river
of life that flows from the belly and makes one satisfied, satisfied
with Christ for all of our salvation, all of our righteousness, all
of our justification before God, we're satisfied with him. We're
satisfied with him to sustain us and to keep us from falling.
We're satisfied that he will be faithful to present us faultless
before the throne of God. And we can't find any hope outside
of him. This he spake of the spirit,
which they that believe on him should receive, future tense,
for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was
not yet glorified. The Lord Jesus Christ ascended
back into glory and took his rightful place at the right hand
of the majesty on high because the Father was satisfied with
what he accomplished at Calvary's cross. That's the ascension of
Christ. Our Lord is seated in the heavens
and all that he lived and died for are in him right now. So that all the blessings of
God, the scripture says, are in heavenly places in Christ. And as he is glorified, so are
we. Already, already glorified. In our experience, we will be
glorified when we depart this world. But in Christ and through
faith in him, we are glorified before God right now. And we
know that it wasn't until after he ascended back into glory on
the day of Pentecost that in fulfillment of the promise that
he made, the Comforter would come. The Holy Spirit came on
the day of Pentecost. Pentecost, as we were reminded
last Sunday, was one of those three annual celebrations that
all Jewish men were required to attend the ceremonies in Jerusalem
for. And it was a recognition of the
giving of the law at Mount Sinai. And it's significant to us that
the Spirit of God came in order to show us that we're not under
the letter of the law as the Old Testament Israelites were. We are under the Spirit of the
law. The letter killeth, it is the
spirit that giveth life. Does that mean that we live lawless
lives? Absolutely not. It means that
we uphold God's law higher than anyone. We uphold the law of
God so high that we, that we willingly confess that if we
had to answer to God's law, we'd be condemned by it. We can't keep God's law. The Lord Jesus kept it for us. He said, I did not come to destroy
the law. I came to fulfill it. And so by the spirit of God,
someone said, well, what's your rule of life? Is not the law
of God your rule of life? No, Christ is my rule of life.
He is my rule of life. That's a spiritual life that
only the Holy Spirit can give. The flesh can observe the requirements
of the law and the flesh can observe outward behavior in terms
of how faithful one is in keeping that law. Paul said, concerning
the law, I was blameless. I was blameless in my own sight.
I was blameless in the sight of others. because the pattern
of my life was such that everyone could see, everyone could see
that I wasn't a lawbreaker. But when the commandment came,
when the commandment came to the heart, Paul said, sin then
revived and I died. When God spoke the law, to Paul's
heart and showed him that it wasn't the outward performance
of the law that mattered before God, it was the heart that mattered
before God. Man looks at the outward appearance,
God looks at the heart. And Paul said, when God showed
me that by his spirit, by his spirit, that was a revelation
made by the spirit of God, then I could only come to one conclusion.
I'm a sinful man. God's law condemns me. I need
a savior. I need one who is able to keep
God's law for me. That's the work of the Spirit
of God. In preparing for this message,
I was overwhelmed with the amount of scripture. Adam's going to
do a call to worship next hour. And he and I were texting yesterday. And he was looking at several
different passages of scripture, not knowing what he would read
when he came up here in the next hour. And I told him, I said,
well, you're experiencing Just a little bit of what I experience
every time I try to prepare a message. So much scripture and so little
time. And when it comes to the person
of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God is full. It is full. So there would be no way for
us to cover even a small portion. So we will reserve our thoughts
in the little bit of time that we have to these four questions. Who is the Holy Spirit? Who has the Holy Spirit? What is the baptism of the Holy
Spirit? And how do I know? if I've been
baptized in the Holy Spirit? Those four questions. Who is the Holy Spirit? In the New Testament, the vast
majority of times that the Holy Spirit is referred to, he's called
in our King James Version of the Bible, the Holy Ghost. Ghost, when the Bible was translated
into English back in the 17th century was not a spooky apparition
as some might perceive it to be today. As a matter of fact,
the word ghost and spirit in the original language is the
exact same word. So when you read of the Holy
Ghost in the New Testament, it is also the Holy Spirit, same
exact word. So in answering the question who
is the Holy Spirit or who is the Holy Ghost, he's not that. He's not some sort of apparition. He's not some sort of energy
or some sort of, no, the Holy Spirit is the precious, precious third
person of the triune Godhead whom we worship. And as a person, he has all the
attributes and personalities of God Almighty. He is infinite, self-existent,
eternal, He is immutable. He is holy. Holy. And that word holy means far
more than just moral perfection. The word holy in the Bible, yes,
it implies moral perfection, but it means so much more than
that. The word holiness in the Bible
means that he's completely other than we are. We're not like Him in any way.
He's God. The Holy Spirit is God. It says,
God the Father, in His love, elected a people. God the Son,
in His grace, redeemed those people. God the Holy Spirit,
in His power, regenerates and comforts and speaks truth and
hope to those whom the Father chose and those for whom the
Son died." We find the three persons of
the Godhead, and any attempt to explain it beyond what the
Bible reveals would be wrong. It'd be worse than wrong. a God that we can explain, a
God that we can illustrate. I've heard the three persons
of the Godhead attempted to be explained and illustrated with
natural things, like water, steam, and ice, or like an egg with
its shell and it's white and it's yellow. Those are blasphemous
ways to try to illustrate or try to understand the nature
of a God who is one in nature and three in persons. We don't try to explain him that
way. We just believe what he has revealed
about himself and know that if he was a God that we could comprehend,
a God that we could explain, a God that we could put into
our own understanding, he wouldn't be much of a God. This is what
holy means. And when Isaiah saw the Lord
Jesus seated upon his throne in Isaiah chapter six, and the
seraphim were crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
his glory. Isaiah was declaring to us, God
was revealing to us that the Father is holy, the Son is holy,
and the Holy Spirit is holy. And so, all we can do, and that,
by God's grace, is to believe what the Lord has revealed. Just
believe Him. Lord, I can't understand this. I can't understand how Anything
could be self-existent. I can't understand how anything
could be eternal, never having a beginning. I can't understand
how God could be one in nature and three in persons. But it's
not for me to understand. It's for me to believe. Turn with me to Genesis chapter
one. Genesis chapter one. Now in the Bible, there are,
in the Old Testament Hebrew language, there are two words for God.
One is the word El, E-L, and we see that in many different
forms, but when you see El, that is a reference to God, singular. The other is Elohim, and that
is the same name, God, but it's in a plural form. Now I say that in order to say
that Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, the first reference to God
is the word Elohim. It was God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In the beginning, God. If you can ever believe the first
four words of the Bible and all that they imply, you're a believer. You're a believer. In the beginning,
God created. The uncreated one created
all things. The heavens, and the earth. All that we see in the natural
creation and the more powerful our telescopes get, the bigger
we understand it to be and everything that we observe was created by
God. You know, it takes less faith
to believe that than it does to believe in the theory of evolution. You listen to the explanations
that men give to the existence of all things and you're going
to have to stretch things a long way to come to believe that. The earth was without form and
void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. and the Spirit
of God. Here's the Holy Spirit and here's
a picture of salvation. We are by nature created of God
yet come into this world without form and void and darkness is
upon the face of the deep. We have no order, we have no
understanding and the Spirit of God must come and he must
speak. if we're to be. And he speaks upon the face of
the waters. Now, what is the water in the
Bible? We are washed by the water of God's word. The water is often
referred to in the Bible as the word of God. And every time we
open God's word, that's our hope. Every time we meet together for
worship, that's our hope. that the Spirit of God would
come down and take the Word of God and give order and light
and understanding and grace and salvation and peace to what would
be otherwise without form and void in utter darkness. And God said, let there be light. And that light was Christ. We
have God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
right here in the first four verses. And God called the light
day, and the darkness he called night,
and the evening and the morning were the first day. We see the three persons of the
triune Godhead at the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ when
the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God, made carnate,
made in the likeness of sinful flesh, made man, was baptized
for fulfill all righteousness. It's his baptism that saves.
He was baptized as a picture of what he would do when he would
be baptized by the fiery wrath of God's justice on Calvary's
cross. And at his baptism, at his water baptism, the voice
of the father spoke audibly from heaven. This is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. And the spirit of God manifested
himself in the likeness of a dove and came down and lighted upon
him, revealing to us that he's the anointed one. He's the one
who comes in the full power of the spirit of God in order to
accomplish the salvation of God's people. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. Let's go back to our text in
John chapter 7. What the Lord Jesus is promising is that once I am glorified,
once I take my rightful place as your righteousness and as
your advocate before the Father in heaven, There'll be a few
days. It's about 10 days between Acts
chapter one and the coming of Pentecost, the coming of the
Spirit of God in Acts chapter two. The Lord ascended back into
glory, told the disciples, you go back into Jerusalem and you
wait and the Holy Ghost will come upon you and you will receive
power. And we have the disciples cowering,
120 of them in the upper room, The officials were out looking
for them, wanting to put an end to this movement, afraid that
what happened to the Lord would happen to them, and praying and waiting, not knowing
what would happen on the day of Pentecost. But on the day
of Pentecost, there was a mighty rushing wind, and there was tongues
of fire. This is the one that John spoke
of when he said, I baptize you with water, but there's one who
cometh after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
with fire. So that happened on the day of
Pentecost. And everything changed that day. No longer were they afraid. No
longer did they hide. They didn't know that they wouldn't
be arrested and put to death, but the Spirit of God gave them
boldness to go out and proclaim without apology, without shame,
the gospel of God's free grace in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They preached it without apology.
They were threatened. And they stood before the ones
who threatened them and said, you decide what you're going
to do about it. As far as we're concerned, we
must obey the voice of God. This is what God has commanded
us to do. And how did they do that? It was the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit comforted them. The Holy Spirit encouraged them.
The Holy Spirit gave them courage. This is the manifestation. When Peter preached on the day
of Pentecost, and people heard them in their own tongues, what
did they say? They thought, well, these men are drunk. And Peter
stood and said, no, no, it's but the third hour. These men
are not drunk. This is the fulfillment of the
prophecy of Joel, that the Spirit of God would come. So this is
the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. the Holy Ghost, the third
person of the Godhead. And he's going to come, he's
going to give power, he's going to give fellowship with God,
he's going to sanctify his people, he's going to set them apart
from this world, he's going to give them faith, he's going to
comfort their hearts, he's going to speak peace to them. This
is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. You see, what the Father did
in electing a people and what the Son did in redeeming them,
the Holy Spirit does in making it personal and making it experiential,
if you will. Those other two things were done
outside of us. But what's done in the Holy Spirit
is done in us. That's what our Lord's saying
here. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,
but this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him
should receive." The Holy Spirit. He's called the Spirit of Truth.
It is the Holy Spirit. that enables us to discern truth
from error, to discern the difference between that which is holy and
that which is profane. It's the Holy Spirit that enables
us to hear the foolishness of man-made freewill works religion
and know what it is. That's the Holy Spirit. He's
called the Comforter. It is the Holy Spirit. that in
our times of trials and troubles, he comforts us in pointing us
to Christ and reminding us that God is sovereign in these things
and that God has a purpose and his purpose is always our good
and it's always his glory and enables us to rest, to rest in
a God who is in control. and to relinquish our attempts
to try to be in control and to believe that he is. That's what a comfort, what a
comfort the Holy Spirit gives to the believer's heart in times
of trouble and trials and tribulation and persecution. He's called the spirit of holiness.
He's called the eternal spirit. Eternal spirit. The Bible speaks
of eternal life. It's not talking about a life
that begins when you believe and lasts forever. It speaks
of a life that never had a beginning and never has an end. That's
what eternal means. Eternal. He's called the eternal
spirit. He's called the spirit of grace.
If we're going to be saved, it's going to be by God's grace, not
by our works. And it's the Holy Spirit that
reveals the grace of God to us. He's called the Spirit of Adoption. If we're going to be the children
of God, He's going to have to come down to the place where
those babies are without any hope. We're in the orphanage of forgetfulness,
of forgotten children. And the Lord adopts us by His
Spirit and makes us to be the children of God. Behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we, that
we should be called the children of God. That's done by the Spirit
of God. He's called the spirit of wisdom
and of understanding. If we're to know God, it'll be
by the spirit of God. If we're to understand the truth
of the gospel, it'll be by the spirit of God. We cannot come
to these conclusions by ourselves. You see how the application of
this message is? Oh, Lord, give me your spirit. Give me your spirit. And what
did the Lord Jesus say? If you being evil know how to
give good gifts unto your children, how much more your heavenly father
will give the spirit to them who ask him? Lord, restore unto
me the joy of thy salvation. I've quenched your spirit. Lord, take not thy spirit from
me. Lord, I've got to have the Spirit
of God in all of his power and in all of his grace. Lord, thank
you. Thank you for the comfort that
you give to my heart. Thank you for the revelation
of truth and light that you give to this one who would be without
form and void, who would have darkness upon the face of the
deep apart from the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the
water. Lord, thank you. He's called the Spirit of Revelation,
the Spirit of Prophecy, the Spirit of the Living God, and He is
a person. Those of us who have known Him
have experienced what it means to grieve Him, to grieve Him,
and to to have him quenched, to have that fire cooled by our
own sin and disobedience. Lord, by your spirit, fan the
flames of that fire again. Blow the wind of your spirit.
Do for me what you've done for me before. It is the Spirit that speaks
joy and comfort and peace to the believer's heart. Turn with me to Romans chapter
8 and we will attempt to answer the question, who has the Holy
Spirit? Who has the Holy Spirit? Romans
chapter 8 and we'll begin at verse 5. For they that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are
after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Now this is the first verse I
thought of when I was accused of not making practical application
of my preaching. Because I know what that man
meant. He wanted something that he could
see. Something he could put his hands on, something that he could
measure in outward behavior. They that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh. I don't wanna be made to look
to myself to get, no, this is the spirit of God. This is what
it means when the Lord told that woman at the well, And she was
worried about where to worship and how to worship, whether it
be according to the Jews or the Samaritans, whether it be on
Mount Sinai or, I mean, whether it be at Jerusalem or at Sychar. And the Lord made it clear to
her, the day is coming and now is that the true worshipers,
the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit. and in truth. There's no worship of God apart
from the Spirit of God. Verse 6, for to be carnally minded
is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. These things can only be seen
through the eye of faith. These things can only be seen
by the power of the Spirit of God. Oh Lord, Strengthen the
grace of your spirit in my heart. Lord, give me the person of your
Holy Spirit. Because the carnal mind, the
fleshly mind, is enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be, so that they that are
after the flesh cannot please God. If we're gonna walk by the
flesh and measure by the flesh and judge by the flesh, we are
being carnally minded and it will not be pleasing to God. But you are not in the flesh.
Does that mean that we don't have a fleshly sinful body? No.
He's talking about being in the flesh for our relationship with
God. We still have a fleshly body.
We still bear this broken down sinful body that's always trying
to be in control and always trying to find some other way, dragging
it around. But he's talking about being
in the flesh. Understand what's being said
here. He's contrasting Some are in the flesh and some are in
the spirit. But you that are in the flesh,
I'm sorry, but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If so be that the spirit of God
dwelleth in you. Now, if any man have not the
spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Who has the Holy Spirit? It is the Holy Spirit that gave
you faith to believe on Christ. It is the Holy Spirit that does
all these other works of grace in your heart as you deal with
this world and with your own body and your own sin. It's the
Holy Spirit. And if you have not the Spirit
of God, you're none of His. Every child of God has the Spirit
of God. Without the Spirit of God, there's
no salvation. And if Christ be in you, see
now he's likening being in the spirit to having Christ in you.
If Christ be in you, then the body is dead because of sin.
But the spirit is light because of righteousness. Now if the
spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in
you, and he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. He's talking
about when we're translated like Enoch was. When Paul speaks of
it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, that which is mortal shall be
made immortal and that which is corruptible shall be made
incorruptible. The translation of this fleshly
body will be made, will see him and be made like him, will be
without sin. In our current state, We're still
carrying around this sin. And that sinful body, that sinful
flesh cannot be improved upon. However, however, the manifestations
of sin can be restrained. They can be restrained and they
will only be restrained when we reckon ourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our
Lord. When we're able by faith to look to Christ and see that
our life is in him and that he is our life before God and that
he has put to death our sin and buried in the depths of the sea
and that before God he remembers them no more, the only hope restraining
the acts of sin does that mean that we become less sinful or
less of a no we're let in ourselves we're nothing but sin but no
child of God wants their sin nature to manifest itself we
want it restrained Lord don't let me don't don't Don't let
me forsake Christ. Lord, I've had enough taste of
this bitter experience, Lord, I don't. And every time we go
to that well, it is the Spirit of God that points us back to
Christ. It is the Spirit of God that
reminds us what the Lord Jesus did when he put away our sin. What is the baptism of the Holy
Spirit? Some would have us to believe
that it's some sort of experience after conversion that takes you
up to a higher level and enables you to live above sin And to manifest this experience
with the speaking of tongues and with the performative miracles
and with the seeing of visions, this is where the Pentecostals
and the Charismatics are. They take what is revealed in
the New Testament as the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit. And they are sign gifts. In the
Old Testament, when God was speaking through a prophet, he would often
give that prophet the ability to perform a miracle to authenticate
the message. So that people could see this
word that this man is speaking is being authenticated by this
miracle. And that was the purpose of tongues
and miracles and healings that we read about performed by the
apostles during the New Testament. God gave them those miracles
during the apostolic period, during those first years of the
New Testament. Once these apostles were used
to record for us God's word, then those signs were no longer
necessary. We have the revelation given
to us in God's word, and now the spirit of God takes the word
of God and applies it to the hearts of God's people. This
is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus said in Acts chapter
one, turn with me to Acts chapter one quickly, Acts chapter one. Verse five, for John, this is
just before our Lord ascends back into glory, for John truly
baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy
Ghost, not many days hence. When they therefore were come
together, they asked of him saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time
restore again the kingdom of Israel? And he said unto them,
it is not for you to know the time of the seasons, which the
Father hath put in his power. But you shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses
unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto
the uttermost parts of the earth." You're gonna be baptized. This
is the one that John said, he will baptize you with the Holy
Ghost and with fire. He's going to make you his witnesses. How do I know if I've been baptized
with the Holy Ghost? I want the gospel. The gospel of God, Romans chapter
one, concerning his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. I need it for
myself first. And I know it's the only message
that's going to give any man any hope in this world. I want
to be a part of that message. I want to be his witness. Now
I know some believers are thinking, you know, I'm not much of a witness. I will remind you that what we're
doing right now, what we are doing, and if you think back
to the first comments I made about when a man listened to
our messages, I didn't say my messages, our messages, we are
proclaiming the gospel right now. And you're as much a part
of that as I am. God has called and gifted some
men to be able to explain it and declare it, perhaps, but
we're in this together. We're in this together. And even if you never, you know,
really have, In your own mind, you don't have,
in your own eyes, you don't see where you've had an experience
to be able to have much of an influence in the world with the
gospel. Your heart's desire, your support,
your participation, this is all, I want the gospel to be witnessed
into the world. I want that, I desire that. That
is what I want to be a part of. That's where I want to invest
my life. Everything else is temporal.
There's only two things that are eternal, and that's the souls
of men and the gospel of God's free grace. And that's the only
thing that's going to last forever. And I want to be invested in
something that's going to. I want to lay up for myself treasures
in heaven, not treasures upon the earth. I need to be a part
of it. That's the evidence that those
who don't have the Holy Spirit aren't interested in that. Hey,
the gospel, give it or take it. It's not important. Maybe I'll
devote a little bit of my time to listening to it once in a
while, but it's not my life. It's not the desire of my heart
to see this gospel message go out into the world. I don't care who, let somebody
else be a witness. I wanna be part of that witness. How do I know if I have the Holy
Spirit? Turn with me to John 14. John chapter 14. Verse 16. And I will pray the father and
he shall give you another comforter, another comforter. The Lord Jesus was, had been
their comforter. You remember, you remember at
the, at the, um, at the tomb on that resurrection morning
when Mary realized that it wasn't the gardener, it was the Lord
Jesus and she clung to him. and said, Rabboni, oh, don't
ever leave me again. He was her comforter, and he's
the comforter of every sinner. Sinners were never intimidated
by the Lord Jesus. The Pharisees, the self-righteous,
the religious, they hated him, they didn't want anything to
do with him, and he made them uncomfortable. The harlots and
the sinners, the publicans, the poor and the needy were magnetically
attracted to the Lord Jesus. And they still are. They still
are. Well, your master eats with sinners
and publicans. And he still eats with them.
He still eats with them. He's my comforter. And it's the
Holy Spirit that takes me to him. I'm gonna send you another comforter,
I'm not gonna leave you without comfort, that he may abide with
you forever. Even the spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him, but you know him, for he dwells with you and shall be
in you. In you. It is the Holy Spirit. that speaks truth and comfort
and peace and grace to my heart is the Holy Spirit that reveals
to me my sin, shows me my Savior. Turn with me to John chapter
16, just over a couple of pages, verse seven. I told you there
was so much scripture on this, on the Holy Spirit. We're just, scratching the surface. Look at verse seven of John chapter
16. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It is expedient for you that I go away. Why was it expedient
for them? Why is it best for the disciples,
best for all the believers? Because the Holy Spirit spiritually
takes the person and the presence and the power of the Lord Jesus
Christ and reveals it to the hearts of God's people through
faith 24-7 all over the world. All over the world. The Lord Jesus in his bodily
form was relegated to one place at one time. And so he says,
it's good for you for me to go away. Right now, like Mary, she
thought that she needed the physical presence of Christ to find comfort.
No, I'm going to send you another comforter. And he's going to
comfort you in a way that will Be true comfort and
light and hope and peace, grace, forgiveness. This is how I know
I have the Holy Spirit. When I can't sleep at two o'clock
in the morning and something's bothering me and I'm afraid and
worried about something, it is the Holy Spirit that lets me,
enables me to go before the throne of grace and find help in my
time of need. It is the Holy Spirit that reminds
me in times of trouble that God is on His throne. It is the Holy
Spirit when I'm confused about what's right and what's wrong,
what's truth and what's not, that shines the light of the
gospel on it and reveals to me the certainty of the truth and
enables me to stand right there and be able to say, If God be
for me, who can be against me? Let the whole world come against
me. The Spirit of God has revealed
to me that this is the truth of God. That's all I need. Verse 13 of the same chapter.
Howbeit when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide
you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself,
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will
show you things to come. What is he showing us of the
things to come? Where, child of God, do you,
having the Holy Spirit, find your greatest comfort in times
of your greatest need and greatest trial? Things to come. Oh, I know it's coming. I know
it's coming sooner than later. I know that I can turn my heart
to the East. and hear the trump of God's sound,
and the dead in Christ are raised, and those alive should be caught
up together with them in the air. I know that he's coming, riding
upon a white horse with his name written upon his thigh, Lord
of Lords and King of Kings. I have that hope of knowing.
if one day I'll shed this body of flesh and be completely without
sin and see him. Right now I look through a glass
darkly. Right now I see just in part,
but then I shall see even as I am seen. I shall see him as
he is and be made like him. In that day I'll cross that river and eat of the tree of life on
the other side of that crystal river. This is our hope. What other
hope is there? Any other thing that we
hang our hopes on in this world is just a, it's a mirage. About the time you get to it,
you're going to figure out it wasn't real. It wasn't real. There's my hope. And I've heard people say, well,
you know, you can be so earthly minded that you're no earthly
good. That is a lie from the pit of
hell. The truth is, the more heavenly minded you are, the
more earthly good you will be. Mark it down. The more heavenly
minded you are, the more earthly good. you will be. You'll have
your heart set your affection set on things above, not on things
of the earth. And you'll take the things of
the earth in stride and understand them for what they are. Temporal
things that have no eternal consequences. This is the gospel. This is the
Holy Spirit. Look at verse 14, he shall glorify
me for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All
things that the father hath are mine. Therefore said I that he
shall take of mine and show it unto you. How do I know if I have the Holy
Spirit? I know Christ. I know him. He's my comforter. He's my hope.
He's my salvation. He's my righteousness. He's all
my justification before God. He's my life, eternal, eternal. And had the Holy Spirit not made
him so, I'd be doing what everybody else
in the world is doing, building my life on sand. only to be washed
away when the storms of God's wrath come in that day of judgment. Our Heavenly Father, we've often grieved your spirit We
would pray with David, take not thy spirit from us. Lord, we need your spirit too. To shine in this. Darkness into. To give life. In death and. Lord, we are without form and
void. Lord, we. Thank you for the comfort
and grace of your spirit. It often speaks to our hearts. Lord, keep us for Christ's sake
and bless us with your spirit where it's in his name. We ask
it and