One of the very unhappy facts
of life is that religious deception and the power of error are a
constant and ever-present danger to the sons of men. And the thing
that makes the presence of error such a dangerous thing is that
lies, when believed as truth, have the power not only to cripple
us, but to damn us. For the Scripture says that they
all might be damned who believe a lie. And though it is, in many
respects, an unpleasant thing to deal in areas of truth which
have been, in the history of the Church, a seedbed of controversy,
or controversy, as our good British friends would say, It is absolutely
essential that in every generation the people of God be made aware,
not only of what the Scripture does teach, but what it does
not say. And so then we who live at this
point in history are not only greatly privileged to enter into
the fruit of the battles of our forefathers, but we have a great
responsibility that entering into the fruit of their careful
and painstaking study of the Word and the battles they fought,
we also, I say, have an awesome responsibility to put our contribution
into the total spectrum of that truth committed to the Church.
Not that we add new truth, but that under God we help to pronounce
that truth more sharply and definitively, and thereby leave a heritage
for yet unborn generations. And that, in a very real sense,
is the broad pastoral perspective that has guided me in the selection
of the subject matter as we have been considering together some
facets of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Just briefly
now, to give a broad summary of what we have thus covered,
we considered in the first place the importance of having a biblically
framed understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit. We saw that
this is essential if our understanding of salvation is to be biblical,
if our worship is to be biblical, and if our service is to be biblical. Then in the past two nights,
we have considered four of the five foundational principles
relative to the work of the Spirit, which must regulate all of our
thinking with reference to His work. We considered, first of
all, the necessity of remembering His divinity and His personality. The Holy Spirit is God, and He
is person. Secondly, we considered the absolute
necessity of His work. The work and presence of the
Holy Spirit is not luxury. His presence in ministry is absolutely
essential for individual salvation for the corporate life of the
Church and for the effective witness of the Church. And then
we spend some time considering the essential unity of His work
with that of the Father and of the Son, indicating that Scripture
again and again points to this wonderful truth that Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, particularly as relates to the work of salvation,
operate with absolute unity within the framework of the covenant
of grace in the salvation of a people. And then we concluded
our study last night by considering the fourth of these five principles,
namely, that the primary focus of the work of the Holy Spirit
is that of glorifying Christ. He reveals the truth about Him. He draws hearts to love and to
trust Him. and then he produces moral likeness
to him. So then in all of our evaluating
of supposed works of the Spirit, this is the criteria by which
we make an evaluation. As we seek to regulate our prayers
for the aid and assistance of the Holy Spirit, it must be out
of a concern that Christ be glorified in the eyes of men. And then
it does give us some indication As to the path we must walk,
and I speak particularly to preachers, if we would know something of
the breath and power of the Spirit upon our preaching ministries,
the Holy Spirit is most likely to bless with power that ministry
which has much of Christ in it. Now we come tonight to the fifth
of these principles, and I do believe it warrants taking an
entire session to treat it, and it is this. the inseparable relationship
between the work of the Spirit and the Holy Scriptures. The inseparable relationship
between the work of the Spirit and the Holy Scriptures. And
as we begin our study, I would direct your attention to several
pivotal passages in that discourse of our Lord in the upper room,
John 14, 15, and 16. May I say, as we turn to John
14, if you do not have John Brown's commentary on this passage in
that three-volume set on the Discourses and Sayings of Our
Lord, I would commend it to you very, very heartily. I used it
in conjunction with my own devotional exercises a year or so ago. And his treatment in Volume 3
of John 14-16 was one of the most helpful and enriching studies
that I had engaged in for some time. Now we turn to John 14,
and I am selecting several passages out of this large section. John
14, verses 16 and 17. John 14, verses 16 and 17. And I will pray the Father, and
He shall give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever,
even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, for
it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him, but ye know Him,
for He abideth with you, and shall be in you." And the particular
phrase that I want you to retain in your thinking is this, He
will give you another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth. As our Lord
identifies the Comforter, He identifies Him with this peculiar
title, the Spirit of Truth. Now, over to chapter 15, if you
will, please, and verse 26. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness
of me." And again, you see, you have the Holy Spirit denoted
as the Comforter, but at the same time, parallel with it,
when He comes as Comforter, He comes as the Spirit of Truth. Now, in John 16 and verse 13,
we have a similar reference. John 16 and verse 13. How be
it when he, and now he does not even call him comforter in this
context, how be it when he, the spirit of truth, is come? He shall guide you into all the
truth, for he shall not speak from himself, but what things
soever he shall hear, these shall he speak, and he shall declare
unto you the things that are to come. Now, in these three
passages, our Lord sets before his disciples, particularly the
apostles, this very clear concept that whoever the comforter is,
and whatever he has come to do in the great complexity and the
manifold blessings of his ministry, all that he comes to do, he will
do as the Spirit of truth. In other words, The ministry
of the Holy Spirit as Comforter, as Paraclete, the one called
alongside to help, is so tied in with and productive of the
truth that our Lord can use this other title as easily as Comforter. He is the Spirit of Truth, so
that as the disciples anticipate the fulfillment of the Father's
promise, to which our Lord refers again and again in these last
days of His time with Him, they have clearly embedded in their
consciousness, when He comes, whatever we experience inwardly
of present gifts and graces, it must always be within the
framework of truth. For He comes as Comforter, yes,
He comes as the Spirit of Truth. Now, I think it's significant.
that he is called in other places the spirit of love, for the fruit
of the spirit is love. And Paul speaks of the love of
the spirit in the epistle to the Romans. He is spoken of as
the spirit of power. He shall receive power, the Holy
Ghost coming upon you. He is the spirit of grace, of
light, and of life. But in all of these things, He
is only the Spirit of love and the Spirit of power and of grace
and of light and of life within the framework of truth. Hence,
our Lord does not say, when the Comforters come, even the Spirit
of love. When the Comforters come, even
the Spirit of light. When the Comforters come, even
the Spirit of grace or of power. He uses none of those terms,
but He does say, when the Comforters come, even the Spirit of truth. because it is in His work of
establishing men in the truth that He thus becomes to them
the Spirit of love, of power, of grace, of light, and of life. Now, where is that truth to be
found? Well, of course, Christ Himself is the Son in substance
of the truth, John 14, 6. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. The Lord says, as the spirit
of truth he'll bear witness to me, he shall take the things
of myself and reveal them to you. Certainly no one would debate
that Jesus Christ in the glory of his person and in the perfection
of his work is the sum and substance of that truth. But now where
is that truth to be found objectively committed to us? And our Lord
answers that for us in the seventeenth chapter of John, in verse seventeen,
in which He prays, Father, sanctify them in the truth. The sanctifying
work of the Father in the hearts and lives of the elect is to
go on within the sphere of truth. Sanctify them not by, but in
the truth, in the realm of truth. Well, where is that truth to
be found? Our Lord tells us, Thy Word. is truth. And so our Lord identifies truth
with the Word of the living God. Now, in doing this, our Lord
was not introducing something new. For, as the Spirit of truth,
the Holy Spirit inspired the Old Testament Scriptures, the
two key texts which are used again and again to support what
we call the doctrine of the plenary, that is, full, verbal, that is,
to the very words. The plenary, verbal inspiration
of the Scriptures are 2 Peter 1.21 and 2 Timothy 3.16, and
they are used again and again because they state this truth
explicitly. The prophecy came not in old
time by the will of man, But holy men of God spake as they
were literally carried along by the Holy Spirit. Now that
does not mean, though there were times when this was true, that
they were in some kind of unusual spiritual ecstasy. Though you
find the prophets caught up and they are given apocalyptic visions
and the rest, but it means that whether they wrote in the calm,
rational possession of all their faculties, or whether they transferred
what they saw in apocalyptic vision or in dreams, however
much of their own human faculties were employed, and at times there
was the full employment of all the faculties, back behind the
actings of Ezekiel's mind. Back behind the reasoning of
David's mind, back behind the very action of the pen, was the
energizing, empowering work of the Holy Spirit. They spake as
they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Then you have essentially
the same truth in 2 Timothy 3 and verse 16. All scripture is inspired
of God, literally breathed out of God. Scripture is the breath
of God's mouth, and hence it is profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good
works. Again, Peter says, it was the
Spirit of Christ in the prophets that did speak. And there seems
to be very little question in the minds of most evangelicals
concerning this truth. As the spirit of truth, the one
who would come in greater plentitude, who would come as the spirit
of the glorified Christ on Pentecost, his work did not begin there.
He had done a great work in giving the Old Testament scriptures
as the continual heritage of the Church of the Living God.
But now Jesus, in the very passages from which we've read indicates
that that same spirit would inspire the apostles to give us the New
Testament scriptures. Notice carefully John 14 and
verse 26. And I think John Brown, more
than any commentator whom I've read on this passage, points
out, and it's a necessary point to make, that certain things
are said to the apostles in this context Certain things are said
to them as common Christians. I go to prepare a place for you,
and if I go, I'll come again. That's true of every believer.
But certain things are said to them as uncommon Christians.
Certain of these promises apply to them exclusively as part of
the apostolic band. And if you don't make that distinction,
confusion alone can come by a study of this portion of Scripture,
as with many others. Now notice in John 14 and verse
26, our Lord says, But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. That can't be a promise to you.
You never heard Christ speak. How can the Holy Ghost bring
to your remembrance what Christ has said to you? You never heard
him speak directly. Hence, one of the requirements
for the apostolate was that a man had accompanied with Christ in
the flesh and had been witness also of his resurrection. This is why Paul had to have
direct revelation to be considered part of the apostolic plan. Christ
spoke to him directly from heaven. He heard the voice of Christ,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, my gospel did
didn't come to me second-hand, I had it how? By direct revelation
the same way the other apostles got it, direct revelation from
the lips of God's final revelation to men. For the Father spoke
in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, but in these
last days He has spoken unto us in His Son. And so to them,
in a peculiar way, is the promise he's going to bring to your remembrance
all that I've said unto you. To what purpose? That you may
be guided into all the truth. Here is a promise that there
would be a work of the Spirit which, when accomplished, would
mean all of the truth had been revealed. And if the apostles
were guided into all the truth, there is no more truth in that
sense left to be revealed. It is all here in the apostolic
doctrine and instruction, and now what we need to the end of
the age is light from the Holy Ghost to understand that truth,
and grace from the Holy Ghost to obey and believe that truth,
and power from the Holy Ghost to go out and preach that truth. But we don't ask for new revelations,
for new dimensions of truth. Not only does our Lord suggest
this or teach it explicitly here, but further on in chapter 15
and verse 26, Notice again, that when the Comforter is come, whom
I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth,
which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me,
and ye also bear witness, because what? Ye have been with me from
the beginning. You haven't been with Christ
from the beginning. And when in Acts 1 they were to make the
selection of an apostle, what was one of the requirements?
Look out, those men that were with us, what? From the beginning,
who have accompanied with us. I know some people say, oh, this
is just a sort of a convenient little trick to say you want
all the power and all the blessing to be shot up in the apostolic
age, but we want power, we want—wait a minute now, is it? Or is that
an honest handling of the words of our Lord? He says, your witness
will be the witness of a peculiar character because of your peculiar
and special privilege. You will bear witness, a witness
in the context of having been with me from the beginning. Again, over to chapter 16, the
verse we read earlier, and here we have the promise of our Lord
that embodied in this meeting into all the truth will be even
a prophetic element in the sense of unfolding the things to come. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit
of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth. For he shall not speak from himself,
but what things soever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And
he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. Now notice the scope of our Lord's
promise. Not only will the Spirit, in
a peculiar way, bring to remembrance what Christ has said, giving
to us the gospel records, bringing to their remembrance His words,
so that we may now read them and meditate upon them and assimilate
them and feed upon them and proclaim them to others. But he has come
to bear witness of Christ, to open up the mysteries of his
person and work, and we see that so often in the main drift of
the epistles. And then, though not exclusively
but predominantly in the book of the Revelation, this promise
is fulfilled. He will show you the things that
are to come. And so our Lord, his promise
that there would be what we now call the New Testament, an inscripturated
revelation of the mind and the will of God. Now, I think it's
very significant to see if that's how the apostles understood his
words, and if that's how the early church understood these
words. For no doubt, they were passed
on by that initial oral tradition that became the apostolic teaching. And it's very clear in the New
Testament that this concept was understood very, very much in
the minds of the people of God, the Apostles themselves and those
who heard them. Look at the Apostle Paul's words
in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And I know I'm making you think,
and I'm doing this at the very outset when I hope your minds
are freshest, because this principle is so fundamental and any exhortation
I wish to bring later on must be based upon an understanding
of it. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the
Apostle Paul has been speaking of that heavenly, that true spiritual
wisdom which he, as a messenger of God, speaks to men. Now he
says, that wisdom has been hidden in days past, and he quotes from
the Old Testament, but now picking up the thread of thought in verse
10 of 1 Corinthians 2, But unto us God revealed them through
the Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. For who among men knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is in
him? Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit
of God. But we receive And I believe
here again, though there is a general sense in which this is true of
every believer, is speaking particularly as an apostle. For we received
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from
God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us
of God, which things also we speak not in words which man's
wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth, combining spiritual
things with spiritual words." He was conscious of an influence
of the Spirit directing him in the choice of words to express
the concepts revealed by the Holy Spirit. This was not only
the consciousness of the Apostle as he spoke and as he wrote,
But listen what he says to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and
verse 13. And for this cause we also thank
God without ceasing, that when he received from us the word
of the message, even the word of God, he accepted it not as
the word of men, But as it is in truth, the Word of God, which
effectually works in you that believe, is that we give thanks
to God that you recognize the peculiar and divine authority
that was bound up in the message which we brought to you. So that
in the very lifetime of the apostles, the Church began to recognize
their peculiar place of authority as the messengers as the conveyors
of absolute and final truth. Two texts of scripture which
indicate this, though there are many others, or at least some
others. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20. As the Apostle Paul
speaks of the church, we looked at this in another connection
last night, as he speaks of the church as that of the living
temple. Notice the foundation, Ephesians
2.20. being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. No matter
how large, and thank God it's going to be large, no matter
how large the temple of God may grow, the foundation is never
relayed. Nothing is added to that foundation. Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone,
and bound inseparably to Him in that substructural foundation,
is the doctrine of the prophets and of the apostles. So it's not strange then for
Peter, when he's writing to speak of his beloved brother Paul in
2 Peter chapter 3, though he'd been soundly rebuked by Paul,
He recognized faithful of the wounds of a friend, though the
kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And so he says, 2 Peter 3, 16,
verse 15, Our beloved brother Paul, also according to the wisdom
given to him, wrote unto you as also in all his epistles,
speaking in them of these things wherein are some things hard
to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast rest, that is,
put on a rack and stretch out of shape, as they do also the
other scriptures, the other holy writings, unto their own destruction. And here is Peter, putting, as
it were, his imprimatur, his seal upon the writings of Paul,
as being on an equal plane of authority with the other scriptures. Now I realize this is old hat
to some of you, but may I remind you of Peter's words? He said,
I think it need to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance,
though ye know these things and be established in them. God has
given us these clear landmarks concerning His purpose to give
us what we call now, in technical terminology, a completed canon
of Scripture, a final, a full, a sufficient revelation of His
mind and will for the Church in all ages, and to use some
of the language of the Confession to which nothing is to be added
or subtracted. whether by new visions, and by
visions, or new revelations. Now, having, I trust, established
that basic principle, that in the thinking of the apostles,
the comforter who comes as the spirit of truth will have as
one of his dominant ministries to lead them into that truth
which will then become the abiding heritage of the Church, I wish
to switch, as it were, in perspective and take that truth and lay it
alongside another, and we'll fix our attention now in the
second place to the two great historical works of the Holy
Spirit with reference to the salvation of men. One of them
we consider. the inspiration of the scriptures. 2 Timothy 3.14, from a child
you've known the scriptures, Paul says to Timothy, which are
able to make thee wise unto salvation. But there is another great historical
work of the Holy Spirit in reference to our salvation. It will never be repeated, and
it's the work of the Spirit in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus
Christ. You remember when the angel came
to Mary as probably just a girl in her late teens, and announced
to her that she would become mother of Messiah. She stunned,
and she says, Lord, how can this be? I've not known a man. How can this be? She didn't say,
Lord, how can this be? Speaking to the angel, saying,
I know not a man. And the answer of the angel was
this, the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee. and the power of the
Most High shall overshadow thee, and that holy thing which is
begotten of thee shall be called the Son of God." Luke 135. And it was the peculiar and special,
may I say the word, privilege of the Holy Spirit to be the
agent of the conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary of Him
who is to be the only Redeemer of sinners, the only hope of
fallen mankind. The Spirit shall come upon thee,
and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And what
the Holy Ghost wrought in the womb of the Virgin is a once-for-all
act the implications of which continue throughout eternity,
but particularly now we're thinking with reference to this period
between the incarnation and the completion of the Bride of Christ. So you have incarnation and inscripturation,
the once-for-all historical works of the Holy Spirit with reference
to the salvation of men. Now that being true, follow me
closely, The test to which you put all professed workings of
the Spirit subsequent to incarnation and inscripturation is this. Does this professed ministry,
message, movement of the Spirit accord with his once-for-all
acts in the womb of the Virgin and through the pens of the apostles? Every single thing that the Holy
Ghost does from this point down to the completion of the body
and bride of Jesus Christ will always be consistent with, and
never in contradiction to, what He did once for all in the womb
of the Virgin through the pen of the apostles. Now this was
understood in the early church. Hence, when there were these
spirits supposedly of God, breaking out in ecstatic utterances, in
professed prophecies, what do the apostles tell the early churches?
They tell them, prove all things, try the spirits, and I direct
your attention to 1 John chapter 4. And John says, to put it in 20th
century vernacular, don't be spiritually gullible, and childishly
naive concerning apparent voices and messages from the Spirit. Beloved, believe not every spirit,
but prove the spirits, whether they are of God, because many
false prophets are gone out into the world. People say, this must
be the last kick of the clock before midnight. Look at all
the heresy. Look at all the error. Look at
all the anti-Christian thinking. John said, little children, it
is the last hour. Why? He said, because prophecy
is being fulfilled at such a rate, this must be the last hour. You've
heard the words of our Lord that many antichrists shall come.
He says they've come, they're here with us. And there was that
awful sense that things must be as it were three ticks to
midnight. That was back many hundreds of
years ago. And so he says, when there are
these apparent messages from the Spirit, don't believe them.
Many false prophets are gone out into the world. Well, it's
as though John anticipates the question. Well, John, it's all
right and well for you to tell us. Try the spirits, but how
do we do it? And here it is. Hereby know ye
the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every
spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God. You see what he
says? He says to the people, if you
want to put this message, this work of the Spirit, this apparent
movement of God to the acid test, ask it this question. Do you
agree one hundred percent with what the Spirit did in the Virgin's
womb? Has Jesus Christ come in the
flesh? Is Jesus of Nazareth the eternal
Word made flesh? Did He assume a true and a real
humanity, joined inseparably and for eternity to a true and
a genuine divinity or true Godhead? Is there in Jesus Christ true
humanity? true divinity in its loftiest
sense of meaning. Is this Jesus the Christ of God? Not from Johnny come lately,
self-appointed Savior, but the Messiah, the long-promised One. And he says any spirit that does
not confess the reality of what was done in the virgin's womb
is not of God. The test of the spirit is not
subjective and experiential, it is objective and confessional. And would to God that that lesson
would be learned by our generation. Oh, it must be the Holy Spirit,
because I just have such a feeling of love. And because the name
of Jesus is sprinkled amidst all of this love, people say,
must be of God. No, no, no, the test is not subjective
and experiential, it is objective and confessional. Try the spirits,
every spirit that confesses, not. So you see, whatever the
Holy Ghost does throughout the entire period, until the work
down here is done, he'll never contradict what he did in the
Virgin's womb. In precisely the same way, he
will never contradict what he did through the Apostles' pens. Turn to Galatians chapter 1. Galatians Chapter 1, and verse 6, I marvel that ye
are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace
of Christ unto a different gospel, which is not another gospel,
only there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ. But, now notice the significance
of this, but the we, Paul includes himself, But though we, or an
angel from heaven, should preach unto you any other gospel than
that which we preached unto you, let him be—and then Paul reaches
into the grab-bag of his Greek vocabulary, and he draws out
the strongest word he knows to pronounce upon a man the curse
of God—let him be anathema, accursed of God. It's as though someone
said, now, Paul, your volatile Jewish spirit has run away from
you. You're not quite mean to say it that decidedly, do you? Look at the next verse. As we
have said before, so say I now again, if any man preacheth unto
you any gospel other than that which he received, let him be
a blasphemer. Now, let's look at these words
for a few minutes and examine. Here's a man that comes running
into the assembly of the saints at Galatia on a Sunday morning,
and he says, Oh, my brothers and sisters and my fellow elders,
I must tell you what happened to me last night. The Apostle
Paul visited me. Oh, he did? Oh, yes. There came
a rap on my door at 10 o'clock at night, and I said, Who is
it at this terrible hour? Remember, that's before the days
of light bulbs. and all these other gadgets that keep us up
to these unearthly hours. And he said, why, it's Paul,
it is I, the apostle. And so he runs to the door and
lets him in, and after a little chit-chat about the weather and
past things and a few shipwrecks and all the rest, then he said,
he said to me, now my brother, I've come to tell you that the
gospel I delivered you when I was with you on my previous visit
was lacking in some essential elements. I've come to tell you
that my message that men are justified before God on the basis
of the righteousness of Christ alone, imputed to the man who
believes, period, Christ alone, faith alone, I've come to see
that that message which I brought to you was true as far as it
went, but I have a few things I want to add to it now. And
I want to add to Christ a little bit of circumcision, and add
to Christ a little bit of ceremonial law, and add to faith a little
bit of works. Paul says, if such a man comes
running into your assembly and tells you that he heard from
my lips a different gospel than that which you received from
my lips, let him be laughed about. Why? Because, he said, when I
came to you as an apostle, I didn't come with my own insights, which
always need refinement and development. I came as an appointed messenger
with a gospel received from heaven. And when the God of truth has
spoken, he never rescinds his word. How many times I've had
to say as a preacher to my people, In the course of ten years of
ministry amongst them, when I treated this subject so many years ago,
there was so many facets of it I didn't understand and didn't
see. Some facets I was in downright error and acknowledge it and
ask their forgiveness and seek to lead them into my present
understanding of the truth. But God, the Holy Ghost, never
needs to do that. And apostles who speak under
his inspiration need never do it. Ah, but then here's another
brother. He comes in five minutes later.
The assembly's just gotten quieted down from this fella. And he
stands up and says, Oh, my fellow elders and my brothers and sisters,
I must tell you what happened last night. I'd just gotten off
to sleep. The seagulls had gone for the
night and all the crying babies at the conference were down for
the night. And all the people that sit out on porches and talk
till the wee hours of the morning were gone for the night. And
I had gone off into the land of naught. And suddenly, I heard
the strangest flutter. It sounded like some seagulls
were in the room. And this flutter of wings startled
me. And I awoke and looked around to see from whence it came. And
suddenly there was a light in the corner of the room. And in
the direction of the flutter of wings, the light grew brighter
and brighter until an angel stood there in all the praising glory
of the God from whose presence he came. And he spoke to me.
By this time, everyone in the assembly is there, their eyes
just bugging out and their ears all attentive. Tell us, my brother,
what did the angel say? The voice of the angel spoke
with a voice that caused my heart to be filled with a mingled sense
of dread and holy ecstasy. It must have been the very voice
of God. Brother, what did the angel say?
The angel said to me, I have come from the presence of God.
I have come to tell you that the gospel Paul brought to you
needs a little bit of alteration. Paul says, the minute that angel
opens his mouth, you look him right in his bright, shining
eyes, and you say, Angel, you're under the curse of God. Leave me. And then he said, Stop
your ears. To everything he says, though
he's an angel, apparently from the very presence of heaven. Now, is that what the text says,
or does it not? Though we, or an angel from heaven
should preach any other gospel, let him be. Why? Because the truth has come
as a fixed revelation, and everything the Holy Ghost says from this
point on will always be in the strictest accord with what He
said in the once-for-all final apostolic revelation. And oh, again, I trust that the
Holy Spirit will burn this principle into our hearts so that we will
be kept from errors on the left hand and on the right, that will
be done with this itch that's in all of us for some easy path
to spiritual blessing, some easy path to spiritual knowledge.
We'd love to be carried into new vistas of spiritual perception
on the crest of some ecstatic vision or some ecstatic transport
into the world of angels. The old path of coming back to
the book of God, whether I feel like it or I don't, and coming
into the house of God with my mind filled with a thousand distractions,
and crying to God that I'll bring every thought captive to the
obedience of Christ, and listening to the Word, receiving it with
meekness, meditating upon it, praying it in, working it out. We get weary of that old path,
don't we? And they say, with the Israelites, we're tired of
this manner. Oh yeah, it's from heaven. And
it's good for all our needs, but we're just tired of it. We've
got an itch for something else. So that unholy itch infects the
people of God. And because it infects one, and
he becomes drunk with the heady wine of his supposed new insights,
all he need do is begin to tell people about how the angel came
to him and spoke to him, and how he believes he's a twentieth-century
apostle, And there are thousands who will follow Him, because
they don't want the old path either. Oh, my dear brothers
and sisters, anything God ever says by the Spirit, from now
until the Lord Jesus returns again, will always be consistent
with what He did in the virgin's womb and in the fingers and pens
of the apostolic writers. Now, having laid out, I trust,
the doctrine Let me now draw out some lines of practical application. And where the first half of the
sermon has made you, I trust, think intently. I hope you will
still think, though I don't believe the demands upon your mind for
close, reasoned argument will be as strenuous, and I hope then
that God will help us as we make the application. The first I
want to make is this. When the spirit is most powerfully
at work, in the church and in the world, there will be found
the most careful adherence to the written word and to doctrine.
Turn to the second chapter of Acts, if you will, please. And I believe, as a number of
commentators have indicated, that Acts 2, though it has certain
characteristics that will never be repeated any more than what
happened when the angel came to Mary and spoke to her, implanted
within her womb, the very life of the Son of God can never be
repeated. Certain phenomena will never
be repeated. There is a sense in which this
first outpouring of the Spirit is a specimen of what God does
whenever he pours out his Spirit in power upon his people. Now,
I don't think the most wild-eyed person who has such grandiose
ideas of the work of the Spirit would debate that what we have
in Acts 2 is a mighty, powerful work of Spirit. When, through
the testimony of 120 and the preaching of one, 3,000 are brought
forth. And remember, Luke wrote about
30 years after Pentecost, and he could say, 30 years after
these all continued steadfastness. That's a work of God. But now,
what does the Holy Ghost underscore? as the first characteristic of
those who were swept into the kingdom under that mighty movement
of the Spirit of God, the same Spirit who came upon the hundred
and twenty, the same Spirit who endued Peter to preach with clarity,
simplicity, and with penetrating uncertainty. The same Spirit
who effectually called them. The same Spirit who revealed
Christ to them. What does He do in His subsequent
work? Look at the first thing that that same Holy Ghost underscores. Here it is. Verse 41. Then they that received His word
were baptized, and there were added unto them in that day about
three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly
in what? the apostles' teaching. Fellowship, breaking of bread,
and prayers. And all of their fellowship,
and all of the breaking of bread, whether that's the common meal
or the sacramental meal, and all of their fellowship was carried
out within the framework of, and constantly submitted to,
apostolic teaching. You see, the Holy Ghost, who
so powerfully wrought upon them, did not give them a sense why
this is so wonderful and we've been brought in in such blessing.
We don't need that dry old teaching and point one and point two and
point three. We've got this Spirit amongst
us in such grace and power, and we're carried along in the tide
of His present experimental movement and power. We don't need that
old teaching business. No, no. Holy Ghost to indwell
them immediately, fuse their hearts in reverent submission
to and eager hunger for apostolic teaching. And He always works
that way. So when He is most powerfully
present in the conversion of sinners and in the building up
of the Church, you will always be able to detect His working
by this careful adherence to the Word and to doctrine. Of course, this is one of the
beautiful outworkings of the whole blessings of the New Covenant. For what does God say in summarizing
those blessings in Hebrews 8 and 10? This is what He says, I will take out the heart of
stone and give them a heart of flesh. I will write my law upon
their hearts, and upon their minds will I write them. So that
the person is, as it were, born into the kingdom with a positive
and powerful affinity for the objective revelation of the living
God. Second implication that I see
in the doctrine that I've tried to lay before you tonight is
this. painstaking, careful, exegetical preaching is not an enemy to life, power,
and blessing in the Church of Jesus Christ. As I've been privileged
to carry on a limited measure of itinerant ministry, particularly
in pastors' conferences and Bible schools and a few churches here
and there, I'm amazed how many people have this false dichotomy
between life and power and between careful, painstaking study of
the Word of God. And they've got this idea that
if we're going to have life and power, we just better not get
too serious about studying the Bible, about the grammar in which
the Holy Ghost spoke to us, and about context, and about the
historical setting, and the background. No, no, no, no, no! The minute
you do that, there's deadness, and more life, and dryness, and
intellectual sterility. If you really want power, then
all you do is pray, and all you do is wait, and all you do is
open yourself to the influence of the Spirit, whatever that
is. On the other hand, you have those who say, ah, I'm not for
any of that fanaticism, Bible study, Bible study, the Word,
the Word, that's all I'm interested in. Let a man get some degree
of holy joy. Let a man get some degree of
holy zeal in witness or in preaching, and that's looked upon as fanaticism. Let a man, let a congregation
experience something of the holy surprises, of the presence of
the Holy Ghost, when you may pray again upon your order of
service and institute his own. Immediately. You know, that's
just the outskirts of Pentecostalism. Oh, my dear people, there should
not be this false tradition and dichotomy between painstaking,
careful exegesis of the Word in both our own lives and in
preaching and in our common worship, and the life and power and blessing
of the Holy Ghost in the Church. Jesus said in John 6, 63, the
words that I speak unto you They are spirit and they are life. If we would have the spirit and
life, we must be attached to the words that Jesus speaks.
It's interesting how, again, the Holy Spirit guided the early
church to recognize this. In Acts 6, you have the record
of that little bit of a fuss that began to come between the
widows, the Grecians, and the Hebrew widows. Some feeling they
were neglected, and though caring for widows is part of pure and
undefiled religion, the apostles say it's not meek that we should
leave the Word of God to serve tables. So they said, appoint
seven men to what end? That we may give ourselves to
prayer and the what? The ministry of the Word. To
give ourselves to prayer and detach ourselves from the Word
is to open the door to subjectivism. to the influence of evil spirits,
and to wild-eyed fanaticism, or, even that which is less evil
but nonetheless evil, to unexplained and uncommunicable experience
to others. For whatever raptures and ecstasies
I may experience in my dealings with God in prayer, I must explain
them biblically. On the other hand, simply to
give ourselves to the study and preaching of the Word, careful
exegesis, careful analysis, clear structure, lively preaching,
sermons that sing with life and freshness, not to give ourselves
to prayer, is to lead people into thinking that a mere grasp
upon the shell of the content of the Bible is the essence of
true religion, when the Bible is not an end in itself. That
word was given to set forth Christ, that He may become precious in
leading us into intimate and vital communion with the Triune
God. Just as certainly as he died
to bring us to God, so he speaks to the apostolic authority that
we might be brought unto God. And so I urge you never to allow
this false division between painstaking, careful study of the Word and
the vital, powerful ministry of the Spirit. Never, I say,
allow this false dichotomy to be set up in your mind. So we've
got two principles. Where the Spirit is most powerfully
at work, there will be the most careful adherence to the written
Word. Painstaking study of the Word is no enemy of life and
power. Third principle. True biblical
preaching is the main instrument in calling out the elect of God. True biblical preaching is the
main instrument in calling out the elect of God. If you have
any doubts, just read Romans 10. Whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall they call on
Him whom they have not heard? How shall they call on Him whom
they have not heard? Not in whom, but whom they have
not heard. It's a more accurate rendition
of the original. Christ speaks. He calls the sheep. And how can they call upon Him
if He's not called them through the word? Then Paul goes on to
develop his argument. He said, how can there be any
voice of Christ to call on His sheep, unless there be preachers?
And how can there be preachers, except they be sent? And there
is the distinctly commissioned vessel sent by God, sent by the
Church, to speak the Word of God, that as He speaks the Word,
the voice of Christ is heard, and men call upon Him. Beloved, if you've not heard
Christ's voice, you're not a Christian. You've just heard the clever
arguments of a preacher and responded to them, or the overpowering
pressures of some hyper-personality, if the voice of Christ has not
reached your heart, you're not a Christian. He said, Other sheep
I have, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice
speaking through the exposition and the preaching of the Word.
And may I make an observation here? It's interesting. But again,
I don't speak out of ignorance. I try to read materials that
will help me to speak with some degree of accuracy in these things.
When I was receiving for some time the Full Gospel Businessmen's
Voice, the official organ of the Full Gospel Businessmen's
Association, one of the leading factors in the Neo-Pentecostal
movement, as I've been receiving the Logos magazine, as I have
read other Pentecostal literature, both old and new and in between,
One thing I note again and again, this is not a blanket generalization,
but it is, in most cases, true. The central place is given to
testimony. I was in this state, and then
I went to this meeting, or I heard this other thing, and I this,
and I that, and then I got this, and this did this, and this,
and this, and this, and this, and this for me. Testimony, testimony,
testimony is central in the whole ethos and mood of this movement. And then you have these neophytes
people supposedly saved for just a couple of months and I had
one of them stand up in a meeting in which I preached out in Seattle
a few months ago. But after careful and I trust
painstaking exegetical study with what I trust had something
of the breath of the Spirit upon it, and the pastor closed the
meeting. One of these fellows who'd been saved, whether he
was saved, God knows, out of a total life of biblical ignorance,
only a matter of probably a couple of months or a few weeks, stood
up to give a prophecy, spoke in the first person, I the Lord
say unto thee. We were all supposed to be awed,
I guess, that God was speaking to us. And all he gave us was
some poorly quoted passages of the New Testament in yet more
poorly quoted Elizabethan English. And it's always strange to me
that the Holy Ghost prophesies in Elizabethan English. I've not yet been in a meeting
where there was so-called prophetic utterances, but what the Holy
Ghost spoke in Elizabethan English. Now, why am I saying this? To
throw stones? God have mercy. No. No. But to help you to realize, dear
child of God, that when you feel something of the burden of the
barrenness of your own church to bring forth children, When
you feel the barrenness of your own life in the area of biblical
salvage, don't go looking for some new thing. Try to gob to
attend the preached word with power, and if he won't honor
the preached word, then pray on, weep on, wait on until he
comes. vindicates his own truth and
his own method. True biblical preaching is the
main instrument in the salvation of men, as opposed to testimony,
and secondly, as opposed to miracle. There are those who say, oh,
if we could just see some miracles. And I venture to say, if I did a
little man-on-the-street survey, And some of you got Judgment
Day honesty with me. Our Judgment Day honest with
me. You'd admit that down underneath, periodically, you have secret
hankerings that God would do some stupendous physical miracles.
Don't you, huh? You say, boy, if that man on
our block, it has to be put into his wheelchair every day. wheeled
out into his special van, and if I could just go to him and
say, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, right up and walk,
that would cause the whole neighborhood to say, who is this Christ? You
really feel that, don't you? Now, may I shock you by telling
you where that doctrine started? That miracle will do in the salvation
of men what the Scriptures won't. You know where that doctrine
originated? It originated in hell. Yes it did. You turn to Luke
16 and you'll see it. Here's a man in hell. And what
is his cry? We will not go into whether or
not it was sincere or what the motive behind it may be. Let's
just take it at face value. Luke 16. The man in hell speaks
of his brothers. Verse 28. I have five brethren. send him to these brethren. He said, I pray therefore that
thou would send him to my father's house for I have five brethren
that he may testify to them lest they come to this place of torment.
Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear
them. If they would escape the wrath
to come, there is a fixed revelation. They have the Word of God, the
Old Testament Scriptures. Let them begin to take the Scripture
seriously." And he said, "'Nay, Father Abraham, that's not enough. The Scriptures are not enough.
There is not enough self-authentication in the Word of God written. Send one from the dead, and they'll
repent." Let someone come with his graveclaws hanging off him
and say, I've been raised from the dead on this basis. Hear
my message. Does Abraham buy that theology?
He says, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will
they be persuaded if one rise from the dead. That's the teaching
of the word of God. Neither will they be persuaded,
though one rise from the dead, through biblical preaching, the
proclamation of Moses and the prophets and Paul and the other
apostles, if God is not pleased to make this ritual to men's
salvation. Miracles have no inherently greater
power to subdue the rebel wills of men and display the glory
of Christ. And the fourth principle, and
I'll touch on it just briefly because I've already hinged at
it. If the work of the Spirit is inseparably tied to the written
word, then intelligible communication of the word is the primary means
of the edification of the people of God. When Paul treats the
peculiar gifts manifested in the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians
14, He makes very clear that the whole purpose of all the
gifts is edification, and he says, for edification, I would
rather speak five words in a language that can be understood than ten
thousand words in an unknown tongue in the midst of the church.
Why? Because prophecy, intelligible, easy to be understood communication
of divine revelation is the primary means of edification. I did not
say exclusive. We need to exhort one another
day by day. We need to bear one another's
burdens. We need all of the other biblical admonitions to support
one another, to care one for another, to weep with one another,
to laugh with one another. But the primary means that gives
direction and discipline and wholesome perspective to every
other means of edification is the intelligible communication
of the Word of God written. So when some of you begin to
hear the whine of some of your half-converted young people,
well, we, preaching doesn't turn us on. Too bad. Tell them they'll
go to hell unless it does. And I say that lovingly to you
young people who say, ah, the church turns me on. Pastor standing
up there saying, turn in your Bibles, and then tells us point
one, and turns to the passage and opens it up, point two, I'm
tired of that. Oh, dear unconverted, young person
or adult, your weariness will become intense agony in hell. If you will not hear Moses and
the prophets preached by a godly servant of Christ, hell's flames
will be tenfold hotter for you than the pagan who never darkens
the door of something called a Christian church. Dear child
of God, this is true of you and of me. in our longing for edification. Look at that classic example
in the 24th chapter of Luke. Here are two dejected disciples. If they had concrete streets
in those days, they'd have had bloody chins. Their chins were
hanging so low, they were scraping on the pavement. Shoulders stooped,
eyes cast down, commiserating together, having what we call
in our family a pity party. And one of the children begins
to be cranky about something. We say, well, let's all come
together and have a pity party. Well, they were having one. We
had hoped that it had been he who would have redeemed Israel.
But all our hopes are dashed. Then what happens? The Lord Jesus
begins to repute all fools and slow heart. Then he begins to
do what? To open up the Scriptures. Behooved
it not Christ to suffer. Verse 27 of Luke 24, beginning
from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all
the scriptures the things concerning himself. And then you know the
story, how he reveals himself as they sit at meat. And then
as they look back, what is their testimony? They said, verse 32,
one to another, did not our hearts burn within us while he spake
to us in the way? and opened up the Scriptures.
My friend, I'm suspicious of any burning heart that has as
its fuel anything other than the Word of God. If anything else makes your heart
burn but the fuel of the Word written, opened up by the Lord
Jesus through the Spirit to the mind, You better be careful of that
fire. It may be kindled in hell and not upon God's altar. Did
not our hearts burn when, when He opened unto us the Scriptures? Don't look for a burning heart.
In some non-rational, ecstatic, subjective experience, my friend,
immerse yourself, baptize yourself in the mind of God in Scripture,
and then all the fire you can contain, God will give you. And
then don't be afraid of it when He gives it. May God deliver
us from thinking that when the Lord saves us, He neuters us
in the realm of our emotions. No, He doesn't. It's my Bible
that speaks of joy unspeakable and full of glory. When I read
David speaking of clapping his hands for joy, I would imagine
that there ought to be a few people whose personality is like
David, that if they get blessed, they clap their hands. Now, don't
try it in one of our Reformed Baptist churches. That might
get you in trouble. I'm not downgrading emotion. What I'm saying is that the burning
heart, the blessed heart, the overflowing heart, the bubbling
heart, all of that is right and proper if its source is the Word
of God opened and Jesus Christ set forth. Then I touch just
two other things very quickly. If the initial principle we started
with is true, the inseparable relationship between the Word
and the Spirit, then all of the spirits leading work will be
within the framework of revealed truth. Oh, how many things the
Lord gets blamed for. Why are you doing this? Well,
we've prayed and we feel the Lord has led us. What a multitude
of sins has been covered by that pious phrase. I've often thought
if there was one day when God would speak audibly from heaven,
every time one of his children said, the Lord led me, When God
had nothing to do with that meeting and thundered out, I did nothing
of the sort, I think we'd all be deaf. Oh, how we deceive ourselves.
We want something. And we know that it's not right
to want things that may not be within the will of God, so rather
than say, Holy Spirit, illuminate the Scriptures, bring to remembrance
the principles that I've been absorbing and feeding upon and
assimilating, crucify afresh my own carnal desires, slay my
own selfish itches, give me the grace to objectively weigh the
principles, and then seek the counsel of others who may be
able to be much more objective than I, especially when it comes
to things that I have my affection set upon, like a girlfriend,
a boyfriend, a wife, a husband, a new car, a new home, a more
lucrative job. And after weighing the principles
and weighing upon God, When I can, in the face of the revealed Word
of God, act in faith, then I am being led by the Spirit. But
what we do so often is, with a sneaking suspicion that God
may not want us to have it, we go into our closets and spend
a little time in prayer so that neutralizes our disobedience.
Then we can go out and piously say, Well, I'm doing this because
the Lord let me. I've prayed about it. Oh, God, deliver us
from such pious fraud. The Holy Ghost will never lead
you to anything that contradicts any explicit precept or any implied
principle of the Word of God. Never. And the last thing I say is that
all of the Spirit's unifying work in the Church will be carried
on in the context of truth. Read Ephesians 4. Paul says,
endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit, and that word endeavor
is a strong word. Strive to keep the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace, for there is one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and
over all and in you all. And that unity for which Paul
pleads is a unity not divorced from truth, but within the framework
of truth. Look at John 17. Long before
Jesus says, I pray they may be one, He identifies who they are.
He said, these are the people to whom I've given your words,
and they have received your words. Not some of them, but all of
them. They've received them not selectively,
but comprehensively. He says, I pray for them, that
they may be one. Unity within the framework of
truth. And so when people say, oh, it's
a wonderful thing the Holy Spirit is doing, and they're He's healing
the rift between Rome and the Reformation in this great movement
of the baptism of the Spirit. And there are people dead serious
about this. I'm not just barking up a tree.
And they say this is a most unique thing. Where truth is divided
for centuries, the Holy Ghost is, as it were, leapfrogging
over truth and bringing unity in the context of the life of
the Spirit. And so the Romanist goes on praying
to Mary, and to God alone knows how many other so-called saints
and Romish priests still go through their superstitious and magical
hocus-pocus. Turn that cup, they say, into
the very blood of Christ and that wafer into his body, and
they clog up the way to Christ. with tradition and with the authority
of the Pope who dares to claim to be the thicker of Christ,
usurper of the role of the Holy Ghost in all of its blasphemy.
And they say the Holy Ghost is bringing unity between that and
those who confess that Jesus Christ alone is Lord of the Church.
There is but one final court of authority, the Word of God,
written. There is one sacrifice for sin
offered forever. I ask you, my dear friends, can
this be a unity wrought by the Spirit of truth that nails truth
upon some cross of expediency and says, away with truth, but
let us have unity? No, no, the spirits work, and
this is, I think, the born witness to in revivals. When the Holy
Ghost comes powerfully in revival, what he does is not put a disposition
in people to forget truth and to say, well, truth divides us,
let's put it under a rug. What he does is this. By his
presence in power, he creates a greater teachableness to truth.
greater measure of illumination to truth, and he brings the Church
of Christ to a greater, a broader, a more comprehensive commitment
to the truth. And then what he does, in some
of those areas of lesser importance—I'm calling them areas of importance,
my adjective does not negate the word importance— But some
of those areas of lesser importance, which once would have been a
cause of suspicion and division, such as matters pertaining to
church government and baptism and other areas, he, with his
fresh outpouring, gives such love and grace that we are able,
in the broad spectrum of commitment to the great content of truth,
to bear with one another in love and forbearance and keep the
channels of communication open trusting that the Spirit who's
led us to this much truth and oneness of mind will yet lead
us on to further oneness in these other areas. My starry-eyed ideal
is to say that it is my prayer and my hope, and at times I can
say my faint, weak little vision that I seem to catch for just
a little while and then ignores, that God will yet bring his true
people to much greater oneness of mind and heart in great areas
of truth? What is there that can match
the unifying power of truth? Isn't that what's bound us together
here as a worshipping assembly tonight? Isn't it? The power
of truth! You've not been enticed here
because there was an announcement that 35 gospel bell ringers were
going to parade up on a platform? that some half-converted rock
artist was going to come and twang out his jungle musics interspersed
with a few ditties about Jesus? And again, I'm not barking up
a tree. I receive the notices of the
major Bible conferences in this country. And I see what's in
the ads. And I see what evangelicals are
being baited with. They're gospel bell ringers and
they're New World singers. I've had the pain of having to
minister at some of those conferences, and after an hour of this falder-all,
expected to give a little 20 or 30-minute exposition. Oh,
dear ones, God has been good to us. Let us not take His goodness
for granted. He's brought us together and
united us in His truth. Place within us a hunger, O God,
we know but the edges of your ways. Lead us on into more truth. This one is your prayer. It's
mine. And may God be pleased to answer
it, even in these days. I said that was the last one,
but I've got to stick one more on. All of the Spirit's work in His
most powerful workings will never breach the order of the Word
of God. 1 Corinthians 14, someone said, Oh Paul, I just can't speak
in tongues, I can't help it. Are you the third or the fourth
one? Well, I would be number. If anyone speaks in tongues,
let it be by two at the most, by three. Yeah, but the spirit
of the prophets is subject to the prophets. Some woman stands
up and says, Oh, but I had to prophesy. Paul says, You did?
He said, I suffer not a woman to speak in the church. Oh yes,
but the Holy Ghost came up. Paul said, I suffer not a woman
to teach. And he said, if any man be spiritual, 1 Corinthians
14, 37, let him acknowledge that the words that I speak of you
are the words of the Lord. And yet I'm amazed at the indifference
to these biblical directives. People say, well, you know, you've
got to make exceptions. When the spirit really comes with power, then
your orders got to go. Now, listen, he may alter the
order we've set up, but never the order he set up. And when
women start saying God's calling them to preach and exhort, I
say that can't be the Holy Ghost, because He said through Paul,
I suffer not a woman to teach, nor do you usurp authority over
the men. All of that was culturally conditioned. That's just a high-sounding
out for saying, I will not be subject to the Word of God. All
of the Spirit's work, and no matter what God does for us in
these days, and all that He'd surprise us and come down with
power and break it upon us, He will never do anything that breaks
the framework of the order of Holy Scripture. Well, you see,
there are all kinds of implications, and I hope that these seven that
I've drawn out will be a very practical and pastoral word to
us. and that my exhortation to the unconverted amongst us men,
women, fellows, or girls will be heeded. My friend, if what
we say to you in Christ's name from this book will not persuade
you to turn from sin and embrace the Savior, then you'll have
to perish, for God will have no other means to call you to
Himself. Oh, that that means may be effectual
even during this week. Call upon Him. Seek Him while
He may be found. He is a gracious, and an inviting
Savior who speaks through His Word to you this night, to you
as this Word of salvation said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved.