My given understanding will resolve
many of the problems which arise in these more controversial areas. I'm limiting myself to the work
of the Holy Spirit, particularly in applying salvation to sinners. We're not dealing with His work
in creation. His work relative to the incarnation
of the Son of God, nor particularly his work in giving us this, the
very inscripturated revelation of God, those things are dealt
with very comprehensively in such books as John Owen, Volume
3, and in some of the other standard works on the Holy Spirit. And
so those of you that really have something more than a passing
fancy and you want to find out what this particular preacher's
theory is or views are, those of you who are really in earnest
about plumbing the depths of the work of the Spirit beginning
in creation and right through the scriptures, then you'll take
the time to plow into Owen or to get Volume 6 of Goodwin's
work on the work of the Holy Ghost in our salvation and other
such standard treatises on the work of the Spirit. Now, what
I propose to do in the sessions allotted to me are, first of
all, tonight, to consider with you the importance of having
biblically framed thinking concerning the distinctive ministry of the
Holy Spirit in our salvation. Why is it important that you,
and I'm using the word you, I mean all of you, I'm conscious there
are 7 and 8 and 10 and 12 and 17 and 70 year olds here tonight, Why is it important that you,
that all of us together, have biblically framed understanding
concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation? Then,
after considering that, I wish to begin tonight, and then, God
willing, conclude tomorrow, to consider with you five fundamental
principles relative to the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
It is for lack of an understanding of these broad principles, which
are guidelines, that men shoot off into error on the left hand
and on the right, and because they shoot off into error, they
then find their lives fouled up in one way or another with
reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. Then the Lord willing,
we'll spend two sessions looking at our Lord's teaching on the
new birth, regeneration by the Holy Spirit from John 3, and
then I propose to conclude the series with an exposition of
Ephesians 4.30 on Grieve Not. the Holy Spirit. So you see,
there is very little interrelationship in a logical way. I have been
very arbitrary in selecting the field of study, but I trust I
have not been without some measure of the Lord's guidance in doing
this. Now then, first of all, why is
it important that you and I have a biblically framed understanding
of the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit in our salvation? Well, let me suggest several
lines of thought in answer to that question. First of all,
our conception of salvation is biblical only if it is decidedly
and self-consciously Trinitarian. Now, what do I mean by self-consciously? Well, here's a fellow who goes
around for days and never thinks of his nose. He's got a nose,
but he's not self-conscious about it. But you let him get stung
by a queen bee right on the end of his nose. and let that nose
swell up to about twice its size, and he has become very self-conscious
about his nose. His nose is no longer something
he carries around, taking it for granted. He's aware that
it's there, it fills both corners of his vision. He's sure that
anyone who looks at him from even 400 yards away is looking
right at that big red bulbous nose hanging out there in front
of him. What was there and taken for
granted has suddenly become a concern, a self-conscious concern and
awareness. Now this is what I mean by the
term self-conscious awareness that our salvation is a Trinitarian
salvation. I direct your attention to Ephesians
chapter 1. In this chapter, where the Apostle
Paul gives us, perhaps in the shortest compass, the most comprehensive
overview of the magnitude of grace in salvation, the Apostle
Paul explicitly states the place of
the Father in our salvation. He begins by saying in verse
3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ. He's not content with just a
general statement of the Father's part in our salvation. He very
specifically then draws out those facets of our salvation which
are the peculiar work of the Father. And he touches, of course,
such subjects as election, foreordination, verses 4 and 5. And then there
is a shift in emphasis, and though the whole work of the Trinity
is there, it's as though the spotlight moves from the Father
not forgetting the Father, nor the Spirit, but then the spotlight
zooms in, as it were, upon the Son. And he speaks in verse 6,
grace that was bestowed on us in the Beloved. In whom? Now the Son is in focus. We have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses
according to the riches of His grace, and then he goes on to
talk how the wisdom of God overflowed to us in Jesus Christ. He is
self-consciously aware of the part the Father has in the redemption
of men. He is self-consciously aware
of the part that the Son has in the redemption of men. But
he is not content simply to infer the work of the Holy Spirit.
But he goes on then in verses 13 and 14 to say, Now do you
see what the Apostle is doing? Though the work of the Spirit
is implicit, that is, it is there in the background in the first
twelve verses, the Apostle Paul is not content that it should
be there implicitly. He draws it out explicitly, and
he states it with unmistakable clarity that his salvation is
one not only rooted in the purpose of the Father, and in the redemption
that is in the Son, but in the sealing work of God the Holy
Spirit. This is what I mean by being
self-consciously Trinitarian as we think about our so great
salvation. Now I would suggest to you that
this thinking alone does justice to the Great Commission. This
is not a theology, an issue just for theologians. Jesus said to
his disciples, to his apostles, and we believe that commission
has now found its residence in the church, in its commission,
make disciples of all the nations, Matthew 28, 19, baptizing them
into the name of that God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other words, when men are
brought into the visible community of the people of God, when they
are baptized, when they take the sign of covenant relationship
with the living God, they are not to think of Him only as God,
who is Father. God who is Son, but God who is
also Holy Spirit, so that on the very threshold of the Christian
life, men are to think of this God who has saved them as Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father as the original cause
of their salvation, the Son as their Redeemer, and the Holy
Spirit as their Sanctifier. And that perspective that meets
the people of God on the threshold is to carry right on into every
aspect of their Christian development. So when the Apostle Paul pronounces
a blessing upon the church at Corinth, how does he do it? In
2 Corinthians 13, 14, he pronounces the blessing in these terms,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion
of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Now are those just pretty
words so that preachers have something to say at the end of
a service? No! As the Apostle thinks of
the Church of God at Corinth and the source of all their blessings
and graces and gifts, he thinks of that source as Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. And just as no Christian is considered
an intelligent, biblically schooled Christian who knows nothing of
what the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is, who cannot give some
kind of a biblical description of the love of God the Father. So the Apostle teaches us that
if a person is ignorant of communion in the Holy Spirit, which is
a term of intimate sharing and fellowship, something is defective
in his Christian thinking. And so I say, our thinking concerning
salvation is terribly defective and unbiblical unless it is self-consciously
Trinitarian. In fact, a careful study of the
New Testament reveals that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the
crowning blessing of the New Covenant. We read in Galatians
chapter 3, verses 13 and 14, that Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is
written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. To what end? That upon the Gentiles might
come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus, that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, So the whole end
for which Christ gave himself as the surety of his people is
that they might receive the blessing of the Spirit. When Peter preached
on the day of Pentecost, this is the perspective of his preaching.
When they were smitten in the heart, literally when they were
stabbed as with a dagger as he preached, pricked in their heart,
the King James Version says. It's a mild rendering. They were
wounded with the wound of God. Let me say in passing, if you've
never been so wounded, you're a Christian only in name. They
were wounded with that realization of their guilt in the presence
of the God of whom Peter was preaching, and they cried out,
Sirs, what shall we do? And Peter's answer was, repent
and be baptized, every one of you, and ye shall receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is unto you, and
to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many
as the Lord our God shall call unto him." So then, the promise
of the Spirit was set forth as the crowning blessing of coming
into union with Jesus Christ. So I say this subject is tremendously
important because our thinking concerning salvation is sub-biblical
unless it is self-consciously Trinitarian. Secondly, our worship
is biblical only if it is decidedly and self-consciously Trinitarian. Notice again, in Ephesians 1,
this is not a theological lecture delivered at the theological
college wherever Paul was particularly residing at that time. This is
a hymn of praise. As the Apostle Paul contemplated
the full range of Trinitarian salvation, he did not do so simply
as the cold, calculating theologian who is chopping up the works
of God and analyzing them and setting them out in logical array.
No, no. As the Apostle Paul thought of
his great Trinitarian salvation, he left theologizing and he burst
into eulogizing. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a three-stanzad hymn
of praise. Praise to the Father, praise
to the Son, praise to the Holy Ghost. And so our worship must
likewise, if it is to be biblical, be decidedly and self-consciously
Trinitarian. Now, if I were preaching, In
circles, commonly called Pentecostal, as I was privileged to do a few
months ago in ministering at a Pentecostal Bible Institute,
I would focus on the necessity of worshipping the Father. I
would focus upon the necessity of worshipping the Son. But I'm
not speaking in Pentecostal circles. And I believe it is accurate
to say that in most evangelical and even Reformed circles, The
danger is that we relegate the person and ministry of the Holy
Spirit to the realm of theory, so that worship to the Spirit
does not enter into the fiber of our heart worship. And I submit
to you that such worship is sub-biblical. Our worship is biblical only
if it is decidedly and self-consciously Trinitarian. This is not a new
problem. Goodwin, writing several hundred
years ago, said these words, There is a general omission in
the saints of God, in their not giving the Holy Ghost that glory
that is due His person, and for His great work of salvation in
us, insomuch that we have in our hearts almost lost this third
person. Notice what he says. Not in our
heads, but he said we have almost lost Him in our hearts. And that's where true worship
comes from. Jesus said the Father seeks those to worship him in
spirit and in truth. That is worship that flows from
the feet of our being. And from the feet of our being
it must be decidedly Trinitarian. We give daily in our thoughts,
prayers, and affections and speeches an honor to the Father and the
Son. But who almost directs the aims
of his praise more than in that general way of doxology? Unto
God the Holy Ghost. He is a person in the Godhead
equal with the Father and the Son, and the work he does for
us in its kind is as great as those of the Father and of the
Son. Therefore, by the equity of all
law, a proportionate honor from us is due unto him." And then
he goes on to establish this biblically, that honor is due
him because he is God and has his own distinct work in our
salvation. One of the fruits of a conference
like this should be that we go back to our churches better able
to be true worshipers. If you've not risen above that
very infantile mentality that thinks of going to church as
simply going to get something from the preacher, you haven't
even gotten out of kindergarten. You gather with the people of
God to give something to the God who made you and the God
who has redeemed you in Jesus Christ. You come as his people
to bring him spiritual sacrifices. Peter says, we're a holy temple
built up together, made a kingdom of priests within that temple
to do what? To offer up spiritual sacrifices
unto God. And one of those sacrifices is
the sacrifice of praise, according to the writer to Hebrews. And
if that praise is to be biblical, it must be decidedly Trinitarian. The Holy Spirit must enter into
our consciousness in our worship. And just as it is the reflex
response of a heart touched by the grace of God to worship the
Father, and particularly to magnify Him, for His work in election
and floor ordination, just as it is the reflex response of
a regenerate heart to worship the Son, for His humiliation,
His willingness to take upon Himself the limitations of a
man, to worship Him for His perfection in life, to worship Him for the
love that moved Him to lay down His life to worship Him for the
might and the triumph of His resurrection and ascension, to
worship Him for His continually giving of Himself to us in intercession. So I say it should be the reflex
response of a heart indwelt by the Spirit to worship the Spirit
for His mighty work in subduing our rebel will. to worship Him
for His gracious work of sealing and indwelling us even unto the
day of redemption. In the third place, it is important
that we have biblical concepts of the work of the Spirit in
our salvation because our service is biblical only if it is decidedly
and self-consciously Trinitarian. Not only is it sub-biblical if
our thinking about our salvation is not Trinitarian, not only
is it sub-biblical if our worship is anything less than decidedly
Trinitarian, our service is less than biblical. unless it too
is decidedly Trinitarian. That applies to our service within
the Church, ministering to one another in the family and household
of God, and also with reference to our service out of the Church
in the world. When the Apostle Paul treats
the whole subject of spiritual gifts, and the great end of those
gifts being the building up of the body of Christ, how does
he treat that subject? He says the Spirit gives to everyone
severally as He will, but to every man is given the manifestation
of the Spirit to profit withal. He could not think of gifts being
exercised under the service and ministry of edification without
being self-consciously Trinitarian. And you find in the treatment
of the whole subject of the gifts, there is this constant reference
to the Lord and to the Father and to the Spirit. And what is
true of our service within the Church is true without the Church. When Paul thinks of his service,
these are the terms he uses, and I quote now from 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony
of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Notice
the Father and the Son. He said, I came to you to declare
the testimony of God. The Father has committed me and
has given me a word to proclaim. And he says the focus of that
word is Jesus Christ in the uniqueness of his person and in the perfection
of his work. But in the next verse he says,
And my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words
of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. He
could not think of service being true service simply because he
was true to the testimony of the Father in his preaching.
simply because he was true to have the right theme in his preaching,
Christ and Him crucified? He says my service was marked
by the living and powerful energy of the Holy Spirit? My speech
and my preaching were in demonstration of the Spirit and of power? He
gives the same perspective when writing to the Thessalonians.
He says in verse 4 of his first letter to them in the first chapter,
knowing brethren beloved of God your election, how that our gospel
came unto you not in word only, but also in power, and in the
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. You see, the Holy Spirit was
not an abstract theological concept which the Apostle Paul dragged
out in case he happened to be on the grill with an ordination
council somewhere. No, no. His whole thinking about
the service of God was decidedly Trinitarian. He was conscious
that he spoke, to use another passage, as in the sight of God,
2 Corinthians chapter 2. He was conscious that the great
seeing was to be Christ, but he was also conscious that unless
there was that living presence and energy of the Spirit, he
was not a true servant of the living God. Now let me ask you,
in the light of those three things we've covered, Are you biblical
in your thinking about your salvation? Are you self-consciously Trinitarian? Let me get a little more close
to home. When you thanked God for saving you this morning,
or yesterday morning, or whenever you last prayed and gave thanks
to God, did you give thanks to the Father? Did you give thanks
to the Son? Did you give thanks to the Holy
Spirit? The last time you, my dear preacher
brother, the last time you prepared to preach, last Lord's Day, were
you conscious of your commission under the superintendence and
direction of the living God? Did you seek to have the fragrance
of Christ permeate that exposition? First two are not enough. Could
you say, even though you did not experience what Paul did
when he said, my speech and my preaching was not with enticing
words, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, did
you at least make that the object of fervent, humble prayer before
you ever ascended the pulpit, that God would breathe by His
Spirit? Did you cry to Him that He would
be pleased to magnify His Son? I say this subject of the person
and work of the Holy Spirit is absolutely vital if we would
be biblical in our thinking about salvation, in our worship, and
in our service. Now, the absence of this self-conscious
Trinitarian thinking and worship and service has had some terrible
consequences, and I want to underscore several of them in the next few
minutes. First of all, the absence of this self-conscious Trinitarian
thinking has robbed God of some of the glory due to Him. If God exists as Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, and if He is to be worshipped and loved as
He is, then to the extent that we obscure the proper place of
the Holy Spirit, We are robbing God of some of the glory that
is due unto Him. And though the delightful work
of the Holy Spirit is to testify of Christ, and to make Christ
precious, and to make Christ honorable in the eyes of men,
this does not mean we are to ignore the Holy Spirit, as though
the more we ignored Him, the more He will do His work of honoring
Christ. No, no. The more we give him
proper honor and glory, the more he will be amongst us giving
witness to Jesus Christ and making him precious in the eyes and
hearts of men. The second thing that has happened
because of this neglect of the Spirit, it has created a climate
in which man has too much authority and too much glory. People speak
about being thankful that Christ died for them, but they're so
glad they made their decision for Him. And they have put their
decision in the place of the regenerating work of the Holy
Spirit. You do not testify of your salvation
rightly unless having said that God the Father loved me and sent
His Son to die. God the Son loved me and died
for me." You then follow it up and say, God the Holy Ghost came
to me in power and opened my blinded eyes and enabled me to
behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ that I might
embrace Him. And so I say the absence of this
self-conscious Trinitarian thinking has caused God to be robbed of
His glory, and in the second place, created a climate in which
man has too much glory and too much authority. Just as surely
as any Christian can say, and mean it from his last tomen,
if God had not loved me and purposed to save me, I should have perished
forever. If you're a Christian, you can
echo those words from the depths of your being. Can you not? Just
as every Christian can say, had Christ not laid down His life
as my surety and swallowed up in His own death all the billows
of divine wrath against human sin, I would have no refuge for
my sin. Every true Christian can say
that. So likewise, every true Christian ought to be able to
say without any reservation, had God the Holy Ghost not applied
Christ to me with power, I should have perished forever. My friend,
you will perish forever. You're just as helpless and hopeless
to save yourself if the Holy Ghost does not apply Christ with
power as you are to forgive your own sins or to purpose your own
salvation. This is not only true with reference
to the application of salvation to us as we think of it in reference
to ourselves, but in our service What has opened the floodgate
for this plethora of gimmicks and plans and programs of evangelism
that assure success? Like the one I read in one of
the leading Christian periodicals a couple of weeks ago, and I
held it up to our own people about two months ago because
I thought they might question, after living with them for ten
years even, my truthfulness if I didn't let them see it. There's
the picture of the certain evangelist, and in the big three-by-six ad
it said, these methods of soul winning have worked for, and
they named the evangelist. Get this book, and they'll work
for you. The Holy Ghost is here within the
framework of Mr. Toland's program of evangelism. Get the book, souls will be saved. Now when I found out what those
ads cost, because we're inquiring into what it costs to advertise
with reference to some ministries of our own fellowship, and you
don't put those ads in there for peanuts. And that particular
organization is far from going bankrupt. They're making money
on that book. People are buying that book.
What is it in the evangelical climate that makes a market for
this? I say it's because the Holy Ghost has not been given
his due place. Not only has it robbed God of
the glory due Him, created a climate in which man has too much authority
and glory, but in the third place, and this is the tragedy of our
day, it has created a vacuum into which extreme views on the
Holy Spirit have rust with devastating effect. Perhaps some of you saw that
program last night on the children of God. It's enough to make angels
weep. As I saw the picture of these
hundreds and thousands of young people swept into this Pentecostal
movement, I was caused to reflect on why. How could it be? And one of the
answers is, Such an absence of sound Biblical teaching on the
work of the Holy Spirit that there's been a vacuum. And into
that vacuum every heresy has run. Oh, of course. Spouting
scripture verses like a machine gun spits bullets from beginning
to end. But certainly not the true Biblical
teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit. People have not been
immunized by the truth, and the concept of immunization by the
truth is a Biblical one. You find it in Ephesians 4. Speaking
the truth in love, we may grow up into Christ in all things.
To what end did we be no more children taught to and fro by
the slight of men and by the wiles of error? And so if we
and our churches would be kept from the many pressures of extreme
views on the Holy Spirit, the ways not to downgrade His ministry,
to push it off into a corner as though it were some kind of
a theological no-no. Rather, it's to come reverently
and prayerfully to the Scriptures and say, O Holy Spirit who gave
this book, that I may walk well-pleasing to the Father, that I may walk
and minister and serve in a way that is a credit to the Son.
Teach me who you are and what you do, that I may know how to
give you the glory due to you, and that I may know how not to
grieve you, how to be filled by you, and how to be clothed
with you both in life and in service. So I submit to you then,
this is in brief, something of the importance of the doctrine
of the work of the Holy Spirit. I hope this has been enough to
convince you that when we treat this subject, we're not dealing
with peripheral issues, but we're coming to the very heart of the
truth of God. Having laid before you the importance
of being self-consciously Trinitarian in our thinking, let me begin,
and I think time will permit to touch maybe the first two
of these high foundational principles which must govern all of our
thinking with reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. First
of all, when we think of the work of the Holy Spirit, We must
always remember his divinity and his personality. That is,
we must remember that he is God and that he is a person. Now we're going to be thinking
about his work. His work in regeneration. Except a man be born from above,
he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. We're going to consider
for two nights what it means to be born of the Spirit. We're
dealing with His work. But we must never attempt to
understand His work without beginning with this foundational principle
of concern about who He is. What He does is vital. But what
he does will be appreciated only if we understand who he is. And so we must appreciate that
he is God, his divinity. And by that we mean that because
of his union in the Godhead with the Father and the Son, he possesses
all the essential attributes of deity. He is not only the
Holy Spirit of God, he is God the Holy Spirit. When we use
the word personality, we mean that there is a separate mode
of existence to which belong personal attributes. To quote
Octavius Winslow, because of his union with the Godhead, we
ascribe to him divinity, and because of his personal properties
and acts, we ascribe to him personality. Now, I cannot, for this would
take the subject of a whole message, go to the scriptures and trace
out the biblical basis for asserting his divinity and his personality. All I will do is suggest the
main lines of thought that are generally developed in the standard
works doing this, and hope that you'll take the time to read
them at your leisure. Why do we say that the Holy Spirit
is, as to his essence, God? Well, we say that because divine
attributes are attributed to him. He is called the eternal
spirit in Hebrews 9, 14. He is recognized as the omnipresent
spirit. That is, he is everywhere present. Psalm 139. Whither shall I flee
from thy presence? Where shall I go from thy spirit?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in
hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall
thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. He has eternity
as one of his attributes, omnipresence. He is omniscient. He knows all. Who knows the mind of God, save
the Spirit of God, 1 Corinthians 2, 10 and 11. He knows the future
and can reveal it with certainty, John 16, 13. All of these things
you see are possible only of one who is God. The second reason
why we ascribe to Him divinity is that He is the object of religious
worship. in equality with the Father and
the Son. Baptize them into the name of
that God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Blessing comes
to us from that God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He can
be blasphemed, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the unpardonable
sin. And so, these are just some of
the biblical things that evidence to us that he is God. And how
do we know that he is person? That he has distinct personality? Well, because there is in scripture
every indication that properties belong to him and actions ascribe
to him that only can be true or that can be true only of personality. The Scripture speaks of the mind
of the Spirit, Romans 8.27. The love of the Spirit, Romans
15.30. The will of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians
12.11. He can be grieved, Ephesians
4.30. He speaks, Acts 13.1. And so on we could go, quoting
the passages, but these are enough, I trust, to convince you that
the Bible, when we take it seriously, sets before us this mysterious
yet glorious concept that the one true God exists as Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. Let me give something for you
kids, especially, that may help you. For often my own children
have said when we've been catechizing them or going through sections
of the scripture or our Bible stories that deal with the Trinity,
they look up and they get that puzzled look and they get a wrinkle
in their brow and say, Daddy, I can't understand that. How
can God be one and still be three? I can't understand that. And
we have to tell them, neither can Daddy and Mommy understand.
And I read something recently that may be a help to you. It's
been a great help to me. A certain old servant of God
said this, If you try to understand the Trinity, it'll drive you
insane. But if you deny the Trinity,
it will drive you to hell. If you try to understand the
Trinity, If you say, I won't believe in the God who is Father,
Son, and Spirit, one God in three personalities, I will not believe
that until I can understand it, you'll perish in hell. For the
only God who saves is the God who is Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. You deny that, and it'll drive
you to hell. Try to understand it, and your
mind will be lost I trust, not in insanity, but in wonder, love
and praise, and that in the words of Spurgeon, you will experience
that faith may swim where reason and understanding can only wade. How would some of you kids like
to be barred to just wading all week? And mom and dad say, no
going in the water above your ankles. And you see the other
kids out there up to their chest, swimming away, having a great
old time. And there you are, up to your ankles and no further.
Would you like that? Would you like to be grounded so you only
go in as far as your ankles? Well, the person who says, my
religion will go no further than what I can understand, reason
waves up to its ankles. Faith swims in the ocean of God's
revelation and says, whatever God reveals, I will embrace because
God is God and I am the creature. Well then, in all our consideration
of the work of the Holy Spirit, let us remember He is God and
He is person. Well, you see, what practical
effect does that have? Well, it has very many. Very,
very many. We've looked at some of them
in our introduction. Let me trace out some more. If the Holy Spirit
is God, then all this thought of using the Holy Spirit is almost
blasphemous. Any idea that we, as it were,
lay our plans and scheme and set up our projects, and then
we, as it were, invite the Holy Ghost to come in so that we might
use Him as the extra commodity for success, when we begin to
realize that He is God, we'll never invoke Him and His blessing
in any situation where His Godhead has not been fully recognized.
It's one thing to lay out your plans and to meet in your church
boards and lay out your schemes and projects and then at the
end say, now Lord, come down and bless all of this. It's quite
another thing for the elders, teaching and ruling elders and
deacons to be on their faces as we find in Acts 13, ministering
to the Lord, weighing upon Him, and then have the Holy Ghost
give you your plans and then plead for His presence. That's
quite another thing. Perhaps some of the disappointments
that some of us have known in our ministerial experience is
attributed to this very principle, that we've tried to use the Holy
Ghost. If he's God, we'll acknowledge
him as God before we ask his blessing upon our schemes, and
we'll never fall into the trap of some of the blasphemous talk
that is rife in such circles as the Full Gospel Businessmen's
Group. One man quoted as saying, since
I got the baptism of the Spirit, it's wonderful. It's like having
some gin in my orange juice. Or like this poor young fellow
witnessing to a man last night in the Children of God movement,
and the fellow's half-high on dope, and he says to him, look,
man, you've got to get this thing. You've got to get the Holy Ghost.
He said, till you do, you can't do anything. He said, I could
never play my guitar till I got it. But now, man, I explode,
man, I explode. That's almost a verbatim quote.
I wrote it down and read it over several times. Talk about the
Holy Spirit in such terms. is blasphemous. If he's God,
he doesn't come to make us explode when we're banging on a guitar.
If he's God, we don't talk of him as gin in our orange juice. If he's God, we don't box him
into our clever little evangelistic formulas, and meet in our little
seminars, and get our little canned approaches, and then go
on out and him by saying, now you come and bless all the little
framework we've set up for you. He's God, dear people, and he
must be acknowledged as God in the totality of our thinking
and ministries. Well, then it has great practical
implications when we consider that he's a person. If he is
a person, then you don't insult him by treating him as a force. You don't talk about the Holy
Spirit as it. And when you use the personal
pronoun him, you don't use it simply because it's correct to
do so, but because you recognize him as a person. How would you
wives feel? Next time someone said to your
husband, hey, where's your wife? Oh, it's over there. Well, maybe the first time you'd
think, maybe I didn't hear right. But if he did it the second time,
and then the third time, he'd hear about it. Why? You're insulted
to be referred to as an it, a thing, a commodity. Oh, my dear fellow
Christians, the Holy Spirit is God. He is God. He is person. And as person wants
to be recognized and honored as person, as we shall see, God
willing, in our last study on Wednesday evening, if He's person,
we will be careful not to grieve Him. You can't grieve that chair
you're sitting on. You can't grieve the wind that
might blow through these windows if they were open. You cannot
grieve that which is impersonal and has no soul and life and
has no capacity to love. But you can grieve your husband,
you grieve your wife, and you grieve that in which there is
the most full development of personality. You can grieve your
wife far more than you can grieve your six-month-old child. Can't
you? Why? Because personality is far
more developed. Well, when personality is joined
to divinity, think of the capacity for grief. And God says, grieve not the
Holy Spirit. If he's person, we will seek
to cultivate his knowledge. And the word, the communion of
the Holy Spirit, will not be just a pious phrase in the mouth
of a minister to be rattled off at the end of a service. We'll
say, I want to know what that is. What is the communion of
the Holy Spirit? I know what communion with my
wife is. I know what communion with my children is. I don't
need to tell any husband here, any wife, any mother, any father,
what communion with another person is. Do you know what communion in
and with the Holy Spirit is? Do you experience communion with
the Holy Spirit? You see, all of these are but
some of the implications of recognizing that He is God and He is person. May I say to the unconverted
amongst us, this has great implications for you. If He is God, He's the
one who causes your conscience to be stirred and troubled under
the preaching of the word? You young people? In spite of
everything you try to do, to blot out that little moral monitor
in you called conscience that condemns you when you sin, when
you lie, when you indulge in filthiness and uncleanness, somehow
you can't shake that monkey off your back. Conscience is there,
troubling, disturbing, tracking you down. Listen, the Holy Ghost
probes and probs and woos and the overtures of grace by means
of conscience. That's God who speaks through
your conscience. And every time you, as it were,
defile the voice of conscience, every time you try to clasp your
hand over conscience's mouth and tell him to shut up and leave
you alone, young people, you're dealing with God. Scripture says they show the
work of God in their hearts, their conscience, the meanwhile,
accusing or excusing them. When in the preaching of the
gospel, Christ, as it were, stands before you in all the fullness
and plentitude and power of His grace, And he is set before you
with his stretched out hand, saying, Come, not just an entreaty,
but a royal and a regal command of grace common to me. And something within it says,
Oh, I should, I ought to. And something else within says,
No, I will not. Oh, my friend, that's more than
the voice of the preacher. Behold, I stand at the door and
knock, Jesus said. And by the Spirit he stands,
he knocks. Well, I say this has great implications,
and I think this would be a good place to stop. You've all traveled
long today, and rather than tax your ability to concentrate on
this first night, I believe I'll stop here and we'll pick up,
God willing, in the ministry tomorrow, the other four principles
relative to the work of the Spirit. May God Himself be pleased. By the Spirit of whom we have
sought to speak this night from the Word, may He be present to
teach us of Himself, to the end that Christ may become unspeakably
precious to every one of us. Amen.