There are a couple of vital questions
that have to be asked and I don't have any problem in them being
asked again and again. Have I received God's Holy Spirit? And is this a place where God's
Holy Spirit dwells? Is this a place where the Lord
Jesus Christ truly meets with His people and is revealed to
His people? Now I wouldn't be here if I didn't
believe those things to be true, but I want us to spend a little
bit of time before we close just looking at how we can know that
the blessed Holy Spirit has come to us. personally and I'd like
you to turn in your Bibles because we've looked in John Chapter
14 at the remarkable promises of union and communion and fellowship
and abiding with Him forever and it's very much part of what
the Lord Jesus Christ began telling His disciples at the beginning
of this sermon. Don't let your hearts be troubled.
You believe. You believe in me. You believe
also in God. So I'd like you to turn in your
scriptures over to John Chapter 16, just a couple of pages from
John 14. What is the testimony of the
children of God who have had the blessed Holy Spirit come? He says, in verse 7 of John chapter
16. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth, it is expedient, it is necessary, it is profitable,
beneficial, that for you that I go away. For if I go not away,
the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will
send him unto you. And when he is come unto you,
when he is come, he will reprove, and that word is convince, the
world of sin and righteousness and judgment. And this is obviously
the world of his elect, the world that he comes to. He comes to
his own, we've just read that in John chapter 14. The world
doesn't receive him, the world doesn't see him, and the world
doesn't know him, but you do. And when he comes, you will.
And he'll convince the world of his elect of sin. And it's a remarkable description
of what sin is, isn't it? Of sin, verse 9, because they
believe not on me. So the first question that has
to be asked, isn't it, have I received God's Holy Spirit? Has God made
me a sinner? Has he made me a sinner? A vile
sinner. A sinner who is, as Job said,
behold I am vile. A sinner who has met God like
Isaiah did. A sinner who is a leper from
the top of his head until the sole of his feet. A sinner who
can do nothing If you can do something to fix
your sin, and God's servants have never excused sin and never
do sin. John says in 1 John, I write
these things that you sin not. He'll convict the world of sin. He'll convict the world of righteousness
because I go to my Father. He'll convince the world of his
elect that all of their righteousness is in the perfect and finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of their coming into the
presence of God in Him with the Father is purely on the basis
of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. of righteousness and
you see me no more, of judgment because the Prince of this world
is judged. It's not talking about the judgment
to come, it's talking about the fact that all of our judgment
was dealt with on the cross of Calvary. God's children, all
of the elect, all of those to whom the Spirit will come, have
had their judgment dealt with. We were judged in the Lord Jesus
Christ. All of our sins were judged. They were exposed in
the Lord Jesus Christ when he hung naked on Calvary's tree
and they received the just punishment that God Almighty and his holy
law demanded that they all receive. And that's what is celebrated
on this day throughout the world. But it's celebrated every time
we meet, because we are declaring those things all the time. And so there is a convicting
work that goes on of those three things. There is a reality of
meeting with God. It's one of the things that I
love doing and I used to do it a lot with my students in India.
We'd just go from the Bible from the beginning to the end and
just go with the people who met God. go with the people when
they met the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
1. John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. I was in the
Spirit on the Lord's Day. And I heard behind me a great
voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega,
I'm the beginning and the end, and I'm everything in between,
the first and the last, what thou seest right in a book. So
here is the Lord Jesus Christ preparing this apostle who has
been a saved apostle for a long time, who leant on the Lord Jesus
Christ's breast and walked with him and talked with him. This
is the preparation of an apostle to write the last book of the
scriptures to put the full stop at the end of all the revelation
of God. You write the book and send it
to the seven churches which are in Asia. And unto Ephesus, unto
Smyrna, unto Pergamos, unto Thyatira, unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia,
unto Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice
that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven
golden candlesticks. And in the midst of the seven
candlesticks was one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment
down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow.
His eyes were as a flame of fire. and his feet under fine brass,
as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of
many waters. And he had in his right hand
seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword,
and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength."
What happens when you meet the Lord Jesus Christ? I fell at his feet. I fell at his feet as dead. Has God so worked in your life
that there is a reverential awe of who God is in the Lord Jesus
Christ and how much you need a saviour? This is the preparation
for writing the words of God, isn't it? I fell at his feet. as dead and listen to what he
did. How does this man get up to ride? And he laid his right hand upon
me saying unto me, fear not. I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead,
and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen, and have the keys of hell
and death. And now you can write, John.
If you're going to write, you're going to know who I am. You're
going to know who I am. You're going to bear witness
to me. You're going to know who I am.
Isaiah, you know the passage in Isaiah chapter 6. There was
Isaiah sending out woes in the previous chapter to all and sundry,
and then he meets the Lord Jesus Christ. How does God prepare
someone to write the Gospel of Isaiah and to be a witness to
God in the midst of a nation and a world under the judgment
of God? In the year the king Uzziah died,
I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up,
and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim,
each had six wings. With twain he covered his face,
with twain he covered his feet, and with twain did he fly. And
one cried unto another, saying, and said, Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. And the post of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. He met the Lord Jesus Christ. You can read about it
in John Chapter 12. This is meeting the Lord Jesus Christ. This is
him coming. And then said I, woe is me i am undone i am literally
unraveled all of what i thought was my righteousness all of what
i thought was my religious obedience all of what I could look to as
my heritage as a child of God and a member of the tribe of
Levi. All of my works of going into
that temple and being a priest, all of that is just undone. In
the very presence of God, it's undone. Woe is me, I am undone. What God does when he meets his
people is that there is a reverential awe, isn't there? And he declares
what he is. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then, you see, what
God does, he must wound, he must break, he must break. the wild ass's cult and bring
it to submission by the very presence of his power, and he
does it. And so his people have a reverential
awe and they fall down. Then flew one of the seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken
with tongs from the altar, and he laid it on my mouth." He was
going to speak. He was a man of unclean lips,
and now he's going to speak on behalf of God. He laid it on
my mouth and said, Lo, this has touched thy lips, and thine iniquity
is taken away, and thy sin purged. There is a reverential awe of
who God is. That's exactly what happened
to Moses. You take off your feet here. You're standing on holy
ground. You need to know who you are and you need to know
who I am if you're going to be used of me in this world. Ezekiel felt exactly the same. If you read that opening chapters
in Ezekiel, it's just remarkable, isn't it? Ezekiel was so overwhelmed
with the presence of God that he too just fell down. He fell down. When the whole Church of God
is pictured in Ezekiel 37, What did the Spirit do? The hand
of the Lord was upon me and He carried me out in the Spirit
of the Lord and set me down in the midst of a valley. And what
was the valley that was going to be the picture of the whole
Church of God? What were they? Proud of their
activities? Being able to boast about what
they had done? And how they're not like other
people? What is it? What does God start
with when He makes His Church? When he builds his body in this
world, it was full of bones. It was full of bones. Dried bones,
whitened bones in the sun, so that there was no life in them
whatsoever. And he said unto me, verse 4,
he asked a great question, son of man, can these bones live? Where is their life going to
come from? Because there's absolutely no life in them. And he makes
the wonderful answer, doesn't he? Lord, you know. Lord, you
know. You know all things. This is
exactly the answer that Peter was given, isn't it? Lord, you
know. And he said unto me, prophesy upon these bones, and say unto
them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith
the Lord God unto these bones, behold, I will cause breath to
enter into you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon
you, and bring up the flesh upon you, and cover you with skin,
and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know. in that life, you shall know
that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was
a noise, and behold, a shaking, and the bones came together,
bone upon his bone, to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews
and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above,
and there was no breath in, but there was no breath in them. Then he said unto me, prophesy
unto the wind, the spirit, prophesize on a man and say to the wind,
say to the spirit, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four
winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may
live. So I prophesize that he commanded
me and the breath came into them and they lived and stood upon
their feet, an exceeding great army. Do they cooperate? Or does he do it all? These bones
are the whole house of Israel. And what do they say? Look what
I've done. They say our bones are dry and
our hope is cut off. We are cut off from our parts.
Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to
come out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am
the Lord when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought
you up out of your graves. It's exactly what the Lord is
saying in John 5 verse 24. The dead will hear the voice
of the Son of God, and they that were dead shall live. My point
simply is that we will be made as the children of God to see
that life from above comes from God Almighty. This is the promise
of the New Covenant, isn't it? It's the promise of what God
is telling us about and reminding us of in all of these glorious
passages of scripture that we're reading that he will do it he
said this shall be the covenant that i will make with the house
of israel after those days say of the lord i will put my law
in their inward parts and write it on their hearts And they will
be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall
teach no more every man his neighbor, every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of
them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For, because
I will forgive their iniquity and remember their If the Spirit of God has come,
there's a reverential awe for who God is. It's part of the
everlasting covenant. Listen to what he goes on to
say over the page. He says, they shall be my people. This is Jeremiah
32 verse 38. They shall be my people and I
will be their God. I will give them one heart and
one way. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
way. that they may fear me forever. They will not play games with
God and his word, and they will not play games with the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. They will not play games with
the character of God, and they will not play games with the
children of God. They may fear me forever for
the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an
everlasting covenant with them, and I will not turn away from
them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts,
and they shall not depart from me." That's just wonderful, isn't
it? The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. fear of the Lord. I am fearful
of standing in the presence of God without being hidden in the
Lord Jesus Christ and covered by his blood and robed in his
righteousness. I am fearful of dishonouring
him. I'm fearful of treating his word contemptuously. Listen to what he goes on to
say in verse 41. And I will rejoice over them. God rejoices to do them good. I will plant them in this land
assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole spirit. Have
I received God's Holy Spirit? Have I been brought to the place
where I have had God in his reality revealed to me? And he does it
again and again. The Spirit of Truth comes and
he says he will guide you into the truth. How do we know that
this is a place where God's Holy Spirit dwells? It's a really
important question. You read 1 John 4, you are commanded Whenever you hear someone speaking
on behalf of God, you are commanded, and God's servants will give
you the command and encourage you to follow it always. He says,
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try, test the spirits, whether
they are of God. Because many false prophets have
gone out into the world. Hereby we know the Spirit of
God. Hereby I know you, the Spirit
of God, every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,
is of God. Not just Jesus, but Jesus Christ. Christ, the anointed prophet,
the anointed priest, the anointed king, the promised Messiah, the
Christ who is in union with his people from before the foundation
of the world, the Christ who shed his precious blood for them
and them particularly on Calvary's tree, the Christ who loved them
particularly, the Christ who takes them into the presence
of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh. If you read the rest of it, you'll
see that it's not just talking about the fact of the historic
reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. For him to come in the flesh,
if you go down to verse 10, here in his love, not that we love
God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. the wrath-absorbing sacrifice
for the sins of all of his people. And that's exactly what the scriptures
are declaring of him, that he shed his precious blood, that
he might have his bride with him. He shed his precious blood
that he can come and dwell with his bride. In this was manifested the love
of God towards us because God has sent his only begotten Son
that we might live through him and hear in his love, not that
we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. That's the test, isn't it? Beloved,
if God so loved us, we ought to love one another. No man has
seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we
dwell in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and do testify
that the Father sent the Son, to be the saviour of the world. Did he save? Did he save everyone
he came for? Did he? The world says that he
tried. The religious world says that
he tried and made an attempt. The religious world says that
he made an opening possible if you do your little bit to walk
your way through that door. The religious world is denying He said it's finished, he saved
them all. Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed
the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness, we may have confidence
in the day of judgment. Because as He is, so are we in
this world. Is He accepted in the presence
of God the Father? So are we. Has He perfectly fulfilled
the law of God? So have we. We're accepted in the beloved.
That's the declaration, isn't it? Have I received God's Holy
Spirit? What is the evidence of the church
being the church where God's Spirit dwells? Who gets all the glory? Who gets
all the glory? Who gets all the glory? Do you share some glory with
him? Or does he get all the glory? In John chapter 7 it says that
the He spoke of these out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water. But this he spoke of the Spirit
which they that believe on him should receive. For the Holy
Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. The Holy Spirit is the eternal
God. Almighty. What he's talking about
is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost
and the Lord Jesus Christ is glorified. Turn with me to John
chapter 16 and let's see whether God the Holy Spirit is dwelling
amongst his people and with us here. We looked at those convictions
that will happen in the hearts of people Verse 13, John chapter
16, Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide
you. Don't you love that? He will
guide you. Who's going to teach his people?
they'll be all taught of God, and great shall be the peace
of the children taught of God. He will guide you into all truth,
for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear,
that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me. Wherever the Holy Spirit is and
wherever he's gathered his people to worship the Lord Jesus Christ,
he is going to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Glorify His deity,
glorify Him as He was before He came, glorify Him in His covenant
of grace, glorify Him in all the promises He's made, glorify
Him in all the pictures and types and promises in the Old Testament. It's a book that speaks of Him.
Glorify Him in all of those things. He'll glorify me, but he'll glorify
me most of all by glorifying what happened on the cross, where
he will declare, he will declare that he bore all of the sins
of all of his people in his own body on the tree and suffered
and died and bled under the wrath of God Almighty. He shall receive
of mine, verse 14. He'll glorify me, he shall receive
of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father
hath are mine. Jesus Christ is God Almighty. Therefore, said I, he shall take
of mine. and shall show it unto you. He'll take of mine and show it
unto you. Have you seen Him declaring that
all of your salvation is His work and His alone? Or can you say, I, Fill in the blank. Did he do
it all? Did he do it all as he's promised? Does he get all the glory? He
shall testify of me. He won't testify of morality.
He won't testify of fixing society. He won't testify of living right.
He won't testify of keeping some rules, and I'm not saying that
any of those things are necessarily bad in themselves, but he's going
to testify of me. When we gather together, we're
testifying, we're declaring the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. The sinner said, and when God
has met, the sinner stops saying, I. I did, I did, I will, I can. The sinner just says he did it.
He chose me from before the foundation of the world. He put me in the
hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. He called me. He opened the eyes
of my heart. He caused me to cry out, Am I
a father? He brought me to Himself. He
drew me. He did it all. He is the Alpha. He is the Omega. He keeps me
as He's promised. He says, all that the Father
gives me shall come to me and not one of them can be lost.
No one's going to pluck them out of my hand, He says. May God cause us to revere Him
and His Word, to love Him, to love the way He saves sinners,
to love Him through to love to be in his presence,
to love to declare his praises, to love to be with his people,
to love him in the place where he promises to get glory for
himself on this earth, in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He builds, he gets peace and all the comfort of
the Comforter, coming to us again and again and saying, it's all
been done. It's all been done a long time
ago. The works were finished from
the foundation of the world. we get as his children the joy
and peace of believing. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray for your Spirit to come again and again to us and to,
in the midst of this dark world, in the midst of our trials, in
the midst of the sin that we are and the sin that we're horrified
by, Heavenly Father, we just pray that the Blessed Spirit
would come as a comforter to us. And just tell us that it's
finished. Tell us that his blood has covered
our sins. Tell us that he puts us in the
rock. and hides us there and makes
us secure in the glory of the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We do pray, Heavenly Father, for us as individuals
that we would be caused to think deeply and seriously about the
work of the Blessed Spirit, that we would be numbered among those
that bear a testimony to who he is in this world. And we pray
for the salvation of those that we love and care for, Heavenly
Father. We pray that you would cause us to simply be faithful
witnesses to him, to what he has said, to what he is doing
in the lives of his people. Bless your word, Heavenly Father,
for those who don't know you, we pray that they'd be caused
to just cry out. Have mercy on me, the sinner. And may we hear the words of
the great comfort of the Christ Jesus came into this world to
save sinners. For we pray these things for
the glory of our dear and precious Saviour. And in his name we come
to you, our Father. Amen. We're gonna sing the doxology,
thanks Noel. So,