Chapter 19. The theme of this lesson is the
necessity of the Holy Spirit. The necessity of the Holy Spirit. Here in verse 1, And it came to pass that while
Apollos was at Corinth, he went there after Paul left and after
Priscilla and Aquila had instructed him more perfectly in the way
of God, he goes there and preaches and encourages the brethren in
Corinth. And then Paul, having passed
through the upper coast, he came to Ephesus. He went back to Ephesus
there to encouraged the church there that the Lord had raised
up. And while he was there, he found
certain disciples. They were disciples of John.
And he asked them a question here in verse two. He said, have
you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? That's an important
question. That's a very important question.
And hopefully the Lord will enable me to deal with that properly
this morning. Now these disciples were John's disciples, John the
Baptist. In other words, they either heard
him or they heard those who heard John and believed the message.
And John's message was a true message. It was a message of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which takes away the
sin of the world. It was a true message. And they believed that
message, and they were converted. They were converted under that
message. It's a gospel message. But they,
like Apollos, didn't know much more than that. They didn't know
much more than that. They were baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ only. You know, the Lord said in Matthew,
I believe it was in Matthew, He told His disciples, He said,
Go ye into all the world and baptize those who believe, baptize
them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
He said to baptize them in the name of the Trinity. Because
the Trinity, and this is how important this is, the Trinity,
the whole Trinity, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, are involved
in the saving of sinners. The saving of God's church, The
whole Trinity's involved. The Father chose us, the Son
redeemed us, and the Holy Spirit regenerated us. And we need to
see the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit. A man said
to me some years ago, the work of the Holy Spirit was not as
important as the work of Christ on the cross, is what he said
to me. And listen, we are going down a dangerous road. When we
start to set the Trinity against each other, that one is more
important than the other. You take one of them away and
we're not safe. Take away the Father choosing
us. Election, isn't that what Armenianism does? Is that what
they do? They take away election. They
put it into our hands. They put it into the free will
of man. They take away election. Well,
you're taking away the work of the Father who chose us in Christ. Then we have the work of the
Son who redeemed us. Then they take away particular
redemption. He didn't really redeem anybody. He just made
salvation possible. If you accept Him as your personal
Savior, then He'll save you. You see, that's taking away the
work of the Son in redemption. When you take away particular
redemption, And then you take away, when you take away the
Holy Spirit, you take away regeneration. Now they got regeneration by
a decision, except Jesus says you're a personal savior and
you'll be born again. No, you're not. No, you're not. All three are involved in our
salvation. All three are very, very important. And we give them their due respect
in preaching as we go through the word of God. Now I know the
Lord said this, when the Holy Spirit has come, the Comforter
has come, he will not speak of himself. He will take the things
of mine and show them unto you. But that does not mean we don't
speak of him when we come across it in the scriptures. When we
go verse by verse and we come across, here it is the Holy Spirit. I counted briefly before coming
out here, The Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost is mentioned over
40 times in the book of Acts. Over 40 times. And it speaks
of, in one place it speaks that the Holy Spirit spoke in David. When he said, the Lord said unto
my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, he said, the Holy Ghost
spoke in David. So it's the Trinity, the Father,
Son, and the Holy Spirit, though there's one God, there are three
distinct persons and they all have their There are place in
our salvation. And this is what we're going
to see. Now the disciples here, let me get back to this. The
disciples were John's disciples. They were converted under his
ministry. Someone said this, they were
not misinformed. They were just uninformed. You
see, we have the complete word of God. They didn't. They didn't. Now these disciples, I believe
were saved. They walked in the light that they were given. They
had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the same one we do. They all
need to grow in grace and knowledge of Christ as we do. We started
out as babes in Christ, they started out as babes in Christ.
And now, listen, now they possessed This doesn't mean when Paul asked
them this question, it doesn't mean they were not possessed
of the Holy Spirit. They were possessed of the Holy
Spirit or they would not have been saved. He that has not the
Spirit of God is not of his. They had the Holy Spirit. They
had that. No man can believe the gospel
of Christ apart from the Holy Spirit. You can't believe apart
from him. He's the one who takes things
of Christ and reveals them to us. We wouldn't know Christ apart
from him. But here's what Paul is saying,
and this is what happened. They had not heard that the Holy
Spirit had come. It doesn't mean we've never heard
that there is a Holy Spirit. We've not heard that He has come.
Because John made it very clear. Look over in Matthew 3. Look
over in Matthew 3. I'll show you what John made clear
in his preaching. In Matthew 3, 11, John says, I indeed baptize you
with water unto repentance. But he that cometh after me is
mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He,
the Lord Jesus Christ, when he is come, he shall baptize you
with the Holy Ghost and with fire. He says pretty much the
same thing in John 1, 33. In another place, he says, the
Lord said, I'll pour out my spirit on you. That's the Holy Spirit
he's talking about. What it is that they had not
heard of what happened at Pentecost. They had not heard that the spirit,
the Holy Spirit that was promised had come. They hadn't heard that.
I find it interesting that Paul did not question them about their
faith in Christ. You notice he didn't question
them about that. It was evident they believed, but he questioned
them about the Holy Spirit. So here's where I want to talk
to you this morning about the importance of the Holy Spirit.
It's very important we get this right. We get this right is that
his part in our salvation. It's the Holy Spirit who quickens
us. Our Lord said this in John 3,
the wind blows where it lifts us. You hear the sound of it,
you don't know where it's coming or where it's going. So is everyone
that's born of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. That's what he's
talking about, the Holy Spirit. He is the one who quickens us. He gives us life. He's the agent
in the new birth. No one is born without the Spirit
of God. It says over Ephesians 2 that
we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Who does that
creation? God the Holy Spirit. We have God the Son, God the
Father, God the Holy Spirit. He's very God of very God just
as the Son is and as the Father is. It's the Holy Spirit who
takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us. He's the
one who guides us into all truth. How is it that you and I know
who Jesus Christ is? We know him as our surety, our
high priest, our atonement. His blood is our atonement. We
know him as our sacrifice. We know him to be the Messiah. How do we know that? The Holy
Spirit revealed it to us. He made it known to us. It's
not that... And you know this, I'm not telling
you something you don't know. You know this, and not that we
were more intelligent than somebody else. He made us, and He made
Christ known to our hearts. He revealed Christ in us. He's
the one who enables us to preach. Look over in John 16. John 16. The Lord gives some
insight here into the work of the Holy Spirit. In John 16, look in verse 13
through 15. How be it when He, the Spirit
of Truth, He's the Holy Spirit, He's called the Holy Ghost, here
He's called the Spirit of Truth. When He's come, He will guide
you into all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself. He's not
the ministry. He will speak of Christ. And
this is how you know. This is how you know that the
gospel that's being preached and the ministry that's going
on at a local church, This is how you know that the Holy Spirit
is in it. It's when Christ is the message.
When Christ in him crucifies the message. The Holy Spirit
is not the message. He doesn't glorify himself. He
glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. And he tells us here, he will
guide you into all truth, he will 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, for he shall
receive of mine and shall show it to you. All things that the
father hath are mine, therefore said I that he shall take of
mine and shall show it, reveal it unto you. It's the Holy Spirit
who takes the things of Christ and makes them known to us. It's
the Holy Spirit. Listen. The Scriptures teach
us, and it's stated here in John 16, the Holy Spirit is the one
who will convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment. I don't do that. I don't convict you of anything.
I can make you feel bad, but that's not conviction. That's
not true Holy Spirit conviction. He convicts us of sin, what we
are, not just what we do. You see, we feel bad about what
we do because we have a conscience. The law is written on the heart.
I can make you feel bad about things that you've done, things
I've done. He convicts us of what we are. He's the one who
shows us that we are a mass of corruption. We are a mass of
sin. And because of that, we do sinful
things. We do simple, wicked things because
of what we are. Well, He makes us to know that.
You can't repent unless you really understand that. You really can't. Now, the Lord, the Holy Spirit
may take a particular sin. He may take a particular sin.
And He may use it in convicting us, but I tell you what He will
lead us to. He will lead us to the root of
it. He will lead us to the root of the problem. You see, here's
the problem. Here's the problem with, I think,
present day preaching. If you quit doing what you're
doing, if you quit drinking, if you quit doing this and you
quit doing that, you're a good person. You're a pretty good
person. No, you're not. The Holy Spirit may take a sin or sins
and lead us to the root of sin. But if you never get to the root
of sin, You never understand and you never come to real repentance. You don't get there. You don't
get there without Him. But He convicts the world of
sin and righteousness and of judgment. We understand the judgment
that happened at Calvary. We understand justice was satisfied,
don't we? We understand that when Christ
hung on the cross, He suffered the wrath of God for a multitude
of sinners that God chose and gave to him. We understand that.
Judgment fell on him. We understand judgment's coming
on this world. We understand Satan is judged
and cast out. His power has been crushed by
the Son of God. We understand that. Look in verse
7 through 11 in John 16. And here in this verse, in verse
seven, let me point this out. Here's something that's important.
When Paul asked these disciples, there were 12 of them, it says
in verse seven, when he asked them, have you heard of the Holy
Spirit? Have you heard? And they said,
we haven't heard that he's come. Well, here's the importance of
this statement. Christ says here in verse seven,
nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It's expedient for you
that I go away. For if I go not away, the comforter
will not come to you. But if I depart, I'll send him
to you. What's that? What's that mean? Let this, boy,
this jumped out of me. It means he finished the work. If the comforter, he said, if
I don't go away, the Holy Spirit, the comforter, he's not going
to come. But if I go away, He'll come, he will come. Well, if
Christ goes away, he's going away back to the Father. That
means he finished what he came to do. So when he's saying, what
Paul's saying to these disciples, if you haven't heard of the Holy
Spirit, that he has come, and then no doubt Paul preached to
them more fully the gospel. It's finished, it's finished. The Holy Spirit has come. The
Son of God is redeemed. He's gone back to glory. He's
seated at God's right hand. It screams that redemption's
finished. He redeemed. He redeemed. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It's expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not
away, the Comforter will not come to you. But if I depart,
I will send him to you, and when he is come, he will reprove the
world of sin, righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because
they believe not on me. Of righteousness, because I go
to my father and you see me no more. Of judgment, because the
prince of this world is judged. He has a mighty work to do. A mighty work to do. He's the
one who will enable us to worship the Lord Jesus Christ this morning
in spirit and in truth. We will worship Him in spirit.
Not only in our hearts, but in the power of the Holy Spirit,
we will worship Him. Then the Holy Spirit is the one
who applies the blood to the heart. He's the one who creates faith
in the heart. He's the one who creates a new
heart. I'll give you a new heart. Well, the Holy Spirit is the
one creates that new heart in us. You wouldn't love Christ
nor believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if it were not for his
work in you, you wouldn't do it. The scripture says the love
of God in Romans 5.5, the love of God is shed abroad in the
heart's house by the Holy Ghost, by the Holy Spirit. His love
is shed abroad by the Holy Spirit. You are sealed. You are sealed. with the Holy Spirit of God.
Right now, the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you. What enables
you to really, from your heart, enjoy the message? What enables
you to, when you're hearing the gospel priest in your heart,
you may not say that loud, but in your heart, you say, amen.
Amen. You know why you can do that?
Because the Spirit of God in you is agreeing with that message. He's agreeing with that message.
That's how you know. That's how you know the gospel
being preached. When the Spirit of God in you... is giving you
agreement, that's the message. And you're saying, that's the
message. I mean, I could tell you how
many times I've sat and listened to Henry preach, and I've listened
to others preach, but I've listened, and I'm telling you, my heart
lives within me. That's the Spirit of God in me
agreeing with that message and giving me ears to hear it, and
eyes to see it, and faith to believe it, and receive it. That's
His work. And brother, that's encouraging.
You ought to be, you ought to be Thrilled and encouraged when
you can leave and say that's the gospel. I Heard this morning. I fed this morning and if you
did God's Spirit was working with you. You weren't sitting
there by yourself. Just listen with these ears It's
pretty empty between these two ears without him. It's pretty
empty He He enables us to hear. He enables us to love Christ
and love one another. And He makes intercessions for
us. You know that? You know He prays for us? You
know that we know that Christ intercedes for us as our high
priest? You know the Holy Spirit intercedes for us? Listen to
Romans 8, 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit, the Holy Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
When you know you're in a situation, and we all come into situations,
and you really don't know how to pray about it, you really
don't, but he does. He knows the mind of the Lord. He knows the mind of the Lord,
the Lord God Almighty. He knows the mind and he searches
and he intercedes for us with groanings that can't be uttered,
can't be put into words. He knows our heart. He knows what we need. He knows
our situation and he intercedes for us. And we dare not, as I said at
the beginning of this, we dare not put the work of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit in competition with one another.
When that gentleman said that to me, that just made me cringe. I thought, you don't understand
the gospel. You don't understand the gospel. You see, these men that Paul
is speaking to, they understood who Jesus Christ is. was his
they understood that they understood him to be the lamb of god which
takes away the sin of the word they understood that they understood
him to be the messiah the one anointed of god this is the one
the scripture has been speaking of in the old testament they
understood that but there was a real gap in their
understanding there's a real gap in it and paul says have
you received the holy spirit since you believed He's very important, he's very
important. The gifts that we have are his, aren't they? They're given to us, they're
his. We don't put them in competition
with one another, but we do give them their due honor, their due
honor in our salvation. This is why we are baptized in
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is
one of the things I said to that gentleman. Then why are we baptized
in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Why
don't we just say we're baptized in the name of Jesus Christ as
the disciples here were just baptized in his name? Now, it's
one thing if this gentleman would have said, I understand that now. I see,
I see the importance of his work, but instead it was like, no,
no, no. I mean, it was totally, I thought,
well, I left that alone, I just left it. If the Lord doesn't
give you eyes to see, I can't give you eyes. These gentlemen
didn't say, Paul, no, Paul. We were baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ, that's enough. It's just like those guys over
in Corinth, they said, I was baptized in the name of Paul.
Some said they were secrets, and some said, well, I'm a Christ.
We're baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, nobody else's name. And all three are necessary in
our salvation. But note what they said to Paul
here. They said, we haven't heard whether there be any Holy Spirit,
or we haven't heard that he's come, because that was part of
John's message. When he that is worthy, much
more worthy than me, when he's come, he'll baptize you with
the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. He'll baptize you with him. The Holy Spirit is called the
comforter because he's the one who takes the things of Christ
who is our comfort and comforts us with them. Do you really find
comfort in Christ? Do you find comfort in his work
and his person and his righteousness and his blood? Do you really
find comfort in him? If you do, the Holy Spirit gave
that to you. He's the comforter. And Paul
says in verse three through six, wind this down he says unto unto
what were you baptized in other words whose name were you baptized
in see here in verse three and he said unto them unto unto what
then were you baptized it's interesting that paul assumed that they were
baptized he didn't ask me if they were if they were disciples
listen if someone calls him a believer if they're really a believer
If they're really a believer, they were baptized. They followed
the Lord Jesus Christ in baptism. Now, rebels don't follow the
Lord. They don't follow the Lord at
baptism. They don't take His supper. But those who believe,
they will be baptized. They will do it. And they'll
take the Lord's supper when it's given. And so Paul, assuming
they, and evidently they gave good evidence of it, He said,
what name were you baptized in? And what then were you baptized?
And they said unto John's baptism, that is the gospel that John
preached. Then said Paul, John fairly baptized
with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they
should believe on him which should come after him, that is on Christ
Jesus, they should believe on him. And when they heard this,
they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. I never really gave this much
attention. It didn't jump out at me like
it did this time. They believed the message that
John preached. John pointed them to the Lamb
of God, and they believed on him, and they were baptized in
the name of Jesus Christ. Now listen. They were not re-baptized. If
you read that, And I wrote out here, John's message was of Christ,
and those who heard John were baptized in the name of Christ.
But here's something that stood out to me, the importance of
rightly dividing the word of truth. Let's read this again,
verse four and five. Then said Paul, John verily baptized
with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they
should believe on him, on Christ, which should come after him,
that is, on Christ. When they heard this, they were baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus. What does that sound like when
you read that? It sounds like those 12 disciples were baptized
again. It sounds like they were re-baptized,
doesn't it? That's not what that's saying at all. That's what it
sounds like if you just read it, but read that verse five
without this. And just connect it with, keep
it with verse four. And when they heard, when they
heard John preaching, when they heard him preaching Christ, they
were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. They were baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus only. Only. Paul didn't re-baptize. Now I
tell you what, if you have believed a false gospel, and God brings
you to hear the true gospel, that's the one you identify with.
That's the one you're baptized. You're baptized unto the Lord
Jesus Christ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But they were not re-baptized because they had followed the
true Christ. They believed on the true Lord
Jesus Christ. And when Paul laid hands on them,
in verse 6, and I'm going to close in verse 6, When Paul laid
hands on them, and he had this power, the apostles, they were
the only ones who had the power to lay hands, and they would
receive gifts, the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is evidence
that the Holy Spirit had done these gifts that were given.
We have the complete Word of God. We don't need these gifts.
We need the gift of preaching, witnessing, praying. Some people have the gift of
praying, giving, God's given you a heart and he's given you
the means and you have the heart to give. You know, this is of
the Holy Spirit. This is of the Holy Spirit. But
Paul laid his hands on them and they received the gifts of the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost came upon them
and they spake with tongues and they preached, they prophesied. Now, listen, now they understand. I thought about this when I read
that. I thought, apart from the Holy Spirit, apart from this
understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, if they had these gifts, who would they give
the honor to? Who would they give the honor
to? You give honor to whom honors due. Like with me, if I have the gift
to stand here and preach to you, The honor goes to the Holy Spirit
who gives us and gives me this gift. We give it to Him. And so now they've got a proper
understanding. They've got a proper understanding
that the Son of God has come. He has finished the work. He's
gone back to glory. Now the Holy Spirit has come.
And these gifts that they have now are of Him. Are of Him. Don't boast of any gift as though
it came from you. We give them their proper honor
and glory in our salvation. The Father chose us. The Son
redeemed us. The Holy Spirit regenerates us. And in that sense, His work is
very, very important. You're not going to be saved
without it. You're not going to be saved without the work
of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is
absolutely necessary in our salvation because the Father ordained it
so. You know, whenever Adam was created, what did God say? What did God Almighty say? Let
us make man in our image. Let us
do it. It wasn't let me do it. You know,
the Father honors the Son. The Son honors the Father. The
Holy Spirit honors the Father and the Son. They honor each
other. They don't brag on themselves.
They honor each other. That's the exact attitude we
ought to have. We ought to honor each other. We ought to show
respect and honor each other and not even speak of ourselves.
Just like they do. You leave out the work of anyone
in the Trinity, and we don't have salvation. When you go over
and you read Ephesians chapter 1, especially the first 14 verses,
you will see, first of all, the work of the Father. He chose
us. You will see the work of the
Son. He redeemed us, in whom we have forgiveness, in whom
we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sin. And then
you'll see we are sealed with the Holy Spirit's promise. You'll
see the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit right
in those first 14 verses. All right.