When Norm asked me to preach
to you tonight, I had several things that have been on my mind
that I've been studying. One of the subjects that I really
enjoy preaching on is from the book of John, chapter 16, if
you'd like to follow along in your Bible. And the title of
this message is The Miracle of Holy Spirit Conviction. And the
actual text, we'll read some other scriptures, but the actual
text begins in verse seven of John chapter 16. And of course,
this is the portion of scripture where Christ is speaking only
to his disciples. This is what is normally called
the upper room discourses. He had finished his public ministry
in Judea, and he's gathered with his disciples in the upper room. specifically here, he speaks
of his going away. And he says, look at verse seven
of John 16. He says, nevertheless, I tell
you the truth. It is expedient for you that
I go away. Now, he's about to leave. You know where he's going. He's
going to go through the sufferings He says, for if I go not away,
a comforter will not come unto you. Now, depending upon what,
you know, I always go with the King James Version. The word
comforter is literally advocate. And he's speaking of the Holy
Spirit here as an advocate. Now, we often refer to Christ
as our surety, our substitute, our Redeemer, to be our advocate.
He is our advocate with the Lord. He's called that. 1 John 2, I believe it is, where
it talks about when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the right for us before the Father, presenting
himself as our intercessor, our advocate, our savior, our charity,
the Lord, our righteousness. But he calls the Holy Spirit
here an advocate in the way of comfort. He intercedes in the
way of comfort, and that's why he's called a comforter, by bringing
us to see the glory of God in Christ. That's what the Holy
Spirit's work and bring us to Christ for our
comfort. And he's an advocate in that
way, spiritually speaking. And so he says, in verse seven,
he says, for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto
you. And what he's talking about, he says, but if I depart, I will
send him unto you. Now, what you have there is Christ's
work Again, as our surety, our substitute,
our representative, our redeemer, establishing the ground of salvation. That's what I call the legal
realm of salvation, our justification before God based upon his righteousness,
imputed to us. And everything that the Holy
Spirit does in what I call the spiritual realm of our salvation,
which is the new birth, you must be born again. The Holy Spirit
comes. to apply the resurrection power
in life of Christ in each and every one of God's chosen people,
bringing us under the gospel and teaching us, giving us life,
giving us ears to hear, eyes to see, a new heart, as Ezekiel
calls it, a new spirit. We're raised from the dead, literally,
spiritually speaking. And the Holy Spirit comes and
gives us life and brings us to Christ. He is our comfort in
that sense. And Christ says here, but if
I depart, I will send him unto you. And so what's happening
here, he's establishing himself as the son of God, God manifest
in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us, performing the work that
he was sent to do. And what was that word? Well,
it's stated in so many different passages of scripture in so many
different ways, but it all boils down to the same thing. And it's
like when he said during his baptism, when he had John the
Baptist baptized, he said, suffered to be so for us to fulfill all
righteousness. That's what Christ came to do.
He came to fulfill all righteousness on behalf of his people. He came
to die for our sins, to make that payment to the justice of
God, whereby God, having charged him with, charged Christ with
our sins, he died for our sins, and to bring forth an everlasting
righteousness of infinite value, whereby God has justified us
beyond God. And so that's the ground, that's
the legal ground of salvation. And it's his righteousness imputed.
And from that comes life given by the Holy Spirit. So Christ's
righteousness, Christ's work in the glory of his person and
his finished work is the ground of salvage. The Holy Spirit's
work is the fruit, the result, the evidence. of the power of
God unto salvation and of Christ's work. And that's why he says,
he says, I'm telling you the truth. It's expedient. That means
it's necessary for you, for his elect, for his sheep, that I
go away. It's necessary for him to go
to the cross. It's necessary for him to die. It's necessary for him to be
buried and raised again the third day. It's necessary that he ascend
unto the Father. and rule and reign from his throne
as our intercessor, our mediator. Because if he didn't do that
work, there would be no Holy Spirit work at all. There'd be
no new birth. There'd be no life. Romans 8.10 says this. It talks
about, he mentions the body is dead because of sin. He's talking
about our physical bodies. This fleshly body is dying unto
death. The reason we get sick. So he
says, in Romans 8, 10, he says, the body is dead because of sin. But he said, but the spirit is
life. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual,
eternal life because of righteousness. And where was that righteousness
accomplished? On the cross of Christ, in his
obedience unto death. His life, his death, his burial,
his resurrection. So Christ is telling them that
he has to go away. They're in sorrow. Back up in
verse six, he says, he says, but because I have said these
things unto you, sorrow has filled your heart. They were sorrowing
over losing his bodily presence. And so he comforts them by telling
them, now look, my going away, my going away from you, going
the way of the cross, the way of the grave, the way of resurrection,
that's necessary for you. Because if I don't do that work,
there'll be no spiritual life. There'll be no eternal life.
There'll be no work of the Spirit. But he said, if I go away, I'll
send him unto you. In verse eight, John 16, he says,
and when he has come, when the Spirit has come, he will reprove
the world. And he mentions three specific
things. Now, these three things cover
a lot of ground. But listen to what he said is
he will reprove. And if you have a concordance in your Bible,
you may have the word convince in there. And I like that word.
Convince, he will reprove, he will convince. And of course
I'm using the word, a parallel word, a synonym for that, convict. He's gonna convict you. And he's
gonna convict you of three things, of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgment. Before we go to those three things,
think about this. This is Holy Spirit conviction. And what this speaks of is the
invincible, irresistible work of the Spirit who comes forth
from the Father and the Son to impart spiritual life and all
the graces and gifts of the Spirit, faith, repentance, perseverance,
everything that we enjoy as born-again people, regenerated by the Spirit. Faith is the gift of God. Repentance
is the gift of God. Perseverance is the gift of God. None of those things come from
our natural self. None of those things come from
any goodness within us because we don't have any goodness. None
of those things come from any righteousness that we work out
because we are not righteous. There's none righteous, no not
one. And none of those things come from a free will decision
that we make. You know, somebody says, well,
you know, you know, the famous book that Billy Graham wrote
on how to be born again. He made this basic way of being
born again was, well, you make your decision for Christ, and
then as a result, you're born again. Well, that's not true.
Man by nature will not decide for Christ. The natural man,
1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural man God, neither can he know that.
Can't understand them, Satan. He doesn't have ears to hear,
eyes to see. I love that passage in Matthew
13 when the disciples asked the Lord why he spoke in parable.
And he said, he said, because they seeing see not and hearing
they hear not. He said, blessed are your eyes
for you see, blessed are your ears for you hear. You've been
blessed dead and to pray. He doesn't
know the way of salvation, God's way, and he doesn't want it.
That's just by nature. You know, I can remember in my
life as an unregenerate person when I first began to hear the
true gospel, how it upset me, how it brought out my anger because,
you know, it was shooting down all of my false refuges. This
is what he's talking about in conviction. It's the irresistible
call of the Holy Spirit towards God's chosen people is elect.
And the Bible speaks of it all over the place. And obviously
we think of John chapter three, where Christ said, you must be
born again. You cannot see the kingdom of God. You cannot enter
the kingdom of God. And what it says here, the comforter,
the Holy Spirit, he will reprove, he will convict the world. lives under the wrath of God
and die in unbelief. Because they're not going to
be convicted, convinced of sin and of righteousness. Now, I
have heard one preacher say that the whole world, everybody without
exception, in the end will be convicted of these things because
every knee is going to bow and everybody's going to confess.
That's not what Christ is talking about. What he's talking about
is the convicting work of the Holy Spirit that brings sinners
to Christ. That's based upon his cross work,
he said. And so he says, it's expedient
that I go away for the comfort of the come to do this work.
So this is a work that proceeds out from that work of Christ
on the cross. And that's the only way that
work comes. It's the power of that work.
His righteousness imputed is the ground of our salvation.
And it's also the power given to spiritually dead people. And so he's going to bring them,
the Holy Spirit's going to bring us under the gospel and point
us to Christ, give us faith, repent of our dead work. Now
the three, and this conviction, the force of this, again, it's
not every individual, but this is the kind of conviction that
brings a sinner to see in the new birth that Christ is all,
that salvation is all by the grace of God. And so it's a conviction. The way I like to see it this
way is if the Holy Spirit ever reproves you of these things,
these truths of Christ crucified and risen from the dead, if he
ever convinces you, convicts you, you will not be able to
deny You will not be able to ignore it, and you will not be
able to leave it. You understand what I'm saying?
That's the conviction. And it's not a preacher convincing
you and convicting you. God uses preachers. Brother Norm
stands up and preaches. He's being used of God when he
preaches the truth. But if you're convicted, if you're
convinced, you're reproved of these Gospel is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believes. And so that's the power of God.
So all of this is spoken by our Lord in light of his impending
suffering unto death and his going away from the disciples. And he says, it's expedient for
you, it's necessary for you, it's advantageous to you, it's
a benefit. Don't be sorrowing over this,
rejoice over it. Now we know that the disciples
were just like us. They were human beings. We, beautiful
human beings, it's what we all are. We're sinners saved by the
grace of God. I say all the time in messages
here in Albany, there's only two kinds of people on earth,
sinners lost in their sins and sinners saved by the grace of
God. Now we can divide people in various
ways, but that's just one. God's people begin our lives
here on earth as lost sheep. God's elect. We're lost sheep.
And God sends his spirit to find us, bring us under the preaching
of the gospel. And when he does, now, the way
the Lord puts it here, it says, look at verse eight. He says,
when he has come, he will remove the world of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment. Now, what does he mean, reprove
us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment? Well, he's not
just talking about some kind of a surface view of this thing
that people in general would admit to. I mean, most people
that I know, whether they believe the gospel or not, would say,
well, we're all sinners. We're all sinful. But is that
what he's talking about? No. each thing that he brings out.
Listen to what he says. Here's the first one. He will
convince you of sin because they believe not on me. And what is
he talking about? He's not just talking about some
general attitude that I'm not a perfect person, which I know
that's true. And again, most people that I
don't know of anybody in any belief would say that they're
perfect people. So we'll all admit of some magnitude
or degree of sin. But he's speaking of sin, now
listen to this, of sin as it relates to Christ, his glorious
person, his finished work, and sin as it is measured by Christ. I know I'm a sinner, I've always
known that. But I haven't always known what
kind and how much of a sinner I am. And you know, I used to look
at passages like Romans 3 in verse 10. It says, there's none
righteous, no, not one. It goes on to say, there's none
that seeketh after God. There's none good, no, not one.
And when I was in false religion, I used to think, well, that's
gotta be talking about somebody else. It can't be talking about
people I know because they're religious and they go to church
and they give their tithes and they do this and do that. I didn't
really know what sin was. The reality of it, how we fell
in it, how we fell into a state of spiritual death and depravity. And what he's saying here is
this, this sin has to be measured as it relates to Christ. And
this, you know, there's various words in the New Testament that
give us a definition of sin and what it means. We see it in Romans 323. We've
all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Well, where
is the glory of God? It's in Christ. And so what this
tells us is this, what Christ is saying, the Holy Spirit's
gonna tell us, he's gonna convince us that without Christ, without
him being my surety, my substitute, my redeemer, my mediator, my
righteousness, that I'm nothing but sin and can do nothing but
sin. Even my best is sin without Christ. I think about in John 8, 24,
Christ speaking to the Pharisee. And you remember back in the
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 20, he told the people, he
said, except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom
of heaven. But in John 8, 24, I said therefore unto you, that
you shall die in your sin. For if you believe not that I
am, now King James says I am he, but it's I am. If you believe
not that I am, you shall die in your sin. That's it. Without Christ, I don't care
how I try to keep the law. I don't care how sincere and
religious I try to be. Without Christ, without his blood
to wash away my sins and his righteousness to justify me,
I'm gonna die in my sins. I'm going to appear before God
without a mediator, without assurance, without a substitute. Because
everything I do, even my best, will fall short of the perfection
of righteousness that the law requires that can only be found
in Christ. And that's the conviction the
Holy Spirit gives to me, gives to God's people. I don't have
any righteousness. I'm a sinner. If God were to
ever give me what I deserve and what I've earned, it would be
eternal damnation. My only hope is the grace of
God. And grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's what he
convicts God's people of. Bible says that the measure of
righteousness, and we're gonna get to righteousness itself here
in just a moment, is Christ, because God has appointed a day
into which he will judge the world in righteousness by that
man whom he hath ordained, in that he hath given assurance
unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. That's
Christ. So what he's showing us here
is that without Christ, we have no hope. I don't care how good
we try. Should we try to be moral people?
Yes. Should we try to be the best
that we can be in every avenue of life that we're put in? Yes. But that's still gonna fall
short. Because without Christ, there's
nothing but sin in the eyes of God. He's the only Savior. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. All right, here's
the second thing in verse 10. The Holy Spirit will condemn righteousness, notice what he
says now, because I go to my father and you see me no more. Now, what is this righteousness
that the Holy Spirit will convict us of? Well, I can tell you one
thing he's not talking about. He's not talking about human
morality or human sincerity or human religion. Our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags, Isaiah said. And we have none. Paul wrote
in Philippians chapter three, O that I may know him and be
found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faithfulness of Christ, the
righteousness which is of the Lord. So the righteousness that
he's speaking of here is not human efforts. It's not human
efforts to keep the law. The righteousness that he's to die, to establish. Suffer
it to be so, John, for us to fulfill all righteousness. Daniel
chapter 9 and verse 24 speaks of the Messiah's work, talking
about how he'll make an end of sin by his death, and he will
finish the transgression, and he will bring in everlasting
righteousness. Jeremiah called him Jehovah Siphanu,
the Lord Our Righteousness. It's what it's about. David said,
I will speak of thy righteousness. I'm gonna talk about my work,
talk about the work of Christ. So the Holy Spirit, in conviction,
will convince us that there is no righteousness, that which
comes through Christ, going to the Father, which, and how did
he go to the Father? He went by way of an obedient
life, by the way of the cross. righteousness of God that's revealed
in the gospel. Paul said in Romans 116 and 17,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of
God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. Believing is
the work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth. To the Jew first
and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. And from faith to faith, that's
from knowledge revealed, knowledge received in God given faith.
Or as it is written, the just, the justified shall live by faith.
What is it to be justified? It's to be forgiven of all our
sins on a just ground. And what is the only just ground?
Blood of Christ. And what is it to be justified?
It is to be declared righteous in God's sight to the point that
God cannot and will not impute sin to us. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. It's
to be declared righteous in God's sight on a just ground. What
is that just ground? Well, we've been made the righteousness
of God in him. And that's the imputed righteousness
of Christ. So he said, the Holy Spirit will convince you of sin,
convict you, reprove you of sin because they believe not on me. He will convince you of righteousness
because I go to the Father. You see me no more. because the prince of this world
is judged. Now, what does that mean? Well, it's more than simply
the fact that he will convince you that there is a judgment
in the end. I'll never forget one of the
first funerals that I heard Brother Henry Mahan preach. He had four
points in his message. He said, there's four things,
you know, people say that the only true things in life are
death and taxes. Well, they're wrong. Here's the
four things that are sure for every one of us. Number one,
we have a life to live. Brother Mahan said it. Now some,
it's a short life. Some, it's long. Abel had a short
life. He died in the faith. Bethuselah
had a long life. He died, that's all it says.
I don't think he died in the faith. Nothing said about it. He lived, what, 969? They say
he was the oldest. But we all have a life to live.
And Brother Mayhead's wondering, how are we going to live that?
Well, if we're one of God's children. The third thing is judgment. We all have a judgment to face.
Now, for believers, and let me give you the fourth thing. The
fourth thing is we all have an eternity to spend. We're gonna
spend it somewhere, either in the bliss of fellowship of God
in Christ, or under the wrath of God, separated from him forever.
But we have a judgment. Now, for believers, it's not
a judgment that will determine anything. And really, for unbelievers,
it's not a judgment that will determine. It's not that we go
to the judgment to find out where we're gonna go, to heaven or
hell. The judgment of God is a declarative, where he reveals
before the whole human race, the whole universe, the standing
and the state of his children in Christ. and the standing and
state of the non-elect without Christ. And it's a declarative
thing. Our judgment has already been
accomplished. And when was it accomplished?
When Christ died on the cross for our sins. He was judged in
our place. He went under the wrath of God
in our place. And so when he says of judgment
because the prince of this world is judged, look over at John
chapter 12. What is he speaking of specifically? In John chapter 12, he begins
speaking about his death on the cross using metaphor. In verse 23 of John chapter 12,
it says, Jesus answered them saying, the hour has come that
the son seed of wheat, fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He's speaking of his death. And
the much fruit is what? The salvation of all the elect
of God. That's the fruit of his death.
We're the fruit of his death. But if you go down to verse 31,
John 12, listen to this. He says, now is the judgment
of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. Now who's the prince of this
world? That's Satan. And he's called the accuser of
the brethren. You remember before the death of Christ, Satan was
allowed to enter into heaven, of course, and accuse the brethren.
He's called the accuser of the brethren. Now keep in mind what
we're talking about. The Holy Spirit's gonna convince
us of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. It says
in John 12, 31, the judgment of this world, now
shall the prince of this world be cast out, and I, if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all unto me." Now, who's he talking
about, drawing them all unto him? He's talking about his elect,
his sheep, those whom the Father gave him. He said, all that the
Father giveth me shall come to me. They're going to be drawn,
John 6, 44 and 45 says. And it says in verse 38, this
he said, signifying what death he should die. Don't let him
down. Lift it up from there. That was
the judgment for God's children. We've been judged. And we'll
appear before the judgment seat of Christ, wherein he will declare
before the whole universe that we are his children. heavens and the new work. And
that's Holy Spirit conviction. It goes on. That's that's the
close of the main leverage. I have yet many things to say
unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the
Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.
For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear,
that shall he speak. And he will show you things to
come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and
show it unto you." That's the miracle of Holy Spirit conviction. And I hope that's been helpful
to your understanding.