Welcome to the Reign of Grace
radio broadcast. My name is Bill Parker. I'm the
pastor of the 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
This program is sponsored by the members of Eager Avenue Grace
Church in Albany, Georgia, located at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany,
Georgia. I'll be bringing you a gospel
message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ from God's holy word. And now, the message. Welcome to our program. Now,
today I'll be continuing through the book of John, chapter 14,
and the title of today's message is, The Divine Comforter. the
Divine Comforter, and many of you will recognize that term
as applying to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity,
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and referring
to the work of the Spirit as the Divine Comforter. Back in
John chapter 14 and verse 16, the Lord speaking to His disciples
in the upper room, and instructing them concerning the work of salvation,
the work that he himself, as the Son of God incarnate, was
about to perform and finish in the redemption of his people,
and the work of the Spirit, which would come afterward in a special
way to indwell God's people permanently as the divine comforter. Now,
one thing we need to understand, and there's so much confusion
today about the person and the work of the Holy Spirit, Some
people don't go far enough, some people go too far. Some people
exalt the work of the Holy Spirit over the work of the Son, and
that is a dangerous, a deadly doctrine of devils. It's not
true. What we need to understand is
this, and this is what Christ is teaching the disciples here.
First of all, he says, I'm not going to leave you without comfort.
He's going away. He will say over in John chapter
16, he says, it's necessary or expedient for you that I go away. In other words, it was necessary
for the salvation of his people, his church, God's elect, his
redeemed ones, that he would go and do his work for them on
the cross of Calvary, be buried and raised again the third day,
and ascend unto the Father, to live forever, to make intercession
for them, live forever as God-men. And he says it's necessary. If
Christ did not do his work, there would be no salvation. There'd
be no redemption. And if Christ did not do his
work on the cross of Calvary to redeem and justify his people
before the law of God, to enable God to be just and justifier,
then there would be no work of the Holy Spirit. So what I want
you to understand at the outset here is this. The work of the
Spirit within God's people, Christ's sheep, subjectively, inwardly,
in the heart, in the new birth, that work, that great work of
the Holy Spirit is necessary for salvation. Christ said you
must be born again. However, the work of the Spirit
within us is the fruit, the result, the effect, of the work of Christ
for us. The work of Christ for his people
on the cross in shedding his blood as payment for the sins
of his people, as bringing forth a righteousness to justify them.
His great work on the cross is the ground of salvation. It's
the ground of attaining it, maintaining it. It's our entitlement to heaven.
It's what makes us fit and accepted before God in Christ. The work
of the Spirit within us is the result, is the fruit of it. Our
new birth is the fruit of it. You see? The work of the Spirit
within us is not the completion of what Christ only begun. It
is the fruit of what Christ already finished. Somebody said, well,
you may be splitting hairs there. Now listen to me. The Bible says
that in all things, especially in salvation, Christ must have
the preeminence. He has the preeminence. And my
friend, the main work of the Holy Spirit within us is to show
us the preeminence of Christ and lead us to see His greatness,
His glory, His finished work on the cross to save us from
our sins. Now, back in verse 16, I dealt
with this a little bit last week, but let's look at this again.
Christ says to his disciples, he said, I will pray the Father,
and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide
with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. In other words, this
Comforter is the Spirit of truth, not the Spirit of error. He brings
truth by the Word of God to the minds and the hearts and the
affections and the wills of God's people to show them who Christ
is. He's God and man in one person.
He shows us who we are by nature in the light of God's sovereign
holiness. We're sinners. We need mercy. We need grace. We cannot save
ourselves. Our works are filthy rags in
the sight of God. And he shows us the glory of
Christ and what he accomplished on Calvary. to bring forth righteousness
and eternal life for his people." In other words, the Holy Spirit,
as a comforter, as a Spirit of truth, leaves us with no hope
of salvation, no hope of final glory, except in Christ and Him
crucified. And I want to tell you something.
Now, somebody asked me one time this question about conviction. You know, the Bible speaks of
conviction of sin. conviction of righteousness,
conviction of judgment. It speaks of Holy Spirit conviction. There are a lot of different
types of conviction, being brought under conviction. And somebody
asked me one time, how do I know if the conviction is of the Holy
Spirit? You know, sometimes it can be
natural conscience conviction, legal conviction. Sometimes it
can be social conviction, just society coming down, people laying
a guilt trip on you, family conviction. It can be all kinds. How do we
know if it's Holy Spirit conviction? Well, I'll tell you, it's not
hard and it's not difficult, it's not deep, it's simple. If it's the conviction of sin
given by the Holy Spirit, He will lead you to find no comfort
no assurance, no peace, no salvation, no safety except in Christ and
Him crucified. My friend, if you're convicted,
feeling guilty, sorrowful in any way, over your sin in any
way, your inadequacies, your weaknesses, if that's your condition
of your mind, if you end up anywhere in religion, In your works, in
your family, in any way, if you end up anywhere but in Christ
and Him crucified for your whole salvation, then you can know
it's not Holy Spirit conviction. It's legal, natural conscience
conviction. The Spirit of God, the Comforter,
is the Spirit of Truth. And here He says He's another
Comforter. Christ said, I'll send you another Comforter. Now
that word another, I mentioned this last week, that word another,
is not another of a different kind, but another of the same
kind." And there the Lord was testifying of the deity of the
Holy Spirit. Now, he says in verse 17, "...even
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because
it seeth him not, neither knoweth him." You see, the Holy Spirit
reveals Himself to the people of God as He shows them Christ. You see, he not only shows them
their sins, but he shows them Christ, the only remedy, the
only relief, the only salvation from sin in Christ on the cross,
his blood and righteousness. The world doesn't know that.
The world doesn't want Christ. That's what he's saying. That's
those who are so connected to this world and to themselves
that they will not bow to Christ. But he says, but you know him.
He's revealed himself to you. And he says, for he dwelleth
with you, and he shall be in you. And as I said last week,
that's speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit in Providence,
in our lives when he brings sinners under the preaching of the gospel,
and then his work in them in the new birth to regenerate them,
give them spiritual life and knowledge, and give them faith
to come to Christ. and he'll be in you. Now, back
over here, when Christ said, he said, I'll not leave you comfortless,
I'll come to you. I'm not going to leave you as
orphans in this world without hope, without support, without
sustenance. He said, I will come to you.
But he said, I'm going away. I'm going away. And verse 22,
it mentions Judas. Now, this is not Judas Iscariot.
This is another Judas. That was a common name back then.
Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt
manifest thyself unto us, that is, his disciples, and not unto
the world? Well, verse 23, Jesus answered
and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and
my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make
our abode with him. Now what he's talking about here
is the evidence of being a child of God. The evidence of the indwelling
presence of God within a person. Now how does Christ, how does
God indwell his people? Well, the context tells you very
plainly what he's talking about. This comforter that he's sending
to indwell them. This is the Holy Spirit who indwells
God's people by the Word. So He indwells us by His Spirit
and by His words. If a man loved me, he will keep
my words. The Word of God is indelibly
imprinted upon his heart, upon his mind, upon his affections,
upon his will, and he cannot get away from it. Now, he may
lose sight of it for a little while, but he'll always be brought
back to it. And you know why? It's because
God keeps him in His hands. God has a hold on his people,
and he will not let go. Even when we let go of him, he
will not let go of us. He indwells us by his Spirit
and his words. And he says in verse 24, He that
loveth me not keepeth not my sayings. Those who do not love
him don't believe in him. They don't trust in him and rest
in him and follow him. And he said, And the word which
you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. Now what
Christ is speaking of here? is the authority of the Father.
He's not saying that he and the Father are not the same in nature
and in purpose and in the essence of their deity. They are. You
see, that's the issue of the Trinity. And I've said it before
in this program, we cannot really explain or fathom in our finite
minds the essential elements of the Trinity. It's a truth
of Scripture that's revealed back in the Old Testament from
Genesis all the way to Revelation, how that God is one God, not
three gods, but one God, who subsists in three distinct persons,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the Father represents
the authority of the Godhead, the sovereignty of the Godhead,
exercising all the prerogatives of Godhead, The Son is submitted
to the Father for the purposes of our redemption, and it is
upon the Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord our righteousness, the Son
of God incarnate, that all of salvation is conditioned. The
government shall be upon His shoulders. And the Holy Spirit
is sent out from the Father and the Son to apply what the Father
purposed and what the Son purchased. So we see the triune Godhead,
Father, Son, and Spirit, working consistently together in the
salvation of a sinner. And it is through Jesus Christ,
God the Son incarnate, that the whole Godhead is revealed in
the nature of their person. It is in Christ that we see the
Father. For without Christ and Him crucified,
there is no Father for us. He is the Father. whether we see it or not. But
the only way that you're going to bask in the love of the Father,
the only way that you're going to have assurance and peace and
rest in the Father is through the Son. Now, he said that earlier. He said, if you've seen me, you've
seen the Father. Without Christ, when you go to meet God, without
Christ, all you'll meet is a sovereign judge who will damn you for your
sins, and justly. But my friend, in Christ, He's
a loving Father. And obviously it's in the Lord
Jesus Christ that we see the glory of the Son Himself, the
second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever, without beginning, without end, the Alpha and the
Omega. It's in Christ that we see the
glory of the Spirit who applies this salvation. He is the one
who is the sovereign agent in the new birth, who indwells his
people as the comforter. And so Christ is saying here
that I'm not speaking on my own. These words were his, but he's
not speaking on his own. He has the testimony and the
authority of the Father. And that's important, you see.
The Jews would readily say God is our Father, but they rejected
Christ. You cannot reject Christ and
know the Father. So he says in verse 25, or verse
24, I'm sorry, verse 25, he says, These things have I spoken unto
you, being yet present with you. Now Christ was with them in body.
He's God-man. But He's going away. He would
not be with them in body for much longer. He's going away.
He's going to die. He's going to be buried. He'll
be raised again the third day. And then he'll dwell among them
for a few days, and then he'll go unto his father. So he says,
I'm telling you these things when I'm present with you, but
look at verse 26. But the Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever
I have said unto you. In other words, again, Christ
is saying here, I'm not going to leave you comfortless. I'm
going away. And He must go away. He must
do His work on the cross. He must ascend unto the Father.
The Bible says He ever lives, seated at the right hand of the
Father, ever living to make intercession for His people. He is our advocate. He is the Lord. He's coming again
to gather His church unto Himself and to judge this world and the
damnation. and will dwell in eternity with
him. But while he is away, he leaves us with the Holy Spirit,
this divine comforter. The Father sends the Spirit in
the name of the Son. And that tells us something about
the sovereign work of the Spirit within us. The Spirit's work
within us is not to point to Himself. The Spirit's work within
you is not to give you an analysis of the anatomy of what's happened
in the spiritual nature of things. You see, we only know the work
of the Spirit within us by the evidences. And the main evidences
are this. He shows us our sinfulness and
Christ's glory and Christ's righteousness. He shows us who we are. and our
weakness and our impotence, and that our only hope is in Christ,
the Son of Glory, and Him crucified. He'll lead you to Christ and
Him alone. And he says here he'll teach
you all things, bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever
I said unto you. You know, Christ taught the disciples
many, many, many things. John said that many things he
said, many things he did, were so numerous that you couldn't
contain them in a book. But the Holy Spirit will bring
those things to remembrance. And John himself says in several
places, he says that when Christ spoke these things to them at
present, he said they didn't understand them, but later on
they did. And I think about the book of Luke, chapter 24, when
Christ gathered his disciples together just before he ascended
unto the Father, and he opened up their understanding to the
Scriptures, and he showed them how Moses and the prophets and
the Psalms were all written concerning Him, His glorious person and
His blessed work of salvation on the cross. You see, that's
our Lord showing them all things, and He sends His Spirit to remind
them of what He taught them, how to preach Christ from the
Old Testament. But verse 27 is an important
verse here, and I want you to look at that. He says, Peace
I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid." Now he says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Those
are two things there. First of all, now he'd been talking
about the work of the Spirit within his sheep. Remember back
in John chapter 10, he said, my sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. That's the work of the Spirit
within. You wouldn't be able to hear his voice, his word,
his gospel, his grace, his love, his finished work, without the
operation of the Spirit in the new birth. And he said, they
follow me. You wouldn't follow him, you'd
follow another, you'd follow self, you'd follow the world.
But when the Spirit of Christ comes and does his great work
with him, That ruined sinner who's been redeemed by the blood,
he'll be regenerated by the Spirit, he'll be raised from the dead
spiritually, he'll have ears to hear the voice of Christ in
the preaching of the gospel, and he'll have a heart to follow
Him, trust Him. You see that? Well, all of that
work of the Holy Spirit, as I said before, is the fruit and the
result and the effect of the work of Christ on the cross.
And when He says, Peace I leave with you, That's what he's talking
about. On the cross of Calvary, Christ,
the Son of God, the sacrifice, the sin-bearing, suffering substitute,
He brought peace between God and sinners. He established peace. You see, God had a matter against
His elect, their sinners. They were under the condemnation
of the law in Adam, And Christ went to the cross and took those
sins upon Himself. They were legally accounted to
Him. He was made sin, the Scripture says. That means our sins were
charged to Him. And He suffered and bled and
died to pay for those sins. And He established a righteousness
to be accounted, legally charged, to all of His people. It was
given to them right then in the eyes of God's law and justice.
And peace between God and his people was established. Peace
I leave with you. That's what he's saying. That's
why he went to the cross. He's the prince of peace, the
scripture says. He brought peace and established
peace. You see, there's no more war
between God and his people in the eyes of God's law and justice.
Justice has been satisfied. The law has been honored. Righteousness
has been established. God's people are no longer condemned
in Adam, they're justified in Christ, and that's the peace
he established. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. So
he said, my peace I leave with you. And then he says, my peace
I give unto you. That peace that was established
at the cross, is by the Holy Spirit brought into their hearts
and their minds when they hear the gospel of peace and believe
it. And at that time, they're reconciled
to God. The Father's already reconciled
to them in Christ at the cross, to them at Christ at the cross.
Now when they hear the gospel by the power of the Spirit, they
are reconciled to God. They come to Christ. They come
as mercy beggars, banging on their chest, God be merciful
to me the sinner. And they see peace made between
God and them on the cross. They plead the blood of Christ
and his righteousness alone. And he said this peace, this
peace I leave with you, this peace I give unto you, it's not
like the world gives. Now my friend, the world can
offer you no peace, no real lasting peace. All the world can give
you is a temporary peace. It's really a false peace because
it doesn't last. Religion. You see, when your
conscience gets under conviction, what do you do to relieve and
soothe that troubled conscience? Do you go to the baptismal pool?
You say, I do and I got peace. It won't last. Do you go to the
church building and rededicate your life? Do you start giving
more than your tithe? Do you start confessing before
men? Do you start trying to do better
and you say, I've done all that and I get peace? It won't last.
My friend, the only thing that will soothe the guilty conscience
in an eternal, everlasting peace is by looking to Christ and Him
crucified. Looking unto the one who's been
raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father,
making intercession for Him. That's the only lasting peace.
So he says, let not your heart be troubled. You remember he
said that before? Over in verse 1, after he revealed to Peter,
he said, Peter, you're going to deny me three times. Don't
you know that when Peter denied the Lord three times, don't you
know how sorrowful that made him? The Bible says it did. He
wept bitterly. And Christ is saying, Peter,
don't let your heart be troubled. John, James, all of you. We're
sinners. And we go through this life and
we're troubled on every side. We fail in every way. We never
measure up in ourselves to the perfection that we see in Christ. And it's troubling. And our hearts
are troubled. So how are we going to have peace?
How are we going to have comfort? My friend, it's not looking to
others. They'll condemn you. It's not looking to self. Our
own hearts will condemn us. It's by looking unto Christ. That's how we run the race of
grace, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our
faith. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Look at verse 28 of John 14.
He says, You've heard how I said unto you, I go away and come
again unto you. If you loved me, you would rejoice,
because I said, I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater
than I." You see, at this point in time, in their lives as believers,
they didn't understand all the implications of the work of the
Spirit and the Gospel. They knew the Gospel. They knew
that Christ had to be crucified. They knew that he had to die
for their sins. They knew that. But they didn't
understand all this about him going away. And what he's telling
them here is this. If you loved me, you would rejoice. They're human. Sinful, weak human. And you just know how it broke
their heart to see him go away from them. But he said, if you
love me, and that's what he's saying now, this love that God
the Holy Spirit has put within you, if you see it, cultivate
it, think about it, by God's work, you'd rejoice. You rejoice
in this great salvation. He said, because where am I going?
I'm not going to the grave. Only for a little while, but
the grave can't hold him. I'm going to my father. And my
father is greater than I. The father raised him from the
dead. The father brought him up on
high. And the father will send him
again. He said, I'm coming again. And he says in verse 29, and
now I have told you before it come to pass that when it come
to pass, you might believe. their faith would grow, become
even stronger. And hereafter I will not talk
much with you, for the prince of this world cometh and hath
nothing in me. The devil's coming now, but the
devil has no ally in Christ. He has an ally in me and in you,
the flesh, but he has no ally in Christ. Christ is the perfect,
sinless Son of God. He knew no sin, he did no sin,
no sin was put or imparted or infused into him. He was the
sinless Son of God, and that's how he defeated the devil as
our sins were laid to his charge, and he drank damnation dry. And
then he said, but that the world may know that I love the Father,
and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do, arise, let's go
hence. I hope that's helped you in your
understanding of the Scriptures. If you'd like a copy of this
message, listen to the announcer as he gives you the details.
The title of this message is The Divine Comforter. And I hope
you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word.
We're glad you could join us for today's message. If you would
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more information about Eager Avenue Grace Turf, remember we
are located at 1102 Eager Drive in Albany, Georgia. You can call
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at www.rofgrace.com. Thank you and may the Lord be
with you.