I'd like to turn in your Bibles
to Ephesians 5 to start off with and then we'll go to John from
there. I thought we would review together the role of the Holy
Spirit in our lives and specifically being filled with the Holy Spirit,
what exactly does it mean? Is it possible in our modern,
materialistic, rapid-paced, digitally connected society to be filled
with the Holy Spirit? That's a good question. Ephesians
5.18 is the famous passage on being filled with the Holy Spirit.
And here Paul is given all his instructions after the theology
of the first part of Ephesians. And in 5.18 he says, And be not
drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
And then in 19-21, he tells you all the results of being filled
with the Spirit. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart
to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the
Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves
one to another in the fear of God. I think we'd all like to
live that way, wouldn't we? I don't know that any of us really
do. way to do that is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is
a very interesting verb here. It's in the present tense and
it's passive. So it literally means, and be
being filled. It's not a point action, an aorist
tense. So it's a continuous action.
We are to be constantly being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Notice he compares it to being drunk in a bad way. He says that
drunkenness is excess, that's the word ascetia, it really literally
means unsaved-ness. Unsaved-ness, profligacy, excess,
or riot. But be being filled with the
Holy Spirit, constant with the resulting behavior. Now, let's
turn to John 14 and let's pick up the passages in our Lord's
last long discourse with his disciples before the crucifixion. And I think we've all realized
the fact that during that discourse, he's got a main message to all
that he was saying to them. And the whole thing is, he was
cluing them into the fact that he was going to be going away,
he was going to be crucified. And the big deal about that was
that he wasn't going to be with them anymore. But he had a solution
for that, and this was the Holy Spirit. He was saying to them,
you know, I'm only in one place at one time in this incarnation,
and it's expedient that I go away, and if I go away, you guys
are going to be better off because the Holy Spirit's going to come,
and he can be with all of you at once. But he will be giving
you my message and telling you the things of me and teaching
you from me, So really, the Holy Spirit is going to represent
me when I'm gone. And that was his whole message.
So let's pick up these passages. And what we will learn from this
is the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And then we'll
come back, finishing up with the filling of the Holy Spirit
again. So John 14, this whole passage starts in John 13. Remember,
he had washed the disciples' feet in John 12. No, it's 13.
And then he started talking to them after he did that about
all the things that were most important to him as he went to
Calvary. And here in John 14, first of
all, verses 16 to 21. And I will pray the father and
he shall give you another comforter. We'll come back to that in a
minute. That he may abide with you forever. Even the spirit
of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him
not, neither knoweth him. But ye know him, for he dwelleth
with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless.
Actually, that word is orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little
while, and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me, because
I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that
I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. You've got to sit and think about
that for a minute. A lot going on there. I am in
my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth
me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will
manifest myself to him." How do you think he meant that? I
will manifest myself to him. That's through the Holy Spirit.
So here in this one passage, Jesus promises us the promise
of the Spirit, another comforter. First of all, the word another,
there's two words in Greek for another. Alos, which means another
of the same kind, and heteros, you know what that means. Heteros
means of a different kind. And so this word is alos. So he's telling them that this
other comforter is the same just like he is, of the same kind. What does comforter mean? This
is the word parakletos. It means intercessor, consoler,
advocate, comforter. And the verb parakaleo means
to urge, ask, encourage, console, comfort, or cheer up. So it's
all the meanings of comfort that anything having to do with comfort,
consoling, advocating, being a lawyer for, encouraging, that
is what the role of the Holy Spirit is in our lives. He also
says this is the spirit of truth. So anything that has to do with
truth is through the Holy Spirit. He abides with you, that's the
Greek word para, alongside of. Right now He's abiding with you,
disciples, He's telling them, but He shall be in you. So there's going to be a point
where He actually takes up residence inside you, in your spirit. And
he says, I will not leave you as orphans. This is orphanos,
means orphaned, fatherless, bereaved. In other words, I'm not going
to go away and leave you here all alone, guys. I'm not going
to do that. And this other comforter is going
to be who comes to you. I in you means the Holy Spirit. And I will manifest myself to
you is the Holy Spirit. All right, now look, so, so far
we have his role as comforter within us and the bearer of truth
also. In John 14, 26, but the comforter, which is the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall
teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance
whatsoever I have sent unto you. So here's two more roles, a teacher,
and a rememberer, if that's a word, he's going to remind us, I guess
a reminder is the word, he's going to remind us of the scriptures
that we do study at the proper times. So he will do that for
us. He's going to teach us what the
scriptures really mean and then he's going to remind them to
us. So this is the role of the Holy Spirit. Now, turn to John
15, the next chapter. He just goes on in talking to
them, it seems like the theme is always coming back to the
Holy Spirit. John 15, 26, But when the Comforter is come, whom
I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth,
which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me, and ye
shall also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the
beginning. So, here's another role he has, and that is to testify
of Christ. He does not testify of himself,
like so many of the Pentecostals end up experiencing. The Holy
Spirit does not bear witness of himself and make people want
all the spiritual gifts and the things of that nature, but he
testifies of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who he is all set to talk
about and to witness about. Now John 16, verses 7 and 8. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It is expedient 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. There's a lot of sending, have
you noticed? He hasn't been sent yet, but he's going to be sent.
And when he has come, he will reprove the world of sin and
of 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. This is a really packed passage
here. So what he tells us is, I've got to go away. It's expedient. It's necessary that I go away,
and it's actually better for you because I'm going to send
the Holy Spirit to be with each one of you. Now, this is the first time we
start seeing a role that is other than to Christians. But he gives
us an insight here into the Holy Spirit's role in the rest of
the world. And it is three things. He will
reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So, I mean, we
all know that this world would be even worse off than it is
without the presence of the Holy Spirit. He restrains. He actually
restrains evil somewhat. And there's a passage in the
New Testament which says he's going to be taken out of the
way near the end and things are going to really get bad. But
he reproves the world. of sin, and it explains that
in verse nine, of sin because they believe not on me. So the
way that he reproves the world is to reprove of sin because
of lack of belief in the Lord Jesus. Now, of course, we know
who believe in the sovereignty of God, but there's not much
of that that happens unless a person is elect. And then the Holy Spirit's
work is effective, Not that he does that to the lost anyway,
but the reproving of sin here is for the elect many. Of righteousness,
and he explains that in verse 10, of righteousness because
I go to my father and you see me no more. In other words, he's
gotta be here to reprove the world of righteousness because
Jesus isn't here anymore. So that's how it happens, is
through the Holy Spirit. And then through judgment, And
that's explained in verse 11 of judgment because the prince
of this world is judged, talking about Satan. Okay, so he is a
converter and he is omnipresent. And in John 16, 13 through 15,
a little more, how be it when he, the spirit of truth has 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 shall show it unto you. All things that
the Father hath are mine. Therefore said I that he shall
take of mine and shall show it unto you. So here he is going
to tell us about things to come, and of course that's mainly through
the prophecies in the Bible that he sheds light on. He does not
speak of himself, but he speaks of the Lord Jesus. He's also
the spirit of truth, again mentioned, leads us in all truth, and he
will glorify Christ. So, in just a summary of that
long passage, we've learned that he is another comforter of the
same kind as the Lord Jesus. He's going to be within the disciples
in a future date. He's a teacher. He's going to
be teaching. He's going to remind us of things
we learn from the Bible, of things that the Lord said. He's going
to guide us in all truth. He is everywhere, and the Lord Jesus
had to go away for him to come. And he does work on people in
the world, selectively. Now, I want to talk about a real
interesting passage. Turn to John 20, same book, a
little later. This is after the resurrection. in verses 19 through 23. You know, all through the Old
Testament, of course, the Holy Spirit being the third person
of the Godhead has always been around. He was in creation as
the person who hovered over the world. He's throughout the Old
Testament in so many ways. But He really, and He obviously You know, this is a very deep
subject and I don't know it all, but he obviously dealt very strongly with Christians,
with the saved in the Old Testament, but it seems like he would come
and go. And that I don't have a total
handle on, but at least at this point, the promise is that he's
going to come and abide with Christians permanently. So in
John 20 verses 19 to 23, Then the same day at evening, being
the first day of the week, he had arisen from the dead. When
the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for
fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst and said
unto them, Peace be unto you. All of a sudden he appears. They're
gathered together. He appears. The implication here
is the door wasn't open for him to come in, he just appeared.
And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side.
Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. They
almost had to see that evidence to recognize him. Then said Jesus
to them again, peace be unto you, as my father has sent me,
even so I send you. And when he had said this, he
breathed on them and said unto them, receive ye the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you remit, they
are remitted unto them, and whosoever sins you retain, they are retained. All right, so he's been telling
them all through the earlier discourse about the promise of
the Holy Spirit. We have to assume they caught
all that, they understand somewhat, and he has died and risen again,
and he's back in their midst, and he breathes on them, I take
that literally, and then he said at the same time, receive the
Holy Spirit. Now, this one is in the Aorist
tense, Labate, which would indicate not a constant receiving, but
an initial receiving. Labate, receive now the Holy
Spirit. So, we assume they did. This was just the 11. Now what happens? Well, let's
turn to Acts and let's follow through on this. Acts tells us about Pentecost,
of course. And Acts 1.5, this is his final
discourse right before he ascended. For John truly baptized with
water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many
days hence. I forgot to take you through
the passages all through the New Testament about John's preaching
and the prediction about the Messiah. What was the big thing
about that? Well, that John was saying, I
baptize you in water, but there's one coming after me who's going
to baptize you in the Holy Spirit. A few of the Gospels say just
that much, and one of them says the Holy Spirit and fire. And
there's not a thee in both of those words, so the Holy Spirit
equals fire. So, he's promised that the Son
of God is going to baptize the people in the Holy Spirit. So
it was a message even back then. It is the whole message of a
major part of the gospel is the role of the Holy Spirit. All
right, Acts 1-5, John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. Now, this is something
I don't totally understand. I would have thought him breathing
on them and then receiving the Spirit was the baptism, but evidently
not. The baptism of the Holy Spirit,
you know, was evidently Pentecost only. And we know that when Christians
receive the Lord Jesus, when He saves them, they receive the
Holy Spirit. That is the baptism of the Holy
Spirit for us. We need not believe any of the Pentecostals when
they say it's a second experience that you need to have and all
that. When the Lord saves us, He gives us everything. He gives
us the Holy Spirit. He baptizes us in the Holy Spirit.
So you can't take all of the first happenings of something
as being the formula for then on. He evidently let the Holy
Spirit come to them in a few stages. The first stage was in
breathing on them and then receiving the Holy Spirit. The second stage
was at Pentecost where they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and
got power. So let's read that. This was
the larger group. Remember, this is bigger than
the 11. But in Acts 2.4, you remember what all happened. Peter's preaching, or he's going
to. The day of Pentecost was fully
come. And then verse 4, and they were
all filled. Well, I guess I should read 3.
We don't have to be afraid of 3. And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues as of fire. Interesting, baptized you with
the Holy Spirit and fire. And it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to
speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. This is an aorist verb. They were all filled with the
Holy Spirit. Then, look at Acts 4.31. We're not
going to take much more time than this, but just to mention
that you can lose the filling of the Holy Spirit is proved
by Acts 4.31. Because these are largely a lot
of the same group. It's a larger group, It's a lot
of the same ones. Acts 4.31 says, And when they
had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together,
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Exact same phrase,
aorist tense, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. So, in
the New Testament, in the beginning of the New Testament times, The
filling of the Holy Spirit brought with it not only these signs
we read earlier in Ephesians of joy and submitting to one
another and being the kind of Christians we should be inside,
but it also brought a lot of external signs. Why? Because
the world was needing to witness the fact that this was the true
God coming upon people and so there were these outward signs
of tongues and everything else. Since then, it's pretty obvious
that tongues have gone away And we don't need all those external
signs that accompanied the coming of God to different groups of
people. He came to them on Pentecost. He came to the ones in Ephesus.
He came to the disciples of John later. So these were different
groups of people that he came to, and the rest of the people
watching needed to see evidence that it was really God, so they
had a lot of external sparkle to their filling of the Holy
Spirit. We don't need that these days. But the verse that seems
to rule for us is 1 Corinthians 12.13. Let's turn there. That's actually the word in,
so you could really say in one spirit. The spirit is not the
baptizer, is it? For in one spirit we are all
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether
we be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one
Spirit." And this is obviously at our conversion, actually at
regeneration, where we receive the Spirit, where the Spirit
opens our eyes to the things of God. So, there's two pictures
here. In one spirit, we're all baptized
into one body. That's the water picture, a baptism
picture. And then we've all been made
to drink into one spirit. So this is the image that we
have of who we are as Christians. But what it doesn't mean automatically
is that we live our lives filled with the Holy Spirit. So that's
why he says in Ephesians, to be being filled with the Holy
Spirit. The verbs in 1 Corinthians 12
here are aorist passive. Ebaptistomen, which means to
be baptized and to drink, to be made to drink, is also an
aorist passive. So it's a one-time thing. It
happens to us as Christians at the start of our Christian life. We never have to be baptized
in the Holy Spirit again. But what we do have to be is
be being filled with the Holy Spirit. And I want to just end
with two passages that are also very interesting to me. 1 Thessalonians
5.19. I think I've told you before that
I pick passages that I need myself. And I don't know that I'm ever
much filled with the Holy Spirit. But this really brings it home,
these two passages I'm going to leave you with here. 1 Thessalonians
5.19 says, Quench not the spirit. This word means extinguish, put
out, or restrain. We believe in the sovereignty
of God. We know that whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do,
He's going to do. But there is some aspect here in which we,
by our actions, our thoughts, whatever, our speech, can quench
the Spirit. And He tells us not to do it.
Quench not the Spirit. I believe this is a present tense,
so just don't be doing it, He says. Look at Ephesians 4.30,
the parallel passage. Well, I guess we ought to get
the context here. He's saying in Ephesians 4, he's telling
them all the things they shouldn't do. He says up there, well, up
in 24, he says, put on the new man. And we all understand what
that means. It's not just putting on, but
it's putting on. And then he says, put away lying. Stop lying. Stop being angry. Stop stealing, or don't do it. Work with your hands. Don't steal.
Watch your mouth. In 29, no corrupt communication.
Proceed out of your mouth, but edify others. And then he wraps
it all up by saying, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby
ye are sealed under the day of redemption. Which is neat that
he's reminding us that we are sealed. We can't make him go
away altogether. But we can do through our actions,
thoughts, speech. We can grieve him. This again
is a present tense, don't be grieving the Holy Spirit. This
is Lupeo, which means pain, grieve, or injure. To give pain to, to
grieve, or injure. So we certainly don't want to
come across portraying God or any person of God as being weak
or in any way a victim or anything
like that, of course. But in some way, we as Christians
can pain our Lord, or pain the Holy Spirit. And we just don't
want to do that. In which we were sealed, and
that points back to Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, where it shows
us that we are sealed in the Holy Spirit, which must have
to do with that whole thing that happens all at once. Baptism,
sealing, everything when we're first saved. I think the role
of the Holy Spirit is something we all need to recognize and
be aware of and be thankful for that Christ did go away so that
the Holy Spirit could come and work his work with us.