Praying in the Holy Ghost

I'd like you to have those thoughts in mind out of Romans 5 and Proverbs 14 as we turn for a little while to the book of Jude. And I think it's just extraordinary in the providence of the Lord that he would place this little 25 verse book between all of the gospels and all of the letters and all of the Old Testament and the book of Revelation and I think it's such a powerful description and as our God alone can do in the hearts of his people, he can paint so many extraordinary pictures and draw so many characters out of so few words. And I wanted to look at all of this in light of verse 20, if you can turn down there.

At the end of his declarations in all of those 15, 16 verses where he's describing these creeping men, these turning men, these men that have no fear of God and they speak against the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 19, he says, these be they who separate themselves.

Sensual. It's all they were. All they did is what we read in Proverbs chapter 14. It's what they see with their faces, isn't it? There is a way that seemeth right to a man. They separate themselves, they're sensual, and listen to God's summary declaration of what is going on in their lives. Having not the Spirit. They don't have the Spirit of God. The only cure and the only solution to all of that heresy is the blessed Holy Spirit coming upon people and taking them out of that religion.

You might remember a few weeks ago that word separate is the word that we get the word Pharisees from. The Hebrew word for that was Pharisee. They were the ones who were the separated ones. So let's not for a moment think that these people are outside of what they saw as walking with the church. They feed themselves with the people of God. They separate themselves. And so these are not the reprobates that we might think of in their sensuality. These are the most highly esteemed religious people you can possibly imagine. And if we don't get that right, we'll get everything else wrong. We won't understand what the spirit is saying about these people here.

But I love how he begins having dealt with all of that. He says, but you, Beloved, what a lovely word. Beloved, you who are loved of God. We read about it in Hebrews, in Romans chapter five, isn't it? The love of God is shared abroad. in the hearts of God's people. It's shed abroad. It is poured out into the hearts of the children of God. Where is it? It's in their hearts. Where does Christ dwell?

He dwells in your hearts by faith. And he's spread aboard by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. But I love what he begins saying there, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. Your most holy faith. It's a reference to the holiest of holies.

In the temple, you know that the temple had courts on the outside and then it had a court on the inside and then another, and then finally, You went to the holy place and then inside the holy place you went to the most holy place. It's to be taken in by God Almighty into the very presence where he meets with his people. And where does he meet with his people? Where does he reveal himself to his people? In the place where the blood is offered. to God and the blood is accepted by God. That's why it's most holy faith because it's a faith that comes from the most holy one.

Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 9. I really want you to see this verse in Hebrews 9. And I'm going to confess that I'm not ever going to get anywhere near all of my notes today, but I want us to talk about, I want us to think and ponder that the Holy Spirit is the revealer. John 14, John 15, John 16, the Holy Spirit is the revealer of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But listen to Hebrews 9.14.

He speaks about the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of heifer sprinkling on the unclean, sanctifying through the purifying of the flesh. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit, the blessed Holy Spirit, offered himself without spot to God. Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. If you have anything to do with the religion of this world, and I do try and check up on what they're saying, almost universally throughout this religious world, they would say that the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ is an offering by God of his Son to all humanity.

That's what they're saying. You can read their confessions of faith, you can read their statements, you can listen to their sermons like I do occasionally. It's always cast in that life. What does the scripture say? What is this atonement? What is this atonement that we've received? He offered himself without spot to God and listen to the result of it. I just love this. Purge your conscience from dead works. What's it like to have a clean conscience? What's it like to have a dirty conscience made perfectly clean?

That's what the Lord Jesus Christ did in the hearts of all of his people. And what do God's children want to do? They want to serve the living God. It's your most holy faith. Praying in the Holy Spirit. Praying in the Holy Spirit. What is it to pray in the Holy Spirit? To pray with the Holy Spirit? To pray by the Holy Spirit? It's to be a participant. It's to be a beloved, according to this verse, is to be one of the beloved, isn't it?

The notion that God loves everyone is not in the scriptures unless you make a lie of the scriptures. God says he hated Esau and he hates all workers of Iniquity. To turn around and say that God loves all people is just a lie about God. It's a way that seemeth right unto a man.

The love of God is a precious, precious love. We just read in Romans 4, 5, it's shed abroad in the hearts of God's people by the Holy Spirit. Beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. That word building yourselves up is to build on a foundation. The foundation, what is the foundation that God's church is built on? There is just one foundation. I lay in Zion a cornerstone, a precious stone, Isaiah 28. A tested stone, a tried stone, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so this Holy Spirit, to pray in the Holy Spirit, he is the spirit of truth. And he's come, the Lord Jesus Christ said, he's come with manifest and he will come with manifest power. And he came and he's obviously came in all of the Old Testament. David cried out. And I'm sure many, many Old Testament saints says, well, please don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Please don't take your Holy Spirit from me. You can only say that because he had the Holy Spirit, and he knew about the Holy Spirit, and he knew the impact of the Holy Spirit on him.

The Holy Spirit wrote the scriptures that they were indwelt. All of the people that wrote the scriptures were indelt by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit carried them along as they put their pen to a paper. God the Holy Spirit was directing everything they wrote.

It's the spirit of truth, he's come. And he comes in that glorious day in manifest power on the day of Pentecost. And the day of Pentecost is the day where the harvest is brought in. They had two great festivals. One at Passover, they had the festival of first fruits and they went down to get the first fruits. They went down across and into the valley Kidron and across the creek onto those soils which were the richest soils around and they were fertilised by the blood of the sacrifices. You think about that. The Sunday of the resurrection was the Sunday of first fruits and they went down there to Kidron and they brought that fruit up and they waved it before the Lord and on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is poured out, it's the harvest.

It's the harvest, it's finished. Isn't it lovely that the work of the Holy Spirit begins with a work that's finished? There's work that's finished, he's finished, that's what the Lord Jesus Christ said, it's finished. And so the Holy Spirit comes, when you think about it, I'd love to think about it in these terms. The Holy Spirit comes after the cross, after the burial, after the resurrection, after the ascension. Fifty days after Passover, he comes. And he comes because he is, on this time, the revealer of Christ crucified. Just as the Lord Jesus Christ began, finished his work by saying it's finished, the Holy Spirit comes on the day when the harvest is finished.

And the comforter, he's called the comforter, and he comes and he abides with you forever. He's the spirit of truth that the world cannot receive. And it can't receive him because it doesn't know him and it can't see him. But you know him. Now listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ said in John 14, 16 and 17. But you know him. This is his prayer to his disciples. Judas had been cast out. Satan had entered into Judas and Judas had been cast out of that little band. And there was the Lord Jesus Christ for the first time in the presence of his apostles.

And they're all his children. It was all of his bride and he speaks the sweetest and the most wonderful words of them. In John 16 and 17, I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that may abide with you forever. John 14, 16. Even the spirit of truth in the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But you shall know him. But you know him. And listen to how you know him.

How do you know the Holy Spirit? For he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. The only people who can be the beloved and build themselves up on their most holy faith are the ones who are made most holy by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they become, because of his work, they become perfectly fit receptacles, perfectly fit vessels for God to dwell in them. And listen to what he says. He'll dwell with you and he shall be in you. And then he says, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. To have the Holy Spirit is to have Christ. is to have the spirit of truth. This spirit that sheds the love of God abroad in the hearts. This spirit of truth who declares the truth of who the Lord Jesus Christ is.

And without him dwelling in you, you don't know him. In a little while the world seeth me no more, John 14, 19, but you see me, and listen to what he says, because I live. You shall live also. Don't you think that's wonderful? And that day, on that day, When the Holy Spirit comes in power, you shall know, listen to the things that God's children know. Because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, because the love of God is shed abroad on our hearts, because by the Holy Spirit's work we have received the atonement, this particular atonement we have received, in that day you shall know that I am in my Father, listen to what he says, to his church, I'm in my father, you are in me, and I am in you. What's that? Union, communion, love, that's holiness. That's what it is to be set apart, to be sanctified by God Almighty. What a glorious, glorious gift it is to have this God Almighty dwelling in us. How safe, how secure.

I wanted us to spend a little bit of time thinking about this most holy faith, and I wanted us to remember I want us to remember again that all of these people, if you go through this list of all of the wickedness that is revealed of these people, and I want us to know that it's revealed within the church. God has purified his church and God exercises his church in their purity and in their most holy faith by having their faith challenged. by these people that dwell amongst them.

We don't want for anything other than there to be unity and love in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's not the promise of God. It's something that we should strive for. We should be anxious about the unity of the faith in the bond of love and peace.

But God separates his own. Listen to the allegations that the Holy Spirit makes against them. In verse 4, they are people who turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness, which means that they are saying that if you preach the gospel of the grace of God, you preach the most holy faith, and if you are beloved people and if you're building yourself up in your most holy faith, and you're not putting people under the law, under the moral law, under the law of Moses, you will just cause them to live lives of wickedness. And what does God say that is? That's denying the only Lord and Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. That's denying the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's denying what happened on the cross of Calvary.

God's children are not licentious in any way. They don't want to live lives of lasciviousness. But the love of God constrains them and the love of Christ compels them. The last thing that they want to do is deny. We're not ashamed of the Lord Jesus. We're not ashamed of his gospel. We're not ashamed of his people. And at the end of verse 5, they are people who believed not.

Where does faith come from? Isaiah 53 says something wonderful. There's a report gone out into this world about the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a report gone out, hasn't there? We are giving and we are declaring, according to the Word of God, the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. The report's gone out. And Isaiah 53 begins, who has believed our report?

Where does faith come from? The arm of the Lord God Almighty. That's where faith comes from. We'll read about it later on, if the Lord will allow. Likewise, in verse 8, these people are filthy dreamers. Their faith is based on their imaginings. That's what he says. He says they're filthy dreamers.

They defile the flesh, despise dominion, they speak evil of the dignities. The dignities of God the Father, the dignity of God the Son, the dignity of God the Holy Spirit, and the dignity of his sent people into this world. God sends his people into this world to declare his witnesses. And listen to verse 10, they speak evil of those things which they know not.

And this is in the church and what they know naturally, naturally. There is a way, we read it in Proverbs 14, there is a way that seems right to a man. These people just know this naturally. They know it from their intellect and they can know the most remarkable things from their intellect and their studies. They can be extraordinarily amazing theologians and put so many of us to shame, but what they know, they know naturally. As brute beasts in those things, in the things that they hold on to, in the way that seems right to them, they corrupt themselves. Listen to verse 12's description of them.

If you think they're outside of the church, these are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds without water, carried about by winds, trees whose fruit withereth. They are without fruit. Where does the fruit come from? The Holy Spirit of God. They have no fruit of love, no fruit of faith, no fruit of rejoicing in who God is.

And in verse 15, if we go down there in Jude, the Lord is coming to execute judgment. Thank God it's he who's going to execute judgment. We just have to declare the truth. And convince all the ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and all their harsh speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him in the church. They were in the churches. Ungodly means to be someone who has no fear, no reverence, no awe of God, no worship of God. And then we are to remember, beloved, we're told to remember that this should happen, there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. But you build yourself up. You build yourself up in the midst of that opposition within the church. You build yourself up while God superintends by his grace and by his power, his work in the hearts of his people. And he does it. He does it. Turn with me to Isaiah chapter four and we'll close this. section of what we're looking at here. Why? I suppose the question that should be asked and is asked over and over again is why? Why?

Wouldn't it be easier for the children of God to have met with no opposition? When I came back from India about 20 odd years ago with the gospel, I thought people are just going to love this. People are just going to be amazed that there's an eternal covenant and there's a surety in that eternal covenant and there's a covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and he robes his people with a righteousness which is perfect and complete and you don't have to add anything to it and he did it all long, long ago. And he did it wonderfully on the cross. He took away all the sins of all of his people. I'm so thankful that I came back with a message about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm so thankful that at the beginning of all of our We went to the religious people of our day with a sense of love, with a sense of care for their souls, and a sense, I trust, of the glory of God.

But also, we went to them with good news. We thought, this is going to be so, people are just going to love this. I'm going to be welcomed back. This will be really good. After all the naughty things I've done, I'm going to be welcomed back. And people are going to be rejoicing over this.

And you know the story and it's still, I'm shocked, I remember the number of times that I spoke to people and they heard something of the gospel naturally and they were just so excited. I had so many conversations with so many people who felt this amazing sense of freedom. I'm free, I'm free.

The liberty the liberty and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that the law of Moses was perfectly fulfilled in me 2,000 years ago when the Lord Jesus Christ from birth to death loved God with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind, all of his strength. And he loved his neighbour as himself and he loved all of the law of God and he perfectly obeyed all of it. And when he did it, I was there with him because I'm in him. We've just read those verses in John 14. We're in him.

It was the most holy faith. I was just so excited about it and I'd seen God work in the hearts of people to cause them just to rejoice and for their burdens to be taken away. And then the people of Jude, verses four down to 19, came along. And so, so, so many, those seeds were just snatched away. And by the end of it, they preached sermons about how wonderful it was to be free of us. How wonderful it was. Why did God do it that way? because the beloveds will have a most holy faith. To be holy is to be separated, set apart, and preserved by God.

You're in Isaiah chapter four. I just wanted to read. When the Lord, verse four, Isaiah four, verse four, When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the disorders of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem in the midst thereof, listen to the Spirit, by the Spirit of judgment and by the Spirit of burning. God's spirit in its separating work is a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. And part of the work of that spirit of judgment and spirit of burning is to burn away the dross from God's people and to burn away the chaff from his church to keep them pure.

And listen, and the Lord will create, verse five, and the Lord will create upon every dwelling place in Mount Zion, that's the church, and her assemblies, a cloud and a smoke by day and a shining of a flaming fire by night. For upon all, the glory shall be a defence. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat. and a place of refuge and for a covert, a place of refuge from the storm and from the rain. God's going to do that.

God's going to bring a spirit of judgment and burning. The Holy Spirit brings and sheds abroad the love of God in the hearts of his people. Turn with me back to Ephesians chapter 3 and I want us to see this about the Holy Spirit and then we can close.

He speaks of the predestinating work of our God and the inheritance that we have received in verse 11. According to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory. What did we read in Isaiah chapter four? For upon all the glory shall be for a defense.

The glory is the glory of God, the glory of the gospel. Listen to verse 13. That we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. The who's the one who first trusted in Christ? God the Father entrusted all of his glory and all of his name, all of his reputation into the hands of his dear and precious son. Listen to it. In whom you also trusted. After that you heard the word of God. of truth. It's the spirit of truth, isn't it?

The gospel of your salvation in whom also after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. The Holy Spirit is the revealer and the sealer, that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Who gets all the glory? We have this earnest of our inheritance until the redemption, until all of this work of redemption is finished and these bodies are with the Lord Jesus Christ in glory to the praise of his glory, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

To build yourselves up on your most holy faith is to have the faith of God's elect. is to have the faith of the children. It's to have the faith that God's arm brings to his people. And there is no faith without the word of truth. Faith in the scriptures is a noun which declares the nature and the character of God Almighty and his saving purposes in the Lord Jesus Christ. And faith is a verb. But also, To go back to our text in Jude 20, faith is a possession.

Listen to it. Build yourselves up in your most holy faith. Praying in the Holy Ghost. God puts into the hearts of his people a cry. May he do that to us again. He puts into his heart. Listen to what he says. I've just finished with this in Galatians 4.6. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts. What's the cry of the children of God? Abba, Father. We cry. He puts a cry in our hearts. It's praying. It's part of praying in the Holy Ghost. Amen. May the Lord cause us to rest and rejoice. And let's have a break.

Praying in the Holy Ghost

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Praying in the Holy Ghost

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