Thursday morning, I drove over
to visit with Dr. Hendrickson for just a few minutes. I figured if I make house calls
now, he might make them later. And you don't need me introducing
him to you. He's kind of like Dr. Stone on gun smoke. Everybody in Danville knows Dr.
Hendrickson. But we chatted a little while and I left and he called
me, said, Brenda called and said, did you ask him about being filled
with the Holy Spirit? And I told him I'd sent him some
things and I got back in the office and realized I'd been
working on this for a good while and working on it then, but I'm
preaching through Ephesians right now. And I said, I called him
back and I said, I'll be preaching on the subject Tuesday night,
so you can come or I'll send you the, have Shelby send you
the disc after the messages. We're delighted you're here.
God's given me a message. I'm confident. I pray he'll give
me the power of his spirit to deliver it. I want to talk to
you about the spirit-filled life. And if you'll turn to Ephesians
5 and hold your Bibles open there, I'll get to my text in a few
minutes in Ephesians 5, 18. But amidst all the happy, clappy,
hand-waving tomfoolery of this modern charismatic age of Pentecostal
sorcery, someone needs to speak and speak with dogmatic clarity
about the person and work of God the Holy Spirit. I repeat
tonight what I've said from this pulpit to you many, many times
in the past few years. The apostolic age ended with
the apostles. That means all of those who pretend
to have apostolic gifts only pretend to have them. No man
this day has the ability to speak in tongues, or to hold his hand
over your head and confer on you the Holy Spirit, or to perform
miracles, or to give prophecies, have a word of vision, or a word
of knowledge. We have the whole revelation
of God in Holy Scripture, and there is no need for those apostolic
gifts any longer. No one today possesses them.
That age is ended. But that does not mean that the
work of God the Holy Spirit has ceased. It hasn't. Indeed, this
is distinctly the age of the Holy Spirit. In John chapter
16, as our Lord is giving his final address to his disciples,
he said, it's expedient for you that I go away. If I go not away,
the comforter will not come. And this is that one who will
come in my stead, another comforter, who will guide you into all truth.
This is distinctly the age of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy
Spirit is our divine comforter and teacher. God the Holy Spirit
gives chosen, redeemed sinners life and faith in Christ by his
sovereign power. God the Holy Spirit is he who
sheds abroad in the hearts of God's elect the knowledge of
the love of God. When he makes Christ known, he
sheds abroad in our hearts the love of God, assuring us of free
justification, redemption, and salvation in Christ Jesus the
Lord. And by him shedding abroad the
love of God in our hearts, he seals to us all the blessings
and all the blessedness of God's covenant grace in Christ Jesus. Obviously then, some questions
need to be answered. Do I have the Holy Spirit? Do
all believers have the Holy Spirit? What does it mean to be filled
with the Spirit? Now here in Ephesians chapter
5, we'll look at this one verse of Scripture, verse 18, and I
want to answer some questions for you, those questions and
others, with regard to the person and work of the Spirit, particularly
as it relates to this matter of being filled with the Spirit.
In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul gives us clear,
specific instructions about many things. The first three chapters
of this epistle are taken up as Paul commonly does in his
writings, giving us instruction about the gospel and the blessed
doctrine of the gospel. He spent the first three chapters
telling us how God saves sinners. by divine predestination, by
special purchase, the purchase of his darling son, by the sovereign
power of his Holy Spirit giving us life and faith in Christ.
God the Holy Ghost ever points us to Christ Jesus. He ever glorifies
the Lord Jesus. He ever speaks of Christ. The
Spirit of God always inspires faith in Christ. He gives faith
in Christ. He performs in us that grace
that causes us to believe on Christ. The Spirit of God inspires
in us devotion to and praise to our great Redeemer. Commonly
today, people talk much about the Spirit in the church, from
the pulpit, in religious conversation, in religious songs. But whenever
you find folks always talking about the Holy Spirit, you can
bank on it. The Holy Spirit's not around.
Where the Holy Spirit works, He speaks of Christ, always of
Christ, directing our thoughts and our hearts to the person
and work of our Redeemer. Religion talks about you, your
goodness and your works. The Bible talks about God, His
goodness and His work. Religion focuses your attention
on you, your feelings, your experiences, your wants, your sacrifices.
The gospel of Christ focuses our attention upon Christ, his
sacrifice, his accomplishments, and his glory. Religion talks
about being in the spirit, feeling the spirit, knowing the spirit. But God, the Holy Spirit, always
talks about Christ, being in Christ, trust in Christ, and
knowing Christ. For this purpose, look at back
in verse 17 of chapter three. He does this that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith. that you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God. then we get to chapters 4 and
5 and the Apostle gives us clear, clear, clear instructions about
how we are to live in this world for the glory of God. He gives
us clear instruction about how the Gospel of God's grace is
constantly to affect and govern our lives in this world. The
Jews accused Paul of setting forth strange doctrine. because
he asserted that Christ is the end of the law. They accused
him of promoting licentiousness. The Gentiles thought that he
preached strange doctrine because he taught God's saints to live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world. And
they said, Paul is teaching asceticism. He's teaching touch not, taste
not, handle not. He's teaching how to be godly
by withdrawing from the world and self-denial and self-sacrifice
and all those things. It really is difficult for you
and me to understand just how strange Paul's doctrine was in
the Gentile world. We can't really get a grasp of
it, I don't think. Particularly as he wrote to these
Ephesian believers who had been converted out of Gentile paganism. Remember the temple of the great
goddess Diana was in Ephesus. When these Ephesian converts
first read the things that Paul wrote in this fifth chapter,
they must have thought at least initially, this is strange. This is absurd. Nobody thinks
like this. Nobody talks like this. In that
day, particularly in the Gentile world, society was so degenerate
by reason of prolonged idolatry, by reason of prolonged will worship,
that drunkenness, theft, lying, fornication, adultery, even sodomy
were common and acceptable. Debauchery was the norm of the
day. Debauchery was just the way folks
lived. Fornication was a common practice.
Theft was a way of life. Lying was a universal custom.
It was only blameworthy if you were clumsy enough to get caught
lying. Drunkenness was an ordinary condition of life. Even the great
political leaders and military leaders of the day were known
for their debauchery and drunkenness. The public feast made sport of
gluttony and drunkenness. You'll recall that in 1 Corinthians
chapter 11, this was a problem that had to be dealt with. that
came to the Lord's table and rather than serving the Lord's
table with a glass of wine and a piece of bread, they got drunk
at the Lord's table. They just made it a feast for
gluttony and for drunkenness and had to be corrected for it.
In many of the idolatrous religions from which these Ephesians and
other Gentiles had been converted, drunkenness and fornication were
parts of the religious rituals they regularly observed. To you
and me, that just seems beyond grasp. That was an everyday part
of life, even in the religious world. It's difficult for us
to realize it, but Paul's doctrine here must have had a profound
impact on these folks. When he says in verse 18, along
with all this other instruction I've given you about putting
on Christ and putting on the new man and living for God's
glory. He says, and be not drunk with
wine wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit. Here the Apostle Paul. by divine
inspiration from God the Holy Ghost, sets before the Gentiles,
these Gentile converts, and it sets before you and me the claims
of Christ the Lord. He would not alter the gospel
of God. He would not compromise the claims
of Christ, regardless of circumstances. Today, there's an obvious return. to the customs of those dark,
dark times. As I prepared this message and
thought about those days, I thought to myself, that's a pretty good
description of the day in which we live. Fornication, adultery,
drunkenness, lasciviousness, fraud, lying, even sodomy are
things becoming more and more common more and more accepted
with every passing day. And the evil is even worse now
than it was then, because now it is sin with open-handed rebellion,
flying in the face of the light of the gospel of God's grace.
And there's a common tendency, a common tendency to bring the
standard of the gospel down to men. Now, if you want to have
an explanation of what's going on in churches all over the world,
why this contemporary worship, contemptible worship? Why? Why? Because men are doing everything
they can to bring the gospel down to the standard of men.
The church has joined the world and the world has joined the
church, craving success in the eyes of men. Preachers everywhere
run to compromise the truth of God, and they're taught to do
so. They're taught to give people
what they want so they can get a crown. Just last week, I met
a man whose son went from my hometown down to Durham, North
Carolina about 10 years ago, and he started pastoring a church
that had 300 members in it. In 10 years, they now have 22,000. Wow. So I thought, well, I'm
gonna look that up. You don't wanna bother. You don't
wanna bother. Be warned. It is our responsibility,
yours and mine as God's people, mine as a preacher of the gospel,
and yours as the church of God, to constantly set before men
the pure word of God with no addition and no subtraction,
no alteration. As it has been entrusted to us,
we are to proclaim it. We dare not set up principles
of outward piety like the Pharisees, but we dare not compromise the
principles God himself has established in his word. We have been translated
from darkness into light by the power of God. We're the sons
of God. Therefore, let us live as the
sons of God and speak for God's honor as the sons of God, as
many women who believe him. But how are the people of God,
how are you and I, to avoid being swaddled up in the tide of the
day? How are we to avoid being engulfed
in the ways of this world in which we live? How are we to
resist the constant pressures of evil, particularly in the
religious world? Paul says, be not drunk with
wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Now, if you remember in Joel
chapter two, Joel made a startling prophecy with regard to this
last great day, the day of our Lord, the day when Christ would
come. He said that in that day when Christ's David's son was
seated on his throne as David's son, when Christ had come and
established his kingdom, then he would pour out his spirit
upon all flesh, not just Jews, but Jews and Gentiles alike.
And in that day, men and women would be, would manifestly be
made to know the outstanding power of God's spirits. In those
days of old, the Spirit of God was a mighty, mighty force, a
mighty, mighty power given to certain men on certain occasions
like Samson or David or Elijah. But now in this gospel day, all
who call upon the name of the Lord are possessed with the Spirit
of God. In those days of old, the work
of the Holy Spirit was limited just to the nation of Israel.
Now he's poured out upon all flesh. Now we know this is what
Joel was talking about because in Acts chapter 2 on the day
of Pentecost, Peter said, boys, this is it. This is what Joel
was talking about back in Joel chapter 2. As the result of the
death burial and resurrection and ascension of Christ. As the
result of God's Son having come in human flesh as David's son
and David's Lord, he now is seated on the throne of God and God
Almighty has put in his hands the reigns of the universe. and
is poured out upon his church, the Spirit of God continually
poured out upon his church so that he is continually in us
and we in him. As Mabel Dick said, we're in
Christ and Christ is in us. We are in the Spirit and the
Spirit is in us. Now I tried my best to figure
out some way to say that so that you can't miss it. If you should
take this glass, we're going to be flying over the Atlantic
Ocean tomorrow, Lord willing, and drop it out in the plain,
drop it right in the middle of the ocean. We'll drop down in
the ocean. This glass would be in the ocean
and the ocean in the glass fully. That's as near as I can get.
I'm in the spirit. You who are God's are in the
spirit and the spirit of God is in you because Christ has
put us there by his grace. He indwells every believer. He's
in our hearts as the seal of heaven. He guides us by his gracious
influence. He preserves us. He teaches us. He sanctifies us and he comforts
us. All of God's saints enjoy this
gracious work. but we have a responsibility
toward him as well. This is what God has done for
us, but here Paul tells us that we must be filled with the Spirit. He said in chapter four, grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed into the day of
redemption. Here he says, this is how you're not to grieve him.
Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with
the Spirit. Now this is what Paul's telling
us. I'll give you the summary of it, and then I'll give you
the message. As God's elect in this world,
you and I are to avoid drunkenness, and we are to be filled with
the Spirit. That's our responsibility. We
are to avoid being under the influence and control of other
things. And we are to be continually
under the rule, the influence, the control of the Holy Spirit.
Our text commands two things. First, be not drunk with wine. Let me look at that just briefly.
Paul had been talking about the unwise. And one sure characteristic
of those who are unwise is drunkenness. Drunkenness is a great evil.
Those who are unwise are people who are unthinking, without understanding,
senseless. And Paul says, be not unwise,
but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Paul makes our
Savior in his Godhead. to be very practical, for he
tells us that this one who is our Lord, his will is that we
not be unwise, that we not be drunk with wine, but that we
be filled with the Spirit, so that his very deity becomes for
us a rule of life. I think it's important for me
to point out what Paul is not saying here. He is not telling
us that we're not to use any alcoholic beverages. He's talking
about the abuse of wine, not the use of wine. The Scriptures
nowhere teach. The Scriptures nowhere teach
abstinence. Nowhere, nowhere. The Scriptures
teach moderation. Men start talking about abstinence
and you can't drink any wine, you can't drink any alcohol.
Don't misunderstand me. I would much prefer to live still
in a dry county. I would much prefer it. I like
living where folks couldn't get hold of stuff to get them drunk.
I like that. But the scriptures nowhere forbid
the use of wine or any other beverage for that matter. The
Bible teaches the necessity of moderation. And what is here
forbidden is the abuse of the substance, not the use of it.
Over and over and over again in this book, God's people are
warned against the abuse of alcohol. And in those days, I suppose,
I haven't investigated this, but I suppose they didn't have
much problem with weed and other stuff. But wine and the overuse
of wine, any other intoxicating beverage was common. So pastors,
we're told, must be above reproach. There must not be men who linger
after the bottle. Deacons must be dignified, not
addicted to much wine. The aged women. should be reverent
in their conduct and not enslaved to much wine. But nowhere does
the scripture teach us not to use wine. There's nothing unclean
of itself. And you and I have no right to
invent laws and rules and regulations to tell other folks what they
can eat, what they can drink, what they can't eat, and what
they can't drink. That which is here prohibited by the spirit
of God is drunkenness. Drunkenness with wine or bourbon
or weed or heroin is destructive, destructive to the course of
life. It always leads to debauchery.
Drunkenness is the crutch of a weakling, the spine of a coward,
the excuse of a sluggard. It's a great evil and God's children
ought to avoid it. But that's enough about that.
Let's look at the better part of the text. The great gift and
blessing of God to his people in this world is the Spirit of
God. Oh, what a gift. The gift of
God's Spirit, Lindsay, is the gift of life. The gift of God's
Spirit is the gift of light. The gift of God's Spirit is the
gift of comfort. The gift of God's Spirit is the
gift of knowledge. The gift of God's Spirit is the
gift of God. God the Holy Spirit is the ascension
gift of King Jesus to His church and kingdom. We're told that
plainly in Galatians 3 and in Galatians 4. Christ came to redeem
us from the curse of the law that we might receive the promise
of Abraham, the gift of the Spirit. Lord Jesus came in the fullness
of time to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive
the adoption of sons and because your sons because God Adopted
you before the world was he came and sent forth the spirit of
his son into your heart causing you to cry Abba father Clearly
there is a parallel here Paul says be not drunk with wine where
in his excess but be filled with the Spirit and He's saying just
as the ungodly become intoxicated with wine, God's people are and
should constantly seek to be intoxicated with the Holy Spirit. I chose the word deliberately.
Why is it that men get drunk with wine? There's several reasons. I can't give them all to you,
but a few I'll mention. Folks get drunk so they can,
have some joy and exhilaration. But true joy comes only from
walking with God by faith in Christ, being filled with the
Spirit. Sometimes men get drunk in order
to find strength so they can deal with problems in life. But
if you'd find strength, be filled with the Spirit, who gives strength
in the highest degree, guiding us in the way of life and peace. When people get drunk on wine,
they become very bold. They do things they wouldn't
otherwise do. And the Spirit of God gives men and women boldness. Boldness to do the will of God,
regardless of cost or consequence. boldness in the cause of Christ,
boldness to seek God's glory, boldness even before the throne
of God, a freedom to speak to God as your father. Sometimes
intoxicants are used in large quantities to relieve pain. I
recall when my dad was, I was just a boy, and back in the days
when doctors didn't have the kind of medications they have
now, I recall when he had some wisdom teeth pulled. I don't
remember how many he had pulled at one time, but I made up my
mind, it's not gonna happen to me. When they rot out, they'll
come out. Otherwise, they're gonna stay
in there. Because the man was, he was a big fella. And he cried
like a baby. And he got him a bottle of bourbon
and he went to town. And he couldn't hardly stand
up and he still cried like a baby. Just bawling. Men use intoxicants
to relieve pain. God the Holy Spirit turns pain
into praise. The divine comforter causes believers
to forget the sharpness of their trials and rejoice in God's purpose,
his goodness and his grace. I say to you, children of God,
when you have a severe trial, and some of you are going through
that, take a deep drink from the fountain
of living water and be filled with the Spirit of God. In sickness
you can rejoice, In poverty, you can sing. In bereavement,
you can give thanks. Sometimes men use wine excessively
as a stimulant to arouse their spirits. But when a child of
God is downcast, when he needs help with zeal and inspiration
and devotion, he needs to be filled with the Spirit to awaken
his holy zeal. The Spirit of God will make you
see what a great Savior Christ is. The Spirit of God will fill
your soul with the love of Christ. He will refresh your heart with
the knowledge of redemption. He'll make Christ your joy and
your delight. Be filled with the Spirit. There's
also a contrast here. Wine can never fill, but the
Spirit of God does indeed fill. You remember what our Lord said
to the Samaritan woman? He said, whosoever drinketh of
this water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water, springing up, bubbling
over into everlasting life. Wine creates trouble, unrest. reveling, riotousness. When men
are full of wine, they're full of disturbance. But when you're
filled with the Spirit of God, He gives rest, blessed quiet,
peace the world can never know. Wine causes contentions. The
Holy Spirit brings submission. In verse 21, He says, Submitting
yourselves one to another, in the fear of God. Submitting yourselves
one to another. Human nature loves to rule and
be first. That's just our nature. That's
just our nature. The Spirit of Christ teaches
us to submit and to take our place as last. to recognize that
each of us is least in the kingdom of heaven. So each believer esteems
the other better than himself. The drunkenness makes men fools. The spirit of God makes us wise. A spirit-filled person is one
who knows the right way and deliberately walks in it. He may not be able
to add two plus two, but he's wise. He may not have great intellect,
but he's wise. God teaches him the way and he
walks in it. God takes him by the hand and
leads him in the way and he walks in it. Drunkenness makes people
forget their relationships and responsibilities. The spirit
of God causes them to remember. Spirit-filled wives are submissive. They're submissive. Submissive
to their own husbands. That's strange talking this day.
That's the place of a wife. Anything else is just a woman
who's married to a man. Spirit-filled husbands love their
wives. They love their wives. That's
what a husband does. Spirit-filled parents nurture
their children in the Lord. Spirit-filled employers are good
and thoughtful and generous. Spirit-filled workers are faithful,
honest, and hard-working. What a practical admonition.
Be filled with the Spirit. Well, what is Paul talking about?
What is he telling us? What is this filling of the Spirit? I don't know any way to say this
without sounding harsh, but I don't mind too much sounding harsh
anyway. Paul is not talking about some ecstatic, unexplainable,
emotional experience or fit of religion. That's how Mary Bell
used to describe it. She said before God saved her,
she and Donnie had a huge collection of records and said in one of
our fits of religion, we threw them all away. Well, he's not
talking about a fit of religion. He's not talking about those
things that the Pentecostals and wannabe Pentecostals promote,
but rather he's giving us a divine imperative, a command. He says, be filled with the Spirit. And the scriptures make it plain
what the command involves. Babi Estes, if you belong to
God and if I belong to God, we are to be filled with the Holy
Spirit continually. This is not something that only
certain believers enjoy. This is not the privilege of
an upper class of believers. Paul is saying to every child
of God, be filled, all of you, with the Spirit. May God give
us grace to do so. Now let me wrap this up by talking
to you about this feeling. Being filled with the Spirit
is being continually under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
continually controlled by God. All true believers had the Spirit
of God dwelling in them. God has sent the Spirit of His
Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. If any man had
not the Spirit of God, he is none of His. There's no question,
all of God's people had the Spirit of God dwelling in them. To be
filled with the Spirit of Now, I want you to write this down
and I want you, it's gonna seem like too great a simplicity and
you won't get it at first. I want you to write it down and
sit on it and take it to the book of God and say, to be filled
with the Spirit, David Coleman, is to trust God. To be filled
with the Spirit is to believe God. To be filled with the Spirit
is to believe on the Son of God. Let's see if I can make good
on that. Turn back to chapter three. Chapter three. Paul is
here telling us, as God's children in this world, to live continually
in all things, looking to Christ. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in Him. This is exactly what he says
in chapter three that he prayed for. that Christ may dwell in
your hearts by faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in
love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God. Now, that's his prayer. In Colossians
2, verse 9, he tells us that prayer is answered. He says,
you are complete in Him. You are complete in Him, lacking
nothing in Him, filled with all the fullness of God. When we're
commanded to put on Christ, commanded to put on the new man, people
make that some kind of a religious work. You've got to quit eating
salt on your potatoes, or you've got to read 20 chapters a day,
you've got to pray for an hour a day. Put on Christ. Put on
the new man. What he's simply saying is believe
God. Believe God. In every circumstance,
in every trial, in everything you face, believe God. Trust
the Lord Jesus. That's what it is to be filled
with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our teacher. And we're to
adhere to and follow his teaching. He teaches us our sin. He teaches
us that Christ is our righteousness. He teaches us of redemption accomplished. He teaches us of judgment finished. He teaches us the glory of God
in Jesus Christ, our Savior. He's our guide. He guides us
into all truth. He guides us to Christ for all
things. He guides us in the will of God.
The Holy Spirit is our comforter. And we're to lay our heads upon
the pillow of his comfort. How does He comfort? By assuring
us of the love of God in Christ. Assuring us of acceptance in
Christ. Assuring us of redemption by
the blood of Christ. Assuring us that we're God's
and God is ours. Oh, what a comfort. Oh, what
a comfort. I'm His and He's mine. Now you tell me what should bother
me. You belong to God, and God belongs to you. What should disturb
us? He is our divine comforter. When
a person is filled with the Spirit, God puts all the grace of the
Spirit in us. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, temperance. Against these
things, so that every believer has in him not fruits of the
Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. You can't have one part without
the other. It's one thing, the fruit of the Spirit. The works
of the flesh are many, but the fruit of the Spirit is one. God
commands us then to be filled with the Spirit. And being filled
with the Spirit is trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. can a soul be filled with the
Spirit? Turn over to Titus chapter 3, Titus chapter 3. How can a foul, sinful soul like
mine be filled with the Holy Spirit? Just exactly in the same
way as the Spirit of God was poured out on the church on the
day of Pentecost, He is poured out upon God's elect by the power
and grace of God's dear Son in regeneration. Look at chapter
3, Titus verse 4. After that the kindness and love
of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. that being
justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the
hope of eternal life. Now listen carefully. We're filled
with the Spirit only as He fills us by His grace, shedding abroad
the love of God in our hearts, causing us to know we are loved
of God when He teaches us that we're redeemed by Christ. and
thereby he constrains us to constantly be aware. The love of Christ
constrains us to constantly judge, to constantly discern this thing,
that Christ died for us, that we should henceforth not live
unto ourselves, but unto God, our Savior, who loved us and
gave himself for us. Larry Brown has been the greatest
struggle of my life for 50 years. for 50 years, since the day God
saved me. My flesh keeps wanting to possess
me. My flesh keeps wanting to rule. My flesh keeps wanting to have
my way. But Christ died for me, that
I should no longer live to myself, but to him. To him who loved
me and gave himself for me. No matter what it cost me or
my wife or my daughter, or my grandchildren, or you, or anybody
else. Christ has redeemed me. I belong
to him lock, stock, and barrel. Oh, my soul, continually ask
at the throne of grace for flagons of wine. That's what we find
in Solomon chapter two. Stay with me with flagons. Flagons
of wine. Tell him I'm sick of love. Flagons
of wine that go down smoothly and sweetly, causing all who
drink it to awake. That's how the love of Christ
is described. Flagons of wine. Flagons of wine
that, drunk in, go down smoothly and awake the lips of praise
to our Savior. Our Savior's love is compared
to wine, the best wine. Because of its antiquity, its
everlasting love. Because of its purity, this is
love that's pure and makes all its objects pure. Because it's
refreshing to all who drink. All who drink of this wine, the
love of God revealed in Christ, being persuaded that God is his.
are permanently and perpetually inebriated by it. They never,
never get over it. They never, never get over it. To be filled with the Spirit,
I repeat, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To be filled
with the Spirit is to trust the Savior. Is this not what God
said? you at my reproof. Behold, behold,
I will pour out My Spirit unto you. I will pour out upon the
house of David the Spirit of grace and of supplications. The
Lord God promised in the covenant, I will put My Spirit within you. Listen to the Savior's words.
Now turn there and read them. I'll wrap up with this. John
chapter 7. John chapter 7. They'd been to a great Bible
conference at Jerusalem. And everybody went up hungry
and thirsty and came away just like they went. And they're leaving
the temple on the great day of the feast. And the Lord Jesus
stood, verse 37, and said, if any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the
scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. sometimes He's aware of it, and
sometimes He's not. But out of His inmost being continually
flows, bubbling up in His soul, rivers of living water. But this
He spake of the Spirit, that they that believe on Him should
receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet
given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. And so our
Savior said, 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. But if I go away, I'll pray the
Father and he'll send him. Believe on the Son of God and
go to your homes filled with the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit,
amen.