All right, let's turn now to
John chapter 16. I want to read beginning with
verse 7 down through verse 14. 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." Now, I want you to pay special
attention to what he just said there. I'm going to depart. I'm going to ascend and go to
the Father. And the result of my going to
the Father is the Comforter. whom I'm going to send to you."
Now, this world believes the Comforter is just here and about. And anybody can have Him who
wants Him. Anybody can benefit from His coming who wants Him. All of those things. But that's
not what our Lord said. The Lord said, I'm going to send
Him to a particular people. I'm going to send Him to you.
He's going to comfort you. His presence is not going to
comfort this world. They're not going to be comforted,
but you're going to be comforted. I'm going to send him unto you.
And when he is 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 the Father and you see me no more. Of judgment, because
the prince of this world is judged. I get many things to say unto
you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the Holy
Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself,
but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will
show you things to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall
receive of Mine and show it unto you. Now, I'd say this at the
outset, that the Holy Ghost is not some influential power who
exists in the world, sent to overcome our rebellion and evil
ways, but he is in every wit, God. God. He's not some influential power. He is God. He's the third person of the
Godhead, and all things that are attributed to God the Father
and God the Son are also attributed to Him, including creation, providence,
and salvation. He's God, and as God, He's omnipotent. He's eternal. He's all-wise. He's equal in all God's attributes. He's equal to the Father and
equal to the Son. And I say this because of His
coming into the world. When Jesus Christ came into this
world, it was not His beginning. It was not His beginning. The
Son of God, John starts this book that we're studying right
here, and I spent quite a bit of time on this early in our
studies in John, in John chapter 1. That in the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. His
coming into the world, we didn't even get into that clear down
until verse 14. But early in the opening comments
of this book, He tells us that the Son is God and He was in
the beginning with God and He is with God in all things that
God is and that God does. And so His coming into this world
was an advent, an advent. Now, what in the world is an
advent? Well, I took this straight out
of the dictionary. I didn't want you to think I drummed this up.
But an advent is the arrival or coming to pass of some promise
and long-expected event. That's the advent. That's when
it takes place. That's when it actually happens.
That's when things that God had promised and foretold and foreshadowed
and pictured, that's when Those things actually come to take
place. That's the advent, and Christ
coming into this world was an advent. His coming was promised, prophesied
in great detail thousands of years before He came, and His
appearance here was the advent of His long-expected and promised
coming. And even so, the coming of the
Holy Spirit was not His beginning nor the beginning of His work.
There's hundreds and hundreds of churches today that believe
that Pentecost was the birth of the church. That Pentecost
was this coming of the Spirit. This was the beginning of it. That God didn't use His Spirit
in days gone by. That's foolishness. That's foolishness. He's God. Always was God. Always was in harmony with the
purpose of God. All the Scriptures are breathed
and inspired by him. He's the one behind the Scriptures. He's the teacher. He's the revealer.
But his coming into this world after the resurrection of Christ
was the advent of the Spirit, that long-promised and awaited
time. You remember on Peter's message
at Pentecost, he stood up and they began to speak in tongues
and all these things began to take place and Peter said, this
is what Joel was talking about. Well, that was a long time before
the Spirit of God came, wasn't it? Long time before his advent,
but Joel had it pinpointed. And Peter knew it. He said, this
is what Joel had to say. And you can read about this over
in II Chronicles 7. You can read about it in II Samuel
chapter 7. You can read about it in Acts
2. And over here in I Corinthians
3, verse 16, listen to this. He said, "...know ye not that
ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you?" Do you know that? Do you not know that those things
were pictured in the Old Testament, typified in the Old Testament,
that this is what he was talking about? That's the kind of glory
of God that came down and filled the temple, filled the tabernacle. Do you not understand that that
was a picture of the Spirit of God coming, enlightening dead
sinners, filling up this temple? Don't you know that? You're the
temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. As the
presence of the Spirit led them in the wilderness and protected
them, even so man looked and saw His glory as it
filled the old Solomon's temple. And He fills us with His presence,
and we see the glory of God in Christ. The giving of the Spirit
is the gift, and this is what I want you to see. This is what
our Lord begins to comfort His disciples with. The giving of
the Spirit is the gift of the enthroned, victorious Christ. He's not going to be given until
He comes, accomplishes His work, is accepted of the Father, and
seated at His right hand. It's expedient, He said, for
you, not for me, for you, that I go away. Because if I don't
go away, He's not going to come. He's not going to come. Listen
to this over in Acts 2 verse 33, Therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which you now see
and hear. It's the gift of the enthroned
victorious Christ. The presence and power of the
Holy Ghost is given to the Church on the behalf of Christ and in
the light of all His accomplishments to guide us into the truth of
what He's done and what God's purpose to do in Him. That's
why He came. That's what He does. That's what
He does. These gifts of the Holy Ghost
did not come upon men for their personal assurance. I've got
relatives in that type of religion. in these so-called full gospel
churches who know nothing whatsoever about the gospel. These gifts
of the Holy Ghost did not come upon them for their personal
assurance or for some special evidence to others that they
possessed real saving faith or that they had reached some kind
of spiritual plateau. That's not why these gifts were
given. The gifts of the Holy Ghost came
upon the early church to confirm the Gospel of Christ. And it came upon them to confirm
this Gospel because they were called, ordained, set apart to
be witnesses, to pen the New Testament Scriptures. And He
gave them these signs. I'm going to read just a few
things to you here in Acts chapter 5. I want you to see this. After this pouring out of the
Holy Spirit on Pentecost, it will do you good with this in
mind to read again through the book of Acts and see where they
laid the basis of what they preached and the power by which they preached
it. Look here in Acts chapter 5 verse 30. The God of our fathers raised
up Jesus whom you slew and hanged on a tree him hath God exalted
with his right hand to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins and we're witnesses of these
things now watch it and so also is the holy ghost see that there
whom God hath given to them that obey him that is obey him in
faith The Holy Ghost is poured out on the church to guide us
into truth. He's here on the behalf of Christ
and by the right of His accomplishments to verify in the hearts of chosen
sinners what God has purposed before the foundation of the
world. You see that? His advent. Christ came to fulfill
the will of the Father. He said, I didn't come on my
own. This is not a whim. sitting up there and had pity
on you and came down here. This is all according to an eternal
purpose. The eternal purpose of God. And
I come to do His will. Read Hebrews chapter 10. You
will find out through the doing of that will, He has sanctified
us through the offering of His body once for all. Perfected
us once for all through that By the witch will, that's what
he said. What will? That eternal will. Listen to this. How shall we
escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first
began to be spoken by the Lord and then was confirmed unto us
by them that heard him? God also bearing them witness
both with signs and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of
the Holy Ghost according to his own will. How do I know that
this is just not another book? How do I know that this is not
something like Joseph Smith wrote? How do I know that this is not
something like what those idiots over in Iran are following and
preaching? How do I know this is not some
book by a cult? How do I know that human wisdom
didn't sit down over the years and compile this book? How do
I know that? Because God accompanied these
men with undeniable miracles and wonders and signs. No man
could do them. No man. You might mimic something that's
in your head, but you're not going to mimic raising the dead.
Now, you're just not going to do that. You're not going to
mimic this old leper with his nose half rotted off and his
lip hanging on by a thread being cleansed. You're not going to
mimic that. When our Lord did a miracle, it was a miracle.
No doubt in anybody's mind who saw it. And it verified His message. That's why He didn't just do
it to impress you. He didn't do it to make you feel
good. He did these things to verify what He preached. And
what his person and work was all about. And that's why he
gives, when he goes away he sent to us the Holy Spirit to comfort
us. And he's going to guide you into these truths. What truths? These truths which I've accomplished
in my person and work on this earth. Over in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2 and verse 7, Paul said, but we speak the wisdom of God
in a mystery. even the hidden wisdom which
God ordained before the world under our glory, which none of
the princes of this world knew. They studied it. They had the
scriptures. They read them every Sabbath
day. Our Lord told us that. He looked them straight in the
face and he said, you search the scriptures because in them
you think you have eternal life. But they are they which testify
of me and you will not come unto me that you might have life. hidden wisdom which God ordained
before the world under our glory, which none of the princes of
this world knew. If they had known it, they would
not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written,
I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him. Now listen, but God hath revealed them unto us by
the Holy Ghost. Ain't that what he said? by the
Holy Ghost. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. And then on down in I
Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 12, he said, Now we have received
not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. Which things also we speak not
in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man,
that man not given the Holy Ghost, that man for whom God hath not
intervened, not sent this precious gift, without God's power and influence,
This man left to his own understanding and reasoning, the natural man,
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. They're clear,
ain't they, John? He lays them on my heart. I take
the Word of God, open it as I have here before you this morning.
Stand up here and declare these things. Crystal clear to you.
Crystal clear. There's nothing iffy in it. It's plain, clear, Declaration. Why won't you receive it? Because
the natural man won't receive these things. He won't do it.
Why? Because they're foolishness to
him. They're foolishness to him. Neither
can he know them because they're spiritually discernible. The
Spirit of God has to come, has to open it up, has to open your
mind. He has to make you willing. You
have to be born again. Our Lord told Nicodemus, that
master of theology, he said, except you be born again, you
cannot perceive, can't see the Kingdom of God. And here's what he says after
that. He said, he that is spiritual, understandeth all things, yet
he himself is understood of no man. For who hath known the mind
of the Lord?" Huh? Ain't that what he's talking
about all the way through this chapter? The mind and will of God? Who's
known that? Who was around back yonder in
eternity when God purposed these things? Who was around back yonder
at the agreement of the everlasting covenant of grace? Who was there? That's what he said. He said,
who's been my counselor? Who told me? How foolish can
you get? No man was there when these things
were conceived. No man was there when these things
were decreed and purposed. I'm God. I declare the end from
the beginning. I'm God. Who's been my counselor?
Who's known the mind of the Lord? Who among all the wise and prudent
and among all that seek after their own righteousness? who
among all the sons of Paul and Adam been able to discern the
mind and will of God? But Paul said we have the mind
of Christ. The mind of Christ. How do we
get that mind? The Spirit of the Living God.
That's the only way you can get it. Of God is He made unto us,
told by Christ, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. The presence and power of the
Holy Ghost are poured out upon the ministry of the church and
upon those vessels of clay to inspire them in their preaching,
to empower their words, to glorify the person and work of Christ,
and give life to dead sinners. He took old Ezekiel out in the
wilderness. He said, you see them bones? He said, can they
live? He said, O Lord God, thou knowest. I don't know. He said,
preach to them. But he didn't stop there, did
he? He said, now prophesy to the wind. That's the Holy Spirit. He came and the sinews and life
came upon those to whom he preached. And they rose up a great army. Presence and power of the Holy
Ghost are poured out upon the ministry of the church. Now let
me give you some examples of this. In Acts chapter 2, Peter
preached to the Jews at Pentecost, preached to them the gospel,
preached to them the gospel of Christ. And in Acts 2.36 he said,
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God
hath made that same Jesus whom you crucified. both Lord and
Christ. Now, when they heard this, they
were pricked in their heart, and they said unto Peter and
to the rest of the apostles, What are we going to do? What
are we going to do? Now, watch this. Peter said unto
them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost. That's the only people going
to repent. That's the only people going to be baptized in His name. There are thousands going to
go down into the pool, but there's a handful going to go down in
there in His name. Many are called, just a few chosen. Just a few. You'll receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost for the promise. Watch this. Verse 39, "...For
the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all
that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call."
Isn't that beautiful? That's what he's talking about.
That's comforting to me. I'm not going to come in out
of the wilderness. I'm not going to rise up from the dead. I'm
not going to do things that's not even in my nature to do.
I'm not going to do these things, and you're fooling yourself if
you think you can. God raises the dead. He calls
us out of darkness, and He tells us that in plain language. I don't have anything else to
say or to do or to comfort you with other than the gospel of
God's redeeming grace in Christ Jesus. I don't have anything.
I don't carry rabbit's foot around with me. I don't believe in that
foolishness. I don't have anything else to
offer you except the gospel of God's redeeming grace. It satisfied
God. Does it satisfy you? I'm forbidden to use any other
message or any other means to minister to His church. I speak
to you and I appeal to no fleshly reason and worldly logic. All
that stuff is strictly forbidden. If I try to do that, then he
tells me that your faith is going to rest in the wisdom of men
and not in the power of God. That's what he tells me. Paul
said, My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of
men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit. What in the world
is that? That's preaching the gospel.
Preaching the gospel. How does he demonstrate it? Men
and women believe. That's a miracle. Did you know
that? Faith is a miracle of God's grace. I'm telling you, I've
stood and I've preached to people until I'm blue in the face and
power promises up around them has no effect on them whatsoever
until God gets a hold of them. And then I stand back. And in
the gospel of God's sovereign grace, I see his spirit demonstrate
that power that he demonstrated in that resurrection of Christ
from the dead. He raises that dead sinner, dead
in trespasses and sins, locked in, bound in with chains of darkness
and ignorance. He raises him up and he gives
him an understanding of things the angels don't even understand.
That's right. That's what Paul's talking about.
I didn't stand up here and appeal to your wisdom and say, well,
you know, here's this, here's this, here's this, and just start
piling up. He didn't do that. He just stood
up and told them what Christ did. That he was sin of God, purposed
of God. All those things that make men
upset and angry. That's what he told them. And that power of God won their
heart. broke those rebels and brought
them to Christ. And I tell you this, the Holy
Spirit of God will not demonstrate His power or attend our preaching
except as the gospel of Christ crucified is declared. You can
just throw it out the window. He said, where two or more are
gathered together in my name. I'll be in the midst. He didn't
say, I might be. I might be sometime. He said,
I'll be there. I'll be there. Now look back
here in John 16, verse 8. When He has come, He will reprove
the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Now there are,
I believe, two ways to understand this verse. Now I want you to
pay attention to me because I think there's a lot of misunderstanding
about what this says. Now, the first thing I want to
do is I want to read this to you from another translation. And He, when He comes, will make
the world conscious of sin, conscious of sin, conscious of righteousness,
and conscious of His judgment. That's out of the basic Bible
English translation. That just takes the words best
they can put them into English. The ministry of the church accompanied
by the Holy Ghost calls all men to consider the appearance, the
life, the death of Christ and His resurrection. I don't have any other place.
When I stand up here and warn you about that wrath to come,
I stand up here and tell you that you're a sinner, tell you
that there is a way of salvation and that that way is the Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm making you aware of these
things. Now, only God can convince. I'm
reproving. And there's a sense in which
the Holy Spirit of God accompanies this gospel and reproves. He
makes conscious, whether you believe or not, He makes conscious
the fact that you're a sinner, and the fact that He requires
perfect righteousness, and the fact that there is a judgment
to come. Paul preached to one of the kings,
and as he preached to him, his knees knocked together. That's
the Holy Spirit of God. But he didn't affectionately
call him to be a son of God, but he reproved him and made
him conscious of sin, righteousness, and judgment. But there's another sense. Now
I'm going to read this out of the New American Standard Version.
I'm just using these other versions so that you know what it is I'm
trying to preach. And he, when he comes, will convict the world
concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Now, convict is
to pronounce guilty, isn't it? You go down here to the courthouse
and you've got an argument with somebody or an officer of the
law arrested you and accused you of breaking the law, but
he can't pronounce you guilty. He just arrested you. He brings
you to the judge. And the judge hears your case.
He hears everything you got to say. He hears your case. And
then he says you're guilty. You're guilty. That's not just
being made conscious. That's being condemned. I remember
going to one time over a speeding ticket. I was just 16 years old. And I got this speeding ticket.
And I went up to the courthouse, the county courthouse, because
I had a certain date I had to be there. And I went up there.
They went through all the things, and he said, well, you're guilty,
and give me some little fine, $25 or $30, whatever it was.
And so when the court was over, I went outside, and I told the
bailiff, I said, I'm going to run home and get this. And he
said, you ain't running nowhere. He said, you cough up $25 and
go to jail. I said, well, I got the money.
He said, you ain't going nowhere. You don't understand what I'm
telling you. You're guilty. and you're not leaving their
courthouse into this man now when he says when he convicts
when the holy spirit of god convicts you that's where you don't know
you're not going anywhere to the full day in his pain and
on placing panic page in crime but you've got to hear the judge
speak holy spirit speaks he can convince He can convince. And there is another word that
appears in yet another translation, and that is the word convince.
When the Holy Spirit attends the preaching of the gospel,
He convinces His elect of sin, of righteousness, and judgment.
And this convincing is all accomplished through the truth concerning
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Of sin, concerning sin, because
they don't believe in Me. Who He is. why he came, what
he did, where he is. He convinces you of sin by your
unbelief. What is it in Christ? In all
that he's done and accomplished, in his appearance, in all these
things, the religious world tried to find and exploit something
in him that was sinful. In 33 and a half years, they
couldn't find one thing. Satan, the accuser of the brethren,
came to him and for 40 days searched and examined, trying to find
something to exploit. He found nothing in him. Nothing
in him. Because there was no sin in him.
There was no sin in him. You can't question his motives. He came and died on the cross. He came and sacrificed himself.
He gave himself to humility, to spitting the slapping of the
face. He gave himself to hunger. He
gave himself to this ministry on your behalf. You can't find
a reason in Christ not to believe. There is no reason in Christ
not to believe. Unbelief is all on your part,
not on His. He told those Jews that they
were of their father the devil. He said, because I tell you the
truth, you believe me not. Which of you convinces me of
sin? You looked, you tried, you made
every effort, you examined. If anything I said or did or
manifested was not right, let's hear it. Which of you convinces me of
sin? And if I say the truth, why don't you believe me? Huh? What's your reason? What's your
reason? He that is of God heareth God's
word. You therefore hear them not,
because you are not of God. Nothing ought to convince us
of our sin more than our willful, rebellious, unfounded unbelief
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then secondly, he's going
to convince of righteousness. Once you're convinced of sin,
he'll have to convince you of righteousness. Because you're
going to say, oh, there's no way I can be saved. Who can be
clean that's born of a woman? Ain't that what Job said? He'll convince you of righteousness,
that righteousness of his. And he'll convince you of judgment,
that is judgment satisfied. judgment passed. There is, therefore,
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." That's
the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God. Father, I
pray that you take this lesson, apply it to our hearts, convince
us, convict us, reprove us, lead us to Christ. Being led there, let us give
you all the thanksgiving and all the glory for Christ's sake.
Amen.