If you then, being evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall
your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
Him? I've entitled this message, Ask
for the Holy Spirit. Now, in Matthew's account in
Matthew chapter six, the Lord says, how much more shall your
heavenly father give good things to them that ask him? And I think
of all the good things we ask for. We ask for grace. God's free favor toward us. We ask for mercy. We ask for
the Lord to not give us what we deserve. There's not a day
that goes by when we don't have a need to ask for mercy and for
grace. We ask for the forgiveness of
sins. We ask for a new heart. We ask
for ears to hear the gospel. Don't you know you're dependent
upon him giving you hearing ears for you to be able to hear? We
ask him to give the preacher a word that we might hear. We ask for justification. I want to be just before God,
don't you? I love the thought of actually standing before God
without guilt. That's hard to get hold of, isn't
it? You only get hold of it by faith. You don't get hold of
it by sight or experience. We ask to be sanctified, made
holy. We ask to be accepted. Oh, to be accepted in the beloved. We ask for faith. We ask for
repentance. Lord, give me the grace to believe.
Whatever faith is, give it to me. Give me the grace to repent.
Give me the grace to have a true change of mind all the time. Lord, give me love to Yourself.
What a blessing that is. We ask for good things, don't
we? We ask that He would preserve us. and keep us. We ask that
he would deliver us from bringing reproach on his gospel through
our conduct or through our actions. We ask that we might be given
grace to love each other, to truly love and accept and forgive. But here he says, how much more
shall the heavenly father give the holy spirit to them that
ask him? You see, if I have his spirit,
I have all these things, don't I? And if I don't have His Spirit,
I do not have any of these things. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the blessed
Trinity. God is one God. Hear O Israel,
the Lord thy God is one God. And this one God is revealed
in three distinct persons. God, the father. God, the son
and God, the Holy Spirit. One God in three distinct persons
who can understand that. It's incomprehensible, isn't
it? It's not something I can intellectually grasp. It's only
something I can believe. One God in three distinct persons. The true and the living God.
Now, this is utterly unique to the religion of the Bible. You
won't find that anywhere else. One God in three distinct persons. As a matter of fact, we see all
three persons in the opening verses of the Bible. Turn to
Genesis chapter one. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. There's the Father. And the earth
was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. There's God, the Holy Spirit.
And God said, let there be light. And there was light. Now, the
sun and the moon were not created until the fourth day of creation.
Now, I don't understand all this, these Or are they four, or are
they six literal days? Well, if they are, I believe
that's what they are. And if they're not, sometimes the Bible
speaks in metaphor and so on, and it could be that the earth
is billions of years old. I don't know. It could be one
or the other. I have a tendency to think that
it's something happened in between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. The
earth was without form and void. Well, God didn't create it that
way. He, so I think something possibly catastrophic, and I'm
just talking, I don't know, I don't know. People, I'm just reading
this big debate this morning in the newspaper, you know, about
the debate between the creationists and the evolution. I know I don't
believe in evolution. I don't believe that for a second.
I believe God created things as they were and all this other
stuff, I don't know. I'm sure I have been criticized
before when I've dealt with this, saying, you know, you ought to
believe in six literal days. Well, if it is in six literal
days, that's what I believe. I just don't know. I don't know.
I mean, there's all kinds of places in the scripture where
it speaks in metaphor and type and so on. Is creation that way?
I don't know. But I know this, I don't believe
in evolution. I believe whatever God did, that's the way I believe
it. I feel so comfortable with that. Whatever God did, that's
the way I believe it. And the spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters, which typifies regeneration, really.
God coming to this place without form and with void and let there
be light. Like I said, now the sun and
the moon didn't come into the fourth day of creation, but this
light, light be and light was. We have all three persons of
the blessed Trinity, mysterious, on the very opening pages of
the Bible. Incomprehensible, inexplicable,
and to be believed. When we baptize, the Lord told
us to baptize people in the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Ghost, the third person of the blessed Trinity. Paul
said the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and
the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. John said there
are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Ghost. And if you're a bore witness
to, it's God the Holy Spirit who does it. Do you know that
all that you and I experience of God and Christ is through
God the Holy Spirit? Now, he is called in the scriptures,
the Spirit, and that's where we get the word wind or breath
from, invisible. powerful and immaterial. God
is spirit. He's not someone we can see physically. He's called the eternal spirit,
the holy spirit, the holy, the spirit of promise, the spirit
of God, the spirit of the living God, the spirit of our God. The spirit of glory and of God. The spirit of him that raised
up Jesus our Lord from the dead. The spirit of your father. The
spirit of his son. The spirit of Jesus. The spirit
of Christ. The spirit of Jesus Christ. The
spirit of adoption. The spirit of life. The spirit
of truth. And the spirit of grace. Those
are the names given to God, the Holy Spirit in the book that
he wrote called the Bible. Those are the names he gives
himself. He is God equal to God, the father
and God, the son. Yet subordinate to both. He's not an influence. He's a
person. With intelligence, a will, affections,
and individual subsistence, he has life in himself like the
Father and like the Son. And his work in salvation, understand
this, his work in salvation is just as necessary as the work
of the Father and the work of the Son. Now the work of the
Father in salvation is election. He's the covenant God. He chooses
His people. The work of the Son is redemption. He redeems us. He puts away our sin and He gives
us His righteousness. And the work of God the Holy
Spirit is regeneration, where He births us into the Kingdom. He gives us spiritual life. Now, no election, no salvation. No redemption, no salvation,
no regeneration, no salvation. The work of the Holy Spirit is
just as indispensable as the work of the Father and the work
of the Son. And we need the Holy Spirit because
by nature we are dead in trespasses and sins. That's why we need
the Holy Spirit. Because if we don't have him,
we will not have life. We have no more ability to believe
and to come to Christ and to repent than we have to create
a universe and how we need his spirit. I wish I could say that
with sufficient emphasis. We're completely dependent upon
God, the Holy Spirit. We need him to sanctify us. We
need him to teach us. We need him to comfort us. We
need him to guide us. I need his guidance. We need
him to transform us. We need him to translate us into
the kingdom of his dear son. We need him to quicken us, give
us life. We need him to resurrect us both
physically and spiritually. If I'm physically resurrected
is because he did it. And if I'm spiritually resurrected,
it's because he did it. We need him to heal us. We need
him to enlighten us. We need him to wake us up. We need Him to renew us. We need
Him to keep us. We need Him to preserve us. We
need Him to glorify us and give us glorified bodies. This is
the work of the Holy Spirit. And as I've already said, all
we experience of God is by Him. Now, if you see in your heart
the beauty of being saved by Jesus Christ, who taught you
that? If you really believe that the
righteousness of Jesus Christ is the only righteousness there
is, you really believe that? His righteousness is the only
righteousness there is, and you're relying on his righteousness
as your righteousness before God. That's real in you. Who
taught you that? That's the work of God, the Holy
Spirit. If you see the beauty of salvation
by grace, If you see the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ, you
really believe that He's all you need. Who taught you that? That's God, the Holy Spirit.
If you have the fear of God, where you're afraid of God, so
afraid of God that it makes you afraid of sin and it makes you
afraid to look anywhere but Christ. Where'd that come from? That's
God, the Holy Spirit. All we experience of God is through
God, the Holy Spirit. Now, what does the Holy Spirit
do? Well, what does God do? That's what he does. You see,
the Holy Spirit was active in the creation of the universe.
God said, let us, when he said, let us do this or let us do that. He's talking about all three
persons of the blessed Trinity. What else could it mean? Let
us make man in our own image. This is the work of God, the
father, God, the son, and God, the Holy Spirit. He wrote the
Bible. This book we're looking at right
now. Scripture says, holy men of God
spank as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. He used men. He used their personalities. He used the things they were
going through. You look at all the things David went through.
I mean, he went through some rough things, but aren't you
thankful for the Psalms that came through David's experience. I'm so thankful for that. He
wrote the Bible. Look at his, listen to this scripture
regarding his work in the incarnation of Christ. Christ being made
flesh. Luke 135, the angel says to Mary, the Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow
thee. Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee. I love the way the angel almost
can't come up with a name for the Lord Jesus. He's man, he's
God. That holy thing which shall be
born of thee shall be called the Son of God and his great
work. The work of the Holy Spirit is
to glorify and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. That is his purpose. Now turn with me for a moment
to John chapter 16. The Lord says to his disciples,
this is his parting words to his disciples before he goes
to the cross in John 13 through 17, chapter 17 being his great
high priestly prayer. But he says in verse seven, nevertheless,
I tell you the truth. It's expedient for you that I
go away. It's necessary for you that I go away. For if I go not
away, the comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart,
I'll send him unto you. Don't you love that name of the
Holy Spirit, the comforter? I need comforted. I need the
comfort of the gospel. And what a precious name of the
Holy Spirit. And verse 8, when he has come,
he will reprove, convince, overwhelmingly convict the world of sin and
of righteousness and of judgment. Now, what's he mean by the world? Well, everybody who's convicted
of sin, of righteousness and judgment, that's what he means
by the world, because not everybody in the world feels that has this
conviction of sin, of righteousness, and judgment that the Holy Spirit
gives, but everybody who does, it came from him. He shall convince
the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment. Verse 9, of sin,
because they believe not on me. You know when you've really been
convicted of sin? It's not when you feel guilty
about some bad thing you've done, although you should feel guilty
about some bad thing you've done, but a lost man will feel guilty
about some bad thing they've done. You've been convicted of
sin when you see that even faith is out of your reach. You can't
even come up with the faith unless he gives it to you. A sin because
they believe not on me. Have you ever been convicted
of the fact that you're an unbeliever? that you don't even know the
Lord, that you're far from the kingdom of heaven. Well, that's
the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit shows someone
they're lost, what a blessing, because when you find out you're
lost, the Savior's going to find you. He always does. He came
to seek and to save that which was lost. Look in verse 9, 10
of righteousness, because I go to my father and you shall see
me no more. You are convinced that the only
righteousness there is, is Jesus Christ himself. And he goes to
the father and presents his righteousness to the father. of judgment because
the prince of this world has been judged. You believe if God,
the Holy Spirit has taught you, you believe all judgment took
place on the cross. You believe the prince of this
world was judged. Everything was accomplished by Christ on
the cross. Now let's go on reading. He says, I have yet many things
to say unto you, but you can't bear them now. 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. Let me say this. Preachers are always speaking
of the Holy Spirit. You can write this down. They
don't know the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not speak
of himself. He's not always drawing attention
to himself and his, you know, all that. No, he shall not speak
of himself. But whatsoever he shall hear,
That shall he speak. And he will show you things to
come. Here's his great office. He shall glorify me. Now there's the office of the
Holy Spirit. 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. He's gonna show you
the preciousness of my blood. He's going to show you the completeness
of my righteousness. He's going to show you the power
of my intercession. He shall glorify me. Look in John 15, verse 26. But when the comforter has come,
whom I shall send unto you, from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me."
The Holy Spirit is the author of the new birth. Turn to John
chapter 3. Verse 1, there was a man of the
Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, The same came to
Jesus by night. And I realized when we read that,
we think, well, it was a shame to come to him during the daytime.
He didn't want to be seen. And that very well may be true.
He didn't want to be seen because he had something to lose in it.
But I think what's more, what this means more than anything
else is he was in the dark. He was in utter night. He was
in utter spiritual darkness. He had no understanding. He came to Jesus by night. and said unto him, Rabbi, and
here's where he messed up. He came to him as a teacher,
not as the Lord, not as a savior, but as a teacher. Rabbi, we know
that thou art a teacher, come from God, for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered
and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus,
you do not know anything. Nicodemus saith unto him, How
can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter into the second
time in his mother's womb? Jesus answered, Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Water, I believe refers
to the word, the washing of water by the word born of the word,
born of the spirit of God. I don't think that's talking
about water baptism because I know that you're not regenerated by
going under the water. You know that. But Paul does
speak of the washing of water by the word and oh, how cleansing
the word is to us. Oh, don't you love the word of
God? Jesus answered, Verily I say
to you, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh. It'll never rise above its nature.
And that which is born of the spirit is spirit. This is just talking about that
new nature that a believer possesses, a holy nature. The Holy Spirit
produces a holy nature, a new nature, a new heart. Marvel not
that I said unto you, you must be born again. The wind blows
where it wills. You hear the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh and whether it goeth. So is every
one that is born of the Spirit. Like begets like. Peter called
it being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And this
is an answer to that promise of Ezekiel chapter 36 verses
26 and 27, when he said, I will put my spirit within you and
cause you to walk in my statutes. Now, when I hear that, I love
it when the Lord talks about what he's going to cause us to
do. I just love that. You know, you remember when the
Lord said, Without me, you can do nothing. Isn't it just as
equally true, without God the Holy Spirit, you can do nothing. You can't believe, you can't
repent, you can't love, you can't feel how dependent we are on
the Holy Spirit. I love that song we just sang.
Come Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, in all thy quickening powers,
come shed abroad a Savior's love, and that will kindle ours. If you're a believer, if I'm
a believer, we're called the temple of God. And God, the Holy
Spirit in his person actually dwells in us. That's mysterious,
isn't it? The spiritual life you have,
he gave you. Now, I want to, would you turn
with me to 1 John chapter 2 for a moment? I hope I can say this
in a way that's, if this is confusing, let me
say this, if this comes out confusing, that means I said it wrong. So
it's not confusing. So let's, let's see what we can
get from this. First John chapter two, verse 20. He says to every
believer, But you have an unction and anointing from the Holy one. And you know, all things. That's what he said, you know,
all things because of this unction, you have this anointing that
you have from the Holy one. Look in verse 27 of the same
chapter, but the anointing. which you have received of him,
abideth in you, and you need not that any man teach you, but
as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth,
and is no lie, even as it hath taught you, you shall abide in
him." Now, this, you know all things. Now, does that mean I
know the answer to all mathematical problems and that I know all
the stuff about calculus and chemistry and all the mysteries
of physical law and so on. No, it doesn't mean that. Obviously,
I don't. But I'll tell you what it does
mean. When God teaches you, he teaches
you the truth so that you know it when you hear it. And when
you hear it, you already knew it, even though you hadn't heard
it yet. And as soon as you hear it, you know it so. Now, that's
the anointing. You hear the truth, and you say,
Amen. That's the truth. You might not
have ever heard it before, but you know the truth intuitively
if you have the Holy Spirit. Now, the Lord may teach you through
the man. As a matter of fact, He does. Remember when the Ethiopian
eunuch said, Phil came up to him and said, do you understand
what you're reading? He said, how can I except some man should
guide me? But what that Ethiopian eunuch
was made to understand, it was what God taught him. through
Philip, preaching unto him Jesus from Isaiah 53, but it's what
God taught him. You have an anointing, and you
know all things. You know the truth when you hear
it. It's already in you, and you respond to it. That's because
you have a new nature, a holy nature, a spiritual nature. And
God has taught you. What a blessed thing it is to
have Him as our teacher. Somebody says, this is mysterious.
Well, I reckon it is. I agree with you. It's very mysterious.
But it's so. Have you been taught that you're
a sinner? Have you been taught that you're completely dependent
on what God does for you. Have you been taught that all
you need is the Lord Jesus Christ, and that if you're in Him, nothing
else needs to be said? Have you been taught that God
really is God, that He's in control of everybody and everything?
And you really believe that, and you rest in that. That's the teaching of God. And you know when you hear the
truth, I love this, when you hear the truth, you know it's
so. Now if it comes out kind of confusing and you're not sure
about it, problem is you didn't hear the truth. The preacher
preached it in such a way that it wasn't clear. If he preached
it in such a way it wasn't clear, he didn't tell it right. When
you hear the truth, it's always simple and it's always powerful
and you know it's so. That's the teaching of God, the
Holy Spirit. Why is it that you respond to the gospel and your
neighbors don't? Is it because of some superior
knowledge you have or some intellectual superiority you have? No, it's
because God has taught you. Aren't you amazed at his grace
for doing that? That doesn't and it's not something
that makes you proud or think, well, I've got something they
don't have. You don't think like that. You're just amazed at his grace
to you. Why? Why me? Why me? He causes the fruit of the spirit. You know, it is the fruit of
the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,
the fruit of God, the Holy Spirit. Do you love God as he is? That's the fruit of the spirit. Do you love me for preaching
the gospel to you? That's the fruit of the Spirit.
Do I love you because you belong to Christ? That's the fruit of
the Spirit. Does it give you joy to know
that all God requires of you, you have in Christ and you don't
need anything else? That's the fruit of the Spirit.
Do you experience peace from this glorious statement? It's
finished. It is finished. There's nothing for me to do.
It's all been done. Does that give you peace? That's
the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Long-suffering. You see how long-suffering
God is toward you. So you're going to be long-suffering
to your brother or sister in Christ. That's the fruit of the
Holy Spirit. Gentleness. That means kindness.
Paul used the same word when he said, be kind, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
you. That's the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Goodness that manifests
itself in acts of compassion. That's the fruit of the Holy
Spirit. The faith you have. If you have
faith, he gave it to you. That's the fruit of the Spirit.
Temperance, control from within, that's God the Holy Spirit controlling
you. Meekness, that meek attitude
toward God, that attitude that says whatever he does is right,
that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And you know, it's he
who wars against the flesh. The flesh lusts against the Spirit. And the spirit lusts against
the flesh. And these two are contrary one
to the other so that you can't do the things you would. Well,
he's the one who does the warring. It's his spirit within you. He's
a witness. He bears witness to the gospel.
I love this passage of scripture in Hebrews, chapter 10, verse
14, where it says, wherefore, by one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Don't you love that? By his one
offering, by his glorious death on the cross, he perfected forever
everybody he died for, everybody he sanctifies. Whereof, the next
verse says, whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us. This is what He bears witness
to, the saving, powerful work of Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus
the Lord on Calvary's tree, perfected forever everybody He died for. Now, do you see how it's utterly
offensive to talk about Him dying for people and then winding up
in hell anyway, if they don't do something to make what He
did work? Why, the Holy Spirit doesn't have anything to do with
that. He's a witness to the saving, powerful, perfecting work of
Christ on the cross. And we, I love the way Paul said,
we through the spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by
faith. That waiting we do, waiting for
the hope of righteousness, it's through the spirit. Only as he
enables us. Romans, let me read you a bunch
of scriptures. I'll never finish this message
if I say all I wanted to say, but in Romans 8, 13, it says,
if you live after the flesh, you shall die. But if you through
the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, You shall live. He's called the spirit of adoption
that makes us cry, Abba, Father, makes us die to ourselves, mortifying
the deeds of the flesh. In Romans 8 26, it says he helps
our infirmities and he prays for us because we don't even
know how to pray or what to pray for. And he makes groanings for
us with it that cannot be uttered. Turn to Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter 5. Verse 18. And be not drunk with wine where
is in excess profligacy, but be or be being filled with the
spirit. And here's what happens when
you're being filled with the Spirit. You speak 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. Now
that's what happens when people are filled with God, the Holy
Spirit. Look in Ephesians chapter four. I therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith
you're called, with all lowliness, humility, and meekness, with
long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now what does God the Holy Spirit
say? This is the last thing I want
to say. Revelation 22, 17. The Spirit and the bride say,
come. Now here's what God the Holy
Spirit says to me. This is what God the Holy Spirit
says to you. If he speaks to you. He doesn't
tell you to go away and get things straightened up. He doesn't say,
go and get your life straightened out. He says, come. Right now. To the Lord Jesus
Christ, come as you are to the Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit
and the bride is what the church says to come. Come to Christ
and listen to this scripture. The Lord said in John chapter
six, verse 37, all that the father giveth me shall come to me. Now you can just write that down.
All of the elect will be saved. Every one of them will come to
Christ. But you know, I'm very thankful that he didn't just
leave us there. He also gives us this promise.
Him that cometh to me. It's all it says. It's all He
says. Him that cometh to me, I will
in no wise, for no reason whatsoever, cast out. If you come to Christ,
you will be received by Him. May God give you grace. May God
give me grace in my heart right now. Now this is the work of
the Holy Spirit. Preeminently, this is the work of the Holy
Spirit. He causes men to come to Christ in their heart. If you come to Him, that means
you left someplace else. You leave salvation by works
and you come to Him for salvation. That is the work of God, the
Holy Spirit. And I'm asking him right now,
you know, the Lord told us to ask. He said, how much more shall
your heavenly father, aren't you thankful? He said, he said,
your heavenly father, that's the Lord saying that. How much
more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask him. Now I pray that our hearts will
be united together right now. Every one of us in asking for
God, the Holy Spirit. Oh Father, for Christ's sake,
that's the only way I ask this, for Christ's sake, give me and
give everybody in this room and give the people that are not
in this room the Holy Spirit. Let's pray together.