I thought in our times together this week
I'd like to talk with you about the
person and work of the Holy Spirit.
It's going to be a first for me,
I've never given a series on this before,
but I think it's very timely, what with
the charismatic movement, actually it opens up vast
areas of the Scriptures to us.
And I just have a few things here
on the overhead projector.
First of all, we're going to be thinking
about the personality of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a person.
What is a person?
When we think of a person, we instinctively
think of someone with a body, but you
don't have to have a body to be
a person.
God is a person, but he doesn't have
a body.
Jesus was a person before he came down
to the world, but he didn't have a
body.
If those of us who are believers should
die, we're still persons, but we don't have
a body.
We're disembodied persons, absent from the body, at
home with the Lord.
This is hard for people, it's hard for
people to conceive of the Holy Spirit as
a person when he doesn't have a body.
It shouldn't be any problem at all, should
it?
He is a person.
One of the problems, of course, is that
in the King James Version, he's sometimes spoken
out as it.
That's too bad, isn't it?
We love our King James Version of the
Bible, but that's an unfortunate thing.
The reason, of course, was because Spirit is
neuter, or as the King James says, Holy
Ghost.
Ghost is neuter, and so the translators translated
it instead of he in some places.
Why did they use that word ghost?
That's awful, isn't it?
Well, it isn't awful.
In the days when the King James Version
of the Bible was translated, ghost was just
another word for spirit.
I think it still is in German, does
anybody here know German?
I think it's Geist in German, is that
right?
Geist.
And I would think our word ghost comes
from Geist, and it means spirit.
So you can see why they translated it
ghost.
But today, we say Holy Spirit, and we
refer to him as he, not as it.
Well, what is a person?
Well, a person has intellect, emotions, and will.
Those are the three ingredients of personhood, intellect,
emotions, and will.
And what we want to do is go
to the Word of God and see how
all of these things are attributed to the
Holy Spirit.
Does he have intellect?
I'll say he has intellect, 1 Corinthians Chapter
2, verses 10 through 12.
1 Corinthians Chapter 2, this is a lovely,
lovely passage of Scripture.
I think I'll go back to verse 9,
1 Corinthians Chapter 2, verse 9.
It says, But as it is written, I
hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man the things
which God hath prepared for them that love
him.
But God hath revealed them unto us by
his Spirit.
For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God.
For what man knoweth the things of a
man, save the Spirit of man which is
in him?
Even so the things of God knoweth no
man but the Spirit of God.
Now we receive 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.
Just a few comments on the passage before
we leave it.
Verse 9, we often attribute to the heavenly
state, don't we?
I hath not seen, neither hath not heard,
neither hath entered into the heart of man,
we say that's heaven.
Well, it really isn't heaven in the primary
interpretation.
What this is saying is that God has
revealed things in the New Testament which the
world never knew before.
He goes back in quotes from the Old
Testament and says, this is fulfilled in the
New Testament.
In other words, the great truths which the
apostles and prophets of the New Testament have
revealed to us are the things that are
referred to in this passage of Scripture in
Isaiah 64.
But notice what it says in the following
verses about the Spirit of God.
Even so, verse 11 at the end of
the verse, even so the things of God
knoweth no man but the Spirit of God,
he knows them, and that teaches us the
very fact that he knows shows that he
has intellect, doesn't it?
An influence can't know.
Some people think of the Holy Spirit as
an influence that comes out from God.
More than an influence, he has knowledge, intellect,
he has emotions as well.
The Holy Spirit has emotions, and we're going
to look at some verses that clearly teach
that he has emotions.
Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30, it says, And
grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby
ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
The Holy Spirit can be grieved.
How can he be grieved?
The whole passage tells you how he can
be grieved.
If you go back over this, verse 25,
he is grieved by lying.
Verse 26, he is grieved by anger that
overflows into sin.
Verse 27, he is grieved by us when
we give place to the devil.
What does that mean?
Well, when we give the devil a beachhead
in our lives, that's really what it means.
The Spirit of God is grieved by that.
Verse 28, he's grieved by stealing.
When we steal, this grieves the Spirit of
God.
Verse 29, he's grieved by corrupt or worthless
communications, by speech that isn't edifying.
Verse 31, he's grieved by bitterness, wrath, anger,
clamor, and evil speaking.
In other words, if you want to know
what grieves the Spirit of God, just go
to the context where the verse is found
and it tells you what grieves him.
And once again, you can't grieve an influence.
You can grieve a person.
Why does it grieve him?
Why do these things grieve him?
Well, for the same reason that your children
oftentimes grieve you.
You love them.
Incidentally, you can only grieve someone you love.
Your neighbor's children don't grieve you, the brats.
But your children grieve you because you love
them.
And the reason that these things grieve the
Holy Spirit of God is because he has
to turn from the ministry that he loves,
occupying you with Christ, to a restorative ministry,
to bringing you back into fellowship.
I believe that.
I believe that the Spirit of God has
a ministry that he really loves, and he
likes to concentrate on that ministry.
And when we sin, you have to turn
away from that ministry and get us back
into fellowship with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 5.19, 1 Thessalonians 5.19,
the Spirit of God can not only be
grieved, he can be quenched.
It says, quench not the Spirit, despise not
prophesying.
What's the difference between grieving the Spirit and
quenching the Spirit?
I believe we quench the Spirit, for instance,
when we make a man ashamed of his
testimony for Christ.
Here's a young fellow that gets up in
the meeting, and he thanks God the Father
for dying on the cross of Calvary.
Well, of course, theologically it's not right, is
it?
God the Father didn't die on the cross
of Calvary.
But somebody comes along and jumps on that
young fellow with both feet, just rakes him
over the coals for saying such an absurd
monstrosity.
I think that quenches the Spirit, because you've
made that fellow ashamed of his testimony for
Christ.
Actually, if we could see ourselves in the
light of God's holiness, in the light of
God's purity, we all say enough things like
that to sink a battleship.
Do you believe that?
I do.
And I'd like to suggest to you tonight
that we want assemblies that have a non
-threatening atmosphere for our young people.
And I really mean that.
I was in an assembly back east, and
a brother got up and he gave a
tirade, you must never speak, address Jesus as
Jesus.
And I began to think about that.
You know, the traditions of the elders, you
must never address Jesus as Jesus, just Lord
Jesus, or Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, that's nice, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus Christ.
But I went to him graciously and quietly
afterwards and said, Brother, what about that hymn,
Jesus, the very thought of thee with sweetness
fills my breast.
He said, I know, I wondered about that.
Yeah, but in the meantime, he had quenched
the spirit, I think, by putting these rules
on young people.
Maybe some of you solidly disagree with me
and I'll hear about it afterwards.
That's all right.
No, that's all right.
To me, Jesus is a lovely name.
It's the name that's above every name, isn't
it?
God has given him a name that's above
every name, that at the name of Jesus,
every knee should bow and every tongue confess
him, Lord, to the glory of God the
Father.
I think we should be very careful about
coming out with these rules and regulations that
stifle spontaneous worship.
I really do.
I like to tell the story of a
young fellow, newly saved.
I think he was a hippie before he
was saved.
And one night, right after he was saved,
he came to the breaking of bread in
one of the assemblies out west.
He came in bare feet.
He didn't have any shoes on.
Isn't that terrible?
And one of the sisters, one of the
older sisters, got ahold of him afterwards and
she just laid him out in lavender and
lace.
But one of the elders saw what was
happening.
And you know what he did?
He went over and he put his arm
around that young fellow and he said, never
mind, I think they're beautiful.
And the kid said, well, they're original.
Now, he wears shoes now.
You know what I mean?
He didn't know any better.
But I want to tell you, if you
go to that breaking of bread service, you'll
find 250 people, wall to wall, mostly young
people, remembering the Lord.
Why?
Because it's a non-threatening atmosphere.
The Spirit of God isn't quenched.
And I think there's a link here between
quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesying.
They're linked together in the verse.
Quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesying.
But the main point is, of course, the
Holy Spirit has intellect.
The Holy Spirit has emotion.
He can be grieved.
He can be quenched.
And there are other things that can be
done to him, too.
And then the Holy Spirit has will.
1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 11.
He has will.
And this is speaking about how he distributes
gifts.
We'll be talking about the gifts later on.
1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 11.
Let's see.
Yes.
It says in verse 11, but all these.
He's just been listing the different gifts of
the Spirit.
He says, but all these work at that
one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to
every man and severally as he will.
That means as he wishes.
The Holy Spirit has will.
And he divides to every man.
If you're saved here tonight, you have a
gift or you have gifts.
How'd you get them?
Pray for them?
You didn't get them by praying for them.
You got them when you were saved.
And they were given to you as a
sovereign bestowment of the Spirit of God.
Nothing you can do about it.
You can develop it, I mean, after you
get it.
You can stir it up after you get
it.
But as far as getting a gift.
And we're going to go into this more
in detail later on.
But this business of praying for individuals, praying
for a gift.
There's no scripture in the world for that.
When it says later on, earnestly desire the
greater gifts.
It's not speaking to individuals, it's speaking to
an assembly.
An assembly can, you might in your assembly,
you might feel the need for pastoral gifts.
You can pray for that.
You can pray that somebody with pastoral gifts
will come along.
God will lead them.
But there's no use for an individual praying
for gifts.
If he's saved, he's got the gifts.
Whatever gifts he's going to have, he's got
them.
And from then on, it's just a matter
of growth and development.
And the use of the gifts.
But once again, the main point here is,
the Holy Spirit has will.
He gives to every man severally as he
wishes.
And he shows his will in this regard.
So much for the personality of the Holy
Spirit of God.
We also want to think about his deity.
His deity, the Holy Spirit, is called God.
There are three persons in the Godhead.
One God.
God the Father is God.
God the Son is God.
God the Holy Spirit is God.
Acts chapter 5, verses 3 and 4.
The story of Ananias and Sapphira.
Acts chapter 5, verses 3 and 4.
Let me just go back to the beginning.
But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira,
his wife, sold a possession.
And kept back part of the price, his
wife being also privy to it.
And brought a certain part and laid it
at the apostle's feet.
But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled
thine heart to lie?
To whom?
To the Holy Spirit.
Why has Satan filled your heart to lie
to the Holy Spirit?
And to keep back part of the price
of the land.
While it remained, was it not thine own?
And after it was sold, was it not
in thine own power?
Why hast thou conceived this thing in thy
heart?
Thou hast not lied unto man, but unto
God.
Verse 3.
You lied to the Holy Ghost.
Verse 4.
You lied to God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
Things equal to the same thing are equal
to each other.
Aren't they?
Things equal to the same thing are equal
to each other.
And this shows that in lying, they didn't
lie to man.
They lied to the Holy Ghost, the Holy
Spirit.
They lied to God.
A clear statement, I think, that the Holy
Spirit is God.
But also, the Holy Spirit has the attributes
of God.
The same attributes that God the Father has
and God the Son has.
The Holy Spirit has omnipotence.
What does that mean?
It means he has all power.
First mention of the Holy Spirit in Genesis
chapter 1, verse 2.
What's he doing?
Brooding over the face of the deep.
It says, 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.
And then Job chapter 26, verse 13.
Job 26, verse 13.
It's a beautiful verse, isn't it?
By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens.
I think that's lovely.
It took power to garnish the heavens, didn't
it?
What does that mean, garnish the heavens?
Well, when the hostess is serving a nice
platter of filet mignon steaks, she puts some
parsley around.
She garnishes it with parsley, doesn't she?
Well, that's what the Holy Spirit did in
the creation.
He garnished the heavens with stars.
Stars.
Why did he make so many?
Did you ever wonder?
You can see about 2,000 with the
naked eye, but nobody knows how many stars
there are.
You and I would have been satisfied with
a few less, wouldn't we?
Why did he make so many?
Well, in Revelation we found he made them
for his own pleasure, didn't he?
That's wonderful.
And not only that, but he made them
to show us what a great God he
is.
What a great God he is.
I tell you, it's really wonderful when you
think of it.
Man can't see the limits of the universe,
even with telescopic vision.
I think it's marvelous.
Think of those stars, so many of them.
And he calls them all by name, too.
You couldn't do that.
You couldn't even give them numbers.
But he calls them all by name.
Isn't that a beautiful verse?
By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens.
His hands hath formed the crooked serpent.
It says in Genesis he made the stars
also.
I want to tell you, that's really omnipotence,
garnishing the heavens with the stars.
And then Psalm 104, verse 30.
Psalm 104, verse 30, it says, Thou sendest
forth thy Spirit, and they are created, and
thou renewest the face of the earth.
So oftentimes the Spirit of God is used
in connection with creation.
Shows us that he is an all-powerful
person.
But he's not only all-powerful, he's all
-knowing as well.
And we had that already in 1 Corinthians
2, verses 10 through 12.
Didn't we?
We could also look to this passage in
Isaiah 11, verses 1 and 2.
It says, And there shall come forth a
root out of the stem of Jesse, and
a branch shall grow out of his root,
and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest
upon him.
Notice, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the
Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
The Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of
wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of knowledge and
of the fear of the Lord.
And not only that, but the Holy Spirit
is omnipresent, another attribute of God.
And there we turn to Psalm 139, which
incidentally deals very largely with the attributes of
God.
And here it assigns omnipresence to the Holy
Spirit.
No matter where you go, you can't get
away from him.
Psalm 139, verses 7 through 12.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art
there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold,
thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the
sea, even there shall thy hand lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover
me, even the night shall be light about
me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but
the night shineth as the day.
Wonderful, isn't it?
And that's attributed to the Spirit.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
The rest of the Psalm speaks of the
omniscience and omnipotence of God.
But here it's the Spirit of God.
You can't get away from him.
I've known people who leave the old country
to get away.
You know, they were under the influence of
the gospel in Europe.
And they come and they meet the Lord
in New York.
The Spirit of God is there waiting for
them all the time.
And then not only is the Spirit of
God omnipresent, he's the eternal one.
Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 14.
How much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without
spot to God, purge your conscience from dead
work to serve the living God.
He is without beginning, and he is without
ending, the eternal Spirit of God.
And then he's sovereign.
And I think this is beautiful.
We use that word sovereign.
I wonder if it conveys a clear image
to your mind.
When we say that God is sovereign, when
we say that the Holy Spirit is sovereign,
we mean that he can do whatever he
wills.
And what he wills is always just, perfect,
righteous, fair.
That's wonderful, isn't it?
The Holy Spirit is sovereign.
John 3, 8a.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.
Listeth.
It's an old-fashioned word.
What does it say in your new version?
John 3, 8a.
The wind bloweth where it what?
Willeth.
That's what it means.
Where it willeth.
And thou hearest the sound thereof, thou canst
not tell whence it cometh, or whither it
goeth.
So is everyone that is born of the
Spirit.
He's sovereign.
And we're going to be saying more about
that in a minute.
1 Corinthians 12, 11, we've already had where
he distributes the gifts as he wills, the
way he wants to.
Not the way man wants it.
Now, this raises a problem, especially his omniscience.
The problem is this.
The Holy Spirit has always been in the
world.
He's everywhere.
And yet Jesus said that the Father was
going to send the Holy Spirit.
And that raises a real problem, because how
can he send the Holy Spirit if he's
always been in the world?
And the answer is, on the day of
Pentecost, the Spirit of God came in a
way he had never been here before.
That's how he sent him.
He came as the permanent indweller of the
individual believer and of the Church.
And that's the way he's going to go
at the rapture.
Now let me go over that a little
bit more carefully.
Acts chapter 2, verses 3 and 4.
You have the coming of the Holy Spirit
there.
The coming of the Holy Spirit.
Well, the Holy Spirit was in the world
in Genesis 1 too, wasn't he?
We already read that, where he brooded over
the face of the deep.
But now he's coming.
How is he coming?
Well, that's the answer.
Just let me read Acts 2, 3 and
4 first, and then we'll go on.
There appeared unto them clove and tongues like
as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit, began to speak with other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance.
Okay.
Now, on the day of Pentecost, he came
as the permanent indweller of the individual believer,
John 14, 16.
And this is a very crucial verse.
John 14, 16.
It says, And I will pray the Comforter,
the Father, and he shall give you another
Comforter that he may abide with you forever.
Dear friends, that is the distinctive feature of
the dispensation in which we live.
Never happened before.
It never happened before.
That is the distinctive feature of the age
in which we live.
The Holy Spirit came to abide in the
individual believer forever, and never leave.
Very important to see that.
1 Corinthians 6, verse 19.
It says, What?
Know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in
you, which you have of God, and you
are not your own.
The Holy Spirit comes in, he dwells in
us, in our bodies, and he dwells in
us forever.
But he's not only the permanent indweller of
the individual believer, he's also the permanent indweller
of the Church.
And that is really what's referred to in
1 Corinthians 3, verse 16.
If you'd like to turn to that.
1 Corinthians 3, verse 16 says, What?
It says, Know ye not that ye are
the temple of God, and that the Spirit
of God dwelleth in you.
Now this is not speaking about the individual
believer.
This is speaking about the local church.
So how do you know?
This is one place where the King James
is better than the modern version.
See, in the modern English, you can be
either singular or plural.
If I use you, you can't tell whether
I mean one or many.
But in the King James, ye is plural,
and you is singular.
In the King James version, here it's ye.
What?
Know ye not that ye are a temple
of God.
You Corinthians, plural, are a temple of God,
and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.
And that's true.
He comes to indwell the Church permanently, and
that's why I say here it's in this
sense only that he will be removed at
the time of the rapture.
What's going to happen at the time of
the rapture?
The Church is going to go out.
All believers are going to go out.
In that sense, the Spirit of God is
going to go out, but he'll still be
here.
He'll still be here convicting and converting sinners,
for instance.
He's omnipresent all the time.
This is a problem because those of us
who believe in the pre-tribulation rapture, which
I do, those who don't believe in it
make fun of it.
They say, oh, you believe the Holy Spirit
is going to be taken out?
The Holy Spirit is omnipresent.
He can't be taken out of this.
He can.
He can be taken out in this special
way.
He can be taken out in this special
way as the permanent indweller of the individual
believer and of the Church.
And his ministry will somewhat revert to the
way it was in the Old Testament period.
Now, just let's think for a little while,
and I think it's very profitable, let's think
for a little while of some of the
types of the Holy Spirit of God.
There are types.
There are not all 50 types.
But I believe they are types.
For instance, the Holy Spirit is likened to
wind.
We already quoted it, didn't we?
John 3, 8.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.
Thou hearest the sound thereof, canst not tell
whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.
So is every one that is born of
the Spirit.
The wind.
Is the Holy Spirit like that?
He really is like that.
You can get up and preach the same
message that Peter preached at Pentecost, and it
doesn't mean anybody is going to be saved,
does it?
It doesn't mean that.
Why?
Because the Spirit of God is sovereign.
He's absolutely sovereign.
He works like the wind.
And then you heard that he had the
great, rushing, mighty wind on the day of
Pentecost, didn't you?
The operation of the Spirit.
This is very important, and I'm going to
mention something about it after we look at
these various passages.
He's likened to water.
To water.
I think that passage in John 7 is
especially illuminating there.
John 7, 38-39.
I should read 37.
Let me just begin at verse 37.
In the last day, that great day of
the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If
any man thirsts, let him come unto me
and drink.
He that believeth in me, as the Scripture
has said, out of his inward parts shall
flow rivers of living water.
But this spake he of the Spirit, which
they that believe on him should receive.
John says, when Jesus said, Living water, he
meant the Holy Spirit.
Water is a type of the Holy Spirit.
John chapter 4, verse 14.
The Lord Jesus dealing with the Samaritan woman.
Whoso drinketh of the water that I shall
give him shall never thirst.
The water that I shall give him shall
be in him a well of water springing
up into everlasting life.
The Spirit of God coming into a person's
life, bringing eternal life, salvation, and then that
life flowing out from the person to others.
You see that in John chapter 4.
The woman got saved and the water flowed
out to others through her.
She went back into the village and told
them to come see a man which told
me all things that ever I did.
And then dew, Psalm 133, verse 8.
It's like the dew coming down from Hermon,
from Mount Hermon.
I think it's the Spirit of God, the
ministry of the Spirit of God there.
He's also likened to fire.
Of course you have that in chapter 2
of Acts, the cloven tongues of fire.
And likened to oil, anointing oil.
Let's just look at those verses.
Luke chapter 4, verse 18.
Luke 4, 18.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me.
Anointed.
That has the idea of the anointing oil.
And the Spirit of God was upon Christ
in abundant measure.
He gave the Spirit to him without measure.
Acts 10, verse 38.
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the
Holy Spirit and with power.
He went about doing good, healing all that
were oppressed to the devil.
God was with him.
Anointing speaks of oil.
And the Lord Jesus was anointed with the
Holy Spirit and with power.
And then just one more type of the
Holy Spirit.
And that is the cloud, of course, in
the Old Testament period.
The pillar cloud that guided the children of
Israel through the wilderness.
Now I'd like you to look at all
of those types of the Holy Spirit.
Can you think of anything that they all
have in common?
Well, they're all fluid in a sense, aren't
they?
They're all kind of hard to hold in
your hand.
It's hard for the human hand to control
them.
A handful of wind, a handful of water,
a handful of fire, oil, cotton.
And that seems to me all of those
types of the Holy Spirit seem to me
to speak of the sovereign moving of the
Holy Spirit.
He does what he wants, not what you
want.
People read the Book of Acts and they
think that they can find a definite strategy
in the Book of Acts.
In Paul's missionary labors, they think they can
find a definite strategy.
This is the way it worked then.
This is the way it's going to work
now.
I don't find that.
I find the Spirit of God moving in
the Book of Acts in a sovereign way.
Just whatever way He wants to move, that's
the way He moves without consulting any man.
You know, there you are in your little
assembly and you're trying to maintain the truth
of God, you know?
You're trying to be loyal to the truth
of God.
And down the street there are people and
their doctrine is appalling.
And God seems to be working there.
Any of you have that problem?
I've been traveling since June 7th and I
get that brought up to me all the
time.
What's the matter?
Here we're trying to be loyal to the
Lord.
We're trying to be faithful to the Lord
and we don't see blessing.
And here down there and they name the
church and it's happening all the time.
The place is just like popcorn, you know?
I can't control the wind and neither can
you.
And in the Christian life you just have
to be satisfied to let the Holy Spirit
of God work the way He wants to
work.
And rejoice!
Whenever anything happens that's glorifying the Christ.
That's what Paul did, didn't he, when he
was in prison?
And he said, rejoice that Christ was preached
even if some were preaching Him out of
contention, supposing to add affliction to Paul.