In the will of the Lord, we wish
to consider a subject that I think is
relevant to our everyday lives this week.
A spirit-led subject, I trust, on the
spirit of God himself.
We're living in a day when we are
so inclined to substitute the energy of the
flesh for the energy of the spirit, for
our own devices for the leading of the
spirit, and to substitute expediency for the truth
of God.
Now, these are days, these are changing days,
days of changing standards, but the word of
God never changes, and God himself has never
changed.
And it's seldom that we reserve a whole
week for a study like this, but we're
going to permit ourselves that luxury of spending
a whole week studying about the spirit of
God.
And we wish to begin that study tonight
with a reference to the 16th chapter of
John's gospel, John's gospel chapter 16.
Verse 12, I have yet many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now.
Howbeit when he, the 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 shall show it unto you.
Now, the spirit of God has a burden,
and the burden of the spirit of God
is to glorify our Lord Jesus Christ.
It says here that he shall not speak
of himself, but it does not say that
we should not speak of him.
One would almost suppose here that since the
spirit does not speak of himself, that you
and I have no right to speak of
the spirit.
And that's not the intent of this portion
of scripture at all.
The spirit of God speaks of our Lord
Jesus Christ, but it does not mean that
we do not learn the truth of the
spirit in the word of God, and that
does not mean that they are unimportant.
The burden of the Holy Spirit of God
is that we might know Christ.
The burden of our Lord Jesus Christ was
that we might know the Father.
And I'm so glad for the ministry of
our Lord Jesus Christ that I do, through
his ministry, know more of my Heavenly Father.
Oh, I'm glad for that ministry.
I'm glad that I know the Father.
I'm glad that I'm his son, and I'm
glad for the precious relationship that I bear
to my Heavenly Father.
And I'm also glad for the ministry of
the Spirit, whose burden is that he might
bring Christ before us, and he might glorify
the Lord Jesus, that he might speak of
his things.
Now, the Spirit of God is not simply
an influence.
There are many that speak of the Spirit
of God as simply being an influence.
There, unfortunately, are portions in the Authorized Version
that refer to our spirit as it, instead
of the pronoun he.
And that is most unfortunate indeed.
Our Lord Jesus Christ here says, When he,
the 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.
He is a blessed person.
He is a third member of the Trinity,
and he is co-equal with God.
I fear sometimes that we give the Spirit
an inferior place in our thinking and in
our considerations as a Christian.
Now, God is equally omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.
And the Spirit is just as much God
as the Father and as the Son.
The three in one are a perfect balance.
They are a perfect person.
The person of the Godhead is composed of
three.
You see that in the very, very first
verse of the Bible.
We read in the first verse of the
Bible, In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.
Now, the word God there, Elohim, is in
the plural.
There are three persons in the Hebrew language.
There is the singular, there is the dual,
and there is the plural.
The plural consists of three or more.
And this is in the plural.
Elohim is in the plural.
Now, that has to be three persons, comprehended
in the name of God.
In the beginning, God, in three persons.
Now, strangely enough, the verb created there is
in the singular.
It's not in the plural at all.
It's in the singular.
God is three in one.
And the three members of the Trinity always
act in unison.
They never act independent of the other.
They always know what the other members of
the Godhead are thinking.
There is perfect communication.
There are no jealousies in the Godhead.
The Godhead is a perfect, perfect combination of
three persons in one.
One life, one God, in three personages.
Three persons.
And the Spirit is the third one.
Now, the Spirit of God has a very,
very important relationship to us.
We experience the ministrations of the Spirit of
God, I think, probably the first of the
three of these mentioned blessed beings.
As a matter of fact, the Spirit of
God is the first one mentioned in the
Bible.
He is mentioned in the second verse of
the Bible, that is, I mean individually.
And the Spirit, and I'm going to read
it to you.
I started to quote it wrong, and I'm
afraid that I may misquote it now because
I started it wrong.
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 water.
The Spirit of God is the first member
of the Trinity that is mentioned in the
Bible.
Now, let's think of the reality of the
Spirit.
Let's think of the reality of his relationship
to the Church in the book of Acts.
And then we will get closer to home.
We will think of the reality of his
ministry in our lives.
The book of the Acts has been called
the Acts of the Apostles.
Incidentally, that is not a divine title.
That is a title that was given to
this wonderful historical book in the New Testament
by the compilers of our Bible.
And the Acts of the Apostles might better
indeed be called the Acts of the Holy
Spirit because we see the Spirit of God
active in the book of Acts.
Now, I'm going to run down, and I'm
going to apologize in asking you to turn
to these Scriptures with me.
But we see, first of all, that he
in power in Acts chapter 1 and verse
8.
Verse 8, But ye shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you,
and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth.
Ye shall receive power after that the Holy
Ghost is come upon you.
Now, the Spirit of God himself is the
power.
And if you ever see power illustrated, if
you ever see power in action, it's in
the book of Acts.
When you see the power of the testimony
of the early church because the Spirit of
God was acting.
And when a handful of apostles, as it
were, evangelized the whole world and moved the
world as it had never been moved before.
We see it individually illustrated in the life
of Peter.
Peter, when he was on this earth, was
afraid, that is when he was with the
Lord, was afraid to own his relationship to
our Lord Jesus Christ.
He denied his Lord three times.
Peter was a coward.
And Peter was afraid to confess that he
loved the Lord.
But Peter in the book of Acts is
fearless as a lion.
He stands up to anything and up to
anybody.
Certainly he was empowered by the Spirit of
God, and that's the only explanation in the
difference of that man Peter.
Now, he was impetuous when he was with
our Lord Jesus Christ.
He was officious.
He wanted to run the show, so to
speak, pardon my modern language.
He wanted to be able to tell John,
the apostle, what to do in that 21st
chapter of John.
And the Lord Jesus Christ denied him that
privilege.
He says, you follow me.
And then he says, well now, what shall
this man do?
Peter, I think, probably was one of the
older apostles.
I'm sure he was.
John was the younger.
Now, we don't find that out from the
scriptures.
But we find it out from early church
history.
And he had a patronizing attitude toward John,
the youngest of the apostles.
It could well be that during the earthly
ministry of our Lord Jesus, that John, and
you young people notice this, please.
John was in his late teens.
And he was an apostle of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Now, I have no authority of saying that.
I'm depending upon others.
And Peter had a very patronizing attitude toward
John.
And he says, what shall this man do?
And the Lord says, if I will to
be tarried till I come, what is that
for thee?
Follow thou me.
The Lord said, I'll take care of John.
I'll direct him, Peter.
You are not the fault.
Now, Peter had that attitude.
He was impetuous.
He was officious.
He made mistakes.
But, oh, Peter is lovely later in his
ministry.
Because of the effect of the power of
the operation of the Spirit of God in
his life.
And Peter does act, he acts with holy
boldness, but spirit-directed boldness in the book
of Acts.
The difference was the power of the Spirit
of God in his life.
If there is any lacking of power in
the church today, it is because the Spirit
of God does not have his place in
our lives.
And directing and empowering the church of God.
Secondly, he enables, in Acts chapter 2 and
verse 4, we read, And they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave
them utterance.
Now, this has a very dispensational character.
We believe that the Spirit is manifesting his
power in other ways today, and we don't
apologize for that.
But he, at this time, because the church
had not yet been authenticated in the minds
of people, especially the Jewish people, this miracle
was given.
And it had its impact.
Jewish people from all over the world were
in Jerusalem at this time.
And they heard the gospel spoken in their
own tongues.
And they knew this had to be a
miracle.
This was the power of Babel in reverse.
But the Spirit of God used these men,
empowered these men, and it had a very
profound effect upon those who heard the gospel
spoken at this time.
So the Spirit of God enables.
The Spirit of God commands.
Chapter 8 and verse 29.
Verse 26, And the angel of the Lord
spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward
the south, and to the way that goeth
down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
And he arose and went.
And, behold, a man of Ethiopia, and eunuch
under great authority, under Candace, queen of the
Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasure,
and had come to Jerusalem for to worship,
was returning, and sitting in his chariot, read
Isaiah the prophet.
Now, notice, please, it says, the angel of
the Lord.
Now, this indicates the theophany.
Where you have that formula, those words use
the angel of the Lord, you have God
present in angelic form.
But notice, please, verse 29.
Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near,
and join thyself to this chariot.
There's your theophany.
This is the Spirit of God that's speaking.
And he tells Philip to go and join
himself to that chariot.
So the Spirit of God commands.
He transports, we read in verse 39, after
he had witnessed to the Ethiopian eunuch, and
after that eunuch had been baptized, we read
there, and when they were come up out
of the water, the Spirit of the Lord
caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him
no more, and he went on his way
rejoicing.
When the evangelist left, believe me, the revival
didn't leave.
Not in this case.
Too many cases in this world it does.
The evangelist leaves with all his personality and
with all his charm, and the interest continues
about three weeks, and then people are right
back on the same level where they always
were, but not in this case.
God had done a work in this man's
heart, and he rejoiced.
The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip.
Isn't that marvelous?
He caught him away.
How did he do it?
I don't know.
I'm not concerned.
He caught him away.
Then he called Acts chapter 13.
Now there was in the church that was
at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas,
and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius
of Cyrene, and Menaeum, which had been brought
up with Herod the tetrarch, and Paul.
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted,
the Holy Ghost said, Separate me, Barnabas and
Saul, for the work whereunto I have called
them.
Now the Spirit called, and then the Spirit
sends, we read farther on, and when they
had fasted and prayed and laid their hands
on them, they sent them away.
So they, being sent forth by the Holy
Ghost, departed unto Seleuciach, and from thence they
sailed to Cyprus.
Now he reveals in chapter 11 of the
book of Acts.
We're going backwards just for a moment.
Verse 27.
In these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto
Antioch, and there stood up one of them
named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that
there should be a great dearth throughout all
the world which came to pass in the
days of Claudius Caesar.
So the Spirit reveals that which is coming
in the future.
In the 16th chapter of Acts, we have
him forbidding certain things in the light, in
the direction of Paul.
Verse 6.
Acts 16 and 6.
Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia, and
the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of
the Holy Ghost to preach the word in
Asia.
After they were come to Mycenae, they had
stayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit
suffered them not.
And they, passing by Mycenae, came down to
Troas.
And a vision appeared to Paul in the
night, and there stood a man of Macedonia,
and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia
and help us.
And after he had seen the vision, immediately
we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering
that the Lord had called us for to
preach the gospel unto them.
Who do you think was responsible for the
dreams?
God directed them.
The Spirit of God was directing the evangelization
of the world at this time.
In the 21st chapter of the book of
Acts, we have warnings, the warnings of the
Spirit.
Paul is en route to Jerusalem, and we
read in verse 3, Now when we had
discovered Cyprus, we lifted on the left hand
and sailed into Syria, and landed at Tyre,
for there the ship was to a later
burden.
And finding certain disciples, we tarried there seven
days, who said to Paul through the Spirit
that he should not go up to Jerusalem.
Now here the Spirit does not speak directly.
He speaks through human instruments.
But nevertheless, the Spirit is warning.
So we see His activities in these various
ways in the book of Acts.
We see Him directing in the early church.
And now let's bring this activity of the
Spirit closer to home.
Let's bring the activity of the Spirit of
God to our own personal experience.
So I venture to say here tonight that
each one of us have had the experience
of the blessed ministration of the Spirit and
the blessed leading of the Spirit of God.
Now, in that same 16th chapter of John's
Gospel, we read of the present day ministry
of the Spirit both to the saved and
to the unsaved.
Well, we read of this ministry more to
the unsaved in chapter 14.
Let's read both chapters.
Chapter 14 first.
In the 16th verse there we read, The
Lord Jesus says, I believe the margin has
it.
I will come to you.
Now the Spirit of God, or the Lord
Jesus rather, is leading His disciples.
And He's very concerned about them.
Now He says, The
Lord Himself was the original Comforter.
He comforted His people.
And the Spirit of God is another Comforter.
He has been with you, but He shall
be in you.
And so He comes into the world to
comfort us.
And His ministry toward the church is that
of comfort.
Now in the 16th chapter of John's Gospel,
we read in verse 7, 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.
And when He has 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 My Father
and ye see Me no more.
Of judgment, because the Prince of this world
is judged.
Now we see both ministries of the Spirit.
And to the Christians, to the church of
God, to the saints.
And then we see His ministry to the
world.
His ministry to the Christian is that of
comfort.
His ministry to the world is that of
conviction.
For the word here, reprove, is really convict.
He will convict the world of sin and
of righteousness and of judgment.
Now we have self-administered.
Our earliest spiritual history, even in our unsaved
days, was affected by the Spirit of God.
He is the one who created unrest in
our hearts.
Now we notice that, that He does create
unrest.
As a matter of fact, that same second
verse of Genesis has a very, very interesting
word in it.
Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2, we read
there, 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.
Now that word moved is a very interesting
word.
It has been variously translated.
The word means brooded.
The Spirit of God brooded upon the face
of the waters as a mother, hence, or
as a mother bird flutters over her nest.
It's a brooding.
It anticipates the coming of light into that
dark, dark scene of judgment.
He hovers upon the face of the waters.
The Spirit of God is not satisfied with
a scene of desolation.
The Spirit of God is not satisfied, was
not satisfied with the world in that day.
Covered over with darkness, the mists lie upon
the face of the deep so heavily that
the light could not penetrate through.
There was no land.
It was a waste, a watery waste.
And the Spirit of God hovered over that
scene.
The Spirit of God does not and never
can be satisfied with darkness.
And we see an indication of the good
things to come because the Spirit of God
moves upon the face of the waters.
The Spirit of God was brooding over that
scene.
The Spirit of God was about to bring
forth light.
Now, that is the first mention of the
word, of the Spirit of God in the
Bible.
And certainly I think that this is the
same experience in our lives.
He brooded over the darkness that was in
our life.
He brooded over the waste that was in
our life of absolutely nothing for God.
And he fluttered, as it were, that fluttering
of impatience, that fluttering of anticipation.
And we felt those flutters.
We felt our darkness, perhaps, for the first
time.
We felt our need of God for the
first time by reason of the ministration of
the Spirit of God.
Certainly it wasn't Satan that made us feel
that we needed to be saved.
Satan never tells an unsafe person he needs
to be saved.
It's the Spirit of God that does that.
Satan will tell you, Satan will lie to
you.
He'll tell you that you're all right.
He's a liar, and he's been a liar
from the beginning.
And for those people that have the impression
that they're all right, and that they have
no fear of death without even the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, they're under the
influence of the devil.
But I'll tell you, the Spirit of God
won't tell you that you're all right.
You'll feel the force of his wings.
You will hear those wings fluttering over you
in your unsaved days, and you will have
a very, very strong conviction that all is
not right in your soul.
And that certainly was the first influence that
we felt of the Spirit of God in
our unsaved days.
I can go back to my own unsaved
days, and I can see the Spirit of
God at work in my own spiritual history
before I ever knew the Lord.
I would attend the funeral of a friend
when I was saved at an early age.
But even in those early years of my
life, when I was in my early teens,
whenever I would attend the funeral, I would
be disturbed today.
Who do you think was disturbing me?
Who do you think was fluttering over the
desolate, dark waste of my soul?
It was the Spirit of God.
I had three dreams.
I can remember distinctly of dreaming three times.
Now, you can really attach some significance to
the word free.
Now, I didn't get saved in a dream.
Don't misunderstand me.
I didn't get saved in a dream.
But I dreamed three times that judgment day
would come, and I wasn't well taught enough
to even regulate my own dreams.
I dreamt that there was fire, and there
was chaotic conditions over the world.
It was a conflict.
It was a great scene of judgment.
And every time, I was on the wrong
side of the fence.
Every time, I felt that I was on
the wrong side.
I was among the goats, although I didn't
know them as goats in that day.
I certainly wasn't among the sheep.
I was disturbed, terribly disturbed, and I stayed
disturbed for weeks after those dreams.
Who do you suppose gave me those dreams?
Who do you suppose was fluttering over the
waste and the desolation of my soul?
The Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God speaks the truth.
And we should never, never deny Him the
privilege of pointing us to Christ.
Now, He has specifically a threefold ministry in
this matter of conviction.
In John chapter 16, we read, When He
is come, He will reprove the world of
sin, convict the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment, of sin, because they
believe not on me.
Now, we would think that the Spirit of
God would convict us of sin because perhaps
we had committed murder, or perhaps we had
stolen, or perhaps we had committed some other
sin, gross sin.
But that isn't what the Scripture says.
When He is come, He will convict the
world of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment, of sin, because they believe not on
me.
We don't need the Spirit of God to
convict us when we've stolen, when we've lied,
or when we have done any other sin.
Our own conscience convicts us then.
And I'll tell you where the Spirit of
God does convict us.
It convicts us because of our relationship to
the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is where He convicts us because we
did not realize that we needed that vital
relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Spirit of God showed us that
we needed to come into a living contact
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Remember, the burden of the ministry of the
Spirit of God is in connection with the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And we'll see it in all of these
three convictions of the world.
Christ is involved.
Of sin because they believe not on me.
And I didn't realize what a sin it
was that I had not yet owned the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That I had not yet bowed at His
blessed feet.
The Spirit of God made me feel that.
He convicted me of my relationship to the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, if one does not have a vital
living connection with the Lord Jesus Christ, one
is lost and lost forever.
Now, the Spirit of God will bring that
to my attention.
Now, I'm not saying that He wouldn't convict
us of other sins.
But principally His conviction is that we do
not have a living connection with the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Of sin because they believe not on me.
Now, it's not a matter of believing about
Christ.
It's a matter of trusting Christ.
That's important.
The Spirit of God deals with us because
we have not made Christ our personal Savior.
Our conscience will convict us of our sins.
But it's the Spirit of God that will
speak to us loudly because we have not
given Christ His place in our lives.
We've never owned Him as Lord.
We've never owned Him as Savior.
We've never thanked Him because He died on
the cross of Calvary for us.
Now, let me ask you a question here
tonight of young and old alike.
Have we thanked the Lord Jesus Christ for
dying for us?
Have we ever consciously in our life history
thanked the Lord for dying for us?
How about that?
Have we ever thanked God for giving His
Son to take our place on the cross?
Have we ever thanked Him?
I venture to say that if we've never
thanked Him consciously in our memory tonight, we're
not saved.
Now, that's a bold statement, isn't it?
But I say it.
I can't conceive of anybody realizing that the
Lord Jesus Christ died for him.
Realizing that the Lord did it out of
love.
And then that person not thanking Him.
Why, we even thank each other for little
things that are done in this life.
I can't conceive of a person being saved
and not thanking the Lord.
How about it?
Have you ever thanked Him yet?
Have you?
Now, this is where the Spirit of God
comes in.
This is where His conviction power comes in.
When He is in the world, He will
recruit the world of sin, of racism, and
of judgment.
Of sin, because they believe not on me.
And I'll tell you, the Spirit of God
will convict you about that.
You've never owned the Christ of God.
He died for you, and you've never even
bothered yourself to thank Him.
Because He died for you, and you ought
to be prostrating yourself at His feet and
pouring out your heart to Him to think
that He would love you to the extent
that He died for you, and you've never
done it.
And the Spirit of God won't give you
any rest about it.
May He keep on troubling you until you
prostrate yourself at the feet of the Savior
and pour your heart out in love and
thanksgiving to the One who loved your soul
and took the judgment of God that was
due to you so that you could be
in heaven.
May the Spirit of God convict us about
this matter.
And then secondly, He'll convict the world of
righteousness because I go to my Father and
you see me no more.
Now, our Lord Jesus Christ came into this
world.
He was righteousness personified.
He was Jehovah Sidkenu.
The Jews will someday come claim Him.
Jehovah, the Lord, our righteousness.
He convicted the world of righteousness because Christ
went to the Father.
And when He went to the Father, that
substantiated all His claims.
He claimed to be the Son of God.
He claimed to be the boasted Messiah, or
the longed-for Messiah.
He claimed all of these things and then
He went into the presence of God to
substantiate all His claims.
All His claims were absolutely righteous.
All His claims were absolutely just.
He went to the Father as living proof
that He was all that He claimed to
be.
Now, the Spirit of God will convict us
about that.
Christ was just not another man.
I know that men would place Him among
the leaders of the world, among the religious
leaders.
Confucius.
Well, I don't know whether you'd call him
a religious leader or not.
Buddha.
Mohammed.
And these leaders of the world, they would
place Him, place Christ in their category.
But our Lord Jesus Christ is different.
He rose from the dead, and He is
sitting on the right hand of the throne
of God tonight, and His tomb is empty.
You tell the story about a Christian and
an Islamic man over in the deputy of
Islam going on pilgrimages over in the Holy
Land.
They got together.
They were discussing.
The Christian was going to Jerusalem.
He wanted to see the empty tomb.
And the man of Islam was going, the
Mohammedan was going down to Mecca to see
the tomb of Mohammed.
I believe that Mecca is the tomb of
Mohammed.
Forgive me if my history is incorrect, my
geography is incorrect.
But they got to talking.
And the Christian told the Mohammedan, he says,
I'm going to see an empty tomb.
The other man was going to see a
tomb that was occupied.
The tomb of Christ was empty.
He's in heaven.
And God speaks, the spirit of God speaks
to people about righteousness, the very embodiment of
it, Jehovah's good can you, and the only
one that can provide it for you and
for me.
And if we have any righteousness at all,
a ticket to the presence of God, it's
because we stand in the righteousness of Christ.
We stand in his good name.
Now, he convicts them also of judgment because
the prince of this world is judged.
If we have any doubt as to who
the prince of this world is, then we
only have to remember that our Lord Jesus
Christ said, the prince of this world cometh
and shall find nothing in me.
The prince of this world is the devil
himself.
The devil has been judged.
And the spirit of God has something to
say to the unsaved about that.
God has judged the devil.
He won't have any trouble judging you and
judging me.
Now, the devil is full of arguments.
And believe me, he can argue.
And I don't care to argue with him.
He can out-argue me.
But the spirit of God will tell you
that the prince of this world is judged.
You know, sometimes children, it has a very
salutary effect upon other members of the family
when one child is given a terrible punishment.
We won't describe the process.
But you know, it's amazing how the others
fall in line and keep in step for
a while when they hear the agonizing cry
and expressions of grief so painfully presented when
one gets punished.
I should think that we would begin to
take a little thought about the fact that
Satan was defeated at the cross in the
providence of God.
He still has a measure of liberty.
But he's on his road.
He was potentially defeated at the cross.
And he will be finally defeated.
Now, if a person has any thought that
he shall escape, he better revise his thinking.
And the spirit of God would convict us
that the prince of this world has already
been judged.
And he'll judge us too.
Now, this is a stern message.
It's a message of conviction.
But the spirit of God is preparing us
for blessings when he deals with us in
this fashion.
And you and I have experienced this in
our own lives.
We've experienced this ministry.
Now, we see, and we've just got to
mention it briefly, we have seen already the
seeking ministry of the spirit of God.
Let's turn to the sixth chapter of Genesis
for just a reference there.
Because our time has passed away.
Genesis 6, verse 1, And it came to
pass, when men began to multiply on the
face of the earth, and daughters were born
unto them, that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men, that they were fair,
and they took them wives of all which
they chose.
And the Lord said, My spirit shall not
always strive with man, for that he also
is flesh.
Yet his days shall be an hundred and
twenty years.
And that hundred and twenty years is significant.
That's all the time that man had left
as a race.
God destroyed man in the flood.
But it's amazing that the spirit of God
strove with man for those hundred and twenty
years.
Now, this is the time that was left.
And I don't think the spirit quit striving
until the day that Noah entered into the
ark.
He strove with man in those early chapters
of Genesis, and he's still striving.
And we see in the very last book
of the Bible the spirit is still seeking.
The spirit wants to claim us for God.
He wants us to enjoy the presence of
God.
He wants us to enjoy all the good
things that God has brought for us.
We're not going to mention what lies between
Genesis chapter 6 and the 22nd chapter of
Revelation, but I do want to refer you
to the 22nd chapter of Revelation.
Revelation chapter 22, verse 17.
And the spirit and the bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come.
And let him that hath a thirst, Come.
And whosoever will, let him take the water
of life freely.
The spirit of God in the last chapter
of the Bible is still striving with man,
still sending out the invitation.
And the spirit and the bride say, Come.
We're saying, Come, tonight.
The spirit is saying, Come.
God is issuing an invitation.
Thank God for that invitation.
The door is still open.
There is still time to be saved.
And the invitation is going out.
And the spirit is sending out that invitation.
We are sending out the invitation.
Let him that hath a thirst, let him
that heareth say, Come.
Let him that hath a thirst, Come.
And whosoever will, let him take the water
of life freely.
Thank God for the invitation.
Thank God for the work of the spirit.
Now, I trust that during this week upon
which we've entered and we've got much to
talk about the spirit of God, his effect
in our lives, his leading and guidance and
direction, but I think that perhaps this ministry
and seeking us for the Lord Jesus is
perhaps the sweetest of all.
Oh, I'm so glad that he prevailed.
I'm so glad that he didn't give up.
I'm so glad that he stayed with us
until I was one for the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I would say this.
If there is anyone in this building tonight
that is conscious of the fact that the
spirit of God is striving with you about
the matter of salvation, that you don't resist,
that you indeed submit to his gracious ministry.
For he would have you for Christ.
He would give you everlasting life.
Tomorrow night, in the will of the Lord,
you will see how the spirit not only
takes you, takes you out, but he gives
you everlasting life.
That's a part of the ministry of the
spirit, to see to it that you have
everlasting life.
Tomorrow night, with the help of the Lord,
we want to see how he does it.
Brother Hart, would you close with a word
of prayer?