The Holy Spirit 06 Filling of the Spirit — Svend Christensen

Amazing how quickly time slips by, isn't it? I realize this is the last night. We truly enjoyed it. We want to express our appreciation for the response, for the many that have responded and encouraged us.

And we want to also particularly say a very great thank you to the people in the kitchen, the staff. The food has been excellent. How to lose weight around here. Is there something else that I notice?

People are always in good time. If you're in time here, you're almost late. That's how it seems. It's wonderful. I'm not finding fault. I think it's really commendable. And we thank you, too, for the gracious hospitality extended to us in many different homes, and we certainly appreciate that very much.

The Witness of the Holy Spirit to Forgiveness

Now, tonight, on the last night, we said we would speak about the filling of the Holy Spirit, the one truth that is conditional. We have spoken on the being born of the Spirit, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, baptized by the Spirit, sealed with the Spirit, and last night on the anointing of the Spirit.

And we mentioned last night to the earnest of the Spirit. So that's true of every Christian, all these. And there's one more I just briefly want to mention tonight before we get into the message, and that's the witness of the Holy Spirit.

Turn to the book of Hebrews, please. Hebrews chapter 10. I just want to deal with this very briefly. But it might be someone here that's a new believer, and we trust what we say may be of a little help to you.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 15. We've certainly enjoyed sharing the Word together with you this week. It's been very encouraging. I want to say we should sort of come with fear and trembling. Well, the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us.

He is the witness of the Spirit to us. For after that he has said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I'll put my loss into their hearts, into their minds.

I'll right them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Here you have the witness of the Spirit to the forgiveness of our sins. The Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. And it was recorded back in Jeremiah, this promise has been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus.

And as far as the east is from the west, so far has it removed our transgressions from us. He says, I'll remember them no more. The Holy Spirit of God is a witness to that fact. Saying, you never have to worry, but if you're a Christian, you'll never have to face your sins again.

They're forever put away. The Lord says, I have blood in the mouth, it's a thick cloud. I'll remember them no more. Is that good news? Some of old friends will remember them, but not the Lord. He says, I'll remember them no more.

The Spirit's Witness That Believers Are God's Children

All right, turn to Romans, chapter 8, for the second one that I believe is in the order that we want to bring before you. Romans, chapter 8, verse 16. You'll notice in the King James, it says, The Spirit itself.

And you know that's not right. It's the Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit bears witness with. In Hebrews 2, he is with our spirit that we are the children of God. The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

And that's a tremendous thing, you know, even among us as a fellowship. The world knows nothing about this, does it? The language of God's people and God's word and the understanding only because of the Spirit of God is born to them.

Completely so. My, what we have been brought into. A fellowship. But the truth here is, the Spirit of God witnesses that we are, not going to be, but we are the children of God. That's good, isn't it?

We are. We're not going to be. I was taught when I was young that if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, then you'd be fit for heaven. God would take you in. You don't have to think about that at all.

The Witness of Eternal Life in First John

Right here, now we know. And that takes us to the third scripture that deals a little more with that. 1 John, chapter 5. 1 John, chapter 5. Here you have the witness of the Spirit of God to the believer.

1 John, chapter 5. And I believe it's in verse 10. And that section here particularly deals with having eternal life. So the one in Hebrews, the witness of the Spirit that our sins are forever blotted out, be remembered no more.

The scripture in Romans 8, that we are, right now, the children of God. And the one in 1 John, that we have eternal life. We have it. Not going to have it. We have it right now. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is great.

And what's the witness of God here? He speaks about in verse 10, He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. And what is this witness? Verse 11. And this is the record of the witness that God hath given to us eternal life.

And this life is in the Son. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These are tremendous verses. God's Word says this. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may hope that you have.

No. You may know. You may know that you have right now, present tense, have eternal life. If you're here tonight, a new Christian, and you really know the Lord Jesus, you've really trusted Him as your only hope of heaven, as your only righteousness, then God says I've written this for you that you may know that you have eternal life.

The Spirit of God witnesses to that through the sacred scriptures of which He's the author. Now turn, please, to the book of Galatians, chapter 5. We're coming now to the filling of the Spirit. Galatians 5 .22.

And, of course, our text tonight is Ephesians 5 .18. Be not drunk with wine wherein it is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. I want to read also Galatians 5 .22 and 23. There you have the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit, and that certainly should be marked in some measure in anyone that is filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Marvelous scripture. Now, the filling of the Holy Spirit.

Filling Versus Baptism of the Spirit

As we said, this is the only positive command. You're never commanded to be baptized with the Spirit. Sometimes people get the filling and the baptism mixed up. And because of not using scripture the way scripture is stated, you'll find on different occasions the disciples were again filled with the Holy Spirit.

They were again filled. In chapter 2 they were filled. In chapter 4 they were filled again. The same people. This is something that's conditional. Baptism is something that you come in under. The same with the sealing and the earnest and the anointing.

All these things are out as a part of our great salvation. God wants us to be filled. And there's something about the filling, you see, that in contrast with being drunk with wine. When sometimes people are drunk with wine they get more bold.

They become more what they really are inside. It comes out. Someone says, if you want the truth, ask a child or a fellow that's drunk. And he'll tell you. They won't do it many times when they're sober.

I remember many years ago in Charlottetown we used to have a booth, an annual exhibition, a large exhibition there. People come from Ontario and all through the Maritime provinces and bring their best cattle and horses and all this and all the other things, horse races and everything else there.

And we put on a gospel booth. There were two great big horns. And in those days Charlottetown was full of quartets and singing groups were very much appreciated. We used to play a record and we'd preach.

And college used to gather to listen. And I remember one chap coming up by nature, very shy, sort of a backward type of a fellow. And he came up toward the booth and he was going like this on his toes.

He was just... And he comes up and he says, I'm just full of the Spirit. I said, you're full of a different kind of Spirit. And that's the thing. It gave him a freedom and a fullness that he wouldn't ordinarily have.

And isn't that too what happened to Peter? Peter, a coward before the Pentecost, became to be a right brave man there on the day of Pentecost when he charged the people with a terrible sin. And how they with wicked hands had crucified our blessed Lord made a tremendous difference.

And so the fruit of the filling of the Spirit means you're under His control and His power. And usually it gives great freedom and fullness. And other things we shall see. But first I just want to touch a little bit about what should mark us.

Love as the First Fruit of the Spirit

Well, the filling of the Spirit should be the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. It's mentioned there in Galatians chapter 5 verse 22. The first one is love. And that is God's love that's been shed upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit as we read in Romans 5.

God has shed upon His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This is a divine love. Many times you know it's impossible to love love some people but if the Spirit of Christ is really in control He can fill us in such a way that we can love Him and His power love Him and His power.

That which is usually impossible is possible when the hope that make us not ashamed is really filling our hearts shed upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit and it says which is given unto us. It's something the unsaved don't know anything about.

The first thing about an unsaved man is love for self and his own. And that's true of us naturally too, isn't it? That's natural. We love our own. We think first of all self. But the more spiritual we are the more we can take in Philippians 2 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ, remember.

And you can take some of those words in Philippians 2 and you can write others, others, others. And that's what the Spirit of God does. It makes us conscious of the blessing and benefit of others not just ourselves all the time.

The Word of God says that if we really have the love of God in us we will not love this present evil world or the system of this world. We'll love the people in the world. We won't love the system that crucified Christ.

The adulterous says, James, no you're not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. John says, love not this world nor the things that are in the world. He says, the love of the Father is not there.

And I'll say something else, friends. If we really have the love of God shed upon in our hearts we're going to love all brethren. One of the remarks in 1 John is that we love the brethren. By this you may know we're paired from death unto life.

How? That you love the brethren. Not tolerate them, but love them. And I think you're blessed here at Park of the Palms. You see a lot of caring love around here. And that's a wonderful thing. Just keep close to the Lord that nothing comes in to mar there.

Satan would just love to destroy that precious fellowship and the bond of love that's between Christians. How he'd like to undermine it and cause some envy to come in which is the rottenness of the bone.

If you find any bit of little envy creeping into your heart you judge it right away. God hates it. Envy is cruel. It'll cause trouble and division. With all your clinging close to the Lord then the love of God will be shed abroad in the heart.

The Lord Jesus said, A new commandment I give you that you love one another. And he also said, By this you may know that you are my disciples. How? The badge is love that you love one another. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

And I suggest too if we have a love of God dwelling in us as a church, there'll be a love for the children of Israel. God is in people. Remember Paul had a great love for them. My brethren, my heart desire, he said, for Israelites that might be saved.

Oh, he says, I have a heaviness heart. I have a continual sore in my heart. I could wish myself to be incursed for my brethren according to the flesh. What a love he had for them. And I tell you, friends, we're in tune with God the Holy Spirit when we all have a love for his ancient people.

Brethren in the flesh, according to the flesh of our blessed Lord himself. We could go on with that, but the love, you know, it was the love of God that made the Lord Jesus go to the cross with them. Having loved his own that in the world of today, he loved them to the othermost.

You know, we need that love too for this world around us, sinners around us. How we need the love of God that's shed upon our heart that we might have some of that compassion the Lord displayed towards sinners.

When he beheld the city of Jerusalem when God had placed his name, it's as if he wept for the city. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered there the hens and gathered the chicks and ye would not.

Think of the compassion. I believe there's one thing we need to pray, that the Lord give us a greater concern for souls that are not saved. Help us to see the awfulness of hell and the wonders of heaven.

Fill us with thy spirit for the love of Christ will be shed upon our heart so we can really love them like he loved them. This morning we spoke about the oil and the anointing some more. And we mentioned this morning that the second fruit of the spirit mentioned is joy.

Joy and the Sufficiency of Christ

To see the feast developed in its full sense. Whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him not yet ye believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, undescribable. Better, like the Scotsman said, it's better felt than felt.

Isn't it? Joy unspeakable and full of glory. All the early church, etc., it was great joy. They were full of the Holy Spirit and filled with joy. And that should be the evidence of a Christian that really, under the control of the Spirit of God, he's a joyful Christian.

Praise him, the Lord. What a great heritage to have that joy inside, isn't it? I remember so well when I was in the Air Force. I want to testify a little bit to the all-sufficiency of Christ. I learned early in my Christian life to find my completeness in the Lord Jesus.

I was shipped out to northern Africa on the edges of the Sahara Desert for six months as a young believer without any Christian fellowship whatever. And I think I mentioned during the four-hour siesta during the heat of the day from 4 to 12 I used to meditate on the Word.

And every night the Air Force provided some kind of entertainment for the servicemen out there. There was nothing out there. The nearest place was an air village a mile or so away. You could smell it on windy days.

Oh, the stench. Unbelievable. But while these boys were waiting for a couple of hours for the entertainment of the Air Force or the services put on for them, I was out in the sand in the desert under the canopy of heaven those starry nights out there cool.

And I had the best time of my life talking to my Father. And I want to tell you something about the happiest man in the desert. The Lord Jesus, He gives you inner joy. It's real. And it's a great thing to learn early in one's Christian life the Lord Jesus, He does save and He keeps and He's satisfied.

He's sufficient. You don't have to run to the weak and the beckoning things of this earth to get your satisfaction. There's joy unspeakable and full of glory as it says in Peter in the Lord. The fruit of this beard next is peace.

Peace in the Midst of Storm and Turmoil

Beautiful peace. That's the bequeath the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus gave us peace. I leave with you my peace. I give unto you. John 14, 27. Not of the world give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 16, 33 says, These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace. The great thing is to have peace with God. That's the foundation thing. That's what you get when you get saved. But after you're saved, it's wonderful to have the peace of God and be conscious all the time of the God of peace being with you.

And the fruit of the Spirit is peace. I remember reading a story about a certain monarch asked three different artists to draw him a scene that would display, portray what peace really was. And one brought a beautiful painting of the quiet meadows with cattle grazing so quietly there and the shady trees around.

Another one drew a scene, something like we saw to the dining room this morning. The lake was just like glass. Beautiful trees. There was such a beautiful calm out there. What a view. Also a beautiful picture of peace.

But a third artist, he drew a storm violently lashing against the coast and big rocks there. And in the cleft of the rock there was a little bird sitting in there on a nest quietly nursing her young or sitting on the egg bringing forth the young.

And he wrote under the picture, peace. The midst of storm and turmoil that little bird sat sheltered, protected. Peace. And so we are too sheltered in the rock of ages. The world around us may be storming.

Violence at every hand. Nations are reeling. Nations, there's never been a day like today and it's going to get worse and worse. But my peace, I give unto you, that little bird, will you have that sweet peace in our very bosom.

That's what he came to get us. Isn't that tremendous? We have peace. The control, the fruit, the filling of the Holy Spirit will give us that peace. How the Lord Jesus, he personified all this, didn't he?

Remember in the boat when the storm was raging, the waves were coming on into the boat and Peter ran and he shook the Lord Jesus and asked, did we perish? He was there calmly asleep and he rose up and he spoke peace.

We stay on. So it's a great calm. And he can do that for our hearts and our souls. Quietness with his wonderful peace. The great peace giver, the Lord Jesus. Then the next fruit that's mentioned is long-suffering.

Long-Suffering, Meekness, and Unity

To endure with an unruffled temper is what that means, to be long-suffering. We need that sometimes, don't we? Oh, we can get irritated and riled up and stirred up. But you know the Lord himself, he says, the Lord God merciful and gracious.

This is next to the 34, verse 6. Long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Yes, the Lord is full of compassion, the psalmist depicts that. Gracious, long-suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth.

Paul speaks in Ephesians 4 that we with all lowliness and meekness and long-suffering prepare one another, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Long-suffering. And what we spoke about last night, too, the secret of resting ourselves dead.

We are anointed to die. And that's the only way I believe that you can really and truly be long-suffering under certain situations. Now, let's not mistake principles for personalities. If it comes to stand up for ourselves or put up with somebody that rails on us and other things like that, if it's against our own person, then we need to be long-suffering.

But of course, if it's in defense of the truth of the Word of God, there's something else, isn't there? And we stand for the defense. Once for all that faith, once for all delivered to the faith. Then we need to stand.

Because we've come to just protect ourselves. And I'm afraid many times there's been divisions and trouble, and they're hidden behind some truth when it's been personalities in the flesh that's been active.

Well, the fruit of the Spirit is to be long-suffering. How God has been long-suffering. With the unfaithful, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That's God's heart.

Then there's gentleness. Again, how we think about the Lord Jesus. How gentle He was. Little children would come to Him. The disciples said, Don't put them away. Oh, the Lord said, No, no. Suffer the little children.

Come unto Me. For such is the kingdom of God. A bruised knee shall he not break, nor a smoking flack shall he quench. Oh, the graciousness of the Lord Jesus. The gentleness of Him. You know, as Christians, we need to know something about that.

The wisdom that is from above, says James in James 3 .17, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. That's what's from above.

Gentleness. Being gentle men. Christians should always be gentle men. Act as such. Goodness. The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness, and the truth, says the verse in Ephesians 5 .9, how the Lord Jesus was anointed to go about doing good.

And Christians, when we're full of the Holy Spirit, will be marked by goodness. There's two men in the Word of God that are called good men. As you know, there's none of us good in all hell. There's nothing good in us.

But this means, in a sense, that there were good men because of their walk with the Lord. It speaks about those two men that have been good men. One was Barnabas, remember? And I think the other one was Joseph of Arimathea.

Only two of the men that the Spirit of God calls good men. It's a wonderful thing to be good men in that sense. Men that just had no evil things underlying it, no ulterior motives, but just full of the Spirit of God.

The Lord Jesus, He was so good. He did about going about doing good all the time. And the more we're filled with the Spirit, the more we'll be really what the Word of God says good. And that's the word faith, which is really faithfulness.

Faithfulness and Dependability in Christian Life

That's a very important word. Today in our day, in the world I'm talking about now, the word of man doesn't mean very much. It doesn't mean very much. I want to give a little illustration of what happened in our family years ago when my father came home from Denmark and a man by the name of Ben Maxon, his mother died and he wanted to sell his farm.

So my father talked with him and they shook hands on the price. Way, way back then, there's 250 acres up there, he gets 2 ,500. A lot of money then. That afternoon, there's a man by the name of Mr. Clay.

He heard that Ben was, Maxon was wanting to sell his farm. He says, Ben, I'll give you 3 ,000. That'd be like offering him 25 ,000 more now maybe. Oh, Ben says, and Ben could have used it. He says, I promised it to the Dane, he called him.

It was only Dane's family there. I promised it to the Dane for 2 ,500 and he's going to have it for that. A man of his word. Shouldn't we as Christians be? Faithfulness. Faithfulness in that we are trustworthy.

We can be depended upon. He used to say his word is his oath. Those days you didn't have to sign anything. Today people sign and still go back on it. I've done all kinds of door-to-door visitation. You had to take the position after a while, I'll believe it when I see them.

That's true. I met a young man growing up one time up in the country, came up to labor with us, a student from the mayor's, and he came home. I loaned him the car, he went out visiting people, plenty you know.

He says, we're going to have to borrow some chairs. We're going to have far more people there than the chairs will hold. I said, now I don't want to discourage you, but if they don't all come, don't get too disappointed.

There wasn't one of them showed up. And I want to say something, what in the world can creep, and it often creeps into among the people of God. We say things and we don't mean it, and we don't keep our word.

And we should be very, very careful that we do. And then another great thing about faithfulness is to be dependable. I say some of the finest abilities is to be dependable. Dependability. And stickability.

If you've done any pioneering work that we have done some of during our lifetime, one of the things we valued in men were men that were faithful and would always be there and would stay with something.

Christianity is very practical. It makes us very faithful and dependable. And then there's the fruit called meekness. Remember the Lord Jesus said, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart.

2 Corinthians 10, 1 says, I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Meekness does not mean weakness. I believe meekness is strength held in perfect control. Moses was the meekest man that ever lived and yet that's the very faith the devil took advantage of him.

So if we have strong points, we need to be very careful. You would call Peter a very courageous fisherman, wouldn't you? But that's the very faith the devil defeated him. We need to be careful about any faith we think we're strong.

My humility is closely related to meekness and it doesn't take offense. Peter and Ephesians with all lowliness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love. And the last fruit mentioned is temperance or self-control.

The Lord Jesus again is that perfect example. If anyone has ever lived that was controlled completely by the faith, it was the Lord Jesus, the perfect man. He never had to retract a word. He never had to apologize.

Not that he wouldn't have been a bother. I mean, there was never any need for it. He was perfect. He had complete control. Never said anything out of the way. Sometimes all tongues, you know, they slip something up.

Sometimes we put the tongue into gear before we put this into gear. Isn't that right? But being controlled by the Spirit of God, then we will be checked in all these areas. Now my time is almost gone.

Being Transformed by Looking to Christ

Let me just point out a few other things I think that marked the early church and will mark us to some extent if we're really controlled by the Spirit will be occupied with the Lord Jesus. That's one thing about Stephen.

He says, I see Jesus. The Holy Spirit points us to Christ. And as we look into that faith, I just want you to very quickly turn to 2 Corinthians. You know these verses, but I think they have a beautiful connection here.

2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. For we all with an open face beholding in the glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. How? Even as by the Spirit of the Lord. That's how we're changed, by the Spirit of the Lord.

Look at verse 6 in the next chapter. Chapter 4, verse 6. But God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Where?

In the face of Jesus Christ. Yes, the Spirit of the Holy Spirit in control will cause us to look off onto Jesus. To look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

And by the Spirit of God we'll be changed. Even as by the Spirit of the Lord. He says from glory to glory we'll become more and more like Him. Isn't that what we desire? God wants us to be like His Son.

Oh, to be like Him. Yes, we're full of the Holy Spirit and we'll also be fruitful in our service. We spoke about the fruits of the bread. Now I'm speaking about it in a different aspect. When the early church was full of the Holy Spirit you remember the first 3 ,000 were saved.

Spirit-Filled Service, Prayer, and Unity

Then another month numbered 5 ,000. The Lord added daily such as should be saved. Souls were getting saved when people were really filled with the Holy Spirit. The real evidence. There was power. There was power when they preached that they came under conviction.

Men and brethren, what must we do? The Spirit of God moved. There was power. There was a lot of prayer went up. Prayer is power, isn't it? Great boldness. And there's something else that it produces. Unity.

You mark the Word of God in the book of Acts where you get one accord and you'll get at least six or seven of them. One accord. One accord. Lead on the epistles to one accord. They had all been together.

They had all been common. They were together in one accord. Continued daily with one accord. So it's that oneness. Paul says with one mind and one purpose striving together for the fervence of the gospel.

The Spirit of God when He's really in control brings unity to the people of God. And that's where their powers met. How good and how blessed it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. What happened?

There the Lord commands the blessing, it says in Psalm 133. Our blessing and unity. Lord, do it again. May we indeed have all that wonderful blessing of the Holy Spirit. And when there's such a purity to remember how sin was judged and dealt with.

God's people went on in holiness, purity, love and a great blessing to the world around us. May God speak to us tonight. So we know something of the blessing filling our control. We're under His control as we may have some of these wonderful proofs, evidence in our lives.

Some of these things that happened when God's people were really emptied of self and controlled by the Spirit. The main interest I think you'll find in the book of Acts in those early days and I know Acts is a transitional period.

But as principled as we can learn, I believe the great bottom line under it all was they were wholehearted for God. Nothing was held back. That's what we feel many times. We hold back. We're afraid to let go.

It might cost too much. It costs far more if we don't, brethren. It really does. Wouldn't we tend to think that a couple of verses of a hymn in closing, take my life and let it be consecrated for the Lord to be.

I think it's 458. 548 maybe.