10 Essentials Series: 4. Pneumatology, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

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8. 1 John 2:7-11 The Social Test

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Okay, so, as you guys know, we're going through the 10 Essential Doctrines series.

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So far we've gone through Bibliology, the study of the Scriptures, Theology Prophet, the study of God, Christology, the study of Jesus Christ.

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Today is going to be Pneumatology, which is the study of the Holy Spirit, and we'll get to Angelology, the study of angels,

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Anthropology, the study of man, Hermardiology, the study of sin, I'm an expert, Soteriology, the study of salvation,

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Ecclesiology, the study of God's government, and Eschatology, the study of last things. So we'll jump in right away.

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Pneumatology is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the study of who God's Holy Spirit is.

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And I like this quote by Grudem. He says, We may define the work of the Holy Spirit as follows.

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The work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in the world and especially in the

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Church. This definition indicates that the Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity whom Scripture most often represents as being present to do

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God's work in the world. Although this is true throughout the Bible, it is particularly true in the

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New Covenant Age. We see a different manifestation or a greater manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the

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New Covenant. In the Old Testament, the presence of God was many times manifested in the glory of God in the

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Theophanies and in the Gospels. Jesus Himself manifested the presence of God among men.

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But after Jesus ascended into heaven and continuing through the entire Church Age, the

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Holy Spirit is now the primary manifestation of the presence of the Trinity among us. He is the one who is most prominently presented with us now.

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So theophany is just a theological word to talk about an appearance of God in the

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Old Testament. So, as you know, we are now endowed with the

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Spirit. God poured out His Spirit upon all flesh and we're going to get into what that means in a few minutes.

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So from the very beginning of creation, we have an indication that the Holy Spirit's work is to complete and sustain what

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God the Father has planned and what God the Son has begun. In Genesis 1 -2, the

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Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And at Pentecost, with the beginning of the new creation in Christ, the

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Holy Spirit comes to grant power to the Church. So we see in Genesis 1, when the

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Holy Spirit comes, He brings order out of disorder. That's very important for our understanding of who the

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Holy Spirit is. And when we see so -called manifestations of the Spirit, when you see something that's out of order or uncontrolled, that's not a fruit of the

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Holy Spirit. Fruit of the Holy Spirit is self -control. If you see disorder rather than order, it's a spirit.

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It's just not the Holy One, okay? Because the

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Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity through whom God particularly manifests His presence in the New Covenant Age, it is appropriate that Paul should call the

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Holy Spirit the first fruits and the guarantee or down payment of the full manifestation of God's presence that we will know in the new heavens and the new earth, okay?

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So that term, first fruits, it's when Jesus rose from the dead, He's the first fruits from the dead, first fruits of the dead.

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In other words, that is the first of many. When we are raised from the dead, we are going to be similar to Jesus, right?

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The Holy Spirit is referred to from the time of creation, Genesis 1 -2, all the way to the last

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Old Testament book in Malachi 2 -15. God's Spirit appears most frequently in Isaiah 15 times,

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Ezekiel 15 times, Numbers 7 times, Judges 7 times, 1

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Samuel 7 times, and Psalms 5 times. That was from MacArthur's essential

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Christian doctrine book. So we see in creation, God creates three spaces, the heavens and the earth and beneath the earth.

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And then He fills those three spaces with the birds, the human beings, and the fish. When Pentecost comes, which is the beginning, when

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Jesus comes, when Jesus came, I should say, in the New Covenant Age, what does

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John start off with? In the beginning. Same as Genesis 1 -1. This is now a new beginning.

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This is the second, the last Adam who's going to start the new heavens and the new earth. So when

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He pours out His Spirit upon all flesh, He fills the spaces. He fills us up with God's Spirit.

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It's the new creation that we're looking forward to the consummation of. The New Testament revelation about the

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Holy Spirit is more extensive. The word pneuma occurs 379 times in the New Testament and it refers to the

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Holy Spirit on more than 245 of these occasions. Pneuma refers to the

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Holy Spirit in 23 of the 27 New Testament books, with the exception of Philemon, James, 2

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John, and 3 John. The Holy Spirit appears throughout the New Testament.

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From Matthew 1 -18 to Revelation 21 -10, the Holy Spirit is mentioned most frequently in Acts 56 times,

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Romans 28 times, and 1 Corinthians 22 times. Now, the fact that the

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Holy Spirit is mentioned in the book of Acts 56 times, why is that important in the current landscape in America?

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Most Charismatics and Pentecostals get their theology of the

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Holy Spirit from the book of Acts. One of the most dominant themes is that the

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Holy Spirit is a gift from God to every believer. But that's not necessarily what

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Charismatics and Pentecostals understand it to be. So we see the book of Acts, and most of their theology comes out of the book of Acts.

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But we have to ask, what genre is the book of Acts? It's a historical narrative.

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Now, because it's a historical narrative, is everything in the book of Acts supposed to be normative?

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No! Yet, they point to the pouring out of the

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Holy Spirit with tongues of fire and speaking in tongues as something that's supposed to be normative, when this is a narrative.

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So if the book of Acts is supposed to be normative, you want to ask them, do you choose your elders by casting lots?

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Oh no, we don't do that. Why not? That's what they did in the book of Acts. Did you sell all your possessions and give it to the church so they could give to everyone as they had need?

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Did you sell all your possessions? No. Why not? They did that in the book of Acts. We have to remember that Pentecost was a one -time event where God poured out

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His Holy Spirit. And you'll hear Greg Bonson talk about that. You'll hear R .C. Sproul talk about that. Pentecost is not something that's supposed to be repeatable.

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It's like the crucifixion. There's only one crucifixion. There's only one Pentecost where God poured out

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His Spirit on who? All flesh. All flesh. The Holy Spirit was present and active in creation.

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He's omnipresent, wise, understanding, counseling, mighty, and reverent, and gives rest.

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Genesis 1 -2, the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

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So we see here the Holy Spirit is active in creation. Creation is done by God. God is

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Father, Son, and Spirit. Psalm 139, where shall I go from your Spirit or where shall

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I flee from your presence? Obviously it's a rhetorical question and the answer is nowhere. Wherever I go, the

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Holy Spirit is. So the Spirit is omnipresent. That's an attribute, right, an incommunicable, communicable attribute of God.

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We don't get that attribute. Isaiah 11 -2, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.

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The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the

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Spirit of knowledge and fear, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, and fear, or reverence come from God's Spirit.

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When we are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, we have a reverence for God that we did not have before.

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And because now we're born of his Spirit, we're given eyes to see and ears to hear. When we read the

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Scriptures, we can get a better understanding of things rather than reading them through physical eyes without the

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Spirit. Isaiah 63, like livestock that go down into the valley, the

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Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So the Spirit is the one who can give us rest as well. So the

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Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, let's take a look at what this looks like. The Holy Spirit brings forth words from God to the prophets,

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Zechariah 7 -12. The Holy Spirit came upon people in the Old Testament to prophesy,

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Numbers 11 -25, 1 Samuel 10. He came upon some people for craftsmanship,

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Exodus 31. To some, it was to lead, Numbers 27 and Deuteronomy 34, others to judge, and others to warn.

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He is promised for the new covenant, Ezekiel 36, to give life to the spiritually dead,

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Ezekiel 37 -14, and we be poured out on all flesh, like I said before.

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Zechariah 7 -12, they made their hearts diamond hard, lest they should hear the law and the words of the

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Lord of hosts had sent His Spirit through the former prophets. So God uses

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His Spirit to speak to the prophets to give the message to us. I think we spoke about it last week, the difference between a prophet and a priest.

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The prophet speaks on behalf of God to the people, telling them that they have to hold to the covenant.

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The priest speaks to God on behalf, I'm sorry, I messed that up, didn't

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I? The prophet speaks on behalf of God to the people, the priest speaks on behalf of people to God.

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Okay, they go in different directions. That's why Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king. He accomplishes both. Numbers 11 -25, then the

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Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the 70 elders.

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As soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not continue doing it.

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So here we see that the Spirit was given to some people, the 70 elders, who were with Moses in the wilderness, to prophesy.

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That's a gift that the Spirit gave them. First Samuel 10 -10, when they came to Gibeah, behold, a group of prophets met him, and the

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Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them. Prophesying is one of the things that the

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Spirit enables the human being to do. Exodus 31, and I have filled him with the

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Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, bronze, and cutting of stones for setting, and in carving wood to work in every craft.

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So here, the Spirit came upon this gentleman to help build the temple. He was gifted by God to do that through God's Holy Spirit.

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Numbers 27, let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the

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Lord may not be a sheep that have no shepherd. So here, it's God, the

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Holy Spirit, places in human beings to help lead the people of God.

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Right? As undershepherds, elders, we are called by God to lead him. Jesus was our great high priest.

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He was the good shepherd, empowered by God to lead his people. So the

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Spirit is the one inside of people, inside of the elders, inside of the prophets, leading them in a specific direction.

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Deuteronomy 34, and Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the Spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him, so the people of Israel obeyed him, and did as the

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Lord commanded Moses. So God used the prophets, spoke through them, gave them a spirit of wisdom that they would be able to convey what

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God wanted to the people who were there. Is this making sense? Everybody good so far?

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Judges 3 .10, the Spirit of the Lord was upon them, and he judged Israel. Nehemiah 9 .30,

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many years you have bore with them and warned them with your spirit through your prophets, yet they would not give ear.

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Incidentally, in Judges 3 .10, the judge was Othniel, okay? The prophets of Israel warned the people by their spirit, yet they would not give ear.

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Again, we're going to get into that when we talk about anthropology. Human beings do not have ears to hear.

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In Deuteronomy 29 .4, a very important verse, God commanded them to do things, and he says, and yet to this day

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I have not circumcised your heart, I have not circumcised your ears, I have not given you eyes to see and ears to hear.

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So he's warning them here by his spirit. Ezekiel 36, and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules.

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Now this is so important, I quote Ezekiel 36 all the time, because these are where all the

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I wills come from God. I will, I will. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.

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I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols

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I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.

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I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. So if somebody's born of God's spirit, what's the spirit going to do?

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It's going to cause that person to walk in his statutes and rules. Be careful to obey his rules.

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You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God, and I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.

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How much of your uncleanness is? All, all of your uncleanness, and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you.

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I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.

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Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.

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God's part is to put his spirit within you, to cause you to follow his statutes, his rules.

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We now have eyes to see, and we recognize our own sinfulness. If you don't have a keen awareness of your own sinfulness, you have to ask, do

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I have God's spirit, or do I think I'm really good? No matter what we do, because we're sinful human beings, it's stained by our flesh.

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But with God's spirit in us, we have a new heart and new desires. Now remember, right after this, he says this, and this is really important.

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It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord. Let that be known to you.

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Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. So for whose sake is

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God acting? He says it's not for your sake, for Jesus' sake.

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Jesus is the one who comes, earns what we needed, right?

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So everything is created through him and by him and for him, okay?

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This is about Jesus. Ezekiel 37, 14, this is the next chapter, and I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, right?

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Because I live, you will live also. The spirit brings us to life.

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He gives us eternal life. He doesn't give us temporary life or contingent life.

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He gives us eternal life. Eternal means it has no end. Joel 28, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

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All flesh is all flesh, every human being, okay? Now into the

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New Testament. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. Actually, that is where the felloquy clause comes in, but we're not going to go into that.

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He would bear witness of Jesus and teach the apostles all things, bringing to remembrance all that Jesus has said.

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John 14, 26, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

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Again, that's spoken to the apostles and the disciples who would write the New Testament scriptures, okay?

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So he's bringing to remembrance everything that Jesus taught them. John 15, 26, but when the

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Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

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This is what I preached on two weeks ago about the Spirit bearing witness of what

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Jesus did over and over and over again. And some translations, instead of that word Helper, have

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Comforter. Does anybody know what Comfort means? Comfort.

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Does anybody know what Comfort means? Yeah, it's a trap. I'm trapping you. Yes. To strengthen, right?

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Sometimes we think Comfort, oh, I got my little pillow and my blanket, I'm so comfortable. Comfort is two words, with strength,

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Comfort, with strength, that's what it actually means. So when we have the Holy Spirit, we're strengthened, we're strengthened to bear witness in the midst of unbelievers, we're strengthened to bear witness in the midst of darkness, we let our light shine.

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Why? Because the Spirit strengthened us to do it. First Corinthians 12, 12, 3,

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I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say

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Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Now, we look at that now, today, and say, there's lots of people who say

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Jesus is Lord, and they're not Christians. You're right. In the context at that time, you would either confess

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Jesus is Lord or Caesar is Lord. If you rejected Caesar is Lord and say, no,

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Jesus is Lord, that was a death sentence. You die, they would kill you. So saying

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Jesus is Lord in that context would have to be by the strength of God's Holy Spirit.

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Now, in today's day and age, we're not being persecuted to that point yet, where if we confess

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Jesus is Lord and not the government is Lord, we're not going to be killed, we might be hurt in a different way.

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But anybody who confesses Jesus is Lord and means it in the face of adversity, that's what this means.

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The Holy Spirit is going to strengthen you in the midst of persecution to stand true, to not compromise for the sake of the gospel.

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First John 5, 7 through 8, for there are three that testify, the

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Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three agree. Now, I had to look this one up because this controversy, the verse before it is actually a textual variant, but this is in there.

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And the Spirit, the water, and the blood. First John is about the testimony of Jesus Christ, that which we have seen, that which we have heard when we proclaim to you from the beginning.

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John would go on to say, there are many antichrists who've come, the one who denies the Father but denies the

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Son, that is the antichrist. What John is telling us here is there's three that testify.

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What does the Scripture say about many witnesses? You need two or three witnesses, right? So the Spirit testifies that Jesus is who

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He says He is. The water, pointing to Jesus' baptism when the Father's voice came from heaven, and the

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Spirit rested upon Him like a dove, and the blood, His crucifixion. These three things testify to who

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Jesus was, who Jesus still is. We have ample evidence that Jesus was who

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He says He was. The problem is the human mind will not receive that, it will reject that.

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So now the baptism of the Holy Spirit. All believers, all believers are baptized in the

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Holy Spirit. Matthew 3, Mark 1, Acts 11, 1 Corinthians 12, those who do not have the

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Holy Spirit are not of God. Romans 8, Jude 19, John 14, 17.

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Matthew 3, 11, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, He will baptize you with the

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Holy Spirit and fire. This is Jesus. Jesus is going to baptize people with the

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Holy Spirit and fire. Mark 1, 8, I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the

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Holy Spirit. Acts 11, and I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the

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Holy Spirit. Now I need to make a real important point here, because Pentecostals and Charismatics point to the baptism of the

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Holy Spirit as a second blessing, something that you receive after you're saved, but that's not what the scripture says.

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Again, if you're going to take the book of Acts and try to make that normative and not understand that it's a narrative, you're going to misunderstand it.

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You can only have one Pentecost. You don't have continual Pentecostals, Pentecosts.

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So they would say, once you're baptized, after you're a Christian, once you're baptized with the

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Holy Spirit, that'll be evidenced by speaking in tongues or prophesying or some of these gifts that we don't normally see today.

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The problem is, the scripture says that every Christian has the Holy Spirit. No one can confess

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Jesus as Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So what they'll do, and I've heard this right out of preachers' mouths, they'll say, well, once you're born again of God's Spirit, you have the

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Holy Spirit inside you, but it's like a pilot light. But then when you're baptized with the

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Holy Spirit, that's full -blown blaze. Now you're on fire. And it really, it caused me issues in the last church that I was at, because I was,

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I believed, like, my goodness, I see sincere people speaking in tongues and doing these things. And they said, you've got to closet yourself with God and pray that he would give you this.

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And I prayed earnestly. And thankfully I didn't get that, right? Because it's not true.

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Right? I had the Holy Spirit. And oddly enough, and I'm not tooting my own horn, when I was teaching Evangelism Explosion, all the people who were, who had

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God's Spirit in them and they were on fire, they were home watching TV and I was out in the street witnessing to people.

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Right? And I'm like, why would me with the pilot light, why am I out here? Why aren't they out here? And I don't want to use my experience to interpret the scriptures, but it just was a disconnect for me.

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I'm like, if you're on fire for God and you're speaking in tongues and prophesying, where are you?

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Right? Again, and in some services, you need to watch, right? Everything needs to be done in decency and order.

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Order is from where? The Spirit. If you see disorder and disunity, it's not the

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Holy Spirit. Because guess what happens? The very thing that God did in sending his

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Spirit to unify his people is the very thing that is the opposite of that theology.

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So you prayed, you received the Spirit and spoke in tongues. You didn't, you prayed and didn't receive it.

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So now we have the haves and the have nots. Those who are full of the Spirit and those who aren't.

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And what'd you just do? You made a division in the body of Christ. Those who have the fire and those who, yeah, you can confess

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Jesus Lord, but you don't have the power that we have. That's division. That's not what the

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Holy Spirit came to do. Every single believer, you need to understand this. Every single believer has the

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Holy Spirit within you and you have gifts that he's giving you. The gift of helps.

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There's so many different gifts that God could give us, right? So don't look at this and say, oh my goodness,

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I need to be baptized with the Spirit. All of us have been baptized into the body of Christ by God's Spirit.

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1 Corinthians 12, 13, sorry. From one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body.

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Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Romans 8, 9.

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You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

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Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. That's a heavy verse.

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If you don't have the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit inside of you, you are not a

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Christian. We talk about wheat and tares. Wheat and tares look identical. You can't tell the difference from them from the outside.

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What's different is what's on the inside. The tare is hollow. The wheat has a grain in it, a seed of grain in it.

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And what happens? He hits it on the threshing floor with the fork, throws it up in the air, the wind blows and it takes the tares, the hollow shells away.

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And what's left is the one that are filled with the grain. It's the same thing with God's people.

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I shouldn't say the same. It's the same thing with people who profess to be Christians who don't have God's Spirit. You can be baptized in water.

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If you don't have God's Spirit in you, that baptism is irrelevant.

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You're testifying to something that was not done inside of you. It's real important to understand that.

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Jude 19. I loved going through this book, me and Pastor Chris, when we got to preach it. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the

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Spirit, creepers, perverters, deniers, all coming against God's people, called, beloved, and kept.

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So if you're devoid of the Spirit, you don't belong to God. The dividing line is

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God's Spirit. John 14, 16 -17, I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever.

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How long? Forever. If you get the Spirit, it's not temporary. It's forever.

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Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know

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Him for He dwells with you and will be in you. Ooh, that's good news.

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Here's why. The Spirit converts and creates. He gives new birth to saints by quickening our hearts, circumcising them to renew and regenerate us.

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He conforms us to the image of Jesus and seals us as a guarantee of our inheritance.

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John 3, 6, that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of Spirit is

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Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Human beings give birth to other human beings.

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Human beings never give birth to spiritual beings. You're spiritually dead, separated from God.

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You must be born from above. That's actually what that verse means in John 3 and 5. You must be born again or born from above by the

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Spirit. It says the Spirit blows where He wishes. You don't know where He comes from, know where He goes, so it is with everyone who's born of God's Spirit.

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So you can't point to water baptism and say, well, that's where the Spirit is. That's where somebody gets born again because the

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Scripture just says you don't know where the Spirit blows. You don't know where He comes from. Okay? 2

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Corinthians 5 .17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

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Galatians 4 .29, but just as at that time He who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the

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Spirit, so also it is now. Tell me that verse isn't true today, right?

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Anybody who claims to be a Christian is constantly getting pushback. Oh my goodness, you believe in marriage between a man and a woman and all these other things and you believe that women don't have rights to abort their children and we stand up for the truth.

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We're being persecuted by the world. Amazing, other people who claim to believe in God, whether you be Muslim or Jew or whatever, those never get any pushback.

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We are the ones who get the pushback. So, let's continue on, John 6 .33,

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it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. So what does this point to?

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Monergism synergism. Monergism is the single act of God, God's power, synergism,

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God plus man accomplishes the goal. But if it's plus man and the

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Scripture says the flesh is of no help at all, what does God need? Does He need your flesh to carry

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His plan out? No. You're born of God's Spirit, it is God's plan.

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It's the one power of God working in us. Ephesians 2 .5, even when we were dead in our trespasses,

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He made us alive together with Christ. It's the Spirit that brings life. Now, it's really important from our perspective and our theology, we hold to Reformed theology, we hold to the doctrines of grace, we hold to the depravity of man.

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The term born again, what did any of you have to do with your physical birth?

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Nothing. You're the result of someone else's actions. New creation, the world was created, right?

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Did it create itself? No, it would have to have existed already in order to create itself, it's a contradiction.

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So for new creation, we had somebody create us, we didn't do it ourselves.

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And last, we're made alive. In other words, the scripture also bears witness to us being resurrected.

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What did Lazarus have to do with his resurrection? Nothing. It was the result of God's work.

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So you're born again, you're a new creation, and you are now alive, resurrected. None of either of those three things did you have a part in.

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Those are the necessary consequence of God giving his Holy Spirit to you, giving you eyes to see and ears to hear.

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Again, I've used this analogy several times. When a baby's born, it doesn't take its first breath in order to become alive.

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It takes his first breath because it's alive already. When somebody is born of God's Spirit, the breath that comes out of them is what?

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The confession that Jesus is Lord. He's Lord. He wasn't Lord two days ago.

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He's Lord now. How did that happen? God's Spirit. It's not due to human effort.

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Okay, Romans 2, 28, nor is circumcision outward and physical. Circumcision is a matter of the heart by the

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Spirit, not the letter. We're also given new hearts. Titus 3, 5, and 6, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

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Holy Spirit. That is not talking about baptism. It's the washing of regeneration.

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Regeneration means what? You are dead and you're alive. You're regenerated. A work of the

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Spirit, not the work of the waters in baptism. Your baptism points to the fact that you're regenerated.

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We talked earlier about Jesus, his baptism, and the Spirit, the water, and the blood being a witness to who

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Jesus is. Does anybody believe that Jesus was born again in baptism? No, you shouldn't.

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Unfortunately, there are people in the New Apostolic Reformation, Bill Johnson at a Bethel church, he says

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Jesus was born again. No, no. If your

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Savior needs to be born again, you have a problem. You have a problem. You don't understand what it means to be born again.

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Jesus was never spiritually dead in order to be born again. We are spiritually dead and need to be born again.

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So regeneration is a function of the Holy Spirit, not water baptism. Jesus' baptism didn't point to the fact that he was born again.

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It was his identifying with the people of God. It was the washing that a Levitical priest had to go through at approximately 30 years of age in order to become a priest.

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Second Corinthians 3 .18, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the

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Lord who is the Spirit. Ephesians 1 .13, you were sealed with the promised

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Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

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What does the word sealed mean? Yes, exactly. They would melt wax and the king would take his ring and put it in there and you'd have the imprint of that, saying that this was directly from the king.

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This is done. The king sealed it. This is what we have when we have the

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Holy Spirit on us. We have the imprint of God on us, sealed. It's a guarantee of our inheritance.

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Second Corinthians 1 .21, and it is God who established us with you in Christ and has anointed us and who also put his seal on us and given us his

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Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. This is like a deposit on a house. You put your money down, that is now your house until it's completely paid off.

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We have the Spirit inside us as a guarantee of our future in heaven with God.

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Don't let anybody tell you that if you have the Holy Spirit, you can lose that. They went out from us because they were not of us.

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Some people might think they have the Spirit. That's why you have to ask yourself, do you have an acute awareness of your own sin?

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Do I really loathe my actions sometimes? The Holy Spirit is the promised helper who comforts and convicts and confers gifts to the church.

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John 14 .16, I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper or comforter to be with you. John 16 .11,

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8 and 11, and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment. We feel conviction when we sin because it's not according to God's Word.

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God's Spirit resides within us. It brings us because God gives us his

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Spirit to help us to obey his laws and his statutes. We will eventually repent and turn to him.

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First Corinthians 12 .4 -6, now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service but the same

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Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

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The Holy Spirit is God and he can be blasphemed. We'll get into that in a second. Acts 5 .3,

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Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to man but to God.

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So this is an important doctrine. We believe in the Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the

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Trinity and is fully God. Second Peter 1 .21, For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that brings the wisdom, that brings the message that they spoke at that point.

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So the Holy Spirit can be blasphemed. We see this in several verses, Mark 3 .29,

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But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

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For they were saying he has an unclean spirit, meaning Jesus. The Jews were saying he has an unclean spirit doing the works, the miracles that he did.

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Matthew 12 .31, Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the

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Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

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That's serious. Luke 12 .10, And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. So any questions on that? I anticipated somebody's going to say, what is the blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit? So I was ready for you. All right. Good. I knew you were thinking it. All right. So this is

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Kent Hughes, who wrote the book, Disciplines of a Godly Man. This is his explanation.

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I liked the way it sounds. I ran it past a couple commentaries and what I understand it to be. So this seems to make sense.

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Jesus made this declaration after the scribes and Pharisees had attributed his curses to Beelzebub, the prince of devils.

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In other words, they attributed the mighty work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. Jesus said there is no forgiveness for this.

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Here Jesus introduced the thought with the assertion that sins against him can be forgiven. This does not mean that such sins are a small thing based upon the preceding verses, but sin against his person can be forgiven.

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Some blaspheme Christ, but then repent. Their blasphemy is not their final word. Many blasphemers have been saved, but those who blaspheme the

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Holy Spirit by attributing Jesus's work and witness to Satan are damned. This blasphemy is not so much a matter of blasphemous language, but of a conscious, persistent, wicked recognition of the

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Spirit's witness. It is a setting of the mind against the Spirit of God.

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Okay. So when we see the church of Jesus Christ filled with the

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Spirit, if someone comes along like a Christopher Hitchens and says, that is the work of the devil, and he maintains that stance until he dies, that is something that's blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit. Any questions on that? Was that helpful? Clear?

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Something, Paul? Okay. All right. Good. We'll move on. We're getting close to the end anyway.

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The person of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person because He has a will, can be grieved, is a witness, can be lied to, and is holy.

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It's a moral attribute. First Corinthians 12 .11, these are empowered by one and the same

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Spirit who apportions to each one as He wills. Uses a male personal pronoun and will.

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The Holy Spirit is not a force. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Spirit is a force. Pantheists believe that Spirit is the force, like may the force be with you.

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The Holy Spirit is a person who has a will. Ephesians 4 .30,

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and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. In other words, there are things that we do that can grieve the

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Spirit of God, right? Romans 8 .16, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are

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His children. So again, persons are witnesses, not forces.

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A force can't be a witness, can't give verbal testimony, but the Spirit can. Acts 5 .4,

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you have not lied to man but to God. We went through that before. So this points to the

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Holy Spirit being God. And finally, God is holy. He is the

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Holy Spirit over and over and over again. So the Holy Spirit is a person, and that's why we call

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Him the third person of the Trinity. It's Father, Son, and Spirit. And the Trinity is going to differentiate our understanding of God from every other theistic group, whether it be

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Islam, whether it be Judaism, whatever it is, they don't hold to a triune God. Our God is able to explain the differences of unity and diversity, like Brother Pia said a couple of weeks ago.

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The university, it's comprised of two words, unity and diversity. There's unity and diversity in the world.

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How do you account for that from a monadic God? You can't. The nature of God is a unity in diversity.

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Any final questions? Anything that was brought to light that you liked, something you don't understand, something you disagree with?