FBC Adult Sunday School

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Alright, we've been studying the third person of the
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Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and usually when we think of the
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Holy Spirit and our interest in the Holy Spirit, we're thinking of the
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New Testament. We study the Holy Spirit in light of the New Testament. We think about His work in the church, and we think about all that the
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New Testament says about the Holy Spirit in relationship to the individual believer.
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So our focus generally tends to be on post -Pentecost, or from Pentecost on to the present, and we want to know, you know, what is the work of the
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Holy Spirit in the church today, and what is the work of the Holy Spirit in my life today? But when we do that, when we narrow our focus so greatly, we miss out on a broader and deeper understanding of the person and the work of the
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Holy Spirit in this world. So before we narrow that focus on the
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Holy Spirit's work in the church and you as an individual New Testament Christian, we need to look at the
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Old Covenant, we need to look at the Old Testament revelation. And I'm using for our study this morning the general, as a general basis for the study, the book
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On the Holy Spirit by Robert Lethem, just came out not too awfully long ago.
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Let's talk first of all about the word that's in the Old Testament that's translated spirit.
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I shared this a few weeks ago, but the Hebrew word is ruach, and it's translated in different ways.
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Sometimes it's translated spirit, sometimes breath, sometimes wind.
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And not all of those occurrences have to do with the Holy Spirit. So I want us to get the breadth of this word.
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So let's look at, first of all, at some uses of the word as it's translated breath or wind in Genesis chapter 8.
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And so keep your Bibles, you know, the hinges on your Bibles ready to go and well oiled because we'll be turning to a lot of different references.
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And Noah, in Genesis chapter 8 verse 1, we read that God remembered
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Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark, and God made a wind to pass over the earth and the water subsided.
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Well, how should we understand this? I mean, this is a ruach. Should we think, well, the Holy Spirit did it?
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No, we should just think of what we experienced this past week with those brutal northwest winds as they, you know, drop the windchill way below whatever is comfortable to us.
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It's the wind. In Genesis, or I'm sorry, in Job chapter 7, Job 7, we read the word as it's translated in yet a different way,
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Job 7 verse 7, Job says, oh, remember that my life is a breath.
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My life is a breath. And of course, what he's simply talking about here is the fragility of life, just how fragile life is and how fleeting life is.
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It's comparable to what James wrote in James 4, 14, where he says, you know, the life is like a vapor.
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It appears and is gone. Life is just a vapor. This is what Job is saying. And then
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Psalm 150, this is an interesting use of ruach.
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Psalm 150 verse 6 wraps up and summarizes what a psalmist has been saying throughout the psalm.
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So the psalm is a psalm calling on God's people to praise, but more than God's people to praise.
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You see in verse, where is it? Verse 6, the last verse, let everything that has breath praise the
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Lord. Let everything that has breath. So everything that has, everything that is animate, all animate creatures.
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So he's talking about, you know, the dogs and cats and cows and horses and pigs and anything that has breath in it.
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Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, give praise to the Lord. All right?
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So these are some examples and many occurrences of this in the Old Testament where the word spirit or ruach is used for simply breath or wind.
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The word is also used related to the human spirit, the human spirit.
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You see this in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, Ecclesiastes 12.
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This is the end of the summary chapter of Ecclesiastes.
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And the writer here, the preacher, is telling us to remember our creator in the days of our youth.
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He says, verse 6, before the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, the pitcher shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the well.
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He's talking here different expressions, figurative expressions for death. So remember him before you die.
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And he says, then, verse 7, the dust will return to earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
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So you've heard the ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The dust will return to the earth as it was.
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The spirit, though, the human spirit, will return to God who gave it.
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In Psalm 31, so obviously he's just simply talking about, you know, that animate part of our human existence.
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Psalm 31, the psalmist offers a commitment to the
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Lord. Psalm 31, verse 5, he says, into your hand
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I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
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I commit my spirit. He's talking about the human spirit. And then one more passage in this regard,
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Isaiah 42, Isaiah 42 and verse 5, thus says the
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Lord God who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives ruach, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit.
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I'm sorry, that's not correct. The word breath here is a different word. It's not ruach, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit.
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There's the word ruach, spirit to those who walk on it. All right? So the
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Lord gives to us as human beings that human spirit that is part of who we are.
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So ruach refers to breath and wind. It refers to the human spirit. But then there's another application or a place where the word occurs, and that is in relation to harmful spirits, to harmful spirits.
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And this gets really interesting. Let's turn to 1 Samuel chapter 16, 1
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Samuel 16 and verses 14 and following, 1
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Samuel 16, verse 14. But the ruach of the
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Lord, the spirit of the Lord, departed from Saul, and a distressing ruach from the
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Lord troubled him. And Saul's servants said to him, surely a distressing ruach from God is troubling you.
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Let our master now command our servants who are before you to seek out a man who's skillful in playing on the harp, and it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.
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All right, so we should not understand this as like a demon.
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We should understand it as like a spirit of depression or discouragement that comes upon Saul, but it's described in this way.
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It's like this, well, you know about it from personal experience, it's like something comes over you.
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You know, one minute you're feeling fine, a few hours later you're in the dumps, you're in a place of discouragement or despair.
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You would call that a distressing spirit. But then there's another application in 1
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Kings chapter 22, 1 Kings 22, and this is a little more challenging to our understanding, 1
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Kings 22. The context here is that the
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King of Israel and Ahab, the King of Israel who is Ahab, and Jehoshaphat, the
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King of Judah, are in conference together, and Ahab wants to go and do battle, the
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King of Israel. Ahab wants to go and do battle with another king, another country. Jehoshaphat isn't so sure that's a great idea.
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He says, I think we should consult the Lord, see what the
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Lord has to say. Well, all these prophets come to this meeting to give their take on what the
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Lord is going to do with this battle. And there's all these different prophets come up, and you see this in verse 4,
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I'm sorry, verse 5,
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Jehoshaphat says to the king, inquire of the Lord, the word of the Lord today. So the King of Israel in verse 6, he gathered the prophets together, about 400 men, and he said to them, shall
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I go to Ramoth Gilead to fight or shall I refrain? They said, go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.
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So all these 400 prophets are unanimous in saying, go for it, you know, you're going to win this battle.
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But Jehoshaphat isn't so, the King of Judah, is not so easily convinced. He doesn't have any confidence in these prophets from Israel, and he says, is there not still a prophet of Yahweh here, that we may inquire of him?
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So the King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, verse 8, there's still one man, Micaiah, he is a prophet of Yahweh.
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And so it says, okay, go get him, Jehoshaphat says, go get him. So the
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King of Israel called an officer, said, bring Micaiah, the son of Imlot. So Micaiah comes and he contradicts all the 400 prophets.
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And he says, basically, this isn't going to happen. You're going to be defeated.
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You're going to be destroyed. But before he gets to that, you're going to be destroyed thing,
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Micaiah, you could see the sarcasm, you can hear the sarcasm in his voice. In verse 15, he came to the king and the king said to him,
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Micaiah, shall we go to the war against Ramoth Gilead or shall we refrain? And Micaiah answered him, go and prosper, for the
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Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king. Read that with a note of sarcasm in his voice.
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Because the king responds to him and says, how many times shall I make you swear that you tell me nothing but the truth in the name of Yahweh, the name of the
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Lord? So Ahab is convinced that however
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Micaiah says his words here in verse 18, that he's not being sincere.
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So then we come to verse 17, where Micaiah gives the true prophecy.
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He said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the
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Lord said, these have no master. Let each return to his house in peace. Okay, there it is.
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You're going to be defeated in this battle. So the king of Israel turns to Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and he says, did
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I not tell you he wouldn't prophesy good concerning me but evil? That's why I hate this guy.
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He never says good things about me. Then Micaiah speaks up again, and here's where we want to focus our attention.
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Micaiah said, therefore hear the word of the Lord. And he sees this vision.
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He says, I saw the Lord sitting on his throne and all the host of heaven standing by on his right hand and on his left.
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And I think that's an interesting distinction, his right hand and on his left. Remember in the
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New Testament, the Lord talks about prophetically at the end times where the sheep and the goats, you have the one on the right hand, one on the left.
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Anyway, so all the host of heaven standing by on his right hand and on his left. And the
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Lord said, who will persuade Ahab to go up that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?
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So one spoke in this manner and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the
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Lord and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said, in what way?
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So he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth, a lying ruach, in the mouth of all his prophets.
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And the Lord said, you shall persuade him and also prevail. Go out and do so.
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So here is a lying spirit that is going to persuade Ahab to go to this battle.
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And how should we understand this scene, this scenario that Micaiah, this vision that Micaiah has?
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How should we understand this? You know, there's all these ideas that are presented to Yahweh, to the
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Lord, to the sovereign omniscient, omnipotent God. How should we perceive this?
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Well, I think one way we can perceive it is simply that the evil spirits are still under the
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Lord's sovereign control. They are not out there on their own under satanic control without being controlled in a superior way by the
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Lord himself. Now, to get us, to help us maybe grasp this whole scenario a little more clearly, let's turn to the
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New Testament for a minute. Let's turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, 2
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Thessalonians 2 verses 9 through 12. Look at this passage with me.
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And this is talking about the great apostasy beginning in chapter 1, chapter 2 verse 1.
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And let's see, this talks about this mystery of lawlessness in verse 7 that is at work, but right now there is a restrainer that is keeping that spirit of lawlessness from doing its work.
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Verse 8 says, Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming.
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But the coming of the lawless one, now notice this, the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.
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Alright, so in this end time prophecy, Satan and his lawless one are going to deceive those who are perishing because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.
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But now look at verse 11. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
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Now the connection here between this passage and the one in 1 Kings, I see as God being sovereignly in control of Satan and his emissaries who bring about a deception judgment on the part of those who won't receive the truth.
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And this is exactly the case with Ahab in the Old Testament. Ahab has heard the truth, but he will not receive the truth.
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Prior to this situation, prior to this incident, Ahab will not receive the truth.
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He's heard it, will not receive it. And so God allows a satanic evil spirit to send this deceptive message, go, fight, you'll win, the
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Lord says you're going to win. And all these prophets fall under the control of that evil spirit that is ultimately under God's control.
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And as an act of judgment from God, Ahab believes the deception, further rejects the truth that comes from Micaiah.
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Because in the rest of the story in 1 Kings, Ahab and Jehoshaphat go off to battle,
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Ahab ends up being killed. All right. Now, finally, we come to the spirit of God, ruach used in relationship to the
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Holy Spirit. Remember, you probably don't, but we read a couple of times the
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Nicene Creed. And in the Nicene Creed, one of the expressions is that the spirit of God is the author and giver of life.
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Where do they get that? Where do they get that? Well, back in Genesis. They get it from starting here in Genesis chapter 1, verse 2, where verse 1 says,
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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth initially was without form and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
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And we'll say more about this later. But here is the spirit of God involved at creation.
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He's involved at the time of creation. This is also brought out in Psalm 33, verses 6 through 9, the spirit's work in creation.
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Psalm 33, verse 6, says,
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By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath, the ruach, of his mouth.
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He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap, he lays up the deep in storehouses, and so on.
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And then Psalm 104, Psalm 104, verses 27 to 30, says,
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These all wait for you that you may give them their food in due season. What you give them they gather in.
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You open your hand, they are filled with good. You hide your face, they are troubled. You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
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You send forth your spirit, your ruach, they are created.
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And you renew the face of the earth. He's talking about the creatures of this earth who live and die at God's command, but the
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Holy Spirit's involved in that giving of life. So the Spirit of God, as the author and giver of life, is involved in life -giving work at creation.
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He's also involved in preservation of life. Look at chapter 6 and verse 3.
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We have a little bit of a clarification, translation clarification that we want to point out here in verse 3.
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Now this, in the context here, is where God sees the wickedness of man on the earth and it's only evil continually.
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And in verse 3, the Lord said, the King James, in my translation of the
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New King James, put it this way, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh.
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I don't have time to explain all this, but there's another way of translating it, and a better way of translating it, is this,
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My spirit shall not always abide in man, shall not abide in man, for he is indeed flesh.
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Now, what is the idea here? The idea of the spirit not always abiding in man, who is flesh, is that the
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Holy Spirit won't preserve man with long life, as in the pre -flood era.
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Now let's see this. Now remember, after the fall, the Lord said to Adam and Eve, If you eat that fruit, you're going to die.
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And they ate the fruit, and they immediately died spiritually. And the processes of physical death entered into creation, even in the life of Adam and Eve.
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But, Adam and Eve lived a long, long time. Look at chapter 5, and in chapter 5, verse 5, says,
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All the days that Adam lived were 930 years. Do not take that figurative.
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That's literal. He literally lived 930 years. And of course, you get down to verse 27, and here you've got the oldest man that ever lived,
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Methuselah. All his days were 969 years, and he died.
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So these people before the flood lived for centuries.
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You didn't measure their life in decades. You measure their life in centuries. But now turn to chapter 9.
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And after the flood, things begin to change, and they begin to change dramatically.
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The last free -flood survivor, besides the sons of Noah, was
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Noah himself. It says, All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.
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But then, flip over a couple pages to chapter 11, and verse 11, and it says,
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This is the genealogy of Shem, one of the sons of Noah. He begot
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Arphaxad, and Shem lived 500 years and begot sons and daughters. So he's still living a long time, but not as long as dad, not as long as dad.
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Then turn over another couple pages, or a few verses down, verse 17. Look at verse 17.
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Eber was one of the descendants of Shem. Eber lived 34 years. He begot
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Peleg, and after he begot Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and begot sons and daughters.
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Okay? And then he died. And then a few verses later, verse 21, After he begot
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Serug, Ru, lived 207 years and begot sons and daughters.
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You see the declining age span of mankind here.
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Until you finally come to the end of the book of Genesis, chapter 50, and verse 26, with Joseph, one of the ultimate descendants of Shem, and Joseph died,
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Genesis 50, verse 26, Joseph died being 110 years old, and they embalmed him.
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And this is more in line with where things stand even today. Yes, life expectancy isn't 110 years old, but it's not unusual to hear of someone living well over 100 years of age.
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The point here that I want us to get is I think what Genesis 6, verse 3 is communicating is that the preserving, the life -preserving work of the
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Holy Spirit is going to be diminished. The Holy Spirit is not going to preserve human life for centuries anymore.
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And then look at, well, let's not turn there, but Ezekiel 37 is the vision that Ezekiel has of the valley of dry bones.
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I don't know if you remember that. You got this valley where bones are scattered, just human bones scattered all over the place.
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It's a vision. And the Lord tells Ezekiel to preach to the bones, and he preaches to the bones, and there's this great rattling and shaking and everything, and all these bones come together, bone upon bone.
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And there's that old Negro spiritual, the ankle bones connected to the leg bone, the leg bone, and so on and so forth on up.
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And you've got this whole thing. And then flesh covers these bones, but there's still a bunch of corpses until the
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Spirit of God breathes life into, in Ezekiel's vision, breathes life into these dead dry bones.
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All right? So the Holy Spirit is involved in giving of life. Now, let's zero in a little more on some of these actions of the
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Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. We can summarize his actions in this way. He prompts, he provokes, he inspires action that would not otherwise occur.
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He prompts, promotes, inspires actions that would not otherwise occur. So let's see some examples of this.
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In 1 Samuel 10, verses 5 and 6, and then verses 9 through 11.
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And this is the account of Saul being anointed king by Samuel, the first king of Israel being anointed by Samuel.
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So in chapter 10, verse 5, Samuel says to Saul, after that you shall come to the hill of God where the
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Philistine garrison is, and it will happen when you come there to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with stringed instruments, a tambourine, a flute, and a harp before them, and they will be prophesying.
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Then, he says, the Spirit of God will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.
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This is something Saul has never done before. Never. He's never been involved with these prophets.
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But Samuel says this is going to happen. The Spirit of God is going to come upon you and you will prophesy.
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Well, in verses 9 through 11, that's exactly what happens. So it was when
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Saul turned back to go from Samuel that God gave him another heart and all those signs came to pass.
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When they came there to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him. Then the
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Spirit of God came upon him and prophesied among them. And it happened when all who knew him formerly saw that he indeed prophesied among the prophets, that the people said to one another, what is this that has come upon the son of Kish?
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Is Saul also among the prophets? So the Spirit of God comes upon Saul in a unique and unknown prior to this point way and inspires action that otherwise would not occur.
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Now what was the point of it? What was the purpose of this? The purpose and the effect of this work of the
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Spirit of God, this action of the Spirit of God coming upon Saul was to confirm Saul's royal appointment.
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That God has chosen him to be Israel's first king.
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Now turn to chapter 19, 1 Samuel 19 and you see this again in a similar experience but for a completely different purpose.
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1 Samuel 19 verse 18. By this point, Saul has been told that the kingdom is going to be taken away from him, that God is going to give the kingdom to someone else, a man whom
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God will choose and that man was David. David becomes an enemy of Saul, Saul wants to kill
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David, Saul's chasing David all over the place and we come to verse 18 of 1
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Samuel 19. It says, David fled and escaped and went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him.
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And he and Samuel went and stayed at Nioth. Now it was told Saul, saying, take note,
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David is at Nioth and Ramah. Then Saul sent messengers to take David. Okay, so what happens?
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When they saw the group of prophets prophesying and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul and they also prophesied.
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And when Saul was told, he sent other messengers and they prophesied likewise. Then Saul sent messengers again the third time and they prophesied also.
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Alright, you see what's going on here. So then in verse 22, he also went to Ramah, Saul did, and came to the great well that is at Zechu.
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So he asked and said, where are Samuel and David? Someone said, indeed they are at Nioth and Ramah. So he went there to Nioth and Ramah, then the
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Spirit of God was upon him also and he went on and prophesied until he came to Nioth and Ramah.
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Okay, now notice Saul is not a godly man at this point. He's not.
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He's in rebellion against God and yet the Spirit of God comes upon him for a different purpose than he had come on him earlier.
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In this case, the purpose was to frustrate Paul's malevolent intent or Saul's malevolent intent.
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Saul wanted to kill David and God's Spirit comes upon him to keep him from doing that.
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Now go back a couple pages to chapter 16 and verse 13 and 14 and you see quite a contrast.
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This is where David is chosen to replace Saul as king and Samuel is involved in this anointing of David as the king as well and verse 13 says,
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Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David in the midst of his brothers. Then the
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Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. Okay, so Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
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Now look at the contrast in verse 14. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a distressing
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Spirit from the Lord troubled him. Alright, so here in this passage you see the
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Spirit of the Lord coming upon David which again is a confirmation of his royal appointment but at the same time the
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Spirit of the Lord departs from Saul which confirms his royal rejection.
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Confirms his royal rejection. Robert Lethem explains it this way.
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He says, summarizing this coming of the Spirit of God upon individuals he says, the idea is of a sudden overwhelmingly powerful impulse enabling the recipient to undertake actions that would otherwise be beyond him.
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An impulse that was not necessarily listen, get this, it was not necessarily an abiding or permanent endowment.
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It could also happen regardless of the individual's own personal condition.
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We saw that in chapter 19 with Saul and the messengers from Saul that wanted to capture
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David and put him to death. These men they were not godly men.
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They weren't doing a good thing. And yet the Spirit of God came upon them. Why? Because the Spirit of God came upon them to evoke a powerful impulse enabling the recipient to undertake action that would otherwise be beyond them.
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You see this also back in the book of Judges with some of the judges like Jephthah.
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Remember the judge Jephthah. Judges 11 talks about how the Spirit of God came upon Jephthah and enabled him to bring forth a great victory.
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Or in with Samson, the judge Samson who was also not a very godly man in fact but the
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Spirit of God came upon him also in a wonderful way. Now let's look at one more passage and then we'll be done.
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2 Kings chapter 2. 2 Kings chapter 2.
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The context here is Elijah is about to be taken up into heaven. He gets up and the chariot of God takes
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Elijah alive up into heaven. This is going to happen. Elisha, Elijah's helper gets word that this is going to come to pass that Elijah is going to depart from him that day and in verse 9
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Elijah says to Elisha what may I do for you before I am taken away from you?
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And Elisha said please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.
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He wants a double portion of Elijah's spirit. What he is not talking about is
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Elijah's human spirit. Remember Elijah's human spirit was subject to discouragement and despair and that whole juniper tree incident.
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Elisha wasn't asking for Elijah's human spirit. Elisha recognized that Elijah's spirit was not his human spirit but the
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Spirit of God as the efficient cause of all of Elijah's miracles.
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Elisha was aware of all the miraculous stuff that Elijah did and he said I want a double portion of that.
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I want a double portion of that. Elijah says you ask a hard thing but if you see me going up into heaven so it will be and that's exactly what took place.
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Elisha received a double portion of the Spirit of God upon him. Alright, so the
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Holy Spirit is involved in powerful unexpected actions in Old Testament revelation.
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Next week when we come back to this we'll look at the Spirit of God in more detail in creation and then some other aspects as well.
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Let's close in prayer. Our Father and our God we thank you for the work of your
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Spirit within mankind. He has been involved in man's life and work since the beginning and I pray that you would help us to understand that as well as realize his work in our lives in this new covenant era.