Apologetics Session 29 - Pneumatology - Part 3

Prayer for Illumination and Requests for the Church

Looking forward to what you will teach us tonight, Father. Father, your Holy Spirit, Lord, given to us by the Father and through the Son, and Father, Lord, that your Spirit would speak to us tonight. We pray that as we open up your Word, we read your Word, Father, that you would, Lord, just do some wonderful things in all of our hearts, Father.

We all want a closer walk with you, and we pray that you teach us in that tonight. And Father, for the ladies I'm thinking of in particular, there's one lady in our church who is due tomorrow. She's due to give birth to a baby.

So her surgery is tomorrow. We pray for her, and we thank you, Lord, that you would deliver a healthy baby, and we're so thankful for the life that you've given, Lord, through the birthing process. What a miracle that is, Father.

And Lord, I want to pray for, in particular, for our pastor's mom down in Florida, as she has been ill for a little while, Father. We pray for her, and I do want to pray for our pastor's wife's mom, too, Father, for the rest.

We pray and lift her up for her, too, Father. These are just precious, precious people, Father. We love them in Jesus. We thank you, Lord, that you would touch them and heal them. Lord, please, Father, especially with these special ladies tonight, Father, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. So we're Holy Spirit filled tonight. That's the goal. That's the goal every day. And where we left off so far, we've heard a lot of things about the Holy Spirit. We've certainly talked about Him being God.

We've talked about Him being a person who has a will and a desire for our lives and who guides us and leads us. But we're going to talk more about that tonight. The last thing we spoke about, though, was the fact that we were illuminated by Him, that we all needed to be illuminated by the Holy Spirit to understand His Word, and also that He was the agent of God that regenerated our hearts.

He was the one that quickened us and brought life into us. And we also talked about us being baptized in Him, basically being initiated into Him, sealed in Him until the day of redemption, that that seal is never going to be broken, that the gift of the Holy Spirit is going to be ours for all.

It says in John chapter 14, it says, forever He will be with us. And the last thing is the indwelling of the Spirit. We're all indwelled with the Spirit. Everyone who's Jesus' child has the Spirit indwelling in them.

So that's a lot of things just to understand about the Holy Spirit now within each one of us. And we're going to talk about what the Holy Spirit today produces in each of our lives. And so it's going to get a little more personal, I think, today, which is great because I think sometimes we look at these studies and we're thinking, we're accumulating a lot of facts, we're accumulating a lot of information.

Tonight's going to be all about a very personal relationship with Him and what He's doing in each one of our hearts. So I'm really looking forward to this. So the first section I'm going to go into now is the Holy Spirit teaching us, the Holy Spirit comforting us, the Holy Spirit guiding us.

The Holy Spirit as Teacher and Guide

So when Jesus said that He was going to go away, He said He wasn't going to leave us alone. He was going to give another Helper, one of the same kind. And that person, that one whom He sent, is the Holy Spirit whom He sent.

He said that the Helper, the Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. And in 1 John chapter 2 verse 27 it says this,.

And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you. We're talking about the Spirit now. And you have no need for anyone to teach you, but His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in Him.

So we have a great teacher within us, all of us. Anyone who has the Spirit, has the the wisdom of God, the understanding of God. He wants to guide us into all things and teach us all things. And it's like, whoa, really?

What does that mean? Well I think first thing we need to do is this, we need to understand that He's going to illuminate His Word. He's going to teach us in our hearts what the Word of God means and understand it.

But we do need to be careful here, because people will take this 1 John verse about the anointing that we received, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. Some people have kind of got off the rails with that and saying, well you know, God said to me this, or I've got a message from God, and you know that His Spirit told me this, and well okay, we need to understand what John was talking about in 1 John.

He's saying in that statement, He was dealing with those people who were called the Gnostics, who claimed to have superior knowledge. Those people were saying, well you know, we have a greater understanding than you do about this, so we're going to teach you.

And He's saying no, every believer has the same Spirit. Every believer has the same anointing from the Lord to learn about the Scriptures and learn about God and what He wants for your life. And that was the rebuke that John was giving in 1 John.

Jeff Kleewerk points it out like this in his book. He says the anointing referred to in 1 John chapter 2 verse 20 and verse 27 is a blessing of common knowledge that all Christians have. It's not secret Gnostic knowledge, available only to the special initiated ones.

In fact, denying the latter is why John is bringing this up in the first place, because he wants all believers to understand that there's no one out there who's special and has some special anointing that you don't have.

You don't have the same Spirit, and He's going to teach you as well as He's going to teach anyone else in the body. Now, obviously, the word is gifted pastors and teachers, and that's a blessing in the body of Christ.

But in your personal life, you have the Spirit teaching you the Word of God. Now, in addition, Jeff says this, he says, now, but keep in mind this, the prophetic ministries of Agabus and other people in the book of Acts, 1 Corinthians also 15, talks about prophetic utterances and Thessalonians.

These are not authoritative or binding, whereas everything written in the scripture is authoritative and binding. So if someone says to you, I have a message from God, and I believe that we should do this, that, or the other, the first thing we must do is measure that statement against the Word of God itself, because the Holy Spirit is not going to contradict Himself.

If He's revealed in His Word, you know, certain things about the way the church operates, certain things about the things we should avoid in our lives for sin and whatnot, He's not going to contradict that by giving someone a word of knowledge that goes directly against what He's already revealed in the scriptures.

So when we talk about 1 Corinthians 14, and we talk about prophetic utterances, it says the spirit of the prophets is accountable to the prophets, meaning that if somebody is going to prophesy and claim that they've had a word from God, there needs to be a company around that says, you know, yeah, we believe that's from the Lord, because we're looking at the Word of God, and we are, you know, understanding that you are, you know, filled with the Lord.

Someone just can't go off and say, I've received this, and then take it, you know, out of the blue, and just do something new that no one's ever heard about. Does the Lord lead? Yes, He does, but we need to be careful when we talk about, you know, this teaching that we have, if we try to go just, you know, off the rails all by ourselves.

So that's a warning He gives in 1 Corinthians 14 32, but the encouragement here is that the Spirit teaches us all things. What does He teach us? Do you know all things? Okay, we're shaking our heads no, but we probably know a lot more than we think we do.

All things we need to know for life and godliness. Definitely that's been revealed to us, but let's read some of the scriptures. Let's read Psalm 119. Phil, I'll have you read this whole thing. Yeah, all of 119.

Just verses 97 through 100. That's a pretty lengthy section, but I think you're up for it.

So 119 97 through 100. Okay. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged,.

For I keep your precepts. Okay, I thought it was a little longer than that, but that was 100. But the point of that is, if the Lord's Word is important to us, if it's paramount to us, and we love it, we study it, and we abide by it, we keep it, who does it say that we're wiser than?

Our teachers. And? 98 says our foes. And our enemies. And even the aged, those who have accumulated knowledge over a lifetime of existence on this earth. There's a lot of knowledge that people can accumulate, and there's great, you know, intelligent people that have accumulated vast amounts of information.

But anyone who has the Spirit of God and the Word of God abiding in their hearts knows a lot more than that. Let's think about some of these things for a second. Do we know how the universe was created?

Yeah, God spoke it into existence. We know that. We believe that. It's been revealed to us, and we understand that. Now, we don't understand exactly how the Lord did it, but we understand how it came to be.

We understand, obviously, who created the universe. These are huge questions people have, and they argue about, you know, the whole chicken-and-the-egg question. Like, what's the answer to that question?

The chicken came first. Every believer knows these things, you know, these great mysteries and things that confound people. How about, you know, people are just in a quandary about where pain comes from.

Where does suffering come from? Why is, you know, why is there such a thing? How can we live in a world like that? Well, we understand where that came from, and obviously it's a very, you know, discouraging story to some degree, but God got the victory over sin and death and pain, and he's defeated that.

We understand that also. The world has no idea, like, why these things happen and why these things exist. We understand why there's various species of plants and animals. You know, the speculation on that runs rampant, of course, and Matt's going to cover that in Origins and Creations and the lessons that he's going to go through.

We have insight into the unseen realm of angels and demons, and we have things revealed to us through the Word of God in that realm, which somebody who doesn't know the Scripture, doesn't have the Spirit, doesn't understand.

We understand exactly what's going to happen in future events, exactly in a sense that the Lord has the plan, we know what the plan is, and we know that that plan is going to be executed to his perfection.

We understand those things. We understand why Jesus came, and we understand who God is, and we understand where we are going. You understand a lot of things if you're a believer, and you don't flaunt these things, because where's boasting, right?

Because these things have been given to us by the Spirit of God. But when he says, we know all things, you have a tremendous knowledge and wisdom given to you by the Spirit who abides within you, and that's by the Word of God, too.

He's teaching us through the Word, but also through the things that he's prompting our hearts with. So, that's a little bit about teaching, what he teaches us. There's much more we could say about that, but I want to move on to guidance.

The Holy Spirit Guiding Believers in the Word and in Daily Life

This is, the Holy Spirit is our guide. Now, the Holy Spirit guided Jesus in his ministry. He's also going to guide us, as well. And Jesus, obviously, guided his disciples. And just as the Holy Spirit is the one who is the same as Jesus, the one who is of the same kind, coming alongside of us.

Think about this verse for a second. In Luke chapter 12, verses 11 and 12, it says this,. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not become anxious about what you should speak in your defense or what you should say.

For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. And that's an encouragement from the Lord Jesus, that the Holy Spirit himself will be the one to guide you into that moment, and lead you into that moment, to handle the moment correctly from your accusers that are going to come upon you.

This is the exact same thing that Jesus did when he walked with his disciples. Do you remember when the disciples were walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and rubbing the grain with their hands?

The Pharisees came and accused them, why do you do this on the Sabbath? Why are you breaking the Sabbath? The disciples were probably sitting there like, you know, what do I do? These guys are, you know, Jesus came to their defense.

Jesus spoke up for his men, and Jesus, through the power of God, refuted them, even through, you know, quoting the Old Testament scriptures and saying this is the true meaning of the Sabbath, and really put them to shame.

Remember also another time when they accused the disciples of not ceremonially washing hands before a meal. And that was another occasion where I said, why don't you keep the traditions of the elders?

Jesus came to their defense again, and basically laid them out as he usually would. But the Spirit now, that Jesus gave the Spirit, he's doing the same thing with us. We have a lot of accusers too. We may not go before governors and kings, but we certainly go before this world.

And those who would accuse us of being narrow-minded, or those of us who would accuse us of being, I'll say, hateful or bigoted, because, you know, some of the misinterpretations and misunderstandings of the scriptures, we lean on the Spirit.

The Spirit's going to give us the right words at the right time to deal with our adversaries, and we need that. And he's very, very faithful to be with us in those moments, because we don't feel like we're able to, you know, come up with the right words at the right time.

But God's faithful, and he will do. I don't know, you guys probably have experienced that even, witnessing or maybe being attacked at some point for your faith. And sometimes it's okay to walk away. Sometimes you enter, or you answer a wrathful word with a gentle tone to quell, you know, quell the issue.

But I trust that the Spirit's going to give us wisdom in that time and.

In that hour. Hey, Drew, just on what you're talking about right now, I think this applies. It's Luke 21, verses 14 to 15. They said to him, do not worry about what you will speak, for the Lord will give you the wisdom at that time of what you should speak.

And your adversaries will not be able to resist or refute. And he's faith, he's within all of us.

The ministry that he has within us is just like the ministry Jesus had with his disciples. Now we see some other things that the Spirit does throughout the book of Acts and then the epistles as well, but in the book of Acts in particular.

So in Acts chapter 8, verse 9, the Spirit said to Philip, Philip who was a deacon and then became an evangelist, and the Lord used Philip in a mighty way. The Spirit said to Philip, go up and join this charity.

Philip had a tremendous ministry by the power of God in Samaria. He preached to a whole city, and the whole city was stirred up, and many came to know the Lord. And then the Spirit sent him into the desert all by himself.

And lo and behold, a chariot rolls by, and the Spirit says, go and join this chariot. Because the Ethiopian eunuch was there, and he was reading Isaiah 53 from the chariot, just by chance, you know, that he happened to be doing that while Philip was called to be with him.

But the point is, is there's going to be divine appointments in your life also where the Spirit says to you, go over there, talk to that person. You know, go here, go there. He wants to lead us, and he wants to speak to our hearts, and he wants to guide us into, you know, the ministry that he has for us.

He wants to, you know, to really be our guide and our shepherd, just the way we think of the Lord Jesus as being a good shepherd. The Holy Spirit wants to shepherd our lives. I'm going to read a couple more.

In Acts 13 too, it says, and while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul to the work to which I called Holy Spirit again leading in the church.

And then I'll read one more, Acts 16, 6 through 8. And they passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come to Mycenae, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.

And passing by Mycenae, they came down to Troy. So the Holy Spirit was guiding them and where they could go, because he knew where the gospel was going to be, you know, where he wanted the gospel to go.

And it's interesting, again, because this is one of those Trinitarian things, because first he's called the Holy Spirit, and then in the very next phrase he's called the Spirit of Jesus. So it's like, well, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God, Holy Spirit.

We often see those things in the scriptures equated with Jesus and equated with God. So if we're open to what the Lord has for us, he will reveal things to us by the Spirit. You know, we often want to know, you know, Lord, what do you want for my life?

I want to know what you want me to do. And I think we just need to see, you know, in these situations that we see the examples in the scriptures, that if we just have our heart and our mind and our eyes and our ears open to what he wants, that he wants to lead us.

He doesn't want us to be just wandering around. He wants to lead us. You know, it starts with the Word, starts with prayer, and a heart that is willing to be led. So, and you can be assured of this, that wherever the Lord leads, that's where the abundant life is going to be that he promised.

When we start taking, you know, taking the wheel ourselves, we're not too good at directions, and our wives can attest to that. So beyond his teaching and his guidance, let's talk about his comfort for a second.

The Comforting Ministry of the Spirit

Jesus is the great comforter, comforted his disciples many times. For instance, Peter was often very rambunctious, and he would jump into things, and he would fail at times. Jesus encouraged Peter in Luke chapter 22, verses 31 through 34.

This was where Satan wanted to sift him as wheat. And Jesus said, Peter, I've prayed for you, that your faith will not fail. Not that he wouldn't be sifted, because, you know, that's what we would all want.

I'd rather not do the sifting part, because that's the hard part. But Peter was sifted. You know, he had made many mistakes, and the Lord at times rebuked him, but the Lord was there and encouraged him.

And even when he denied the Lord after this, and a cop crowed, right, for the third time, one of the Gospels says that Jesus looked at him, and I'm sure it was not a look of contempt for condemning. It was, Peter, I love you, and I'm not, you know, I'm not abandoning, you're abandoning me right now, but I'm not going to abandon you.

And I'm sure there was a loving look that the Lord gave him. And of course, Peter was restored, as we know, and he was the one that the Lord said, you know, would, you know, that he would give the keys to the kingdom.

All the disciples, really, but we see Peter is a great leader after these things, even though he was the one that denied and failed the Lord so badly in so many ways. And if you feel that way today, feel like you denied the Lord, how do you, he wants to encourage you in that too, through his spirit and through his word.

Jesus isn't here right now physically to tell us these things, but that his spirit is, and his spirit does the same things that Jesus would do. And we see Jesus also praying for his men in John chapter 17, where he lifts up the high priestly prayer and prays for the men.

And we see in the epistles where it says in Romans that even in times we don't know how to pray, the spirit is interceding for us, going before the Father, you know, straightening out the things that we don't even understand, you know, always being our advocate, going before us.

The spirit through his word in 1st Peter says that we can cast our cares upon the Lord. Just the way Jesus said, you don't be anxious for anything. You see the birds, you know, they don't gather, they don't store in the barns, but yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

And in the same way, the spirit through the word of God in Philippians chapter 4 says, be anxious for nothing. It tells us not to be anxious, because the peace of God will be yours if you lift up these things in prayer to me.

And he also says, as I just said in 1st Peter 5 .13, cast our cares upon the Lord because he cares for us. So the spirit has the very same ministry that Jesus had, except now he dwells within us. He's not physically here, but spiritually he's speaking to our hearts all the time and wanting to minister to us, to teach us, to guide us, and to comfort us.

So we have him within us doing all these things. That's a lot of power, and it's a life that is the abundant life. We're going to get into now a section that I called Sanctification, Fruit, and Filling.

Sanctification, Fruit, and Filling

So fruit filling. It's getting close to Thanksgiving, we think of some pies maybe, I don't know. Sanctification, our brother Ivan has already tackled this issue, and now some of you weren't here for that, right?

But I'm going to put up some things that Ivan put up before, and we're going to ask ourselves some questions. Now we've talked a lot about the word of God tonight already. The Holy Spirit is using the word of God in our lives, and he's also ministering to our hearts, directly speaking to us.

And MacArthur says this in his book on biblical doctrine, he says, while not limited to the work of the Holy Spirit, meaning that the Lord uses other things to sanctify us, he says, sanctification is often directly associated with the Holy Spirit.

Because remember, in John 17, the Lord said, you know, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. So the word of God and the Holy Spirit are going to work together to bring about sanctification in our lives.

What is that? It's setting ourselves apart for God's glory. Being holy, being sanctified, means to be set apart for the Lord, and increasing in holiness unto him. He wants us, for his glory, to be sanctified in worship towards him, to service towards him, love towards him.

He wants to see our lives come closer to him every day, and his Spirit works these things in our lives. I'm not going to re-quote all of the verses that Ivan did. I might have some different ones in here, but what I'd like to show right now is a chart that's going to look very familiar to some of you.

It's going to look real familiar to Ivan, and I would have set this up ahead of time, but this thing always times out anyway. I'm sure the Holy Spirit prompted me to do that, and I maybe ignored his prompting.

That's not a good thing. So, I need my cable over here. Now, this isn't the full table that Ivan presented to us back in the day, but I picked my favorites from this table, and you'll see what I mean in a second here.

These cables never go the way you want them to go. Well, that one's extraordinarily thick. I know. That's a big one. Now he's got it. Now he's actually handling it. Okay, here we go. Oh, doesn't that look familiar there?

Yeah.

So, the table that Ivan had before, he told us there were many views on sanctification, and I picked the ones I like the best. Most of them are for the Reformed view, but I also have the Keswick view and the Augustinian Dispensational view.

So, let's talk about these phases of sanctification just for a second. So, the starting point of sanctification. You know, I'll let you guys read this. Ricky, could you read this first part?

Sanctification begins at conversation through saving faith.

So, the Lord starts his sanctification work at salvation, and there's many verses in the Bible that say you were sanctified, you have been sanctified, talking about the work of salvation, but then there's a continual process that happens in our lives conforming us to Jesus.

So, Rick, could you read this next one I have highlighted?

God renews us in his likeness conforming us to Christ, Romans 8 .29. It is a continual process whereby the Holy Spirit works in us, 2 Corinthians 3 .18. And that's the verse that talks about us.

Being changed from glory to glory as we behold him. So, now, man's responsibility. Mike, could.

You read that? Man is responsible to walk by the Spirit, continually depending on the Spirit's power. Using God's power, Christians should avoid sin, which grieves the indwelling Spirit. We must be willing to follow God's will and direction for our lives.

Believers today are to reflect the.

Holiness of God as an example of God's grace. And I'm taking these as, you know, these are pretty good definitions, so if anyone has any questions. But I'd like you to kind of look at how many times the Holy Spirit's name comes up here.

Ivan wasn't necessarily teaching us on the Holy Spirit when he talked about sanctification, but the active agent that God is using in our lives to conform us is the Spirit of God. So, Matt, could you read the next one?

Sure. Effects of sanctification.

The normal Christian being sanctified should have sustained victory over known sin. The old nature is not eradicated, but is counteracted by the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. Sanctification is both positional and experiential.

Man is still influenced by sin, but not necessarily under its control. Man has a new potential, the ability to choose right and to do it consistently.

So, I picked the Keswick one on that. I don't remember if Ivan remembers all the other ones, but that was the one I liked the best. Because there were some that basically said, and we'll talk about this in a second, that there was a, there's the potential of being perfected in the flesh.

I don't know if you guys have ever heard of that. Well, yeah, and yes, the Wesleyan view. Yeah, I didn't pick any from that from that view. But, yeah, there is a view that, and this one talks about that conflict between the old nature and the new nature, and that's like the Galatians thing where the flesh wars against the spirit, the spirit wars against the flesh.

But, by the power of the spirit, we do have victory in Jesus, and we have the ability to choose right and do it consistently. So, I like that definition. And, Dave, are you next? Yes. Okay, let's read this one.

By sanctification, the believer becomes.

More Christ-like. However, perfection is not attained in this life. The believer must continue.

To fight sin as long as he lives. So, that's the battle, and they're talking about the extent of sanctification as far as physical life. But, what about the final work? These two verses talk about the final work, and there's other ones as well.

Joey, could you read that verse?

Philippians 1 .6, For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. We're going to make it. We're going to make it because.

Of his work in our lives. And, Bob, could you read this one? Sure. First Thessalonians 3 .13, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints.

The work of the Spirit will be completed, and we are going to be holy and blameless before him. That is guaranteed. That's guaranteed to every single believer. So, we strive in this world. We want to be obedient to what he's called us and led us to do.

A person who is being sanctified by the Spirit should be walking in the Spirit, hand in hand, listening to him, obeying him, and be led of the Spirit, as Romans says. And, when a person yields their life to the Spirit, the Spirit produces something called fruit.

Now, I want you to think about fruit for a second. I am not a farmer, but I understand very simple things about farming. Jesus spoke of things like this often, in particular, in John 15, where he talked about the vine and the branches.

How does a grape grow on a branch? How is that grape produced? From a cluster. It is. I don't even understand how the cluster thing works, to be honest. The growth is amazing. Does that little twig on the end of the branch say, I think it is time for me to do something.

So, I am going to start sucking and pulling. I am going to drag the nutrients out of the branch, and then the branch will drag it out of the vine. I am going to make myself really juicy. Is that how the operation of the branch and the vine and grape works?

I don't think so, really. I think, basically, from what the Lord says, is if the branch abides in the vine and takes its nutrients and sustenance from the vine, the fruit will be produced automatically.

So, the command to the grape and the branch is not, you need to try to make yourself more holy. The command to the branch and the grape is you need to abide in the vine, because that is where the nutrients are.

That is where life is. I think we get that backwards sometimes. I haven't talked about this during sanctification. Who is doing the work of sanctification? Well, we have a responsibility, as it says back in the man's responsibility.

Our responsibility is to listen to the Spirit and obey His voice, but abiding in Him, abiding, you know, our thoughts being towards Jesus, our hearts, our minds, thinking about Jesus, wanting to be with Jesus, and opening up His Word, and coming to Him in prayer, and trying to be quiet before Him.

Being quiet before Him is a big deal, and we're not so good at that these days, right? There's always something going on. Probably everybody in this room has a phone in their pocket, right? Or in their hand.

I appreciate that I haven't heard a phone ring, though. I will say that. Oh, it's silent. It's still loaded, so that's good. But those things call for our attention, don't they? And it's hard to abide, and concentrate, and rest in Jesus while we're so distracted and busy.

Those kind of things happen. But if we do abide in Him, the kind of fruit that is produced, again, is from Ivan's presentation back in the day, and this is the fruit of the Spirit. What does the nice looking fruit?

And a lot of people say love is really the fruit, and then the rest of these things are attributes of love. We can look at it either way. That's fine. I like this forbearance in particular. The definition that Ivan had at the time was putting up with others.

I'll put up with it. Even when one is severely tired, though, that's interesting, because when we get worn down, and sometimes there's not a lot of Holy Spirit responding, when we get worn down, we kind of respond in the flesh a lot, as opposed to responding in the.

Spirit. So is that self-control forbearance? Self-control is last. It just dribbled on the.

Other page. And they have verses here of an example of God displaying this attribute. For some reason, they did not have self-control, but I'll tell you what. Let's think about the Lord for a second, Jesus, and some of the things that He did.

He said to Pilate, you know, I could call right down now how many legions of angels, and I could take care of this whole thing. And He obviously could have. I think the self-control, and it's a bad way to look at it, because I'm looking at it from a human perspective, but I also think of the temptation of Jesus, when Satan is kind of really ribbing Him, oh yeah, if you're the Son of God, why don't you turn these stones to bread?

You know, if it was me, what would you do to Satan? Because you have the power to do anything you want to do. But God was so under control, and He couldn't be poked and ribbed and cajoled into something that wasn't His will, or wasn't part of His character.

I wish we were more like that, right? You know, we have commands to be self-control, and abiding in the Lord, He wants to display that same kind of self-control in our lives. And I'll tell you, sometimes we have more control than we think, right?

Let's just take a fictitious example for a second. Let's say there's some yelling and arguing going on in your house. I don't want to get too into that, but let's say that's possible at my home, or your home, and a neighbor comes, knocks on the door.