The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit (Part 1) — J.B. Rowell

The words that are ever in my own mind and thinking are these, Jesus, stand among us in thy risen power, let this time of worship be a hallowed hour. And so we begin this message with a consciousness of our own dependence upon him, the one who alone can illumine this holy word and make it a blessing to all of our hearts.

The Power of the Holy Spirit for Christian Service

But ye shall receive power. Contemplate that what that means, that word power, dunamis, dynamite, effectiveness, ability, that is what we all need in these days. The Lord Jesus in his great commission said, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, go ye, I'll be with you.

And now sharing his infinite almighty power with the weakest of us, we can live in the enjoyment of the power he imparts. And that is in the ministry to which he is calling you. And then the scripture I gave you at the outset of the conference, and that is that ye should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

The Calling to Become Christ's Ambassadors

What a calling this is. There's no calling in all the world that can compare with this, to think that the infinite, the almighty God, is willing to put his hand upon a hell-deserving sinner, lift him out of the miry clays, set his feet upon the rock, and send him on out into the world to be his ambassador.

The Holy Spirit Guides Believers into Truth

Now we're turning to the scripture which is fathomlessly full, and that is in John 16 verse 13, where you read, Howbeit, when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all the truth. For he shall not speak from himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.

He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and show it unto you. In thinking of a scripture such as this, have you ever sat down in the privacy of your own room, by the table, and taken a piece of paper, and sought to put down on that paper what you have discovered in those two verses?

If you will do that, you will find that it will bring an abundant blessing to your own heart. The church of Jesus Christ needs all that is in this passage, and I need it, and you need it. Here we shall discover God's provision in revival ministries.

Revival as the Continuing Ministry of Christ

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the continuation of the ministry of Jesus Christ. And when you go out to the mission field, or wherever you minister, you are carrying on the great missionary work, as outlined for us in the Acts of the Holy Spirit, or the Acts of the Apostles.

It is the continuation of the great program that God has given to his church and people. What are three of the revival ministrations which are emphasized in the Word of God? If we would know revival in our own hearts, we must follow the plan that God has given us.

Three Conditions for Experiencing Revival

The first is a deepening of our own personal prayer life, and secondly, a deepening of our own love for the Word of God, and thirdly, a deeper yieldedness to the Holy Spirit. You allow that to become your purpose in life, and by the enabling grace of God the Holy Spirit, nothing will hold you back from a glorious success to the glory of our God.

Now, I can only hint this morning at the fullness you will find in the verses which I have presented to you. Yes, it is the continued ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord emphasized the Holy Spirit, and here is the emphasis before us.

The Holy Spirit convicting of sin, the Holy Spirit in regeneration, the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer, the Holy Spirit enlightening the believer. Now, supposing we address ourselves with a holy purpose to enter into the fullness of this ministry of the Holy Spirit, then joy and great gladness is going to be in our hearts.

The Personality of the Holy Spirit

Now, just now I am going to ask you to put down a number of outstanding thoughts which you find wrapped up in these two verses. The first is the personality of the Holy Spirit. When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come.

There are two words used there, pneuma echinus, and you will find there a grammatical construction which emphasizes the personality of God the Holy Spirit. When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come. Echinus used some 72 times in John's Gospel, the Gospel by John.

The Advent and Dispensation of the Holy Spirit

Secondly, you have here the advent of the Holy Spirit. When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come. You think of the two comings that are presented in the Word of God, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. When He came, according to the divine purpose and the divine program, in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son.

And now here before us, when the Spirit of Truth is come, this brings before our minds the three dispensations or the dispensations of the Holy Trinity. The dispensation of God the Father, the dispensation of God the Son, and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit.

The dispensation of the Father covers the entire Old Testament Scriptures. The dispensation of the Son takes in all the Gospels as you read them. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The dispensation of the Holy Spirit commences with the Acts of the Apostles and goes on right down to this very moment.

And we are living now in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, seeking by His matchless grace to carry on the great work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And so the advent of the Holy Spirit ought to mean much to each one of us.

Have we experienced, shall I say in a deeper and fuller way, the advent of the Holy Spirit into our lives? Is the Holy Spirit active in our lives, in our minds, in our program and everything that concerns us?

The Holy Spirit as the Vitality of Scripture

Well, I take you to the third truth in this Scripture, and that is the vitality of the Holy Spirit. You realize this, that God is the source of all truth. The Son is the embodiment of the truth, and the Holy Spirit is the vitality of truth.

The Bible would be nothing but words were it not for the power of God the Holy Spirit. It is possible for you to read the Bible and to find little or nothing in it, unless you come in utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit of God, to shed light upon the sacred page and to lead you into its wondrous depths, as He will by His own matchless grace.

It is possible for an unbeliever, in fact, to study the doctrines. You could have young people come to this school and study the doctrines given in the Word of God and the truths without having any personal understanding or appreciation or experience of the illumination of the Holy Spirit, of a soul set free through the truth.

Only the Holy Spirit of God can do this, and so we need the Holy Spirit as the vitality, the life-giving power to the Word. And we must go forward in all our ministry confident that the Holy Spirit of God can do the work.

We can only utter the Word. He can give the power. We could preach from now till doomsday and not reach a single soul. But if the Holy Spirit of God shall take the weakest word that flows from our lips, He can use that word to open the heart of the hardest-hearted sinner and bring that one to a knowledge of himself through Jesus Christ our Lord.

To me, this is a truth which ought to fill each of our hearts and lead us into a fuller recognition of our need of God the Holy Spirit. The fourth thought in this very same scripture, these two verses, is the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit Illuminates the Meaning of Scripture

He shall guide into all the truth. Yes, He is the guide, the Holy Spirit as the guide to show the road, to lead you from Genesis to the Revelation, cover to you the deep spiritual meaning of this scripture and another.

And only as He takes the Word and unfolds it to your heart, revealing the one glorious person who fills the book, and that person is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And just as a traveller needs a guide, so we need the guide.

Never let us go to the Word of God thinking that we have sufficient intelligence to discover its profound depths. We cannot do it. Intellectuality falls short altogether of discovering the Holy, the infinite purpose of God.

We need the Holy Spirit as the guide, the one who comes with His illumination into all the truth of the Bible. It was the Holy Spirit who led Peter to understand the mystery of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the one body, the Church.

It was the Holy Spirit who inspired Paul to give all that he gave regarding the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the Holy Spirit who discovered to John the glories of the future. And if you want to know the glories of that heavenly home, Emmanuel's land, go to the Revelation and there you will have discovered to your own heart that which will set your heart a longing for that glorious moment when we shall step into the glory land and see the Lord Jesus Christ face to face.

Oh, what a moment that is going to be! Does it ever inspire you at the very thought of being safely landed on yonder shores of bliss? Even though your work is hard, the way is difficult, you are born along with that glorious, precious anticipation of one day looking into the face of the one who died on cruel Calvary.

And one look into His face will be sufficient reward for all the toil of the road. Oh, young men and women, when you take your stand for Jesus Christ, you are taking your stand on the side of the one who was not only crucified upon the cross, who was buried for us, who rose again and is now in the glory interceding for us, but the one who is coming back to receive us unto Himself.

When we know that we are allied with Him in the tremendous work of making the Gospel known even to the uttermost parts of the earth, surely your heart should burn with the holy thanksgiving that God ever called you by His grace into the work to which He has commissioned you by His maxillus grace.

And so we find here the Holy Spirit in His illuminating grace and power, giving us, perhaps in a second, light upon a scripture we've never seen before. We marvel at it, and maybe we pride ourselves in our understanding of it, but you never would have understood it had He not given you the light upon that passage of scripture.

You've read a scripture a hundred times, you read it again, and suddenly new light is upon this verse or that verse, this word or that word. It is the Holy Spirit of God in His divine illumination, shedding light upon the sacred word of God and leading you to the understanding of His holy word.

The Holy Spirit as Executive of the Godhead

I come now to the fifth thought in these two verses, and that is the Holy Spirit as the executive of the Godhead. The executive of the Godhead. He shall not speak from Himself. That is, whatever He hears, as it were, in the depths of the Godhead, He shall bring it forth, He shall reveal it.

There is something remarkable in that word, He shall not speak from Himself. What does it mean? It means that the Holy Spirit never speaks and never ministers independent of God the Father or God the Son.

Even as the Lord Jesus Christ never ministered independent of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity are one in the unfolding of the divine plan and purpose regarding anyone here or any sinner in the wide world.

It took the wisdom of the infinite God, the Holy Trinity, to conceive the plan of redemption whereby a vile sinner could be accepted on holy grounds because of the great work of the great substitute who died for us upon the cross of shame.

Why? Sometimes you think of these tremendous truths and your own soul glows with a holy thanksgiving that God ever gave us this book, the word of God, and then has promised us this heavenly, this unfaltering guide, the guide of the Holy Spirit to lead us into its precious truths.

He shall not speak from Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak. You have this emphasized in different scriptures, for instance, 15 and 15, where it says, Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

And so the Lord Jesus was ministering in that way, as unfolding the mind and will and heart of the infinite God. There are other scriptures that bear out the same thought, too, as to the Holy Spirit in this great office work.

You will find them scattered through the Gospel according to John. Now we come to this thought, and that is the prophetic utterance of the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit in His prophetic utterance. This, too, is found in these same two verses.

The Prophetic Utterance of the Holy Spirit

So you see that the scripture is astonishingly full. You can never exhaust it. You let down your little bucket into this well of divine truth, and there's always a fullness comes up to satisfy your thirsty soul.

The Holy Spirit in His prophetic utterance, yes, He will guide you into all the truth. For whatsoever He shall speak, He shall... For whatsoever He shall... He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak.

And He will show you things to come. That's the thought. He will show you, He will unfold to you coming things. He is as well acquainted with the future as with the past. And whatever is in your life in tomorrow, the Holy Spirit knows your tomorrow.

And He is preparing you today for whatever your tomorrow and His purpose will mean for you. So the scripture emphasises this. He will show you things to come. The Holy Spirit in His prophetic utterance.

And so, it is this very thought and this very truth which guaranteed the inspiration of the scriptures, guaranteed the inspiration of the acts of the apostles and of the epistles. And when the writers wrote, they wrote because of this tremendous promise given concerning the Holy Spirit guiding into all the truth and unfolding the future also.

The Holy Spirit Glorifies Jesus Christ

Now I come to what I consider to be perhaps the most important thing in these two verses. And that is the office of the Holy Spirit. Where it says there, He shall glorify me. Now the Lord Jesus was almost about to leave this earthly scene.

But there is One to come who will carry on the great work. And what will He do? He will emphasise the glory of the One who has just passed from the earthly scene into the glory. The One who ascended on the day of the ascension is no longer with His church and people in person.

But the Holy Spirit of God is the One who will once again turn every eye upon the glorious Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. How I love to dwell upon this truth. He shall glorify me. He said the Holy Spirit shall make me glorious.

He shall make Calvary glorious. He shall make the resurrection glorious in the mind and understanding of men and women. He shall make all the tremendous truths of the Gospel, the truth of redemption, the truth of the precious blood of Christ.

He shall emphasise it and make it glorious. He shall glorify me. It's a tremendous thought for every one of us. For He shall receive of mine and show it unto you. And that means to you and to me. You do not need to walk in darkness with regard to this divine revelation.

You have a Teacher who will give divine illumination and He will lead you into the understanding of it. Cast aside all your preconceived ideas. Give up your conception that you know everything in the Bible already.

But go to the Bible under the tuition and guidance and leading of this divine Teacher, the Teacher, the third person of the glorious Trinity. And He has one ministry and that is the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He will make Calvary glorious. And so the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to centre the gaze on Jesus Christ.