Apologetics Session 28 - Pneumatology - Part 2

I thank you that we can be together tonight as Christian brothers, and I just thank you for the things we've been able to learn and to share with each other and pray about.

There's certainly a lot of healthy things going around, certainly the

COVID affecting so many people, but also now with the cancers and I was just personally a little disappointed in a way in my own mind when

I talked to John this morning and he shared that things weren't going well, but he had a wonderful attitude and I just prayed that you would just heal him and that, you know, with his wife

Jerry doesn't always go along with some of the things in his faith.

I just pray that he can just be a wonderful example to her and to their family of what it's like, what it is to be a

Christian and to have your trust and faith in who you are and whether there's healing or not, but I just,

I personally pray for healing for him and I thank you that Ivan could be here tonight too, my goodness, and that's a real item of prayer and thanks to you for helping to turn that corner as you described it, and I pray that you would just strengthen him.

I thank you for those little notes that he sends out to us and reminders of who you are and what you've done and I just thank you for that inspirational little pieces that he sends out each week, at least lately, and I don't know,

I'm sure there's other people and thank you for Bob next to me who's describing the way you healed him and are taking care of him and I just pray that he would even get more complete healing from some of the illness that he seems to have and again, it's just great to be here.

We thank you that we can talk about you and learn more about you and thank you for Drew, his willingness to study and to bring back to us what he's learned from you and through the

Holy Spirit to teach us tonight. We thank you that you're here with us and we just look forward to what you have to tell us.

Does anyone have an extra pen? So who are the new people now?

Oh that's right, Ivan hasn't been here for a little while, right? Yeah, maybe we should just go around the room, right? Yeah, great.

Go ahead, Mike. Hi, I'm Mike. I've been here four Sundays now. Okay, great.

Terrific. I'm Jeff.

I'm Drew. I'm John, Dave, Rick, Bob, Brian, Ivan, Rich, Bill, Bob, Kevin, Harry, Matt, Ross, Rod Chandler, Tim, Chad, Bob and Bob.

Thank you very much. I think I'm going to give good news to somebody in the room right off the bat here.

We've kind of moved quickly through Christology and the first part of Pneumatology. I've been a little kind of chagrined about that because I felt like maybe you should take a class tonight, finish

Pneumatology, we're going to have a congregational meeting next Monday, and then Matt would jump into the

Creation Evolution classes. But we're going to give

Matt an extra week, I think, because I don't think there's a chance that I'm going to get through all of this tonight.

So Matt likes that. He likes an extra week because he's going to drop a volume on us,

I think, with the Creation Evolution arguments and information. So where we ended up with the

Holy Spirit in the last class was we talked about the person of the Holy Spirit, that He is a person, and we certainly talked about the fact that He is also

God. And that is very important to understand both of those things because, again, the heresies abound in those areas which think that He's a force or some kind of power that we can control, and we actually saw a video on that last week which was very upsetting and blasphemous to the

Lord. But He is God Almighty, and He has special ministry in our lives.

He has a special role in the Trinity. And we talked about, in the Old Testament, some of the ministries that He had and some of the things

He did. And we had gotten up to a point where we're going to start talking about His role in the

New Testament. So we are right there right now, and where we're going to start is basically at the

Gospels. So the ministry of the Holy Spirit we talked about in the Old Testament, and now we're going to be right at Gospel, Matthew chapter 1.

What do we see the Holy Spirit involved in first? Well, we're going to talk about, first,

His role in the life of Jesus Christ. What was the

Spirit's relationship with Jesus Christ? The Holy Spirit had a particularly intimate relationship with the

Lord Jesus, and His humanity was completely dependent upon the Spirit for the things

He did. Now that seems like an incredible statement to make, because we know

Jesus is also divine. He is God. And to think that Jesus was dependent upon the

Spirit kind of goes against some of the things we think about. But Jesus didn't exercise

His divine prerogatives as a man. He, as a man, was led and He was filled by the

Spirit. I'm going to read this from, I think it is, sometimes

I have my footholds lower, so I don't know who I quoted, but I believe this is from Paul Little. He says this, no,

I'm sorry, actually this is from Desiring God, so that's John Piper.

So many Christians assume that Christ was able to perform miracles because He was God, and it's certainly true that He is

God. However, if we argue, for example, that Christ's divine nature necessarily always acts through His human nature, thus enabling

Him to perform miracles, a serious problem emerges concerning the many texts that speak of the

Holy Spirit's role in the life of Jesus, meaning that everything we see Jesus doing, from the miracles to some of the things that He performed, casting out demons and so forth, that if it was always, well,

He just decided to do it because He was God, what we see in the life of Jesus is that He didn't do anything unless the

Father told Him to do so, and He's empowered by the Spirit to do so. So in the life of Jesus, let's see how the

Holy Spirit acted and enabled and empowered Jesus. So right off the bat, let's read, so I'll go,

I'll start with you, Mike, tonight. Let's read Luke chapter 1, verse 34 and 35.

And Pastor, could you read Mark chapter 1, verses 9 and 11?

So we're going to bounce right through Jesus's life and see the activity of the Holy Spirit within Jesus's life.

You'll be my coach. All right, so Luke 1, 34 and 35? Yes. All right,

Mary said to the angel, how will this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, the

Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called

Holy, the Son of God. So the Holy Spirit Himself is the one who impregnated

Mary with the seed of God, the seed that would be Jesus Christ.

Hard to explain how that happened in a physical sense and even in the spiritual sense, but the

Holy Spirit is the one who conceived Jesus Christ in the womb of Mary. So Pastor, what does your verse say?

This is Mark chapter 1. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the

Jordan. And when He came up out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens being torn open and the

Spirit descending on Him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son, with whom

I am well pleased. So we see the Spirit coming upon Jesus. And now what we're going to see is the

Spirit moving in His life at various times. Jim, if you could read

Luke chapter 4 verse 1. And John Morrow, could you read

John chapter 3 verse 34. And Jesus, full of the

Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. So He was full of the

Spirit after being tempted in the... Oh wait, say that again.

He was full of the Spirit after being baptized. And then He was led into the wilderness.

Yes, you got it. And so we see the Holy Spirit preparing Him, not only for ministry, but also this great temptation

He was about to face. John, how about John 3 verse 34. For he whom

God has sent speaks the words of God, He gives the Spirit without measure.

And that's the Spirit upon Jesus. There's other verses in Mark that talk about the

Spirit leading Him, driving Him into the wilderness even. And then

Botzelm, could you read us Luke chapter 4 verse 14.

Luke 4 verse 14. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and reports about Him spread throughout the countryside.

Okay, now that's after His temptation now. The Holy Spirit's upon Him still. And, you know,

I have to think about theologically, before His baptism, what was the role of the

Spirit in His life. I'm not sure about that. But we know that at His baptism,

Jesus was empowered and filled with the Spirit. And that continued to happen throughout His ministry. So let's look at some of the things

He did. Dave, could you read Matthew 12, 28. And Ricky, I'll give you one in a minute.

I'm going to read this one. You're going to go to Hebrews 9, 14.

But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

So He's testifying at that particular time when He's casting out demons. And they were claiming that He was casting out demons by the power of Satan.

He said, no, I'm doing this by the finger of God. And you need to understand that because the kingdom of God has come upon you.

And then in Acts 10, 38, I read this. It says, You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how

God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how

He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power. So as we see the ministry of Jesus, we see the

Holy Spirit continually empowering Him and acting within Him as a man.

And I think that's incredibly encouraging for us because it tells us that a man of a pure heart who yields his life to God's will and the power of the

Holy Spirit can accomplish incredible things. You know, can we face temptation?

You know, can we perform acts of mercy and love the way Jesus did? You know, we may not be called to perform miracles of healing and other things like that, but when we look at Jesus yielding His life to the

Spirit and seeing what the Spirit desired to do with His life, surrendering our lives to God's will is a very, very comfortable place to be because we know that God is going to have tremendous plans for our life.

And we're going to talk about what He does in our lives, the promises that He has made when we yield to Him coming up.

I don't think we're going to get that far today because there's a lot of nuts and bolts we have to cover here. But beyond the conception of Jesus and the empowering for ministry that the

Holy Spirit empowered Jesus with, He also was the one who offered

Jesus as an eternal sacrifice. Did I ask someone to read

Hebrew yet? Okay, Ricky, could you read Hebrews 9 .14? Sure. Hebrews 9 .14.

How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciousness from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living

God? Okay, it was the Spirit Himself who offered Jesus as a sacrifice.

Now, we had gone through these verses before, and the Father also offered Jesus, Jesus also offered Himself, so it was one of those

Trinitarian things that we saw. But His sacrifice, again, was orchestrated by the

Spirit of God. Then, Jesus didn't stay in the grave. We know that.

The great power that was displayed by His resurrection, again, God the

Father raising Him from the dead, Jesus saying He took up His own life again, He raised up His own life again, and then in Romans 8, or we don't have to go there,

I'll just mention this, Romans 1 .4 and Romans 8 .11 specifically says that the Spirit raised

Jesus from the dead. So, the Spirit was also involved in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then, there's an interesting verse here as Jesus, after His resurrection, and Bob, I guess.

Okay, could you turn to Acts chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, Bob? So, this is after Jesus' resurrection.

He's going to make some commands and statements to His apostles.

Acts 1, 1 and 2? Yeah. In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day

He was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen.

So, even then, after His resurrection, the Holy Spirit is commanding through Jesus instructions to the apostles.

So, the Holy Spirit and Jesus, they were acquainted from eternity past.

And, you know, we can't even imagine the oneness that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have. But His ministry in Jesus' life was incredibly intimate.

And He wants to have a relationship like that with us as well.

So, as we go through this, you know, it's not just nuts and bolts stuff. Like, oh, okay, this is what happened.

This is what the Holy Spirit does. He wants a relationship with us that is as intimate as He had with Jesus.

And we can have that relationship with Him, and we will get into that a lot more. Now, one of the questions we talked about last time was, and it might have actually been back in Christology, because we talked about the

Nicene Creed from 325, and then there was a correction. I wouldn't call it a correction.

I would call it an enhancement in 381 at Constantinople. And the change was that the

Spirit proceeded from the Father in 325.

That was the statement made in the Creed. But in 381, it says, the Spirit proceedeth from the

Father and the Son. So, when Jesus went to be with His Father, He said

He would send the Spirit. Let's read a couple of those verses. I'm going to skip over some, but I'd like to read a couple here.

Brian, could you read John chapter 14, verse 16? And Ivan, could you read

John chapter 14, verse 26? And Rich, you're going to be in John chapter 15, so could you get your fingers ready for that?

John 15, yes. I'm numerically challenged.

Hang on. 14, 16. And I will ask the

Father, and He will give you another helpeth?

Helper? Helper? Helper, sorry, my glasses. To be with you forever.

What was that reference? John 14, 16. So, Jesus is going to ask the

Father to send another. The Helper. Ivan, what's your verse out there?

Verse 26, it says, 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.

So, the Helper sent by the Father in the name of Jesus. And then, Rich, you're going to read John chapter 15, verse 26.

15, 26. In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say that you will ask the

Father on your behalf. Is that it?

No, 26. 15, 26. Was that 25?

15, 26. Do you have your spectacles back there? Sometimes those letters start shrinking.

Or sometimes I have a typo in my notes and I have the wrong verse written down. I don't have the right verse.

Okay, but when the 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. Okay, so who's sending the

Spirit in that verse, Richie? Who's sending the Spirit? The Father. I was hoping for another answer.

I'm sorry, wait a minute. When the Helper comes, whom I, Jesus, will send. Jesus is sending.

So, who's sending the Spirit? And then we say yes. Okay, so that was a good change in 381.

We like that change. Go ahead. Quick thing. I think, and I could be wrong about this, I think the and the son was added in 1054, the filioque.

And there was more Holy Spirit language at Constantinople in 381, but that particular phrase was added in 1054.

That's what caused the east -west split. Oh, okay. The filioque.

I'll have to look that up and make a correction here in my notes here. But they did add it, and that was the point of division between east and west.

Yeah, you would think that would be any kind of an easy one, but... Right. So the west was right on that.

Yeah, I'm glad we're in the west then. So listen, the

Spirit came, the Spirit was sent. You guys, a lot of you guys have been engaged at some point in your lives, right?

Probably just about everyone in the room is engaged. So, is there anything special that happens during an engagement?

There's some promises made, right? You're making a promise that you are going to be one with each other.

And the husband in particular usually gives a token of that promise, right?

Now, does anybody get an engagement ring from their fiancée in this room? Did anyone give an engagement ring?

Now, is that just... Dave, thanks a lot. That's good. Would everybody give an engagement ring to their...

Well, you have to think about it. It's like, why does the guy give the engagement ring? Well, I did. And not the girl.

Is that just tradition? What is the concept there? Where is that coming from?

And I'm going to plug my little thing in here. I don't know the customs in all cultures, but I believe there is something similar.

And my screen just went out because of this, but it should come back. Or maybe it won't.

There's nothing going on up there either. That's interesting. Oh, you're right.

That's probably the TV. Did the TV go off on me? Where's the thing? It's funny how that works.

I can see this. It's coming back on.

Sorry about that. I guess if I let it sit for too long, it goes dead on me. So, I need it here, though, too.

He's not giving it to me here. So, maybe somebody could read that because I can't see it right now.

Just that part? Just the part with the picture. Go ahead, Jim. In ancient

Jewish traditions, the bridegroom gave his betrothed bride a gift and a promise that he would come back for her.

As a church's bridegroom, Jesus did something similar for us on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is a seal marking us as belonging to him, and it is the down payment or pledge ensuring he'll come back and do all that he has promised.

I have the verses in here somewhere, but in Ephesians chapter 1, the

Holy Spirit is called the Holy Spirit of promise, that he is a pledge. I believe there's also verses about him being a

Corinthians. I figured it was chapter 1 and chapter 2.

But I'm going to have to gain control of my screen again because I've got to keep going here.

I'm not sure why my screen has died. Try closing it and opening it again.

Yeah, now I'm in trouble. Oh, I think

I just can power my computer off. I hate it when the computers do that.

Yeah, I wish I could say I had this memorized, but I had a tough time getting to this point because there's been so much going on lately with everything with the pandemic and just a lot of stuff.

But anyway, Jesus has gone away, and he sent his Spirit. The promise is he's going to come back for his bride, and as much as gentlemen we would like to say we will keep our words when we say that we're going to be one with our wives and be in union with her for the rest of our lives.

With man involved, it's a very difficult situation, but with the

Lord Jesus and his Spirit involved, this is going to happen, and he's going to come back for his bride.

And the Holy Spirit being within each one of us, and we're going to talk about his indwelling here in a second, he is coming back, and that pledge that we have is the

Spirit within us. We're going to be one with him forever, and we're looking forward to that, and it's not like he's left us alone either.

We're going to talk about that in a minute. So we know the Lord sent his

Spirit. What does his Spirit do now in the lives of men as his Spirit now is active in the

New Testament? Well, we're going to talk about unbelievers first because there is activity that the

Lord has with unbelievers. We know the verse in John 16 that says that he's going to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment.

We know that that comes upon unbelievers. We know that they know certain things are going on because the

Spirit of God's working within them, and sometimes you think, well, you know, an unbeliever doesn't have a ministry or a testimony of the

Holy Spirit because, you know, they're not a believer. They don't know the Spirit, but the Spirit is working in their hearts.

Let's read a couple verses beyond that one about convicting of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Let us read, well, let's just read

Acts 7 .51, and that will be, Kevin, could you read that for us? Turn to Acts 7 .51.

While Kevin's going there though, remember a minute ago when we said that Jesus was casting out demons by the finger of God, by the

Spirit of God in Matthew chapter 12, and the religious leaders accused him of casting out demons by the power of Satan.

And Jesus said to them, any blasphemy against the Son of Man would be forgiven, but not a blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit was testifying to them that this kingdom of God was right in their midst, right upon them, and that Jesus was doing these miracles by the power of God, but yet they resisted the

Holy Spirit, and they rejected and blasphemed the Holy Spirit in rejecting the authenticity of what

Jesus was doing. So they had the testimony of the Spirit as he was working. They didn't accept it, but they did have that testimony.

Kevin, what does Acts chapter 7 verse 51 say? It says, you stiff -necked people, uncircumcised in hearts and ears, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the

Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Unbelievers resisting the

Holy Spirit. This is the religious leaders again, who were going to stun Stephen in a few minutes, and now obviously rejected

Jesus Christ. But he also goes back, he talks about the Spirit working in the fathers, even back, because he went through the whole history of Israel.

He's talking about Moses and the things that were done back in the Old Testament.

He said the Holy Spirit was there testifying to you then too, but you're just like your father, stiff -necked, not accepting the testimony of the

Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is gracious in a sense that he gives a testimony in this world of God's power, and his authority, and his divine capabilities, and sin, and righteousness, and judgment, that all these things are coming.

And yet men can reject that testimony of the Spirit in their lives. Now, I'm not going to get into the sovereignty issue right now.

I'm just saying that the Spirit does testify to the hearts of the unbeliever. Now, Pastor just went through 2

Thessalonians, and let's read, Bob Bell, could you read 2

Thessalonians 2, 6, and 7? 2

Thessalonians 2, 6, and 7. Okay, hold on, and while I'm looking that up, you can write my name down as Bob Ball.

Oh, Bob Ball, oh my goodness, I think I have Bell somewhere squirreled away.

You can do it. Thank you for that. 2 Thessalonians, I'm sorry,

I've got small Bible, okay, 2, 6, and 7. 6 says, and now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.

For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who will now hold it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.

So, with the personal pronoun he there, and Pastor talked about this, that it's not just, some people think it's the church that's the influence of the church, and to some degree that's true, because the

Holy Spirit's acting through his church to be a preservative and a light in the world that we're living in, but he says that there's going to be a time when he who restraineth is going to be taken out of the way.

In a sense, the Holy Spirit is preserving this world right now. In God's great patience, he is allowing the disobedience of men to continue, because he's still calling people into his kingdom, but there's going to be a time when the

Holy Spirit's restraining force is going to be removed, and really at that point, all evil is going to be let loose on this world.

And it's not just the evil of men's hearts, like in the time of Noah, where when everyone's thoughts were evil continually, but it's also going to be demonic forces.

You know, God is still sovereign, and he's going to oversee his world, but he's going to allow the demonic forces at this point to have reign to some degree over this tribulation period that's going to come on this world.

And you know, when we read in the Old Testament, we read Michael the archangel, you know, making a stance against the demonic forces, and we read some of the angels and principalities, you know, basically doing battle behind the scenes in the spiritual realm, that God's restraining hand and the power of the

Spirit is going to be taken off, and at that point, this world is going to be turned over to those things.

So we can very much thank the Lord for his power and his restraining force right now, because the only thing that's preventing this world from totally falling apart is that restraining power that he's exercising, and we can be very, very thankful for that.

So that, you know, and that's common grace, that's grace that's given to everybody, because we deserve to be turned over, but the

Holy Spirit, by his grace, is restraining for a day of judgment. So there is a ministry to the unbeliever, and that's certainly part of it in the

Spirit. How about the believer? This is where it's going to get real long. How many things does the

Holy Spirit do in our lives? Oh my goodness. We're going to cover just a few of them tonight. And the order that they go in maybe isn't that important, because so many things happen to the believer at the moment of conversion.

We're going to talk about a lot of them, but the first one I want to talk about is illumination.

So the Holy Spirit provides illumination in a person's heart that they would understand

God's message. So let's turn... who's up next? Is this you, Bill?

Can you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 10 through 14?

I really would like, Bill, to read this whole thing, because it's a really vital section to understand the

Spirit's ministry in a heart that will be illumined by the Lord's Word. Keep going,

I forgot. To 14, Bill. For they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him?

But we have the mind of Christ. Amen. It's probably a familiar section, but who do we have to thank for an understanding of God's Word?

The Holy Spirit. A person who does not have the

Spirit, how do they view the Word of God? Foolishness.

It's just words on a page to them. It doesn't mean anything. And they can read the same thing that you and I would read, right?

They can read that Jesus was raised from the dead, and to some degree, intellectually, maybe even give an assent to that, say, yeah,

I kind of believe that. But it doesn't mean anything to them. And in many cases, they don't even understand what the

Scripture itself says. I'm going to quote something from John Calvin that he said about the

Holy Spirit. And I think this is R .C. Sproul's paraphrase of John Calvin. He said this, he said,

The Holy Spirit does not give the Christian new proofs in Scripture that are unavailable to anyone else, nor does he impart new arguments or knowledge about the

Scripture that is unavailable to the unregenerate person. But the

Spirit does enable the Christian to believe all the objective evidences we have discussed thus far.

And in the book I quoted from, he did have a lot of arguments. Non -believers can read the same

Bible, they can grapple with the same arguments, and still lack certainty.

The supernatural certainty that comes only by the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit is given to believers.

Those who do not believe, says the Bible, are at enmity with God. They are hostile to his law and would refuse the risen

Christ even if he were standing right before them. What the

Holy Spirit accomplishes then is a breaking down of the barriers in our mind and the hostility of our hearts, thereby enabling us to surrender to the truth of God's Word.

The Spirit does not move us to believe against the evidence, but surrender to the evidence that is there.

So that's what John Calvin said, and very accurate to the way the

Lord works in our lives, the Holy Spirit works in our lives, because all of us, at some point, we're there. Go ahead, Ivan.

Yeah, and that goes back to the old argument of subjective truth versus objective truth, which is something that,

Jeff, you have to go through every Thursday when he goes to Princeton and he's evangelizing, and people have their truth.

They have subjective truth, and they believe their own truth, what the Bible would say, but not the objective truth of what actually is happening to the

Holy Spirit. And that's a constant thing you have to break through with them, in terms of understanding the differences in there, and trying to get common ground, and having that conversation with them about that, because in their own mind, they believe their own truth, and what's going on.

And the unbeliever can read the exact same thing as it says that we read, and they come to a whole different just mindset of it, and sometimes it doesn't make any sense, sometimes it just doesn't mean that much.

Like when Jesus would say something like, you know, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and that penetrates our hearts, that penetrates us as believers, knowing that the

Lord, you know, has to care for us. Rich, did you want to say something? The Lord's got a word for them in Corinthians 1 .18,

where he says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but those who receive it as the power of God, it's folly to those who are perishing.

I've even had a couple guys say, it's just uninteresting. Yeah, like I'm just not interested, you know, even as you show those very words to them.

Oh yeah, and I don't remember if you guys remember the author, her name was Anne Rice. She was popular for a while because she had a lot of vampire books.

Yeah. You remember her? Yeah. And she was on Larry King Live, and Larry King was interviewing her, and for some reason,

Larry got into spiritual things with her, you know, maybe because of the darkness of her books. Yeah. But she said, well, one thing

I don't understand at all is why Christianity is so infatuated with this bloody, disgusting, human sacrifice issue that supposedly, you know, got, and she was disgusted by the idea of the cross and Jesus giving his life up for humanity, and to think like, well, have you read your books lately?

You know, just totally missing the boat on, you know, the beauty of what

God has accomplished, and the necessity of it, and yet not seeing her own folly in what she's created as, you know, monstrosities and, you know, really very vulgar things.

Blinded. Blinded. It's amazing, yeah, and you see things like that in the world, and I'll tell you one, it's just amazing because by grace, we're all sitting here by God's grace that he has allowed us to see these things, which means where is boasting?

There's nothing to boast of. Now, go ahead, Rod. Do you want to say something? Yeah, I think to more substantiate what you were saying is to look at what

Christ did, and the hundreds upon hundreds, we don't have to know how many miracles he did, but what stands out in my mind is everybody knew that Lazarus was dead before they, they knew he was dead, and when

Jesus Christ was dead, they went and told the Pharisees, and they, and the first thing they said, he's doing all these miracles.

We have to get rid of him. We have to kill him, and so even when Christ was doing the miracles, you still saw the same thing, and where you're standing on the eschatology,

I don't know, but if you stood the fact that there's going to be a thousand -year reign of Christ on this earth, and then

Satan's going to be loosed again, and you're going to find all the people who were born during that time are going to go against them, and go against Christ even when he's ruling from Jerusalem for a thousand years, so there's that thing in us that we are dead in our trespasses and sins.

We are born dead. That's right. We have to be born again. We have to have that second birth, and the emphasis of that is so important for me to deal with an unbeliever with compassion and love for that person because I know

I have to give them the gospel, and it's up to God to turn that. It's not up to Rod Chandler. Jesus gave everything he could, and they rejected him.

Bob, did you want to say something? Just to the contrary. I had the wonderful opportunity several times in my life to witness,

I call it Robert's road, not Roman's road, but several times

I've sensed when I give them the scripture to read. It's marked off, and we have a path to follow, but when witnessing to someone, and we've got a certain, they've got a little bit of hunger to know what it is about me or whatever.

There's a sense you can see the spirit slowly working into their spirit,

I guess, and it's such a wonderful warmth. It's a wonderful thing. They may not get saved at that point, but you know the spirit is talking to their heart when they read the scripture.

I think it's a very important point that they've got to be mechanically involved in the biblical witnessing.

It's very effective because you're saying the word of God to themselves, and a lot of people wouldn't be willing to pick it up, but you're right there showing it to them.

That's very good. Gently. Gently. Gentleness and reverence. Yeah, and we know the

Holy Spirit did that for us in all of our lives. At some point, we had to yield to his ministry in our hearts because I was totally in enmity with God, and I didn't understand his word at all.

I remember a girl I was dating when I was a teenager gave me a bible, and she was talking about the rapture and everything.

I was like, this is foolishness, right? The word of God is foolishness.

The story of the cross is foolishness to those who don't believe, and I was totally there, and it wasn't until the

Lord himself worked in my heart and other people witnessed to me, and that bible came alive, and I couldn't get enough of it at that point.

The Holy Spirit is the agent of illumination, and he is gracious when he calls someone from death into life, and that's pretty much the next point, is that there is a quickening of a person's life.

They are dead, and they are made alive by the Holy Spirit, by his power. Let's turn to, who's next up here?

Harry maybe? Harry, could you turn to Colossians 2 verse 13, and then

Matt, let's have you turn to John chapter 3.

And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling, can we keep going?

Just five is good, or just 13, I'm sorry. Okay, that's it. And we know that this regeneration is by the washing of the

Holy Spirit, as it says in Titus 3 .5, and then we're, Esther was just dead on Sunday morning.

It's John chapter 3. Can you read verses 3 through 8 there? Sure. So as Jesus answered him, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the

Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the

Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Born of the Spirit, made alive, born again.

There's a lot of other verses in the Scriptures that talk about us being born again, and sometimes it talks about being born of imperishable seed.

In 1 Peter, it talks about the Word of God being, so it's the Word of God, the

Spirit working with the Word of God to bring about faith in a person's life and to bring that new life that comes.

The new life is described in a few different ways. We know this verse, 2

Corinthians 5, 17. You can quote it if you want back there, Phil. I'd better leave you.

You can quote it, but I put you on the spot real fast. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. A new life has been given to us in Christ.

He's brought us to life. And as I said before, this new life is in accordance with His working, but also the working of the

Word of God within us, and it brings about saving faith. And then there's this man named

Jeff Clewer, who would like to explain to us how this kind of process works. So let's read that.

In his book, The Deep Things of God, which we quote often in this class, it says the act of regeneration is logically, if not chronologically, prior to faith.

So it is biblically prior to faith because 1 John 5 .1 puts it being born of God antecedent to believing.

So you're made alive, you're given the ability to believe. And in the same way, John puts being born of God antecedent to practicing righteousness.

You can't practice righteousness until you're born of God. And loving the brethren. Things which accompany salvation and are not the root of it, but the fruit.

So that's just a way to understand what happens, what's happening in a person's heart and a person's life when they come to know

Jesus. It's so much stuff happens like almost instantaneously really. And I want to bring up some very interesting things that happen upon conversions.

What happens when a person's converted to Jesus instantaneously, and how do we resolve that with some things we see in the book of Acts.

So I'm going to talk about the baptism of the Spirit in a second, but the chart

I'm going to put up here right now. Oh, I lost my cable. Here we go.

I'll let Jeff turn this on first. So then

I can keep my chart here, hopefully, and then have it come up there.

Okay. So in the book of Acts, we have the giving of the

Holy Spirit and several people, several different people groups are converted and we see almost a progression of the gospel going forth and spreading out through these areas.

So in the beginning of the book of Acts, we see in Jerusalem and Judea, Acts chapter 2, this is the day of Pentecost.

The people who were converted were Jews. At that time they were baptized and filled with the

Holy Spirit, and they immediately spoke in languages as to a sign to the Jews.

And we also have, you know, the flaming, something that looks like the flaming tongues on their heads.

What were they doing at the time? They were tearing together and they were waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. In Acts chapter 8, we see the

Holy Spirit coming upon people in Samaria. Now this situation was, this is where Philip, I believe, was preaching.

Philip was preaching in Samaria, and this is where we got into Simon the Sorcerer. And Philip is preaching, basically the whole town is receiving

Jesus at the time. Could you imagine that? Samaria just receiving the Lord, right? Philip was obedient to go and share, and the power of the

Spirit was on him. But they didn't receive the Spirit right away. They received the

Spirit later when the apostles laid their hands on them. So I was like, well, that's very interesting.

Well, isn't somebody who is God's child, don't they have the Spirit upon them?

Like, what's going on here? Well, then later we see in Caesarea, this is where Peter is coming, and Cornelius is involved here, coming to Cornelius' house.

Cornelius' house. Cornelia received the

Spirit too, but she wasn't in the book of Acts. So in that case, we see a whole household anticipating

Peter's coming. They are, God is working in their lives, and he's doing incredible things.

And Peter comes and preaches to them, all these people who are waiting in the house, Cornelius being the main person here.

And they believe the word of Peter, but the Holy Spirit didn't fall on them yet.

He says, as he was preaching, and after they believed it, then the Holy Spirit came upon them.

And this evidence of the Holy Spirit coming upon them was that they all spoke in tongues, and they were all amazed.

It's like, oh my gosh, what is going on? And then later in Ephesus, we see

Acts chapter 19, the disciples of John the Baptist, they also received the

Holy Spirits, they spoke in tongues and prophesied. Again, it was the laying on of the hands. So, and there was a sign given.

So, well, doesn't the Bible say that if someone does not have the

Spirit of Christ within them, and the Holy Spirit within them, that they are not His? What is going on here that they had to receive the

Holy Spirit through these physical acts, or through this manifestation and a sign?

What was going on? Well, John MacArthur gives us a little bit of a snippet here.

He says, well, if we're going to apply the application of standard biblical interpretation, it leads us to believe that the experiences outlined in Acts were exceptions to the norm, given in order to historically validate and illustrate the spread of the gospel during a period of transition from God -fearing

Judaism to New Covenant Christianity. And these recordings in the book of Acts, and it's funny,

Pastor, because when we first came to the church, my wife and I first came to the church, and you and John visited our house, somehow we got into this.

And I was thinking like, well, he's going to throw us in. But what we were talking about, this is very interesting, but I think what the

Lord has done here is in bringing people together in the gospel, there had to be a testimony, especially to the

Jews, that these people were receiving the same gift of God that you did. And there were miracles, and there were signs that accompanied all these things, not just to testify to the world around them, but also to testify to the

Jews that these people were incorporated now into a union that was a mystery beforehand, but now all are going to be one in this great body of believers who are believing in Jesus Christ.

So it's a very interesting time in the book of Acts, and I don't know if you have anything more you want to say.

Yeah, just a couple things. One, this is following the thesis statement of Acts, chapter 1, verse 8, that the witness would go from Jerusalem, Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

So that's a confirmation that this has happened. And the sign in Acts 8, 14, it doesn't say they spoke in tongues, but it was ostensible to the point where they knew it hadn't happened.

And then when it did happen, they all said, you know, even Simon wanted to buy the gift. So it probably was speaking in tongues.

It's implied, but it's just not recorded, but we don't know what it was, but it was either speaking in tongues or prophesying or something like that.

But it was clearly a token to show that just as what happened in Acts 2 for the

Jews in Jerusalem is now happening for the Samaritans and then for the Gentiles as well, to show that they're all part of the same church.

So when we say it's not the norm in particular, that when the

Holy Spirit comes upon a person now in the New Testament time period, and there's not this necessarily what we're saying further, it's traveling from one people group to the next people group to the next.

There's not necessarily a need for an external sign for a person to exhibit like something miraculous that something is happening.

But something very miraculous has happened to a person who receives the Spirit. They have turned from death to life and their life is brand new.

As we said, they have a new life within them. But these particular signs accompany the book of Acts.

So I think just kind of understanding that helps us sometimes read through the book of Acts because some people have set up whole religions on one particular experience they'll see in the scriptures and they won't cross it over with what

Jesus said and then what the epistles taught later, but they'll make a whole church out of it. You can make a church of the foot washers, for instance.

Jesus washed the disciples' feet in John and he said, well, you must do the same. It was like, well, how come we don't have a church of foot washers?

Well, some people do, but we don't see that practice necessarily later on or commanded in the epistles or the book of Acts.

So good biblical hermeneutics, I haven't taught hermeneutics before, is if you see it taught by Jesus in the gospels, you see it practiced by the apostles in the book of Acts, and you see it expounded upon in the epistles, you can be pretty sure that that's something that we should be exercising as a church and a believer in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, and Drew, the clincher on that point is that when you get to the epistles in 1

Corinthians 12 -13, we're told that all of us drink from that spirit. So all of us who are baptized into the body.

Yes. And, you know, we're at eight o 'clock now, a little after eight. I think

I'm hoping we can... See, here's what we have left. We have the baptism still.

We just kind of talked about the baptism of the spirit, but we still need to talk about that, the indwelling of the spirit, the sealing of the spirit upon our lives.

And then after that, we're talking about his teaching, his comfort in our lives, his guidance.

And then after that, we need to talk about what it means to bear the fruit of the spirit, be filled with the spirit.

And I'm going to pass on spiritual gifts because he gives spiritual gifts, but I think we're going to lump that into ecclesiology.

And we're going to say, okay, those spiritual gifts were given for the application of the church. Well, that's the way we're going to try to tackle this.

I mean, I don't want to rush through the baptism and the sealing right now or the indwelling.

I mean, we could just read verses about that, but all these things are given to us so almost instantaneously.

It's incredible. I think I have a list somewhere in the back of some discipleship notes

I took along. It's like 52 things that happen to a believer at the instant of salvation or instantaneous of salvation.

It's like, really? It's like, wow, what a powerful change in a person's life.

And really we should, when all of these things happen to us, we're changed.

We're changed people. Our minds are changed. Our hearts are changed. The things we love change, the things we desire change.

It's all new in Jesus. So, praise

God for his work because it's not of us, it's of him. So, any other questions or thoughts about the

Spirit's work? That quote from R .C. Sprouls, you said, which was the norm? Was he saying speaking in tongues was a norm or vice versa?

Speaking in tongues was a special event, special occasions. Okay, so, carrying that forward, you're saying in the

New Testament it's not the norm and you shouldn't speak in tongues? No. What it's saying is it does not have to accompany salvation, that it's not a necessary event for someone to speak in tongues at the point of salvation.

That's one clarion. Because there's a lot of teachings on that too. It's like, well, if you don't speak in tongues, you're not saved.

That's a heretical statement. But, to forbid speaking in tongues is also told not to do that either.

So, we'll probably get into that with spiritual gifts though.

I don't think we're going to tackle that next time in this, but we'll tackle that at some point. And to piggyback on what

Jim was saying, there's a tendency for man, and this is the battle that we have spiritually, is to make things formulaic, which there's nothing formulaic about the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit and what happens with regeneration. Every person, it's different, but somewhat the same, you know, whatever else like that.

And the other piece of it, and we have to fight that, is that it's not based on works. Because there's a tendency to talk, when you get to the formulaic part, it all of a sudden works, becomes a little more important than what is happening with grace and what's happening with our faith.

And we have to be very, very mindful of that, even myself, that there's a point of the fruit of the

Spirit and the fruits of things that are signs of our own faith. But that's not going to be the driver of it.

Our faith is, and our grace is that. And I think that gets into all of our stories with him,

Ivan, because I think some people, you know, their testimony isn't necessarily that they had this, like, road to Damascus, like, incredible, you know, miraculous conversion like Paul had, where this, you know, this light shines at him and the

Word speaks to him directly. Some of this, it might be this, you know, the sound of a small still voice and a, you know, a gentle leading.

And it may happen, you know, we know that you go from death to life instantaneously, but the story that a person may recount may be, you know, kind of more of a, well,

I came to Jesus, you know, at some point during my childhood because I know I believed. And they can't put a date on it.

They can't put, like, I know this is exactly how it happened, when it happened, but the

Word's going to work differently in different people's lives at different times. So that's not, like, something you have to be necessarily concerned about, but know today that, you know, if you are his child, you have his

Spirit, and he's working within you. So, you know, that's true of all of us who have the

Spirit. Anything else that anyone wants to say about it? When it says we're new creatures in Christ, 2

Corinthians 5 17, the word new is kynos, which means completely new in kind, quality, and nature.

You're a completely new creature, none of the old. I mean, the sin nature, you know, we still struggle with, but we are completely transformed.

Yeah, we have something we didn't have before. That's for sure. So, does anyone like to close in prayer tonight?

Hey, Rod, could I ask you to close your thing? Amen. Our Father, we are so grateful to be hearing your

Word and to have evidence in our hearts tonight that our bodies are the temple of the

Holy Spirit, because we become encouraged, uplifted, and challenged in our hearts, knowing that we are the bride of Christ.

Thank you for those words of tremendous encouragement and challenge, Beth. I want to thank you for all my brothers here, and I want to pray,

Father, that your Spirit Himself who is in us will open our hearts and minds to what you would have us do, to the gifts that you gave us in each of us, to the

Word that you have that you want us to apply, and to the fruit of the Spirit that it may be evidence of our lives to others who don't know you, but can see the fruit of the

Spirit, and by that bring glory to your name, Lord. Thank you for this time. Thank you for my brother,

Drew, who's teaching this, and I want to thank you for all my brothers here who are participating and sharing their thoughts, because they want to glorify you, and they love you,

Lord. Thank you for that. Thank you. Together as a family, as brothers in Christ, we are a family, and we thank you for that, you alone,

Lord. So, we give you all the credit, all the thanks through your Son, Jesus Christ. We praise your name.