September 16, 2020 Show with Geoff Thomas on “The Holy Spirit Is God”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 16th day of September 2020, and I'm so thrilled that once again we have one of my very favorite guests of all time, and one of my very favorite preachers and authors of all time,

Jeff Thomas, on for two days in a row here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, today,

September 16th, and tomorrow, Thursday, September 17th. Jeff Thomas, who, beginning in 1965, served for over 50 years before his retirement as pastor at Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, Wales, currently being pastored by his grandson, and today we are going to be addressing

The Holy Spirit is God, and tomorrow we're going to be addressing Asking for the

Holy Spirit, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for two days in a row here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jeff Thomas.

Thank you so much. It's my honor to be here and to imagine in my mind a number of friends scattered through the

USA and elsewhere to listening, and they're sitting in their homes, and they're thinking about the happy fellowship that we've known over many years, and like I asked you before the program started, you were in Carlisle at the

Baptist Church, and I've loved preaching there and seen it grow, I remember the new building when it went up, what a lovely building it was, and your past pastors,

I'm delighted to be with you today and tomorrow. Amen.

Well, I know that the congregation at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle surely misses you and eagerly looks forward to your return visits, if God has that in store for us, and I for one am especially looking forward to hearing you preach again and sharing fellowship with you face to face, if God has ordained that in the form of a

Bible conference or whatever the case may be, I do hope to see you again soon.

And why don't you tell our listeners who have not heard you on this program before, especially, about Alfred Place Baptist Church of Everest with Wales, where you pastored for over half a century and where your grandson now pastors.

Yeah. Well, I was saved in 1954, that was 11 years before I started that, and my mother was a godly woman and she had a tremendous, helpful, beautiful influence over me, it's grown in my appreciation as the years go by, and then

I went to university and heard Dr. Lloyd -Jones just a month before I started at university and he had his influence over my life, began to read the books by the men of Westminster Theological Seminary, and I marvelously went there for three years, to Philly, 61 to 64, and met one of your previous pastors,

Walt Chantry, we were buddies together, and then in 65 the church called me in Aberystwyth, and Aberystwyth is a small university town of 20 ,000 people,

Cardigan Bay on the Irish Sea, and I stayed there, then

I never had a serious call anywhere else and enjoyed happy years seeing the church reform and grow, and 45 men went into the ministry and the mission field during those 50 years, and then my dear grandson,

Rodri, he followed me and he's living in the manse

I lived in and he has three little boys, my great -grandsons, so God has been wonderfully good to me and so I've got no grounds to challenge or question him, my wife was called home with Alzheimer's and then

I married over two years ago then an old friend,

Barbara, and I live now in London and enjoy the conferences and the fraternals and the fellowship of my own church, and I'm trying to do some writing and we'll see what the future has, but I know that soon

I'll see his face and I give him my thanks and praise that goodness and mercy not only followed

David, it followed me all the days of my life, and all God's people say amen to that.

Amen, and if anybody would like to find out more about the

Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, Wales, you can go to their website alfredplacechurch .org

.uk, alfredplacechurch .org .uk.

Well, I'm so thrilled that you picked these two topics for today and tomorrow on the

Holy Spirit, because I think that the Holy Spirit is not only one of the most important persons in the scripture and of course co -equal and co -eternal with the

Father and the Son and the Godhead, but I think sadly is also one of the least understood or most misunderstood teachings in the scriptures, and I think that those that both distort who he is and his purpose, who make use of his name to the extreme on one end in the

Charismatic and Pentecostal circles, and those on the other extreme, those who barely mention him, both do him a disservice and both misunderstand him, and that is a tragedy.

But of course, not only do you have cults, such as the

Jehovah's Witnesses and others who deny the Trinity, who also deny that the

Holy Spirit is God or that he is a person of the Godhead. These cults typically don't believe there is a

Godhead, they just believe that there is God the Father and he is a lone

God, but you also have those that might be confessionally

Trinitarian and Trinitarian by profession, who speak of and act as if the

Holy Spirit is not a person of the Godhead and that he is not God himself. They might not consciously do this, but they very often treat him as if he is a power or force and not a person.

But if you could tell us where you'd like to begin on this magnificent and glorious doctrine of the

Holy Spirit is God. Well, I'm going to speak in two halves. Of course, I want to say, firstly, that he's a person, and then

I want to say, secondly, that he is God, and that's how we're going to spend this very fast time together.

I want to begin by referring to Acts 13, where the church in Antioch is meeting and they're ministering to the

Lord, we're told, and fasting. They're very serious about their religion. And then there's the voice, the

Holy Ghost speaks, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto

I have called them. They were all with absolute certainty persuaded that the

Holy Spirit was speaking to them. The extraordinary ministry of the greatest

Christian, the greatest preacher that the world has seen or ever will see, the

Apostle Paul. And he perforated the life of that meeting and spoke, and they were all silent,

I'm sure, to hear him say. It wasn't just that they had strong feelings or a heightened sense of the

Lord's presence, but they knew the Spirit had broken in and spoken and told them that they must obey him now in all the practical details of ordaining and commissioning and supporting

Barnabas and Saul to missionary service. That was the God omniscient, the omnipresent God, who is not silent.

And he, the Spirit said, set apart for me these two men, the

God who speaks. Now many people are ignorant about the person and work of the

Holy Spirit. There's much talk about him, of course, many claims that he is with this group and that group, but that has no more authority than the men and women who make the claims.

Our consciences are not bound by human claims, but we must know about the person and work of the

Spirit of God. That's absolutely essential, because without the gift of the

Holy Spirit, all the accomplishments of our Savior as a teacher, as a redeemer, and as a protecting shepherd king, they would not profit us.

They all come to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

And the climax of his ministry, then, is in the upper room where he talks about the coming of the

Spirit. In the Gospels, there's a flourish at the beginning when the

Spirit of God comes upon people in the temple, and when the baby is brought to the temple and people are filled with the

Spirit and they speak, there's hardly a reference to him until then, around the table, he speaks about the

Spirit who is going to come. Without him, we can do nothing,

Chris. We can't do any spiritual good without the Spirit. Every new

Christian becomes a believer through the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, and every

Christian who finishes the race and enters glory has been kept and prepared by the power of the

Spirit. Now, the only sin for which there's no forgiveness is one that's committed against the

Spirit, refusing to acknowledge the Spirit, pushing your fingers in your ears when the

Spirit is speaking to you, hardening your heart, keeping the Spirit out of your life.

And if you go on and go on doing that, men and women, then there's no forgiveness.

No forgiveness against that. So, let me say the first of these two things

I want to say to you tonight, that the Holy Spirit is a person, all right?

Um, not merely a background influence in the church, or a crowd riser like a band at a rock concert, or an agent of raw power like electricity, or a means of communication like the

World Wide Web. The Spirit may be all those heat, influence, power, communication, but before he's any of those things, he is a person, as much a divine person as the

Father, or as the Son. And, you know, as you've mentioned, the cults deny that, and they support their views.

They say, well, Acts 2, it says the Holy Spirit is poured out. Verse 18, shed abroad.

Verse 33, how can you pour out a person? You can't pour out a Prime Minister.

So, the Spirit is an influence. He's not a person, that's what they say.

But you see, don't you understand that the language of Acts 2 is a figure of speech?

Just as water can be poured down in a three -year cloudburst, the Holy Spirit came on believers on the day of Pentecost.

That's what Peter's talking about. He affected 120 disciples, filled them with himself.

He regenerated 3 ,000 unbelievers. It wasn't a drop on one person on a

Sunday night, as it often is with us, or on two. He came like the

Niagara Falls. He cascaded down upon the multitude. He shed himself abroad like a monsoon on Jerusalem, as Peter preached.

Sinners who were spiritually dry as old sticks and dusty stones were drenched by the

Spirit. He was poured out. He was shed abroad. This is the hermeneutic that affirms the personality of the

Spirit of God. So, we insist he's a person. He has intelligence, a will, understanding, affection, intentionality, individuality.

All the elements of personality are ascribed to him, found in him. He's not deficient in any moral quality, kindness, patience, gentleness, wisdom, joy, goodness.

He is life in himself, just as the Father and the Son of Life. He's a person.

So, well, now, where do you see it? Well, you see it, firstly, with the

Scriptures using personal pronouns in referring to the Holy Spirit.

Scripture doesn't say, of the Spirit, it. Never. It talks about energy, power.

The Spirit uses he, he. The Spirit refers to himself as a person.

Separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work wherein to I have called them.

Spirit of God uses personal pronouns, me and I. And Jesus refers to the

Spirit as a person. When the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the

Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me.

Now, the Spirit of Truth is actually in the neuter gender, but immediately he says the

Spirit of Truth. Jesus follows it by the word he. If John wanted us to believe that the

Spirit of God was impersonal and neuter, then that would have been the perfect place to do so.

John says he, and then you have great verses in John 16, in verses 13 and 14, with the pronouns he and him are used eight times each.

You know it, albeit when he, the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all truth.

He shall speak not of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.

He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall not receive.

He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. And no grammatical reason for those masculine pronouns.

Jesus does so. He gives the cults no excuse to deny the personality of the

Holy Spirit, the one of whom Jesus says, if I depart,

I'll send him to you. So, there are the personal pronouns.

And then there are personal traits to the Holy Spirit. He can be lied to.

The Apostle Peter says to Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the

Holy Ghost? You wouldn't say, I told a lie to the electric current, or to the water fountain, or to the food vending machine.

You deceive your wife, you deceive your parents, you deceive people.

And likewise then Paul tells the Ephesians, grieve not the Holy Spirit. You don't grieve an obstruction or a force.

Astronauts don't weep in shame because they've grieved the law of gravity. But you should weep if you've caused grief to someone who loves you, and whom you also love.

The scripture says the Holy Spirit is a person whom we may please or offend, obey and love or defy.

So, he has the traits of personality. And then he ascribes personal tasks to the

Spirit. He has the power of speech. He speaks to the leaders of the church in Antioch, 1

Timothy 4. Now the Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith.

And then the great refrain in Revelation 2 and 3, seven times, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the

Spirit says unto the churches. He speaks and he teaches.

He shall teach you all things. Well, impersonal powers can't teach us.

You can learn elementary lessons about hurricanes or microwave ovens or electricity, but they don't teach us all things.

Only a personal God can teach us all things. And then

Jesus tells his disciples not to worry when they put on trial and face accusations, for the

Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what you ought to say.

So, it's not mechanical. It's not like a telephone answering machine that repeats things on and on.

But here is the Spirit who sees, here are my children and they are being tried and they're on trial.

They're being badgered and pressured and threatened and I'm going to tell them how to respond.

I'm going to tell them what to say when they're interrogated. And then the Spirit intercedes and actually prays for us.

And he's praying for me now as I speak. And he's praying for all our listeners.

Chris, as he speaks, he helps our infirmities. We don't know what to pray for as we ought, but the

Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which can't be uttered.

So, we have a personal God in glory, the man Christ Jesus who is our great high priest and he makes intercession for us and we have a personal

God here with us on earth, the Holy Spirit. And he prays for us, not like a

Tibetan prayer wheel going round and round and round in the wind, but someone with a personality, someone who loves us, someone who cares, someone who's touched by us.

Christ is our advocate on high. He is our advocate within.

Oh, plead the truth and make reply to every argument of sin we sing. And then the scripture ascribes personal characteristics to the

Spirit. Jesus four times refers to the Spirit as the paraclete, the one called alongside.

A paraclete who gives assistance and oratory and eloquence in the law court.

When we're under pressure and our tongue tied and professional orators are demeaning us, then someone comes and he has the gift to speak alongside us.

That's the Holy Spirit. We have an advocate with the Father. We have the

Spirit and we have Jesus Christ. He is there for us.

A Christian may sometimes fear about his weakness in ministry and he'll be asked by the church to do something, teach

Sunday school, do diaconal work. And he'll say, ah, that's not my forte.

He feels inadequate, counseling. But my friends, the church doesn't think that or it wouldn't approach you.

The Holy Spirit is the forte of every Christian. We can do all things through a

Spirit who strengthens us. We must go where God places us.

We must do whatever tasks he gives us, for we would insult the

Holy Spirit who strengthens us when we came to the frontline of Christian service and said, no,

I can't do it. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

I remember once asking Professor John Murray, had he had experience of help from the

Holy Spirit? He told me in the early years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, how there was tension and division over the free offer of the

Gospel and how he was called upon to address the

General Assembly and how the Spirit of God he felt came upon him and was with him and with the congregation and with all the congregations and there was no split and the

OPC held together and the Holy Spirit led that faithful group of people at that time.

So the Holy Spirit is a person. He's not an influence or a quality or a force or a power or some emanation.

He is as much a person as Jesus. But like the angels and like the Father, the

Holy Spirit doesn't possess a body. He is Spirit. Spurl says he was planning to marry his wife

Vesta and then he got converted in 57. He was excited about telling her that he'd become a

Christian but she wasn't warm. She was unhappy and afraid and remained so for months.

Then one night she was persuaded to accompany him to a prayer meeting and Spurl had been praying for her much and there in the middle of the prayer meeting she felt her heart strangely warm and after the meeting was over she said to R .C.

now I know who the Holy Spirit is and like all those years before that time when she'd merely heard about the

Holy Spirit she now knew who the Spirit was. Her first response to the

Spirit who was giving her birth from above was that he as a person had been dealing with her and maybe this afternoon as you as you listen to me speaking about the person of the

Holy Spirit maybe you are realizing and sensing something of the

Spirit's purpose in getting you to switch on to iron sharpens iron and to listen to what

I have to say about what has been introduced to us as the most important person in heaven or earth.

God the Holy Spirit the personal God. Well we have to go to our first break right now and before we go to the break

I'm going to ask you a question from our listeners or from a listener

I should say and then you can answer it when we come back. We have an anonymous listener who says

I was wondering if the Apostles Creed is a faithful and biblical creed and I was wondering what exactly it means by the

Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. I've never understood that. Well if you answer that when we come back from our station break if anybody else wants to join us our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Always give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away we'll be right back with Jeff Thomas and our topic the

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In Psalm 139 verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the Lord like this,

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Thank you. Welcome back. This is

Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

Jeff Thomas, author, conference speaker, and former pastor before his retirement for over 50 years at Alford Place Baptist Church in Everest with Wales.

Today we are discussing part one of a discussion on the Holy Spirit that will conclude tomorrow.

Today is on the theme, The Holy Spirit is God. And if you have a question for Jeff, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And we do have an anonymous listener for some reason who wanted to be anonymous who asked if the

Apostles Creed is a biblical and reliable and trustworthy creed.

And also this person asked what it means by the

Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, which is in that creed, because this person doesn't know what that means.

That's a wonderful question. Thank you very much for asking it and for giving me a minute to think also during the station break.

Jesus was sent by his father, wasn't he? He had sent me, that's how he refers to him.

It doesn't mean menial subordination. When my wife says, oh, can you go down to the shop and get a pint of milk, she sent me.

Of course, I willingly do because I love her and it's my delight as someone who has a unique and special relationship to go on an errand for her.

So Jesus talked of himself being the

God -man being sent to be our savior. And then in the same way, we have the

Holy Spirit as being sent by the Father, John 14, 26.

And then Jesus in 15, 26 says, I will send the

Spirit to you. The Father sends him and the Spirit, and Jesus sends the

Spirit too. So there are things that are unique about the persons of the

Godhead. Only one is the Father, only one came and the Son and died on the cross and rose from the dead.

And the only one being sent by the Father and by the

Son is the Holy Spirit. Now that in the mid -fifth century, in 448, that was stated by the leader of the church,

Pope Leo I said it then, but it didn't enter the

Nicene Creed until 589. Now, you said that it's in the

Apostle's Creed. Well, actually, the only reference to the Holy Spirit is that I believe in the

Holy Spirit. That's with the praise in the Apostle's Creed referring to him.

It's the Nicene Creed that has the phrase that you've quoted, that the

Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the

Son. And it was controversial when a thousand years ago, 1054, there was a split between the

Orthodox churches, that is Russian Orthodox and Romanian Orthodox, the

Eastern Orthodox churches, the Orthodox church in Egypt and North Africa.

The Orthodox churches denied that the Holy Spirit came from the

Son. It was the phrase philioque. And philioque means from the

Son. And they said, he only comes from the Father. And so that split still exists a thousand years later between the two sacerdotalist, sacramentalist churches then, the

Roman Catholic Church and Protestants believe that because of such verses as John 15, 26,

I will send him. And aren't we glad that we pray, believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. And we ask we ask the Lord Jesus to save us.

And how does the Holy Spirit save us? How does the Holy Spirit bring that redemption of Christ and applies it to our heart?

Well, the Holy Spirit does that. Jesus sends the

Spirit of God into us and gives us a new birth, makes us a new creation, regenerates us, resurrects us, joins us to Jesus Christ by the

Holy Spirit. And so the Father has sent the Son to save us.

The Father has sent the Holy Spirit, pours out the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit comes then on the day of Pentecost.

Jesus has prayed that he'll come and he's poured out on us.

So we are acknowledging that we are the sale people of the

Triune God, of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit and all are absolutely essential for our new life in Jesus Christ.

So that's where the phrase comes from and I'm glad that you brought it up now because I wasn't going to refer to it.

Well, thank you Anonymous and keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and keep spreading the word about the program.

We have Harrison Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania who wants to know, when the

Bible refers to the Spirit of Christ, is it referring to the

Holy Spirit himself, a separate person other than Christ or is it something else the

Scriptures refer to? My, what a lovely, interesting question that is.

Oh, the Spirit of Christ, yes. So that in all the ontological, we call it, the buzzword characteristics of majesty, power and glory and creation and eternity, there is no distinction at all between the

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Spirit of God. They both equally are involved in creation.

And then in the moral qualities of holiness, justice, goodness, truth, mercy, kindness, love, all the

Spirit comes upon Christ without measure to begin his ministry at his baptism.

And so all the graces and virtues of the Holy Spirit are also there in the

Lord Jesus Christ. They have been eternally in him as the eternal

Word of God, but now he is added to the eternity of the

Son of God. He now has added the value of humanity, the dimension, the personality of manhood, and the

God -Man now is filled with the Holy Spirit.

So that there's a contribution that the

Spirit makes to the God -Man, enabling him to continue his ministry and preach and be strong in such weary pressures and all the perplexities and the antagonism of evil men to him and he is sustained by the

Holy Spirit. And then Jesus gives a dimension to the

Holy Spirit of the experience of manhood, of what it is to be tried at every point as we are, to bring into manhood the weariness and brokenness and the anguish and the darkness of Gethsemane.

And those things now are also known by the

Spirit in a way that the Spirit did not know them before the incarnation and the suffering and the sin bearing of the

Lord Jesus. Only the Son laid down his life for us and only the

Spirit is sent by the Son and by the Father to apply that redemption to us.

And so the Spirit of Christ then is a very rich phrase. It is speaking of the sensitivity of the

Holy Spirit to us favored sinners in whom he comes and produces his great work of sanctification, of making us

Christ -like. And he does that because the Spirit of Jesus Christ he possesses, he's enriched here now since the incarnation he's enriched and enriches us and makes us

Christ -like. And when we see Jesus we shall be like him.

The Spirit will perfect that work that he has become. Yeah, now that would be some of the things that I would spontaneously say and love to speak of my

Savior in these ways. We have Bebe in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania who wants to know, what is the baptism of the

Holy Spirit? Is this something that every truly regenerate brother and sister in Christ receives or is this only for the first century saints during the apostolic era who received a unique gift of the

Holy Spirit that gave them the ability to speak foreign languages and perform miracles?

Oh, that's a good question. It's a hot issue in some churches, isn't it?

And when Christians go off to college and meet people outside the sheltered nature of the

Reformed or evangelical churches and they meet then our Pentecostal brothers and yeah, then there's debate and there's discussion.

I think when baptism occurs in the New Testament it's always referring to the conception and the beginning of the work.

I think that if you trace the baptism then it refers to origin.

But if you have the plural form of it, if you have baptisms, then

I don't feel then that it is an abuse of the unique work of the

Spirit. To know that there are times when He who has come at the new birth, at regeneration and made us new people in Christ, made us new creations and all things new, then

He can come and He can bless us again. When there are special times in your life, when widowhood comes as it came into Chris's life and mine and we cared for our wives at that time and lost her who was everything to us, we were sustained and enabled by the ministry of the

Holy Spirit. By the spiritual, precious, sensitive, gentle, baptising work of the

Holy Spirit, filling us, strengthening us, helping us so that we could not have gone by without it.

And there are times when there are men who preach the word and they're elevated and lifted up and they are so conscious of the extraordinary power that there is present in that meeting, they can't understand it except the

Spirit of God has come upon them. And you have that in the ministry of some of the great men of God.

I heard some of the finest preaching. I remember as a boy hearing

Billy Graham preach in 1955 in Wembley Stadium to thousands of people and I felt there was a work of the

Spirit of God present there. When I heard Dr. Lloyd -Jones preach, I felt in the same way there was something then that was unworldly that wasn't due to the eloquence of man but was due to the

Spirit of God coming and blessing. So our relationship with God is a very dynamic and living relationship.

And God comes and touches us and speaks to us and ministers to us in different ways and at different times and helps us in suffering and in handling the great privileges of life so that we're not puffed up because of them.

So I'm okay to talk about baptisms of the Spirit, but I wouldn't use that phrase myself, but I would really talk about readings of the

Spirit in that way. Okay, we have to go to our midway break right now. It's a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show so they can air their own public service announcements to localize

Iron Trip and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida while we air our globally heard commercials.

So use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information as you can for as many of our advertisers as possible so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize our advertisers.

Keep in mind, folks, we depend upon our advertisers to exist. And so, therefore, if you want to keep them happy, if you want to keep them advertising because you want the show to continue to exist, please try to patronize them and at least contact them to thank them for sponsoring this program.

Also, use this time to write down questions for Jeff Thomas on the Holy Spirit and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

Iron Trip and Zion Radio depends upon the financial support of fine Christian organizations to remain on the air like the

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Every day at thousands of community centers, high schools, middle schools, juvenile institutions, coffee shops, and local hangouts,

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That's liyfc .org. As host of Iron Shop and Zion Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, this is

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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new, beautiful facilities in Coram, Long Island, New York.

I've had the privilege of opening God's Word from their youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my

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Holy Scriptures, and to be surrounded by truly loving and caring brothers and sisters in Christ.

I also want to congratulate Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram for their recent appointment of Pastor Rich Jensen's co -elder,

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, that you heard about them from James White on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And I know that my guest,

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Yes, what a dear brother. And he's been to Arboretum. So, my, not many

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because in doing so, you'll be supporting us. And you're not only doing them a favor and us a favor, you'll also be doing yourself a huge favor, because they do have the finest in Christian literature from the past and present.

And before we return to our discussion on The Holy Spirit is God with our guest today, Jeff Thomas, I just have some important announcements to make.

First of all, Jeff will be joining us again tomorrow, God willing, when he will be continuing his discussion on the

Holy Spirit. This time tomorrow, he'll be discussing asking for the Holy Spirit. Also, we have on Monday a first -time guest that I think will bless you.

His name is Mike Lindell, and you might know him first and foremost as the

MyPillow guy, the person from the commercials, especially on Fox News.

He is the owner of the MyPillow company, but he's also a born -again believer in Christ Jesus, and just like me, a former addict.

He was a crack addict. I was an addict of alcohol, or a drunkard, as the scriptures refer to it.

Mike is going to be on our show for the very first time on Monday to discuss his book,

What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO, and he'll be talking about his new life in Christ and other things about his life.

So I hope that you tune in on Monday. He will be preceded by Mike Gaydosh, who we just mentioned, of Solid Ground Christian Books, and we're also going to be discussing after that, during that same program,

Judas with an author on that subject. So I hope you tune in.

We have guests and topics every single day on this program lined up, so please tune in every day if at all possible.

Also, folks, if you love this show and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to www .IronTrumpinsIronRadio

.com, click support, then click, click to donate now. We are in urgent need of your donations.

We lost our two largest financial supporters in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic hysteria.

Their businesses, the businesses of these two supporters, were so negatively impacted financially, they had to withdraw further financial support for us until further notice.

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Iron Trumpins Iron Radio dot com, click support, then click click to donate now. Also, if you are not a member of a local bible -believing church and you need help finding one, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put

I need a church in the subject line. I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the planet earth, and I have helped people in all parts of the world in our audience find churches that they didn't even know existed, sometimes within just a couple of minutes drive from where they live.

So please, if you are in need of a church, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send a question to Jeff Thomas on the Holy Spirit is

God, uh, that is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Before I allow you to continue on with your own uninterrupted thoughts, uh, we do have just one more listener question

I'd like to read to you before we go to any other listeners. Uh, we have

RJ in White Plains, New York, who wants to know, should we deny brotherhood and sisterhood to those that are very confused about the

Trinity and cannot say they believe the Holy Spirit is a person of God of the

Godhead, yet they believe in the deity of Christ and of course the deity of the Father.

They believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, but they're so confused about the doctrine of the

Holy Spirit that they cannot yet identify themselves with good conscience as Trinitarians.

So, can we say that they are saved and can we call them brothers?

Obviously we don't have infallible knowledge of these things, but can we extend the arm of fellowship to them as brethren?

If you're saying can we call them to be our pastors, our preachers, can we send them forth as our evangelists and missionaries while they are denying or unclear about the deity of the

Holy Spirit, then I would say no. There's a line that's been crossed.

There are clear truths of revelation concerning the

Holy Spirit that he is a person and that he is God, and if you are denying that, then you are unable to be a preacher or a teacher in the

Church of Jesus Christ. If you are a baby Christian, you'll be muddled in a lot of your views.

You've come to find that Jesus is wonderful and that he's forgiven you your sins and that he's your

Savior and you're praying to him and you get those simple, glorious answers to prayer in those first months and years when you're a young Christian like that, and that's fine.

That's a cause of rejoicing. You're a novice. That's the phrase that the

New Testament uses, but if you are stubborn and defiant, then the older saints in the church talk to you and give you simple books to read and help you and explain things to you, and you say no to plain teaching in Scripture, then you have put yourself in a situation in which there is divisiveness and hostility to what we are told in Scripture is the breath of God.

The Spirit of God has said things, and our responsibility then is to take our questions to God, to Scripture, to the leadership of the church, and ask him to help, and if we are defiant in rejecting those things, then you are causing a depression and alienation and affecting the body of Christ in that way, and it's your responsibility to deal with it and to have a heart as a weaned child and to take the pure milk of the

Word of God and drink it and acknowledge with your lips as well as confessing in your heart that the

Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and these three are one

God. Well, thank you, B .B.

in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Please keep spreading the word about Iron Troupe and Zion Radio, and if you could now,

Jeff, before I take any more listener questions, I want you to have some time to further declare what you find most important about this glorious truth of the

Holy Spirit being God. Yeah, well, what a lovely theme it is.

In the history of the church, there have been only a few disputes about the deity of the

Holy Spirit. There have been significant debates about whether Christ was God, such controversies have been bursting forth over the centuries, but the church came to the conclusion in its confessions,

Jesus has all the attributes of God, all the names of God, all the prerogatives of God, Christ the

Son is as much God as the Father is God. The disputes about the divinity of the

Holy Spirit are unusual. They have occurred because there aren't four words in the

Bible saying the Spirit is God, but what you do have is the

Bible declaring the Spirit possesses all the divine attributes, and he exercises the sovereign authority of God, and the teaching is clear and it's unchallengeable, and so there hasn't been a lot of controversy over the

Spirit being God, being divine, except with the rise of the cults, and even the

Adventists, they maintain the doctrine of the

Trinity. They are erroneous in other of their teachings, but not their

Trinitarian. So, what are the arguments?

Well, firstly, the Holy Spirit is expressly called God. Acts 5, Peter speaking to Ammonitus, verses 3 and 4, why has

Satan fooled your heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

Where it remained, was it not your own? After it was sold, was it not in your own power?

Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You haven't lied unto men, but unto

God. Verse 3, Ammonitus had lied to the Holy Spirit. Verse 4,

Ammonitus had lied to God. Peter, who'd been raised as a

Jew, who confessed, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God, this deep hatred of idolatry he has.

He had spent three years in the presence of one he now knows as Lord and Christ, and now he identifies the

Spirit as God. And the Apostle Paul likewise grew up as a

Jew, and yet he calls Christians the temple of God. And why does he do this?

Because he says, 1 Corinthians 3, 16, the Spirit of God dwells in you, so you are the temple of God, so you glorify

God in your body. He says Christians are the temple of the living

God. 2 Corinthians 6, 16, he refers to the

Holy Spirit as the living God. Again in 1

Corinthians 12, he speaks of the three persons of the Godhead as the same

Spirit, the same Lord, the same God. Verses 4, 5, and 6, and the priority of persons, first the

Spirit, then the Lord, then the God. 1

Corinthians chapter 12. So he's expressly called God, the

Holy Spirit, in the New Testament. Secondly, the Holy Spirit is the author of Old Testament verses that were spoken by Jehovah the

Lord. So within the Old Testament you have the expression, God said, and you have the expression, the

Spirit said, and they are used interchangeably. The activity of God in revealing truth to the prophets, well that's acknowledged as also the activity of the

Holy Spirit. It's not a membrane, it's not an Indian leaf of paper that separates between the

Spirit and Jehovah God. And what is wonderfully fascinating in the

New Testament is that when the Apostle Paul quotes the words of the Lord, he tells us,

Holy Spirit was speaking these words, that's what he says,

Acts 28, 25. Paul speaks of the commission that Isaiah the prophet received in the temple.

Isaiah 6, 9 says, it's the Lord who spoke to the prophet and said, go and tell the people.

But when Paul quotes Isaiah in Acts, he says, well spake the

Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto our fathers. So what

Jehovah said was also what the Holy Spirit said, they are one. And we know from other passages in the

Old Testament that Jehovah spoke by the mouth of the prophets, yet when

Peter refers to these passages, he says, the holy man of old spoke by the

Holy Ghost. So when Jehovah spoke, the Holy Ghost was also speaking.

The two are one. Or again, thirdly, the Holy Spirit displays all the perfections of God.

All the perfections of divinity are the Holy Spirit's.

He is omniscient. He knows everything. And the glory of that is not his knowledge of creation.

But the Holy Spirit knows the infinite God himself. Nothing in God is unknown to the

Spirit. I'll never know God exhaustively, for all eternity

I'll have the mind of a creature, a human being, that however enlightened and cleansed of sin and glorified, it will still be a finite mind.

I will still be learning more and more and more about the greatness of God.

But the Holy Spirit, he searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.

For what man knoweth things of a man sayeth the spirit of man which is in him.

Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the

Spirit of God. No part of God is closed to the

Spirit. God has no secrets that he withholds from the Spirit. The Holy Spirit goes into the deep things of God.

He goes in and in and in and in and in and in and in and in and in and in and in.

So we ask, how can God be one and yet three persons? Well, he searches all things.

All the unspoken thoughts of God are known to the Spirit. The Father keeps no secrets from the

Son. He keeps no secrets from the Spirit. Jesus once said, all things are delivered unto me of my

Father. No man knoweth the Son but the Father neither knoweth any man the

Father save the Son. No one knows Father and Son except the

Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is omniscient because he knows God exhaustively.

All the things of God have been committed to the Spirit because he is

God. The Holy Spirit is also omnipresent in our lives.

We're two or three dollars together in his name. The Holy Spirit is there. Tierra del

Fuego, Alaska, China, Wales. He's in the heart of the atom. He's in the ocean depths.

He's in the Milky Way, the furthest recesses of outer space.

Oh, the Holy Spirit is there. Psalm 139, Whither shall

I go from thy Spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, I'll attend. If I make my bed in the grave, behold,

I'll attend. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the outermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall uphold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me.

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day, the darkness and the light, both alike to thee.

So, the Spirit is everywhere and wherever the Spirit is, God is.

There's no place rebel sinners can hide out of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

He is ubiquitous and such an attribute belongs to the being of God.

It isn't shared by any creatures Mary, the mother of Jesus, doesn't have an attribute like that.

The archangels, they can't be in more than one place at a time. Like the angels, we are finite, we are created, we are bound in space and time.

That is not the case for the Holy Spirit. He is omnipresent.

He is also a creator. To create is a divine attribute. Nobody can create anything out of nothing except God.

In King Lear he says, Nothing comes of nothing but the

Holy Spirit was active before the first day of creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was out form and void, darkness was upon the face of the deep and the

Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The Spirit of God has made me,

Job 33, the breath of the Almighty has given me life. This Spirit was the miraculous power that begat

God the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, the angel says, the power of the higher shall overshadow thee.

The Holy Spirit creates a life where there is none. How was

Jesus Christ raised from the dead? By the Spirit. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his

Spirit that dwells in you. The Spirit is also absolutely holy.

The properties of power and might are his, but so are the moral qualities.

They say to one another, holy, holy, holy. And the

Spirit is described as glorious in holiness. He has all the moral perfections of God.

So what the Spirit creates and sustains are all the fruit of righteousness, love, joy, peace, long -suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

The Spirit is like God, but of course he's not like God at all. He is God. And so all the perfections of God are his.

And then he displays the sovereignty of God. Salvation is of the

Lord. The wind blows where it listeth, thou hear'st the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.

So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. You can't say, can you hear wind on this hot day blow on my cheek?

The wind blows wherever it pleases, not as you direct. You can't say,

I will go and preach in a certain place and nine people will be converted. You can't say,

I'm going to talk to my erring daughter and convert her. Regeneration is not mine to perform.

It is the Spirit's grand prerogative, the sovereignty of the

Spirit. You see it in the relationship with God the Son. The Spirit formed the incarnate

Son in Mary's womb. Who but God could do that? The Spirit anointed Christ at his baptism for public ministry.

Who but God could anoint God the Son? The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness.

Who but a divine person had the right to take the mediator in the way he should go?

Do the sheep direct the shepherd, or do the shepherd direct the sheep?

Where does this authority come from? The sovereign Spirit, the

Spirit of God. So I've been saying to you, the Holy Spirit is a person and the

Holy Spirit is God. So when our Lord commissioned the church to all the world and make disciples of all nations, he said, baptize in the name singular of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Father is God, Son is

God, Spirit of God, one God. How unacceptable it would be to baptize in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Apostle Paul of the Father and the Virgin Mary. But the

Spirit is as much a person as the Father and the Son. He is all the divine attributes and prerogatives and perfections.

God is a triune God and you have been joined to the

Trinity. You've been united with the Holy Spirit. You are one with him.

What hope that you give us, what encouragement that you will face the future, that no burden is too heavy, no river too wide, no temptation too strong, no privilege too great if the

Holy Spirit is there with you. And so we are coming to a close and we remember what our services close with Sunday by Sunday, the grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the

Holy Ghost be with you all. They are equal in their love for you, equal in their power to redeem and sanctify you.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit that puts us in a right relationship with Father and Son.

They are co -essential, co -eternal, co -equal. I'm never alone.

I have three blessed persons of the one living God never leaving me and never forsaking me.

Praise God. Well, we're going to our final break right now and if anybody wants to join us with a question of your own, please do so now by sending in your email immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com When Iron Trump and Zion Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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This is Chris Arnzen and Jeff, we have a listener question.

We have, let's see, Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, can you recommend any books on the

Holy Spirit? Yes, well it so happens that I have written a book on the

Holy Spirit that's been published by the Reformation Heritage Books.

They have published it and it sells very well. I did a series of sermons, 20, and then

I made them all literally and so on. Yeah, and it's a paperback, a large paperback, and it's been translated into Spanish and sells well and lots of people have been helped by it.

Great, and if you go to CVBBS .com, which is a sponsor of the show, Cumberland Valley Bible Books Service, CVBBS .com,

and you ask them for Jeff Thomas's book on the Holy Spirit published by Reformation Heritage Books, if they don't have it, they'll order it for you.

What is the exact title? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, that's easy enough to remember.

And might I also add to that recommendation a book titled

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit by Benjamin B. Warfield with an introduction by Sinclair Ferguson.

This is a book that was actually not written by Benjamin Warfield. Mike Gadosh, who we mentioned before of Solid Ground Christian Books, compiled different writings of Benjamin Warfield on the person and work of the

Holy Spirit from different sources, all written by Warfield, and he combined them into a book, and excellent book.

Yes, I'm sorry? Yes, it's quite brilliant. It was his idea and he joined all these.

It's a really helpful book. Yes, and if you want to get that book, go to Solid -Ground -Books .com,

Solid -Ground -Books .com. Well, Jeff, I would like you to have about five minutes of uninterrupted time to conclude our program with those thoughts on the

Holy Spirit that you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today. Well, just to leave you with this, the perplexity that people have today, who are they?

Who am I? What's my purpose in life? What am

I? And the Christian answer, the Bible tells us that we are men and women who were made in the image of God, and you can know who you are when you know who

God is, and what God has shown himself most wonderfully in the incarnate

Son of God. But our God is a trained

God. Our God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and he was never lonely.

I'm sorry for the religions and then the others who say, oh,

God is only one, and deny that Jesus Christ is God or the Holy Spirit is God.

They are left with one lonely God, who ever and ever and ever from the very beginning, zillions of years ago, there was only him.

The Bible says in the beginning was the living God, there was a Father, there was a Son, there was the

Holy Spirit. And they love one another and minister to one another and share life and joy together.

And you and I are made in that image. We're not meant to be alone. It's not good for us to be alone.

And if COVID -19 now has done anything, it's brought loneliness upon some people, the children not allowed to see them, or they to see their children, they're apart, people can't go to visit them.

It's an enormous distressing state because that's not what we are in the world for.

It's not good that we are alone. And he's made us for himself.

And he's made us for one another. And he's made us so that we need one another.

And by one spirit, we're all baptized into a body. And we find fulfillment, and we find ourselves when we have found other men and women who are our brothers and sisters, a family of faith, a household of God.

And we are one with them, and we are loved by them, and we love them in return.

And we bear their burdens, they bear our burdens, and we minister, and we care, and we share together, and we find the fullness of life as we are in the body of Jesus Christ, his church, his people, the fellowship of the

Holy Spirit. And so that's what I want to leave with you. I want to leave with you, then, the possibility of you finding a gospel church, and of knowing something of the friendships and the blessings of being no longer alone, but part of this community of men and women of Christlikeness.

Amen. God bless you. Amen. Well, we do have time for two more questions, or at least, well, maybe just one.

Arnie from Perry County, Pennsylvania wants to know, what does it exactly mean when we say from the

Scriptures that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Right.

Well, it's talking of a very high view of how our bodies are made from the dust of the earth, and God breathed into that dust, and God made us in his likeness, so that when you look into your face as you're washing and shaving in the morning, and you see an exact reflection,

God looked at this man and this woman that he had made, and he saw himself, he saw his own likeness there in that man and that woman.

It's been marred by sin and bruised and broken by sin, but the

Holy Spirit comes and he does this wonderful repair work. He comes to transform and recreate us in the image of Almighty God and sets this hope before us that when we see

Jesus, we will be like him. We shall see him as he is. That's our hope.

So our bodies, then, the Holy Spirit indwells these bodies, and our bodies are the temple in which he has set up his home, and we're never separated from him, and we are to value our bodies.

And when you have got the temptation to self -harm, and you pick up the razor blade, and you look at your body, you say, the temple of the

Holy Spirit, the body of Christ, my father's dwelling place, and you check yourself, you bring biblical arguments to bear because your body is precious.

We don't believe that just John Brown's body lies molding in the grave, but his soul goes marching on.

We believe John Brown's body is going to be raised in the last day.

Petey Amen. Geoffrey There we are. There we are. Petey Amen.

Well, tune in tomorrow, folks, for a part two of our discussion on the Holy Spirit, and tomorrow, specifically, we will be discussing asking for the

Holy Spirit. Thank you so much, Geoff Thomas, for being our guest. Thank each and every one of you for listening and for writing in, and I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater