Apologetics Session 27 - Pneumatology - Part 1

Lord God, I thank you for this day and I thank you for these brothers in this church, God. I thank you for Drew's preparation.

I just ask that you would be with us today, God, that you would speak through the teaching,

God, that we would hear from your word and our hearts would be illuminated as a result for it.

Thank you so much that Jack and Jacob safely weathered the storm that hit

Florida and were able to make it safely up here to spend time with us, God. And thank you so much that Ivan is doing well,

Lord. We miss him. We're glad that he's recovering and hope that he makes a full and complete recovery.

I just ask that you bless this time tonight, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. So tonight, guys, we're looking at pneumatology.

You're happy about that, right? So, pneumatology is what? Studying the

Holy Spirit. Studying the Holy Spirit, you got it. And, you know, it's such a joy to study any of the attributes of God, God's nature.

And certainly the study of the Holy Spirit is going to be very exciting. But boy, are there a lot of runoffs and side shoots and strange doctrines out there about the

Holy Spirit. We've talked a lot about Jesus and how many erroneous ideas about Jesus Christ there are, and there are plenty.

I would say there are many, many more regarding the Holy Spirit and His activity, His nature,

His ministry. So I'm very excited to be able to go through this with you. This link right here, this is the reason

I brought up the screen. There's a couple things I want to show tonight. This link right here, I'm a Calvary guy, and I've talked to the pastor about Calvary before,

Calvary chapel and whatnot. So this is a series that Joe Foch did at his church.

And I don't agree with everything that he says, but I think this is a very good series. It's a long series on the

Holy Spirit, and I think it's very good if anyone would want to go through that, searching for the

Holy Spirit of God, the person of the Holy Spirit, fruit of the Spirit. All of these are wonderful topics, and I did go through just about all of these in preparation for this.

So just so you know, some links like that show up in a lot of our lessons. If you haven't looked at the links we've sent out in some of the emails.

And the Holy Spirit is the person of the

Trinity, and I kind of tipped my hand already, is the person of the Trinity, who is most intimately acquainted with us on a daily basis.

He's the one that ministers in us and through us, and he's the one that reveals things to us. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but it's very, very important that we understand his ministry in our lives.

So now that I've tipped my hand, let's tackle this question. The nature of the Holy Spirit. Is the Holy Spirit a force or a person?

It depends on if you're in the Star Wars universe or not. Oh, that's right. That's right. Star Wars. Force be with you, right?

It's all over. It permeates everything, and you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Well, a lot of people think the

Holy Spirit is a power, a force, or an influence. And if we do view the

Holy Spirit as this, a lot of people believe that somehow we can learn to control and gain an ability to manipulate the

Spirit and do what we want, even to perform miracles. That we would be the ones that would control the

Spirit. Well, how does all this come about? There's a quote here from Paul Little.

It says, There are many names and symbols in the Bible that suggest the Holy Spirit is not a personal being. Both the

Hebrew and Greek word translated spirit means literally breath or wind. The Greek word in the

New Testament is neuter gender, and that's why King James translates in the

Book of Romans the Spirit itself. It doesn't say the Spirit himself, it says the Spirit itself, because it's a neuter gender word.

Later versions you'll see translated himself, the NASB, the MKJV. So different versions have that.

But they were trying to be literal in a sense of following the gender. And then there's other things that might, on the surface, confuse us and make us look like the

Holy Spirit might not be a person. Because when we look at the Scriptures, we see sometimes the

Holy Spirit being equated with things like fire, or oil, or water, which is all inanimate objects.

And wind, as Pastor just went through John chapter 3, as the wind blows where it wishes. Well, with the eschatology, it was the seven flames in John.

Yeah, the seven spirits. There were seven flames. So a person who skims the

Scripture might think the Holy Spirit is simply an influence or a force. And certainly a lot of people do.

But remember, there's also equatable words with the Father and the

Son as well, that are also inanimate objects. Jesus calls himself the door. Jesus calls himself the light.

Jesus calls himself bread. All of those things are to bring about a revelation in our minds about the character of Jesus Christ.

And it's about him illuminating the world as the light of the world. So it's not unseen in the

Scriptures that inanimate objects are shown to give us a better picture or a metaphor so we can understand better who

Jesus is or who the Spirit is. But when we take a closer look at the Scriptures, let's see how the

Holy Spirit is described by some of the things that he does and some of the attributes that are given to him.

So I'm not going to turn to all of these. We'll turn to some of them. But in Acts chapter 5 -3, we know that that is the area of Scripture where Ananias and Sapphira bring an offering to the church.

And they present the offering as they're giving it all, but yet Peter knows that they're not giving it all.

And they say, why have you lied to the Holy Spirit? Well, if you can be lied to, if you can be attempted to be deceived or misrepresented, you can't do that to a force.

You have to have somebody that has personal knowledge, personal understanding in order to lie to someone.

That has to be someone that has a personal being. We know from Ephesians 4 -30 that the

Holy Spirit can be grieved. And that's incredible in itself to think that we would have the ability to grieve the

Spirit of God. But obviously, a force cannot be grieved.

Only a person can be grieved at heart, really, because that person has an intellect, a will, a heart.

And they had an expectation, and that expectation wasn't met. And they're disappointed.

Well, a force or an influence, a power, can't have disappointment.

So that's another area that we look to. In the book of Acts, we have the deacon,

Philip. I can't remember if it's a disciple, deacon, or apostle at that point.

I think it's one of the deacons. He first has a tremendous ministry in Samaria.

And the whole town repents, comes to know the Lord. And then he goes into the desert.

And it says the Holy Spirit then speaks to him personally to go and talk to an

Ethiopian eunuch who happened to be traveling through the desert at the time. It's like the

Spirit speaks. He has influence. He's able to communicate. Well, again, that's not a force or a power.

That's someone with a will and the ability to communicate. So the Spirit does that to those who he'd like to speak to.

In Genesis, it says that the Spirit of God will not always strive with men. So I heard about that the other day, that there's a time when, as the

Lord continues to work in people's lives through the Spirit, that there's going to be one time, there's going to be a time coming when the

Spirit, and we've talked about this before, is taken out of the way. And he's not going to strive with men anymore to have them repent or to come to know him.

He's going to turn this world over to wickedness and the evil one, in particular the

Antichrist. But for now, he strives with men. The Holy Spirit helps and makes intercession.

Let's read these verses. So, Matt, you're going to be first. Sure. So let's read,

I guess, just Romans 8 -26, but there's a little bit of context around that. So if you see a few more verses that you might...

Yeah. Check that out and see if you might want to read a little bit before or after that.

I'll look back. Not the whole chapter. It's a great chapter, but not the whole chapter. Romans 8 -26, and Jack, we'll have you read 1

Corinthians 2 -10 -11. So it says,

I'll start at 23, And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the

Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved, now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. And now verse 26,

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought.

But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Let me keep going a little bit. No, that's okay. And we know quite the verses after that. They talk about, you know,

God working all things together for good, and then we have the golden chain of salvation. But just that the

Spirit is monitoring our lives. He is watching over, and the verses that Matt just read, it says the

Spirit himself. That was the verse we talked about before. So you don't have a

King James, obviously. I use the ESV. He's got ESV. Okay, that's very good. So the

Spirit himself intercedes for us. He's watching over us. He wants our lives to flourish, and he interprets what we're going through, and he brings it before the

Father on our behalf. That's not a personal, that's not a force.

That's a personal being who's caring for those under his charge. Jack, could you read?

I have 1 Corinthians 2, 10, 11. I'm not sure if that's enough either, but you kind of get the gist of that.

So let's read that. But to us God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

For who among men knows the depths of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so the depths of God no one knows except the spirit of God.

Okay, so the Spirit searches all things, and the Spirit knows the depths of God.

So there's knowledge that is stored in his being. He understands. He knows.

And we didn't read the part about where it has not entered man's ear or his eye or his mind the things that God has prepared for us, but those things are revealed by the

Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2, 9. Say that again, Rich. 1 Corinthians 2, 9. Yeah, it was just before what

Jack read. I didn't have him read that. But the Spirit reveals as well. And let's read 1

Corinthians 12, 11, Phil. 11. Yeah. All these are empowered by one and the same

Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. He has a will.

And he does just as he pleases. Spirits and powers, winds, do not have that.

A personal being has a will and a desire. The Holy Spirit has that.

And thank God that he has that on our behalf. Because he distributes those gifts, as we're going to see, for our well -being and for the well -being of the

Church. So there's many things we can point to as far as why we believe he's a person.

I think the most telling proof of this, though, is what Jesus has said.

Basically, it's all throughout John 14 -16, which is

Jesus had a choice when he chose his words, and he deliberately used the masculine pronoun he when he describes the

Holy Spirit. He addresses the one who is going to come, who is the Holy Spirit, the comforter that he's going to send.

He's not a power. He's a person with thoughts and intellect and a will.

So are there any questions about that? Go ahead, Rod. No. There's a couple of things

I was thinking when you were in 1 Corinthians that my mind went to the fact that a natural man does not understand the things of the

Spirit of God, neither can he know them, which are made known by the Spirit of God. So the illumination of me coming to Christ was the fact that the

Holy Spirit himself opened my eyes up to see the truth. Before I read it, I saw it, but I didn't comprehend the depth of anything until the

Holy Spirit of God opened my eyes up so I'd be able to read the Word of God, understand it, and it changed my life.

And the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faith, self -control, that's the fruit of the

Spirit of God in my life. So I was thinking about that, and it dawned on me and hit me hard.

I was thinking about what Christ said, all sins and all blasphemy will be forgiven, even against the Son, but blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. So when I take that all in my brain, that's foundationally for me, knowing that the

Spirit of God is a reality, it's a third person in the Trinity. Yeah, you touched on so many of the beautiful things about the

Spirit there. We're going to touch on those, but his ministry of grace, well,

I think it's just so amazing to think of that ministry of illumination and his grace in our lives.

We're going to talk a lot about that. Unfortunately, though, there are many who have gone way off the mark with even what we've just talked about.

There are those who think that the Holy Spirit is like their personal weapon that they can wield and use as they choose.

I debated whether I wanted to show this, but I think we need to see this to some degree. I'm going to play a short video of Benny Hinn.

I could have chosen a myriad of other people, but I chose one of the favorite persons who basically blaspheme the

Spirit. I've got to go through a commercial. All the dieting again, ever. Because you don't need to.

Stop dieting. If you really want to. I don't either.

I don't either. This is Benny. But when the Lord talks to me, I obey Him. It's just that simple.

There's nothing more to it. Take it!

Take it! Take it! Take the anointing!

Man. We could watch hours and hours and hours of videos like this, where this man claims to be distributing the anointing of the

Spirit by the power of his sports jacket. And you can see the reaction.

Now, some of the reactions are just hysterical and psychosomatic, and they're just happening because it's kind of like a hypnotic effect.

Some of it's just staged and just nonsense. But all of it is blasphemy against the

Spirit. Thinking that you somehow can control the

Holy Spirit and wield Him like your tool. Folks, there's a lot of that out there.

Unfortunately, that's something I did want to talk about. You do a lot of much more than that. The American gospel moves me.

Yeah, the American gospel has a lot of that too. That movie is all about... The first one is all about the sort of charismatic movement, faith and healing and all that.

Yeah, we're going to talk about what the true ministry of the Spirit is coming up, but I would like to...

I unplugged that because it was a distraction. Because everybody's watching that, so we want to get more engaged here.

So we addressed the issue, is the Holy Spirit a person? He is. He has an intellect, a will, and a heart.

The next question is, is the Holy Spirit God? Now, what would you say off the top of your head?

Yes, He's seen in Genesis right at the beginning. Okay, we're all Trinitarians here, so we're going to say that.

But let's look at the evidence and see where we go. Okay, so we'll turn to some of these.

I guess... The first category is, does He have the attributes of God? Does He display the attributes of God?

The Scriptures say He's eternal. That's only something that God is. Existing, you know, from ever in the past to ever in the future.

You know, we are creative beings. We had a point in time when we were created. Holy Spirit, certainly not.

He existed in all times. The Scriptures in Hebrews chapter 9, verse 14, says that Jesus Christ was offered through the eternal

Spirit. So that's Hebrews 9, 14. He's sovereign.

We already read 1 Corinthians 12, verse 11. It says, He sovereignly gives as He wills.

Let's read another verse as well. Ricky, do you have a Bible out? Yes.

Can you read Revelation chapter 2, verse 7? 8, 2...

Dave, I'm going to have you go to Psalm 139 in a second, so if you can turn to Psalm 139. Okay, I got it.

Whoever has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to the one who lives, to the angel, to the one who is victorious.

I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

So He is going to sovereignly determine who eats from the tree of life.

He's the one who gives life. He's the one who has that choice and gives as He desires.

And there's other verses as well that talk about Him exercising His sovereignty.

He is omnipotent. When we read about the impregnation of Mary, when the

Holy Spirit is going to come upon Mary, it says the Spirit of the Most High, the power of the Highest, is going to come.

The Spirit has the power of God. He is all -powerful. Let's read about His omnipresence.

Is the Spirit everywhere at all times, as we said Jesus was, as we said God is,

God the Father. Let's have Dave read Psalm 139.

From the beginning? No, 7 through 10. That's a pretty long

Psalm. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall

I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, even there your hand has led me and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you.

The night is bright as the day. The darkness is as light with you. There's no place to go where the

Spirit is not. Even if we go down to the depths, He's there. And I said a second ago that Jesus was also omnipresent.

In a sense, through the Spirit, we know physically He took on a human body. And in that sense,

He was in one place at one time for His ministry on the earth.

But through the Spirit, Jesus also knows through the communications of the

Father, Son, Spirit, He also knows all things in all places at all times. His omniscience, the

Spirit, we've already read 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 and 11, and it says in that that He knows even the deep things of God.

That He knows all things. There's nothing that needs to be revealed to Him. He knows all things. The Scriptures also say that He is truth.

Let's turn to John chapter 14. So this would be Bob Nichols. John chapter 14,

Bob, verses 15 through 17. And John Lyons, or John Morrow, could you please turn to Romans chapter 15, verse 30?

There's too many Johns. If you love me, keep my commands, and I will ask the

Father, and He will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth.

The world cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know

Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. That's Jesus' promise of the

Spirit, that He was going to send the Spirit, and the Spirit's name is the Spirit of Truth, that He abides in all truth.

He is all truth. And John, could you read Romans chapter 15, verse 30?

Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the

Spirit, to strike together with me in your prayers to God for me. That verse talks about the love of the

Spirit. And Romans 5, 5 talks about the love of God being spread abroad in our hearts by the

Spirit. So the Spirit is also love, just as God is. So, a person who is eternal, who is sovereign, who is omnipotent, who is omniscient, who is omnipresent, who is all truth, is

God. Anyone, anybody else have those attributes in the room today?

Kind of be nice to be able to have some of them, but thank God we can be ministered to by the one who does have those attributes, and He can reveal things to us.

Now, not only does the Spirit have the attributes and possess the attributes of God, He also does the works of God, things that only

God could do. So, the first thing I have on my list here is He is the author of Scripture.

We call, certainly, actually I don't have a Bible up here with me, but we call the Scripture, and the

Scripture calls itself the Word of God. Where did it come from? Let's turn to,

I guess, Joey. We'll have you turn to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

I think we all know these verses, but we'll have Joey read that. So, where did the

Scriptures come from? Go ahead, Joey. 2 Timothy 3? 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. 2 Peter 1 also.

Oh, you're there already? Yeah. Go right ahead. All Scripture is God -breathed, and profitable teaching for proof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So, inspired by God. God breathed out. And that's the idea of breathing through the

Spirit. Let's read also 2 Peter 1. So, Bill, could you read that?

2 Peter 1, verses 20 and 21. Richie, I'm going to have you go to Book of Acts, chapter 13.

Book of Acts. Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.

But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit inspired the

Scriptures and made sure that the Scriptures got into our hands, that the Word of God was recorded for us, exactly as He wanted it to be.

He's responsible for the Scriptures. Only God Himself could do that. Rich, I'm going to have you turn to Acts, chapter 13, verse 2.

Verse 2. Right. And, I think, Jacob, are you right next to your grandfather?

Jacob, can you turn to Acts, chapter 20? I'm going to have you read verse 28.

While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me

Barnabas and Saul for the work which I have called them. That's verse 3.

Just verse 3? Yeah. That was 13, too. You got it. Oh, and 13.

Right. So, who but God alone orchestrates the offices of the

Church and says, by my will, I'm going to set apart these men for the ministry

I've called them to? Who calls us to ministry? Who's the one who has an effectual calling on our lives?

And the ability to say, You're going to do what I've commanded you to do.

It's only God himself. And it says the Spirit does that here. Jacob, could you read

Acts 20 for us, 28? Take careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers to take care for the Church of God which he obtained with his own blood.

The Holy Spirit, again, appointing officers in the Church, calling people into ministry and appointing them in the

Church. Only God has that privilege and only God has that right. He's the one who is working in people's lives to do so.

The Holy Spirit is also involved directly in creation. And I won't give a lot of the verses here.

I'll just read the verses. Genesis 3. Genesis 1, which you mentioned already.

Actually, I think that was supposed to be Genesis 1, 1, 2. Job mentions the

Spirit's activities in creation quite a few times. Psalm 104 does. Psalm 104 also mentions the fact that the

Holy Spirit is the one who sustains creation. He's the one who determines.

Well, let's read that one. Let's read Psalm 104. So, Harry, I guess that would be you.

If we could read Psalm 104, verses 29 and 30. When you hide your face, they are dismayed.

When you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the ground.

So, sending forth the Spirit, actually, in creation to create whatever

God has ordained. And it's God's work, God's power through the

Spirit to create them. Salvation.

Who is responsible for salvation? As Rod already said. Who is the one that performs the work of salvation in a person's life?

Let's turn to Titus 3, verse 5. So, we'll give that to Ron back there.

And I'll just mention a couple other ones while Ron's turning to Titus 3, 5.

Romans 8 and 9 also captures the essence of this and other places in Scripture.

But the Spirit also casts out demons. Jesus says He casts out demons by the

Spirit of God in Matthew. It says the Spirit gives life. Remember, it says the letter of the law brings death in 2

Corinthians, but the Spirit gives life. Only God Himself can do these things.

Ron, can you read Titus 3, verse 5? He saved us, not because of our works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit. The Spirit, He is the one who actively changes a person's life and heart.

Who but the Spirit has the power to transform a life, to bring that life from death to a relationship with the living

God. It says the renewing and washing, regenerated by the

Holy Spirit. That's God's work. And the Spirit is the one who does it.

So, He works as God. He has the attributes of God and He works as God.

Now let's see some very interesting cases where we're going to map the Old Testament to the

New Testament, where there was an Old Testament quotation, and then, very interestingly, the author of the

New Testament, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is going to kind of make a translation or an understanding that kind of gives us a little more illumination on what the verse means and who actually said it.

A lot of these examples in Scripture, but let's look at Isaiah 8. So, Mike, could you turn to,

I'm sorry, Isaiah 6, verse 8 through 10.

Isaiah 6, verse 8 through 10. And then, Kevin, can you turn to Acts 28, and I'll tell you the verses in a second.

Jeff, you're going to go to Jeremiah 31. 6, what was it?

6 what? 6, 8 through 10. Ready?

Go ahead. Nice and loud. And I heard the voice of the

Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Then I said, There I am, send me. And he said,

Go, and say to this people, Keep on hearing, but do not understand.

Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of the people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

Now, who was speaking to Isaiah in that passage? Who was telling

Isaiah all this? The Lord. The Lord. And I believe you're going to see capital

L, capital O, capital R, capital D there. That's Jehovah. Kevin, could you read

Acts chapter 28, verses 25 through 27?

Chad, I'm going to have you go to Hebrews 10, by the way. And disagreeing among themselves, they departed after Paul, and made one statement,

The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your father through Isaiah the prophet, Go to this people and say,

You will indeed hear, but never understand, and you will indeed see, but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart in turn, how it would heal them.

Sounds familiar, right? And by the way, we have ears to hear, but we heard you okay.

You're speaking loudly enough. So there it's attributed directly to the Holy Spirit, and Isaiah was attributed to the

Lord, Jehovah. So who said it? Jehovah? Oh, yes.

You might be a Trinitarian, my friend. Jeff, could you read us Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 through 33?

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, but my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the

Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their

God, and they shall be my people. So who revealed that to Jeremiah?

You're right, but... You're right in very much of a right sense there, Richie, but the scripture right there says the

Lord again, declares the Lord. Chad, let's read Hebrews chapter 10, verses 15 through 17.

The Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after he had said before, this is the covenant

I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds

I will write them. Then he adds, their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.

That's good, Chad, thanks. So who's responsible for that passage of scripture? The Father, Jehovah, or the

Spirit? Hebrews says the Spirit. Yes. We'll just say yes.

Okay, now you're gonna like this. So we see these parallels.

These are things that are very interesting. I love these kind of things. So here's even... I might just mention these, but we'll go through these fast.

So he is equated with God in the Trinity. And we went over a lot about the

Trinity before, but I did not cover these things in particular. Because there's so much evidence, it's so hard to go through it all.

We'll go through a few more things to talk about the Trinity itself. So who's responsible for offering

Jesus Christ as a sacrifice? Who's responsible for that? What does

John 3 .16 say? Who gave

His Son? Who laid down His life on His own initiative?

Jesus gave Himself as well. Jesus offered Himself, laid His life down. And what did we read from Hebrews 9 .14

already? That He was offered through the Eternal Spirit. So who offered

Jesus as a sacrifice? The Trinity. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Who raised Jesus from the dead? We know the Father is mentioned many times as raising

Jesus from the dead. I have Acts 2 .24 and 32 down here. We know that Jesus said that no one had the right to take

His life. He could lay His life down and He could raise it up. And He could raise it up again. And that's in John 10.

Right. And in a few different places, Romans 8 .11.

Anthony, could you read that? You're way back there, Anthony. So give us a nice, loud

Romans 8 .11, Anthony. Who raised

Jesus from the dead? If the

Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

So who raised Jesus from the dead back there, Anthony? The Spirit. Just say yes.

Yes. Yes. Who's responsible for the Word of God? We know it's

God's Word. It's Jehovah's Word. He spoke it. I have a couple of verses from the Old Testament written about that.

We know Jesus Himself is called the Word of God. He is the Word of God.

And that's in John 1 and Revelation. And we've already read the fact that the

Holy Spirit is the author of the Word of God. So who is responsible for the

Word of God? Yes. All are responsible.

It's interesting, you know, just how they all work together in unity and in some just miraculous ways that we're not going to fully understand, probably ever, but certainly not now in the physical frame we dwell in.

But the fact that there is three equal persons in one being or in one being is probably not even the right way to say it.

But just that three gods exist in one is just incredible.

And the Scriptures, you know, we went through so many Scriptures already to talk about that. Drew, you had that right.

Three persons in one being or essence, but not three gods. Yeah, right.

Yeah, just incredible. Go ahead, Rod. It just always intrigued me as we are in the

New Covenant how beautiful it is. We look back and the Scripture tells us that David said,

May I have my own heart, and yet David cried out to the Lord, Take not your Holy Spirit from me. And yet in Corinthians, Paul tells us,

Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? And if that doesn't wake me up and people can't see the fruit of the

Spirit in my life, some of the fruits, there's something wrong with my life that I'm living in.

Because if the Holy Spirit's in me, he's producing that. But to think, when I go back and look, and go to the

Jewish people, and look what the temple meant to them, and how important that was that God was in the present, and to think that the

Holy Spirit is in me, it's hard to look in the mirror, it's hard to believe that I don't have any hair.

Now, seriously, the Holy Spirit's in me, so he has to be producing something in me.

And if I'm not affecting the church, and my brothers and sisters in Christ around me, if I'm not showing them that love that the

Holy Spirit's showing me by being in me, then I have to look and say there's something wrong with my life.

Let's talk about those spiritual gifts and some other things that are going to come up later. Some other things about the

Holy Spirit being God, and I'll just quickly go through these. There's many verses that equate the

Father, Son, and Spirit in one verse. I have like seven or eight of them listed here. I won't read through them all right now.

We certainly know about Matthew 28 where Jesus says that we should be making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Has anyone ever thought about why it doesn't say the names of the

Father, Son, and Spirit? He's equating them all equally in one sentence, but he says the name singular.

It's like, well, they have three different names, don't they? Again, it's pointing to the oneness of all of them together, that there's the name for baptizing them in the name, and they're all equated together.

There's several other verses that we could look at with that where the Spirit, Son, and Father are all together in the same context, showing themselves having ministry and authority over the church.

I think I'll pass on the rest of those. The use of God in the

Old Testament, the term God, is very often plural and gives us a picture of a

God who exists in more parts than just one.

And Rich mentioned it before at the very beginning, in the beginning God, Elohim, which is a plural.

We also know the verse from Genesis 1 .26 says, let us make man in our image.

Later we see, behold, the man has become like one of us. Jehovah's speaking when he says, in Genesis 11, he says, let us go down and confuse their language.

This is at the time of Tower of Babel, right? And then even the great verse in Deuteronomy that the

Jews quote so often is, behold, the Lord Jehovah is our

God, Elohim. The Lord Jehovah is one, Echad, is one.

So, behold, the Lord is our God, plural. The Lord is one,

Echad, singular. Wrap your head around that. And it's right there in front of anyone who desires to read it for what it says.

The Lord hasn't hidden these things. He's put it right in front of us. And then in Isaiah chapter 6 it says,

I think somebody had read this already, Isaiah 6 .8, it says, Whom then shall I send, who will go for us?

Sovereignly sending out his servant to go out and spread the good news of God to the people.

And it says they won't hear because they're dull of ears. But it says, who will go for us? Jehovah's speaking.

Who is us? Father, Son, Spirit. There's many other verses like that as well.

There's also some very interesting verses that pretty much directly correlate the

Holy Spirit with God. We talked before about, in the book of Acts, the situation with Ananias and Sapphira bringing a sacrifice, and they weren't totally honest.

Rod, could you turn to Acts chapter 5? And Tim, could you turn to Mark chapter 3?

That's kind of a long section in Mark, but we'll let you start and I'll stop you at some point. It's going to start at 3 .22.

And yours is going to be 5 .3 and 4, Rod. Okay. But Peter said,

Ananias, Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the praise of the

Lamb? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control?

Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God.

So who did Ananias lie to? The Holy Spirit, who is

God. I don't see how you can parse that any other way. And then, in Mark chapter 3 .22,

we'll let you start, Tim, and I'll just stop you at some point. Go ahead. The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying,

He is possessed by Beelzebub, and he casts out the demons by the roar of the demons.

And he called them to himself and began speaking to them in parables. How can

Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished.

But no one can enter the strongman's house and plunder his property, unless he first binds the strongman, and then he will plunder his house.

Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, at whatever blasphemies they utter.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

That's good, Tim. Right there. So, if you're blas...

how can... Who could be blasphemed against? Who has the title and authority of a person that actually could be blasphemed?

Like, could you blaspheme against me? If you said, you know,

Drew's a crackpot or, you know, Drew's... No, that's me. Drew's lazy. It's not blasphemy.

It's probably true, actually, in many cases. But the only one who can be blasphemed against, it's

God Almighty. And the Lord says anyone who blasphemes against the

Spirit, the work of the Spirit in Christ's life, because the Spirit was the one who was working through Jesus, and anyone who, you know, attributed

God's work through Jesus to Satan, blaspheming the

Spirit. So, he can be blasphemed. That means he is the only one that could be blasphemed, who is

God Almighty. So, those are the arguments, many of the arguments, for saying that the

Holy Spirit revealed in the Scriptures is God Almighty. And that's important to know.

Because we're Trinitarians. We believe it. Father, Son, and the Spirit. That's what the Scriptures teach. So, I want to go through real quickly here just titles of the

Spirit. I'll just say what the titles are, and then I'll say what the verse is that tells you what it is.

He's called the Spirit of Grace. That's from Hebrews 10, 29. He's called the

Spirit of Truth. We talked about that already. Well, it's from John 14, but it's also in 1 John 4 as well.

Oops, I think I have a typo there. I'll fix the typos. He's called from Isaiah 11, the

Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, Counsel and Might, Knowledge and the Fear of the Lord. He's called the

Spirit of Holiness in 1 Peter 4. He's called the

Spirit of Promise in Ephesians 1, 13. He's called the

Spirit of God. And this gets real interesting in Romans chapter 8. Because he's called the Spirit of God, and then right after that he's called the

Spirit of Christ. So, is he the Spirit of the Lord?

Is he the Spirit of God? Is he the Spirit of Christ? Yes. Yes. And there's a man who learns.

We'll probably read that verse 8 and 9 at some point. He's also called the

Spirit of His Son in Galatians. It's talking about the adoption that we have as Jesus has called us into a relationship.

As He's put the Spirit of His Son in our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, that we actually have that Spirit within us crying out to God.

He is called the Spirit of the Lord. He's called the Spirit of Life. And that's in Romans as well. And we know him very well as being called the

Comforter and the Helper in John chapter 14. Which, when we look at that verb in the

Greek, Comforter, Helper, we know what that means, right? I'm expecting

Rich to answer all these questions. Anything Greek or Hebrew is like, Rich is going to speak.

So, what's that word, Richie, Comforter, Helper? Comforter? Paraclete. Or Him.

He can answer that. What does Paraclete mean in Greek? Paracletos.

One who comes alongside us. One who comes by your side. Right. It says He's going to be just like Jesus when

He comes alongside of us. So those are some of the titles I have written down. There's probably more titles that I didn't have.

But those are the ones I have right now. Those are a lot of the things about the

Spirit as far as His nature and His title in the Scriptures. I want to try to go through quickly the

Old Testament activity of the Spirit. Because what I want to do next time in the next class is go through what

He does now in the New Covenant, in the New Testament. Because that's a lot broader of a topic.

So in the Old Testament, we see the Spirit working a lot. We really do.

I don't want to say it's like, oh, there's minimal work in the Old Testament and in the New Testament there's a whole bunch more

He's doing. He was always active. He always is just doing things in God's people.

He's orchestrating events. He's doing all kinds of things. But we remember in particular Him equipping people for ministry in the

Old Testament. Now in the Old Testament, though, He didn't necessarily indwell a person.

It seems like He came upon a person for a task to be completed, and then after that task was completed that the person did not necessarily maintain the

Spirit in His full measure in His life after that. We remember a man named

Bezalel. Do you remember what Bezalel did? He was an artisan of gold and metals.

He did, and he was given at the time when the tabernacle was to be constructed. And the

Lord gave this man, and there was another man too, I think his name was Eliah.

I don't remember the other man's name exactly, but it says that the Lord gave these men great wisdom and skill for generating the artifacts of the tabernacle.

That's in Exodus chapter 31. So this Bezalel was anointed by the Spirit to do this.

In the book of Judges we see a few different times the Holy Spirit coming on people to deliver

Israel from their oppressors. In particular there was a man named Othniel.

It says during the time of the Judges the Israelites cried out against the king of Mesopotamia.

And this is in Judges 3 verses 8 through 10. It says the Holy Spirit came upon him and he judged and he delivered

Israel at that time. It said he had 40 years of reign. I don't know if the Spirit was on him for that 40 years as well, but it says the

Spirit came upon him so that he might deliver Israel. Samson. You remember

Samson, right? He had great power to deliver Israel as well.

Let's read a little bit about Samson. I think we're back up here with Matt. Oh, you know what, Bob? I never gave you one, did

I? No. You're kind of over there by yourself. Could you turn to Judges chapter 14?

If I find it, I'll turn to it. And then...

Judges 13? Judges 14. And then, Matt, can you turn to Judges 16 -20?

So this is the story of the life of Samson and what the Holy Spirit did in Samson's life. You said 16...

16 -20. So, Bob, you have 14 -6.

The woman came and told her husband, she said, A man of God came to me. His face was fearsome like that of the angel of God.

I didn't ask him where he came from, and he didn't tell me his name. Boy, I must have that wrong.

I've had a few typos in here. This is not inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I hope that it's not. 14 -6? It led me all through this lesson. Judges 14 -6.

Is that what you read? Definitely not right? How about 14 -19? 14 -6.

Oh, you want... Okay, Jack says... Go ahead, Jack, read 14 -6.

And the Spirit of Yahweh came upon him mightily, so that he tore it as one tears a young girl.

Though he had nothing in his hand, but he did not tell his father or mother what he had done. This is when he tore the lion apart.

So the Spirit came upon him mightily. Bob will give you another chance. How about 14 -19? Judges 14 -19.

Oh, there it is. Then the Spirit of the Lord came over him powerfully. He went down to Ashkelon, killed 30 of their men, took their good clothes, and gave them to the men who had solved the riddle.

He was boiling with rage, so he went straight up to his father's house. Is that the right one?

Yes. Because the Spirit came upon him mightily. Now, it's interesting. It says the Spirit came upon him. It also says the

Spirit came upon him in 1514. Now, I don't know if the Spirit was on him continuously during this time when he was judging for Israel and defeating the

Philistines in these various ways. But 1620 is going to be a sad time.

And we're going to have Matt read that right now. Then she said, The Philistines are upon you,

Samson. And he awoke from his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.

But he did not know that the Lord had left him. And that's LORD in all caps.

Yeah. So again, there's another picture of the Spirit and the Lord Jehovah together.

But sad that a man could not even know that he was so in a decrepit moral state that he didn't even have an understanding of the

Spirit working within his life anymore. And so the Lord left him. What's unique about that is that's the only place in the

Bible where the Spirit is tied to a physical attribute in the man, namely his hair.

Oh. I think it was more in his obedience to the Lord, right? That the

Spirit used him mightily and had a specific task for Samson to do. But it's interesting because we often think of the

Spirit of God convicting of sin and righteousness and judgment. We know those verses from the New Testament. But in the

Old Testament, we don't necessarily see a conversion of moral character in a person when the

Lord used a person for a task. Another time, for instance, was King Saul.

The Spirit came upon King Saul. He changed his heart. It's very interesting with King Saul.

Let's read King Saul as well. Not permanently. No, not permanently.

But the same thing happened to King Saul as what we just read about Samson. So, Jack, could you read 1

Samuel 10, verse 10? And, Phil, could you read 1 Samuel 11, verse 6?

And then, Ricky, I'm going to have you go to 1 Samuel 16. To Jack 10, 10.

And they came to the hill there. And, behold, a group of prophets met him. And the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them.

Okay, and 11, 6. And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words.

And his anger was greatly kindled. Somewhere in there as well, it said that he had a change of heart because he didn't want to be king.

He was kind of cowardice at first. And so the Spirit changed his heart. But Ricky has some bad news for us in 1

Samuel 16, 4. Yeah, 1

Samuel 16, 4. Samuel did what the

Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him.

They asked, Do you come in peace? Is that 16, 4?

Yes. I missed that. Well, it's about the disobedience of Saul.

Oh, you know what? It's 2 Samuel 16. Somebody want to jump there real quick? Boy, I've got a lot of typos in this.

I've got to fix this. I've got it. 2 Samuel 16, 4.

Then the king said to Ziba, Behold, all that belongs to Mephisbosheth.

That's not it either. Wow, I've got to look at...

Man, my keyboard must be off. It's basically what happened when David was anointed to be the new king.

When he went with Samuel to Jesse. Oh, somebody got that?

That was 16, 14. 16, 14? Oh, was it 16, 14? So I have two typos.

John, I'll take it if you got it. Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the

Lord terrorized him. Okay, yeah. The spirit departing is what we wanted to get to.

So I've got two typos there. So that was first Samuel. We knew what we wanted. That's second Samuel. That was first Samuel.

Okay, 16, 14. Man. I was kidding. Okay. You guys are all straightening out here.

We just forgot the one. We just forgot the one, yeah. But the context of it was

David was anointed by Samuel because the Lord had chosen him. And he had rejected

Saul at that point because Saul was disobedient. It's the same kind of thing like Samson.

How sad that this happened. But this is kind of the way the ministry of the spirit was in the

Old Testament where the spirit would come upon someone mightily for a particular task, but he wouldn't remain on that person forever except one man, who was

David. And even though despite David's sin, we remember, and I have first Samuel 16, 13 for that, which

I think is the verse just before the one I was supposed to read a second ago. It said the spirit came on him from that day forward.

Meaning from that day that he had the spirit until his life ended on the earth. But you remember in Psalm 51 when he had sinned, he said,

Lord, please don't remove your spirit from me. So that after his sin with Bathsheba and his killing of Uriah the

Hittite, he still very much had a relationship with the spirit of God at that point. And it said the spirit remained upon him forever.

So he's the only one that we see in the Old Testament. But the spirit moved mightily in people's lives and anointed them for ministry.

He does the same thing for us now. It's different though now. We'll talk about what the New Testament role of the spirit is in our lives.

Also in the Old Testament, we see him inspiring for prophecy. We kind of read about that already in the book of 2

Peter, that he was the one that would inspire. But there's many verses here I have. We remember in particular the...

Well, this might even have more to do with ministry than inspiring for prophecy.

But you remember the verse in Zechariah that says that you shall perform this not by might nor by power but by my spirit.

And that prophecy was given through Zechariah, the prophet, to Zerubbabel who was the governor of the

Jews at the time. And he was in building the temple. And the Lord had promised that this temple was... The temple work had been stopped for quite a while because of opposition.

But the Lord said, No, this work is going to continue. And I'm going to not only rebuild the temple, but I'm also going to rebuild

Jerusalem. And he made some fantastic prophecies about what was going to happen with the nation of Israel.

But he said this is all going to happen not because of Zerubbabel's power but because he would accomplish these things through his spirit.

So Zerubbabel did build the temple. Physically, Zerubbabel put the brick and mortar together but the

Lord says these acts were accomplished by the power of his spirit working within Zerubbabel.

And there's some other verses about inspiring and inspired people to prophesy.

I have some from Ezekiel, 2 Samuel. Probably got the addresses wrong, but you know. That's kind of the way it's going tonight.

But what I said earlier about moral character that when the Holy Spirit came upon a person it didn't necessarily mean that their character changed.

Sometimes it did. Let's turn to Psalm 143. Dave, you might be up for that?

Psalm 143. And Bob, could you turn to... That's okay,

Bob. We won't go through that. We'll just have Dave read the Psalm 143. What verse? We're going to look at verse 10.

Verse 10. I'm sure that's the right verse. Teach me to do your will when you are my

God. Let your good spirit lead me on level ground. So David knew when he wrote that Psalm, that was in Psalm of David, that the

Spirit does desire moral change in our lives. He does desire to lead us in a level place.

He does desire us to have a right relationship with the Lord and be obedient to Him.

And David was pleading there. He said, let your good spirit lead me in these ways. He knew that.

And then the last thing I have down for the ministry of the Spirit in the Old Testament is...

Obviously, we talked about the inspiration of Scripture. In particular, the inspiration of the coming of Messiah.

And I have a whole bunch of verses in Isaiah that talk about that. But just that He pointed forward to the coming of the

Holy One, the One who is going to be Israel's Deliverer, but much more than that, the

Deliverer of all those who would trust in Him by faith. And that He would be the

One to cleanse a people for His own purposes. Jesus Christ.

And He obviously was responsible for all the inspiration of all the verses that spoke about Messiah's coming.

So His ministry was widespread in the Old Testament. And He was working then, and He is working now.

So I think we're going to stop there. Any questions about who the

Holy Spirit is or His ministry in the Old Testament? Because that's basically what we covered tonight pretty quickly.

Go ahead, Bill. I was just thinking about all the prophets like Samuel and Elijah and those guys.

Does it never say that the Spirit was on them? Because it seemed like they were pretty faithful through their whole lives.

Sometimes it did. I had a couple of verses written down. Yeah, sure. Yeah, the

Spirit was upon quite a few people in the Old Testament. And He does want us to be empowered for ministry.

And He does want us to reflect God's moral character in the ministry that He has in our lives now.

We're going to get obviously much more into that in the New Testament and how things are a little bit different than the

New Testament. Actually, a lot different for those who have trusted in Christ as their

Savior and exactly what the Spirit's doing in our lives now. But He's active.

He's active just as He was then, and He's active now. And we should be able to tell that the

Holy Spirit is in our lives because there's certain things that just naturally come from that.

When we talked about Saul and Samson really not even understanding that the

Lord was in their lives at the time when He was removed, that they had no sensitivity, they had no conscience of that.

But if the eternal God has indwelt you as a New Testament believer, you should have signs to show you that you are very, very much

His child. Your desires are a big part of that. Who do you desire?

Where does your peace come from? Where does your view of the world come from?

What does God's Word mean to you? Because He's the author of it. He's the illuminator of it.

He would love to show you more and more from His Word all the time. So when we get into the

New Testament, we have some really exciting things about what He's doing in all of our lives now.

Any other questions before we close the prayer? Go ahead, Rod. One thing that stands out that's always stood out to me, and I guess it's because I do a lot of therapy and counseling with Christians and all, the thing that God did in this world was really interesting.

A lot of Christians don't look at it. When you look at the men of God, David and Job, it doesn't matter who they are, and you look at what they did in their lives, and the

Holy Scriptures tell you that David committed adultery and had somebody murdered because he wanted something.

The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life were in him. And he points all these things out. Peter, denying

Christ, cursing. He's going to go fight for Him, and then he's cursing Him and denying Him three times.

And yet, when the New Testament is written, the first person who's given the message is Peter. The encouraging thing for us as human beings, we still have this sin nature, and it was the

Holy Spirit. God allowed that in there. So I can't say, look at David, except to say, look at David and look what

God did through David, but it's all about the Holy Spirit of God working in their lives that accomplished this.

It wasn't the men themselves. Even though they did it, it was God working through them, through adultery, through adultery.

So I just think it's encouraging for me to look at these men who we may think of exalting, and we can't exalt them.

We exalt the God who's in them. And I think that's so important. It certainly opened my eyes up many years ago.

Amen. And, you know, again, it's not by might or by power, right?

It's not by anyone who has superior intellect or superior wisdom or knowledge in a worldly sense.

You know, the guy who is a simple farmer or a guy who's a gas station attendant or whatever can be mightily empowered by the

Spirit of God to do fantastic things for his kingdom, which, you know, those kind of things can't be bought or sold.

Or, you know, education is great, but it's the

Lord who is doing the work, like Rod's saying. And I'm grateful. Pastor's going through Philippians right now in his group on Thursday night.

And I know we hold on to, because I know at times we're going to talk about grieving the Spirit, quenching the

Spirit, but he's the one that is performing the good work in us, and he's the one who's going to be faithful to complete it in us until the day of Christ.

And that is great news to hear. So even if we feel like we're not walking with the

Spirit today, he hasn't given up on you. He's going to bring you home, and he's going to use us, you know, as we yield ourselves to him.

So let's close there. Jeff, could you close this in prayer? Oh, a shocker. So, Father, thank you for your

Spirit that you pour into our hearts. Thank you for the fruit of the Spirit that doesn't come from us, but from you working in us,

Lord. And for the gifts of the Spirit and all of these things, Lord, as we look to the

Spirit of God, we thank you that you would come and live in these broken vessels that we are, these jars of clay.

And yet, all surpassing power comes from you and not from us. It is not by might nor by power, but by your

Spirit. We confess this, Lord, and we thank you. We give you all the glory and all the praise. We love you and praise you.