The Ministry of the Holy Spirit — David Wilkerson

This message is one of the Times Square Church Pulpit Series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing World Challenge, PO Box 260, Lindell, Texas 75771, or calling 903 -963 -8626.

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Thank you, Choir Orchestra. I add my welcome to all of our visitors today. We love you. We thank the Lord that you're with us this morning. And we covet your prayers as we continue in this great city to proclaim the gospel of Christ.

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Comforter

I'd like to just have a heart-to-heart talk with you this morning. A very simple message. The ministry of the Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit. Nothing new, very, very simple, but something that God's been speaking to my heart and has been a source of encouragement to me in our present family trial.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit. Will you turn to John 14, please? The 14th chapter of John. Beginning at verse 15, I want to read a few verses. John 14. And God's blessing to those in the annex and the overflow rooms.

Though you're not here in this main auditorium, we're all one. The same spirit in this room as in the room you're sitting. We trust that the word of the Lord will encourage and lift your spirit today.

John 14. Begin to read verse 15. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.

But you know him. He is amazing. You know him. For he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Oh God, thank you for sending the Holy Spirit. Jesus, thank you.

Your very spirit that comes in our times of need. Always. You're never away. You're always present and you're here this morning. Lord, there are people that have walked here into this house that attend this church and those who are visiting.

And they brought with them this morning pain and hurt and misunderstandings and so many things that pressed them. Some that woke up this morning, there was just a heaviness and there was a pain. And it may be lingering yet.

And we pray, Holy Spirit, that if they would just turn to you to open our hearts to hear what the Spirit has to say, what the Lord has to say to us in the way of encouragement and comfort, we pray. We acknowledge you, Holy Spirit.

Without you, we can say nothing of impact. We can do nothing of lasting value. We trust wholly and completely in the work of God and the grace of our loving Savior. In Jesus' name. Amen. God sent the Holy Spirit to bring to Christ a chaste bride.

He came to love and protect and keep the bride of Christ from the wicked one. If you are in Christ, you are in His Bridehood. And the Holy Spirit has been given, Christ said, I will send you the Comforter.

This is the name that Jesus gave to Him. This is the name the Heavenly Father gave to Him. Comforter. I've spent years studying the Holy Spirit in my earlier days. I wanted to know more and more about the Holy Spirit.

After all, we talk about being Spirit-led and Spirit-filled people. And I went through the Puritans volumes and tried to study the names of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, and many, many names of the Holy Spirit and His work.

You see, the Holy Spirit was there at creation. He was... The whole world was created through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ was... Jesus was there in the Father. All things were made by Him and for Him.

And I believe in a Trinity, God Father, Son, and God the Holy Ghost. But there is a special ministry of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, when I began to study Him, it was not as edifying because the Bible says that He has come to glorify Christ and bring back to us all the words that Jesus said.

He did not speak of Himself. And so every time I tried to get deeper into the study of the person of the Holy Spirit, the more frustrating it was for me because all the Holy Ghost wanted to talk about was Jesus.

And He kept leading me back to the study and the hunger and reaching out for more of an understanding of who Jesus is and what He has accomplished. Scripture says, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak.

And He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, Christ is speaking, He shall glorify me, He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. He will show it unto you. Now, this little message this morning is not so much about the person of the Holy Spirit, but the ministry of the Holy Spirit, what He's been called to do.

And I think, you know, we talk about the Holy Spirit being grieved, and I think the grief of the Holy Spirit, more than the sins that we commit, is this one great sin of unbelief and not allowing Him to do what He's been called to do.

Walking in the Spirit, to me, is a very simple matter. Allowing the Holy Spirit to do what I read He's called to do. It's plainly there in front of me. He's called to guide me and lead me into all truth.

He's called to comfort me also in my time of need. Now, when Jesus called Him a comforter, that was an infallible prophecy. This suggests that we're going to need comfort. Why would He call Him a comforter unless He knew we were going to need it?

It was an infallible prophecy of the ministry and the work that He was called to do. Bringing to our remembrance everything Jesus said to us. And then He went on, Jesus said, I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.

I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. Now, I don't think the disciples understood that. Because you see, just before Jesus ascended to heaven, He called His disciples together and what a sad group this was.

What a tragic moment for them they thought. Their sole source of comfort had been the person of Jesus Christ. The man Jesus. Who looked just like them, talked like them, walked with them. And all their teaching, their guidance and everything they had was from Him.

And now He said He's going to the Father. And He's just said, I want you to go into all the world and preach the gospel. They're thinking, well, here I go now. Where do I get my guidance? Where do I get my comfort?

Where do I get my authority? He's going up. I don't think they comprehended. He says, I'm going to leave you, but I'm not going to leave you comfortless. I'm not going to leave you to your own devices.

I'm not going to leave you to having to figure out everything that's happening in your life. I'm going to come back to you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ.

Though He has His own personality. You know, a lot of people think of the Holy Spirit as some kind of holy smoke. You know, He just drifts over the whole world. It's like an aura. Some kind of influence.

No, He's more than influence. He has a personality. The very personality of the Father and the Son. He has His own distinct essence. He's the essence of the Father, but distinctly called. The personality that He has.

And a work and a ministry that God has assigned to Him. The Scripture says that when He, the Holy Spirit... By the way, we hear it said that He's going to pour out His Spirit upon the whole world, but the Scripture said when the Spirit comes, He will reprove or convince the world of sin because they believe not in Me.

That means He's going to show the world that the foundational sin, the root sin that causes all other sin is unbelief. And He says, I am come and I'm going to reprove. I'm going to convince the world of sin because they don't believe in Me.

And this is the work of the Holy Spirit. It's based on this foundational truth that unbelief is the foundational sin. It's the sin of all sins. It's the mother of all sins. Because they don't believe in Me.

They don't believe in My blood. They don't believe that I am the Redeemer. And the Holy Spirit has come to convince men of unbelief. Of their unbelief that the only way to Christ is through faith. And secondly, of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more.

Jesus is saying here clearly, I have witnesses now. There were many, many witnesses there that saw Him ascend to heaven. Because I go to My Father. Listen to it again. He says, convince the world of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more.

What are you saying? I'm sending you forth as witnesses that God the Father took Me to glory. Now, a generation has called Him a winebibber. That generation has called Him a liar, a cheat, a phony. Scripture says very clearly that they had rejected Him.

But you see, the witnesses are now, the Holy Spirit says, I'm going to convince the world of righteousness through your testimony that God took Me up. And God would not take a wicked winebibber to heaven.

He would not take a wicked man. You're My witnesses. This is the Holy Spirit. We have these witnesses still telling their story here in the inspired Word of God. The witnesses that He ascended to the Father.

He was a righteous man. A man that could be trusted, pure holiness. And of judgment because the Prince of this world is judged. And this is the Holy Spirit testifying to the world that Jesus judged the power of Satan.

Of judgment because the Prince of this world has been judged at the cross. Jesus judged the Prince of the world and took away His power to condemn those who are living in Christ Jesus by faith. Hallelujah.

The Holy Spirit as Christ’s Presence Throughout the World

Now, the Holy Spirit is right now living on this planet. Now, I know some of us wish that Jesus was still here on earth. The man Christ Jesus. That He could come like He's in Philadelphia this morning and He's going to be in New York tonight.

In our evening service. And walk down this aisle and He's going to sit here in some kind of form. And you're going to know it and He's going to stand up here and just offer you words of comfort. Well, if He were here in the flesh, He could only be in one place at one time.

Everybody in China would have to wait. Everybody in India would have to wait. The whole world would have to wait because He's in Times Square Church on Sunday night. What the Lord is saying, you see, I'm going to come back to you but I'm coming back in spirit.

And I'm going to cover the whole earth. I'm going to shed forth who I am and the knowledge of who I am and what I've said and what I mean and what I plan to do. And I'll show you things to come. I'm going to do this all through the spirit that covers the whole earth.

Glory be to God. The Holy Spirit is just as real in this place as you are and I am. You look me in the face and I hear you. You see me wave my hands. You can hear me talk. You see my hair gray as it is.

You see my body but the Holy Spirit is here just as real as I am. You are sitting there and He abides in you. And this is what you've got to come to understand. He is a reality. He has a personality. He's one of the God and He is not out in the cosmos somewhere taking care of the cosmos and the stars.

Yes, He's put all of that in divine order but He abides right here. He lives in me. He lives in you. Amazing, amazing. The Holy Ghost abides. He said I've come to abide and to live in you. He desires you to come to lay hold of the concept of this reality.

Adoption and Assurance Through the Holy Spirit

The sending of the Holy Spirit is a very personal matter also. For you've not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father. The spirit itself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.

This refers to part of the ministry of Christ. It has to do with oriental custom in Christ's time. When adoption was underway, when the process was underway, the child, this could be most likely a children's home.

It could be a vagrant that's picked up and is taken legally to the court. And the child, though the father has his eye on the child and says this is the child that I want, this child cannot call him any more than a father.

He's a father. He has children. He is a father. He can't call him my father. Abba is my father until the papers are legally signed. And you see this is the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ adopted you and me at the cross.

He pointed you out. He said I want him. I want her. I want you. And he chose us. You didn't choose him. He said I chose you. I chose you. You were not a Jew. You were not in the vine. You were outside the vine and I adopted you.

I took you in. I made you a spiritual Jew. I made you a part of this vine. And I took you into my family and made you an heir, a joint heir. But there was a time there was someone had to bring the child to the father and show the papers to the judge and say this is the legal adoption that's been signed.

Folks it was signed by the blood of Jesus Christ at Calvary and the Holy Spirit brings you to the father. And the Holy Spirit says the work has been done. You're no longer an orphan. You can now call him your father.

And for the first time this child embraces the father. The father embraces and says you are mine legally. You cannot be taken from me. You are mine eternally. You are my everlasting. You're my child. You're all my other children.

You're heir of everything I am. Here you go. You're adopted. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us to the father with the knowledge. And the continuous knowledge and the acceptance of our being adopted to the heavenly father.

Adopted to Christ the father through Jesus Christ our Lord. I'm adopted. And what an affront to the Holy Spirit. That we cannot accept the work that the father signed to him to bring us to the father and continually give us this assurance of adoption that I am adopted.

I'm not alone. I have resources. I'm a brother to Jesus. He's my kinsman. He's my brother. He's my savior. I am a joint heir with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit's work in me. It's not just that I'm able to speak with a heavenly language, speak in tongues or that I have gifts.

Those gifts really can't operate in the power of the anointing as they should unless you have this knowledge that you are loved. That you are adopted. That I have a heavenly father who so cared for me and so loved me.

I have a Christ who died for me. And I have a Holy Spirit who has brought me to the knowledge, to the inner knowledge that I am so loved. And you see the grief of the Holy Spirit is that we don't accept that, that we still live as orphans.

Though we know legally that we've been adopted. You hear that. I'm adopted son of God or daughter of the heavenly father. Yet we live like poverty stricken street urchins. Without faith, without appropriating the promises and the comfort and all of the things that he's promised us and appropriated to us.

But you've not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. You're not to fear being left alone anymore. You're not to fear that the devil is going to destroy you. You're not to fear the devil going to come and say you're mine.

That you have no rights to the heavenly father's glory. But you have received the spirit of adoption. That's the Holy Spirit. It's the spirit of adoption. That no matter how I may wake up, whatever kind of black cloud may be hanging over my head.

I am to allow the Holy Spirit to do his work of encouraging and comforting me. You're adopted. You're not alone. All the power of God is yours if you'll trust in that. And just allow the Holy Spirit. Open up your mind and your heart, Holy Spirit.

Begin to just cry out, Abba, Father. The Holy Spirit, if you allow the Holy Spirit to speak and you walk and live in the Holy Spirit, that's the cry that's going to come to your heart. Abba, she's my father.

Yes, I know there's a whole church choir full of people that are adopted. Yes, I know Pastor Dave's adopted. I know Pastor Doug, but I'm adopted. He is my father. And there has to be that personal contact.

The Holy Spirit doing a personal work in you. I am loved. It's an amazing thing that most of us as believers, especially if you've walked in righteousness. You've had a hunger for God. You can say, I love the reproof of the Holy Spirit.

I love Him when He deals with sin in my life. I love it when the Word comes forth because I so want to please the Lord. I so want to please my Heavenly Father. And some of you are so capable of receiving correction.

So capable of receiving the reproof of the Holy Spirit. You don't even mind being spanked by the Word of the Holy Spirit. Because you know it's going to produce some kind of victory in your life. But what a tragedy that a majority of people who love reproof, many, many of them.

Have never accepted the fact that they're loved. That the Holy Spirit has loved them. That God has so loved them that He has sent the Holy Spirit to keep them. And to show that love. And there are many of you sitting here now.

No matter how hard the message is. You receive it. You weep and you cry. But you've never really enjoyed. You've never really settled in. And you've never relaxed in the presence of Jesus. You're so busy wanting to please Him.

You won't allow the Holy Spirit to shed abroad the love of God in your heart. And that's what He's come to do. The Scripture said He's come to shed abroad the love of God through the Holy Ghost. Not just to the whole world.

But shed abroad all through your human being. Through your mind and your spirit and everything else. To shed abroad in your heart the love of God that He is loving. It says the love of God. Not the love for God.

Many of us love God. Oh we love Him with everything in our heart. But we never receive His love. Some of you here right now have never ever allowed the Holy Spirit to bring you into the fullness of God's love for you.

I know what it was for a number of years. My earlier years as a young pastor. So struggling to please God. So struggling to live in such victory. And it's like a young preacher who came to me not too long ago.

And he said, Pastor Dave, recently I had a voice mimic the Holy Ghost. And a sweet little voice came to me and said, if you want to please me, this is the Heavenly Father speaking. And if you want to please me, you're going to have to read more Scripture than you've been reading.

You're going to have to pray many, many more hours. And you're going to have to eat just certain foods that I'm going to give you direction. I'm going to tell you what foods to eat so that your body will be stronger.

Because your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. You're going to have to keep all of these nutritional things. And you've got to do this and that. And all these things were outlined to me. And he said, but such condemnation and guilt I couldn't keep up.

You see, that's what legalism does. Legalism takes on a mimicking voice of the Holy Spirit. And tries to get you into some kind of bondage. Takes you away from the promises of the New Covenant and takes you back under the Old Covenant.

Where God will bless you, the enemy says. This voice will say, God will bless you if you do this, you do that. And if you fail, you're going to pay the price. The Spirit's going to be lifted from you.

He's going to get mad and grieved and leave you. Until you learn your lesson that He's going to come back when you're better. No, no, no, no. There's nothing in the Scripture that has anything to do with that at all.

He said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. The grief of the Holy Spirit is that you won't allow Him to do what God sent Him to do. Because of fear. And you're looking at your circumstances rather than that of His glorious promises.

Hallelujah. This mission of the Holy Spirit is an eternal mission. It doesn't last for just a few years. It's an absolute eternal, the Scripture says, eternal. Because the love of God is shed abroad, that means poured out in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.

That's Romans 5 .5. I want you to go to Isaiah 66 for just a moment, if you will please. And there's just two verses I want you to see in the 66th chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah 66. I want you to look at verses 13 and 14.

Folks, God has been speaking through the prophet Isaiah to a people whose Scripture says went on forwardly in the way of their own heart. Now, these were God's people but they had compromise in their lives.

But you see, the Holy Spirit has been called the hound of heaven. You can't chase Him away. He's been saying, if you've received Christ as Lord, He is not going to leave you in any of your circumstances.

He's not going to run. He's just going to keep coming at you, not going to come in anger. He's not going to come and try to rebuke you. He's going to come and remind you of who you are. Your adopted state, your adopted standing rather, not the state but your standing is permanent.

That you are a child of God, you've been adopted. And the Holy Spirit said, I'm not going to let you chase Him away because my Father sent me to keep you. My Father sent me on a mission to comfort you when you're down and when you're hurting.

Now, Isaiah says that, when I read this the other day, it just, bless me, verse 13, As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And when you see this, your hearts shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish like a herb and the hand of the Lord shall be known toward his servants and his indignation toward his enemies.

Comfort in Family Suffering and Trials

As one whom his mother comforteth. This was written to me this past week. Please pardon the personal indulgence here, but I'm not speaking this for sympathy, but out of trying to illuminate the Scripture here.

As you know, our granddaughter is in our home and the doctor says terminal, and she's been in and out of, she's semi-conscious. And yesterday we thought we were losing her. But I watched Debbie, my daughter, Tiffy's mother and dad, and I just stood back watching.

What an amazing sight. You see in our home, there's nobody, there's no sorrow, there's pain, but no sorrow. And all of the children, all our children and grandchildren go through the house singing Amazing Grace.

And the room where she's in, they're singing praises to the Lord and worship. And I watched, though this little child could hardly open her eyes, and watched mother lean over and say, Tiffy, I love you.

And watched the father, he's been there night and day just bathing and caring as a mother. A helpless child. And the gift that this mother has of ministering to this child. I just sit back and amazed at the human love, the gift of love.

Didn't he say, if you'd been earthly, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more your heavenly father. You see, the Bible said he's a comforter. I know what that means. I know the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

What an incredible thing to come out of a room like that, a heavy hearted grandfather, and just suddenly you walk out and you feel the power of people's prayers. You know in your heart and you say, Jesus, you can raise that child up just like, you can speak a word and you can heal that child any time you want.

And you know I believe that. I have more faith now in God's healing power than I've ever had in my life. But I know something else. I know that the Holy Spirit was given a mission. And I'm giving him opportunity and my family gives him opportunity and permission and openness to do what God has called him to do, to comfort.

But that requires faith. You've got to believe that when you're in a trial, God's going to be there. The Holy Spirit's going to be there. God sent him on a mission and he's not a liar. It's impossible for him to lie.

Now if you're going through something, I'm saying all that for one reason right now. Some of you need a Holy Ghost hug. You need the Holy Ghost to allow him to embrace you. Because you see, he's been sent on a mission of love.

It's a mission of love. Oh that he could open our eyes and our understanding to see that he didn't come to condemn you. He didn't come to condemn me. I can't conceive how some people can live with this abominable doctrine.

They come in a hospital room, as I said last week, and call Debbie out and said, I want to know where the sin is in your life that caused this cancer. And I get emails. I get emails from all over the world that people have heard about it.

And I listen to this and I get to think, don't they know the Holy Spirit? Don't they know the Word of God at all? That the Holy Spirit comes in the time of need. I'm not looking for some quack doctor.

I'm not looking for some special nutrition. I'm leaning on the power of the Holy Spirit. And folks, I'm telling you now. If you're here this morning, and you came here with a cloud over your head this morning, or you're going through a trial.

You're going through something. And I'll tell you something. I see people that don't even want to talk to me. They don't want to talk to our family because they have a 13 year old granddaughter. Or a 12 year old granddaughter.

And they're afraid that I might infect them. Or that if they, for some reason or another, that there's something going on in my life, and I might transfer it somehow to them. And I feel so sorry for them.

I feel so sorry for them. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is a love ministry. The tragedy today of seeing how the Holy Ghost is being abused. How people talk about the Holy Ghost coming down and they make animal noises.

Folks, I dare you to come in to my granddaughter's bedroom that is full of the Holy Ghost. And the peace of Christ. And go into some kind of a jerking motion. And bark like a dog. I dare you. When you would say that the Holy Ghost is just going to jiggle you around and throw you around and toss you like a ball.

No, no, no, no. If you come in a room and the Holy Ghost comforts you there, you're going to feel peace like you've never known. It's going to be like a river. And you're going to feel the love of God.

The love of God. I look at my granddaughter and oh, my heart goes out. But I know in my heart that God has a reason for everything that he does. And we're facing hard times, folks. New York City is facing bankruptcy.

They're going to be very difficult times. Many, many thousands are going to be laid off. We're going into some hard, perilous times. And every single state in the United States, every single one of our states is in deep economic trouble.

It's not just economic, though. You can have, and I'm not trying to scare you, but there can be a phone call to you at any time. You may be sitting here, what if I face a tragedy? What if one of my children is affected or someone close to me is affected?

Well, folks, would you take it from me? Would you take it from me? And from the word of God, when the comfort is needed, he's there. He's there. You may not need it right now, but when it comes, you're not going to fall apart.

And some of you think you're the weakest. You think, oh, I'll fall apart. You're going to be the strongest. Because I've watched one of, you know, forgive me for being so personal, but I remember one of my daughters married with children.

And in a time of testing, she came weeping to me. She said, Dad, I'm so sorry that I haven't been the kind of daughter I should have been. I'm so sorry I've caused you so much pain. I said, what? She said, I just didn't, I wasn't the kind of daughter.

Well, there were times that I had to chasten her. There were times that she did things that grieved my heart. But there was never one time, ever, in all, anything that she'd ever done, she was less than my daughter.

There was never one time that I didn't love her with everything in my heart. And you may be sitting here this morning struggling under a burden of sin. You are cast down by sin. And that, you're carrying a burden.

You hate this thing that's in your life. And you say the Holy Spirit is going to give up on me. No, the Holy Spirit is going to be there constantly to remind you that Jesus still loves you, and He has the power and the ability to bring you through, but you can't give up.

You say, Holy Spirit, come right now. Comfort me with the knowledge that the Holy Spirit who abides in me has all the power and all the strength I need to get to victory, because that's His covenant promise.

It's His covenant promise. I never ask anything from you that I will not supply the power to accomplish. I give you all the power and authority you need if you will trust me. To sum this all up, and I'm going to close in just a moment.

There's so much more here, but I don't want to go any further with it. I feel Lord's accomplishing His work. I can assure you, no matter what you face, no matter what we face, He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world.

He's going to see His people through. Glory be to God. Yeah, I hurt, but I've never had such peace as I've known. And out of the suffering that you go through, there have been a few times, with this I close, there have been a few times I've, the Holy Spirit's, when I've been counseling people or talking to people, I've said, the Lord is going to take you through a lot of suffering.

But you see, that's not a bad thing, it's a hopeful thing. That in the suffering, you see, there are a lot of people God can't trust with suffering. They can't trust Him with it. And it's probably to avoid a lot, because you would be crushed under, and you would not trust Him, and the Lord knows all that.

But God's going to trust some of you with it, because out of it comes something of the grace of God that comes from the comfort of others. I would say as a pastor, if He's comforting me in this, it's for your sake, and the body's sake.

And the suffering that you're going to go through is not just for your sake, but out of it will come a testimony that, because I get, when you go to the hospital, you see there's people screaming and falling on the floor in terror.

They can't look death in the eye. They can't handle suffering. There's no Holy Spirit, there's no Christ, they have no one to turn to. But you see, we don't suffer as others suffer, we don't sorrow as others suffer.