Bible Lesson 93
THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
John 14:26
In this lesson, we want to familiarize ourselves with the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. As you all are aware, Our God is One God, who the Bible teaches manifests Himself to His Children in three distinct, (equal in essence and attributes), personalities. We first meet the Holy Spirit, in Genesis Chapter One and verse two, where we see that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”. The Holy Spirit of God was hovering over whatever was here and we know that whatever was here was “Ex Hihilo” which means that God had created it out of nothing”.
was all covered by water and was utter chaos. was without form and void, not finished in s final state and uninhabited by creatures. The Triny (Father, Son, and Holy Spir) would in the next six (6) 24 hour periods or days complete this great and glorious Creation that includes all that we know today (John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2; Genesis 1:2).
There is normally a great controversy about how long ago this creation occurred, some arguing that was millions or billions of years ago; however, the Bible does not support a time earlier than 10,000 years ago.
So, you mark our first introduction to the Holy Spir of God and that is in the Creation.
The next time that we meet the Holy Spir is many generations later in the time of Noah when God has decided to destroy sinful and disobedient man from off the earth in a universal flood. God says “My Spir shall not strive wh man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. The Holy Spir was given 120 years to draw men to God through the preaching of Enoch and Noah before God would destroy everyone and everything on the earth that had breath and life.
We find that the man Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Our God has always been a God of Grace and mercy. Grace is not a New Testament attribute of God, He has been a Gracious God and a merciful God always. The thing that seems we have trouble accepting is that God is also a Holy and a Just God and He will not always allow men to go their own way.
seems here in Noah’s time that the entire world had begun to make up their gods and worship whatever and whenever they pleased. God will never accept that and we need to see that we, as a world, have to be close to that time that God says enough! Think about how people in our day see the true God, the Almighty who does whatever and whenever He pleases. We have moved Him back from the focus of our lives to a closet where we think that we can reach back and pull Him out to do our good pleasure.
Probably most of us have forgotten what it means to worship God. We like to think that when we end a week of work and pleasure-seeking, living like the world and hardly ever thinking about worshiping God’.
We get up on one day of the week either Saturday or Sunday and go to church and hear whatever the preacher has to offer, without ever truly looking up to where God is and opening our hearts and listing many of the daily blessings that God showers on us to praise his Holy Name to lift His name above every name and to worship Him as our God; our creator, sustainer, and savior.
If we do that then we would be more acquainted with the Holy Spirit because He inhabits all of our praise (Romans 8:26). Worship means to make obeisance, to bow down before this great God, and to reverence Him as our God. We come to God as to our Creator and Sustainer and Savior, realizing that we are nothing without Him, to praise Him and serve Him, to see ourselves and the debt that we could never pay, as having been provided freely by His Grace and Mercy.
It is my firm belief, and I believe that the Bibles teaches this in its context, that God is Spirit and His creatures after the fall did not seem to understand and associate with Spiritual things, in time God sent His Son Jesus Christ in the flesh to more perfectly display God to mankind.
Of course, His ultimate purpose was to be a substitute for those who would obey Him, the elect, and to redeem them from sin. After the Cross and the death of Christ and his burial and on the third day, His resurrection from death and the grave, God in the flesh ascended back into heaven and He and the Father sent the Spirit to be The Paraclete, or comforter and encourager and teacher to those who are truly saved.
Remember now, we must remember that the Father, is God in heaven, The Son is God in the flesh, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God and is God on the earth to encourage, lead and comfort God’s children as they live on the earth.
The Father, The Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all of the same essences and have the same attributes and are “One God.” The Father is Holy and Just, and the Son and the Holy Spirit are holy and just. The Father is Gracious and Merciful as are the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father is Supernatural in all things as are the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are always of the same mind, and they all are together as our One God.
We said earlier that in the Creation, when everything was in chaos, that the Holy Spirit hovered over the face of the deep. We can relate that to the Holy Spirits work with each of us who have been called, quickened, regenerated and born again in Christ, and justified and sanctified; because before the Holy Spirit applied the benefits of salvation to our lives, our lives were in chaos.
We were without form and void because we existed as inheritors of hell. We had been born with the nature of Adam and were dead in trespasses and sin under the wrath of God, (Ephesians 2:1-3). I know that there may be some who will read this and say, “My life is certainly not in chaos, because I am successful and require nothing.”
You may think that, but it is because you have tunnel vision and are not able to see your true position in the world and before God. Think about this for a moment’..so many people are born and grow up with a silver spoon in their mouth, as the adage goes, they are sent to college and come out and either go into some business endeavor or perhaps into a business that is in the family. They make good money, and they are happy to some extent; however, they live in denial.
They have never really understood the truth about the world or themselves, so they fail to see that they have entered through a wide gate and are on a broad road to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14). Probably most of us never think about how truly short this life we have here on the earth is. Think about this’.let’s just say that you live to the ripe old age of 80 years.
You work and scrimp and save and if you have a family you do without some things so that your children can follow in your footsteps. One day you rise early and have a nice breakfast and get into your car and as you back out of your driveway, suddenly you feel pain in your chest and it graduates up your neck and down your left arm, and you feel yourself losing consciousness and the next minute you face your destiny.
Your spirit immediately goes to its eternal place. If you are born again and obedient to God at the time of your death, your spirit goes to be with the Lord; but if you are not that born again new creature in Christ when you die, your spirit immediately goes to hell. At the resurrection, they will be joined to your body which will be resurrected from the grave and then glorified, fitted for heaven.
What we need to stress right here is that we only have the time God allows us to live and breathe on the earth to prepare for this great day, the Day of Judgment. Many become so busy with life and business and family and entertainment, that they never think about death and death, is inevitable.
There will not be a second chance for you to know God’s Son Jesus Christ by faith in His person and work! Today is the day that you should make sure that you are His and He is yours. Don’t put it off another minute’..bow down and speak to your Creator’..show Him your heart and ask Him to lead you to the spout where the glory comes out! Now, Salvation is not like ordering a hamburger at the drive-thru.
God has to do a work by His Holy Spirit to draw you to Jesus Christ (John 6:44). When the Spirit makes it clear to you that God is calling you out of sin to Himself, you will come and if you come the way that Jesus Christ says that you must come, you will be saved. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light”. You “can” come, but you must come in a particular way, and Jesus states that way in Luke Chapter 14:26-33, where He says that “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also’ he cannot be My disciple.
The following verses and you can read them for yourself’.say that the one who comes to Jesus must bear his cross (die to self) and be willing to forsake all that he has, or he cannot be Christ’s disciple. First, you must put yourself in God’s way, by reading the Word of God or hear it preached. Romans 10:17 tells us that Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It takes a knowledge of God before you will be interested in knowing God. Then you will have the Holy Spirit apply all of the benefits of true Salvation to your life.
We cannot see the person of the Holy Spirit, but we can surely feel His presence as He works on us and in us to keep us aligned with God through Jesus Christ. Salvation is not some nebulous act that mankind can begin that grants us a free pass into heaven.
No, Salvation has a High and Holy purpose because it is granted by our Supernatural, Sovereign, Almighty, and All-knowing God. True salvation comes down from heaven in the person of God and the Holy Spirit begins our salvation in time, by obeying God’s call to “quicken” us, to bring us from death to life spiritually so that we can again, just as Adam did in the garden, commune with God. There is a visit to the Cross where we are crucified with Christ and dead and buried and resurrected as a new creature, who will walk in newness of life.
That’s right’.one moment you are a sinner, dead in trespass and sin; and the next God has taken your life and done a work that only God can do and you are now a new creature, a creature that has Jesus Christ in you and you are in Christ. The old sinful things have passed away and you stand now, Just before God, a new creature with the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to you.
One moment we were disobedient toward God ‘.did not need God you thought, but the next moment you stood a Saint, empowered by the Holy Spirit to walk in newness of life. And you had absolutely nothing to do with it! God had elected you before the foundation of the world, and God called you in time and sent His Holy Spirit to quicken (bring you back to Spiritual life) and then God completed the work of salvation in your life by recreating you in His Son Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:10).
Now you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you and enabling you to live the life that God had planned for you before the foundation of the world. If you were a farmer before God saved you, more than likely you will continue to farm; however you have additional services that God requires from you. Service to God will be your nature and farming will be a means of being productive. So what do you imagine God would have you to do after He, by His Grace, saves you because of your faith in the work and person of His Son Jesus Christ’ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of you might (Ecclesiastes 9:10). Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that there are certain things that we will do once we are truly saved.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:3 and following verses..”That there would be blessings for those who were poor in spirit, those who mourn, and are meek, and hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and those who were persecuted.”
Those are all signs of a saved person and a picture of his life. Other things will mark the people who are truly saved, they become ambassadors for Christ and they carry the true gospel to everyone they meet (2nd Corinthians 5:20; Matthew 28:19-20). We as truly saved and born again Christians will obey all that the Bible tells us we are to do. If that sounds like a whole lot of things to remember and do, just remember that you now have the power of God, our supernatural God to enable you to do all of this and more.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was given (visited) on certain occasions when God had a certain task from a creature and God would temporarily send the Holy Spirit to give them supernatural power. Now in the New Testament (Under Grace), The Holy Spirit is given to every saved person the moment they believe and He comes to a leader, teacher, and enabler, and remains in that person until their death (Ephesians 1:13; John 14:16).
What does the Holy Spirit do’ Well, He has a job to do and He does it well since He was sent to the earth by the Father and the Son Jesus Christ. Jesus tells us in John Chapter 16 beginning at verse 8.’.”And When He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because; they do not believe in Me, of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more: of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.”
Jesus goes on in verses 13-15 to tell us that “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and he will tell you things to come.
He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore, I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” The Holy Spirit’s job is to convict or convince sinners of their horrific condition.
The Spirit is light to our minds of darkness and we cannot help but see that we are not only sick, blind, and undone, but that without Christ we are helpless and hopeless. Only those whose eyes and ears have been opened by the Father will benefit from the Spirit’s conviction of sin; however, those who are convinced and turn to God will see how unrighteous they have been and will seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).
The Holy Spirit convinces sinners of that fact and they seek the only righteousness that exists and that is the righteousness of God. Next, the Holy Spirit convinces us that the Prince of the world, Satan, has taught us to observe unjustness rather than righteous judgments. We see that Christ judged and condemned Satan at the cross and we are free from being slaves of unrighteousness. The Holy Spirit will teach us and lead us to true and righteous judgments (John 7:24).
If you are truly saved you have been indwelled and sealed by the Holy Spirit. You are under the leadings and guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, and that is the power of our Almighty God (Ephesians 1:13; Romans 8:5-11). That is why those who have been born again are new creatures, with the old things passed away and all things new.
That is not something that will happen slowly, if at all as we move toward the grave, but it is a present condition. When you are truly saved, you are recreated “In Christ” and you are immediately a new creature because you have a new heart and a new mind and you have had the hand of God upon your life.
You probably do not know all the scriptures and may not know much at all but you have the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ as your teacher and guide and you know right from wrong because the Spirit is moving you to the right.
The moment of your salvation, you become that new creature, and just as Christ was resurrected from the dead, you have been resurrected from death in trespasses and sin, unto newness of life and you will walk in newness of life’..that is if you have been saved.
I’m afraid that we have become a people who have forgotten that only God can give us any assurance of our salvation. We prefer to hear our preacher or some friend or some other person assure us that we are saved. That is the work of the Holy Spirit and unless you have the Holy Spirit’s “rock-ribbed” assurance of salvation and you are demonstrating that you are saved by the way you live ‘.you are lost and going to hell! I find no pleasure in having to say that but it’s time we began to be real about what happens in true salvation.
I think a good reading and study of the eighth chapter of Romans would do us all a world of good because it speaks of the person who has been really and truly saved. In verse one of chapter eight of Romans, we are told that for the truly saved person, there is not and will never be any condemnation; but that is true only for those who have been “Predestined, called, justified and glorified” by the mighty power and grace of God (Romans 8:30). We must come back to the truth that it is God who saves and that God radically changes everyone that He saves and that those who are truly saved life according to the Word and Will of God.
We must understand that we are not in charge of salvation, our Pastor is not in charge, nor our congregation or denomination in charge of salvation. Only God has the authority, the ability, and the power to save a soul. If we get that straight and begin to be interested in being the slave of God, to do His perfect will and live according to His commandments, precepts, and testimonies, we will be on track to being truly saved and receiving forgiveness for our sin.
If we insist upon being saved by our choice, our works our joining some congregation, instead of depending upon God, and His Amazing Grace, we will continue to muddle around in some “wilderness” until we die without Christ and spend our eternity in hell. Think about that as you read again to Romans chapter eight.
Until next time,
may God bless and keep you
This is Bro. Bob