God the Holy Spirit His Advent

in dwelling and sealing and baptism and filling. We're going to try to cover, this is a chart from Hal from last week. We're going to talk about, in the next four weeks after his advent, we're going to talk about the completed ministry of the Holy Spirit, your position in Christ, and then talk about these three areas right here. Sharing his glory, that he shares the glory of Christ with you. He reveals Christ's glory to you and through you. and the fact that the Father and the Son are glorified in and through you.

So we're going to cover it in a little bit different way. We're going to cover the topics in here. We'd like you to read the chapters as we go week by week, but we're going to cover it in a little bit different way. Hopefully, we'll cover the complete ministry as best we can do in a short time period. We kind of counted up each of the topics. I mean, there's like five minutes per topic and an hour you can do. Hopefully it'll be a more complete covering of the Spirit's ministry. Okay, so with that said, one thing that has kind of occurred to me as we look at this picture here is that the Spirit's ministry is really one of focusing on Christ. And we're going to see that today in the verses we're going to look at.

His ministry to believers and to the world is to show them Christ, to show who Christ is and what He's done. And we're going to see that, and that's, I think that as you see His ministry, you see what His desire is to do in both the unbeliever, you know, to the unbeliever and in the believer. It's just, you know, for me, it's just really, it's incredible what God has done in terms of allowing you to to come to know His Son and to come to know Him. And He doesn't hold anything back. He desires that we know Him completely and fully.

And we never will achieve that in this life, but I think it's just really amazing, as we look at some of these verses here, what we're going to see about the desire of God, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, to know the Savior, to know who He is and what He's done. So we're going to go through these three areas this morning. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, in the life of Christ, and His coming at Pentecost. All right. So.

In the Old Testament, if you look at the Old Testament, you know, we talked about this a little bit before, if you look at the first week of the second week, we talked about How was scripture written? Does somebody remember? Can somebody tell me maybe some of the things we talked about or just in terms of scripture, how were the scriptures written? How did we get God's word?

Can someone think of something? What's that? Okay. Okay. Expand on that a little bit. Any other thoughts? Okay. All right. Good. Good. So it was God, as I think it was said, God moved in man. In 2 Peter it says that the men were moved by the Holy Spirit to write Scripture.

They were carried along to write Scripture. And we see that that is really, that was the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And not only that, was He moving the prophets to speak the Word of God. You know the phrase, the Word of the Lord, it must be may a thousand times in the Old Testament that said, the Word of the Lord came to me and I did so and so, the Word of the Lord came to me and I told you something, the Word of the Lord. So it's the Word of the Lord. And in all those cases, that's the Holy Spirit working in man to speak God's message.

Well, some examples I have here are... Sure, go ahead. Yes, the incarnate Word, yeah. No, I wasn't saying that word in fact. Let's just look at an example. Why don't we look at Genesis 15 for a second. I'll just show you what I was speaking of in terms of the word. Maybe I just confused you there. I wasn't speaking about the word as spoken of in the eternity past. I was speaking about the phrase, and I'll just give you one example.

There's a whole bunch of other But in Genesis 15, and this is the promise to Abraham about his son. If you look at Genesis 15 and verse 1, it says, ìAfter these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ìDo not fear, Abram. I am a shield to you. You shall not be afraid. your reward shall be very great, and so on.

So my point here is that many times in just many, many passages in the Old Testament, the phrase, the word of the Lord came to me, and what I was trying to point out is that speaking of the fact that the Holy Spirit was bringing the word of the Lord to God's chosen instruments, to Abraham, and so on, other prophets in the Old Testament. And that's one of the ways the Holy Spirit is seen in the Old Testament. That's why, not to be confused with where it says in John, in the beginning was the Word, speaking of the Lord Jesus, and it defines who the Word is in that case.

Does that help, Marilyn? Or did I really... Well, I was saying that, okay, and maybe I'm, you know, If somebody else has a... Have I gone too far here? When it says the word of the Lord came to me, is that... How did God accomplish that? And I guess I was offering that that was the Holy Spirit bringing the word of the Lord to these people, to these chosen instruments. Maybe if you could write this as a webcast, Okay, all right, we can look at that. Okay, that's good.

Okay, let's look at 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1. And may I get somebody to read that? That would be 2 Peter chapter 1. Actually, yeah, I'm sorry, my first Peter. If someone offered to read maybe actually verses 20 and 21, Second Peter, chapter 1, verses 20 and 21. So I was taking that verse and going back to the Old Testament and saying when we see the Word of the Lord came to me, the Word of the Lord came to me, the Word of the Lord told me to do this, I was saying that was evidence of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.

That was my point. Other thoughts on that? Have I overstepped? And what I want to do, I want to kind of build on that and then we're going to go in and we're going to see other other examples of the spirit working in people. We're going to see in Genesis here, we're going to see an example in the life of... Is that okay, Marilyn? Okay, all right. So let's look at Genesis 41. That's our first example.

And my point was I was trying to show you that the Holy Spirit was very active in the Old Testament. Genesis 41. And can I get someone to read in verse 38? Genesis 41 and verse 38. This is kind of a longer story and we can kind of back up in a second here.

Then Pharaoh said to his servants, Can we find a man like this in whom is a divine spirit? Okay, you know, this occasion is, you know, Pharaoh has several dreams, and in these dreams he's very troubled about what's going to happen, and apparently the Lord used dreams in the Old Testament to forewarn people. So he's looking for somebody to interpret the dream, and he calls on his magicians, all the wise people around him, and he can't find anybody to interpret the dream.

And then someone tells him, I think the baker or one of his associates tells him, well, I was in prison with this Hebrew slave, So he brings Joseph out of prison. And Joseph explains to him, I think it's just incredible, we just go back as long as you're in Genesis 41 and look at the statement in verse 16. And so Pharaoh's asking Joseph about interpreting dreams. And Joseph tells him, this is just really neat, Joseph then answered Pharaoh saying, it is not in me. God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer. So Joseph realized that it was not himself that was going to interpret it.

God was going to give him the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream, the correct interpretation, favorable or correct, I think would be another translation of that. So Pharaoh realized that a divine spirit, and I believe that's one of the indications, and this is one of the examples from the book, This is an indication of the Holy Spirit working in Joseph's life, allowing him to be able to give the interpretation of the dream to Pharaoh.

Okay. So then we go on to the one in Exodus. And this is kind of an interesting one. Let's turn over to Exodus. And this is sort of a pattern that you'll see in the Old Testament. I think if you've spent time in the Old Testament, you'll remember that the Lord used and he allowed them to build the tabernacle. And this is one of the examples of a person that was used in that way in Exodus 31 and verse 3.

Actually, let's maybe go back. Someone could volunteer to read verses 1, 2, and 3. And you realize you get extra points if you read. You get the doughnuts downstairs and I'll, you know, I'll go down with you and you'll. I'm sorry, I'll let you read all the hard words, I apologize.

Okay, so I think we see this picture in many passages where it talks about how God used men, ordinary men, and he filled them with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, and all kinds of craftsmanship. And they built, to his specifications, the tabernacle. So that is another example of how the Spirit of God was working in men. And I think we're going to come away with, as we look through this passage, we're going to come away with the fact that the Holy Spirit was active in the sense that God had a scripture to be written. He had his word to go forward. He had a tabernacle to be built. He had a dream to interpret.

And it came for a time period and accomplished God's purpose for that time period. But the Spirit was not... Even though the Spirit, we're going to learn down here, He's omnipresent. He wasn't... Once that job was complete, the Holy Spirit was removed. in the sense that he was removed from working in that person.

So I think that's important as we go through it. We'll see that it's a temporary accomplishing of God's purpose. And the next one I have here is, this is Joshua the son of Nun. That's in Numbers, Numbers 27. Are there thoughts or questions about that? Hopefully I'm not confusing people. What I'm trying to show is that the Spirit came for a time period. He had a purpose of God to be fulfilled and that was accomplished according to God's will. Numbers 27.

Now, let's go ahead and read it here. It says, So the Lord said to Moses, Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him, and have him stand before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation, and commission him in their sight. So, the Spirit was working in Joshua the son of Nun, and that was the mark that that God was working through Joshua to lead the Israel at this time period. And I thought then there's another one here in Haggai, we don't have to turn to it now, but basically talking about the Spirit abiding in your midst.

Do not fear. The Lord was comforting them. He was saying, sometimes I say, take courage. You know, I'm with you. My Spirit's going to be abiding with you in your midst. Don't be afraid. I'm here and My Spirit is going to be with you in this situation. Okay, so that's kind of the first point, that the Holy Spirit was working in and through people according to God's will.

The second thing to come away with, and I'm sure you folks know this passage pretty well, let's turn to Psalm 139. And it's Psalm 139. This is just a tremendous passage and I'm sure that maybe you all have read this at different time periods and you take great comfort in seeing God's intimate care and how He knows us intimately.

And then you get down to verse 7 in this passage and it says, Where can I go from thy spirit, or where can I flee from thy presence, if I ascend to heaven? Thou art there, if I make my bed in Sheol, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Thy hand will lead me and Thy right hand will lay hold of me.

So this talks about the fact that the Spirit is omnipresent. You can't find a place where the Spirit is not there. And that's true of the whole Godhead. There's no place where you cannot find him. But then, kind of in contrast to that, if you turn over to Psalm 51, and this is kind of the verse for the Old Testament time period, but there was always a concern that the Spirit wouldn't be personally working in your life. kind of talks about that. In Psalm 51, in verse 11, he talks about his concern that the Holy Spirit would not be resident in his life. He says in verse 11, Do not cast me away from thy presence, and do not take thy Holy Spirit from me. So that kind of, you know, we see God's Spirit working in men. to accomplish his task, we see that he's omnipresent, there's no place you can go, but we see there's this concern on the part of people in that time period that the Spirit would not be with them on a full-time basis. I see a lot of puzzled looks here.

The reason I want to take time on that is because we're going to see that picture changes drastically with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He comes to permanently indwell believers. is a radical change in God's plan. The believer has the Holy Spirit on a full-time basis. Now, there's a question of abiding or being under the control of the Spirit, but the Spirit is a permanent possession, as we'll see in a few minutes here. I'm trying to make that contrast. That's why I'm taking the time going through that.

Any questions in this area? I know we've got some already, but... Go ahead. Do you think the Holy Spirit was involved in the Christian or was he... I don't know. Does someone have a thought? It's hard. I would agree. You look at some of the phraseology and your first reading it says, well... And some people have tried to do that. They've tried to say, well...

I'm going to try to go back, and I'm just like David. I need to say, Lord, don't take your spirit from me. And they're really focused on that. But we see that in the New Testament, it tells us that we have just passage after passage, and we're going to see that for the next three weeks or four weeks, that the spirit is a permanent possession the believer has, and the Lord wants us to realize that and count upon that. In fact, if we go back and we try to be David, and we say, Lord, don't take your spirit from me, we're not realizing what we have, and it's to our detriment. I don't know. I didn't... Monty, does that help? Could we say that the Holy Spirit appears temporarily to some holy beings? I think that's... Right. Right. You know, something just occurred to me that he had a specific purpose here. You know, he had his word to go forward, to be proclaimed. He had a tabernacle to be built. He had a nation to lead, to comfort people.

Well, what's amazing is we get to the New Testament and he just wants to come and just be with you and abide with you. And that's that wonderful word, just being at home. He wants to be in this intimate relationship with you. And it's just another level, you know, The Lord had a purpose to accomplish here, and He did accomplish that, and it was a wonderful blessing for the people. Like Al said, but I see it in the New Testament. He wants to come and just to know you, to be personally involved with you.

It's a marvelous thing. I think maybe, hopefully, as we see the contrast more in the New Testament, it'll make the Old Testament... Okay. All right, so let's go on to the... I just want to quickly go over this one because I'd like to get on to the promises of the Holy Spirit's coming. But the Holy Spirit demonstrated His power in the life of Christ.

If you think about the conception of Christ in Luke chapter 1. Let's just turn there for a second. Luke chapter 1. In Luke chapter 1, the angel comes to Mary and basically tells her that she's going to bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. And then as we go down to verse 34 and 35, I'll just read 34, it says, And Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I am a virgin?

And then in verse 35 it says, And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, of the Most High will overshadow you, and for this reason the Holy Offspring shall be called the Son of God." So the Holy Spirit was involved in the conception of Christ. In fact, the very reason at the bottom, the reason that the Holy Spirit is going to come, and for that very reason, the Holy Offspring will be called the Son of God. The Holy Spirit was involved in the conception of the God-man. So that was the first.

And then at the Lord's baptism in Matthew 3.16, it says, After being baptized, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon him. So we see the Holy Spirit involved in the Lord's baptism. It always strikes me there, it says, it reminds me of almost like Jonah, it says, as a dove, it doesn't say it is a dove, I don't know, I may be a little bit picky here maybe, but it was a great fish, and so, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't go down that path, but anyway, I think a dove maybe can get overdone possibly, anyway, it's as a dove, but the Spirit of God, the point is the Spirit of God was involved in in the baptism of the Lord Jesus.

And then thirdly here, in Hebrews 9.14 it says, ìHow much more will the blood of Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offer himself without blemish to God?î Basically, he was involved in offering his blood to God in payment for our sins.

So this is just, I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time on this. I just wanted to kind of point out, and the book does the same thing. It kind of points out these three verses about the Holy Spirit and the life of the Lord Jesus. So we've kind of come in our little picture here.

And we've gone through, we kind of covered some verses in the Old Testament we talked about in the life of Christ. Now I want to talk about His coming. And what I'd like to do is look at some verses that talk about the promises associated with His coming, the promises of the Holy Spirit coming. I think there's just really tremendous insight to be gained about His ministry in the church age. And we're going to see in these promises, there are promises to unbelievers and to believers. We're going to see both. Both of those will be covered. Okay.

Okay, if we could turn to John 14. John 14. And in John 14, and verse 16, it says, And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever. And it goes on to say who that is. That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.

We're going to go through those two verses in a fair amount of detail. But I just wanted to... The first point is that... It's interesting here that the Lord Jesus asked the Father that the spirit would come. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another, and I think Hal's pointed this out, and we'll point out again, it's another of the same kind, and we're going to see that again later on, the same kind as the Lord Jesus, that He's God, and it'll be a permanent possession, that He may be with you forever. So there's kind of like three things. The Lord Jesus is going to ask the Father, and the Father is going to give you another helper, like the Lord Jesus.

And it's interesting, that word helper, we're going to see a little bit later on, that word helper is actually used of both, it's used of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. There are different, if you're thinking like 1 John, we have an advocate, advocate's another translation of that same word. So the idea of a helper is not unique to the Holy Spirit, it's unique to God. Both the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are talked about as helpers, or one who comes alongside to render aid. and He may be with you forever.

And then in Luke, let me just quickly turn over to Luke. Keep your finger in John, we'll come back to that in a second. But over in Luke 24, in verse 49, It says, And behold, I am sending forth the promise of my Father upon you. But you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. So in this passage, they're told... In the first passage, we're told that the Lord Jesus is going to ask the Father. He's going to give you another helper like himself. That he'll be with you forever. But this says that... He refers again to the Father sending the Spirit, but that you're going to have to stay in the city. And actually, it's interesting, some renderings of this is that you're to... That's just not a short stay. Of course, this is in Luke. Some time was to pass. I mean, they were to stay in the city, they were to wait.

So we're talking about waiting for a time period until your clothes with power from on high. An idea of clothes is like to put on a garment. The Holy Spirit's going to... Again, here's this change in what God's doing. When you put a garment on, that's something that stays there until you take it off. Now, I'm going to get myself in trouble here, but anyway.

I think it's another indication of the permanency of this new relationship that's come about with the Holy Spirit. at His coming at Pentecost. So those are the two verses that I wanted to kind of go over in terms of His coming. Now I'll have to kind of go through and look at how is He going to interact with believers and unbelievers? What are going to be the characteristics of His interaction with the believer and with the unbeliever?

Any thoughts about these two passages here? We're going to come back to this version again if you look at your notes. And what I did here, I just listed kind of in bulletized form from verses 16 and 17. And maybe this is a little bit repetitive, but just trying to go through and look at it again. Kind of five things that are going to be true about the ministry of the Holy Spirit when He comes. He'll be the same kind as Christ.

He'll be with you forever. The middle one there, cannot receive him. Can someone think of why that's true? Why is the Lord telling us that the world cannot receive him? And it's kind of an important point. Any thoughts on that? Or I'll put it the other way. What is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the world? I'll put it around that way. What is His ministry to the world? If they can't receive Him, the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit, what does the world receive from the Holy Spirit? Or what can it receive from the Holy Spirit?

Okay, that's good. We're going to see that. The world's going to be... The Holy Spirit will convict them of sin and righteousness and judgment. That's good. We're going to see that. Does the world, the unbelieving world, do they have the capacity to receive him? I think it's really important that we kind of understand that. Let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Can someone volunteer to read 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14?

Sue, go ahead. Okay. So, what would you say about, now the natural man here is, I think, that's a soulish man, is that right? Soulish man, this is a man of the world, a worldly man. It says, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.

And I'll use myself as an example before I was a believer. I can remember, I had the privilege of working with Hal. I walked by the Bible study, Hal was having our work. And I kind of said, hmm, I wonder what they're doing in there. It seemed foolish to me what they were doing. It really did. But then the Lord was so gracious and I went overseas to England and I started reading God's Word, and I came to understand it's not foolishness. I'm a sinner. I need a Savior. So, I mean, you know, I've been there. It seemed foolish to me. It seemed foolish. The Bible seemed foolish. I never read it, but it seemed foolish. Not too smart either.

Give it a fair shake. But the world doesn't want to give it a fair shake, right? It really doesn't want it. It's all myths, and it doesn't want to give it a fair shake. So it takes the spirit. So something has to happen. The world cannot receive it. Something has to happen. And we're going to see that shortly here. Something has to happen in a person before he can receive the things of the Spirit.

And the last two here are talking again about, in terms of the believer, and I mentioned this before, this is the Holy Spirit will abide with you. He wants to have this wonderful relationship with you, this being at home. this intimate relationship with you, and it says He will be in you. And again, here's another whole step up from the Old Testament.

He's going to be in you, and we know it's permanent. It's forever. So He's abiding with you, and He's in you. It's just another level of God's care and concern. That's what kind of really struck me as I looked through all these verses, that God just has this intimate desire and care to know us and to be intimately involved with us. Okay.

And kind of continuing on in verse, let's look at John 16 for a second here. John 16. In John 16, we're going to look at verse 7 to start with here. I'll just go ahead and read it. We're going to look at 7 through 15. In John 16, verse 7, it says, But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper shall not come. but if I go, I will send him to you." So, first of all, it's to our advantage for him to go away.

And it may seem kind of strange. I hear people say many times that, boy, if the Lord Jesus was only here physically, boy, the Christian life would be so much easier to live. It would be so much easier. He's just sitting right here beside me. He'll walk with me. But the Lord Jesus said from His own lips, He said, it's to your advantage that I go away. So somehow God has worked it out, and this is incredible, I mean, somehow He has worked it out, that it's going to be better for us, for the Lord Jesus, not to be here. But what's going to happen is that His Spirit is going to be showing us this intimate relationship that we have with Him in a way that we could not that if he were here with us.

It just struck me. It's to your advantage that I go away. And then here again, it says, the Helper, if I do go away, the Helper, I'm sorry, if I do not go away, the Helper, I'm saying it different ways here. Scripture says it one way and I flipped it around, myself confused here. I'm looking at the Scripture and I'm looking up there and it's flipped. The Helper shall not come if I don't go away. And I thought it would be worthwhile just for a second here to think about this idea of him being sent. I will send him to you.

Let's look at John 15 for a second. John 15. Let's turn back to John 15. Actually, it's really close. And could someone offer to read verse 26? John 15 and verse 26. Thank you. Thank you. OK. So the helper. So for this verse, I think it gives us some insight that the helper is being sent from the Father.

He's coming from the Father's presence. So even though this kind of mind boggling, you think about the omnipresence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There's an aspect in which they have what the author has called an abode. So the abode of the Holy Spirit was with the Father. It says, when the Helper comes, when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. So the Spirit is coming in the sense of taking up an abode, a permanent abode with us, even though he has an omnipresent aspect. And this hurts my head too. His abode is changing from heaven to earth to be among God's people, to indwell God's people. So that's a change in His abode from heaven to earth. I agree, I struggle with that a little bit.

If somebody has a better explanation. We know from many scriptures that both the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are omnipresent. There's no place. you know, Psalm 139 tells us that. But there's an aspect of, well, they have an abode. Where's the abode, for example, where's the abode of the Son right now? Where's God the Son? Where's God the Son's abode right now? Right, the right hand of the Father, right.

So, and that's, you know, Scripture, you know, that's one of the things they tell us, Scripture tells us two truths and somehow you think, well, how can that be? How can He be, you know, how can the abode be here and He's omnipresent? To our mind, it doesn't compute, but in God's, it does compute. I think the abode shows us the focus of their ministry. The son's at the right hand of the father making intercession for us. The Holy Spirit is indwelling his people, spotlighting Christ, showing us Christ.

So I think it gives us additional information, even though it seems confusing. Okay. So three points that it's to your advantage that I go away. And so I kind of see the Lord, you know, we saw the resurrection, the Lord going, being resurrected. I'm sorry, the Lord being ascended. And when the Lord was ascended, God didn't leave us alone. The helper came at that time, so that we were not, it wasn't a time period, when we were without God working in our lives. And then that started the church age.

I'm a little confused there. Let's go down to the next set of verses here. May I just go ahead and read this? Starting in verse 8. We're back to John 16. And it says, and he, speaking of the And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold Me. And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. I'll just stop right there.

So, we see here that the Holy Spirit's ministry Okay, so this is to the world or to unbelievers. So this describes his ministry to the world. So this kind of answers the question, what can the unbeliever obtain? What is the Holy Spirit's ministry to the unbeliever? So this describes it. It's a three-fold ministry.

The first thing I think is really important, and this really has helped me over the years, this word convict. You know, you kind of think of convict as like, you know, the judge is there and he wraps the gavel, you know, and it sounds very, very harsh. But in looking at that word, and these are, you know, this word has a, I guess convinced is probably, convinced or enlightened might be a better translation. Let me just read you what Dr. Schaeffer says about this word in his, He says, the word convict connotes the impartation of understanding regarding the subject in question, the process whereby one is caused to reach a certain conclusion or impression in his mind. So that word convict or convince, and I look back, I'm going to go back to my conversion, I look back to what the Lord did in my life, and he was convincing me that I needed him, that I was a sinner, that I had fallen short. He didn't come and wrap me over the head. He convinced me of that. He showed me through his word that I was a sinner. So, to me, the word convince so much more portrays what he's doing.

But he's convincing us in three areas, sin, righteousness, and judgment. And sin, it's really important, and in a singular, He's convincing us of our unbelief. It says, because they do not believe. That's the only sin that he's really concerned about, the unbeliever. He's not concerned about sins, and we have many. He's concerned about one thing, one aspect.

And there's just one verse that I think just really kind of portrays this, and I remember Hal telling a story about this first, but in John 3, verse 18, it just really tells us about where we stand before God. In John 3, verse 18, it says, He who believes in Him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already. because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So God is convincing us that it's because of our unbelief that that is why we're under judgment.

We do not believe in Him. Because the sin issue, Christ has settled that issue on the cross. He settled that issue. It's unbelief. We do not believe in Him. It's our unbelief. So I think that's just really really critical to see that's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the world. And he's convincing them that they have not put their faith and trust in the Savior.

Yeah, I'm sorry. That's an interesting talk on that whole faith thing. All right. But how does, I don't know, but how does he work? You know, he just doesn't come down and evacuate from the front. No. I think what we need to make important is how is the Holy Spirit actually doing this? He's using us as the believers, the Holy Spirit, to convince the world that our lives are in His hands.

Well, when a person shares with you God's Word, right? I mean, in a way, that person is out of the loop. He's just sharing that, here's God's Word, here's what God's Word said, just like we read this verse, that it's because you have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. In sharing that verse, you're speaking God's Word to that person, And there is convincing or convicting of that truth. Well, wait a minute. I don't believe, you know, is that what you're... Yeah, and that's not how I'm getting at it.

So, it seems like in the Old Testament, God spoke to a person or the people that were carrying God's Word. The Jew, particularly. The responsibility of the Jew was to bring that along until the world saw God's Word. And in the New Testament, God is using that responsibility, not the people's responsibility, but the individual's responsibility to carry God's message. Well, I think it's important to realize that God's desire, He's not willing that any should perish. And God will use man, will use His servants in carrying that message out.

I think we can, in a way, relax about that. I'm not saying that we... But I think God will... God is able to take us and use us in a way that will, you know, will bring... Can I ask one question? Sure. What other plan would there be? There is no... to the Holy Spirit's power. Well, it comes back to his word, right? You would agree with that, right? And he says that he'll use man's... I mean, believers are involved in that process, right? Right.

We're working their lives to show them Christ and that we're epistles, right? Where our lives are epistles. So he's using us. But I guess I was just kind of saying that it's not a guilt trip. I get my book out. Did I talk to Sam and Harry and Joe? And it says as we are going and conducting our lives, the Lord is going to bring opportunity our way. They're going to knock on our doors. or whatever.

What I'd like to do is, I'm going to skip over the last two in the interest of time. Righteousness and Judgment, those ministries as well. I just want to get on to the last chart here, I apologize. I think this is just really outstanding. He talks about, and this is for the believers, The Holy Spirit's ministry to the believer. He's going to guide you into all the truth. That's the first point there. He's going to guide you into all the truth. Secondly, and I think this is just really important, he will not speak on his own initiative. Remember the Lord Jesus? Lord Jesus would say, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Lord Jesus was very... He spoke of who He was and what He's done. I am the vine. I am the door. I am the resurrection light. He spoke of Himself.

The Holy Spirit's not going to do that. He's not going to speak on His own initiative. He's only going to speak... Basically, the message that God wants Him to speak. And let me just read you from the Weiss translation. He will not speak from himself as a source. Or another translation has, he will not speak his own message on his own authority. It's kind of incredible that the Holy Spirit has... He's part of the Godhead. Here's another incredible thing. Why couldn't he speak on his own initiative? But he doesn't.

He says, I'm only going to speak the message... Whatever he hears, he will speak. And I thought about this kind of over the years, and it's whatever he hears, he will speak. He's hearing the message that he's to speak, and he will disclose it to you, or declare it to you, or transmit it to you.

I thought about this, and this may be a poor analogy, but have you ever been in a busy office, and you have two phones, and you have, you know, Sam on this phone, and Joe on this phone, and you want to tell them, but you can't. You try to put the phones together, and they don't work. You have to be, you're the conduit. This may be not a great example, but, you know, you listen to Joe and he says, yeah, okay, and then you tell Harry, and you go back and forth.

Well, the Spirit, incredibly enough, is not going to speak about himself. He's going to speak about Christ. He's going to glorify him. Everything in his ministry is solely focused upon glorifying the Lord Jesus. That we might come to know him. And I think that's beautifully put forth in the last part here where it says, He shall glorify me.

He shall take of mine and shall disclose it to you. And let me just kind of walk you through. That little phrase, take of mine, is just incredible. It's the idea to lay hold of, to take of mine. And the little of there is this word ek in the Greek, out of or out from. And the mine is what I possess.

So you kind of put that all together. It's to take out of all that I have. He's going to take out of all that Christ has. and disclose it to you. Every bit of what Christ has, He wants to show you. There's not one thing He wants to hold back. And then, if that wasn't enough, and this just really gets to me, the last one, Christ makes a statement, all things the Father has are mine. He says, everything that the Father has. I have every single thing. There's not one single thing the Father has that I don't have. He repeats it again. He says, therefore, He shall take of mine and shall disclose it to you.

So incredible as it may seem, God wants to share all of who He is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with us. He wants to disclose it to us. And He does that through His Word. I mean, that's just beyond comprehension that the God of the universe wants to disclose every single thing about Him, every wonderful aspect about our Savior, the Holy Spirit wants to show us. And that's His ministry in our lives. That's what He wants to show us.

And these next weeks, we're going to learn those lists that Hal had to fill the whole page. It's just incredible. beyond belief, beyond comprehension. Anyway, that was kind of a – and the last chart that I have about his – we kind of talked about his transition from heaven to earth, but – well, let's just close then.