Person and Work of the Holy Spirit Lesson 35
Mike Doyle · Oct 16, 2022
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 83
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261928554331

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So today, hopefully I can speak up. Am I talking loud enough? Can you hear me all right? Hopefully, one of the problems with having COVID is that your memory goes away for a while. I come around the corner and look at Don and say, who are you? But I think we were just starting Lesson 35 last week when Miles was teaching. And so I think we'll just start there and then build off of that. We are in Lesson 35 of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.

The first question was, how does the author define on page 81 inspiration, enlightenment, and prophecy? And in the book, I think it's page 184. So three things. Enlightenment and prophecy. What's inspiration? It speaks of the divine authorship and the perfection of God's Word. He's the author. And he breathed life into the words. So they're just not words. We were laughing on our trip.

I won't tell the story about what Eccle did, but Eccle and I Echo and I started writing limericks back and forth to each other just as a little bit of a little bit of a Teasing and I can assure you that neither one of those limericks were inspired Anyway, so God's Word is inspired and it and I you know The guys that are really the word geeks want to talk about in its original form, but I think if the Holy Spirit wants to take 2022 English and show you what he means in his word, he can do it because the word's inspired.

Okay? So if that's true, then the next thing automatically fits enlightenment. What is enlightenment? It's the unfolding of our understanding. Yeah. If it's inspired, then the Spirit of God and the spiritual words and the understanding of it, the unfolding of it, is something that the Holy Spirit does. And you can depend on Him to do that. Has everybody in the room and on the web understood enlightenment at some point in your life where you read, you were reading God's Word or just spending time in God's Word, and all of a sudden it got clear to you what He was saying. True or not? Do I need to make you hold your hands up? Yes, hands up, absolutely. I think everybody can say yes to that.

So, and the last one is prophecy, and the application that Rideout talks about, he says it's application to the conscience and heart for practical use. We love to talk about prophecy as projecting the future or prophesying what's going to happen in the future, but also prophecy has to do with the application to your conscience and heart for the practical use of what?

The inspired word that you've been enlightened to. I don't know if you've noticed, But in every one of the books of the Bible, especially Paul's epistles, there is a layout of the inspired word, right? There is the enlightenment of what it means and then there's the application of that word. How does that word function in shoe leather? God never says we're just going to give you a whole series of information and it's just going to sit up there as like a poster on your wall. No, it's designed to be implemented in our life, how we live every day. So, that is a background.

We looked, we started, I don't know if we looked that far, but somebody go to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, and somebody else Go to 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21. So whoever gets to the 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, go ahead and read it. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. Okay, so the Apostle Paul tells Timothy, look, all scripture is inspired.

Well, we knew that because we just looked up the word. And it's profitable. For what? For teaching. for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. So God's Word is the source of the information that's profitable to us if we're going to communicate truth to somebody, if it's going to tell us, look, You need to be corrected. There's a problem with your behavior. And we're teaching, the Word of God teaches us how to live righteously. You thinking we know anything about righteousness before we're saved? How that works and how it goes? We don't have a clue. Not a clue.

Our whole frame of reference is good and evil. So we think that if we're doing some good things, we're righteous. No. It's not the tree of righteousness that we come from. It's the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And goodness is not the standard. Righteousness is. That's different than goodness. And I think believers sometimes misconstrue those. OK. 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21.

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by an act of the human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit. Okay, so I think you see a lot of this in contemporary Christianity, especially on television, where people are prophesying all the time about every possible thing.

And for Peter to say that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. So you don't get to decide. I don't get to decide what the Word of God is saying. The Spirit has decided and He's going to teach me what it means. And no prophecy was ever made by the act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit.

So all Scripture has divine origin and is inspired, right? You have your Bible today. All of those words on those pages are inspired and they have a divine origin. The second thing is they were given to us for a purpose. What's the purpose? What's the purpose of Scripture? Is it a rule book? What is it? Why do we have it?

So we'll know God, we'll know our God. Okay. So it's profitable and I think that's a better, actually Russ I think that might be a better answer than what Rideout gave. Rideout said the unfolding of the mind of God and I like the fact that you said it's designed so that through it we would know Him. Yeah, it does unfold the mind of God objectively, but through the Word to get to know the person. And lastly, that the Spirit of God as author made use of human instruments in giving us the Word of God. So you have a guy like the Apostle Paul, or Peter, or James, or John, or the Old Testament writers.

I think they knew that they were inspired You think they knew when they were writing things that, when Moses wrote to Thomas, do you think he knew what he was doing? What's his, did he know the purpose? Did Paul know the purpose when he wrote those letters to different churches?

You think they did? Yeah, I think they did too. I don't know if they understood, like in the New Testament, When was the New Testament sort of packaged together and, you know, you use the word codified. When did that happen? In the early 100s, where they selected the books, said this is scripture, this is the inspired word of God, we can count on this, I think it was 100, 120 sometime in there, which is 20, 30 years after John wrote. Okay?

Now, having grown up in Catholicism, you know, the Catholics try to add books to Scripture like the Maccabeans. And so if you buy a Catholic Bible, in the Old Testament it's going to have the Maccabean information in it, I have no idea who the Maccabeans were. They're probably the guys that were in Rome. I don't know who they were. But the point is, is that there are attempts to plagiarize or to show that God's Word isn't.

But when you think about it, here we are in 2022. We're standing in the Colosseum in Rome and just awed by the fact that this building is 2,000 years old. That's older than Courtney's house. Or if you, I don't know, you go around the Southwest or you go to New England especially, and in some of those towns you say, oh, well this house was built in 1690. I mean, that's something that's brand new on the multi-list compared to what they were building in Rome and places 2,000 years ago.

So the Word of God that we have today, can you trust it? You can trust it. Because it's exactly what God wants us to know. And that's what it's based on. What does God want us to know? Exactly. So... You know, Mike, besides the canonization, which I just googled it, it said 390, 397, so about the end of the 4th century is when it was canonized.

The other, which not only that, the selection of all those books, but the accuracy of all those. Josh McDowell was at Littleton Bible Chapel a few weeks ago, three or four weeks ago, and it's astounding how much information that, I mean, The amount of manuscripts that they have that are consistent throughout 2,000 years, 3,000, it's amazing. He just says that there's so much coming in now that he can't even keep up with it all, that is proving it. And there are some new manuscripts that were just found like a year or so ago within a wall of this.

Catholic church or some church. Yeah, somewhere that were, you know, and again the accuracy of it is incredible. There's no book that has the same accuracy as the Bible. Yeah, I often thought that after I became a believer, growing up as a Catholic, you have, it's a big deal to realize that through the early and middle ages and way before the printing press, These guys, these monks sat in these monasteries and that was their job. To hand transcribe the scriptures.

And they did it in pretty flowery, all hand done. And here are these guys. Now whether they're believers or not, I tend to believe they probably aren't. But the accuracy of what they're doing, God has got us, controls that whole thing so that as the centuries roll by, And the Word of God comes to every generation. It's accurate. You know, the salvation message, righteousness is there.

And all the other things. Now, just because they're there, doesn't mean they understood it all. I mean, it took until 1840 or something before, in the English language, what Romans 6 was all about. Nobody knew. Why didn't they know? I don't know why they didn't know.

Because by that time there had been a hundred years of printing, more than a hundred years of printing from presses and those kinds of things. But still I know that historically, if there was a Bible in one of those Catholic churches, it was chained so you couldn't take it away from them. And it was huge, you know, because it was all hand-done. So if you, I mean, You'd probably have to go jump through a bunch of hoops to get permission to go in there just to read it.

So, God's inspiration and enlightenment, and especially his prophecy, have held God's word. It's what he wants us to know about him. That's really what it boils down to. And no matter what how it's shaded or how the attacks that come against it, the Spirit of God preserves it. You know, Mike, I think about that too. He's a sovereign God, so he's in control.

He has kept this accurate for all those. But he's also, you know, Paul wrote a lot of letters, but these are the only ones that God decided were You know, the ones that keep, you know, as I said, there are more manuscripts showing up and more things that are doing this, but God decided these are the ones that he wanted to maintain, at least at this point. Maybe some of these new manuscripts will show some more things, I don't know, but, you know, at least he's a sovereign God and this is what he wants us to know. Because of the I mean he's in control of all that he's a you know again the accuracy throughout centuries I mean, you know, we have the internet we have all this we have you know printers that can print a thousand pages a minute, you know, whatever it's just sure it's What has maintained over? Thousands of years is is incredible. Well, I know I'm one of those people that don't think the Word of God the Word of God is uh, I'm gonna say this your Bible is as a period after the last word in Revelation.

And it won't be added to. Whatever is discovered going forward will corroborate what's already in there, or not. I guess that's my point. I don't think it... From McDowell, everything that's being discovered is corroborated, perfectly in sync with it. There's some interesting things on that point.

One of the ladies here wanted to do a Reformation Day party with the kids here, so I've been doing a little bit of thinking about the Reformation and Luther and so forth. Mike, I was listening to your introduction to Identification Plus in 2012, and you're talking a bit about that history.

It's really interesting that the Lord didn't bring about the development of the printing press until you had hundreds of years of hand, tedious hand copying, where if there was a single error, you know, it was burned, right? And then, at the point when justification by grace through faith was rediscovered, and the Bible began to be translated into the common tongues, he had it that the printing press was developed you know, but you already had all this thousands of exact manuscripts in the, you know, in the original languages and in the Latin and so forth. But, you know, so that there's all this material to back up these translations. And, because the interesting thing about printing press is that, you know, it was really easy to reproduce typos, for instance, so to speak, right? Yeah. Which there were, but they always have the manuscripts go back to to check against and still doing that. So it's pretty neat.

Do you remember, I forget this guy's name, but who was he a friend of? He was a Muslim, but a Christian that is one of those guys, and he came and spoke here one night. I forget his name, but his ministry was that he was on the radio in Middle East under a fictitious name. Nobody knew where he was or anything, but his whole job One of the things he was really doing was proving to Muslims that that their book wasn't accurate and that the Bible was and He was very well versed and he would just lay out the country a verse and that contradiction a contradiction after contradiction And then he compared to the Word of God And he had a death sentence on his head. I forget that guy's name. He's a fascinating guy. Imagine that's what God calls you to do in your ministry. I'm going undercover, but I'm going to be on the web. And I'm going to talk about a million people in the world think that the Quran is truth. It's full of misapprehensions. It's true of It's a Catholic prayer book or the Baltimore Catechism. There's error in it. There's no error in God's Word. It's amazing. It's just amazing. So, question three.

What is the great basis of all our knowledge of the Word of God? And I think in your paperbacks, it's page 185. If you're doing a PDF, it's 82, I think. So what's the basis of all of our knowledge of the Word of God? That it's God and not men who have written it, spoken in it. And I think Whiteout said that's the foundation for our faith. That God has spoken. bumps in their life, the ignorance of the Word of God is usually at the basis of their problem.

They either don't spend any time reading their Bible, or they do and they listen to somebody else tell them what the Bible says. Well, it's interesting. The Bible is designed for every single individual. to read it by yourself with the Lord and the Holy Spirit so that you get it direct from Him. That's what it's designed for. And you don't need me to tell you what it says. As a matter of fact, you should be going home today and looking up in your Bible and checking to make sure that what I told you is right.

We all should be Bereans. Imagine Paul going to Berea and talking to them about Christ being the Savior And they say, that's great Paul, we'll get back to you next week. And they go back to the Old Testament and they check him out. Is he telling us the truth?

We should do that. We should do that. We should be able to sniff out error just by listening to it because of our own familiarity with God's Word. Because we know that Scripture is the voice of God. It is His Word. He uses that vehicle to communicate to us. Rite Out says, let us settle this as the great foundation fact. It is God and not man who has spoken. I say it deliberately, weighing the statement carefully, that this is the great basis for all of our knowledge of the Word of God. It is His Word. And I must admit that it takes a while for a growing believer to really trust what God's Word is saying.

To settle down with it and to say, you know, one of the coolest things about, I think Cal Malloy was probably the best Christian counselor that I ever ran into or ever read about. And you would go to him with a problem. And he had the same answer for everybody. You know what the answer was? Let's go into God's Word and see what it says about your problem. That's the perfect answer. Because it's the answer to everything. What does God's Word say about your issue? Whatever it is. Let's go find out. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to say, oh, whatever God's Word says, I'm in. Because people, even with God's Word, reject it. He who fails to see this has no foundation for his faith. So, I'll talk about that for a minute. My faith is as strong as what? intensity in which I believe? Or is my faith as strong as what? Your feelings about it? Wrong. That's where we all end up. I know. Nice try.

Right out it says that this great fact eclipses all other facts. What's the great fact? It's His Word. His Word is the great fact. What it is, and it's His Word, that's the great fact. It supersedes everything else. I think you quoted scripture on this a few weeks back. He said it, do you believe it, thus saith the Lord, right? Yeah, and that settles it. And that settles it. Yeah, yeah. So, right out it says, we lose sight for the time being of time, manner, and instrument, but the Lord has spoken.

And so I think, again, part of the obligation or the work of a ministry for believers and teachers is to put forth God's Word and to show the value of it and how important it is. I notice, you know, because I teach a lot and there are different people that zoom in and sometimes you ask questions and you get these answers that sort of bounce off the wall as they go down the room and you think, not critically, but you can tell that person doesn't read their word. They don't spend time in it. And if they don't, then their answers to questions are based on how they feel about God's Word rather than what it says, or some sort of an experience maybe they've had, rather than just what it says. Just what it says. Now, let's say that God's Word, you have an issue. I don't care, pick one. And you go into God's Word and you're looking for the answer.

And here comes the answer and you say, oh, that can't be right. How do you deal with that attitude? No, that isn't it. That couldn't be it. Next week we're going to talk about Paul's thorn in the flesh. Paul's attitude was, well, I'm going to keep going to him until he fixes it. The first two times, what he's saying to God is, oh no, this can't be right. You don't intend for me to have this thorn in the flesh permanently, do you?

So my question is, is it okay to say that to God? Look, I saw in your word where you said, but you need to understand where I'm coming from, what my circumstances are. What's the problem with that? Or maybe there's not a problem. Well, it's a question of authority, right? When we think we know better than God, we question. Question is the first thing we go to is, well, there's got to be some alternative authority that is greater than God about this subject, and I think it might be me in this case.

And then you wrestle with that. It's tough because we have built into us a sin nature that says to us almost incessantly, this is about you, you know. You're the one that gets the design. You're the leader of the gang here. You know, Mike, I'll go back to my normal default answer.

You can go to God and ask Him anything. He'll show you that you're wrong. Or He'll allow you to go as far to find out that you're wrong. I find it interesting how He works in those circumstances, though He's not harsh. Right. He's not a big stick. But He will let you go a ways. You know, it's like touching the hot stove. How long are you going to keep your hand on it? Yeah. No, he allows you to do that. He allows you to ask anything.

That's, I guess, mine. If we have such a rigid, is this within the framework, you know, we become not that intimacy of Abba Father. Right. You know. And I think you can ask anything. But he'll either tell you no, allow you to go, and tell you to figure out it was the wrong decision. And he's gracious in that. No. No. I think that's right. I think that's right. In terms of authority, J.D., part of submission to the Word of God is submission to Him Himself. Thus saith the Lord, that you're okay with that. I don't even have to understand it. He says that that's good enough for me.

I think that's really important because you can look at the Word of God and see the words on the paper and operate based on that authority, but what you just said there was that this is a person and do you trust him to communicate to you without error? Yeah. You know, I think the other thing kind of, you know, as I think about this too, You know, for how long, you know, being a believer, but not seeing Romans 6 and what it means.

Galatians 2.20, what it means.

2 Corinthians 5.17, what does it mean. All those things, I can see them on the paper, but I didn't understand them. Or he allowed me to go for 20 years without understanding those.

And yet it's clear on the pages when I look at it now, you know, I have been crucified with Christ, you know, and, and, you know, wrecking yourself dead and, you know, and alive in the God and all the, you know, I've been crucified with Christ. How did I get by those? And, but he's allowed that for so many years before finding that. Sure. And I, you know, why wasn't it apparent day one? God somehow allowed me to traipse through this earthly path, you know, until it was time. And it was the right time. His time. Yeah, it's interesting. Why did God allow centuries of the Dark Ages?

And then when Martin Luther puts his principles on the door, it's justification. That's as much as he knows. That's five chapters, if you got that far, of Romans. How about the rest of it? And even today, I mean, how many churches, teachers, authors can teach the eight chapters of Romans and teach them accurately?

They can't. They can't. And it's because there's a diversion to performance and a diversion to a lack of understanding. Because the problem with Romans 6 is it gets rid of your old man. And that is the major crime. We can't have that. How can I disappear from the scene? Book sales go down because the self-help books are taken off the shelves.

Sure, they do. And so, how does that happen within contemporary Christianity? And then you sit down with somebody and you explain the identification, just the basics of it. And it's, you know, they kind of look at you and look in the mirror and say, well, I'm still sitting here. I'm still here. You know the church took a hundred years to define who Jesus was. That's the problem. It's not easy.

No. On Wednesday nights we're studying John and we just finished up nine and went into ten and nine's all about this debate between the Jews and personally with the Lord Jesus and who he claims to be. He claims to be the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel. And their reaction, not only do they not want to listen to him, but they want to get rid of him. If they can get their hands on him and kill him, they will.

I don't think sometimes we understand how great the opposition is to what God's Word has to say. Because God's Word very simply is an assault on the sin nature. We don't like that because we identify with the sin nature so much until we find out that we as believers in the sin nature are not the same thing.

Okay. Well, we got through some questions. So we'll pick up at question four next week. So let's call this Dear Father. How thankful we are for your word. How thankful we are that how careful you are to preserve it and to enlighten us about understanding, to unfold the understanding to us and that we through this process of just understanding the word itself that we can behold the glory of your son through that word, a privilege that is beyond description, that you would do such a thing. So we thank you for that. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.