The Blessed Holy Spirit

Greet everyone and welcome any new visitors!

Mention about starting the series, The Bait of Satan, this past Wednesday. (Books may be ordered as well as the workbooks, if anyone would like to purchase one. They are each, $11.) We will be having a night of worship this Wednesday and then the new study will pick back up on the following Wednesday, May 12.

JUST A THOUGHT FOR YOU THIS MORNING:

Just a thought for you this morning, before we jump into the message, to remind everyone of something that needs to be fresh on each one of our minds, each and every day and all day long.

The Bible tells us about the love of God, from various scriptures and in various ways. A few such scriptures might be:

Deuteronomy 7:9, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.”

Psalm 63:3, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”

Isaiah 54:10, “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”

Psalm 86:15, “But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”

Psalm 136:26, “Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.”

Jeremiah 31:3, “The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

And how did God show us, as His creation, His perfect and everlasting love?

Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

I John 4:9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Romans 5:5, “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

The life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the Christ and the outpouring of the Lord’s perfect Holy Spirit upon us and into us, are evidences of how great the love of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are for each and every one of us!

Jesus, Himself, said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

And that is exactly what He did for each and every one of us; He gave up His life, so that you and I might recover ours!

There is an old gospel hymn that says, “Oh, how He loves you and me, Oh how He loves you and me. He gave his life, what more could he give? Oh, how He loves you; Oh, how he loves me; Oh, how he loves you and me.”

Friends, do you know of the love of God today? No person on the face of this earth can give to you. No earthly relationship can mimic it, or even come close to it! There is only ONE WAY to find His love and that is through His Son, Jesus the Christ!

Have you tasted of His love’s perfect, pure and complete and satisfying goodness in your life? Because with it, you will never walk alone again; you will never know the pangs of utter helplessness and fear again once you learn and know of the true and eternal love of God in your life!!

Amen?!!!!!!

Just a thought for you this morning!

OK, is everyone ready for a mathematics question this morning?Ready or not, here it comes. (I promise, it’s not a hard one.)

Is 2/3 of something considered a whole?

No, of course not.

Would you want to buy a new 4,000 square foot house and then find out after the fact, that you were actually only getting little over 2,600 square feet of the 4,000 square foot house you were paying full price for?

Would you want to purchase a new Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, which is supposed to push 760 HP, only to find out that the one that you purchased can only deliver around 506 HP?

Well maybe if they cut the $74,000 price tag down by one- third, making it match up to the drop in power you were paying for!

If you were engaged to be married and your fiancé informed you the night before the wedding, that he/she was actually only giving you about 1/3 of their heart and that the other 2/3 was still being given to the heart of another past relationship, would you want to marry that person?

Would you want to take the MCAT medical entrance exam, knowing up front you had only been taught one-third of the information to pass the exam?

So, you can see that having a third, or even two-thirds of something, is still not the same as having the whole thing, right?

And when it comes to having something priceless and something that is of the greatest level of value reduced by a third, most normal people would demand that they have the full measure reinstated, right?!

And yet, that’s how many people are taught, or really understand the concept of their relationship with the Lord.

In other words, many “Christians” are trying to walk out a relationship with the Lord God, while only having the understanding and belief for about 2/3 of who and what He truly is to them and what He has given to them!!

And just for the sake of mentioning it, many times in Biblical prophecy, when you see 1/3 of something being mentioned, it isn’t always in the best of circumstances and it doesn’t always fair very well for the recipients involved in the end.

Let me give to you some scripture passages and I will show what I’m talking about.

Ezekiel 5:12 says, “One third of you will die by plague or be consumed by famine among you, one third will fall by the sword around you, and one third I will scatter to every wind, and I will unsheathe a sword behind them.”

Or maybe, Revelation 9:18, “A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths.”

Revelation 8:7, “The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.”

Revelation 8:8, “The second angel sounded, and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood.”

Revelation 8:10-11, “The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters. The name of the star is called Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the waters, because they were made bitter.”

Revelation 8:12, “The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun and a third of the moon and a third of the stars were struck, so that a third of them would be darkened and the day would not shine for a third of it, and the night in the same way.”

Revelation 9:15, “And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.”

Do you see what I mean? There is a definite pattern in scripture that doesn’t favor well for that 1/3.

Well, there is also something that many Christians are missing, that deals with “a third” and it has a drastic effect on their walk with the Lord!!!

You see, I was recently reading, a classic book of Christian literature and the author of the book was posing the very same scenario that I am mentioning to you this morning. He was talking about the large number of people who don’t understand the truth of who and what the Holy Spirit of God is to them, in their relationship with the Lord.

And what this author was posing in his book and what he was talking about, resonated so strongly with my spirit, that I knew that I had to mention that very subject this morning.

Now, keep in mind that this book was written over 40 years ago.

And yet, the things that this author was prompted to write about then are more imperative today, than they probably were when he wrote this book decades ago!!

So, let me state, for clarity, what I just mentioned and then move forward for you this morning.

There are a large number of people today, who would call themselves true Christians, and yet who really don’t know or understand who and what the Holy Spirit of God is to them and why having an intimate relationship with Him is so very crucial and imperative in their walk with the Lord!!

I know that over the past 7 years I have shared messages about who and what Holy Spirit is, but I believe that He is wanting me to re-visit this subject as there are many people who truly do not know, or recognize Him in their life!

And that is partly due in some way to the fact that the church of America has mis-represented Him in the way that they have taught about Him, or to say it more accurately, as to how the church has failed to teach about Him to the body and to every new believer. And they have failed to walk together in the fullness of His guidance and power because of this!

So, this morning, my message and its intent is simple; introduce everyone to Holy Spirit and show you who and what He is for each one of us, who are truly believers in the Christ.

In our faith and belief in Christianity, there exists a doctrine that is elusive and difficult for many to comprehend, or understand.

That doctrine is referred to as the Trinity.

Trinity, coming from the Latin word, “trinitas”, (which means triad, or threefold), is the doctrine of the Godhead.

In its simplest form, the Trinity states that God, Yahweh, is the one true God of heaven and earth and is over all creation; that He is eternal and has always existed as one being and yet He also exists in three persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

There, that was easy enough, right?

The Bible clearly shows the unique and undisputed individuality of the Godhead, throughout its pages, as it unfolds and displays for us, the divine character and nature and purpose for each member of the holy Trinity.

To some people throughout the ages, the concept of the Trinity was heretical, because it seemed to express polytheism in saying that there were three gods in the Godhead, verses that of the monotheistic stance of ONE GOD.

They felt that this went against the very sacred declaration of the Jewish, Shema, as found in Deuteronomy 6:4 which states, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is ONE!”

How can there be ONE GOD and yet He exists as three separate persons? That is the question, now isn’t it.

Now let’s be honest, how many of us, whether early on in our walk with the Lord, or even now, have scratched our heads and struggled with the concept of God being one person, and yet He exists as three separate beings?

There are numerous explanations given as to how to try and explain this:

The example of water: it can exist as liquid, solid and gas and yet it is the same molecular form.

I have seen a minister explain that the Trinity is like a large pretzel. It has three holes and that if you take away any one of those holes, you no longer have a pretzel.

There is the one that I have used in the past: I am a husband, I am a father and I am son. I am all three at once and yet I am individually each one, as I walk in their different functions.

Perhaps the explanation that I really like, belongs to that of Dr. Henry Morris, who said that the entire universe is trinitarian by design.

He states that the universe consists of three things: matter, space, and time. Take away any one of those three and the universe would cease to exist. But each one of those is itself a trinity.

Matter = mass + energy + motion

Space = length + height + breadth

Time = past + present + future

None of these really, truly explain the Trinity, but they serve only to try and give our limited and finite minds something to conceptualize for ease of understanding.

The Trinity is God the Father: He has always existed and He is the first listed in the Godhead.

He is the first shown in the opening of the Bible in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

And yet, He is shown and depicted as plural in the creation account.

By the way, the Hebrew name for God, is “elohim”, which is plural form of the name, “el”.

This same name has been used in ancient cultures to refer to “gods”, because it is plural.

Perhaps one of the most striking examples of the plurality and uniqueness of the Trinity is seen in Genesis 1:26-27, which says, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

In this passage, we see singular and plural pronouns used. “Let us … in our image … So God created man in his own image. … he created him."

Do you see this?

And in the opening of the Bible, two of the three members of the Trinity are equally and openly depicted in the creation account.

Genesis 1:2, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”

So, we have seen God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in the very opening of the Bible.

And in John 1, we find the completion of the Trinity for the creation account, showing that all three are present and unique in their function and roles and still, all three are one!!

John 1:1-3 says,

John 1:1–3 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

This is the apostle John, speaking about our Lord and Savior, Yeshua, the Son of God!

And so, the next of the Trinity is, “God the Son”.

The entire New Testament is based upon, large and in part, the life and death and resurrection and ascension of the Son and of how His disciples began to spread the gospel message about Him to the world.

And also the things that are to come in the end, via the Revelation of John.

We, as the body of Christ, read much about and study much about Jesus, the Son of God.

And because He is shown as a man, (even considering the complexity of the immaculate conception of the Christ), because He walked the earth and lived as a man, we do not struggle with Him and His place in our lives as Christians.

Nor, do we struggle with God the Father, who is a spirit and not a man, but because He is named throughout the Word and He talks and communicates with mankind throughout His Word, we can relate to and conceptualize Him.

God the Father, Jesus the Son, are both identified and named explicitly in the Bible and their distinct roles in the whole salvation process are seen so we talk and pray and read about them and think about them.

Man has painted and sculpted images of them for centuries (which, incidentally, is quite possibly a violation of the second commandment of God, but that is for another lesson) but, none the less, mankind could conceptualize both of these members of the Trinity and thus relate to them.

It is the third member of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, that mankind cannot put into box and study and develop images and concepts of.

He is not named by a name such as Yahweh, or Yeshua, but only as His position in the Godhead, God the Holy Spirit.

And because of this, He is large and in part overlooked, or misunderstood by the church. (Both in centuries past, as well as today.)

I was raised in a mainline denomination and although we mentioned Holy Spirit’s name and read about Him from the Word of God, He was never depicted to me as a real and personable person of the Trinity.

Which is why, some people simply view Him, as a “force” and not an actual person. The religion of Jehovah’s Witness believe this very thing.

If you go to their website and look up who is the Holy Spirit, you will read, right out of the gait, “The holy spirit is God’s power in action, his active force. God sends out his spirit by projecting his energy to any place to accomplish his will.” And then a little further down the page it states their belief in saying, “By referring to God’s spirit as his “hands,” “fingers,” or “breath,” the Bible shows that the Holy Spirit is not a person.”

They believe that He is a force, not a person of the Godhead.

Of course they also believe that Jesus was a created being by God and that He didn’t physically resurrect, but only as a spirit, so.......

The point is, although the Jehovah’s Witness just come out and say it, that they do not believe in the person that is Holy Spirit, many other people struggle with His presence and His identity, and so they do not spend much time or thought dealing with Him.

And the church of America for decades hasn’t helped this at all.

Either He was rarely, if at all ever taught about from the pulpits of churches, or on the other end of the spectrum, via the hyper charismatic initiative, He was made out to be some invoked character from God, who would show up at certain church services and make everyone feel a certain way, which would satiate them until their next “Holy Ghost Gathering”.

Both of these extremes are wrong and they both horribly miss the beauty and power of the third person of the Trinity, who is the Holy Spirit.

There are numerous books and debates about the first two of the Trinity, God the Father and God the Son, but as to the third and EQUAL member of the Trinity, the church went silent!

We could all share about who the Christ was and is right now and what we think and feel about God the Father.

Pretty much everyone who has ever sat in a church and even many atheists and agnostics, as well as people of other religions, can somewhat intelligently speak about Jesus and God the Father, because of all of the famous stories that came from the Bible about them and all of the literature and paintings and books written about them.

But, the masses ignore and have even pushed away, the blessed Holy Spirit, because He is not shown in detail, like the Father and the Son.

Or is He?!!

Each member of the Trinity has their own unique role and purpose, as seen within the Bible. And Holy Spirit is no different. He is the breath of God (the pneuma), that when God speaks, Holy Spirit is the active agent that goes forth and carries out the will and purpose of God, in power and authority.

The Old Testament CLEARLY shows and mentions of Holy Spirit coming upon men and women, to empower them to carry out the spoken will of God the Father.

Like in the creation account, God the Father was their as the master designer and with His perfect will for all things, Jesus, the Son of God, was their, as the living Word of God, who speaks into existence the will of God and Holy Spirit was there hovering and waiting to empower the will and the Word, so as to bring them forth into existence!

Holy Spirit was there every step of the way from start to finish during the earthly life of Yeshua, carrying out the will of God, through the Son.

Holy Spirit was the one, whom Gabriel announced, who would overshadow Mary with His presence and supernaturally place the Christ inside of her womb; fully God and yet fully man!

It was Holy Spirit who manifested like a dove and descended upon Jesus at His baptism, physically representing the power and the authority of God coming down and resting upon the Christ for His earthly ministry.

And as Jesus clearly made it known when the Pharisees challenged Him as to how and by what means He was doing the mighty miracles that He was doing and from where did He receive His authority and power and by His casting out the demons, (which they attributed to the devil’s power), Jesus openly stated that it was by Holy Spirit that was empowering Him and that ANYONE who rejected the sovereignty and power and works of the Holy Spirit, would never be forgiven!

That alone should tell you of His position in the Godhead.

Jesus said in Matthew 12:32, “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

From start to finish, it was Holy Spirit who was with Jesus to empower Him and walk with Him all the way to the cross, and to the resurrection in the tomb and then back to His place in heaven with the God the Father again.

And once Jesus ascended and went back to His state of glory in heaven, as was His before the worlds began, then Holy Spirit was sent to continue the work of Jesus, as He had been doing throughout the life of Jesus, but in other people’s lives now!

It is absolutely imperative that you and I pay close attention to what Jesus said on the night of His arrest, to His beloved disciple in the upper room discourse, as shown in John’s gospel, chapters 13-17.

Jesus made it very clear that He and the Father were the same, as He said in John 14:7,

John 14:7 ESV

7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

And then in chapter 14, He goes on to say, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”

Jesus was openly and clearly stating that these two of the Trinity, the Father and the Son, were equal and were one!

And then Jesus said that it was to our advantage that He was going back to the Father, because once He did, He would ask the Father to send us ANOTHER HELPER, who would be with us forever!

That word in the Greek for ANOTHER HELPER, is the word, paraklētos, and it means, “the Helper, Counselor, Encourager, Mediator”.

In saying another Helper, He was making this new agent for the disciples, one who was like Him, equal to Him, as a Helper.

In fact Jesus said that this new Helper was someone who they already knew, because He had been with them the whole time (referring to His being in Jesus) and that He would soon be in them!

Then Jesus tells them, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

Now wait a minute, didn’t Jesus say that He was going to the Father and that He would ask the Father to send another Helper and yet now He is saying that “HE” would come to them!

How can this be? Simply put, Jesus had just shown in chapter 14 that He and the Father were equal and were one, and now, He is saying that the Helper that He is sending, is the same as Himself being with Him; equal in power and authority and in purpose and function for their needs in declaring the gospel message!

Just as Jesus went on to say, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”

And yet it was Holy Spirit who would coming to them. They are unique and yet, as the Godhead, they are ONE!

Jesus said in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

And this all occurs through the indwelling presence of Holy Spirit in the believer!

When you have Him, you have them all!!

I am going to stop here today and pick next week on the function and roles of Holy Spirit within the life of a true believer! My purpose today was to stress how you cannot accept only part of the Trinity. The three are inseparable. \

They are distinct and unique from one another, and yet they are ONE. You cannot treat them as an à la carte menu and pick and choose which ones you want, for convenience sake and for ease of conscience!

We must begin to understand who Holy Spirit is and dispel the lies and myths that exist about Him!!!!!

I’m going to stop here and pray and in doing so, I want to give a period of silence and allow Holy Spirit to come and to speak to you, Himself, in your heart to your spirit.

If you have been grieving Holy Spirit and ignoring Him and His role in your life, then I encourage you to come this morning kneel before the Lord and take a few minutes to ask Him to forgive you and to fill you with His presence and His power.