In this sermon, the speaker discusses how Jesus spent 40 days after his resurrection preparing his disciples for the coming events. He explains that Jesus taught them about the nature of the kingdom of God and how God can indwell man through the Holy Spirit. The speaker emphasizes that being a Christian means living as a king in God's kingdom on earth, with God's presence within us. Jesus also explained the purpose of his death and resurrection, and how he would come to live in his followers. The sermon highlights the importance of waiting for the promised empowerment of the Holy Spirit before embarking on new responsibilities.

In their rediscovery of the Lord Jesus, in the power of his resurrection, a new joy. Joy unspeakable, Peter said, and full of glory. A new Bible. For the Lord Jesus opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. And the written word and the living word were brought together and dovetailed, and they reckoned in the person of the Lord Jesus as the living word, the one who had fulfilled the written word, the substance of the shadow. Added to their new joy, the new Bible, and then added to their new Bible, the new message. Not now, just as we saw last evening, repentance period, telling wicked people to be sorry, but repentance and remission of sins. They were now in a position on the grounds of his redemptive transaction, not only to tell people to be sorry, but to tell sorry people how to be saved. So a new joy, a new Bible, a new message, and then you will remember the Lord Jesus said, I'm now going to lift the prohibition that I placed upon you. When then, as we have seen, Matthew 16, Matthew 17, he forbade them under any circumstances to tell anybody that he, Jesus, was the Christ. He said, I'm removing the ban, and now you are going to be my witnesses, beginning at Jerusalem, and then in Judea, and then in Galilee, and then to the uttermost ends of the earth. New joy, new Bible, new message, and the new responsibility. Then we had to conclude last evening, but you will remember there was one more thing imperative to the discharge of their new responsibility, the new enabling. Terry said the Lord Jesus, in the city of Jerusalem, until you be endued with power from on high, the new enabling. And it's at that point tonight, we're going to pick up the threads of our exploration into what it was that took place that brought these disciples out of Matthew 16 into Acts chapter 5, where daily in the temple, and from house to house, they were teaching and preaching precisely what the Lord Jesus earlier, Matthew 16, had categorically forbidden them to do. So turn back with me now to the first chapter of the book of the Acts, Acts and chapter 1. This is, if you will remember where we began. At the worship hour on Sunday morning, the former treatise have I made of Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach. And we reminded ourselves then that this, the book of the Acts, is a continuation of the story, what the Lord Jesus continued to do, and what he continued to teach. And the only essential difference, the humanity with which he clothed his divine activity. And we're going to discover this evening how it was that the Father God in heaven presented to the Lord Jesus, his new body on earth. In the second verse, until the day in which he was taken up after that he threw the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs being seen of them 40 days. And throughout those 40 days, the Lord Jesus conducted a short-term non-vocational Bible school, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. That's what the Lord Jesus was talking about, the kingdom of God. Now, please don't imagine that he was talking about that place that he was going so soon to prepare for them and for us. In John 14, you will remember, he said in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you and I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also. But this isn't what he talked to them about when he talked to them about the kingdom of God. He was really talking to them about the things that so soon would happen in their experience that would equip them for the discharge of their new responsibilities as those now whom he had commissioned to be his witnesses, the kingdom of God. For you see, the kingdom of God isn't a destination. The kingdom of God isn't heaven. The kingdom of God isn't something towards which you and I have the right legitimately to look forward. It's something far more wonderful than that. And keeping the place there in Acts chapter 1 in parenthesis, as it were, let's look for a moment at the gospel of Luke and the 17th chapter, 20th verse. For when the Lord Jesus was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, this is what he said, Luke 17 and verse 20. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. That means to say with outward show. You can't point down the road and say there it is. You see that piece of real estate with a spire that rings bells on Sunday. There's the kingdom of God. It isn't that piece of real estate over there that represents the headquarters of some ecclesiastical hierarchy. It isn't represented by people walking down the road swinging incense or dressed in a certain way. He said the kingdom of God doesn't come by observation. You can't say, said he, here it is or there it is. For behold, he said, end of verse 21, the kingdom of God is within you. That's the kingdom of God. And this is what the Lord Jesus was talking about in those 40 days. The kingdom of God said he, which is within you. Well, if the kingdom of God is within you, where ought the king to be in his kingdom? What should the king in his kingdom be doing in his kingdom? Exercising his total jurisdiction. The one who at all times and in every circumstance exclusively is to be consulted. The king in his kingdom. In other words, God back in the man. The Lord Jesus in the Christian putting deity back into man's humanity. The king in his kingdom. That is the kingdom of God. And in preparation for those events that so soon were to take place, the Lord Jesus for 40 days prepared them as he explained the nature of the kingdom. How he had so created man with a body and a soul and a spirit that God, the creator by the Holy Spirit, could indwell man by the Holy Spirit's presence within the human spirit that he might exercise the divine prerogative, exercise total jurisdiction, gaining access from within the human spirit to the human soul so that he, God in the man, Christ in the Christian would have the absolute unchallengeable right to teach his mind, control his emotions, and so direct his will that he king in his kingdom would govern his behavior. That's what the Lord Jesus was talking about, not heaven one day, but the reality of being a Christian 24 hours a day on earth on the way to heaven. Man restored to his true humanity with God back where he belongs, the creator within the creature. In other words, how to be a Christian, not how to become one. He'd already explained to them how they would have become Christians. Thus it behove Christ to suffer and rise again from the third day that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name. That's how you become a Christian because you see a Christian is simply a forgiven sinner in the first instance. That's why if I'm talking to someone tonight who is not a who is not a sinner, I'm talking to somebody who will never ever become a Christian because you can't become a Christian if you're not a sinner because a sinner begins to become a Christian when he becomes a forgiven sinner. But the Lord Jesus in those 40 days wasn't talking about how to become a Christian. He was talking about the kingdom and the king restored to his rightful place as king in the kingdom. In other words, he was talking about new birth. He was talking about a spiritual regeneration, not redemption. He'd already dealt Luke 24 with redemption on the grounds of his atoning death and his triumphant resurrection by which we are justified. He's now talking about that resurrection that takes place when the Holy Spirit God himself reinvades the human spirit and the creator once more takes up residence within the creature. That's why you see because the kingdom of God is within you, you cannot enter the kingdom without becoming part of it. Not one day when you get to heaven, but right here with your two feet on the ground on earth. He wasn't talking about reconciliation to God. He was talking about being saved by his life because as I'm sure I don't have to tell you folks here tonight, it isn't the death of the Lord Jesus that saves us. It's the life of the Lord Jesus that saves us in a very limited sense. Of course, his death does save us from the punitive consequence of our guilt. It gets us out of hell and gets us on our way to heaven, but that isn't salvation. Again, before we turn back to the first chapter of the book of the acts in parenthesis, turn to the fifth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, Romans and chapter five. If when we were enemies, when were we enemies? Well, by birth, by that natural birth, that animal natural birth, that physical birth whereby you and I became the natural physical children of our natural animal physical parents. That's when we were enemies because you and I, without exception, were born into this world alienated from the life of God dead in trespasses and sins. You and I were born into this world, the seed of a fallen Adam destitute of the divine content, physically alive, soulishly active, but the human spirit totally empty of the Holy Spirit with the soul invaded by and dominated by a sin principle of satanic origin, which is called in the second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, that spirit that works now in the children of disobedience that can only abuse, misuse and prostitute your humanity. That's when we were enemies, but he's not talking now in this fifth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, to those who are still enemies. He's talking to them in the past tense. He says, when you were enemies, if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, something that has already been accomplished. How does reconciliation take place? Well, it tells you if when we were enemies past tense, we were reconciled to God past tense by the death of his son. That's what takes place through the death of the Lord Jesus. Guilty sinners cleansed in his shed blood are reconciled to God whom for his dear sake who died in their place, he forgives. They are acquitted. He says, I have blotted out your transgressions like a thick cloud. I have buried them in the depths of the sea. I've put them as far away as the east is from the west, and I will remember your sins no more. Reconciled. Having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. What did it take for you and for me to be reconciled to God? The death of his son, but that isn't salvation. That's the threshold of salvation. That's the door through which you enter, and there is no other door. Jesus, the way with the nail prints still in his hands and feet. What does it then go on to say in that verse? If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, much more being reconciled, the redemptive transaction having already been enacted, peace having been established between you and God on the grounds of forgiveness, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by what? His life. So what does the Bible teach you about salvation? By what are you saved? The life of Christ, the restoration of the king to his kingdom, the restoration to the redeemed sinner of that life that is imperative to his humanity, God's life. For the simple reason that God engineered man in such a way that the presence of his maker in the man is indispensable to his humanity. So reconciliation through the death of Jesus Christ, though it would have saved us from the punitive consequence of our guilt, though it would have got us out of hell and into heaven, would have left us, of course, pathetically, abysmally inadequate for that purpose for which God the Father sent his son into this world in restoring man to his true function, that he might so live on earth and on the way to heaven and in heaven in such a way that the likeness of his creator would be reflected in his character, saved by his life. So if you only know the Lord Jesus is the one who reconciled you to God by his death, you're still on the threshold. You'll get to heaven, but you'll remain pathetically unfit for earth on the way to heaven. You see, we need not only what he did because of what we have done, but we have to recognize that everything we do is the result of what we are. That's why we need not only what he did redemptively, we need who he is regeneratively, what he did because of what we've done and who he is to take the place of what we are. The king back in his kingdom. Now that's what the Lord Jesus was talking about for 40 days. To those who at last, at last, had understood the redemptive efficacy of his atoning death, he then spent 40 days explaining why it was he died for them, so that he now risen from the dead might come and live in them. Something, he says, that hasn't happened yet. That's why I am telling you, though I am giving you a new responsibility, you are under no circumstances to leave the city of Jerusalem and embark upon your new duties until that has happened, which my father promised and that could only be implemented on the basis of what I have already accomplished in dying for you, so that I risen from the dead might then give myself to you. But it hasn't happened yet. All right, back in Acts chapter 1, being assembled, it says, verse 4 of chapter 1, being assembled together with them, he commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the father, which saith he, you've heard of me. In other words, although they now had come to understand the redemptive purpose of his dying upon the cross, they had not yet received that for which he died. The restoration by the gift to them of the Holy Ghost of his indwelling resurrection life. And because they had not yet received by the gift to them of his Holy Spirit, through whom alone they could share his life on earth, clothed with their humanity, as the Lord Jesus, as some of us saw this morning, by the same Holy Spirit shared the life of his father on earth, clothed with his humanity, because they had not yet entered into the good of that for which they had been reconciled, they were still completely inadequate for the new responsibility that had been imposed upon. You see, had they at this stage, without waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit to invade their humanity, embarked upon those new responsibilities, they could only have done so in the energy of that old Adamic nature that they still possessed, though redeemed. They could only have tried to mobilize their carnal resources to accomplish spiritual ends. And that, of course, would be an exercise in futility. You see, the fact that you know that your sins have been forgiven because Christ died for you, doesn't give you the moral capacity to live a different kind of life. The fact that you know, for his dear sake, who shed his blood upon the cross, that you've been reconciled to God, does that change the nature of that old Adamic principle that is called the carnal mind, which is admitted to God? Well, of course not. Well, of course not. That's why, of course, if you try very sincerely, and there are countless people who so desire, if you try to live the Christian life before redemption, in the energy of the flesh, you cannot but fail. Because that old Adamic nature is, by nature, hostile at enmity with God. It isn't subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. But supposing you're then redeemed, you recognize your need of forgiveness, but all you know is that you've been forgiven because Jesus died for you 2,000 years ago, but you don't know that he died for you then so that he might live in you now. Supposing you're ignorant still of that fact, all you know is, I've been converted. So because you don't know that something marvelous has happened whereby the divine nature has been imparted to you in the gift of the Holy Ghost, but you still now want to try to live the Christian life after redemption, but continue so to do in the energy of the flesh, as you failed before redemption in the energy of the flesh to live the Christian life, so you will continue to fail in the energy of the flesh after redemption to live the Christian life. Well, what's the difference? Well, only one. Before redemption in the energy of the flesh, if you try to live the Christian life, you'll fail on the way to hell. After redemption, if you try to live the Christian life in the energy of the flesh, you'll fail on the way to heaven. That's the only difference. And you see, there are hundreds of thousands of genuinely born-again Christians who don't know what it means to be born again. They equate it with being redeemed. They think it's one and the same thing. They relegate it back to a date in history when three months, three years or thirty years ago they were redeemed by claiming Christ as their Saviour who died for them historically on the cross two thousand years ago. They still completely miss the point that He died for us then to put His life in us now. So said the Lord Jesus, you're not yet fit for the John. John, He said, truly baptized with water. But ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Something which hasn't happened yet. Not many days hence. Now this, as I indicated last evening, is where there is so much confusion today. A confusion which is totally unnecessary. It's quite obvious that so far as these disciples were concerned that they had entered into the redemptive efficacy of Christ's death in that at last opening their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, they recognize the need for what He did because of what they've done. But they had not yet at this stage received that for which they have been forgiven. The restoration to them of that life that was lost in Adam in the day that man died. So there was a time lag between their redemption through the shed blood of Christ and their regeneration or new birth through the coming of the Holy Spirit who would presence within them the life of Christ. Now that time lag no longer exists. It did then because this, you see, was the interim period between the Old Testament and the New Testament. This is with the Old Covenant was done away in the New Covenant. So there was a time lag. It's called the baptism with the Holy Spirit. How are we going to discover what is involved in being baptized with the Holy Ghost? Well, it's very simple to me. Being assembled together, verse 4, with them He commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father which, saith He, you've heard of Me. And this fulfillment of the promise of the Father which, said He, you have heard of Me would take place not many days hence. Well, if we want to know therefore what took place in that which calling it the baptism with the Holy Ghost the Lord Jesus equated with the fulfillment of the promise of the Father all we need do is turn the page back and discover what the Lord Jesus had told them what they had heard of Him concerning this promise. Then we'll know what took place on that day of Pentecost when they were baptized with the Holy Ghost. For the Lord Jesus equates the baptism with the Holy Spirit with the fulfillment of the promise of the Father. So I thought that was the most objective thing to do tonight. And we're going to turn the page back and discover what it was that the Lord Jesus foreshadowed would take place to be fulfilled at Pentecost still at this stage, Acts 1-5 not yet accomplished in the experience of these disciples. Turn to John chapter 7. In the 37th verse, in the last day, that great day of the feast Jesus stood and cried saying if any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. Of course He's speaking of this in its spiritual connotation. He said I personally am the only one who can quench your thirst. Come to Me. He that believeth on Me believing there of course in the biblical sense of exercising a disposition toward the Lord Jesus called faith that making Him the object of your faith allows Him in faithfulness to move into your experience. He that believeth on Me as the scripture has said out of His innermost being the human spirit shall flow rivers of living water. There's going to be a flow from the inner man. Now just in case there were any ambiguity in your understanding of what the Lord Jesus then meant in parenthesis inspired by the Holy Spirit the Apostle John goes on to say this but this speaking of the rivers of living water flowing out of our innermost being this speaking of the Spirit the Holy Spirit God the Holy Spirit whom they that believe on Him should receive for He continues to explain this person, God the Holy Ghost was not yet given. Why not? Well because the Lord Jesus was not yet glorified. When was the Lord Jesus glorified? After His death and resurrection from the Mount of Olives the Lord Jesus returned to be with His Father there to claim that glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit that had always been His in the eternal ages of the past. As He reminds the Father in His prayer in the 17th of John the Lord Jesus was not glorified until His mission accomplished from the Mount of Olives after that short term Bible school of 40 days He ascended and was received back into the presence of the Father and the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified and quite obviously so because it was when sin came in in Adam that the life went out as by one man Romans 5, 12 as by one man, Adam sin came into the world a change of disposition that traded dependence on God and the obedience to God that derives from dependence on God traded that for independence of God and the disobedience to God that derives from independence of God in that day as by one man sin entered in the world and death by sin how does death occur? death occurs when pre-existent life is forfeited now it's quite obvious that Adam in that day didn't forfeit physical life but he died that day God said in thee day you eat thereof you will surely die what life did he lose? when death occurred in Adam that life for which man was made God's life the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the human spirit and all that survived was the animal part of man his body and his soul and he remained functional but godless he remained functional but alienated from the life of God dead in trespasses and sins and you and I are the fallen heirs of that fallen Adam and without exception you and I are born into this world spiritually destitute dead that's why no boy, girl, man or woman born since Adam fell can, has or ever will die for their sins did you know that? no boy, girl, man or woman ever born into this world since Adam fell can, has or ever will die for their sins for a very simple reason it's too late it's already happened in Adam how many died? all died were you born into this world physically alive spiritually alive or spiritually dead? the Bible tells us categorically that you and I are born into this world alienated from the life of God cut off detached from that divine content for which man was made the presence of God within his creature and if there's one thing you can know about the dead it's this the dead can't die only two things can happen to the dead what are they? stay dead or come alive that's why the Lord Jesus said I am come that you might have what? forgiveness? is that what he said? no I am come that you might have heaven instead of hell is that what he said? no he said I am come that you might have exactly what dead men need what's that? life the only thing that will abolish death the restoration to man of that life that was forfeited in Adam it's called in the Bible new birth it's called in the Bible regeneration it's nothing more nor less than resurrection for the same mighty power that God wrought in Christ is that mighty power that he exercises in us when he raised him from the dead that's why in the first verse of the second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians Paul says and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins he says you've been raised from the dead you were dead you've come alive because you exercise the option that's why we saw in Acts chapter 5 the angel telling the apostles when he let them out of jail go and tell them all the words of this life tell dead men dead women dead boys dead girls that they can come alive tell them on the grounds of redemption cleansed in the blood of Jesus they can claim the restoration to them of that life that was lost in Adam but the restoration of that life the Holy Ghost restored to the human spirit could not take place until to God's holy satisfaction that redemptive transaction had taken place that allowed a holy God without doing violence to his own righteousness to accept back to himself in the beloved those who through his shed blood had been cleansed and reconciled so the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified the Old Testament saints were covered by the blood of lambs and of bulls and of goats which the Bible tells us could never take away sin and had the Lord Jesus never come to implement as the substance that which in the Old Testament was only but the shadow they with us would be of all men most miserable the blood of Abel's lamb didn't cleanse him from sin or reconcile him to God that only foreshadowed the one who would implement the promise it was the check in the Old Testament the Lord Jesus paid cash you and I don't bring today a sacrifice for he made one sacrifice for sins forever but now that that sacrifice has been accomplished we may receive now instantly that for which they had to wait until the Lord Jesus was glorified or I turn to John 14 John chapter 14 a passage to which we have already referred considerably in our morning sessions you'll remember how Philip said show us the Father it sufficeth us and the Lord Jesus said have I been so long time with you and hast thou not known me Philip he that has seen me has seen the Father because though the creator I'm playing the role of creature though I'm the God who made man I'm playing the role of the man whom I as God made and I as God made man in such a way that he should be inhabited by deity and reflect the glory and I'm allowing my Father by the same Holy Spirit with whom one day I will impart to you that life that was lost in Adam I'm allowing my Father by his Holy Spirit so to monopolize my personality so totally to fill me with himself that when you look at me you see him because what I do is what he does what I say is what he says what I am is what he is see me, see him don't you believe verse 10 of that chapter said the Lord Jesus don't you believe that a unique relationship exists between me as man on earth and my Father as God in heaven don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself I articulate the words and you hear me say them but it's God who's speaking my Father in me clothed with my humanity the Father that dwells in me he does the work my office as man is to be it's my office it's my Father's office as God to act so I present my body to him so that he may clothe his divine activity with me incarnate and he that believeth on me verse 12 the one who's prepared to adopt that disposition toward me that I'm now prepared to adopt toward my Father the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these not qualitatively but quantitatively because my Father's activity is confined at this moment to the narrow limits of my available humanity but in the day that I have accomplished the redemptive transaction and have been restored to my Father and come in the person of the Holy Spirit to invade your humanity my divine activity will be clothed with your humanity to the uttermost ends of the earth I'll have a new body corporate called the church the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these why? well because I'm going what a strange thing to say because I'm going where are you going? back to the place in which I came back to the one from whom I came my Father and because I am going back to my Father the day will soon dawn when I, indwelling you by the same Holy Spirit through whom my Father now indwells me I will do through you the things that my Father has been doing through me because, verse 16 I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter another comforter when you say another what does that involve? what does it presuppose? if I ask you to have another cup of coffee what does it mean? well you've already had one if you hadn't had one I asked you whether you'd like another you'd say pardon me I'd like the first the Lord Jesus said my Father is going to send another comforter who was the first comforter that they had had? the Lord Jesus himself the word comforter there is the same word as translated advocate in the second chapter of John's first epistle if you sin we have an advocate with the Father exactly the same word but says the Lord Jesus having had one comforter I'm going to ask the Father to send you another comforter that this other comforter may abide with you for how long? forever I'm not going to remain in this form with you on earth forever very soon I'm going to die upon a Roman gallows the third day I will rise again from the dead you will see me for a short period of time and then I'm going back to be with my Father and I will not be here in that way but in the person of another comforter he will be with you forever who is it? even the Spirit of Truth hasn't happened yet said the Lord Jesus hasn't happened yet the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him but you know him though you don't even know that you know him for he dwelleth with you Emmanuel God with us how did the Holy Ghost dwell with them? in whose person? the Lord Jesus to whom the Father had given as some of us saw this morning John 3.34 the Holy Spirit without measure who is man on earth in the perfection and innocence of his humanity had presented himself through the same Holy Spirit to God without spot he said the Lord Jesus is with you but I got good news for you he dwelleth with you but he shall be that's future tense where? in you and when he the Holy Spirit who is with you in me as I allow my Father to be king now in me his kingdom so through him who will be in you I as king will be king in my king verse 18 I'm not going to leave you comfortless without a comforter the word literally translated as all of you know is orphans I'm not going to do my thing on the cross shed my blood and then go back to heaven and peek through the clouds and see you sweated out as though the only way you could live the Christian life was by rules and regulations mobilizing your old Adamic nature to try to behave like a good Evangelical Jesus Christ I wouldn't be so cruel I wouldn't die for your sins so that you might be forgiven so that you might struggle on with an old Adamic nature that's hostile to every demand that I will make upon you without restoring to you what it takes to be man as I as God intended man to be that would to be mock you that would be to mock you can you imagine a Christ who simply died for us 2000 years ago and then goes to heaven and leaves you and me with the only resources that we had that we had before we were redeemed to try and live the Christian life and honor God he said I'm not going to leave you comfortless I will come to you I will come to you that isn't eschatology that isn't the return of the Lord Jesus vindicated in deity whose appearing we momentarily anticipate oh no this is Pentecost I will come to you I'm going to be to you as God by the same Holy Ghost that you are that indwells my humanity all that my father is to me by that Holy Spirit yet a little while the world sees me no more but you'll see me I'm going to appear to you I'm going to teach you for 40 days all about the kingdom what it means to have the king back in his kingdom Christ in the Christian putting God back into the man I'm going to talk to you once you've learned what it means to be reconciled what it means to be regenerated once you know what it means to be forgiven what it means to be reborn and because I live you're going to live because you're going to share my life for as we saw the other day remember 1 Thessalonians 5, 9 and 10 God hasn't appointed us to judgment but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us there's the redemptive act that reconciles us to God that whether we wake or sleep in the body or out of it on earth or in heaven physically alive or physically dead now or then, here or there we might live together with him invaded by deity your humanity and mine presented to him now as once he presented his humanity to the father what an exciting thing it is to be a Christian to be man on earth inhabited by your creator God and the privilege of placing your humanity at his disposal so that he can be to you now what the father was prepared to be to him then of course if you don't want that then all you can do is sweat it out in the energy of the flesh and be the pathetic abysmal failure you've always been live in your own self-imposed poverty because you're too pig-headedly proud to recognize that it takes God to be a man he just happened to make us that way that's all but if you don't need Jesus Christ living within you now as the Lord Jesus once needed the father living in him you simply perpetuate the satanic fraud and you perpetuate the Adam creed of human self-sufficiency tell me what's the difference between a Christian who insists that he can live the Christian life without all this stuff and nonsense about Christ living in me that subjective nonsense as some people will tell you what's the difference between that Christian who says that I can live the Christian life according to the rules A, B, C, D without Jesus Christ living in me and Adam who at Satan's behest said I can be a man without God what's the difference no difference at all and of course Satan's subtlety is that he perpetrates the fraud in Christians that he once perpetrated in Adam he persuades Christians to try to live the Christian life without Christ as he once persuaded Adam to try to be a man without God but the Lord Jesus came into this world to put God back into the man I'm come, he said that you might have exactly what dead men need life and that you might have it in that new superlative quality that derives from the indwelling presence of deity because I live you will do verse 20 John 14 at that day at that day what day Pentecost at that day hasn't happened yet you will know that I'm in my Father that this unique relationship exists but you'll know at that day that you're in me and that I am in you at that day hasn't happened yet because the king isn't back in his kingdom chapter 15 verse 5 now I go my way to him that sent me I'm going back to my Father none of you asketh me whither goest thou but because I've said these things to you sorrow hath filled your heart nevertheless I tell you the truth verse 7 it is expedient for you that I go away it is imperative absolutely imperative that I go away for if I go not away what will be the consequence the comforter will not come unto you if I do not go he will not come well could anything be more crystal clear than that said the Lord Jesus says he unless I go he will not come not your way Peter my way I go to him my way and I will explain to you Peter what you didn't like I'm going by the way of the cross because that's going to be the reconciling redemptive act that will allow my Father God to forgive you but having gone my way and accomplished the redemptive act back to my Father because I've gone that way the comforter will come to you if I go not away the comforter will not come unto you but if I depart I will send him unto you so what was the precondition that had to be fulfilled before the comforter could come the Lord Jesus had to go when verse 13 when he the spirit of truth is come I'm reading out of the 16th chapter when he the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth he'll not speak of himself but whatsoever he will hear that will he speak he will show you things to come and supremely it will be his unique joy to glorify me he will receive of mine and show it to you when the spirit of truth is come in the 15th chapter I misled you just a moment or two ago in the 15th chapter the 26th and the 27th verse when said the Lord Jesus when the comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father even the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father he will testify me when he comes now if you say when he comes what do you presuppose that he is not yet arrived you're invited to dinner and half a dozen guests are there including yourself and your hostess says well I'm sorry to keep you waiting but when Mr. Smith comes we'll sit down and dine what does that presuppose that Mr. Smith hasn't arrived and everybody looks greedily through the window to see when Mr. Smith is going to come and says the Lord Jesus when when when the comforter is come whom I will send unto you future tense from the Father even the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father he will testify me and when he comes who testifies of me you will testify of me to the world you also will bear witness because this his coming is going to enable you for the new responsibility as my witnesses that's why the Lord Jesus said under no circumstances are you to embark from the city of Jerusalem thinking that you've got what it takes to tell the world that Jesus died rose again from the dead you'll only engage in carnal sweat you'll only advertise your own bankruptcy that's why I said the Lord Jesus I forbid you under any circumstances even though now you understand that I died for you and that your sins through my shed blood have been forgiven I forbid you to engage in any kind of Christian activity other than the energy that my Holy Spirit through whom you'll share my life imparts to you if you will do that you defy me to my faith and I want to tell you that if you're prepared to engage in any kind of Christian activity other than that which derives from the presence of Christ enthroned within your heart as His Kingdom by the energy and power of His Divine Spirit you defy Him to your faith you defy Him to His faith this was Pentecost it was simply that at this stage of their experience of the redemptive act they hadn't entered into that for which He died in reconciling them to God that they might share His life at that day you will know that you're in me and I am in you and that unique relationship will have been re-established for which man was made I and my Father my Father in me you in me and I in you this was the supreme preoccupation in the heart of the Lord Jesus look at John 17 in his prayer to the Father for their sakes Father verse 19 I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth what did it mean when the Lord Jesus said He sanctified Himself well as man He simply set Himself apart for that intelligent purpose which He as God created man made Himself totally available to His Father through the indwelling Holy Spirit and so He said Father as I have sanctified Myself now sanctify them through the same truth I don't just pray for these alone Father I pray for them also which shall believe on me through their word all down the centuries I pray for that bunch of men and women who will be meeting in the Evangelical Free Church in Colorado Springs that they through this truth that sets men free may recognize that it's their supreme privilege as redeemed sinners to place their bodies souls, spirits minds, emotions and wills Father as much at my disposal in presenting their bodies to me as Father I present to you my body my soul my spirit my mind my emotion my will as you Father live in me I want them dear Father to be as sanctified that they all may Father verse 21 be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us verse 23 I Father in them and thou Father in me in the same glorious relationship that we always intended Father when first we made man that he might be the human vehicle of our divine activity we in him as God the origin of our own image the source of our own activity the dynamic of our own demands and at all times and exclusively the cause of our own effect Father that's why my blood's going to be shed that's why I'm willing to die that man might be restored to this unique relationship that I have been pleased Father to demonstrate for 33 years knowing that without you Father as man on earth I could do nothing that they might at last learn cleansed in my blood without me Father in them they can do nothing and on the day of Pentecost it happened and the Holy Spirit came in fulfillment of the promise of the Father to reinvade the humanity of 120 men and women who cleansed in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus had been reconciled to God what took place on the day of Pentecost for the first time in all human history since Adam fell men were born again what took place at Pentecost was spiritual regeneration new birth as the Lord Jesus came that the Lord Jesus might be conceived in them a greater miracle than that which was enacted 2000 years ago when conceived of the Holy Ghost the Lord Jesus was born of Mary His humanity be detached from hers the greater miracle is that on the grounds of redemption by the same Holy Ghost the Lord Jesus can be conceived in us His humanity on earth now never to be detached from ours for we have been added to the Lord members in particular of that new body corporate that was presented by the Father to the Son on the day of Pentecost when 120 men and women cleansed in His blood were invaded by deity and their humanity became on earth the temples of the living God they were born again and as we have already reminded ourselves in the morning sessions Peter stood up in this life transforming discovery you men of Israel verse 22 of Acts chapter 2 you men of Israel hear these words Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God by miracles signs and wonders which God did by Him I see it now says Peter as He placed His humanity at His Father's disposal by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit allowed the Father to motivate everything He did, said and was now this same Lord Jesus has come by the same Holy Spirit to invade our humanity that He in us as once the Father in Him might motivate what we do and say and are I see what it means to be a man approved of God a God approved man is a man by whom God Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God by miracles signs and wonders which God did God did God did by Him and as God the Father by Him now God has everything perfect in the flesh He said can you be that dumb foolish Galatians who has bewitched you the Lord Jesus recognized that His birth of the Holy Ghost was imperative to His becoming man and the Lord Jesus for 33 years having become man recognized that the Holy Ghost the Father in Him was imperative to His humanity He was told by the Father what to do and always did as He was told I do only those things that please Him so the spirituality you see of what you do is never determined by the nature of the act only by its divine origin when was the Lord Jesus more filled with the Holy Ghost than at any other time what activity in which He engaged more demonstrated the fact that He was being filled with the Holy Ghost than another well of course none He said I do only those things always that please Him my humanity is available through my Father if He wants to preach the Sermon on the Mount He can preach through my lips when He wants to walk on water my feet are available for Him as a means of transportation when He needs to raise a man from the dead my lips will give the commanding word but my Father will do the work and if He wants to get down His hands and knees and wash the disciples feet because they are too pig-headedly proud to do it for themselves I say Father my humanity is available to you to do precisely that and when my Father God wanting to anoint the eyes of a man born blind wants to spit said the Lord Jesus I spit isn't that magnificent so was He called to preach or called to spit He was called to neither in His humanity He was available to His Father that He by the Holy Ghost might at all times motivate what He did and said and was and as I indicated to some of you this morning the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus was simply that He refused to allow at any time there to be any possible explanation of what He did said or was but the Father as God in the man and says He as my Father sent me I'm going to send you and you and I have become spiritually adult when at last we're prepared to settle for the fact that there must for you or for me be no possible explanation at any time for what we do say or are apart from Christ in the Christian He in us Now let's pray