Baptism of the Holy Spirit - Part 3

In the 14th chapter of John, Jesus was talking to his disciples just before they went out to the Garden of Gethsemane where he was to be arrested. He had told them that his hour was now come. He knew that the arrest was imminent and soon he would be drinking of that cup which would bring life to all men. He had been on the closest of relationships with his followers, those men who had been with him for these last three and a half years. They had watched him under every circumstance. There was a close, beautiful bond of love that really made them one together with him. They had been amazed at what they had seen. They did not fully comprehend all of the ramifications, but they knew that their hearts glowed with a new fire, a new hope. But he's been saying some weird things tonight, things that they don't fully understand, things that trouble them. He's talking about going away and they don't quite understand what he means. What will we do if he goes? You see, they had come to depend upon him. He said unto them, I will pray the Father, and he will give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But you know him, for he dwells with you, and he shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. He's talking about going away. What will we do if he goes away? He said, don't worry. I will pray the Father, and he will send you another comforter. The word comforter in Greek is parakletos. It is a Greek word which means one who comes alongside to help. Now, Jesus had been alongside of them, helping them for the last three years. They had come to trust in his help, to sort of lean upon it. He had been alongside of them when they were in all kinds of tough situations. But Jesus always seemed to be the master of every situation. He was just a great guy to have along. Good guy to have around. You got a big crowd that's hungry? Not enough food for them? No place to buy food? That's all right. Jesus is here. He'll handle it. What do you do? I don't know, but you got to watch him. You get to depend upon a person like this, a person who just always seems to have the answer, be able to work things out. Jesus said, how much food do you have? Oh, we have five loaves and two fish, but look at the crowd. There's not much for this crowd, is there? Well, he said, have them sit down in groups of fifties, took the five loaves, two fish, broke it, blessed it, said, now pass it out among them. And the scripture said they all ate and were filled. The word filled in Greek is glutted. They all ate till they were gorged. And he said, now gather up the fragments that remain. And they gathered up 12 baskets full of fragments. Just a handy guy to have around. The tax collector's bugging you. He's demanding taxes that are not really due. You're a citizen, but you don't argue with those guys. But we don't have any change. What are we going to do? Well, Peter, just go on over there to the sea and cast your hook into the water. First fish you get, Peter, just open his mouth and pull the coin out and pay our taxes. Man, he's just any situation. He's just the master of it. And you get to depend, you get to lean upon a person like that. You're out in the boat. The storm has come up. It's a bad one. You start bailing. The water's coming in faster than you can bail it out. The boat's going down. All right, Jesus is on board. Lord, don't you care if we perish? And he stands up and he rebukes, first of all, the disciples. Oh, ye of little faith. Why would he rebuke them? That's, you know, the ship is sinking. They have a right to be concerned. Well, if you go back, you'll find out why he rebuked them. He had said in the beginning of that little episode, let us go over to Gennesaret. Now that they, they had the word of Jesus that they were to go over to Gennesaret. They thought they were going to go under. If Jesus says, let's go over, there's no way you can go under. If you've got the word of the Lord, let's go over. So when they thought they were going under, he rebukes them because they don't have enough faith. And then he rebuked the wind and the waves. Suddenly there was a great calm. Jesus had been alongside of them through thick and thin, through good and bad. They come to Bethany. Before they can get to the village, Martha is there. She's weeping. Her eyes are sunk. Her face is stained with tears. Disappointment in her voice. Maybe even bitterness. She says, Lord, if you would only have been here, my brother would not have died. Politely she is saying, what took you so long to get here? Didn't you get our note? Come quickly. It's been six days since he went there to fetch you. Where were you when we needed you? Why didn't you answer our cry? Lord, if you'd only been here, my brother wouldn't be dead. Jesus said, Martha, your brother's gonna live again. Oh yes, I know on the last day of the great resurrection. Jesus said, Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. And he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And if you live and believe in me, you'll never die. Do you believe this, Martha? Oh, wait a minute, Lord. That's sort of asking a lot, isn't it? If you live and believe in you, you'll never die? Lord, that's radical. But I believe it. Well, then where did you bury him? Well, come on, Lord, let's show you. And they get to the tomb. The Lord says, roll the stone away from the door. Oh, we can't do that. It's been four days now, and he's stinking pretty bad. Nevertheless, they rolled the stone away, and Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth. Now, the reason why he said, Lazarus, come forth, had he just said, come forth. Man, they've been coming out of the tombs all over the place. And here he comes, hobbling out, bound in his grave clothes, hopping and jumping, trying to get out of that place. Oh, what a great guy to have around. How you lean upon a person like that. You never have to worry about anything. He'll take care of it. Don't have enough money? Don't worry. The Lord's here. Storms about to sink the ship? Think you're gonna go down? Don't worry. The Lord's here. Problems that you can't handle? Don't worry. The Lord's here. He's alongside of us. He'll help us. He's here. But wait a minute. He's saying something weird now. He's saying, I'm going away. Where I go, you can't come right now. Oh, Lord, what do you mean you're going away? What are we gonna do, Lord? If we don't have you, what are we gonna do? I will pray the Father he'll send another one to come alongside and to help you. Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it doesn't see him, it doesn't know him, but ye know him. He dwells with you. He shall be in you. So the work of the Holy Spirit is to come alongside of you and help you. In your Christian walk, in your Christian life, the Holy Spirit is there to help you in every phase of your Christian experience. He is to be to us what Jesus was to his disciples. And we are to learn to just relax and trust in him, even as the disciples, and learn to just relax and trust in the Lord to take care of all of the problems that arise. Now Jesus was trying to teach them to just rely upon the Holy Spirit and not upon themselves. He said, now they're going to arrest you and throw you into prison and they're gonna hail you before the courts and before the judges. Now don't take any forethought, don't plan any little speeches, what you're gonna say when you get out in front of the judge. Don't have any little prepared speeches. But in that hour, when you're standing there, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and he will give you the words to say. You see, he's there to help you. You don't have to have all these little prepared speeches and all. The Holy Spirit will help you and he will give you the words that you need to say. Just trust in him, he is one who will be coming alongside to help you. We all of us need help in our Christian walk. None of us can go it alone. None of us can live that life apart from the help and the power of the Holy Spirit. I think that one of the most frustrating things in the world is to take the Bible and to accept it as an ideal and to say, yes, that's the way people ought to live. We ought to love one another. We ought to be giving to each other. We ought not to be seeking to retaliate for the evil that is done to us. We should be kind one to another, tenderhearted and forgiving one another. We should be patient with each other. Oh yes, that's the right way to live. I'm going to start doing that. I'm going to just start being patient and sweet and kind. No matter what they say to me or no matter what they do to me, that's the right way to live. I believe that and that's the way I'm going to start living. You won't get through breakfast before something will trigger you and you'll say some unkind thing. Why did you cook this egg so hard? Don't you have any sense of timing? You ought to take it off earlier. We can admire an ideal, but to live by that ideal is a totally different thing. You see, this is what separates Christianity from all of the other world religions. Buddha said marvelous things. He set forth a beautiful ideal. He said a lot of truth. He said, look, the basic problem with man is his greed, his desire for things. So if you can totally divorce yourself from desire, if you can get to the place where you don't want anything, you arrived in a state of nirvana. This is a state of bliss. Because now I don't have anything that I want. Therefore, I don't have this greed and desire and this push. And you see, it's my desire for things that creates all of the evil in the world. So if you can just get rid of your desires, you've got it made. Well, there's an awful lot of truth to that. I can't deny that it is this desire that our flesh has for things that is really one of the basic problems in our society. The crimes and all of these other things grow out of this great desire that I have for things, material things. But that's where Buddha leads you. He says there's a path. Well, thanks, Buddha. I know that's the path, but I can't walk it. Somehow I still want. I still get hungry in the morning and I want breakfast. Oh, well, that's where your problem begins. That's the want again, you see. So they point the way. Confucius said many marvelous things. He pointed to the path of a good life. If you would follow the precepts of Confucius, you would live a very good life. Muhammad pointed to the path, and he also pointed out the way to a great life, a good life. But all of this only frustrates me because I can say, yes, that is the right way. Yes, I agree with that. Yes, I wish I lived that way, and I wish we all lived that way. Yes, it would be a better world if we all lived that way. But when I try to put it into practice, I can't. The more I try to deny my desire for food, the hungrier I get. You've ever fasted for a few days? Man, talk about visions of sugar plums dancing in your head. You get to where all you can think about is food and weird concoctions. I remember one time after a period of fasting, all I could think about was shredded wheat with sliced strawberries and bananas over the top. I was out in the wilderness, and I headed home and got a bowl of shredded wheat and a slice of an ashtray. Oh, man, was that good. Now, Jesus just didn't point the path. He said, I'm going to pray the Father, and he's going to send someone to come alongside of you to help you to walk the path. Where you can't do it yourself, he'll give you the strength. He'll give you the ability. He's going to come in, and he's going to give you a power that is beyond yourself. Whereas your flesh is weak, and you can't walk that path by yourself, the Spirit will come in and empower you, and he will give you the power and the help to be what you should be. And that is what separates Christianity from all of the other religions, is that it doesn't just point the path, but it gives the capacity to walk the path through the indwelling of God within my life. No other religious system gives you that. It just points the path, and then it leaves you on your own to somehow struggle and try to find the way to walk on that path. But as I say, that's only completely frustrating. It's like saying, well, happiness, true happiness, lies at the top of the Himalayas. And if you can ever get to the top of the Himalayas, you will find true happiness. But they don't give you any oxygen, any ice picks, any snow boots, nothing. So you live your whole life with the dream of there is happiness up there. Oh, if I could only get up there, but I have no way to get up there. And so it has to remain just an unattainable dream. And most religions are an unattainable dream. But Christianity becomes a reality because the Holy Spirit has been given to come into our lives to give us the power and the capacity to be what we cannot be in ourselves. To walk the path that Christ has pointed to. The comforter, pericletus, one who will come alongside to help. Now as we continue in the 14th chapter of John, as we get down towards the end of the chapter, Jesus said, But the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, verse 26, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. So the second work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, the first is to come alongside to help you. It's indicated by his name. But now this one who comes alongside to help you, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in the name of Jesus, he will teach you all things. Now the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 2 that no man understands the things of God save the Spirit of God and to whomsoever he reveals. Paul said, The natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them, they are spiritually discerned. Many people have made the mistake of having met Christians and being impressed by their lives, saying, Well, I'm going to look into Christianity, I'm going to read the Bible and see what it has to say. And with the natural mind, they try to read the Bible like it was Shakespeare or some other classical piece of literature. And they're totally blown away by it. They end up scratching their heads and saying, Man, I don't understand that book. I read five chapters, but I can't tell you what I read. I don't know what kick people get out of that book. It doesn't make any sense to me. Well, you see, the Bible says the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit. Neither can he know them. A natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit. That is why it is idiocy for a man to try to teach the Bible who has only a natural educational background. Now, he may study the Greek language, and he may be able to read the Bible in the Greek, and he may be able to give you all kinds of information about the culture and the times and the things that happen around the Bible and so forth, and be able to go in and explain the whole Greek grammar and text and so forth to you. But if he is not born again, if he has not been regenerated by the Spirit, he is a poor guide to follow. Because he doesn't even understand the first thing about the Bible. He's approached it with just a purely intellectual approach. And that's one of the problems that we have today, is that so many people have approached the spiritual book with just the intellectual approach. The Spirit of God has come to teach us the truths about God. But if the Spirit of God doesn't teach us the truths about God, we can't really know them. For the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them. They are spiritually understood, but he which is spiritual understands all things. So the Holy Spirit has been sent to give us an understanding of the Word of God. Now, in John's first epistle, he said, You have no need that any man should teach you, but that unction that you have received from the Holy One, He will teach you all things. Every once in a while, someone comes up to me with some weird, wild concept of a particular scripture. And I say, where in the world did you ever get that weird idea? Oh, well, I was just reading the Bible, and I just thought... I said, no, come on, you're lying to me. You weren't just reading the Bible, and you got that. You've heard that somewhere. Someone told you, you couldn't get that just reading the Bible. That's too bizarre. You know, there are a lot of people that have bizarre concepts about the Bible and about God, and they're teaching these bizarre concepts. But when you have a weird, bizarre concept, you've got to write about it. Because no one could ever come to that same weird concept unless they read what you have written. You just can't get it by reading the Bible. So when you get these weird concepts, you have to discourage people from reading the Bible, and encourage them to start reading your books. Else they're going to have to get all confused. They won't get all of those weird, wild, bizarre concepts by just reading the Bible. That is why they come around to your door and try to sell you their books. And that is why they will tell you, oh, you just can't read the Bible. You know, there are so many interpretations. And if you just try to read the Bible, you'll end up in darkness. So wake up, and buy our books. Because if you will read our books, you can set the Bible aside, and our books will bring you into the light. The reason why they push their books is because you would never, never, ever come to the same line of belief by just reading the Word of God. Now, I encourage you to go home and ask the Holy Spirit to help you, to teach you. And then just read the Bible, and ask the Spirit to teach you its truth. I don't have any books to peddle to you. I encourage you to just read the book. No books of interpretation of it. Nobody's concepts or ideas. Just read the book. And ask the Holy Spirit to teach you and guide you. And you know, I'm not afraid at all of what you will come to believe. I'm not afraid that you're going to get way out in left field, or way out in some weird concept. I'm not worried at all about your reading the Bible. I encourage you to read the Bible. Just asking the Holy Spirit to open up your understanding to it, and to teach you. That's why when people say, well, you know, everybody's got an interpretation, you know, and, and, you know, how do we know who's right? You know, Mormons, they, you know, they say, you know, they're right, and you say you're right, and Jehovah's Witnesses say they're right, and all that. All right, don't take any of our words for it. Just read the Bible. Well, the Mormons say, I better read this book. Yeah, all right. They've got a problem, you see. They know that if you just read the Bible, you'll find nothing about the phony baloney of Angel Moroni. So they've always got something to peddle beyond the book. But I say, just read the book. Now, if I had some weird interpretation of the book, then I'd say, well, you better read my interpretations. You see, you can't understand it. People, you know, make a mistake trying to read the Bible. You just shouldn't do that. You can't understand it, you see. You have to have someone interpret it for you. How many times have you heard that? Heard people say, well, don't read the Bible. You've got to have someone interpret it for you. You're a layman. You shouldn't try to read it. There are so many interpretations. You might get the wrong idea if you just read the Bible. I'm not worried at all about what ideas or concepts or beliefs you'll come to by just reading the Bible. The Spirit will guide you into all truth. Jesus said that. I believe that. The Spirit has come to teach you all things. I believe that. And the Spirit has taught me so much. You know, to me, one of the greatest thrills is that of reading the Bible and having the Spirit teach me. And you know how He teaches me? Sometimes there's just a flash of inspiration. I'm reading a scripture and I'm, man, what does that mean? And I read it again. Wow, that doesn't make sense. I read it again. Pow! The light goes on. Oh, alright! Oh man, that's neat! Yeah! And you get all excited as the Spirit begins to just unfold the truth. And suddenly you have an understanding, an insight that you never had before. And the whole thing now, oh yes, of course, I can see now how it fits. Sure. How come I didn't see that before? You know, and it's just the ministry of the Spirit as He is teaching you, as Jesus said He would do. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things. Then, He will also bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have commanded you. Now, you know, to me, the exciting thing is how the Holy Spirit can bring to me the recall of scriptures. Sometimes a person will ask me a question about the Bible. And I'll think, oh my, hmm, that's tough, I don't know. And then the Spirit will begin to flash in scriptures, scriptures that I didn't even know that I remembered or knew, you know, I planted them there. But then they begin to flash into my mind. Man, it just begins to pour, and I begin to get just a whole understanding as the Spirit begins to recall to my mind the scriptures. And there are times as the Spirit begins to recall the scriptures, I can recite entire chapters. It just begins to roll, it begins to flow. As the Spirit is bringing to my remembrance, it's no, you know, gimmicks of memory that I've learned. It's just the recall of the Spirit as He begins to bring back to my mind the recall of those passages, of the things that God has commanded, of the Word of God. Then we find in the 16th chapter of John, verse 13, to get the context, verse 12, Jesus said, I have many things to say to you, but you can't bear them now. But Lord, you're going away, this is your last talk with us. A lot of things that I haven't told you, you can't handle them right now. Christ did not give the full revelation to them, and they weren't able to handle the full revelation. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, not it, the Spirit of truth, for the Spirit is not an it, it's not an essence, it's not just a power, He is a person, the third person of the Godhead. When He, the Spirit of truth is coming, let's go back for a moment, and I will pray the Father, and He will send you another comforter, even the Spirit of truth. Who's talking? Jesus. Who's He gonna pray to? The Father. Who's He gonna send? The Spirit. There you have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, working together in our behalf. Our God. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He shall show you things to come. So the Holy Spirit will not just teach us and guide us into all truth, but there is one special area where the Holy Spirit will really help us, for He will show us things to come. That is, He will give us a clear understanding of prophecy. Now, there is one book of the Bible that ministers usually shun more than every other book. And that's the book of Revelation. And if you ask a pastor about the book of Revelation, most generally they'll tell you, well, no one really understands that book. There are so many symbolisms and so many interpretations, I stay away from the book of Revelation. Isn't that sad? Because in the first part of the book of Revelation, verse three, it says, blessed is he who reads and who hears the words of this prophecy. So by staying away from the book of Revelation, they're robbing themselves of the blessing that God has promised to those that would read and do and hear the words of that prophecy. It's about the only book in the Bible that I know that has a built-in blessing. I mean, it's just automatic. It's built in for those who will read and follow it. And yet, oh, stay away from that book. Oh, there's all the symbols you'll never understand. Yet the Holy Spirit has come to show us the things to come. When Daniel wrote his book of prophecy, in the 12th chapter, he said, then I sought to understand. But the Lord said unto Daniel, Daniel, seal up those things. They are for the time of the end. For in the last days, knowledge will be increased. In other words, in the last days, the Spirit will be increasing the understanding of the church of those things that are to come. And again there in the 12th chapter, as Daniel was still not ready to put it down, still wrestling with it a bit and still seeking to understand, again the Lord said unto him, go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. Now again, if you really seek to understand the realm of biblical prophecy, don't really listen or follow a man because he has a seminary background and is known to be an intellectual if he is not filled with the Spirit. He's coming from just a pure humanistic base. It is the Spirit that unfolds the truth of the things to come. The Spirit that gives us the understanding of these things. And it is the Spirit then that bears witness to our hearts of the truth that is spoken. So this is the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, the beginning of the work. There's much as we will progress in this study of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. First, to come alongside to help you to be what you cannot be in and of yourself. To help you to fulfill the divine ideal. To give you the power and the ability to obey, to follow. He has come to teach you. To bring things to your remembrance. To guide you into all truth and to show you things to come. Now in this showing us things to come, this also can be involved with the gift of prophecy. When the Lord called Paul into the ministry on the Damascus Road, when Paul arrived in Damascus blinded by his experience, the Holy Spirit spoke to a disciple there named Ananias and said, Ananias, go over to the street called Straight and inquire for Paul or Saul for he is a chosen vessel unto me. He said, Lord, you've got to be kidding. I've heard about that guy. Boy, did he ever mess up the church in Jerusalem. He's really tough. I'm on his hit list, Lord. He's coming down to get me. Thanks, Lord, but no thanks. The Lord says, go. He's praying. He is a chosen vessel. I have shown him the things that he's going to have to suffer for my name's sake. The Spirit showed him things to come in his life. Things that were going to be down the road. Several years ago when I was still struggling as the pastor of a small church and I've been struggling for years, about 15 years in the ministry at that particular time and it was really a struggle. It was really a push. We were in prayer, a group of us. We'd been in fasting and prayer waiting upon God. I was so hungry to see God work in my life and work through my life. I so longed for God to work in my life. I was so tired of pushing programs and pushing people and pushing the church and I was just desperate for God to work in my life and so a group of us had banded together in prayer and fasting. And that night we were praying and as we were praying we decided that we'd let a person sit in the chair and we would lay hands on them and pray for them. Praying one for another. And as they laid their hands on me and were praying for me a word of prophecy came from the Lord through my wife. And the Lord began to speak to me and he began to tell me of the things that he had planned for my future ministry. Through the word of prophecy the Lord said that he was going to begin to bless my ministry far beyond our wildest dreams. He said, I'm going to give you a new name. And he gave me that name. And he said, this name means shepherd. I know what my heavenly name is already. The Lord oftentimes changes a person's name. He changed the name of Saul to Paul. Abram to Abraham. Sarai to Sarah. And he changed my name. My heavenly name isn't Chuck. Or Charles. And the Lord said to him that overcometh I will grant and I will give to him a new name which no man knoweth save him that receives it. The Lord said the name means shepherd. And I am going to make you a shepherd of many flocks. And the church is going to be blessed. And the people will come in throngs so much so that they won't be able to fit into the church. Well I have been struggling for 15 years trying to fill a church. Trying to half fill a church. And we couldn't even get it half filled. And when the Lord began to by word of prophecy show us the things to come they seemed completely preposterous. We wondered oh could this ever be. It was exciting oh thank you Lord oh everybody in my heart is saying Lord how can that be you know. I've tried so long. I've worked so hard. I'm so tired Lord I'm over the hill. I just can't do it. And since that time God has also spoken again by the spirit showing us things to come. Guiding us. So the Holy Spirit the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the believer. He's come to help you. He's come to open the word of God to you. He's come to give you understanding in the truths of God. He's come to bring the things of God back into your remembrance when you need them. And he's come to show you the future. The things that he has in store for you. So we pray. Father we thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. For the blessing of experiencing that power and that ability that is beyond ourselves. Oh God we have been with Peter so many times when our spirit was so willing but our flesh was so weak. Thank you Lord that you have sent your spirit to help us in our weakness. To come alongside of us and to strengthen us. To come alongside of us and to guide us. To come alongside and provide for us. Oh Lord. We need your spirit. We need to walk in your spirit. We need to be led by your spirit. Oh come Holy Spirit. Fill our hearts and lives. Guide us. Help us. Teach us. Show us. Thy glory. Thy power. Fill us with thy love. In Jesus name. Amen.