Knowing the Holy Spirit as a Person

[00:00:00] Could we read together in the second letter of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians, and chapter 3, we will read from verse 4, 2 Corinthians 3, 4. And such confidence have we, through Christ to God ward not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. [00:00:57] But if this ministration of death, written and engraven on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly upon the face of Moses for the glory of his face, which glory was passing away, how shall not rather the ministration of the Spirit be with glory? [00:01:23] And then verse 17. [00:01:29] Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. Shall we just bow together in a brief moment of prayer? [00:02:02] Father, we do want to thank thee that we are here gathered in Thy presence, and that thou has made such glorious provision for us all to come before thee joyfully and with confidence, to worship, to fellowship, to share what thou hast given us of Thyself. [00:02:22] And, Lord, when we turn to Thy word, thou hast made special provision, and we thank thee for it. And we avail ourselves of that provision for speaking and for hearing. We do thank thee for all thou art doing in the world. We pray, Lord, this day, that thou gloriously own every single work of Thine with power and glory all through the earth, from the Far east to the Far West. We especially pray, Lord, for the Pope, and pray that thou wilt marvelously bless him on this visit to Poland, and thou wilt use him to the salvation of thousands of Polish people. [00:03:12] We thank thee for the movement of thy Spirit amongst Catholics in Poland and the Ukraine. Lord, we pray that thou guard that visit from being manipulated by those who would use it for political reasons. That we pray, Lord, that thou wilt grant that it shall end in the salvation of many precious souls. [00:03:35] O Lord, how amazing thy works are. In these days where we least expect thee to be working, we find thee working in power and with glory. [00:03:45] And so, Lord, we give thee thanks. And we pray that we also may be involved in all that thou art doing and faithful to thee till thou shalt come. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen the little verse that is much on my heart is this verse 18 of the third chapter of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. [00:04:17] But we all, with unveiled face, beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit. [00:04:36] What a wonderful, wonderful privilege it is to know the Holy Spirit. [00:04:45] I suppose there is more controversy over the person and the work of the Holy Spirit at the present time than over any other matter. [00:05:07] But I think it is tremendous to know the gracious and powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit. [00:05:22] I am sad when I hear people who as soon as anything to do with the Holy Spirit is mentioned, you can almost see the shutters come down in their eyes and a kind of frozenness takes over within them. [00:05:41] The devil has done his most insidious and subtle work in frightening people as to the person and work and power and gifts of the Holy Spirit. [00:05:57] But here, in a nutshell, is the whole thing now. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. [00:06:13] What a state that in itself would be colossal enough and tremendous in its scope. [00:06:24] The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Most Christians know bondage at some time or another in their experience and in their pilgrimage. And it is always because the Holy Spirit is quenched. [00:06:42] Bondage always comes in the believer's life the moment the Holy Spirit is grieved or quenched in that life. Bondage always comes in a work of God, whenever the Holy Spirit is grieved or quenched. [00:06:59] Bondage always comes in an assembly in the house of God, whenever the Holy Spirit is grieved. Quench. [00:07:10] Don't think for one single moment that if we make a lot of noise, that is liberty and a sure sign that the Holy Spirit is present. [00:07:20] It is no more an evidence that the Holy Spirit is present than quietness and silence or that fear of sort of interrupting. [00:07:35] Real liberty is to do the will of God from the heart. [00:07:41] That is true freedom. [00:07:45] To do the will of God. To walk in the way of God, even though you are fearful of the cost, even though you may be fearful of the unknown, of the possible consequences. To walk in in simple trust and faith in the way and will of God. That is true freedom. [00:08:13] True freedom is when an issue comes up in our life or in our work, or in the house of God. True freedom is when you and I can die. [00:08:31] We are not bound to fight for our rights. We are not bound to defend Ourselves we are not bound as so often to devalue the other person, the opponent, by one way or another. [00:08:46] Real freedom is to lay down our lives for the Lord and for his people. [00:08:55] Real freedom is to take the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. [00:09:05] When a person is afraid, embarrassed, inhibited, there is a bondage. [00:09:13] Of course, it is perfectly right to say that on the matter of gifts to the equation equipment of God, that it is more important to know the Lord Jesus in one sense than to exercise gifts. If you want to split theological hairs, of course it is more important to know the Lord Jesus, to love the Lord Jesus, to be devoted to the Lord Jesus, than to exercise gifts. But I do not see it as opposite. Some kind of matters to be placed one against the other. [00:09:50] Surely, if you love the Lord Jesus, you must find a way of meeting need. If you really love the Lord Jesus, you must find a way to be effective in testimony, in Christian work, in service, in prayer, in intercession. [00:10:09] And this requires the gifts and the equipment of God. [00:10:20] The Lord is the Spirit. [00:10:25] And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Oh, such glorious freedom. Not just to bubble or to froth. Thank God when there's freedom even for that. [00:10:38] We don't want to all be a kind of English facade, or very correct, or very proper, or very nice, clean and sweetly dressed and so on. It's good when there's a freedom so that we can. Those who are a little less regular and a little less sort of tidy are able to express themselves. [00:11:06] And I think you are all learning this some painfully. [00:11:16] It's good. But these are things on the periphery. They're the superficialities. The real freedom that we want is the freedom to do the will of God. The freedom to be involved in the work of God, to see, to do the works of God. Freedom really to lay down our lives for him and freedom for his people. And freedom to really take, to appropriate all the power and the gifts and the equipment of the Holy Spirit, which we need if the purpose of God is to be fulfilled and realized. [00:11:57] We all with unveiled faith. Oh, we sometimes think of the Jewish people, as mentioned in the previous chapter, as being those who have a veil over the heart. [00:12:12] But I have to say that there's many a veil in a Christian heart. [00:12:19] We are afraid to open up to God, afraid to investigate a matter objectively, impartially, afraid to really face the truth about things. [00:12:32] The Word says we all with unveiled face. God's norm for the believer is to be unveiled. Nothing between. [00:12:44] Nothing between no need to put a veil on the face so that you don't see something fading, as Moses had to mentioned in the previous chapter. But ours is being changed from glory to glory. [00:13:00] Now I think we all have to say, I have to say to myself that most of us have experiences where the glow lasts with us for a while, but before long it begins to droop, it begins to fade. [00:13:12] Isn't it so? [00:13:14] And I suppose most of us are guilty of Moses answer to the thing, and that is to veil the faith. [00:13:27] In other words, we project something one way or another. But the apostle, by the Spirit says, we don't want to have any veils, we don't want to have any facades, we don't want to have any fading glory. We, but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit changed into the same image. [00:14:11] How we behold the glory of the Lord is in a mirror. These mirrors were metal mirrors, not the kind of mirrors we have today where we get a pretty exact image of ourselves. We may not always like what we see in there. Some people have those lovely golden mirrors, some have those other kind that sort of have a habit of giving you a little more color. [00:14:39] Do you know the kind of mirrors I'm talking about, or. Well, they're on sale if you want to be cheered up. There are such mirrors that help make you look a little sort of rosier and generally a little more presentable than perhaps you would be normally if you saw yourself in the old and normal type of mirror. But this mirror that the apostle speaks of is the kind of metal mirror, and this didn't give an exact image. [00:15:15] And this is how we see the glory of the Lord we don't yet see face to face if anyone's ever been ravished by what they've seen of the Lord. Now, if you've ever been in an ecstasy over what the Lord has revealed to you of himself, if you've almost ever any of you been transported out of your bodies by some touch from God, what will it be when we see him face to face? [00:15:41] No wonder the old saints called it the rapture, to be enraptured when we're raptured face to face to see the Lord for the first time, not as in a mirror, darkly or dimly or approximately, but absolutely directly. How marvelous it is going to be. But what a privilege is ours now to behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, beholding as In a mirror. The glory of the Lord as we behold the Lord. The glory of the Lord as we see the beauty of the Lord, the fullness of the Lord. [00:16:28] We are changed into the same image from glory to glory. You know, in the end, it's not your zeal that is the lasting value. [00:16:38] It is not your knowledge of the Bible or your knowledge of spiritual things or even your knowledge of the ways of God culled from past experience. [00:16:49] That's not the lasting value. The lasting value of your life is how much you have been changed into the image of the Lord Jesus. [00:17:01] Death is the eternal value of your life. It is the thing that marks you out from all other human beings not saved by the grace of God. [00:17:15] You are to be changed, conformed to the image of God's own Son. [00:17:25] And this work isn't something that just happens in the twinkling of an eye. You can be a difficult, hypocritical, crab like believer and suddenly the Lord comes and in the twinkling of an eye you become a fully fledged, mature, beautiful saint. I don't find it in the book. [00:17:49] It seems to me that we have to allow, in this short span of time, we have to allow the Lord to do a work in our lives that will change us from glory to glory. [00:18:06] Now, who does this work? [00:18:15] The actual person who does the work is not the Father, nor the Son, but the Holy Spirit. [00:18:30] And you cannot contradict me on that because it is here clearly stated in the book. [00:18:39] Apart from the person of the Holy Spirit, you cannot come to the Lord. You cannot be born of God, you cannot come into union with God in Christ. You cannot know what it is to be equipped for service. [00:18:58] You cannot be changed into the same image. [00:19:04] Now, all the controversy in our day over the last decade or two has been over the Holy Spirit's baptism, His coming upon people, his empowering them, his gifting them. It seems it's quite all right if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, but should you dare to speak in a tongue, this is devilish. [00:19:30] If you should open your mouth and prophesy, this is something essentially erroneous and false. No matter that although they tell us that all this went out at the beginning of the Church era, with the completion of the canon, no matter that again and again, most embarrassingly, it has reappeared in Church history. [00:19:56] And if we are to say that it is all demo, demonic, devilish, satanic, we cut out whole portions of the Christian Church. The Anabaptists, some of the earlier reformers, the early Methodists, the Quakers. Oh dear, we go back earlier to Albigenses, world dances, politicians, Bogomils, priscillianists. [00:20:27] It is embarrassing the amount of evidence that all through church history, even the Huguenots, the latter day descendants of Calvinism, seem to be by and large very much against the charismatic. I cannot understand it. [00:20:55] The evidence is that this, this, these gifts of the Holy Spirit, this equipment of God, has never disappeared in church history. And in fact, whenever the Holy Spirit has moved again in fresh ways, there has been a manifestation. [00:21:12] But you know what interests me is all the fuss is about the Holy Spirit coming upon people. [00:21:18] And in actual fact, this was the experience of God's people all through the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit was always coming upon people. Why, even Saul in all his fleshliness prophesied. And all those who were with them, you remember, they fell on the ground and prophesied for about 24 hours. My goodness, even Balaam's ass prophesied when the Holy Spirit touched. [00:21:51] I mean, the whole of the old covenant is full of the Holy Spirit coming. The early church never had any problem about the Holy Spirit coming upon people. Their great excitement was that the Holy Spirit had come not upon them, but into them. [00:22:07] It was the fulfillment of the words of Jeremiah the prophet, which were read to us at the beginning of this time in Jeremiah chapter 3:31, and these wonderful words. [00:22:21] But this is the covenant, verse 33, that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my Lord in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and they shall teach no more. Every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know the Lord from the least to the eldest. [00:22:46] Isn't it marvelous? And when we take with that the words of the prophet Ezekiel, which we find in Ezekiel 36 and verse 26, a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances and do them. Here is the wonder of this new covenant. Not only the Holy Spirit comes upon us, over which there is so much controversy today, but the Holy Spirit comes within us. [00:23:35] Now we cannot surgically divide the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in one sense from the empowering of the Holy Spirit. It is perfectly true that the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us when we're born again by the coming upon us of the Holy Spirit. [00:23:55] This is as necessary as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. [00:24:02] What we need to experience and know is the fullness of the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, I don't think there's. I imagine there's hardly anybody here who would disagree with what I have said. But what I want to underline is this, because I believe it is the missing key in this whole matter of the work of the Holy Spirit. Christians have developed a tragic and fatal mistake, a tendency to look upon the Holy Spirit as a thing, as an it, as a power, as an equipment, as gifts, and not realize that the Holy Spirit is the third person person of the Godhead. [00:24:56] It is this which is the key that unlocks everything. [00:25:01] You see, I have come to know the Father. [00:25:05] And I find one of the most wonderful things in the world is to know our Father who is in heaven. To know the Spirit of God shed aboard in my heart, crying Abba Father, it is wonderful to get to know God as father, isn't it? To know the fatherhood of God, the care of God, the love of God, the safety and security which stems from his fatherhood. It is wonderful to be a child of God. [00:25:36] And of course, do I need to say anything about the Lord Jesus and knowing the Lord Jesus. When we first began together as a company, it was this that captured our whole heart. The centrality of the Lord Jesus, to know Him. [00:25:54] We found so many Christians who were converted, didn't know the Lord. They knew him simply as Savior. But they didn't know him as someone they could really talk to intimately. Getting to know Him. It's wonderful to know the Lord Jesus. Now, may I just say this? The Holy Spirit does not speak of himself. He is always drawing our attention to the Father and to the Son. [00:26:20] But this does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not the person of the Holy Spirit. [00:26:29] You and I have to get to know the person of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead. As intimate as we know the Father and the Son, here there is something so wonderful. Listen again to the apostle's words he says in this 2 Corinthians, chapter 3. Now the Lord is the Spirit. [00:27:01] And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. [00:27:08] But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are changed or transformed into the same image. From glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit. There couldn't be anything clearer, could there? The Lord, the Spirit. [00:27:31] So my point is, I think that there is in many of our hearts and lives an area of ignorance. [00:27:46] We have not known the Holy Spirit as God, the Spirit as the Lord, the Spirit, only as the means by which God does a work in us, the means by which we're brought to God, the means by which we know repentance or new birth or union, some kind of powerful energy that enables us to do a job. [00:28:19] No wonder the Holy Spirit grieved. No wonder sometimes the Holy Spirit is quenched. [00:28:28] So this day, traditionally Whitsun, before the government changed and fixed the spring holiday, as they all call it today, is witson. And I find it a very interesting thing and perhaps something that few realize. [00:28:56] These things are not coincidence. Some people seem to think that under the new covenant, all that God does is sort of has no connection with time. But God respects seasons and times. It is interesting that when Jesus died, he died on Passover. [00:29:12] And there could have been nothing more glorious and more wonderful than the Lamb of God should have died at about the time the lambs were being sacrificed in the temple in readiness for the Passover. [00:29:28] There couldn't have been anything more wonderful. And the Holy Spirit came on the feast that is called in the Old Covenant, the feast of weeks. In Hebrew, Shavuot, the feast of weeks. And what is the feast of weeks? Two marvelous things. [00:29:46] First, it commemorates the giving of the law by God to the children of Israel through Moses. And secondly, it is the festival of first fruits. It's the first figs, the first apricots, the first almonds. The. The first of everything is in the market. [00:30:09] So don't you think that's marvellous that the Holy Spirit should come on this festival, surely with meaning? Before the law came dead, it says engraven on stone. It says in 2 Corinthians, chapter 3. It came with glory, although it. It was the dead letter and drove us like a schoolmaster to Christ. [00:30:38] Oh, how wonderful. The Holy Spirit came to bring that law from without to within and write it on our hearts and give us the energy and the power to do the will of God and keep the word of God, the law of God from within. [00:30:57] I will write my law upon their hearts. I will put my spirit within them. [00:31:05] I find that wonderful. And first fruits? [00:31:08] Well, I don't know how you feel about fruit, whether you feel there's a little bit of fruit in your life. If there is, it's the work of the Holy Spirit. [00:31:21] So let me finish. [00:31:27] What then can we say to anybody who feels that somehow or other. There is in their life an area of ignorance. [00:31:37] You would say to me, you know, we've heard about the Holy Spirit. We know about the person of the Holy Spirit. We may not. It's not come to us as revelation, but we accept it. But somehow or other there is an area of ignorance. [00:31:52] I don't feel that I have yet broken, as it were, the spiritual sound barrier over the matter of the Holy Spirit. [00:32:03] I would not tell you. Go away and seek an experience. What I would say is, go away and ask God from this day to begin to reveal to you the person of the Holy Spirit. [00:32:22] Don't just make it a one moment prayer. Begin consistently to seek the Lord. [00:32:32] Each one of you, especially younger ones, seek the Lord. As to the person. [00:32:39] Ask the Holy Spirit to come to you. Tell him that you don't want to grieve him, you don't want to quench him. You know that he means everything in the work of God. [00:32:53] It was, after all, through the Holy Spirit that the formless void and chaos of the world came into the creation. We know. And it was through the Holy Spirit that even the Son of God was formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And it was through the Spirit of God that Jesus did all the mighty works of God, for he called it by the finger of God, a term for the Holy Spirit. [00:33:24] It was by the Eternal Spirit that he offered himself up on the cross without spot or blemish unto God. And it was that Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead, that is to dwell in you and in me. Oh, if we would only go back to God and start to seek him about this. I want to be honest. I want to know you, Holy Spirit. I want to know you in my own experience. [00:33:56] I want not error, not counterfeit, not falsity, not facade. [00:34:04] I want to know you and in the way that the Spirit brought you to Jesus. [00:34:17] The Lord Jesus will bring you to the Holy Spirit. [00:34:25] He will take you you, and he will immerse you in the person of God, the Spirit. [00:34:35] Shall we pray? [00:34:43] Father, Thou knowest all our hearts and lives. They're an open book to thee, Lord. There's nothing hid from thee. [00:34:52] We all want to be honest, Lord, and sincere and real. [00:34:57] And we all feel, or at least many of us feel, Lord, an area in our lives of ignorance when it comes to the real work of the Holy Spirit. We are saved, Lord. We know that we are born of thy Spirit. We know that we are, Lord, in union with Thee measure. We know that. [00:35:20] But, Lord, we feel that there's some breakthrough in many of our lives where we just need to come to know the blessed Holy Spirit. [00:35:36] We pray in the name of Jesus on this day when we commemorate that coming of Thyself upon that hundred and twenty we want to ask the Holy Spirit touch us. [00:35:54] Touch us Lord. [00:35:56] Oh dear Lord Jesus, immerse us in the person of the Holy Spirit. [00:36:05] May all our reserve or caution or bondage disappear because the Spirit of the Lord comes upon us and takes up in a new way residence within us. Dear Lord, we commit ourselves to Thee. We pray that Thou'lt watch over Thy word Don't let it be lost Lord we pray don't let some desire in our hearts, some challenge that may have come to us to which we've responded be lost in the welter of routine life. But we pray Lord that in some way Thou wilt help us to respond to Thee and to go through with Thee on this matter. We ask it together in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.