True Freedom – The Work of The Spirit; The Need for Faith

[00:00:00] We're sorry to inform you that halfway through Lance's message, there is about 1 minute missing due to technical difficulties we found on the master recording. Now shall we turn to the word of God? And shall we read in the second letter to the church of Corinth? [00:00:20] And chapter three. [00:00:26] Chapter three. [00:00:32] I'm going to read from the revised standard version. [00:00:42] Reading from the revised standard version this evening, commencing at verse one, third chapter of the second letter to the Corinthians. [00:00:54] Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? [00:01:05] You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men. [00:01:14] And you show that you are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human heart. [00:01:34] Such is the confidence that we have through Christ towards God. [00:01:40] Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim anything is coming from us. Our sufficiency is from God, who has qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code, but in the spirit. For the written code kills, but the spirit gives life. [00:02:05] Now, if the dispensation of death carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites. Israelites could not look at Moses face because of its brightness fading as this was, will not the dispensation of the spirit be attended with greater splendour? For if there was splendor in the dispensation of condemnation, the dispensation of righteousness must far exceed it in splendor. Indeed, in this case, what once had splendour has come to have no splendor at all because of the splendor that surpasses it. For if what faded away came with splendor, what is permanent must have much more splendor. [00:02:52] Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor. [00:03:05] But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted. Because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds. But when a man turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. [00:03:56] For this comes from the Lord, who is the spirit, chapter four and verse six. [00:04:09] For it is the God who said, let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. [00:04:26] But we have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not craft, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. [00:05:19] So death is at work in us, but life in you, since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, I believed, and so I spoke. We too believe, and so we speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his power presence, for it is all for your sake. So that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. [00:06:02] Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day, for this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. [00:06:45] This evening is the last of our three studies on this matter of true freedom. [00:06:55] What is true freedom? [00:07:01] You will remember that some weeks ago on a Sunday morning we spoke about freedom, true freedom and false freedom. [00:07:15] And just what the scripture teaches us about this matter of freedom. [00:07:23] We started in Galatians chapter five and verse one, for freedom did Christ set us free. [00:07:36] Stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. [00:07:46] We have pointed out that freedom is the very heir of Jerusalem, of the Jerusalem which is above, and that everyone who is born of that Jerusalem freedoms in their bloodstream. It is their birthright. [00:08:08] Every single child of God has this glorious birthright of freedom. We are born free, and we have spoken as to what that freedom means. [00:08:24] I use the fingers of both hands. [00:08:29] Freedom from and freedom for freedom from sin, freedom from self, freedom from Satan, freedom from this world and freedom from fear. [00:08:51] What a glorious fivefold freedom we have that covers a universe of bondage that we can see on every side. And which, if we've had eyes to see, we see in ourselves freedom to sin, freedom to freedom from sin, freedom from self, freedom from Satan, freedom from this world, freedom from fear. [00:09:24] Now all that is our birthright. [00:09:27] Christ died to give us this fivefold freedom. There is absolutely no reason at all for any single child of God to be in bondage in any way to these things. Whether it is the world, whether it is something satanic coming from our background, our history that we are hardly conscious of to start with. Or whether it is the many manifold fears that come to us, many from our background, many from perhaps our particular temperament, our temperament gives rise to it. Or often it is something else that somehow the enemy comes and breathes, insinuates fear into us that the Lord has gloriously bought for us, won for us a freedom from all fear. And we are told not to receive again that spirit of fearfulness, but a spirit of power and of love and of a balanced mind. [00:10:40] So we understand from the scripture that we Christians are all in a great battle. [00:10:46] Having been born free. The enemy's whole objective is to bring us back into bondage through ignorance, through sin, through unbelief, to get us entangled again in a yoke of bondage. And as I pointed out, a yoke means somehow that your yoke to somebody or someone can steer you by a yoke. Once a yoke is on you, you can be steered, directed, led. [00:11:16] And it is a terrible possibility for us christians having been born free through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed ministry of the Holy Spirit to go back to a yoke of bondage. To become entangled again in a yoke of bondage. Enmeshed, yoked once more to other forces, alien forces, alien to our Lord Jesus Christ and to God our father and to God the Holy Spirit. [00:11:57] This freedom then is a glorious freedom. And it's the right of everyone in this room. [00:12:03] If you've been born of God, if you have been saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, then you are born free. [00:12:18] Whether you know it or not. It's a fact. [00:12:22] Through ignorance you can live in poverty. [00:12:26] I remember some years ago an old lady that we inherited with this property who lived in the garden and who for whom we all. [00:12:39] So strange was the story of this house that when we first took it over we didn't even know this dear old lady was on the property or in the grounds. But after a while we found out this o by a smell of paraffin and fish in equal proportions we discovered that someone was living in a derelict, dilapidated old studio where water poured in through the roof and where green mold lived on the walls. Now there were cracks in the walls, the walls going out. We were horrified when we found her. Some of you will remember, if you've been with us for so long, how we went over and scrubbed the place out, how fresh fruit was put there, how a cable was run across and electricity was put over there, evidently illegally. So we were told later. [00:13:43] And a lot of other things which she didn't want it. After a while we saw that great mound of sacks in the corner in which she slept. Not with her eight cats, which used to go up and down according to the season in number. But the fact was that when we tried to get a bed in and when we tried. Do you remember she finally asked to see me. Beautifully spoken lady, beautifully spoken. [00:14:14] And said, Mister Lambert, would you please ask everyone over there to refrain from coming across. I am not in need. I am perfectly well able to look after myself and I am quite happy as I am. So we withdrew, or at least we asked everyone to refrain because she was an independent old lady. But we all felt desperately sorry for her and so did the whole area. [00:14:50] Then the council stepped in and said that they would provide her with a prefab, with everything laid on. They would transport her free of charge, along with six cats. [00:15:06] They put as a maximum six, but she refused. [00:15:13] Then finally a gentleman came to see me. I knew that she'd been a company secretary. [00:15:21] I knew that she had a very good background. I could tell by the way she typed a letter when she typed once or twice letters to me, how that she was no ordinary lady. [00:15:34] And then a gentleman came to see us and said, Mister Lambert, I have a shock for you. [00:15:41] The old lady across the garden for whom you have been so concerned and for whom you have asked, if surely something could be, could not be done from the local government level has more money than all your company put together, and it's all in stocks and bonds. [00:16:06] The problem is, it was all left to her by her father and by an aunt. But she will not touch them, nor will she touch the capital that is accruing year by year. [00:16:24] And when we broached very delicately the matter with her, he said, she said to him, I cannot touch any of that money because I may live to be an old lady and I might exhaust the money I have. She was 83. [00:16:53] She had so much money that she could have lived in comfort, not only herself, but the cats as well. [00:17:00] They could have lived in perfect comfort, as they said. If she had only just lived on a fraction of the interest. I said capital earlier. The interest on her capital. She could have lived. But, you see, she couldn't believe it. [00:17:20] She couldn't believe it. [00:17:23] So she lived in poverty. She didn't even have a bed, a mound of sacks and the most pathetic plimsolls she wore. Apart from anything else, we had a great affection for the old lady, but nothing could bring her to see that she could have lived cheerfully on the interest, lived at a standard that none of us could possibly have, and not even touch her capital, and still die and leave it all to a cat's home, as indeed she did when she died. [00:18:15] So you see, what I'm just telling you that story for is because we are like that. We're born free. We're born with a tremendous privilege, a tremendous salvation, but many of us are afraid to draw on it, afraid to cash the check, afraid to use the currency of heaven. Do you remember Willy Burton when he took out that pound note and said, how many of you know that written on this? It says, I promise to pay. Pay the bearer the sum of. It's only paper. [00:19:03] No one ever so used to using currency that we don't question it. [00:19:11] We believe in the trustworthiness of the bank of England, and so we pass over little bits of paper that I suppose are worthwhile. Sixpence, heath. Flippancy. [00:19:26] Why, even your ten pound note is probably worth no more than twopence. [00:19:33] But we trust it. [00:19:35] But how slow we are to trust the currency of heaven. [00:19:39] How slow we are to take the promises of God. [00:19:44] All that's given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. All that's given to us by the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. How slow we are to start to take what is ours. It's everyone here. It's all yours. If you're a child of God, it's all yours. I could enumerate what is yours, but we're talking more about freedom. And this one great aspect of our salvation is that freedom is yours. [00:20:13] It is not a question of you being a significant christian. It is not a question of you being an extremely knowledgeable christian. The fact is, if you are a child of God, you may only be just born. But it is your think of that. Why we could bring some 100 year old saint here who spent all his or her years in the service of God, and the freedom is just as much a newborn babes as that old saying. [00:20:47] That's what the work of the Lord Jesus Christ has done for every one of us freedom from sin, from self, from Satan, from this world, from fear. And if we could only look at the things that we're so frightened of in our lives, the things that we feel have got such a hold on us in our lives and want to declare the name of the Lord over those things in our own lives, we'd find that it was true. We're free. [00:21:20] Of course, the fact then dawns on us that we have a traitor within. [00:21:27] We all love to moan about being bound about this and that about the other, but the fact is that, quite honestly, we don't really want to be completely delivered. [00:21:38] We know we ought to be. So in order to offer a shot to our conscience, we say, oh, but it's too strong for me, it's too difficult for me. [00:21:49] What nonsense. [00:21:52] If you were to stand against that thing, it would fade away. [00:21:57] It would appear for what it is, a lie from the pit. [00:22:05] Now, these lies are often very real and very powerful, but they are only as real and as powerful as we allow them to be in our lives. That's the point. [00:22:18] Whilst we look at these things which are seen, they seem so powerful, so real, they seem to be the dynamic. But if we look at the things which are not seen, what is not seen? The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ finished the work of our salvation, that he has ascended on high, that he's at the right hand of God the Father, that he has obtained the promise of the Holy Spirit for us, and that he has poured forth the Holy Spirit, that there is something for everyone that promises to you and to your children and to as many as are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call. Has he called you? [00:23:03] Well, the promise is yours. You don't see that you've only got in the grace of God this book, which is your title, deed in a sense, that tells you what is yours. [00:23:21] We also have freedom not only from these five things, but we have freedom for five other things. And this is a fact that is often forgotten. Some Christians are just out for themselves. They just want to be free from responsibility, free from discipline, free from gathering together, free from anything at all like that, just to be able to sort of loll around kind of christian permissive society, christian yippies. [00:23:48] This is absolutely foreign and alien to the word of God. Where do we ever read of such a thing? That God has freed people in order just to please themselves, in order just to do what they want to do, to pick and choose what they would like. There is no such thing from Genesis to revelation. You will not find it in any of the great lives of the saints are recorded in this book. [00:24:15] Oh, this idea of freedom that is gaining ground in this country, that all we do is just to free to sit around and enjoy ourselves. Free for self satisfaction. So that there is no evangelism, there is no quiet time, there is no discipline in prayer, there is no travail, ministry of Travail, but rather instead just a lot of twittering. [00:24:45] Whatever do they think the Holy Spirit has come for? [00:24:50] To make us a lot of self centred people just like the world, out for ourselves? [00:24:57] Never. [00:24:59] The Holy Spirit has not come for that at all. Blessed be the name of God. The Holy Spirit is coming. Come in order to free us for some marvelous things. And what is true? Freedom. Listen again. The other fingers. Freedom to serve the Lord. [00:25:21] To serve the Lord whatever the cost, to do the will of God from the heart. That kind of freedom. [00:25:33] Freedom to make him lord. [00:25:37] Freedom to function as he intended us to function. [00:25:43] Secondly, freedom to lay down our lives for the Lord and for others. [00:25:49] That's the freedom. [00:25:52] Freedom to be able to walk the way of the cross. Freedom to walk in a crucified way. Freedom to fall into the ground and die. Freedom to lose our own lives bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life also might be manifested. So then death worketh in us, life in you, freedom for that kind of experience, death in me. [00:26:19] But you'll never know because I won't let you know about it. [00:26:25] So that there can be life in you. That kind of freedom is true freedom, for it is the freedom of our Lord Jesus Christ who laid aside his glory and came into this world, confined himself to a span of human flesh and blood, nursed in the arms of a woman, grew up in Nazareth as a carpenter with all the problems of routine life gave himself to the waters of baptism, thereby signifying that he lived a crucified life and accepted Calvary, three years before it came to pass, entered upon a public ministry which knew no let up, in which he proved beyond all shadow of a doubt that his was a crucified life. Calvary was no sudden climax, some sudden crown to his life. He'd lived the life for 33 years and when it came to gethsemane and he flinched, he had freedom to say, nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. [00:27:45] That is christian freedom, nothing less. [00:27:52] And anything that falls below that standard is false, so be careful of it. [00:27:59] Thirdly, freedom to be changed. [00:28:05] Freedom to be changed how we fear change but freedom to be changed, freedom, though we're fearful sometimes of a change. Freedom, say, lord, we're going through with you. Changed into the same image, conformed to his image. [00:28:22] Freedom to be oneself, not to have to feel that you've got to be some Hudson Taylor or John Wesley or Amy Carmichael or Billy Graham or someone else. But freedom to be yourself in Christ, that's a freedom. [00:28:50] Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, Jude and John, they've all different. Free to be themselves. [00:29:01] And so you see that dear man Paul sitting down, writing a letter, and there are nearly tears in his eyes as he dictates the letter. And what is it he's saying? He's saying, when I wrote that former letter to you, I had such a bad time about it. [00:29:24] Oh, I felt I'd made a terrible mistake. [00:29:33] I was almost on the point of asking your forgiveness. When I got news that you'd been humbled by my letter and had sought the Lord and were obedient. I thought that I'd been over harsh. [00:29:48] Now, that's quite all right. Sounds like a very humble servant of the Lord writing a kind of good letter. But when you realize that the letter he was having a bad time about is our first letter to the church at Corinth, you realize how human inspiration is. [00:30:11] He evidently, at that point didn't realize that that was all inspired, and that had now become the word of God, which was going to be studied and read by generation upon generation of the Lord's people till the end of time. [00:30:26] Such is inspiration. [00:30:29] Holy men of old speak as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. They didn't sort of say, I knew, of course, that I was inspired. Every single word of it. [00:30:39] It has never entered my head, not at all. Had such a bad time about it was on the point of writing, saying, look here, had gone too far, but he hadn't gone too far. The beauty of it was that it's the human vessel. He was himself. [00:31:02] God could be himself in Paul because Paul was himself, so God could be himself because Paul was himself. [00:31:08] No sham, no facade. [00:31:12] He sits down another time and dictates a letter in such a white hot rage, full of indignation. [00:31:23] And in that letter, he says some things which none of our translators have quite really been able to put too bluntly, especially what he says about circumcision. It really was a little bit much in a way. I wish they would go further, he said, and said a few other things, too. [00:31:47] He was in a white hot rage, but it was the word of God. It was the spirit of God. He was moved from the spirit of God. [00:31:58] Our ideas sometimes of inspiration are quite false. We all, of course, the differences, simply this, the difference between possession and indwelling. Never forget that possession is the basis of everything that's false and counterfeit. Spiritism, witchcraft, sorcery, black magic, it's all possession. Something comes in, bypasses the mind, bypasses the intelligence, and uses the lips and uses the body. [00:32:36] The Holy Spirit, when he comes, never does that. [00:32:41] It's indwelling, not possession. He's there and he comes through everything. [00:32:49] I wish I could stop just to illustrate all that through the word, but I could illustrate to you that it's wonderful the way the Lord comes through. [00:32:58] Some bypass comes to it. Of course, we have to have our mind renewed, and we've got a lot of trouble with our old minds, the natural minds, as it's called, and all the rest of it. But the fact is that the husband never bypasses, and it's a wonderful thing when we've got a bit of doubt or something else. The Lord takes it all into account. He understands us so completely and fully. Well, anyway, freedom to be changed, freedom to be oneself, freedom to glorify God. [00:33:29] That's the fifth thing. Freedom to glorify God, to worship the Lord, to know a life of praise and so much more. [00:33:39] Freedom from freedom for fivefold. Fivefold. [00:33:47] Then we've talked about freedom, how it comes, two things. Christ has won it for us. [00:33:56] And the first thing we've got to note is the tense, it's past. Christ has won it for us. [00:34:04] We must recognize that fact if we're going to be free and know it, that the work is finished. [00:34:12] Christ has ascended, leading captivity captive. Do you believe it? He's not got to lead captivity captive tonight. He has led captivity captive, dumb. [00:34:26] And poured forth the Holy Spirit, who is the custodian of this freedom. [00:34:32] He's the one who brings it to us, brings us into it. [00:34:37] And then we spoke about truth, which is a forgotten factor in this matter of freedom. It is the truth that makes you free. If ye abide in my word, then are ye my disciples, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. And we spoke and then he went on and said, if the sun shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. It is the truth that makes us free, the truth about God, the truth about Christ, the truth about ourselves. [00:35:13] We don't like the truth about ourselves, but we've got to face it. [00:35:23] And if we won't face it one day, we will perforce so that when we stand before the face of our blessed Lord then we see for the first time what we have been evading in a lifetime. [00:35:44] What were the hidden complexes, the hidden causes that govern so much? It will cause us to worship that God was so merciful, so understanding, so patient. But surely it will be cause for those tears that were be wiped away, that we didn't grow as we ought to have grown. We didn't allow him to have the way that he wanted to have. We hesitated about coming into everything that he had so dearly bought for us. Truth. We spoke sometime about complexes giving you some examples of one or two complexes. We spoke about the need for the Holy Spirit, the Lord to deal with causes, not just symptoms. [00:36:30] We all want the symptoms dealt with. I'm so miserable. That's a symptom. I want it dealt with. [00:36:37] We want joy unspeakable and full of glory. All we want to do is we want to have the symptom removed at the least cost and disturbance. But God says, look here, I can do that for you. You can have a touch of joy and you'll be up in heaven for the next three or four days and back where you started next week. [00:37:02] Because we will not allow him to deal with the cause of the thing. [00:37:07] We talked about causes and we talked about also truth shattering, artificial or secondhand experience. Experience which comes so often to us when we want to go on with the Lord. And we so desperately want to go on with the Lord. And we see someone or other who we feel is going on with the Lord. And we model ourselves on them instead of modeling ourselves on their faith. [00:37:34] We model ourselves on the details, the way they speak, the way they behave, conduct, and so on. And thus we get an artificial second hand experience. [00:37:48] It's the truth that makes us free. So we've got to abide in the word. We've got to become disciples and we shall know the truth and the truth shall make us free. In other words, it's not only a question that it's been won for us, but we've got to abide in the word of God so that it's possible, progressively true. [00:38:12] Now I want just to take up this matter this evening, this last .2 points. [00:38:26] The spirit, the work of the HoLY spirit in this matter. [00:38:31] And then faith. The need of faith. Now the work of the spirit in this matter. Lets start to look at a few scriptures, shall we? Two Corinthians, chapter three, verse 17. We read that this evening. Two corinthians, 317. Now the Lord is the spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. How beautifully its put. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. It doesn't say where the spirit of the Lord is, there is a possibility of freedom, or there is a freedom potentiality, a freedom potential. [00:39:21] It is where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. [00:39:30] Or someone else has pointed out, it's not just a question on the Holy Spirit being in a life, but whether the spirit is Lord in the life. Now, the Lord is the spirit. [00:39:46] The Holy Spirit is the agent of all God's acts and works. [00:39:52] The Lord Jesus was born through the Holy Spirit. He was anointed by the Holy Spirit. When he was 30 years of age, by the Holy Spirit he offered himself up on the cross and it was the spirit of God that raised him from the dead. Now all those you know, surely they're all scriptures, well known scriptures. [00:40:19] So we know that about the Lord Jesus life. We also know, if we look in the Old Testament, that every time God did anything, it was by the Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit in Genesis, chapter one, verse two, that brooded upon the face of the waters. [00:40:34] Therefore, if you grieve the Spirit, the consequence is bondage. [00:40:41] If you quench the Spirit, the immediate result is bondage, a cessation of the activity of God. Think how serious that is. No wonder it says, grieve not the Holy Spirit, by which y are sealed. [00:41:01] We forget this. [00:41:03] Quench not the Spirit. [00:41:07] Why? Because the moment we frighten the Holy Spirit away, the moment we grieve the Holy Spirit, the moment we quench the Holy Spirit, that moment bondage starts. We go back to a yoke. We get entangled in the yoke of bondage and the working of God ceases. [00:41:34] That bears very solemn responsibility. [00:41:48] Now, if we look at a few more scriptures. [00:41:51] John, chapter 16. [00:41:57] John, chapter 16. [00:42:00] So well known. May the Lord deliver us from the familiarity of it. John 1613. Howbeit, when he the spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you into all the truth, for he shall not speak from himself. But what things soever he shall hear, thee shall he speak. [00:42:21] He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. [00:42:25] Isn't that an interesting thing? What things? Soever he shall hear, that shall he speak. [00:42:31] Some people have often wanted to know what's going on in heaven. [00:42:35] All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine. Therefore said I, that he taketh of mine and shall declare it unto you. He shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you. [00:42:52] He shall glorify me, said the Lord Jesus. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Well, in those verses in two corinthians 317 18, and here in John, chapter 16, these verses, we found out a tremendous sphere of the Holy Spirit's ministry and work, freedom to change us into the same image as the Lord, from glory to glory. [00:43:23] That's two corinthians 317 and 18. Here to lead us into all truth, to glorify Christ, to take of the things of Christ and declare it to us, to make us aware of the mind of God at any given moment. [00:43:42] Oh, it will be more sensitive to those cross currents in the heavenly places. I don't mean cross currents down here on the left of those. [00:43:53] Generally speaking, we've only got to have our eyes a little open to be able to sense them, and they'll always be with us till the Lord come. [00:44:03] But I'm thinking of that in heaven we are made aware over a holy, delicate sensitivity to the soul of God, to the mind of God, to the direction of God. [00:44:25] This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Turn back to chapter 14, verse 1716 and 17. And I will pray the father, and he shall give you another comfort, that he may be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, for he beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him, ye know him, for he abideth with you and shall be in you. [00:44:53] Do you know most of those he abideth? He shall be with you. You know the ministry of the Holy Spirit with you. [00:45:01] Do you know his abiding in you? [00:45:07] He shall be with you. And he known for your battle with you and shall be in, you know both of them. [00:45:19] The work of the Holy Spirit. Do you know the Holy Spirit as the comforter? Don't ever. You will never need too much of human comfort once you know the Holy Spirit's comfort, because this word is such a beautiful word. It means the advocacy of the Holy Spirit, the coming alongside of the Holy Spirit, the encouragement of the Holy Spirit. [00:45:41] It's a wonderful word that covers a whole wealth of meaning that the Holy Spirit is there to comfort you. That is, not just to dry your tears and sort of give you a little bit of sympathy, but to encourage you all the time. Time. Now then, don't be down. [00:45:59] Look, lift up your eyes. The Holy Spirit says, now, don't look at me. Don't become sort of conscious too much of my work, but look off to Christ. He's the author and finisher of faith. Now lift up your eyes. Fix them on the Lord, and you'll get faith, new faith or perhaps some, your sort of down and the devil's sort of come to you about some sin or other. And the Holy Spirit doesn't accuse you. He says, right now, then you confess that. Just confess it. [00:46:33] And here, look. Is the blood of the lamb sufficient for your cleansing? That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Comforter, advocate, encourager. [00:46:47] Correct. [00:46:50] Oh, how wonderful it is to know the Holy Spirit. Because all these things are part of our freedom, you see? Freedom to be changed into the image of the Lord. [00:47:02] Freedom to know the truth, to face the truth. [00:47:09] Freedom to really do the will of God and serve the Lord. [00:47:15] Take of the things of God and declare unto earth freedom to glorify God. [00:47:23] He shall glorify me. It's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And here you see, you've got it. Further. [00:47:29] If we don't know anything of that blessed ministry of the comforter, what can we do for one another? [00:47:36] If the ministry of the comforter is absent, what can we do? Because he's the one who alone is able to bring a child of God who. You have the same thought again in chapter 15, verse 26 and 27. But when the comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the father, even the spirit of truth which proceedeth from the father, he shall bear witness of me, the spirit of truth. The spirit of reality. So if we're to know the truth and the truth is to make us free, the spirit of truth is the agent. [00:48:21] Why quench him? Why shun him? [00:48:31] Look at one John, chapter five. [00:48:35] One John, chapter five, verse seven. [00:48:44] And it is the spirit that beareth witness. Because the spirit is the truth. [00:48:54] Some of us, when we are young in the Lord have to be continually told that we are all right. [00:49:03] We have to be continually told that we are children of God. You know the kind thing. I remember a while ago someone coming to me and said, have you ever asked the Lord in your heart? Yes, they said. And I said, what's happened since? Oh, well, I've asked the Lord into my heart every night since. But I said, why do you ask the Lord? Well, just in case he never heard. [00:49:29] But you know, the Holy Spirit's work is to witness with our spirit that we are children of God. [00:49:40] So that for the first time something inside, deeper than our doubts, deeper than insinuations from the devil and others right deep down within us, something, everything says, you're a child of God. [00:49:54] It's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. [00:49:57] He beareth witness because the spirit is the truth. So it's not only the Lord Jesus who is the truth, but the spirit is the truth. The bound up. You see all one thing. [00:50:11] Let's look at a few other scriptures. Romans, chapter eight. [00:50:17] The work of the Holy Spirit in connection with this matter of freedom. Romans, chapter eight, verse two. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. So then the scripture teaches that in every human being there is a principle of sin. That is, we cannot help it. [00:50:45] And it is the principle of the spirit of life that sets us free. [00:50:53] In other words, I am afraid I am no scientist and no technician or technologist, but all I know is this, that when you sit in some great heavy bowing, 707 loaded from end to end with people of various sizes and weights and stowed into the luggage hold is the luggage of all 190 soul people, and then wheeled on into the kitchen, into the galley, our meals for a whole day. [00:51:42] And then you go out onto the Runway, you cannot help but sometimes wonder whether that load can ever get off. [00:51:53] But somehow or other, a superior power takes over. [00:52:00] And I don't quite know what happens, but what I know is that one law is overcome by another law. That's all. And the old jet gets up into the air, into the heavens, with all the people on board, all the luggage and all the food, the whole lot have got up into the air. Now then, how is that possible? [00:52:26] I mean, you can go out into the garden and do your best to get into the air. [00:52:31] You can run along the path up the garden and jump into the air. But my dear friend, unless the angels come to your aid, you will come back down as quickly, if not more quickly than you went up. [00:52:47] How then is it possible for an enormous bowing with all those people to get up into the air? Does it not do just the same thing as you running along? [00:52:58] No, no, there's some other force and power inside which transcends the other law or principle takes over and it gets up into the air. [00:53:11] This is the christian mind so often misunderstood. [00:53:18] We have this principle or law of sin and death in us. But, oh, when the law or the principle of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus gets into us and we obey that law of the spirit of life, then that principle transcends the other, overtakes it, overcomes it, and gets us up into the heaven. [00:53:44] Freedom. [00:53:47] It is a fact. [00:53:50] Same chapter, verse 15. For ye receive not the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye receive the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, the spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God are joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him. So here is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Again, we are not to receive a spirit of bondage, again unto fear, but the spirit of adoption. That is, the spirit of being placed as sons. I expect most of you know, certainly those of you a little older in the lawn, that there's been always great discussion as to whether the apostle Paul. Paul was here referring to the gentile custom of adoption, whereby an alien child or a child not of the kith or kin of that family were adopted. This was quite common in Rome and all throughout the Roman Empire, where wealthy slave owners took a liking to some slave had no son of their own and actually adopted the slave as their son legally. [00:55:08] But of course the hebrew custom was different. [00:55:12] The hebrew custom is what we call bar mitzvah, which corresponds to, I suppose, in the state church confirmation. But it's a good deal more than confirmation. When a boy gets to twelve years of age, age, he is accepted as a full grown son of his father. [00:55:34] Great celebration. He's reached the year, the age of responsibility. He is now a son and he receives the placing as a son. He has given all the honour and privilege accruing to being a son of his father. [00:55:55] Now there's always been discussion and a lot of little pamphlets read written about it too, as to whether here the apostle Paul was referring to the gentile custom or the hebrew custom. Well, for myself, even if it is to the Romans, I have no doubt at all that Paul was referring to the hebrew custom. I cannot imagine that Paul would refer to some gentile customers here in this matter, although he does refer, of course, to games and so on, which are a wholly gentile affair. [00:56:29] I think this is the spirit of placing a son's recognition that we are sons of our father, born of his spirit, not just adopted, but born of his spirit. And now we receive this spirit of placing of sons, this spirit of adoption, the recognition that we are sons, whereby we cry out our father. We know it. We know our father. [00:56:57] And then it goes on by this spirit that beareth witness in our hearts that we're children of God. Then he goes on and says, we know we're heirs and joint heirs, which we, whatever way we look at it, the fact of the matter is it's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. [00:57:14] Then again, if you look at two Corinthians chapter three. We read the last verses a moment ago, but in chapter three, verse three, we weed being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh. And then verse six, 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. [00:57:49] That's the freedom that is ours. [00:57:53] Two Corinthians 413. [00:57:58] But having the same spirit of faith, we sang, spirit of faith, come down. [00:58:07] It is one of the works of the Holy Spirit to enable us to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, so that we can receive faith. He is the spirit of faith. It says in one corinthians twelve nine that in the different gifts that he distributes faith to another by the same spirit. [00:58:29] So we not all have general faith, but there are gifts of faith. [00:58:34] Know how we need it today. [00:58:37] And then in Galatians 516 to 18, Galatians 516 18. Listen to this. But I say, walk by the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For these are contrary with the one to the other, that ye may not do the things that ye would. Here is the principle or law of sin and death. [00:59:07] But if ye are led by the spirit, ye are not under the law. [00:59:13] Verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self control. Against such there is no law. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof. If we live by the spirit, let us also walk by the spirit. Now that is an extremely interesting comment. [00:59:46] Listen. If we live by the spirit, let us also walk. So it's possible to live by the spirit and not walk by the spirit. [00:59:57] There is some insufficiency in our understanding of the life in the spirit so that we can live in the spirit. That's our position. [01:00:10] And we keep on getting in there and dropping down, but we don't walk. [01:00:16] It doesn't become the practical principle of life. [01:00:24] We live, but we don't walk. [01:00:28] If we live by, let's also walk. Is there not a weakness in many of us that we've come last to see that we live in the spirit, but we don't walk by the spirit? It's very, very interesting. [01:00:43] Oh, well, there's all that. The spirit of truth. Oh, sometimes. [01:00:50] Some times people would like to give one, two, three steps into some experience of the Holy Spirit. [01:01:05] But I don't think that in the end, as I look back and from the experience I have had amongst the people of God, that giving methods or steps in. It's a short term policy, a seriously short term policy. [01:01:25] The Holy Spirit is sovereign matter. [01:01:30] The thing that matters is that you and I are in the good of all that Christ has won for us. And we can only be in the good by the Holy Spirit. [01:01:39] So if one comes this way, praise the Lord. If another comes that way, praise the Lord. Another comes that way, praise the Lord. But let us see in them something of God. A release, power, an anointing. [01:01:54] We need to see that more than anything else, one another. It has never ceased to amaze me that you have a Quaker meeting. In the good old days, not now, but in the good old days, where they all sat in absolute silence. Not a soul sang a chorus or a hymn or even bleaked. [01:02:16] It was absolute silence. Now, I'm not talking about modern Quaker meetings so much. I'm talking about the old one. [01:02:27] They said that singing was the flesh. [01:02:33] There should be no musical instruments and no singing. [01:02:38] So they met together there to sit. Were these people joyless? [01:02:44] Were these people lifeless? They turned England upside down. And not only England, but the new world. [01:02:52] Into their meetings came the spirit of God. So that people who were cautious and quiet, sitting there absolutely silenced with bowed head would suddenly start to shake with the power of God in them. And someone would stand up and prophesy and someone else would stand up and give a revelation. And someone else would stand up and read a psalm. And someone else would give a little exposition. [01:03:23] One after another, they entered into something that they called inner light. Oh, the Puritans didnt like the Greek. [01:03:33] The Puritans were the most wonderful people. But after a century of puritans, they became legal. [01:03:43] And God raised up the Quakers as a reaction. [01:03:49] My, what they taught. That's why they were called Quakers and all. Judge, synth. What is this that I hear? You people, you Quakers. He meant, of course, because they shocked in their meetings. [01:04:09] But they didn't all sit there and start to shake artificially. They sat there in silence till the spirit of God came upon them in such a way that people were converted. Blackguards, drunkards, the immoral, the pervert came pouring into them. They put them in prison. And whole prisons were converted by the Quakers. By the influence of the Quakers in the cells of the prison go into a pentecostal meeting from the very start. You'll have singing and song, and lo and behold, someone might tremble. [01:04:51] I remember once, not the Pentecostals with the capital p. And I remember once in a prayer meeting here on a day of prayer, we were praying, and I saw an old danish sister who was with us. I had no idea she was in such great need, sitting with her husband in the meeting. There was a period of quietness. And I opened my eyes. I'm afraid I can always get. And I opened my eyes, and then I saw her go. [01:05:25] And then she put her hand. I thought, oh, my goodness, she's ill. [01:05:34] But then she never got up. [01:05:36] She never went out. She never said a word. When I went to the Denmark that summer, I went to their home, and the husband said to me, my wife has been a permanently different woman from that plan. Evening. Oh, I said, what happened? So he said, the spirit of God came down upon her and almost lifted her out of her seat. [01:06:04] She had known the ministry of the Holy Spirit in earlier years, but she was in desperately. [01:06:11] There was plenty of singing and all the rest of it. Now, how is it that with a Quaker meeting, you get one? And with the take, the so called quietists, Tersteg, Sousson, Gerhard, Madame Guillaume. [01:06:26] They're not Quakers, but they believed in waiting on God. [01:06:31] Same type of thing. [01:06:34] They got something? My word. Think of the hymns we sing of Terstagan, of Gerhard. Some of the finest hymns in our whole hymnology have been given to us by Terstegen, Gerhard, and some of these others. I could. I could give you all cancer. [01:06:53] God in heaven hath a trevor. That's one. Not of Tersteacon, but one of the quietest. There's so many others now. Hidden source of calm repose, thou all sufficient love to divine. [01:07:09] And, oh, I can think of so many others of those. [01:07:14] And then I think of the Wesleyans, the early Wesleyans, with that great emphasis that the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and men take it by force. [01:07:27] Could there be anything different to the quietists and the early Wesleyans? Would their insistence that you must have a second experience and that you got, if necessary, stay up all night taking hold of God, like Charles Wesley, who got so bothered with the coldness of his own heart and with the deadness of his own minister strength. And so unhappy as he watched his brother full of fire and full of life, that he shut himself up in his room all night. [01:08:01] And he wrote that wonderful hymn, verse by verse, through that night of prayer. Come o'er, thou traveller lord, whom yet I hold but cannot see. [01:08:15] And then it's a whole hymn of despair. [01:08:19] Oh, he says self desperately. One of the wonderful phrases in that himself desperate, I cry. And then there's a dramatic change and you get those wonderful words. Thy name is love. [01:08:39] It ends up with the even more wonderful words, which unfortunately we've got in none of our in books, that he will bound forward, though he's lame, to take the prey like a heart. [01:08:58] So where's now? Quite different to Madame Guyon. [01:09:02] Yet they came. [01:09:04] Oh, we could go on and we could go on and we could go. I've just finished a book. [01:09:09] I read it in one day because I was trapped in some dear saint's home and had nothing really to do until the meeting. I didn't want to bother anyone else. And I saw in the bookshelf the welsh revival by Efjon Evans. [01:09:27] So I whipped it out. [01:09:29] I thought, that's funny, I've never heard of that. [01:09:32] I saw there was a forward by Doctor Martin Lloyd Jones. [01:09:35] Then I saw it was 1969, so I thought, well, well, that explains why we haven't heard. [01:09:43] So then I sat down and began to read it. My word, I couldn't put it down. I read it and read it and read it with a little break for a lunch. And then I rushed back and read it and read it and read it. I couldn't put the book down. I thought, well, well, well. So that's what it was all about. People all over Wales meeting for days of prayer and weeks for prayer for ten years previous to the revival or more. [01:10:10] And I had no idea that it was all this matter again to do with the bats and the spit. But no signs. No, you must speak in tongue, of course, that's not wrong. Indeed, it's right. But there was an emphasis. [01:10:26] But my. When the spirit of God came down on those meetings, people cried out literally and said, lord, hold it, hold it. I can't take any more. [01:10:36] And Neville the Roberts had to stand up in one pulpit and say, friends, let us not get confused. Those who find they cannot take any more cry out, hold it. And those who want more say, come Lord, I need more. Fancy having a meeting like that, where the spirit of God so came upon people that they felt as one person put it down in the record. I felt as if my head was going to burst. Another said, I felt bodily lifted up. Well, we don't want sensation, do we, for sensation's sake. But how wonderful it is when the spirit of God visits a people like that. When Evan Roberts was lying on his back, he saw a vision before it ever happened. And he saw a shining, a person shining dazzling white. And then he saw a hand come out of heaven. Nearer and nearer and nearer came to him. And then he saw written on the hand, 100,000. [01:11:37] And Evan Roberts knew in his spirit that God was going to save 100,000 people in Wales. [01:11:46] Could you have faith to believe such a thing? [01:11:49] Now the soul had got saved. When that happened, he got up and said, lord, you're going to save 100,000 people in this principality. [01:12:02] Many years later, when all the figures were collated, they found that in the south of Wales alone, although 83,000 people had been converted in one year by the number of new members to churches, and that was without the north of Wales, so that they know very well that the hundred thousand was exceeded. [01:12:36] That's how God worked there. It was the spirit of God again. Evan Roberts whole ministry whilst on this point about letting the Holy Spirit be Lord, you must let him be lord. It was an eye opener to me. I had no idea that he had that emphasis all the way. The Holy Spirit must be Lord. [01:12:59] So that even newspaper listen to them. Even newspapers, worldly newspapers. When they went and said, we have never been to a meeting like men, even Roberts doesn't read it. He opens, he says a few words, he sits there, and the whole meeting is led by some unseen, unknown power from beginning to end. [01:13:31] Think of that. [01:13:34] No wonder it said, this is a return to the primitive church, where the spirit of God was in charge and led the worship and praise and service of the people of God. [01:13:46] Lloyd George went to speak at a political meeting in Midway. [01:13:58] They asked the minister, the local minister, to stand up at the beginning and just as was the custom in those parts, read a word from the scripture and then just pray. He stood up, he read a scripture and he prayed. [01:14:15] Then they began to see and the political meeting turned into a christian meeting. [01:14:24] And Lloyd George said it was the unforgettable meeting of his life. He never spoke about politics. He didn't even get a word in, not in the whole two and a half hour meeting. [01:14:43] Such was the, the power of God. Well, of course, people say, could we ever see such a thing again? [01:14:49] I don't know. What I do know. I don't mean when I say I don't know. I don't know whether the Lord will do exactly that same thing again. But what I do know is this, that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, freedom, freedom for God to be glorified, freedom for God to have his way, freedom for the works of God to be, to be known and seen. [01:15:12] Well, then, that leads me. Then, finally, just to say, we need faith. [01:15:18] And this is how Phillips puts that verse, which I think is rather beautiful. Galatians five one. Listen. Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has won for us. And do not let yourselves be caught again in the shackles of slavery. [01:15:48] Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has won for us. [01:16:01] Your feet firmly therefore in the freedom that Christ has won for us. [01:16:15] Shall we pray? [01:16:20] O Lord, our prayer tonight is that thou who art sovereign. [01:16:27] We'll meet every one of us in the way we need. Some of us are strangers to the ministry of thy Holy Spirit, strangers to his gracious work within our hearts. Others of us, we know something. [01:16:43] But, o Lord, we perhaps need this or that. Thou knowest now, Lord, thou art sovereign. [01:16:51] Take thou thy word and perform it. [01:16:55] Perform it in our lives, Lord. Rid us of the prejudices and biases we have about thy holy spirit. Rid us, we pray, beloved Lord, of everything that hinders and frustrates thy plan and purpose for each one of us and for us as a people. [01:17:16] O Lord, by thy hope, holy spirit, meet us. We pray that we may glorify him. We may know thy ministry of glorifying Christ in and through us all. [01:17:29] We might know what it is to be in the good of what he has done. [01:17:34] O Father, we dare not divine too clearly, but thou art able to apply thy word in every one of our hearts and bring us one by one into what is ours in the Lord Jesus, grant us this night. Wherever there is bondage, wherever there are shackles of slavery, to look to thee for their being broken and snapped, we thank thee. Thou hast freed us, o Lord. Let every one of us know that freedom, freedom from all those things, and freedom for all that thou art. So hear us, Lord, as we now commit ourselves to thee in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.