Responding to the Holy Spirit [C]

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Acts chapter 1 and chapter 2 tonight. We’re going to finish up this message from this morning on the Holy Spirit. I spent this morning and the last couple weeks, I guess, talking to you about the things that, the ways we can respond to the Holy Spirit in negative ways.

And I started out with that not because I’m a negative person, but because when it comes to the Bible, we need to take the bad news before we take the good. And I’m convinced that a lot of times that’s why our gospel presentation in churches is not effective. Our gospel presentations in churches are not effective anymore as much as they used to be because we’re trying to give people the good news when they don’t realize why they need it.

If you just get up and preach, well, you need Jesus as your Savior because God loves you, there’s not anything that’s technically incorrect about that except what you’ve left out. What you’ve said is correct, but you haven’t told the whole story. There was a time when we used to talk about sin and judgment and the cross.

To make people understand why the good news was needed, you had to give them the bad news. So it’s not that I want to focus on the negatives, but I just now tend to look at the bad first, and then we’ll get to the good, and then we’ll feel better that way. So we talked about all the ways we could respond to the Holy Spirit in a negative way, and I want to talk about the positive interaction tonight that we can have with the Holy Spirit.

And it boils down really to two options here. Accept what the Holy Spirit is doing and saying or reject it. Those are the two options.

We talked about several different ways we could do the rejection thing. Our other option is to accept what the Holy Spirit says, to accept the work of the Holy Spirit, to accept what he wants to do and is trying to do in our lives. There are a couple of ways that this is accomplished in the New Testament, And I could go through with you verse, jump around and look at several different verses.

If you’ll permit me, I’d just like to go with you a little bit through Acts chapter 2 and then tell you some of the other things that the Bible talks about. And then we’ll finish up. But we look first of all at Acts chapter 1 where they’re gathered together just before Jesus is ascended back to heaven.

And it says in verse 1, the former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day in which he was taken up. After that, he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto his apostles whom he had chosen. So we see the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit already active among the people.

And it is very telling what we’ve looked at in John chapter 14 that he said he refers to the Comforter who is among you and shall be in you. He is present tense among you. He dwells among you, but he shall be future tense in you.

John chapter 20, I was looking at earlier, and some of this I’m still working through in my own mind. But it says, receive you the Holy Ghost. I believe it’s John 20, 22. He tells his disciples, let me look at it.

Receive ye the Holy Ghost. When he breathed on them, he saith unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them. And whosoever sins you retain, they are retained. So it sounds like there he’s giving them the Holy Ghost when he’s breathing on them.

That’s not the way I understand it to be because later on he tells them, when you receive the Holy Ghost. So my understanding of this would be then that it’s a command, receive the Holy Ghost even though he’s not giving it to them then. He’s saying when he comes you need to receive the Holy Ghost. But we see in chapter 1 of Acts that the Holy Ghost is already present and working among them and they are about to receive the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. To whom also he had showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father.

And what was the promise of the Father? That they would receive the Holy Ghost. Sayeth he, ye have heard of me, for John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. And when they therefore were come together they asked of him saying Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel.

Folks they are still after the crucifixion after the resurrection they still don’t understand the nature of the kingdom. They’re still asking are you going to be king now? Do we get to work with you and your glory and your kingdom now?

After all that. And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. Do you realize that?

There are some things that we just don’t have to know. We don’t always have to know the timing of when God’s going to work. Oh, as I say this, I’m hearing this right at me, and I don’t like this very much.

But there are some things we don’t have to know the timing of when God is going to do what he’s going to do. We don’t have to know how he’s going to work it out. The times and seasons sometimes are not for us to know.

God’s going to do what he’s going to do, and we just need to be prepared to go with his will, which the Father hath put in his own power. He says, but, verse 8, ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld, He was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven. So we see the promise of God’s power.

When the Holy Spirit’s come upon them, Jesus has given them their marching orders again and said, you will be witnesses of me into Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the earth. And then he is ascended into heaven. And I think every one of us would have stood there and just taken the moment in as he goes out of sight.

But then these two men who we can only, I can only assume were angels of the Lord, said to them, as we would say today, why are you standing there with your mouth agape? You’ve got work to do. You need to go back and wait for God, Be prepared for God to send his power and anointing on you so that you can do the work that Jesus has left you to do.

And we would all want to stand there on that mountain and just soak it all in, but yet he says there’s work to be done. And so we go into Acts chapter 2, and they’ve waited and they’ve done some of their business of preparing. And it says in chapter 2, verse 1, And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

That’s not just the 11 remaining apostles and Matthias whom they elected to take Judas’ place. That would be the entire church at Jerusalem. They were gathered together in one accord in one place, as usually the church works best. It says, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.

And it filled all the house where they were sitting. Wouldn’t you love to be there? And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it set upon each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, we do have to mention this in explaining the text, although this is not a message about tongues. But explain what’s happening here.

And it says, There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Now, when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language. This is incredible.

And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? Aren’t all these guys from Galilee? Don’t they speak Aramaic, maybe some Hebrew, probably a little Greek in their writing?

And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born? And I don’t know where all of these places are, but they said Parthians and Medes and Elamites, I believe those were people who live in what’s now Iran. Dwellers in Mesopotamia, that’s Iraq, and in Judea, and Cappadocia and Pontus in Asia.

Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia are what’s now Turkey. Phrygia and Pamphylia, which I believe are also in Turkey, and in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, that would be the northern parts of Libya. If you know where Benghazi is, you’re just about there.

And strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, they were speaking Arabic, they were speaking Greek, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed and were in doubt saying one to another, what meaneth this? Others mocking said, these men are full of new wine.

It’s an incredible thing that happened. The power of the Holy Ghost came on them and they began to speak in tongues. I know we as Baptists don’t do that.

Not supposed to believe in that. I believe this happened. But let me explain something to you.

There are two things that theologians refer to by the title of speaking in tongues. And don’t be frightened by these big words. I had to try several times to remember them, but it helps.

There are two terms, glossolalia and xenoglossia. Xenoglossia means the ability to speak in a foreign language that you’ve never studied. Apostolalia means to speak in a language that you’ve not learned and no one has ever heard before.

Now, which of those two is represented today and which of those two is represented in the text that we see here? We see two totally different things. What we see in the book of Acts, what we see in the early churches, absolutely they spoke in tongues.

God would speak through them and the Greeks would hear it in Greek. And the Arabians would hear it in Arabic. And the Persians would hear it in Persian.

It would be an incredible thing that if we were to see the same kind of speaking in tongues today that they saw in the early churches, we would have Hispanic people in our congregation hearing it in Spanish. And I speak a little bit of Spanish, but only enough to get myself in trouble at the border. I am not fluent in Spanish.

But if I began preaching, and they were hearing me speak perfect Spanish and proclaim the gospel, and they understood it in their language, that would be biblical speaking in tongues. If there were people here from Africa and they heard the preaching of the gospel in perfect, clear, understandable Swahili, that would be speaking in tongues. This happened.

And it was a demonstration and a manifestation of the power of God. There’s no way to explain that otherwise. If I broke out in Mandarin Chinese, I know two words.

I know thank you and I know rice. Not a lot of gospel presentation that could take place with that. But if I began to speak up here and someone heard and understood in Mandarin Chinese the gospel in their own heart language, there would be no explanation for that other than the power of the Holy Spirit.

Folks, that is what speaking in tongues is. Can it happen today? You know what?

I’m not going to limit God and say that biblical speaking in tongues does not happen today. If God wants to speak through somebody, he can speak through them. I also understand what the Bible says.

Where there be tongues, they shall cease. Where there be prophecy, it shall fail. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 13. They’re not talking about we would all lose knowledge and become stupid. But they’re talking about the word of knowledge, where somebody would get a prophetic word from God.

Where these prophecies and tongues, before they had the New Testament written down, sometimes a word from God needed to be revealed, and they needed to know whether it came from God or not. And he used prophecies, and he used signs, and he used tongues in ways that were unmistakable people would know that really came from God. And so he said those things will pass away.

Why? Because now we can interpret them through the scriptures. We can look at the New Testament and say, okay, is what you’re teaching, is what you’re saying correct?

Let’s look at the Bible. We don’t need those things anymore. But I will not presume to limit God and say that if God wanted to have somebody speak in tongues, that he couldn’t.

So can tongues happen today? Sure they can. Is it normal?

Is it the way God typically works? I don’t think so. But what we see here is a very clear manifestation of the Holy Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit came upon them, and what did it do? It was not just a sign here. How incredible is this?

These apostles are really something. They were hearing the message of Jesus Christ in their own language. What does the Holy Spirit always do?

He always points us to Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit will never lead us astray, away from God. People will say, well, I feel like God has revealed to me that it’s okay to do this. not if God has already said in His Word, that’s not okay.

The Holy Spirit will always lead us to God and His Word. Will always lead us to Jesus Christ. Will always lead us to the cross. Never, never, never away from it.

And never lead you to me or some other man. But they were hearing the message of the Gospel in their own language. And I would love to have seen this and to have witnessed it.

I get goosebumps just thinking about it. The Holy Spirit came on these men like tongues of fire. the Holy Spirit was so in control of them at this point that it was visible.

These cloven tongues of fire, I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I bet it was pretty amazing. It was visible when the Holy Spirit showed up. Now I’m not saying we’re going to have cloven tongues of fire on our heads, but if the Holy Spirit is active in our lives, should it not be visible?

Should the world not be able to look at us and say, there’s something a little off about them. There’s something different there. it was unmistakable when the Holy Spirit of God showed up.

Now some of them doubted what was happening. Some of them misinterpreted what was happening but the one thing they didn’t do was ignore it. As I said this morning, when the Holy Spirit is active we can reject it.

I keep saying it. I don’t think the Holy Spirit is an it. Please understand when I say that.

I don’t mean to say that. We can reject Him and what He’s doing. We can accept Him and what He’s doing.

The one thing we can’t do is stand still. And so those who were not inclined to accept what the Holy Spirit was doing, here say, ah, they’re drunk. They’re full of new wine.

And you know, when we see people who are drunk, they’re out of control. What I don’t see is these men being out of control and being all over the place. I see them being very much in control, or being very much under control, I should say.

Because the Holy Spirit was in control. It was the Spirit who was in control, not the wines and spirits. But Peter stands up to correct them and delivers one of the most eloquent sermons ever preached under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Where did Peter come from? Where did this come from? Peter’s the man who denied Jesus Christ three times and cursed, saying, I don’t know him.

And suddenly he becomes this lion of a man, Standing before the crowds in Jerusalem when they’re mocking and jeering, he doesn’t shrink back from it for a second, but under the power of the Holy Spirit. He becomes bold and eloquent in his witness. Now, Peter was a lot of times bold when there wasn’t a threat.

He’s the first to rush in and say something. So many times in the Gospels we see stories of Peter, and he’s the first one to rush in and say something. Not the most eloquent man, though.

Always putting his foot in his mouth. Most of us can identify with Peter in some of those stories. But where did this come from?

He’s brave in the face of a threat, and he’s eloquent, and he speaks masterfully. It was the power and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that enabled him to do so. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words, for these are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.

He tells them, nobody here is drunk, it’s 9 o’clock in the morning. Because they would measure their hours of the day from 6 a. m.

So the third hour of the day, it’s 9 o’clock. Very few people are already drunk at 9 o’clock in the morning. I’m sure there are some.

He says instead, in verse 16, But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come.

And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He says this is that day. the day that was prophesied by Joel several hundred years before that God would pour out His Spirit and there would be prophecies and there would be signs and there would be wonders and whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved when salvation would be offered to all he says this is that day he said you men of Israel hear these words you know what I’m just going to I’m just going to share with you his sermon here I’m going to borrow Peter’s material I’m going to share with you his sermon share a couple thoughts with you and we’ll be done tonight.

He says ye men of Israel hear these words Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you as ye yourselves also know him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

So he says to alright Israel you need to listen up you need to listen because the one we’re preaching to you Jesus Christ he was sent by God and God verified that through the signs and wonders and miracles that he did there were other people who claimed to do miracles in those days even before and after Jesus claimed to be the Messiah claimed to do miracles but nobody ever did the specific recorded miracles that Jesus did they might do a magic trick here and there but nobody healed people that they knew to be lame. Nobody healed people that they knew to be blind. Nobody claimed to raise people from the dead and listed them by name in the story.

I mean, he gives specific details. It was Lazarus from Bethany. You can go check it out.

And God verified who he was by miracles and signs and wonders. He said, you also saw the miracles and signs and wonders and you still rejected him. He said he was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

God knew what you were going to do and God planned for Him to come and be crucified, but you by your own wicked hands put Him to death. Now God knew that was going to happen, God planned that, but you’re still responsible for what you did. And He said, and yet God raised Him up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be holding of it.

It was impossible for Him to stay dead. It was impossible for Him to stay dead. Peter was really letting them know what Jesus had done.

This was some in-your-face preaching. This was some toe-stepping. You killed him because you rejected what God did.

When he was sent to you, that’s going to be a convicting message. Now again, you can accept it, you can reject it, but it’s going to be a convicting message. He refers back to the Scriptures.

Because Scripture is our authority to preach Christ. He says, For David speaketh concerning him. I foresaw the Lord before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad.

Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. So he says that this is the one David was talking about.

Look back at the Old Testament scriptures he implies to them, and you will find Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. Folks, this is the Holy Spirit speaking through Peter, pointing people, drawing people to Jesus Christ as he does even today. And then Peter says in verse 29, Men and brethren, let me speak freely unto you.

You know what, at this point I wouldn’t want to be the one who tried to stop him. Let me speak freely. You go ahead and do that.

Let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us today. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God hath sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. So he tells him, David, who we all look to, is a prophet of God as well as a king.

He’s dead and buried, we can go to his tomb today, but don’t forget God made a promise that he would raise up Christ. He’s not identifying specifically here Jesus Christ. He’s saying God would raise up a Messiah of the house and lineage of David to sit on his throne. He’s seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up.

He kind of switches here and says, okay, he talked about this Messiah who would be raised up from the house and lineage of David, as he promised to David, to sit on the throne of David. And this is fulfilled as he promised David in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This Jesus hath God raised up whereof we are all witnesses.

He said, we all know that that tomb is empty. Because there’s one thing they didn’t dispute. It was that the tomb was empty.

Now they tried to make up a story that the disciples stole the body, which as I explained to you last spring, if you remember that far back, that doesn’t hold water. Why would they have stolen the body and then died denying it? Surely one out of the ten who died as martyrs would have said, I give up, wait, it was us.

As my mother was fond of saying for years that three can keep a secret if one of them is dead. I think that’s the saying she used to say. I haven’t heard her say it in a while.

Surely one in the conspiracy would have said, You know what, I’m not going down for the rest of you. And yet they died. They couldn’t dispute that that tomb was empty.

Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended unto the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes a footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye crucified.

He reminds him again. He gets that last jab in there. Let all of Israel know, most assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. And when they heard this they were pricked in their hearts.

I bet. They were convicted. Because he said Jesus Christ is the Messiah of the Old Testament.

God verified it through signs and miracles. And you killed him anyway. But then he rose again from the dead proving that he was who he said he was.

You hear that for the first time as one of the people who put Christ to death and that is going to be an extremely convicting message. We see over and over that they would hear this message and be pricked in their hearts. Some of them were driven as they were in verse 37.

They were pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? And he begins to talk about repentance. Some of them are going to be driven to their knees in repentance because of the power of the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Others are going to be driven out of their minds with rage. Nobody likes to be told they’re wrong. And when you know you’re wrong, when you know you’re wrong, sometimes it’s even worse to be told you’re wrong.

And you just can’t admit it. And it drove them into a rage where they wanted to kill these men. The conviction of the Holy Spirit will drive you toward God or it will drive you away.

But the one thing it won’t let you do is stand still. We don’t see anybody in Jerusalem. Now we see later on Paul preaching at Athens.

And those people just stood there and some of them said, hmm, we want to hear more about this later on. In Jerusalem, when he’s preaching and they’re under conviction because they know they’re the ones who killed the Son of God, we see some throwing themselves on the mercy of God and we see others running, enraged, trying to fight the message, but what we don’t see is anybody standing still, sitting on the fence. See, the Holy Spirit will convict us and will drive us to a response.

Now, we’ve talked about ways of rejecting the Holy Spirit. What does it look like accepting the Holy Spirit? There are a lot of terms that are thrown around, I shouldn’t say thrown around, that are used in the New Testament in various places, and it can get pretty confusing.

I’m still working through this myself a little bit, so if I’m wrong, come talk to me about it later. I’m just telling you what I see in the Scriptures. That we see all these terms, there’s the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there’s receiving the Holy Spirit, there’s partaking of the Holy Spirit, there’s being fulfilled with the Holy Spirit.

Did I say the gift of the Holy Spirit? Did I say that one already? There are several. And it can get really confusing.

Well, have I done this? There’s the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Have I done this one?

Have I done? Okay, so is there one that I haven’t done? And they seem to me, as I’ve read through these, and especially looking at it at the book of Acts, where we’re very clear when the Holy Spirit shows up.

How does this work? And I see that scripturally these things fall into two different categories. we’ve got on one side the baptism of the Holy Spirit the gift of the Holy Spirit partaking of the Holy Spirit being indwelled by the Holy Spirit I feel like I’m forgetting one that all fall in I think they’re all terms for the same thing maybe I’m wrong in that but as I read through the scriptures that makes perfect sense to me that they would all be talking about the same thing what happens at the moment of conversion apart from those who were already part of the church at Jerusalem prior to this, we are taught in Scripture that now we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion.

And people will throw out the verse in Acts that says, there’s a church not too far from my house, a oneness Pentecostal church, where they believe, first of all, they don’t believe in the Trinity. That messes up a lot of things right there. But they believe in water baptism in the name of Jesus only for salvation, and then that’s confirmed later by receiving the Holy Spirit.

And they have a big banner out in front of their church that says, have you received the gift of the Holy Spirit? And they put in quotation marks, since you believed, which is in the Bible. The Bible is not saying we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit months after we believe at some point he confirms us.

It’s referring, I want to say in Acts chapter 9 or maybe 19. I need to go back and look that up. Familiar with the story.

They’re talking to a group of Jewish converts who have received the baptism of John and think they’re followers of Jesus Christ because of that, they’ve not heard about the resurrection, they’ve not heard about all these important things, and Paul asks them the question, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? They’ve never even heard that there’s a Holy Ghost. So what he’s asking them is, are you born again? He’s not asking them, have you gone through some secondary confirmation process where you have an experience?

He’s asking, are you born again? have you received the Holy Ghost? And when they said we’ve not even so much as heard if there’s a Holy Ghost that was a red flag in his mind where he says aha something’s wrong here.

And he had to go back and explain it to them. And they were converted. But we see all throughout the scriptures these terminologies are used referring to something that happens ever since the day of Pentecost at the moment of our conversion.

We received the Holy Ghost. We are indwelled by him. We are baptized into Christ, into the Holy Spirit, I don’t mean water baptism. Some people get confused and think baptism is part of salvation because every time they read the word baptism in the King James Version, they assume it means water baptism.

I’ve got to go back and look at what the word baptism or baptizo means. It means immersion. And I love the King James Version, but I will say it’s problematic for me that the king insisted that they use some of the ecclesiastical words, some of the big words to refer to common things in order to satisfy the Church of England.

Every time it says baptism, it does not necessarily mean water baptism. Sometimes he talks about being baptized into Christ. That means being immersed into Christ and not with water. Sometimes the Bible refers to baptism and it’s talking about being baptized into the Holy Spirit.

We’re in Him and He’s in us. Now that’s not to nega