Word of Salvation – Vol. 32 No. 23 – June 1987

 

The Works Of The Spirit

 

Sermon by Rev. H. W. Pennings on Matt.12:28, 1Cor.2:10, 2Tim.3:16

Readings: Matt.12:22-30, 1Cor.2:1-10, 2Tim.3:10-17.

 

The three works of the Holy Spirit we looked at in previous sermons were:-

1.  that He, because He is everywhere present (Ps.139:7) reaches us wherever we are.  As the hymn-writer put it, “…in the rustling grass I see Him pass – He speaks to me everywhere.”

2.  that He gives us all our gifts and talents (Exod.35:32) so that we rightly call them ‘gifts’.  Therefore it is incorrect if we give high praise to people rather than to God for the good and beautiful things that we can do.

3.  that through the virgin Mary He provided us with Jesus Christ who, while being fully God and therefore perfect, was also fully man and was therefore able to make atonement for the sin of mankind.

In this sermon I want to look at three more works of the Spirit.  The first of these we find when we turn to Matthew 12:22-30, especially vs.28.  Let’s read it together. [read]

It soon became evident, when Jesus began to teach His covenant people, that the leaders of the Church of God in Israel were against Him.  They didn’t like Him as a person, and even less what He taught.  They even went so far as to say that He was speaking for the devil and that He was doing things (like healing the sick and raising the dead) with the power of the devil.  In this instance Jesus was even accused of freeing a man from demon-possession by the power of demons.  Consider just how foolish that accusation was!

It amounts to saying that Jesus was doing God’s work (freeing people from evil) with Satan’s power.  How absolutely absurd!  But people, also today, go to such extra-ordinary lengths because they can’t bear to face the truth of Jesus.

What this passage of Scripture teaches us is that the Holy Spirit is the enemy of all sin and all things that are evil in the world.

After Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit, as Luke 4:18 records, the Spirit coming on Him in the form of a dove – the Spirit enabled Him to do only GOOD and disabled Him from doing what was evil.  The good which Jesus did, as well as all His miracles, testified to the fact that He was truly sent by God and that whatever He said about Himself was true.  If, on the other hand, Jesus had claimed to come from God, but showed by His actions that He was a useless (if not evil) person, the opposite would have been shown.

From Exodus 35 we learn that the Spirit of God enables people to be creative.  We use the word ‘gifted’ about such people, and that’s quite right – gifted – by the Holy Spirit.  The same principle applies to moral and ethical goodness.  That too is a gift of the Spirit.

Now some people, like these church-leaders whom we meet in Matt.12, see in Jesus a very good man.  Maybe even the best man who ever lived.  They see Him as some kind of example to follow, and even as a leader in the fight against evil and injustice unkindness, and the oppression of the poor.  They might even want to be “Christians” in that way, and call themselves by that title.  Nevertheless, like these Jewish church-leaders, they refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God who came to bring us back to God.  They listen to Him, but stop listening when they hear Jesus speak about the need to be washed clean by the blood of His atoning sacrifice on the cross.  They don’t want to hear about deserving an eternal destiny of suffering and hell.  That’s why they also deny that the Bible, which is His book, is truly the Word of God.  What is self-evident to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear – that all goodness comes from the Holy Spirit who is also the Spirit of Christ Jesus – is very strange to them.  “That’s nonsense,”  they say.  It makes me sad even to think about it – people who meet Jesus, but in the end walk away from Him, calling Him a liar.  So history keeps on repeating itself.

But we can also see the anointing of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men and women today.  In fact, all believers are anointed by the Holy Spirit!  You too, if you truly believe in – and follow – Jesus Christ.  We see it practically through the GOODNESS of the people who love the Lord.  The anointing of the Spirit makes us willing to love our neighbour as ourselves, in that way showing the world that we love the Lord.  When we see this spiritual goodness in the lives of other believers, and see that they, too, have been anointed by the Spirit of God, let us thank the Lord that He has left neither them nor us to work out for ourselves what is good, or to fight against the evil of Satan by ourselves.

We can always give thanks to God for all the goodness which we see in the lives of fellow-believers.  It is a rich spiritual gift that we can love our neighbours.  The Holy Spirit, who makes us know and respond to Jesus’ gospel, makes us walk humbly with our God.  Satan cannot do that.  He only tempts us to do what is evil.  to do what is evil.  The Holy Spirit is the enemy of sin and evil, and makes us fight against them in Jesus’ Name.

Secondly, we turn to and read together 1Corinthians 2, especially verse 10. [read]

Have you ever wondered about the fact that only a very small portion of the Bible contains the actual words of Jesus who is, of course, the chief character in it?  Through this and the next reading which we’ll have we are looking at the Bible as the Word of the Holy Spirit.  Of course, it is also the Word of Jesus Christ – every single Word, we could say.  But how different is the Bible to every other religious book.  The chief character – our boys and girls may even call Him the HERO! – the chief character makes only a very brief appearance in it.  Only one-tenth of it contains the four gospels.  Recently I read in a devotional magazine, “We might say that the gospels contain a record of the FACTS of our salvation, while in the rest of the New Testament we have an INTERPRETATION of those facts.”  If that’s the case, a question which arises naturally is, “Can we trust that interpretation?”  For we’ve all had many problems with people who, looking at the same gospel, have given different interpretations.

The short and complete answer is that we can trust that interpretation.

For instance, the apostle Paul wrote quite clearly that he wasn’t giving forth of his own wisdom when he was writing to the churches.  For his wisdom, as well as our own, is in every way fallible.  There are probably in excess of 1000 Christian denominations.  We might say that some are there because God has made people with different kinds of personalities.  For instance, the people who live in Brazil would not naturally worship God the same way as the people who live in Norway.  Nevertheless we have to face the fact that there are so many different denominations mainly because we are also sin-affected in the way that we interpret Scripture.

We seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but we still make mistakes.  Maybe that, too, indicates that we are never quite sure how the Spirit will do His work in each succeeding generation.

But, yes, we can trust the interpretation of the apostles.  For they are not interpreters in the strict sense, but instruments whom God used in a different manner.  The teaching of the apostles in Scripture is God’s own interpretation which He gives through His Spirit in a special way.  Paul and the other Bible writers disclaim any right or power in themselves as interpreters.  They acknowledge that only the Spirit of God is able to search out the deep things of God.  Were not the Holy Spirit with them in a unique way they would have been as helpless as we are to know God and to explain His greatness and to unfold His majesty.

So the Bible is the Word of God, the Word of Jesus, and at the same time the Word of the Holy Spirit.  We meet the Spirit in every word, for it is lastly His word.  And our great spiritual gift today is, by the power of the same Holy Spirit, that we are able to understand it.  So often we imagine that our spirituality is far from what it should be, and we are very negative about ourselves.  We see far more spirituality in others than in ourselves.  It makes us jealous.  Of course, it’s also true that we could, if we really wanted to, walk much more closely to the Lord and be in step with the Spirit.

Yet we can be too negative about ourselves.  And that comes not from the Holy Spirit, but from the spirits of Satan.  From demons in fact.  What God has hidden from so many people, many of whom have a far higher IQ rating than we have, He has revealed to us.  Because we are spiritual people, and because they have no spirituality at all.  Not only the apostles were anointed by the Spirit.  We who believingly read and seek to understand the Scriptures are also anointed by Him.  As we honour these apostles for their commitment to Jesus and their teaching of His Church, so must we also learn to honour ourselves, because the Lord has done that too.  If the Lord has shown His love for us by revealing to us, by His Spirit, what He has hidden from so many others, why shouldn’t we love ourselves and respect ourselves and honour ourselves and be far more positive about ourselves?  The Holy Spirit, who is also the revealing and inspiring Spirit, has brought us not only close, but right into, the glorious kingdom of God.  If we listen to the Spirit who is the COMFORTER more than to Satan who is the ACCUSER we’ll see our spirituality and rejoice in the Lord.

Let’s also read 2Tim.3:16.  [read]

From our text in 1Cor.2 we saw that the Lord God revealed to the writers of the Bible all that they needed to know about Him.  Not everything there was to know (as God knows Himself) but everything which needed explaining in the book of and about God… everything, so that we could have true fellowship with God and walk in fellowship with one another.

From this verse in 2Tim.3 we also learn that God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to us is that we have this knowledge of Him in written form.  In fact, the Scriptures are one of the most glorious gifts of the Spirit.

The books of the Bible were written by ordinary, sin-affected men – who used research sometimes – who must at least sometimes also have asked themselves, How can I express this in such a way that others will understand?”  Yet all the while the Holy Spirit of God so directed and controlled these writers that we have a Bible without error, in the negative sense, and the complete Word of God to man written, in the positive sense.  And, in much the same way, the Spirit who guided these writers in their writing guides us in our understanding.  Sure, the one we call INSPIRATION and the other ILLUMINATION, but it is the same Holy Spirit who is at work, and for the same purpose – so that we can know God and love Him.

Remember that in the beginning, the Holy Spirit brought life and meaning to God’s creation.  Remember also that it is the Holy Spirit who gives us wisdom as a gift, and various talents as gifts.  The Holy Spirit understands everything about the Lord God, and all things about our human life.  Although we can never understand how He guided these writers of the Bible (so that they wrote according to their own nature, displaying their own feelings, yet without error), we need have no doubt that the Spirit could do this, because He has given us all other good gifts too, and life itself.

So all Scripture is God-breathed, which means not INHALED, but EXHALED – breathed-out.  Therefore it is all the Word of the Spirit, and the very breath of God – the God who breathes into all of us the breath of life.  The Bible is the book of the Spirit.

Therefore this book deserves far more than to remain on a convenient shelf at home six days a week – only to be brought out on the Sunday.  If it is really your desire to walk in step with the Spirit who will lead you to a closer walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, this spiritual book will be your companion and your guide.  Do you want a rich blessing of the Holy Spirit?  I know that many believers have yearned for it.  Turn to the Spirit’s book.  Others may speak of more spectacular ways of being in touch with God, but I suspect that most of these so-called short-cut ways belong to Satan at least in part.  Turn to the Spirit’s book.  It will give you God’s wisdom.  It will let you soak in God’s love, for that’s the story the Spirit presents.  It will train you, and at times correct you, and enrich you with all the things of the Spirit of Christ.

AMEN.