The Holy Spirit - The God We Dare Not Misrepresent

If anybody's asleep, that'll wake you up. Welcome to SBC. My name is BK. I have the pleasure of serving here as one of the pastors.

And we've got a great day today because we get to celebrate the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of some new believers. So I appreciate friends and family who've come out to witness this incredible event because it is incredible.

It's one of the miracles that we get to see when Jesus Christ, working through the power of the Holy Spirit, changes a heart of stone that once rejected Christ into a heart of flesh which now rejoices and worships Him.

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 12. Matthew 12. As most of you know, we've been in the book of Romans for a few years and we're about to study Romans chapter 8.

I know a lot of people have been excited about it, but really Romans 8 is probably one of the greatest chapters in all of Scripture. It begins with, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And it ends with, there's no separation from the love of God. Two incredible statements, wonderful truths. And in between these two statements, Paul writes continuously about the Holy Spirit.

In fact, in the 39 verses, Paul makes mention of the Holy Spirit over 20 times. He is intimately involved with this chapter.

And the big truth is, we cannot understand Romans 8 unless we have a right understanding of the Holy Spirit.

I am not naive enough to believe that everyone has had the same teaching, who comes from the same church background on this subject. So I thought it'd be wise if I'd kind of level the playing field, as it were, and preach this two-part series on the Holy Spirit, so that we would have a right understanding as we get into the text of Romans 8.

Because when we look at Romans 8 together over the next few weeks, we're going to see some incredible truths. We're going to, so this morning and next week, I want to take a look at what or who the Holy Spirit is, and two, what does the Holy Spirit do?

I'm also not naive enough to believe this might disrupt some people's understanding of the Holy Spirit. But I want you to understand, and you're going to see, that this is a Scripture-saturated sermon.

We're getting down bare bones. I'm actually going to move pretty quick, but we're going to have notes available for you after. But I want us to understand not only why we believe what we believe, but what are the implications of what we believe.

My prayer today is that you would keep a mind opened to what the Word of God is saying. As one author states, he says, I am convinced that the Holy Spirit is the most ignored, the most misrepresented, the most insulted, the most dishonored person of the Godhead.

Those are no small things. Essentially, there are two mistakes that people make when it comes to the study of the Holy Spirit. There is one group that is far too casual about the Holy Spirit.

They believe in the Father. They speak often about the Son. But the Holy Spirit really just shows up at the end of a prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Another way to put it is, the Holy Spirit is acknowledged doctrinally. They understand with their minds, there is a Holy Spirit, but it is ignored practically.

What it means is, they live their life as if there is no Holy Spirit. Romans 8 can be hard for this group of people because it stands in the way of our own self-effort.

Then the other side of the equation makes the opposite mistake. Rather than neglecting the Holy Spirit, they see Him everywhere.

Every feeling or impression becomes a leading by the Spirit or a word from the Spirit. Every unusual experience becomes a movement of the Spirit.

And every opinion is given divine authority by simply adding the words, the Spirit told me. Now, you know what I'm talking about.

And I know some of you have been personally acquainted with people from this group. There's been people from my camp who hear the calling of the Spirit and they make these life-changing decisions.

There's this moment, yet it ends up in tragedy. And there's this complete life change of trying to understand why God did that to them.

Then there's the other kid. And if any of you have ever been to Bible college or a Christian school at all, raise your hands, you'll know this story. You know, every guy uses it.

They meet a pretty girl and they say, man, the Spirit told me you're supposed to be my wife. Right? We just kind of throw those out there. Right? And sadly, I've seen people use the Holy Spirit as an excuse for conduct that is disorderly, manipulative, unbiblical, fleshly, and ultimately sinful.

So on one side, the Spirit is ignored as though He were unnecessary. And on the other side, His name is used to validate experiences, claims, and conduct that in actuality have no biblical warrant.

Now those errors may appear to be opposites, but they arise from the same fundamental failure. And that failure is we've forgotten who the Holy Spirit is.

So this morning and next week, I hope to bring clarity to this subject. Today, we're going to look at who is the Holy Spirit. Next week, we're going to look at what the Holy Spirit's purpose and power is.

This morning, I want us to see three essential truths. The first one is, the Holy Spirit is a person. He is not a power. He is a person, not a power.

Number two, I want us to understand that the Holy Spirit is God. Amen? He's not a lesser God. He's not a power of God. He is God Himself.

And the third thing, we're going to look at the passage that Dave read for us, and we're going to look at what does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. If you're new or you've been in Christianity for a while, this is a subject that many people struggle with, even pastorally.

Just how do we walk with people who believe they may have blasphemed the Holy Spirit and are struggling? They're asking the question, could God really love me? Can God really accept for me?

You don't know how bad my sin is. And they start to equate those type of thoughts with an understanding that they have somehow blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

So we're going to look at what it is and what it isn't. But before I go any further, let's pray. Dear Lord, holy, magnificent, awesome God, we thank you for the person that you are.

Lord, I just give you thanks for the people that are here to witness the testimony of your calling, what the death of your son accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit as these people have come into new life.

Father, I rejoice at the timing of this little sermon series. I pray that you would give us ears to hear and hearts to understand your written word.

I pray that if questions come up, that they would be asked. I pray that if people are conflicted, that they would seek clarity.

So Father, give my voice clarity, give my voice the power of your Spirit to bring this incredible truth. May it rejuvenate tired hearts.

May it chase away the fog of people who have been confused about this subject. It may, more importantly, bring about worship.

May we, if we've held the Holy Spirit to a lesser degree, may you grant forgiveness where forgiveness is asked for. So Father, I ask for your mighty strength as we go forward.

In your most holy and personal name. Amen. So the first point that I want to bring up is that A, the Holy Spirit is a person.

The Holy Spirit is a person. Therefore, the Holy Spirit can be offended. The Holy Spirit can be offended. The first thing we need to understand is that He is a person.

He is not a power. He's not an impersonal force. He's not a mystic influence. He's not some type of electricity that makes people shake, bark, or lose control over their faculties.

Or some mystical power that can somehow, we can use to manipulate through either music or presence or crying or some other emotion to bring change.

Now, how many of you remember the Toronto Blessing? Does anybody remember the Church of the Toronto Blessing? A few of you guys. I know I'm dating myself.

So I was living in Ontario before then, before I was redeemed by British Columbia. But while I was there, there was this church. It was part of the Vineyard family to begin with.

And it became this massive event. And they actually had it near the airport. And people from all over the world would literally fly in because they believed they were seeing and experiencing manifestations of the Spirit.

That's where the illustration of the barking or losing control. Now, I was pretty intimately involved. I knew people who served on staff. I knew people who went as interns to this event.

I knew people who used to travel from the States to come to this experience. And at that time, I was just a glorious youth leader in my church during my university days.

And I found out that our youth pastor was sending members of our church to the Toronto Blessing hoping that the Holy Spirit would somehow grab onto them and come with them back to our church.

Because he believed that we needed more spirit. We needed more spirit. So if we could somehow, like the Holy Spirit was some kind of virus that we could catch, right? That was the viewpoint.

And I'm not exaggerating here. This was pretty big during this time. And I remember just being a young kid in university thinking, wow, this Holy Spirit must be pretty weak that he needs to catch on to someone before he comes to demonstrate who he is in our own church.

But the fact is the Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is a living, thinking, willing person. Now, how do we know that? We know this because Scripture repeatedly describes the Holy Spirit doing only what a person can do.

So I'm going to go over these pretty quickly with you. I'm not going to show you the verses. I'm just going to give you the headings. If you want them, I can email them. Just connect with the office if you want these headings. But here's the first thing.

One, the Holy Spirit possesses intelligence. The Holy Spirit possesses intelligence. The first thing is he knows in 1 Corinthians 2, 10, 11, says that the Spirit searches all things.

It understands all things. Even the depths of God and knows the thoughts of God. So we see that the Holy Spirit knows. Number two, we see in Scripture that the Holy Spirit speaks.

In Acts 13, 2, while the church at Antioch was worshiping, it says, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.

Notice the personal language. Set apart for me the work to which I've called them. So we have this audible instructions and that's not an impersonal power.

this is a person who is speaking, choosing, calling, and ultimately commissioning people to ministry.

Third, he teaches. John 14, 26, says that the Holy Spirit would teach the disciples all things and bring to their remembrance everything Christ said to them.

In John 15, we see that he testifies. Jesus said that when the helper comes, he will testify about me. 50, or A, B, C, D, E. And lastly here, we see that he intercedes.

Romans 8, 26 tells us that the Spirit helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us when we do not know how to pray as we should.

My friends, those are clearly the actions of a person. Secondly, the Holy Spirit possesses affections. He possesses affections.

Romans 15, 30 speaks about the love of the Spirit. Ephesians 4, 30 commands us, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

What this tells us is the Holy Spirit is not indifferent to how you and I live. Our sin grieves Him.

Our bitterness grieves Him. Our corrupt speech grieves Him. Our anger grieves Him. Our bitterness grieves Him. Our unwillingness to forgive grieves the Holy Spirit.

See, here's what we learn. One, an impersonal power cannot love you. And a mystical influence cannot be grieved by you.

but Scripture clearly tells us the Holy Spirit can because the Holy Spirit is a person. And thirdly, we understand the Holy Spirit possesses a sovereign will, a sovereign will.

If you know or you don't know, I'm going to tell you, 1 Corinthians 12 talks about the spiritual gifts that are given to believers. these are the gifts that God has given us power in to serve the church.

But those gifts are not distributed according to our demands, our preferences, or ambitions. I didn't get to choose what my gift is, you don't get to choose what your gift is.

Scripture specifically says, the Holy Spirit is the one who distributes them to each believer just as he wills. So we read here that the Holy Spirit chooses and the Holy Spirit decides.

Get this, that's the Holy Spirit who is exercising sovereign authority over our church. Think about that.

That's great. That's glorious. The gifts that we have present in our church have been chosen and decided upon by the Holy Spirit to serve our God in heaven.

Amen? That is a glorious truth. And then we see this same authority in Acts 16. If you're unfamiliar with the story, let me tell you, Paul and the guys, they wanted to go into Asia, but verse 16 says that they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit.

It reads that they attempted to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. So here are these good holy men had good holy plans, but the Holy Spirit said, I don't want you going that way.

I've got my purposes and I'm going to use you for my purposes. Jesus. And what the text reads is that he directed them by closing one door and opening another.

So what we're seeing here is that the Holy Spirit loves. The Holy Spirit grieves, chooses, decides. we see that he possesses intelligence, affection, and will, which are all the hallmarks of genuine personhood.

That explains why Scripture warns that it's possible for you and I to personally offend the Holy Spirit. here's a sobering truth and I'm going to go at you really fast with these.

The Bible says that the Holy Spirit can be lied to. Acts 5.3 simply says, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit can test. Acts 5.9 says, why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? The Spirit can be resisted.

Acts 7.51 says, you are always resisting the Holy Spirit. You've heard me say that the Holy Spirit can grieve. Hebrews 10.29 tells us that the Holy Spirit can be insulted.

1 Corinthians 5.19 says the Holy Spirit can be quenched. And as we're going to get in today, Matthew 12 says the Holy Spirit can be blasphemed.

I don't want you to miss the total force of what I've been saying here. The Holy Spirit can be lied, tested, resisted, grieved, insulted, quenched, and blasphemed.

The fact of the matter is you cannot do those things to an impersonal power. A mystical force or some sort of mystical illusion or electricity that you might think that the Holy Spirit is.

They are in fact personal offenses because they are committed against a person. Now, I want to drop this one big truth on you.

And it is a great and glorious truth, but it's a truth we somehow always mess up. the fact is how you think about the Holy Spirit affects the way you think about your Christian life.

How you think about the Holy Spirit will affect how you live the Christian life. See, Christianity is not merely a matter of believing the right truths.

Christianity is not merely obeying the right commandments. Christianity is not merely participating in the right religious activities. It has never been that.

That is not what the Bible teaches, but it's something we get so confused with all of the time. The truth is the living Spirit of God personally dwells within every believer at the moment of salvation.

Give me a Baptist amen. Come on, I know you Mennonite brethren are out here, but that means you're mostly Baptist. You have a voice too. You can give me an amen, right? See, the Christian life begins when the Holy Spirit gives us life, and the Christian life continues because the Holy Spirit lives within us.

This tells us that Christianity is not merely a systems of beliefs to affirm or rules to follow. The Christian life is a life lived in the Spirit.

Because that, if you don't want to know that or don't accept that, guess what? We're going in Romans 8, and it's going to tell you over and over and over, you can't do Christian life without the Spirit.

Therefore, when we sin, we're not merely breaking a rule written in a book, we are grieving the divine person who lives within us.

God will you see, the Holy Spirit is not a power for us to control. The Holy Spirit is a person to whom we must submit.

And the Holy Spirit is not an experience for us to pursue. He is the living God whom we must know, love, honor, and obey.

So that is the first truth from this morning. The Holy Spirit is a person. The second and great glorious truth is the Holy Spirit is God.

The Holy Spirit is God. Therefore, offending Him, the Spirit is no small matter. Fact is, the Holy Spirit is not an angel.

The Holy Spirit is not a created spirit. He's not some sort of lesser divine being. Somewhere beneath the Father and the Son. Scripture makes it clear He is fully and eternally God.

First, the Holy Spirit is explicitly identified as God. Acts 5. Let me tell you a little bit about the story. There's this man and woman in the church.

Church is just being birthed. It's growing like wildfire. And there's this couple, Ananias and the virus, had sold this piece of land and they brought part of the proceeds to the apostles.

But they were pretending they were bringing the full amount. And their sin was not that they kept some of the money. Peter makes it clear that the property was theirs and they were free to decide to do what they wanted.

But the sin was hypocrisy. They wanted the church to believe that they had made a greater sacrifice than they were actually making. essentially they lied in order to appear more spiritual than they were.

Listen to Peter's words in Acts 5.3 it says Ananias why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? And then Peter continues you have not lied to men but to God.

But I want you to notice the connection here. Verse 3 he lied to the Holy Spirit verse 4 he lied to God. Now Peter's not speaking about two different offenses against two different beings.

He was equating lying to the Holy Spirit as the exact same as lying to God because the Holy Spirit is God. You with me? Second the Holy Spirit possesses the attributes of God.

Hebrews 9.14 calls him the eternal spirit. We know that he is eternal. That means there was never a time he did not exist. He was not created.

He has no beginning and he has no end. Two we understand that he's omniscient technical term for he knows everything.

First Corinthians 2 says that the spirit searches all things even the depths of God. That means he's all knowing. Nothing in the infinite mind of God is unknown to the Holy Spirit.

Thirdly he's omnipresent. Another technical word means that he is everywhere. David asks in Psalm 139 7 where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence.

The answer is nowhere. There is no place in all creation where the spirit of God is absent. Fourthly he's omnipotent means he has divine power.

In Luke 135 the angel describes the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Mary as the power of the Most High overshadowing her. He is holy.

He's not merely called a spirit who happens to be holy. His revealed name is the what spirit? The Holy Spirit, right?

Holiness belongs to his very nature and finally he is true. John 14 17 and John 16 13 says that he is the spirit of truth.

That means he cannot lie, he cannot deceive and he cannot contradict the truth of God's word that he inspired. You with me on that? Those implications are big.

For someone to say they have a word of the spirit that contradicts the word of God guess who's on the wrong side of God in that place. So you read that the Holy Spirit is eternal.

He knows everything. He's everywhere. He's all powerful. He's holy and true. My friends, these are the characteristics or qualities of a created being.

They are what are known the attributes of God. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit performs the works of God.

Genesis 1-2 tells us that he was active in creation. He was hovering over the surface of the water. Job 33-4 says, the spirit of God has made me be.

He is the divine author of scripture. 2-2 Peter 1-21 says that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is the word of God because the spirit is the one who inspired it. Three, we understand he produces salvation. Jesus says in John 3 that we must be born of the spirit.

Titus 3-5 calls salvation the washing of regeneration and renewing by the who? Holy Spirit. The fact is only God can give spiritual life to the spiritual dead.

Fourth, we understand he accomplishes our sanctification. 2 Thessalonians 2-13 speaks of salvation through sanctification by the spirit.

That's another way of saying holiness before by the spirit. He does not merely tell us to become holy. He actually works within us to make us holy.

You with me on that? Big distinction. And here's a wonderful truth. We're going to dig into this when we get to Romans.

Romans 8-11 says that the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us and that God will give life to our mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in us.

Let me summarize what the Holy Spirit is a part of. The Holy Spirit is a part of creation, inspiration, salvation, holiness, and resurrection.

These are the works of God by the one performing them because he is the one performing them is God. And finally, Matthew 28 19 we are told to baptize believers in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Notice that Jesus does not say in the names as if they were three different gods. He says in the name that is singular. There is one God eternally existing in three distinct persons.

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's interesting, Paul closes 2nd Corinthians with a Trinitarian blessing.

It says the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 1st Peter 1 2 Peter describes salvation as the work of all three persons.

The Father chooses, the Spirit sanctifies, and the Son cleanses us through His blood. We conclude quite clearly that the Father is God.

The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. They are distinct persons but they possess one undivided divine nature.

And if you want to understand completely the Trinity, you and I can sit down and talk probably until eternity and we won't be able to figure out until we get to glory.

But this is the truth that the Bible teaches. Now, we understand the Holy Spirit is a person and He is God.

turn with me and your Bible down to Matthew 12 because we're going to talk about the significance of understanding these truths and a terrifying warning that we read that is called the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit.

So the fact of the matter is we read here in beginning of verse 22 Matthew tells us that a demon oppressed man was brought to Jesus. This man was blind and unable to speak.

And we read that Jesus healed him. What we read also is that the result was immediate and unmistakable. The man could now speak and see. The crowd was astonished.

They began asking in verse 23 this man cannot be the son of David can he? What they mean by that son of David is this was a title for the promised Messiah.

Can this Jesus who just did this clear healing be the promised Messiah? And the people were beginning to connect the evidence. They've seen Jesus working and if you were with me through the story of Jesus Christ that we did a few years ago, we know that it took a while for the people to truly understand and see this.

But they're asking the right questions. Is he the promised Messiah? Could this be the king that God promised us? Could this be ultimately our Messiah? Could this be the one who has come to defeat Satan and establish God's kingdom?

What's interesting is the Pharisees heard what the people were saying and they don't want the people to be saying these things so they try to shut it down. Verse 24 it says, this man casts out demons only by Bilzebul.

the ruler of the demons. Notice what the Pharisees did not do. They did not deny the miracles that Jesus did.

They did not claim that the man was still blind. They did not claim that the man was still unable to speak and they did not offer natural explanation for what everyone had witnessed.

Because those could have been the ways that they could have denied it. But instead what they did is they attacked the source. They simply stated that Jesus was doing the work of Satan.

Their problem was not a lack of evidence. Their problem was a settled hostility toward Jesus Christ.

Right? They had heard his teaching. They witnessed his authority. They had seen his compassion. They had watched him heal the sick and delivered those oppressed by demons.

So they had every amount of evidence before them but they refused the conclusion to which the evidence pointed. Their hearts had become so hardened against Christ that they looked at what was holy and called it evil.

Now Jesus first exposes the absurdity of their accusation. Let's take a look in verse 25. He explains that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.

When he says that really if Satan were casting out Satan then Satan would be destroying his own kingdom. That makes no sense at all. No sense at all. What do you think? Right?

Then Jesus identifies the true source of his power. Verse 28. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

See this is the issue. Jesus performed this miracle by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was bearing witness that Jesus truly was the promised Messiah.

So therefore when the Pharisees attributed Christ's work to Satan they weren't just insulting Jesus. They were looking at the work of the Holy Spirit and calling it demonic.

Do you get that? Do you That's about as bad as you can do. And this provides us the context that the warning that Jesus Christ gives us in verse 31 and 32.

That's why he says every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Now a lot of people get confused in this verse.

They believe there might be something that they can say that somehow would be unpardonable. That's not what this text is saying. And the reality is I've seen this work itself out pastorally in real time over and over and over.

So you see the Pharisees had not committed this sin through a moment of confusion. If you're familiar with the Gospel of Mark they showed up in Mark chapter 2.

This was not a careless sentence spoken without much thought. This was not a sincere theological misunderstanding.

It was not an unwanted or intrusive thought that happened to pop into their head. And it was not the failure of a frightened believer who loved Jesus but feared that he had said something unforgivable.

what we are witnessing here is a seldom response by a group of men who had heard the truth who were repeatedly confronted with the truth and they had determined that they would not believe.

You with me on that? That's who Jesus is speaking to. They had witnessed the works of Christ. They had heard the words of Christ. They had seen the power of the Spirit operating through Christ and rather than bow to Jesus they just simply say that the Spirit's work is the work of Satan.

What we're witnessing here is hard and determined opposition to the Spirit's testimony concerning Christ. See when you understand this you can understand why Jesus calls this unforgivable.

it is not unforgivable because Christ's sacrifice is somehow insufficient to cover that sin. As if Jesus' blood is red enough to cover all her sins except that sin.

That's not what this is. The truth is the blood of Christ is sufficient to cleanse every sinner of all time who comes to him in repentance and faith.

Amen? Nor is this one sin somehow morally greater than the mercy of God. Hey man, I've got mercy for murderers and all these other group of people but man, you do that blasphemy.

No way, man, I don't have enough mercy for that. No, no, scripture clearly teaches that God's mercy is infinite. Praise God. But the truth is forgiveness is only found in one place.

And that is in the person of Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit is the one who bears witness to Christ. You see, the Holy Spirit exposes our sin.

The Holy Spirit reveals the truth. And ultimately, the Holy Spirit opens blind eyes. And the Holy Spirit points sinners to the Son of God as their only Savior.

But if someone were to persistently and knowingly reject that testimony, if a person would harden themselves against the clearest evidence and call the Spirit's truth a lie, where would that person go for forgiveness?

It's not found in Buddha. It's not found in Muhammad. It's not found anywhere. because the fact is, there is only one Christ that died for your sins.

There is no other gospel. There is no other Savior. And the person who decisively rejects the Spirit's testimony concerning Christ rejects the only one in whom forgiveness can be found.

You understand that? That's what he's explaining. And this tells us why hardened unbelief is so dangerous. There's a warning in here for us.

When the Spirit exposes your sin, don't fight it. When the Spirit confronts you from Scripture, don't explain it away or try to run from it.

When the Spirit bears witness to Christ, do not harden your heart. Do not assume that because you can resist Him today that you may think about repenting tomorrow.

My encouragement to you is to respond to the light God has given you. my encouragement for you is to turn from your sin and come to Christ and receive the forgiveness He freely gives to everyone who believes.

Amen? Now let! foolish perhaps you've had an unwanted wicked thought enter your mind.

Maybe you had professed Christ and then you lived through a season of rebellion or perhaps you did something so sinful so sinful even the world calls it sinful and now you are terrified that God will not receive you.

well I'm here to give you good news. The fact is I've seen people who've done the worst sin struggle with this and then I've met people who struggled with the least sins deal with this.

The fact that you're concerned about this is a good thing. It's like that whole idea in Romans 7 right? why do I do the things that I do but I do not do the things that I don't want to do?

Right? We get all confused and mumble jubble. The fact that you know that you have a desire to do what is right knows that you know what right is. You know how a way you ought to be living and that struggle reveals an understanding of God.

It's the same thing here. You were not grieving because you feared you had you wouldn't be grieving if you hadn't feared you had dishonored the spirit.

These Pharisees had hardened themselves against God and determined to discredit him. A person who mourns over sin, desires forgiveness, and wants to come to Christ is not displaying the same hostility that the Pharisees were showing.

You with me on this? This was life-changing to me when my pastor taught this passage, I don't know, it was like 10, 20 years ago. Blew my mind. I just never thought of it in that way.

The fact is if you want Christ, come to Christ. He has never turned away a sinner who came to him in a genuine repentance and faith.

So the warning of Jesus stands. It is a fearful thing to reject the Spirit's testimony, to call his truth a lie, and to set yourself deliberately against the Christ whom he glorifies.

Now before I get to my conclusion, I'm going to ask two of the parties in this service, it's time to get changed. this is what we conclude from today, my friends.

We must not ever, ever, misrepresent the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees attributed the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan, but there's also an error that should also make us tremble.

It's when we claimed that the Holy Spirit is the source of our emotional imagination, our emotional manipulation, our fleshly behavior, our deception and false teaching.

To say I'm doing this under the power of the Spirit is a wicked sin before the Lord. Lord. We should not automatically declare every false claim about the Spirit to be an unforgivable sin of Matthew 12, but attaching the Spirit's name to falsehood is an incredibly serious offense.

And we do it all the time. We don't mean to. The Spirit led me here. The Spirit told me. When we say the Spirit told me, we're claiming divine authority.

The fact is the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The fact is the Holy Spirit inspired Scripture and will never contradict the word that He inspired.

We also know the truth that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness. The Holy Spirit is not the author of chaos. The fact is we know what the fruits of the Spirit are, right?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And if you want to test of whether the Spirit is working or not, the Holy Spirit has a job and I'm going to give you a little bit of a hint. What's coming is that His job is to glorify Jesus Christ.

Jesus said in John 16, 14, that the Holy Spirit will glorify Him. And when the Spirit is genuinely working, Christ becomes central to your worship.

when the Spirit is genuinely working, Scripture rules.

When Scripture rules, sin is confronted, holiness grows, pride is diminished, and the church itself is strengthened.

The fact is not everything supernatural is holy, not everything emotional is spiritual, and not everyone who says the Spirit told me has actually been sent by the Spirit.

So how do we respond to this? Well, my challenge to you, if you are an unbeliever, my encouragement is to do not resist the Spirit's testimony concerning Jesus Christ.

If you're a Christian, do not grieve Him by tolerating the sin He is working to remove in your life. If you're a teacher or leader like myself, do not invoke His name carelessly.

And as a church, let us never mistake biblical discernment for quenching the Spirit. The fact is, testing spiritual claims by the Word of God honors the Spirit of truth.

And our response to the Holy Spirit should not be panic, superstition, or some sort of emotional frenzy. It's reverence. It's reverence.

This is God, who has all the attributes of God. Because He is God. He is the Spirit of truth that we must believe.

He is the Spirit of holiness. We must not grieve Him. He is the Spirit who glorifies Christ. We must follow His testimony to the Son.

And He is God, and we must worship and obey Him. Church, let us never be guilty of ignoring the Holy Spirit, manipulating His name, counterfeiting His work, resisting His truth, or attributing to Him what He condemns.

I'll leave you with a paraphrased quote of what R.C. Sproul says. It simply says, the Holy Spirit is not ours to use. We are His to sanctify.

Let's pray. Dear most holy, personal Father, Lord Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit, we just give You thanks for these truths that are revealed to us by Your Word.

These do not come from deeper wisdom or some mystical understanding. These are the truths that are clearly revealed in God's Word.

Father, forgive us for attributing works to You that in fact You did not do. Forgive us, Father, for resisting the Spirit when Your truth was so clearly revealed, but yet we disobeyed.

Father, we rejoice in the testimony we're about to see by two individuals who are saying yes to the Holy Spirit. They are being obedient to being baptized to testify to their faith that they have been rejuvenated through the power of the Spirit by the blood of Jesus Christ.

That this picture we will see is dying with Christ and resurrecting in Him. And that only happens through Your power. So, Lord, we come here rejoicing, knowing that we are seeing the outworks of the power of the Holy Spirit in these two lives today.

Father, I pray that their witness and testimony would encourage others my encouragement to those who have made a decision to follow Jesus who have not yet been baptized.

Now is the time. Don't hold off. It's time to obey. So, Lord, we thank You for these things.

We thank You for these instructions. We thank You for Your Word. And I just thank You for this voice that You've given me that not been plagued by sickness or illness or anything else.

So, Father, we love You. We thank You we get to see You away. may