For the past couple of Sunday mornings I have been preaching to you about the holiness of God. When one reads through the Bible you cannot help but see that God is holy. It is a theme that runs throughout the entire Bible. God is holy and He wants His people to be holy. We are instructed to be Holy as He is holy. My purpose in this little series has been that if we are going to be holy as He is, we must know something about His holiness.
We have talked about the Holiness of the Father. The holiness of God the Father is separated from, and high above man. When you read about the holiness of God the Father in the Scriptures it is expressed by Exodus 3:5 where Moses is told: “Draw not nigh hither.” Bro. Kennedy made a good point last Sunday morning when he pointed out to me that the reason why the Father says not to come close is because He tells us this for our own benefit not because He doesn’t want us to. If we were to try to approach God in our sinful condition we would surely die! This is what will happen on the Day of Judgment. Every man will have to give an account to a holy God and those who sins have not been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ will be sentenced to an eternity in hell. Why? Because God is holy and can not tolerate sin.
So, we have seen that the Father’s holiness says, “Draw not neigh,” but in His love and mercy He provided a remedy for our sin so that we could draw neigh to Him. The remedy is found in Jesus Christ His Son. Through Christ’s sacrifice we are able to draw neigh to God. He is our Mediator. This morning I want to notice that through the Holy Spirit that holiness is brought neigh within the hearts of believers in response to faith. I want to talk about the holiness of the Spirit.
We attach the term “Holy” to the designation of the Spirit for good reason. As Daniel Steele pointed out, “…the adjective holy cannot be distinctive of the quality of purity which is not found in equal degree in the Father and the Son. Both are holy. Hence, as it is not descriptive of an attribute peculiar to the Spirit, we infer that it points to the peculiar office of the Spirit, in the redemptive scheme, to make men holy. The Holy Spirit, then, is the scriptural term
for the Sanctifier…”
God the Father gave His Son in a past, completed act (continuing in love.) God the Son poured out His life in a past, completed act (continuing in intercession.) God the Holy Spirit makes salvation real to the believer (a present, never-yet-completed work.)
This morning I would like to look at the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit and examine how the Holy Spirit is important to us.
I. The Holy Spirit in Conviction.
He is the Spirit of Holiness revelation. The Holy Spirit reveals to us the inward presence of sin. In our Scripture reading this morning in verse 8 we are told of the Holy Spirit that, “He will reprove the world of sin.”
In Hebrews 4:12-13 we find that “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do (to whom we must give account - NKJV).
The children shared earlier how they have been learning about the armor of God. Remember that the Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. It is the Holy Spirit that makes God’s Word come alive and bring conviction to the hearts of man. It is the Holy Spirit that makes the Word of God effective to search out every deeply hidden motive, desire, and purpose of the heart.
We desperately need this revelation of the Spirit which shows the hideous nature of sin. This is missing in so many places today. I can try my best to preach intellectual messages. I can try to preach messages that are interesting and stimulating, but unless the “sword of the Spirit” brings conviction men and women can sit calmly and listen to message after message. Dale Yocum wrote that “True revival is always marked with an arresting revelation of inward sinfulness, for it is the work of the Spirit.”
How desperately we need the Holy Spirit to come
and bring conviction on sinner’s hearts today!!
The Holy Spirit shows us the purity of God’s Holy Law as the reflection of God’s Holy Character and of His will. Poor sinners see how Holy God is and agree with Him that all sin must and will be punished (Romans 7:12). As He shows us the spirituality of His Holy Law, we see how vile we really are. The Bible tells us that men will proclaim their own goodness (Proverbs 20:6), and I have never had one person tell me otherwise – everyone thinks they are good. Oh, the deceitfulness of our natural depraved hearts when we think well of ourselves because our outward lives are “decent and moral.” When the Light of God’s Holiness shines into our proud corrupt hearts, then we see “that every imagination of the thoughts” of our hearts “is only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). To realize my rebellion against God’s Holy Law in practice, and my absolute deadness towards Him by nature, casts a terror into my mind as an awakened sinner. Only when we see our inward corruption is the sin nature revived and the convicted sinner dies (Romans 7:7-9). He dies to all his hopes and abilities, works and professions. His supposed strength is crushed. He not only sees and acknowledges his sinful nature that “cannot be subject” to our Lord (Romans 8:7), but he is deeply cut and greatly affected by the horror of his own incurably wicked heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Then he is smitten in anguish of soul for his death in sin and his defiant walk against the Lord of Glory. The Holy Spirit will make his sorrow for it so exceedingly bitter that the awakened sinner will have an intense desire to be rid of all sin.
As the Holy Spirit continues to show the sinner the inflexible perfection of God’s Holy Law, the sinner continues to see in contrast his utter vileness. He despairs of all self-help and creature-help as he views the Law which cannot be altered and will not compromise. He cannot please or satisfy a holy God. One self-centered desire or one wandering thought from the Law-Giver demands his damnation. ALL HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS BECOMES FILTHY RAGS. Now the cry of the sinner is “I AM THE CHIEF OF SINNERS! If I perish, I get my just dues. As sinful as my acts have been, they are nothing in comparison to this wicked heart!” “I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God” (Galatians 2:19).
The Lord must crush this proud, self-help spirit out of us, making us stoop as vile and helpless before Him, or we will never desire, and He will never give us, His precious SON! The crushed and broken sinner now freely bows under the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be disposed of by Him AS HE WILLS (Matthew 8:2). A soul unwilling to bow is yet un-humbled and God resists him (Lamentations 3:7-8).
One man described repentance as “a personal sorrow for personal sin against a Holy God.” “Repentance is not genuine unless it ends with a truly regenerate heart, and a desire to be holy.”
We have looked at the Holy Spirit’s role in Conviction – He is the Spirit of Holiness Revelation. Now I want to talk to you about…
II. The Spirit of Sanctification.
It is the Spirit of Sanctification that purifies and
controls the life. Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” When one is filled with the Holy Spirit ever part of his moral being is possessed and controlled by the Spirit and when one is controlled by the Holy Spirit He cannot be controlled in any degree by the nature of sin. The Holy Spirit cleanses us from all sin.
When we are saved we are not yet filled with the Holy Spirit. The command to be filled with the Spirit is never made to unbelievers in the New Testament. Those who are filled with the Holy Spirit are those who were already believers – there are never sinners who are filled, only believers. This is why I believe and preach the doctrine of entire sanctification whereby one is cleansed from inbred sin and filled with the Holy Spirit as taught in the New Testament.
Yes, when one is saved they have a measure of the Holy Spirit but they are not filled. John Wesley called salvation “initial sanctification.” A man may drink some alcohol and not be drunk – not completely under its control. Similarly, one may have the Spirit, and not be filled with the Spirit – not completely under His control. Until a person is filled with the Spirit, there is still part of his inner nature which is not under the Spirit’s control. After being entirely sanctified, the believer is controlled completely by the Spirit, a far as his moral conduct is concerned. This does not mean that our will is violated or removed, but it means that we do not do things any longer to glorify ourselves but God. Our bodies are the Temple of God – the dwelling place of His Spirit.
It is by the Holy Spirit’s witness that He assures us of our sanctification. When Peter was recounting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Cornelius’ house he compared the event to what had happened to the believers on the Day of Pentecost. He wrote in Acts 15:8-9, “And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” In witness to the cleansing of their hearts by faith, God gave them the Holy Ghost. It was the Spirit Himself that witnessed to their hearts that they were cleansed from sin and filled with the Spirit. It was not some outward manifestation such as speaking tongues that was the witness as is taught in many places. If speaking in tongues is the witnesses to being filled with the Spirit, isn’t it strange that Paul does not even mention speaking in tongues at Cornelius’ house? Peter was an observer and participant on both the Day of Pentecost and here at Cornelius’ and he tells of how God gave a witness and that witness was the Holy Spirit Himself! If we seek to substitute another witness we do an injustice to the Hoy Spirit, because He is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of revelation. The Apostle John wrote in 1 John 5:6, “…it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.”
I like what Dale Yocum wrote about the witness of the Spirit. “When the sun rises on a cloudless morning, it bears witness to its own presence. Only a blind man would seek the evidence of twittering birds to establish the dawning of the day. And he could easily be deceived; for some birds twitter in the darkness, and many more do not even sing in the daytime. Likewise, only the man who has missed the clear, forceful, peaceful and pure witness of the Spirit Himself will demand some external sound or sensation as evidence. And he would easily be deceived; for some who make the sounds have not the Spirit, and many who have the Spirit make not the sounds.”
It is the Spirit of Sanctification that empowers us for a holy life of service. The highest purpose under God is to glorify Him in our lives and to reproduce and lead others to Him. This task is impossible without the enabling of the Holy Spirit.
Our calling as Christian’s is not to be clever men, intellectual men, efficient men, denominational men, or even hard-working men and women; we are called to be Christ-like men and women! But we can never be Christ-like without the Spirit’s enabling.
Conclusion:
I can not begin to adequately describe to you the holiness of God. However, it has been my desire these past few weeks to show you that God is a holy God who can have nothing at all to do with sin. Therefore, He sent His one and only Son Jesus Christ who was the perfect holy sacrifice for our sins. It is His sacrifice which appeases the righteous judgment of God. It is by His sacrifice and through His mediation that we are able to stand before a holy God. This morning I have tried to show you how through the Holy Spirit the holiness of God is wrought within the heart of believers in response to faith. It is through the Holy Spirit that our sinfulness is revealed and Christ the perfect Savior from all sin is revealed to us. It is through the Holy Spirit that Christ made more than just stories and facts, but it is through the Holy Spirit that Christ is made real to our hearts. He is the Spirit of Holiness revelation. I also tried to show you how the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Sanctification. It is through the Holy Spirit that our hearts are purified and the Holy Spirit indwells and controls the lives of believers. It is the Holy Spirit that assures us of our sanctification just as the sun is its own witness. Finally, it is the Holy Spirit that empowers us for a holy life of service.
God calls us to be holy as He is holy. Let me ask you a question this morning, are you holy? Is there any sin in your life? I am asking God the Holy Spirit to reveal to you right now if there is any sin in your heart that needs to be repented of. If you are a Christian this morning and you know that there is no un-confessed and un-repented of acts of sin in your life, I want to ask you, have you been sanctified holy? Have you asked God to remove that carnal nature of sin that you were born with out of your heart? Do you enjoy the fullness of the Holy Spirit this morning?
I would like for you all to stand with me. Friends, the Book of Hebrews 12:14 tells us that “without holiness know man shall see the Lord.” God tells us to be holy as He is. I want all of us to make it to heaven. I want to see you there some day. I want to make it. If we are to make it, it will be because we have been washed in the blood of the lamb Christ Jesus and cleansed from inbred and filled with the Holy Spirit.
In Revelation 15 the Apostle John writes about His vision of the end times and he tells us how those who had victory over the beast (Antichrist) rejoiced. John described it this way, “They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: "Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! 4 Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, for Your judgments have been manifested.”
I want to be there on that day and join in this song! Don’t you!?
If God has spoken to your heart this morning I encourage you to come and seek Him – He will meet your need!
Sources:
1. The primary source for this sermon was the book "The Holy Way" by Dale Yocum.
