When The Spirit Comes

When the Spirit comes

John 14:16-17 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

V26 But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Recap from last week:

One minute there was NO church

The next minute there WAS one

The disciples didn’t plan the church

The gift of the Spirit was entirely a matter of grace

Why was the Holy Spirit given?

God gave the Holy Spirit to equip and empower the church for

Evangelization and to help us the worship Him

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He is a gift to the church

When He the Spirit of truth comes…

The helper/comforter

Revisers have found great difficulty in translating the Greek word. They have suggested "advocate," "helper" and a mere transference of the Greek word "Paraclete" into the English. The word so translated is Parakleatos, the same word that is translated "advocate" in 1 John 2:1; but "advocate" does not give the full force and significance of the word.

Advocate means about the same as Parakleatos, but the word in usage has obtained restricted sense. "Advocate" is Latin; Parakleatos is Greek. The exact Latin word is "advocatus," which means one called to another. (That is, to help him or take his part or represent him). Parakleatos means one called alongside, that is, one who constantly stands by your side as your helper, counsellor, comforter, friend

We need the Holy Spirit each and every hour to take us through life

But the last few generations to a great extent have become a godless and do not regard the Saviour

Illustration: School, talking to the children about God and Jesus

Many have departed from the knowledge of God

Even among some so-called-Christians there is a great amount of religion

There is little godliness but lots of formalism and legalism

There’s little inward acknowledgment of God, but lots of outward

We have witnessed how people seek after signs and wonders yet forget the giver

Except for the ‘grace’ (departing prayer) we would hardly know a Trinity existed

The Holy Spirit is almost entirely neglected

In John Jesus speaks of him – when He the Spirit….

He has come as I stated last week

Jn 14:17 vitally important, He is with you but shall be in you

But how can we know Him?

Luke 11:13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall [your] heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

We just have to ask it’s as simple as that!

John 20:22 they needed more than the word; ‘receive the Holy Spirit’

And we need more than the word

They are inseparable:

They may have been full of the word, but had less measure of the Spirit (prior to Pentecost)

We too may know the word really well, yet neglect the Holy Spirit

We need to balance the word and the Spirit

He searches the deep things of God, we have received these things freely by Him

1 Cor 2:10 But God has revealed [them] to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God

We my say, "How can I get more of the Holy Spirit?" But when we think of Him as a divine Person, we should say, "How can the Holy Spirit get more of me?"

One is self-exaltation, the other humility, recognizing our need of Him in our life

Knowledge of all truth was given when the Spirit was given

The Christian lifestyle should not only be exciting but informative; not merely arousing, but enlightening

When we have been sanctified by grace, we should have a strong desire to know deep truth

Curiosity is something given by God impelling us to search for answers, truth being one

Many are distressed most of the times from not having a clear view of truth

How many are burdened by conviction of sin because they haven’t found the truth of Christ setting them free?

He teaches us

He is infallible; he knows everything and cannot lead us astray

We may search scripture and yet still not understand

We might not have a commentator or minister to explain the word to us, but we still have the Holy Spirit

When we cannot understand a text, we should open our Bible, bend ours knees, and pray

If through prayer, we still cannot understand it, then it is something God did not intend us to know, and we must be content to be ignorant about it until such a time He sees fit to show us