For about 500 years, you know, it's gonna be a long time before the finale came Okay, but this is basically the picture that the old testament profits have and what I want you to It's just not it's a different mic, so I sound let's sound better now. Do I sound better now? Okay, uh, the What happens is that the profits had a special place for the work of the Holy Spirit in this Okay, this is the key. This is why I bring this up This is why this is the missing link that that we often don't have and therefore don't understand what the New Testament tells us about Holy Ghost And that is we don't understand that in this there's a special role for the Holy Spirit and then a nutshell What it is is that the blessings of the restoration or the coming of the Kingdom the blessings of this period that Moses for Moses and through the Prophets are all predicting they come through the Spirit They come through the Holy Spirit. This is how it comes and you would imagine such a thing wouldn't you just as the creation The ordering of creation came by the power of Holy Spirit. So the re-ordering of creation the recreation of the Restoration Kingdom must come through the power of the Holy Spirit. Say yes, somebody. Yeah Okay, because that's the way God does it God brings about these things through the Spirit now What we're going to do basically is just look at a bunch of passages Okay, and one of the ones that I want to start with is Isaiah We're going to look at Isaiah. We're going to look at Ezekiel and Joel and Zechariah Okay, that's basically what we're going to do and see what role they had for the spirit of God in the blessings of Restoration, but let's look first at Isaiah chapter 63 Hope it will always downright Probably half of them not correct, but that's all right. We'll find them. Isaiah 63 and Around verse 10, which I this is I think a really fascinating passage Let's let's see. I guess the best place to begin with this probably is verse 7 I will tell the kindnesses of the Lord the deeds for which he is to be praised according to all the Lord has done for us Yes, the many good things he has done for the house of Israel According to his compassion and his many kindnesses. He said Surely they are my people sons who will not be false to me, and so he became their savior talking about redeeming them from Egypt Bringing them to the land and all their distress he too was distressed and the angel of his presence saved them Talking about me again bringing them out of Egypt in his love and mercy. He redeemed them He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old be following me So he's praising the Lord for all the wonderful things that God has done But now look at what he says happened in the history of Israel and we've seen this already. What did they do? They rebelled Yeah, flagrantly they rebelled against them. Listen to like he put this verse 10 yet they rebelled and Grieved his holy spirit. Does that remind you of anything? Tell me. Yes, please You remember Paul saying don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Why don't you want to grieve the Holy Spirit? Well because of what happens when you do Know what happened when God was grieved in Genesis chapter 6
He destroyed the world, right? There's a flood. Okay, grieving Holy Ghost is not a really good idea Okay, I mean, you know we disappointing him a little bit this one thing grieving him. That's not so good because bad things happen when this occurs um, yeah So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them. Is that amazing? That's the ex-cell you see So grieving the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had been blessing them up to this point Reordering the world for them providing for them this wonderful paradise called came into the land of Israel When he grieved when they grieved them the Holy Spirit Turned against them God turned against them and became actually became the enemy of his people Since I'm off into exile Now this lays a background for the role of the spirit in the restoration So we're just going to look at a couple of passages that will help us understand how the Holy Spirit is occurring or is going to work out this Coming of the kingdom or this restoration. Let's look first at the way that the Holy Spirit comes upon a particular son of David Isaiah chapter 42 Isaiah chapter 42 Let's look at Isaiah 42 I'll just write these up here Isaiah 42 and verse 1 And what we're going to see here is that there's a special son of David who receives um a the Holy Spirit in a very remarkable way to do some things Verse 1 here is my servant whom I uphold my chosen one and whom I delight I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations He will not shout or cry out or raise his voice in the streets of bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out and faithfulness he will bring forth justice He will not falter or be discouraged so he establishes justice on earth And as all the islands will put their hope This is what the Lord says he who created the heavens and stressed them out He spread out the earth and all that comes out of it Who gives breath to his people and might all who walk in and I the Lord have called you in righteousness I will take your hand I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentile Now what does that tell you about the hope that the prophet had? It was that there was going to be a special chosen servant Who would have the Holy Spirit on him and because he would have the Holy Spirit on him in a remarkable way He would establish justice in the world Now in Old Testament terms what this meant was the people who had oppressed the people of God Would be destroyed and the people who repent of sins they come to pay they will be blessed Basically what justice means in the Old Testament and in the New Testament by the way And remember this is what's to be headed or the martyrs of Revelation 6 are asking for justice And so we're still all crying out for justice on the earth And it's only going to come according to the prophets by this special Anointed Holy Spirit anointed serving now you've read some of those passages before haven't you You know you're familiar with them why because what does the who does the New Testament refer these passages It's easy Okay, so we know that from a Christian point of view this hope of some servant of God some special chosen one Having the spirit in this way so that he will rule over the nations in this way is our Jesus Um, Isaiah chapter 61 Verse 1 it's another famous passage that talks about the role of the Holy Spirit and the restoration
Jesus closed this passage of course you've heard this passage before he actually refers to it Verse 1 the spirit of the sovereign lord is on me Because he has anointed me to preach good use to the poor He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to claim freedom for the captives and release from the darkness for the Prisoners to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn and Provide for those who grieve in Zion to the still on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes the oil of gladness instead of mourning a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair They would be called oaks of righteousness a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor Can you see that the good news is not just all positives You can see that their good news needs the people of God are blessed but what else is true? Yeah, vengeance Against those who have oppressed the people of God You see Isaiah 61 is also talking about The restoration and the special servant who is receiving the spirit of the sovereign lord so that he can Bring these blessings to God's people and establish justice against those who have oppressed the people of God This goes all the way back to when God promised Abraham remember in Genesis 12 God promised Abraham I will bless this Who's blessed you and I will curse those who curse you So in nations gather against the people of God as they are even right now and especially in certain parts of the world The justice of God will one day be reached out upon them And so this is one of the great hopes is that the Holy Spirit will come on a special person a son of David in fact And that he will lead the way in bringing the restoration and of course Christians know that this is Holy Spirit on Jesus Which is why the New Testament emphasizes so much the role of the Holy Spirit in Jesus life From the dove To the resurrection to the ascension Okay, the power of Jesus is the power of Holy Spirit
There's another thing that Isaiah says that's a little more general Let's take a look at it and Isaiah chapter 44 and I want you to see here how the the Holy Spirit is sort of begins in the visions of the Prophets to sort of spread out it's not just the special son But it's also the people of God in general Isaiah 44
Let's start with verse 3 For I will do well as our verse 2 this is what this lord says he who made you who formed you in the womb and who will help you Do not be afraid of Jacob my servant. Yes, you're in whom I have chosen. Yes, you're in this another name for Jerusalem Well, I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground now, you know, basically that he's saying is I'm going to take this part Parts horrible place that's been under this exile under this drought this horrible land as we call the Holy Spirit and I'm going to make streams appear But notice what that stream is connected to verse 3 I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessings on your descendants And they will spring up like grass in the meadow by copper trees flowing by flowing streams One will say I belong to the Lord and another will call himself by the name Jacob still another will write in the tent The lords and will take the name Israel. So basically here looking ahead to the time when they will be after exile after they come back The blessing of the land is connected to the giving of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit So what does this tell us the prophets did not look to salvation? It's simply the receiving of the Holy Spirit in some abstract or spiritual way But it was deeply connected to something physical happening to the earth something physical happening that is the restoration of the paradise And it's going to the descendants and spreading out so that it does on for generations generation generation generation So that's the way this vision begins to develop the spirit is going to be poured out and the spirit is going to affect a renewal of the physical world
So we can see that Isaiah's vision of the spirit of God in the restoration period is a grand vision He understands that none of this stuff that Israel's hoping for can come by human power that has to come by the Holy Spirit Now let's look at Ezekiel. Let's take a look at Ezekiel and see what Ezekiel said about this This is Isaiah. Let's look at Ezekiel. Now Ezekiel ministered actually during the exile He in fact ministered in Babylon that's where he was okay, and he was talking to the people who had gone into exile And in many respects what Ezekiel does in his book in the first part of this book is he sort of explains to them That even though Jerusalem hasn't completely been destroyed. It's going to be That's the first part of Ezekiel and the latter part of Ezekiel from around chapter 40 on 36 and on is devoted to establishing That God won't forget the promise to restore Israel And that he will really remake the world So what we want to do is take a look at Ezekiel Let's start with Ezekiel 36 and just get some sense of what Ezekiel saw to be the role of the Holy Spirit in the future Ezekiel 36 and I guess we can begin around verse 26 or so Oh, how about verse 24 for I will take you out of the nations I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land That sounds like Deuteronomy 30, doesn't it? Yep, so we're talking about 36, 24 and following okay, so this is restoration. Yes. So yeah, I got that This is a restoration process. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you I will remove from you the hardest stone and give you a heart of flesh Now that should be a familiar thing to you Move the hardest stone and give you a heart of flesh Give you a new spirit. What where do you hear those things Come to the New Testament. Yeah, New Testament. That's what New Testament writers. That's the way they describe being saved Okay, heart of stone thrown away, heart of flesh, you know that sort of thing And that's because the New Testament looks at salvation as what That's the restoration of the kingdom That's right. Okay, so now look at verse 27 and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decree and be careful to keep my law You will live in the land. I gave your forefathers and you will be my people and I will be your God I will save you from all your inclineliness. I will call for grain and make it clinical And will not bring famine upon you I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the fields so that you will no longer suffer Disgrace among the nations because of famine Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds and you will load yourself for your sins and the testful practices I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake To start the sovereign lord. The exchange and disgrace for your time does the house of Israel This is what the sovereign lord says on the day I cleanse you from all your sins I will resell your towns and ruins will be rebuilt the definite land will be cultivated instead of lying Desolate in the sight of all his past through it and they will say this land that was laid waste has become like the gardens of Eden. I told you that's where God is taking us people remember And I told you that's what he's going to do is a whole world turn it into easy Okay, how does all this happen? Well it happens by and in connection with the giving of the Holy Spirit So the giving of the Holy Spirit is not The end of it all it's simply connected to all these other things that happen like the physical salvation the renewal of the earth And all these other things that he's each of us see here But I want you to see that part of his vision is that God is going to give his Holy Spirit to his people What is what is the result of the Holy Spirit being given to these people? What will they do? They'll be obedient You know the the big question that has to come up of course with Israel And in the israelite it was thinking anything anyway was okay So we get to go back to the land Well, what's guarantee is that once the restoration takes place it will be there forever You know what maybe this is going to happen again Okay, and basically what happens is is the prophets say no Once the restoration has come fully once it really has come completely there's no going back And the guarantee of that is that he will give the Holy Spirit Who will equip them and change them so that they are faithful Yeah, oh because as you build as you build you're going to have to resume the award
Because the restoration is a process Okay, yeah No, it's not the finale It's not the last man of the second of it Okay, there's a process has to go on I can I can give you a basic scenario. I mean, I think I don't think the process really laid out in detail But basically it is the people of God come back to the land The nations don't like what they see remember that as we're in the amiah They don't like what they see gomer and may god and all these guys gang up against the people of God And there's a big war in the valley of magito It's called Armageddon our hard magito as you've been there You know that's a big place to have the big battle and they end basically what happens is God destroys the enemies and an Israel wind And then they rain over the world that's basically what the prophets thought was going to happen And that is exactly what does happen It's happening right now That's what the New Testament does The New Testament says that that battle is going on right now
I'm trying I'm trying to get my say well, how's that true? Yes, right. It's the Holy Word the New Testament It looks like we're losing it. Oh, no, we're not losing. We're doing great
We're doing great um I really can't get into this very much But let me just say we'll quickly on this we're doing great Okay Compare Christianity and influence over the world today with 2000 years ago
Okay, don't think don't simply think like most Republicans do of the good old days Okay, when american was a christian nation and all that kind of stuff Okay, it never was but don't even think that way That's not the idea. I mean the 50s are not the ideal toward which we should all be striving Okay I like it lots of things about the 50s But I wasn't all that great either, okay, and those of you who lived in that time know the best truth um, and just because it looks like we an hour little ghetto of the world are losing some of our influence and power Doesn't mean christiancy failing Christianity is doing great. It's doing just great. I may not be doing So well here at this moment in certain socioeconomic classes like ours But it's doing just great. In fact, it's really doing great an hour. So you're true. It's been better than ever has frankly There was a book recently written called No Place for Truth And one of my good friends, Roger Nicole who teaches us down in Orlando, said I don't understand the title this book. There's plenty of room for truth He said for example There are more reformed seminaries in this world now than there have ever been in the whole history of the history of Protestantism We just had the first Bible English Bible to outsell the King James Bible There are more missionaries than there have ever been before by Evan Delton godly real Bible believing christ's following god loving people More missionaries who have ever been in the whole history of the world and more Christians now than they've ever been in the whole history of the world There's plenty of room for truth. We're doing just fine. We're doing just fine
But when you tie the success of the kingdom too much to our particular corner of the world Then you can have very very strong sense, you know Some people think christiancy fails because of local church closes if this church were to close It wouldn't mean anything about christianity. You'd be doing just fine. He's something for rick and blame you but Yeah, that's about all And they do okay enough these months You know what I'm saying and so um the reality is is that the holy war that the prophets predicted That would they have to fortify the build the cities and all of a sudden and also remember that building cities is just a great thing That's what you do is you've got it any time on your hands at all. It's just prosperity It's just yeah a lot of it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm afraid it's
As exactly right. Good job Good job Good no, that's great. I mean what's wrong? Well, let's talk about what was wrong with prosperity as we make it tonight Okay, but uh, but you're right. I mean this you this should sound a lot like prosperity theology to you You know what I'm talking about you know we're talking about health wealth stuff if you really love Jesus you'll be healthy and wealthy um This should sound a lot like that because we haven't gotten to why it's not true So the expectation has to be out there you have I mean there's people who are into health and wealth are not nuts They're reading the bible too and they know that the bible promises health and wealth to the people of god they know this it does And the $50 question is why then don't we have it? If the kingdom of god has come at the restoration's coming Christ Why don't we have what is he killed so I talked about here and Isaiah talks about here Why aren't our descendants so the Holy Spirit so that they are following the Lord like Isaiah said Why isn't the world of just this wonderful prosperous place Why aren't the people of god having victory over the world? Well, that's the what the New Testament deals with The whole point of the New Testament. Let's keep going if we may Chapter 37 you know this passage. This is the valley of dry bones And you remember a jezicio has this vision of the bones bones dry them bones them bones them dry bones And of course them dry bones is a picture of Israel and what's happened to them? And it's just you know absolutely impossible for dry bones No flesh at all to be resuscitated right And that's the point and that's what Israel looked like that she had been so destroyed Nobody could possibly believe god could ever bring them back There's a hard thing to believe It would be like taking every evangelical Christian in the United States killing all but maybe two or three of them And then having some profit come from Russia and say it's okay the kingdom of god will grow here mightily You kind of go yeah, whatever I don't think I'd want to be in that kind of kingdom. This is what happens to it So what happens here of course is the jezicio says no god can do this and how does god do this look at verse 14
Um 13 then you my people will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them to that's restoration You follow the idea here I will put my spirit in you and you will live and I will settle you in your own land Then you will know that I the Lord has spoken and I have done it declares the Lord God will put his spirit his breath into them So breathe into them just like he breathes into Adam in the beginning You'll see this is the point and that of course is where the New Testament just this whole notion that the life that we have Comes from the Holy Spirit Recessitating us regenerating us giving us life It is that we are utterly dead in our trespasses and sins as exiled talk Yes But you can be resurrected in the units of life in Christ that's restoration talk straight from the Old Testament And how does this happen by Holy Spirit? Okay, so exetio 37 is another example of this 37 14 and then let's go to another passage and this one was very nice chapter 39 chapter 39 verse 29
The game of verse 21 I will display my glory among the nations and all the nations will see the punishment I inflict and the hand I lay upon them from that day for the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their god And the nations will know that the people of Israel went into exile for their sin because they were unfaithful to me So I hid my face from them and handed them over to their enemies and they all fell by the sword I dealt with them with courting their uncleanness and according to their offenses and I hid my face from them That's exile yes But now listen to verse 25 Therefore this is what the sovereign lord says I will now bring Jacob back from captivity and will have compassion on all the people of Israel And I will be zealous for my holy name They will forget their shame and the unfaithfulness they showed toward me when they lived in safety in their land With no one to make them afraid When I have brought them back from the nations and have gathered them from the countries of their enemies I will show myself holy through them in the sight of many nations They will know that I am the Lord their god for although I sent them into exile among the nations I will gather them to their own land not leaving any behind I will no longer hide my face from them For I will pour out my spirit on the house of Israel declares the sovereign lord
The blessing of the power of God on the house of Israel on the people of God and see is wrapped up in the whole picture Of what it means to be restored to the blessings of salvation after exile Joel chapter 2 You know this passage we won't well maybe we just talk about it a little bit Joel chapter 2 and beginning with verse 28 through 32 This is where Joel has a vision of what the restoration is going to be like and he says I will pour out my spirit on all flesh Young men, old women, young and old, you know may serve as everybody is going to get it But you know what else is connected to this pouring out of the Holy Spirit the moon turning to blood The sun turning dark Okay, the day of vengeance the day of judgment the gate cosmic up evil that will take place with the judgment of the enemies of God And the blessing of the people of God with a new creation so the upheaval of Of nature also does along with the coming of the Holy Spirit and then there's that great passage that we talked about earlier today Zechariah 4 verse 6 Where Zechariah says how will God make the son of David great again? How will that possibly happen and the answer is is not going to come by Mike not by power but by my spirit of the war So the Holy Ghost is the one who brings The great restoration and again that should not surprise us because he is the one who in the beginning Brought about the order out of the chaos. He's the one who led them out of Egypt into the promised land He's the one that formed a land there and he was grieved by them So he threw them out and now when he brings them back to the land and restore them and gives them salvation It is by his hand by his power by his breath that all this stuff happens And so that is the wonder of the expectation that the prophets had as they sit there and look At the people of God and hope for some kind of salvation to come into future And this is why Holy Spirit is important to you and me because we Are getting The receiving we are receiving the promises that the prophets offer We are the restoration
We are the dry bones made alive We are the people now walking into paradise going back to Egypt We are the ones who are now filled not with might not with power but with the spirit power We are the ones who are conquering the world We are the ones who are taking possession We are the ones who will live forever blessed Forever and empowered to obey so that we will never be destroyed again We are we are there
Now the grand thing about the New Testament is this Because the New Testament knows that this is true they know this picture right here But New Testament writers the apostles even Jesus himself had to deal with something Something that the Old Testament prophets do not anticipate Because no Old Testament prophets could possibly have Anticipated how horribly Jesus would have been rejected
And how disbelief would run rampant among the people of God Here God comes in sense of science His only science and all these prophets know since the sun and they even reject the sun Remember Jesus likened up that Okay, they even reject the sun And as a result of that when the restoration came it did not come all at once it did not come in full force but it came How did it come well the New Testament explains That the restoration comes in basically three stages and these are the stages that we talked about a little bit this morning Although I didn't give them to you here The first stage these are my terms now the first stage that the New Testament talks about the coming of these powerful Spirit driven kingdom restoration is the inauguration of the kingdom beginning of the kingdom And this includes the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus The work of his apostles also I would say follows falls into the inauguration of the kingdom And then the New Testament also teaches us that this restoration period Is it will be extended for a long long time No, whereas Jesus is going to come and he does come and he goes away and at first People thought well this won't be very long before he comes back again, but Again because of sin basically It's been delayed a long time This I call the continuation of the kingdom And that's where we are now the continuation of the kingdom so the inauguration of it The continuation of it and then this would be of course the end of the program the end of the show Which we can call the confirmation of the kingdom
The second coming of Christ And this of course is where all these old Testament prosthetic hopes come in all of their fullness Maybe even beyond what the prophets could have imagined in their wildest dreams So let me just give you some examples of this Where is this new creation theme for example that Isaiah talked about our new heavens and the new earth when's the new creation come So the new creation comes first with Jesus himself And never how gone The practice gospel off in the beginning was the word and the word was this guy the word was a guy And then he goes on quickly because of how this word was the light of the world He came into this world gone is saying in gone chapter one that Jesus is a new creation Jesus are some new worlds The restoration When just holy spirit come holy spirit is poured out on the day of pentatol poured out on the house of Israel who was there at pentatol by the way
Who was there on that day the apostles were who else the same the Jews from where all over Remember what Isaiah and Ezekiel always I said I'll gather you back to the land and then what will I do For my spirit on you that's what happened at pentatol The gathering of the remnant of Israel from all the scattered exiles They come back to Jerusalem and Holy Ghost is poured out on it Thousands of them can do it Thousands of them and thousands of them They're in Jerusalem of course had to be in Jerusalem yet The rest of the center of the universe is the center of Even in front okay, so the inauguration is the beginning of this whole program of all the things that you see But of course the apostles and Jesus They knew something and that is that everything didn't come at once And so the New Testament also explains that there's this period in between this continuation period where There's going to be great blessing, but there's also to be great suffering That yes, we have certain things that are from the future as it were certain things from the kingdom that are ours But we don't have it all Now one of the most remarkable things about Holy Spirit is What the Bible tells us he is in Ephesians chapter one let's take a look at Ephesians chapter one
Ephesians chapter one in verse 14
It always bothered me when I didn't know the Old Testament what in the world this meant So here it is now now that you'll know I'll look at Ephesians chapter one verse the start with verse 13 And you were also included in Christ and you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation Having believed you were marking him with a seal the promised Holy Spirit When was it promised when was Holy Spirit promised by whom
Who promised Holy Spirit Jesus did anybody before him Yeah, this longest of prophets yes the promised Holy Spirit you're marked with him and what is this Holy Spirit What what function does he have let's do a second verse 14 he says The promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit Guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possessions to the praise of his glory He's a deposit guaranteed our full inheritance to come Basically what the Apostle is saying here is that it's the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life in my life That is Like a down payment You know when you when you go in and you're going to buy something used to be we I guess you still do in some cases You make a down payment and you make you give an earnest when you're going to buy a house that kind of thing What that shows is is that a guarantees that you're going to pay the rest of it Well, that's what God does with Holy Spirit You see the inheritance is not just Holy Spirit We know it's not just a spiritual redemption. We saw this in the Prophet Giving of the Holy Spirit connected to all kinds of things like the revivification of the earth and Parodise and you know salvation from enemies and victory over the world and possession of all things But the Holy Spirit Paul says Is the pain that we get of that world to come now His presence with us is what happens to us now because in the inauguration of the kingdom Holy Spirit came and Holy Spirit comes to each one of us and living in each one of us To give us the guarantee the confidence that we will get all things in the end. Does that make sense?
The Apostle says something very similar to this in Romans chapter 8 take a look at Romans chapter 8 I Love this passage with regards to the Holy Spirit because I think it says something is very important to us But he says here In verse 22 8 22 we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in pains of childhood birth right up to the present time He's probably talking about earthquakes and things like that like it's giving birth giving birth to what a new creation But not anybody goes on and says not only this But we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons the redemption of our
What body I'm not told you salvation is physical But he says the Holy Spirit is something here. What is the Holy Spirit as we wait forever the redemption of our bodies the physical Salvation what is Holy Spirit he is the First fruit Now that's an Old Testament concept and the Old Testament you were to give sacrifices from the first fruits of your crop And what you would do is you would give The first you give from the very first crop that you would get okay You got cut the field and the very first that you took from your fields. What you gave to God? Why because it stood as representative of what the whole Everything that was coming Okay, so the great harvest that God has for you and me He has already given us he has given to us the first fruits of that And the first fruits of that is the presence of the Holy Spirit Toured out on us just like the prophet said like Joel said like Ezekiel said like Isaiah said Holy Spirit coming to us even before we get the full inheritance of ours the full harvest Which is the salvation of our bodies and the revelation of us he goes on to save the fact that the glory of the sons of God The redemption of all creation So Holy Spirit with us is not Some small trivial things He is the first taste we have of everything is going to be ours in the future
But we know something don't wait. This is Rome. That's Romans. There are we Romans 8 There's 23 and following But we know something and there's a big warning to us And it's something that I think is very important that we've already seen and we've already talked about a little bit Look at Ephesians chapter 4 real quickly so you can just Know how important this is to remember Ephesians 4 and verse 30
There the Apostle Paul will start with verse 29 do not let anyone host them word come out of your mouth But only what is helpful for the building of others according to their needs That it may benefit those who listen and do not Greaves the Holy Spirit of God with whom you received for the day of redemption Why not grieve the Holy Spirit of God? Let's be alluding to here in Ephesians 4 30
Let's be alluding to Remember you must have the past is the Old Testament passage Yeah, Isaiah
Isaiah 63 verse 10 What had Israel done that led them into exile? They had grieved the Holy Spirit They had been blessed by him They had been the creation had been shaped by him for them And they in their flagrant violation of the covenant had just regarded him and had grieved him so much that he threw them out of the land And so when the Apostle Paul says be careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit It tells us something it tells us that we must be careful not to Overstepped and not to become flagrant violators of the covenant even now
If we do the consequences can be very very serious Some of you are in the book of Hebrews and understands that right are you already into it? Secondly, well, you're going to get the chapter 6 Is anybody know what chapter 6 of Hebrews is about?
Problem passes It's a passage that sounds like you can lose your salvation Okay, what it sounds like One of the things that he says in Hebrews 6 is that those who turn from Christ Have actually tasted of the heavenly gift and they have received The blessings of Holy Ghost and yet as they turn There's nothing for them
You see there is there's this kind of still over effect It's not just those who are regenerated who are truly saved who receive blessings from Holy Spirit Even those that get associated and get close Okay, like the nuclear reactor thing just get close to us and get blessings from the Holy Spirit And that's what happens in Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 Actually sanctified by the blood of the covenant It's not that you're losing your salvation, it's just that you are really close to being saved But then you reject it like that So we're in the seed thing, you know, and they're just sprouting up They receive the word and they grow a little bit then to get choked out that kind of thing Or the roots are not very deep Not that they're truly saved, it's just that they're very close to being saved, but You know, no cigar Okay Now that's a very serious warning to us Because what it tells us is is that even though it's a great thing you that we have Holy Spirit in our lives It's very easy for us or not easy, but it's possible for us to quench in Is it for Cessalonians and to even greet him And one of the things I think that I want to say to you as we sort of wrap this up and think about this because the experience of this is so very important One of the things that's important for us to realize is that The ministry of the Holy Spirit is something to which we must give attention We must pay attention to them Last week greetings him Last week clinch him To see my problem is is that when we ignore the Holy Spirit like we usually do in our circles We don't really even think about him enough to even ask the questions Am I clinching him? Am I grieving him? Does that make sense to you? I mean one of the last time you even asked the question is the Holy Spirit weeping over what I've done
Is he greeting you over what I've done? Who do I even think of that way? And part of the reason for this is because we're just not all that concerned with him We're just not interacting with him all that much
There is one of the passes that I want to read to you that I think sort of sums up my sense of what's important in all of this Because with this kind of background to the role of the Holy Spirit in the new creation in the Christian life Romans chapter 8 becomes very important to us We read the first part of this and I want us to read the last part of it here You know this passage is a great passage We know that the whole creation verse 22 and Romans 8 has been growing as in pains of childbirth right up to the present time Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first proof of the spirit grown inwardly as we leave Easily for the adoption of our adoption of sons or redemption of our bodies For in this hope we were saved Hope of the redemption of our bodies. But hope that has seen us know hope at all to hope for what he