Inland Empire: Riverside
Nature and Work of the Holy Spirit - Audio
It's all the electronics working. There's an old hymn in kind of precious memories. I don't remember all the words, but it says precious memories, unseen angels sent from somewhere to myself. I've never spoken to this particular minister group in Los Angeles or whatever part of it you call yourself. But there are many, many memories being here today because even though I've not spoken to you in this configuration, many of you we've met in Los Paz and other places. It was hard to windy him and earlier and she and her now-hubby were college kids and our family group or whatever we call it in those days in San Diego. And many of the kids that were in our family group ended up married. And I think maybe a part of that was they saw what Teresa and I had and wanted it. And that was a good thing to imitate. There's so many of you that I've known in different settings. I met Steve May when he was a young college kid as well and coming. And they were in San Diego and I remember Steve getting time with him fairly soon after I moved there. And I thought to myself, this is really a pure-hearted guy. This is in the annual sort of fellow and he was. And all those memories, many memories with the manals, John is kind of my go-to guy when I'm in the pits, I often talk to John and he helps me get out. And John and Nancy have been dear friends for so many years. Back in Libby, we knew not when they were college kids, but when they were a young married couple. And I found out very quickly that he had a lot in common with Teresa and me. The two marriages are very much alike. The guys were a mess, the boy they got good vibes. A lot in common there, I appreciated his introduction. Sometimes I hear introductions before I speak and I think, who in the world are they talking about? If they only knew it, sometimes I feel like after some introductions, and I say this often actually, that my prayer is I would love to become the person you already think I am. And I mean that in awesome series. We all know what a mess we are inside and what we struggle with and God knows all of that. But we see those good and us, other people see that better than we do most of us. Anyway, it's a great privilege to be here, it really is, the service so far has been great. That's what Mike said before I got up, basically it's been a great service, don't mess it up. I know him well, I can tell you stories and I suspect you can tell me a few as well. But you got a great staff here, you really, really did. And so it's a privilege to be with them and to be with you. Okay, you are starting a study on the Holy Spirit that's going to last six weeks and so my job today is to sort of get it started, to give you a little introduction to the subject. And then Mike says you're going to be talking about it in sermons and all kinds of other lessons and settings and so what I give you an introduction, I'll be happy to do that as best I can, it's hard to give an introduction to a very, very broad subject without wanting to delve into too much of the subject itself. But we have some slides here, so let's put one up, oh there we go, the nature of work in the Holy Spirit, that's what we call a series, actually I don't know what all is out there at the book table, but this is one of them and I have a lot of things like this that are either video or audio and there are lessons in here that are audio lessons most of them in P3 format and then there's usually an outline, a word doc. And so I think this one has eight audio lessons, seventeen page detailed outline, the nature of the Holy Spirit, a study of non-miraculous gifts, a rather miraculous gifts of the Spirit, two lessons, baptism with the Holy Spirit, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sense we call it, and then three lessons on the Holy Spirit and man's salvation. So a lot of available on these, and I'm not good at selling books, I don't often have a book signing, but Tony Mulholland with IPX, as Gordon, you got to do better. You need to have some book signings and all of that and I just somehow that doesn't work well with me. I can't hold a candle to Doug Jacoby, that dude can talk books and I'm just in awe of that, for some reason I can't do that as well, but I will go back today and find books if you buy them, I do have a book that's been out of print for a long time, it was under a different title back then, but now it's called World Changers, it's a practical exposition of the book of Acts and so it's been updated and redone and all of that and I feel sure there should be some of those back there, but at any rate I will be back there after the service. But as we think about the nature and work of the Holy Spirit, we think about the next slide which says basically the starting place, the Holy Spirit is a person. We talk about he not yet, and I think some people are confused about that when they speak of the Holy Spirit they do not see him in the way that the Bible describes him and they don't understand what he does today in our lives, which I think I end up thinking he is definitely the most active agent of the Godhead or of the Trinity, the most active agent in our lives personally. Now can I explain everything he does? No. Do I know how it all works? No, that's the good of it. Sometimes people say, well even the idea of the Trinity is confusing, I know one religious group and they quote 1 Corinthians 14 and it says that God is not the author of confusion. Of course the context is in a totally different subject, but they say since the Trinity is confusing, it can be true, and I'm thinking wow what a place to start in your theology about God. If you can understand God, you wouldn't be on this planet. I don't know where you would be, but you wouldn't be on this planet. So we have to understand that the subject itself of God, whether we're talking about the Father, the Son of the Holy Spirit, does a whole bunch more about that that I don't know than that I do know. Next slide. The reason it's easy to show biblically that the Holy Spirit is a person is because of all of the things said about him, and these are only a few, but these are quite a few. He can be lied to, and in I, since the fire in chapter 5 of Acts, lied, Peter said what put it in your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit. Next point, he can be blasphemed against, that's one of the subjects on this about the blasphemed of the Holy Spirit, but you can blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, a person. Next slide. Keep them moving, I'm going to have to go pretty fast here. He can be resisted, Stephen, as he freaks up sermon in Acts 7, he says, you're resisting the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit was inspiring him to speak the message, and he said, you're just like your daddy's, who always resisted the prophets that God sipped to them, and you're just like them, you are resisting the Holy Spirit. You can resist a person, and that's what the Spirit is. He teaches, and we'll talk more about this one, but it says in John 14, 26, the promise to the apostles, he will teach you all things, and so he is a teacher, I am a teacher. I wish I could teach like him, but he is a teacher. He spoke directions for evangelism in Acts 13, he said, in that place, separate Paul and Barnabas. He was called at that point, Saul and Barnabas, to do the work for which I had called them, and so the Spirit directly called them and gave them directions for evangelism. Next point. He leads the children of God, and there is much in the Bible about that. He leads us. How does he do that? Well, through the word, obviously, that he inspired, we'll get on that in a moment, but he leads in other ways, and I don't know exactly how it takes place, but I just believe it with all of my heart. I've got thousands of stories that makes Mike nervous about the link to the sermon, but I've got thousands of stories of things that have happened in my life, and there's no explanation except God is in the middle of it, and as I understand how God works in our lives, the Holy Spirit, therefore, is in the middle of it. There are amazing things that leave me scratching my head, and so I think sometimes some people go in places I'm not comfortable with, well, the Holy Spirit led me to do this, or the Holy Spirit led me to do that, and I'm not too sure which Spirit it was, the Holy Spirit or the other one. So many times I can think the Spirit is leading me, and I look back and realize, well, maybe it was the other Spirit, but time proves all things. And many times we look back, and we realize, as Jacob did after he met with God and Russell with him, he said, "Sure to the hand of God was with me in that place, and I did not know it." But later he knew it. Later he looked back and realized that God was the one doing the work. Very often as we look back, even in times we think are terrible, we look back and God was in the middle of that thing, and we thank God that he did not answer that prayer. We pray, take this away from me, get this cup out of here, and God didn't answer the prayer, and later we think, "Wow, I am happy he did not." So sometimes we might better wait a little while to decide which Spirit was leading us, but there's no question that he does, and he does often, and he does in ways that we probably aren't aware of most of the times. We know a lot of people look at the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, and they think, "Wow, isn't this incredible? I wish I could do this or that today." The truth is, the greatest miracles that God has ever done or ever will do are not those. Walking on the water, yeah, that was cool. I would like to have seen it, and I'd have probably been like a adventurous feeder and jumped out and saw it too, but those miracles aren't the impressive ones to me. The impressive ones are the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of little details that God has to work on behind the scenes to do in your life and mind what he is doing. Those are the miracles. Every conversion story is a miracle. I've traveled all over the world. I've been off of church staff now for almost four years. I've got a couple of training schools, leadership training schools, one in Kiev, one in Asia. I'm traveling all over the world, and I hear these stories about conversions, and I could spend hours just telling those unbelievable. I hear those, and every time I'm thinking what miracle, every conversion story is a miracle. So I know God is always leading us next Friday. He helps us by interceding parts with a father, Romans 8. That is a comforting verse. He says sometimes we don't even know how to pray, but the spirit intercedes parts with a father. I'm grateful that he does that because sometimes I don't know how to pray. I don't know what to pray. I'm just confused, but the spirit always knows what is in the deeper part of our hearts it may be we don't know, and he expresses those deepest thoughts to God. Next point. We have fellowship with the spirit. We'll look at that one a bit later, and in the study with it, but it talks about having fellowship with the father, son, and spirit. The Trinity is mentioned in this passage, and it says that we have fellowship with the spirit. He, you can have fellowship with a sound system, although I wondered about a few sound guys that are new, but you basically can't have a relationship with anyone besides a person. Next one. He can be grieved in Ephesians 4, it talks about breathing the Holy Spirit about what we say, especially about one another, or two one another, it grieves God, it grieves the Holy Spirit when we are not being as brothers and sisters as God wants us to be, and anyone who has children understand that perfectly. I've got grandchildren now, and when those little dudes aren't getting along together, it is on happy time for the one that is looking on. We want our children, our grandchildren, our friends to be getting along and loving deeply, and that's what the Holy Spirit wants as He sees us. Next one. He clearly says that in abandonment of the faith would come, first and before he predicted a falling away. The Spirit clearly says that there's going to be a falling away, so that was one of the warnings and the cautions that Paul gave to Timothy. Next one. The Spirit testifies. That's in Hebrew chapter 10, and He was testifying really about the New Covenant that Jesus brought us, but the Spirit testifies. Go ahead. Let's run through a few of these quickly here. Well, we didn't get bothered. Now, speaking of the Spirit being a person, there are two persons, and tomorrow is our forty-seventh anniversary, and I love this woman. I met her when we were twelve in the seventh grade, Midway, Jr. High, Street, Fort Louisiana, just if you were wondering where this accident comes from, that said, got married between our last two semesters and colleagues. We had quite a ride together. I love this woman. I love her deeply. People think we're newlyweds when we go on cruises, and God designed it to be that way that relationships grow. Now, that helps us, marriage helps us understand our relationship to God, because sometimes we get stale as everything with God, right? Sometimes we get mad at God, sometimes we question God. Everyone goes through that, it's a relationship thing, but you redo it, and you work it out. And my wife and I have done that, I have no idea how many crimes in forty-seven years, and then the four years dating before that, but we've worked out a lot of things. And I'm blessed to have an angel that lives with me. God knew it was going to take a lot to give me a mic to heaven. And so he gave us angels, and that is how I view my life. She is angelic. Sometimes we'd be praying, confessing our sins together, and I'm thinking, "Gee, I wish that's all I have to say." I mean, in her mind, that's the worst thing she can think of. And I'm thinking, "Gee, what am I doing in this first session?" But anyway, she's a great one. She would love to be here. I'll bring her back some time. She is a delight, an amazing woman. I get people in trouble talking about it. You know, I did a teaching day in Phoenix, that's where I have a house, got an apartment in Houston. We're helping the church out in Houston, and I'm an interim lead evangelist at my age. Now, Mike is trying to mess me up, right? I told the guy earlier, I was 70 years old, and that was insulting. It won't be 70 for nine months. But at either age, we're in Houston a lot now, but I was then teaching day in Phoenix where I have a house, and was on staff there for a number of years. And I had one wife, staff one, when they went home to her husband, and she said, "I can't." And the four lessons Gordon did, I can't. He mentioned Teresa, "Fifty, six plans." He hardly ever mentioned me. I said, "Bro, what can I say?" I mean, I'm delighted with this girl. I've never been bored with her. She's a house of fire. People call her the inner dad's her bunny. I mean, I never know what she's going to do next. I don't know what she's doing something all the time. People call me. Is your wife at home? No. Where is she? I don't have a food. Now, if she were here, she'd say, "Yeah, part of that is you don't listen very well either." Anyway, move on. Now, the popular concept is basically, when you think about the Trinity, you think about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, sort of like that. They're sort of separate. The Father's big. The Son's a little smaller, and the Spirit, we got him down in a small little circle here. But now, a more biblical thought is the next slide, and that is the three are together. The Father, Son, and the Spirit working together in a beautiful way. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but throw up the next slide there. For children, you have to help them understand, and so you talk about an egg is made up of three parts. That's helpful. A shell, a light in the open, it's one egg, and so that helps kids. Sometimes that helps me, I'm a kid. Max, if you lit three and held them together, there would be three stems that you could see, but it would be one flame. And then, of course, water comes in three different forms, liquid ice and vapor, and so you can say still water, but in different forms. Okay, the next one, the Spirit is deity, jumped through that one, okay, the Bible makes it clear there's only one God, makes it equally clear that the one God has a threefold personality, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and then a quotation from a book. And I'll read this one, "I thought this said it about as well as it can be said. We do not affirm that God is three gods. We affirm that there is but one infinite spirit being, but within that one spirit essence, there are three personal distinctions, each of which may be and is called God. Each capable of loving and being loved by the others, each having a distinct, but not separate, hard to play in the creation of the universe, in the creation and salvation of man." That is well said. Now, do I understand everything about that and how that can work? No, no, no. But it's still said well, and guess about as close to it as I think we can. You know, in the part, someone suggested this once, it really appealed to me. He said, "When you look at the creation of the universe and how God had worked together, God, the Father was sort of the one with the plan, was because of His will that things were created." And then Jesus, John 1 tells us, was the ancient odd creation, all things were made by Him, there was not anything made except what was made by Him. And then the spirit was the perfecter of it. And so the spirit hovered over the face of the deep after the wall came into existence and brought it into a perfected state. Now the same thing happened with God's spiritual creation, the church, right? It was God's will that the church come into being Ephesians 4, and then Jesus came down as the agent of creation in the flesh and helped get all the pieces in place. But He said, "It's not done yet. I'm going back to heaven, and then the spirit comes, and then He brings it all into perfection." Now if that's what the spirit does, what if you have to agree just from the logical standpoint that the most active part of theity that works in your life every day is the Holy Spirit. I mean it's only logical if you look at how things were done in the physical creation and then the spiritual creation of the church would only be logical that the spirit is the most active part of what's going on in our life on a day-to-day basis. Next slide. The Holy Spirit and man's salvation. I mean if Jesus came to seek and save the lost, you know what the Holy Spirit is all about, right? The outpouring of the spirit was promised in Joel 2. It was fulfilled in Acts 2 which led then to the indwelling of the spirit. And then there's another passage you can look at later and look up, but it's in Ezekiel 36. And in this one He is prophesying that the people in captivity, and we're going to go back into their land, and at some point there is an indwelling spirit. I'm going to put my spirit in you and move you to keep God's laws and do the right thing. It's very very similar in that respect to what is said in Jeremiah 31 that's quoted in Hebrews chapter 8 and chapter 10 about the spirit coming into our lives indwelling us and enabling us to really live the life that God has called us to live. But God described that in Ezekiel 36, and I've turned to this passage a lot for a different priest, but God says, I'm going to put you back in the land, I'm going to really bless you, I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit, I think you're looking forward to the new age with Jesus. But then at the end of it in Ezekiel 36, 31, it says, "Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices." The reason I go to that a lot is because it describes tremendous blessings that take place before that, but he says after God blesses you, then it dawns on you where you really are with your sin. You know why we need that because sometimes we give up on people, sometimes we give up on ourselves, we think we can't do it, I remember thinking every time my wife dragged me to church, I was always dragged to church, you know, my woman, my mama dragged me for 18 years and then I got a wife and she wanted to go and I wanted to go fishing as a long story. But I remember thinking it was impossible for a guy with me and my background and my sin to ever get right with a guy. And I remember where I was sitting as a young married guy, the time that it first dawned on me that maybe, maybe, God could change me, it was a very emotional moment, the only time I ever had that talk before then, I never had it before then. But you see, sometimes we give up and that's why grace comes in. Romans 2 said, "By God's grace he intends to move you to repentance." And sometimes there are people you're working with and you think they're not coming to repentance, but grace helps them come through repentance. And so we got to show grace, but sometimes we need to show it to ourselves and not give up on ourselves. But it's often after God's blessings that actually everything sort of falls into place and we realize and then we really get it going with God. The bottom line is we can do with the Spirit what we could never do without it. Romans 8, that's a good passage, let me read that one. "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life, the gospel, set me free from the law of sin and death," that's the law, Adam and Eve where I'm there, "when you sin you die, everyone's under that if they don't become a Christian." But what the law was powerless to do and that it was weakened by the sinful nature God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and he also, in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering, back in King James there, so help me. And so he condemned sin and sinful man and ordered that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the spirit. He's saying that the Spirit helps us live up to God's plan for our lives. We don't do it perfectly but we do it faithfully and we do it in a way that makes God smile and spite of ourselves. Next slide. The Spirit, how does the Spirit work with the message of salvation? The message that we call the Bible was inspired by the Spirit but then we ask the question, what is inspiration? You know this is a needed lesson, pure and pure seminaries in America are putting on their website that the Bible is the inspired and errant word of God. It's hard to find that. When I first started praying for ministry back in the 1970s, in 1970, men, most schools were very strong in the Bible being the inspired and errant word of God. That has slipped a long way with many people that had budged and stitched for a fraction with me. I believe the Bible really is the inspired word of God. Ephesians 3, all right, surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation as I have already written briefly. In reading this then you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ which was not made known to men and other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. And so Paul said God revealed a message to me and through the inspiration and guidance of Holy Spirit I wrote it down and when you read it you can understand exactly what I understand. I love that about the Bible. People say you can't really understand the Bible. I think he can understand most of it pretty easily, are the heart hearts that are difficult to understand a few, yes, but those are not the ones that worry, the ones that worry are the ones that understand all too well and find a dog on challenging to live. But it can be understood because God inspired it, next passage. We know this one sent a study that we do on the Word of God, but listen to it, we again and we have the Word of the Prophet's made more certain and you'll do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Isn't that beautiful? I mean you're up at night now this time of the year, gets a day like late and so I start off my third walk many times in the dark and then I watch it get daylight. It's a cool time of day and I remember what God said about walking in the cool of the day in the garden after Adam and Eve had messed up unfortunately but anyway I often say to God Lord it's so good to be out in the cool of the morning walking and talking with you. This makes my heart feel good and so that's what we do with God and the day star arises the morning star. That would be Jesus. And that's the way the Word works. You know you're studying the Bible, it's just words, it's black and white, home paper and you're studying it and it's not really getting through and then all of a sudden you have one of those aha moments. Wow, I see passages still that I've read hundreds of times and I'm reading them and I think I've never seen this before, it was because I've never been where I am before and I needed it today and it just comes alive, it's like the sun coming up and I think wow God, do you see this God said yeah I think I'll do it but it just speaks to your heart and then he goes on down and explains it, he said above all you must understand that no prophecy of scripture came about by the prophets own interpretation didn't come out of his school brain but prophecy never had its origin in the will of men but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, that's the process of inspiration. You know up until the 1800's everyone thought that the Bible was a record of God reaching out for men and then we had some real intelligent fellows in Germany, I won't give you their wrong names so I can say them, I'm not sure I want to say them but there were some theologians in the 1800's that started applying the theory of evolution to the Bible and they said no the Bible is actually a product of men sneaking and it describes man's search for God, the very opposite of what the Bible claims, the Bible says oh no this is God and his search for men, that's what the inspired word is and the Holy Spirit is the one who inspired these men to do it, next slide. Some questions about inspiration and the message, did everything in the Bible have to be revealed and the answer to that is actually no, you didn't have to have it revealed to know who was the emperor, you didn't have to have it revealed to know something about geography, politics or a number of other things, the thing that was revealed was the spiritual message but the Holy Spirit through the process that we call inspiration protected the speaking of it and the writing of it so that they took the spiritual revelation that God gave them through the spirit plus the things that were commonly known and protected it so that when it was written down it would be accurate, that's the process of inspiration but the spiritual part obviously had to be given, that was found in the Ephesians passage that we looked at. Another question, are all promises regarding the spirit applied to all men and again I would say to that no some are only applicable to the apostles, you need to keep that in mind, okay I think the verse is on this one, is the verse on this one, yeah but the counselor, this is John 14, but the counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you, that's written to the apostles to give them reassurance and comfort as he was about to ascend back to heaven, so every passage is not written to you or me on the other hand, I think God does through the spirit work in our lives in at least a practical way that's very very similar to that and I've seen that many times, I can remember times, but I've been trying to help somebody either in a study to get them to be a Christian or somebody who's going through a hard time and I'm studying with them and I am flat out still, I've said everything that I know to do, I've said everything that I think should get through to this guy's heart and so finally I'm scratching my head and I tell him this is my standard procedure but I'll be back in a minute, I don't even run in the bathroom, it does happen and the older you get, it happens a lot, but anyway I do in all honesty, I go ahead and go to the bathroom, just so I'll be honest, but while I'm on the way and in there and coming out I'm brand God, I don't know what to do, this person obviously is in a bad place, they really need some help, I don't know what to do, please help me out, but I've had this happen so many times, it can't be coincidental, it's not a brain issue, but I go and I sit down and all of a sudden I say something or ask a question and prove, the whole thing gets solved in the next ten minutes and I'm thinking thank you Jesus, wow, so I know that there are many times God does things, I don't know exactly how He does all that, I don't have to know, I'm just praying for Him to do it and He's done it thousands of times in my life, next passage. Are the red letter words of Jesus more inspired and more important than the rest of the new custom? I run into this one a lot with people, they wonder, you know, well the red letter words are the ones that matter to me, a big on the red letter words, false stuff, pretty good, Peter stuff, you know, people think like that, but now here's what Jesus said in that passage, I thought from the apostles, I had much more to say to you more than you can now bear, but when He the spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth, He will not speak on His own, He will speak only what He hears and He will tell you what is yet to come, He will bring glory to me by making from what is mine and making it known to you, all that belongs to the Father is mine, that is why I said the spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you, you study that little passage out, that says that the whole New Testament is equally inspired and when you're reading something from Peter, Peter's they got it maybe wrote it down but the spirit inspired it and He got it from Jesus who got it from the Father and so it is all red letter words in my mind, I've got a few red letter additions, I like my favorite color, from my wife's words at all times, but anyway, all the words are equally inspired by the spirit, next passage sent by the spirit, once the spirit came on Pentecost, what did He do, He sent the apostle in the early church and all the world, a sash one through eight and beyond, Jesus said in Acts 1 you're going to start off in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth, now they didn't know much about the timing of that and God had to help them along with the killing of the first martyr in Acts 7 or 8, but He got all of that done, the Holy Spirit was the one guiding the evangelization of the world and guess what, there's going to be some application to you and me, next passage or next point, the spirit offers the invitation to salvation, the spirit and the bride say come, that's sort of the last mission of the Great Commission in the Bible which is Revelation 22, 17 and He said let Him who here who responds to the spirit and the bride, the bride of the church, so the spirit through the church is saying come and those who listen and come and become Christians, let them say come, say God wants everyone saved, it's a beautiful way to put the Great Commission as God closes out the Revelation, but now the next thing is the spirit loves the priests, I mean that's what He came for, right? The spirit loves the priests, well if the spirit is in you and me, guess what, He can only preach through those who He indwells, for every conversion story here, somebody talks to you, somebody allows the spirit to speak and the thing that sometimes plays me is, but if that person didn't speak to you on that day in that place, where would you be? And then I think if I don't speak to the people that God puts me around, maybe that's God's plan for that day for me and that person, go to the next passage, I'll get through this, how fired up is He about dwelling in you next thing, because He finds you exciting a boy. Look, you don't find the Holy Spirit, I know some disciples, I love them, God bless them, I don't think we'll, but there's some disciples, how they hate to be living in, like us there, down at the bad place, doing bad things, they just not doing what God wants to do, and that is to get people saved, and that comes about by preaching the gospel, it comes out by the spirit doing it, and He's going to do it through you and me. God did not drop this book out of heaven, but at Burgundy, our cover and edges that are sort of gold still, He didn't drop this out of heaven for everybody to read because He knew that the message had to be read a different way. You've got to have two things read at the same time, the book and whoever is sharing, because when you study with someone they're reading both at the same time, they're reading what's in the Bible of black and white, but then they are also reading the red and yellow and black and white, and whoever it is that is delivering it to them, and they want to know does this match, you know, one of the guys I love so much in life is a California guy named Hiddleston, he was in LA for a long time, he was married to out, and glory was young his daughter, Steve is quite a guy, he's a spiritual guy, he's a Nathaniel type guy, and anyway, he's such an interesting guy, he was always interested in religion, and he went to church, he was a good athlete, all his family, they were all in athletic and stuff, but anyway Steve was looking for some God stuff, and so he went to a lot of different churches, he was an athlete, so he did the fellowship of Christian athletes, he tried this, he tried that, and it just didn't distract the itch, he even, I think he was either doing a double major or a minor in religious studies at UCLA, but he just never found one day a guy on campus said, we got this Bible call that I had born, how about coming tonight, Steve said I'd love to, well we'd like to hear that right, I'd love to, he said I went one night, and I listened to what they talked, but he said I'd watch those news, and he says I saw a group of college young men that were dead serious about living, and in one night he said this is it, these are the ones, he got baptized a short time later, but it was the people, it's what he saw, maybe my relationship with my wife way back in the day brought some of these youngins to the side, they want to get married, that's good if our example helped in that way, but people were looking at us all the time, they want to see how we handle everything, you mark it down, there's a really long list of people that had watched Kelly and dealing with her husband's dad, people want to know how are you doing it, it wasn't just a hospice person that said what he said, there were a lot of people watching, they're always watching, especially when we go through the hard times there, that's why the Bible talks about the redemptive value of suffering, that's why Paul said I fell up in my body, the suffering of Jesus, he knew that in the way we handled the pain, that's what brought us people in, there's not just the cause we're good looking and slick and fun and go out and do whatever crazy thing, that's all well and good, so what they're really watching in you and me is what are they doing with the pain, that's a lesson we all need because I hate pain, I don't like it, when I go to the doctor I want a good report, I want the doctor last April, regular checkup, I know the routine, I've been going to doctors a long time, he put the stethoscope on, after we do a few other things, he puts the stethoscope on and he starts moving it around like he always does, but then he's saved right here for a long time, I'm thinking move that dude, move, and he moved it and then he came back, he said you know Mr. Fergus, well I mean this cause me Gordon, he said you know Gordon he said you got a murmur, that means you got a leaky valve in there, he says it's not that abnormal for your age, that you got a problem, and then after that he sends this little Filipino nurse in, to give me an EKG, and I like Filipinos a lot, my daughter lost Filipina and my three grandsons, he would drop them off in Manila, they'd never know that or have any white men in them, but this little nurse comes in and gives me an EKG, and then before I leave she comes back in to give me the final step, and she says by the way he said EKG's different too, and here's what the doctor said for you to do, so the doctor didn't even come and tell me this, I'm thinking gee so the next day I go to take an exocardiogram, and I had to see the doctor in there and they said hey hey Doc, come here, I said you notice this girl tells me I got a bad EKG or something's different about it, a little surprised she didn't come in to tell me that, he said well, I told her to tell you it wasn't that serious, he said well she missed that one, so after a while she comes back in Mr. Fergus, I'm so sorry, I said yeah that was some 24 hours baby, so anyway I don't like paying, I didn't like those reports, I've taken so many texts, I'm taking two new kind of medicines, but people are watching, how you gonna handle this, and I've got a lot of brothers, I found out just before I was going down to teach in the Philippines, down in all the provinces, and some of the brothers said listen man, the medical stuff down here, it's not that good and vanilla, you get down where you are, you don't want to go down there and have a heart problem, we don't think you should come, I said listen, I told the doctor, I was going to the Philippines and he didn't say don't go, so I will be there, and just rest assured, I would much rather come down and die now in Saboo than die one day in diapers while I'm brewing, but people got to watch how you handle that, it took me three months to get used to it, not for three months, I thought good, but we're all good here, I'm talking about life more now about if I broke what to do, but it's good to come to peace with that, it's not hard to imagine Steve means totally at peace with dying, because actually I'm at peace with that, it took three months, run the problems I've got besides the belief, because I've got an aneurysm, an upper aorta aneurysm, they get to a certain size, they break you die 100% of the time, so I felt like I've got a current bomb up in my chest, this thing goes off, I'm gone, and took it three months after that, I don't worry about it, you know I've always said I love preaching, you know that, you want to suffer every month, shut up, but I love to preach, and my dream is to die preaching, I'm serious, I love the Bible, I love talking about the Bible, I love God, I love the fact the Spirit's in me, and He's moving me, and helping me, and every time I get up there days I get up and I feel terrible, I think it's the last thing I'd like to be doing today God, I'd better be anywhere but here, for a lot of reasons, but I said God this is your gift you gave me, you use it, I don't deserve it, but they do turn the thing on, and let's go, and God and I, we, we got such a good relationship, we get to talk about a lot, you know, I think God wants us to be as open with Him as we are with each other, right, so I never feel bad about just telling God what I think, I started break times off, God, just the last thing I'd like to be doing right now is praying, and I know you already know that, but I just need to say it, but I tell you about the time I'm done, I'll be in a very different place, and He always answers that prayer, that's the way the Psalm is was, you know, most every Psalm, He can start off terrible and doesn't good, set for Psalm 88, the darkness is my closest friend, you know, while the rest of them end up really good, because that's what prayer does for you, we start off in one place, we end up in another, next slide, I got to hurry up here, the Spirit wants to say, He seeks us out, He told Philip, you go and find the guy in that chariot, and you speak to Him, He sent him directly to find the guy, next, next one, He convicts us, the Holy Spirit came to convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come, next verse, the way that He convicts the sin, righteousness, and judgment to come, one way, there's more than once, one way is clearly through the world, because when He was reasoning with Felix, we've said He reasoned with Him of self-control, righteousness, and judgment to come, almost exactly like John 16, and Felix was terrified to get out of here, I thought to you later, go away, and so He sent him away, next passage, He worked hard to keep us safe, and this is the one we're most interested in right now, he indwells us, we know that, next, He is our seal, back in the day, you know, He wrote the letter, they didn't have those nice self-sticks or the liquors either, and so you drop the piece of wax on and put the king's signet in it, and that meant it's here, so we are sealed by God, I can't tell by looking whether you've been sealed or not, I don't know whether you're saved or not, but the spirit world, the good and the bad side, they know, they can see, you have been sealed with all the spirit and the spirit world can look and say it see immediately who is saved and who is not, next one, He is a deposit, that's like earnest money, that means you put the money down, you'll be back, you'll do the deal, that's what God has given us the spirit to do is to guarantee, if we just hang on to Him, we are going to go to Heaven, we are going to inherit, next one, He strengthens us, Ephesians 3 talks about being strengthened in the inner man, most of us know that passage fairly well, but it talks about the spirit strengthening us in the inner man, the next slide up there is a jogging slide, and the reason, by the way, I don't do PowerPoint nearly as well as Michael Wood does, so he fixed all this up and found me a jogger, but that when I first started jogging at about age 40, I started off and I got to three miles, and so every morning I ran three miles, I had this little guy in the Air Force that called me up and come wake me up and pushed me to do it, and I finally got hooked on it for a while, he was one of those addictions that didn't last long enough, I got addicted for a while, and we run every day, so one day I said okay, all we run is three miles, we're starting to run five or six miles on Saturday, I said man, I can barely make three miles, I'm going to do that, he said come on, I'll be over Saturday, so we took off jogging, and we started going and we started going down this hill, and I talked to myself, this is not good, because the law of jogging says what goes down must come up, you know it in reverse, right, what goes up must come down, but anyway, what goes down must come up, and I think that's a long hill, I don't know how I'm going to get up but we got back, and it's worth approaching this hill, I said I can't do it, man I've already run further than I've ever run, I cannot run up that hill, oh yes you care, he kept on trying to persuade me, I finally said alright I'm going to give him my best shot, I don't think I can do it but I'm going to give him my best shot, I won't quit, I started going up the hill, this little guy he was strong as an auto, he just he's in behind me, put his hand in the small amount bag, and help me up the hill, and I thought you know that's pretty much how the spirit works, if you just dig your heels in and say no I'm not doing it, the spirit is not going to make you do anything because he will not violate your free will, that's what makes you a human and not a robot, he will not violate your free will, but if you want to do it, if you're an auto, aren't you want to do it, for God, and you at least start doing it, Holy Spirit is going to pick it up and help you do what you can't do, he won't do for you what you can, but he will do for you what you can, and he will do it all of your life in some amazing ways, next slide, he wants to keep us safe, he intercedes far from and is safe, next one, we already went through that, he actually found a density far from, I love this one, he often acts in ways that are very delightful to us leading us into the blessings of God, he works providential, I was talking to Mike and Libby last night, as we were eating way too much food, I forgot to pay for the sin of granted, but anyway, I'll do it later, anyway we're talking last night about our plan in San Diego which was a fantastic plan, way back in the mid 80s, such a beautiful plan. 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Inland Empire Ministries regional service with guest speaker Gordon Ferguson.