Baptism of the Holy Spirit - Part 2 by Chuck Smith

tonight we want to continue our study on the subject of the Holy Spirit the purpose of these studies is to bring each of us into a deep personal relationship with the Holy Spirit that we might experience the power of God's Spirit in our lives jesus said you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and we each of us need that power and we desire that as the result of the study and our understanding of the Holy Spirit and his work in the church and in the world and in the life of the believer that we will each one as the result of these classes be able to appropriate the power of God's Holy Spirit in our lives and in every area of our lives not just in a static kind of utterances but that we might have that real dynamic and power in our life to help us in our total Christian experience because some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are rather unique the gift of tongues and things of this nature quite often this becomes the emphasis of a study on the Holy Spirit we do not plan to make that an emphasis of this study the steam in a locomotive is the thing that gives it its power but if you let all of the steam out through the whistle you'll never go down the track and we want the power to get us down the road that power the spirit to really help us in our whole total Christian experience now last week we studied the personality of the Holy Spirit showing that the Holy Spirit is not just an essence but is a person indeed having all of the characteristics of person and personality so the essence with a force but we're getting acquainted with a person the Holy Spirit is often referred to as the third person of the Godhead there is one God he has been manifested in three persons and so you have the compound unity of God I have one fist but it is comprised of four fingers and a thumb but when it's doubled up like this it's a compound unity into one fist so there are the three persons of the Godhead United together in a compound unity so you have the one God and yet the three distinct persons of the Godhead the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and we seek tonight by the scriptures to show to you the deity of the Holy Spirit so that in understanding that the Spirit is God he is then to be honored he is to be worshiped and he is to be reverenced by us there are certain characteristics that God possesses that makes him God and separates him from man the first of these characteristics is that God is eternal by that we mean God has no beginning he has always existed now here we are our narrow little finite minds bound to this little finite earth and we cannot comprehend infinity all we can do is comprehend that infinity can exist though we can never comprehend infinity so it is impossible for me in my mind to intellectually grasp the fact that God has always existed you see with everything I know everything I touch it all had a beginning and we looked down to the road when it all comes to an end this Bible that I have had a beginning but it's coming to an ending you say part of its beginning was probably in a tree and then they took the pulp and made the paper and then they you know printed it and assembled it and everything we know everything we see it we can we think of as as the beginning of it the beginning of our lives the day that we were born but God is eternal he has always existed there was never a time when God wasn't God will always exist there will never be a time when God isn't so that is what is referred to and that is what is meant when we say that God is eternal he has always been he will always be and of course that's the characteristic that puts him above us we do have everlasting life in Jesus Christ that is life that will never end and that is difficult for us to comprehend but God has life that always was human life began at a point and at a time when God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul there was the beginning of man but God has always existed in Hebrews the ninth chapter in the fourteenth verse the writer to the Hebrews is talking about Jesus Christ and the work of Jesus Christ and he's contrasting it with the sacrifices of the of the old well that the these the blood of bulls and of goats the ashes of a heifer would sanctify the things that the Old Testament how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit so here that eternal attribute is attributed the Nottoli spirit he coexisted with the father in the beginning through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God and trustingly enough you see the three persons of the Godhead in this particular verse the blood of Christ which was offered through the Eternal Spirit offering himself without spot to God so the three persons of the Godhead here in Hebrews 9:14 God is present now at the ax dromeda galaxy throughout the entire Milky Way galaxy he's present here with us in the sanctuary but he was present with you in your car as you were driving to the sanctuary and he was present with you while you were eating dinner before you got in your car to drive to the sanctuary there is no place that you can go and escape the presence of God because he is not localized he is everywhere present at once now this same characteristic is expressed also of the Spirit of God he also is everywhere present at once in Psalm 139 in verse seven David asks the question where shall I go from thy spirit or how can I flee from your presence if I ascend up into heaven you are there if my make my bed in hell you are there if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me if I say surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light about me and so he speaks about the impossibility of escaping the Spirit of God where shall I go from thy spirit you can't escape the Spirit of God any more than you can escape the presence of God that of course should alter our actions realizing that whatever we do wherever we do it we're doing it right in the presence of God not only was he there when you were eating dinner but he was also there when you were blowing it you never escape God's presence everything that is that that we do we do in his presence nothing is hid from him and I think that we need to be more aware of the presence of God in our homes we so often say Oh Lord we're so glad to come into your presence tonight in your sanctuary here so good Lord to come into your presence well listen when you were screaming at the kids before you came you were in his presence you know and it is important to realize when you leave this place tonight you're not leaving the presence of God God is with you he goes with you when you get in your car when you drive down the street when you're crawling to bed tonight the presence of the Lord is surrounding you the presence of his spirit and then there is one other characteristic of God that is called his omnipotence by this is meant that God is all-powerful now many times we think of Satan as an opposite of God and that is always wrong to think of Satan in that light Satan is not an opposite of God Satan is opposed to God but he's not an opposite of God Satan does not possess the same characteristics that God possesses Satan is a created being God is an eternal being Satan has limited knowledge God has all knowledge Satan has limited powers and they are limited by God you remember that Satan in talking to God about job said you've put a hedge around him you won't let me get to him he was complaining of his limited powers the restrictions that God had placed upon it now if Satan is an opposite to anything he would be an opposite to the Angels who remain faithful to God maybe an opposite to Michael or an opposite to Gabriel angels who remain true and faithful to God would be more an opposite of Satan than Satan being an opposite of God so Satan's powers are definitely limited limited by God where God has all power now this same characteristic is also attributed to the Holy Spirit in the first chapter of Luke when the angel Gabriel had come to Mary and informed her that she had found favor with God and was chosen by God to bring his son into the world Mary questioned the procedure by which this might take place in as much as she was a virgin and answering her in verse 35 the angel said the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee so that power of God resident in the Holy Spirit will overshadow thee therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God so the Holy Spirit the power of the highest now the works of God are also attributed to the Holy Spirit when we think of the work of God basic and primary is the creation of the universe that is God's beginning work God continues to work he's doing a work in our lives tonight but we think of the work of God in creation now in the Hebrew there are a couple of words for create one is bara which means to create out of non existing materials the other is aweso which means to create by assembling existing materials so somebody acid this piano that is they assembled existing materials and so we say well they created a marvelous piano here now we don't mean that they said who piano appear you know and and suddenly out of nothing here was a piano all ready to be played but we mean that they took materials and they designed and they put them together and they they stretched the strings out on the pegs and so forth and and they put the little hammers in there and glued everything together and they assembled from existing materials so the piano was created but not in the primary sense of creation that is being able to create out of nothing only God has that capacity of creating from nothing so that is a divine capacity out of nothing to make something now we've met a lot of people that can make something out of nothing but we're talking about a mess God has God said let there be light and there was light and by His divine word by just speaking he spoke things into existence there's a interesting passage in the book of Hebrews that in the eleventh chapter there verse three through faith we understand that the world's the universe was framed by the Word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear by faith the author of the book of Hebrews believed that the observable world around you was made of invisible things by the Word of God you say well that doesn't take faith anymore we've got science that has proved that our whole observable universe is made out of invisible atoms well the the men of faith knew that a long time before the men of science out of nothing God has created so this capacity of creation a divine capacity in Joel chapter 33 and verse 4 job said the Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the almighty has given me life so job attributes creation to the Spirit of God in Psalm 104 verse 30 the psalmist here declares thou send us forth thy spirit they are created and thou renewest the face of the earth so the spirit was a creative force or agency of God a second characteristic interesting characteristic of God is that of being able to foretell future events with 100% accuracy Mike and I can tell you that there's going to be an earthquake here in Southern California in the future not bet I'm right as long as I don't go any further than that you know I can be a real prophet where I get into trouble is if I start to tell you when it's gonna happen where it's gonna happen and what intensity and you know what hour it will take place then is when I can prove myself to be a false prophet if I would you know get up here and say I'm speaking to you of God and you know and and and telling you all this kind of stuff we experienced that what was it back in 1968 or so when a lot of churches and a lot of groups were getting prophesies that California was going to be inundated by a great flood and was gonna slough off into the Pacific you know and and a lot of people moved from California because of these prophecies in fact there were some people over here in the area around Victorville that got a lot of boats and long ropes and everything else because according to the prophecies the thing was going to cut off right about the San Bernardino Mountains and all and so they got a lot of ropes and everything's that where people you know floated up there they could lift him up and they were putting supplies in over in Wrightwood area and all and they had a big cult thing going on that you know and California is gonna and all of these prophecies and confirmations everything else and a lot of stuff written back in 1968 about that said of course if you remember 1968 when a lot of people are taking LSD - and you could see all kinds of weird things so that being able to foretell events before they take place characteristic capacity of God in fact in the Book of Isaiah God said now if you say that you are gods prove it tell us something before it takes so that after it happens we can stand in awe and know that you know what you're talking about that would be tell it with some detail you know ridi ridi spell it out for us there are always those who after the fact say well you know I I predicted that you know this gal who said that she predicted the attempted assassination on Reagan you know a psychics supposed to have seen all this stuff and you know after it happened she suddenly you know came up and then the whole thing was pointed out to be a phony which is so oftentimes the case God though speaks of events before they take place speaks of them with intricate detail spells things out so that when these things do happen you will know that God is speaking so the capacity of speaking prophetically as a divine capacity now in 2nd Peter chapter 1 as Peter is talking about prophecy verse 19 we have also a more sure word of prophecy where until you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation but the for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and so it was the Holy Spirit that led these men speak these words of prophecy that have all of them come to pass up until this point with a hundred percent accuracy the Holy Spirit speaking of the future a divine capacity and characteristic now in the New Testament we find the Holy Spirit coupled with the father and with the son in the 28th chapter of Matthew's Gospel verse 19 where Jesus commanded his disciples to go and to teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit now what it in anywise be correct to say baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of Moses know immediately you recognize that you're putting Moses in a place that he doesn't belong he's not at all on a par with the father and with the son to put any man with that would be totally wrong because no man is equal with God or could be placed on an equal footing with God therefore the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit even so to say the father and the son and the wind or the father and the son and an essence the Holy Spirit is a person like the father and the son but he is also God thus the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and the three of them are coupled together in the baptismal formula that Jesus gave in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 as Paul here is talking to the Corinthians about the gifts of the Spirit beginning with verse 4 he said now there are diversities or there are different gifts they are diverse but the same spirit there's only one spirit but there are diverse gifts there are differences of administration's but the same Lord that would be Jesus Christ and there are diversities of operations but the same God which worketh all and in all so you find the spirit you find Christ you find God as he's talking about these gifts the diversity of the gifts and the differences of the administration's and the diversity of the operations of the gifts still you have the one spirit the one Lord the one God the Father so the three of them again used synonymously in second Corinthians of course 1314 where Paul gives this apostolic benediction he declares the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the wind be with you all amen no it wouldn't make sense would it what fellowship do you have with a wind or with an essence but the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit a person a person of the Godhead so the love of God the grace of Jesus Christ the love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all the three of them again coupled together no all of this is really unnecessary because of one scripture in Acts chapter five where the Holy Spirit is said to be gone Ananias and Sapphira were in the early church and they had sold some property and they decided to put away a little bit for themselves in case in the future they had some needs and there was nothing wrong with that but it became wrong because they pretended that they were giving everything that they got for their property they were trying to deceive the leaders in the early church and the people the church itself making a pretence of giving everything and yet holding back for themselves so Ananias came in and he brought a certain part of the money and laid it at the Apostles feet and Peter said Ananias why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land while it was yours was it not your own and after it was sold wasn't it all in your own power why did you conceive this thing in your heart you have not lied to men but unto God now notice he said why did you try to lie to the Holy Spirit he said you haven't lied to man you've lied to God and so Peter putting the two together is declaring that the Holy Spirit is God you've not lied to man you've lied to God then there are scriptures in the Old Testament that are said to be Jehovah speaking in Jeremiah 31 verse 31 Jeremiah 31:31 behold the day's come saith the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them out by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt which my covenant they broke although I was a husband unto them saith Jehovah but this shall be the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith Jehovah I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people now three times in this short passage it is attributed to Jehovah saith Chava behold the days come saith Chava and so if we turn now to e Bruce 10:15 he is quoting this passage of scripture from Jeremiah 31 and he declares we're of the Holy Spirit also is a witness to us for after that he had said before this is the Covenant that I will make with them after those days saith the Lord I will put my laws in their hearts and in their minds will I write them and their sins and iniquities up will I remember no more now in the Old Testament it was declaring that Jehovah had said these things in the New Testament it declares it was the Holy Spirit that said these things which again makes the Holy Spirit God there's certain rules in geometry that we used to have on equal sides and equal angles and so forth you know means they're the same it comes out I forget the theorems anymore but that was a long time ago you forgive me Isaiah chapter 8 and verse 6 yeah six-eight also I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send and who will go for us then said I here am I send me Isaiah just had this vision of God and the vision of God pretty much wiped him out [Music] I think that in in the scripture every time a person really saw God they were pretty totally personally devastated because for the first time they really saw themselves now you see a person walking around all proud and everything else he's a person who has never really seen God have you ever see God it's a wipeout he said I saw the Lord High and lifted up sitting upon the throne is trained to fill the temple and all his glory filled the temple then said I whoa is me and that's always the response of a man who really you know comes into a real apprehension of God Oh what was me you know he sees everything he knows everything woe is me for I am undone I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips and then he saw a cherubim that took a call from the altar and he touched the lips of Isaiah and he said now you are clean you know and then he heard the voice of the Lord saying who will go for us who will be send and Isaiah responded I am air I'll go with send me Lord and the Lord said unto him go and tell these people here indeed you do hear indeed but you don't understand you do see indeed but you don't perceive make the heart of the people fat make their ears heavy shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes hear with their ears and understand with their heart and convert and be healed so the Lord is saying this to Isaiah as he is responding to the call of the Lord whom will go for us who shall we send in Acts chapter 28 verse 25 Paul is in Rome he is imprisoned but he does have certain liberties that is as far as guests they can come and visit him while he is in Rome he's busy witnessing to a lot of people and there a lot of conversions even those of Caesars household but Paul's heart was always to win the Jews because he had been such a zealous Jew he figured that he could relate to them though he never was able to do successfully so he called together some Jews to his prison and he began to share Jesus Christ with them the Scriptures and how that Christ was the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament persuading them concerning Jesus both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets from morning till evening I mean he was really going for it and some believe the things that he was telling them and others didn't and when they did not agree among themselves started arguing among themselves they departed after that Paul had spoken one word he said well spake the holy spirit by Isaiah the prophet unto our fathers saying go unto this people and say hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand and seeing ye shall see perceive and you shall see and not perceive so he attributes again to the Holy Spirit these very things that were attributed to the Lord in Isaiah again just declaring that the Holy Spirit is the Lord he is God he is a part of that compound unity of the yet the three persons in one therefore in coming into a relationship with the Holy Spirit you are coming into a vital relationship with God now it is important in having a relationship with each other to have a total relationship you've got to relate on every level and especially if you're coming into a marriage relationship now so often relationships begin on the physical level you see another person and you're attracted to them physically and because you're attracted to them physically you then seek to relate to them on a mental level and sometimes this is successful in tongues sometimes it's chaotic they're very pretty but they're dumb and so you can't relate on a mental level but there are times when you can relate on a mental level and you find that say we're pretty compatible we like the you know pizza and we country-western music and on and you find that you have similar likes and you're attracted physically to each other and and you you find that there is a a certain amount of compatibility and you say would you marry me oh yes yes you know all right you know let's set the date and and you get married you go oh this is glorious boy we both like pizza and we're gonna live happily ever after and on your honeymoon you eat pizza every night and things are going great but then you begin to discover there are some differences and these differences begin to crop up and you try to ignore them to begin with and pretty soon it begins to irritate you and bug you and so you finally say well you quit chewing with your mouth open I don't like to see the pepperonis in your mouth when you're chewing them you know and you know it's you've been bugged by it and now difference is well yeah you may not like that but what you're doing makes me sick too you know and here we go I'm gonna go home to mama go ahead you know I'm good riddance well it is extremely difficult to hold the relationship together well let me say first of all a lot of times relationships break down in the emotional or mental area but they continue to try to hold them together in the physical area it doesn't work it's hard enough to hold them together with both the physical and emotional but there is a third dimension of relationship that really cements and creates relationship and that's the dimension of the spiritual and a lot of times when the other two are just really blown the spiritual is still there to hold together until the other two levels can be healed and you cannot have a total relationship with another person without the spiritual dimension because man is a three-fold being he has body he is mind and he is spirit and you can relate physically and you can relate mentally but there must also to have a total relationship be a spiritual relationship and this is the dimension that sadly so many marriages are missing and missing this vital spiritual relationship there is never a total relationship between the two persons now the same if I am to totally relate to God I must come into this spiritual relationship with the Spirit of God I relate to Jesus I relate to the Father but I do not have a total relationship with God until I am also relating to the Holy Spirit and thus it is important that I understand that the Holy Spirit does exist as a person that he is a part of the Godhead in order that I might relate to the spirit in order that I might have a total relationship with God and many of you your lives and your relationship with God has been lacking because you have not yet come into a full relationship with the Holy Spirit and that of course is what we seek to help you with in this series of Monday night studies as we learn more about the Holy Spirit and as we go into the how of relationship with the Holy Spirit now you can't relate to something you don't even know exist and that's why we wanted to lay the foundation of the personality of the Holy Spirit and the deity of the Holy Spirit and now we want to enter into the relating to the Holy Spirit and all as we move on into these studies in order that we might each of us come into a total relationship with God as I relate to the father as I relate to the son as as sort of my elder brother and as I li relate to the spirit that source of dynamic and power in my Christian life that source from which God's power flows unto me and ultimately through me to the needy world around me shall we pray father we thank you for thy word whereby we learn of you we thank you father for the Holy Spirit whom you have sent and for that power that he is given to us for his work in our lives o Lord we pray that we might come into a complete relationship with him a fuller understanding of his work within us that we might yield to that power and that we might experience all of the benefits and all of the capabilities that are ours through the anointing of the Spirit upon our lives Lord we thank you that your Holy Spirit is willing to come and take residence within us that our bodies can become the temples the dwelling place of thy spirit Let It Be father come dwell in our lives by your Holy Spirit we pray in Jesus name Amen spirit of the Living God fall afresh on me spirit of love [Music] the brass army me [Music] speed [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the brass army you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] on me [Music] you you

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Keywords: Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth, Chuck Smith

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Length: 54min 41sec (3281 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 07 2018