Thanks so much for joining us on the Line of Fire. Class is now in session in our Digital School of the Word and the Spirit. We are teaching a new series now on getting to know the Holy Spirit.
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Click subscribe. All right, the Holy Spirit is a person. By that we mean that he has personality. In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is God's power. The Holy Spirit in Judaism is an it. It's not an actual entity as we would speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And yet, in the Hebrew Bible, you can see the Holy Spirit teaching and leading. You can even see the Holy Spirit being grieved, which would indicate the Holy Spirit's not just a power, but a person, meaning with personality. So when we understand this, we have a relationship with God through the Spirit. We walk with God through the Spirit. We have communion with the Spirit. When we realize we're not just dealing with a force, a power, something abstract like the blowing wind, we're dealing with the person of God in the Spirit, it does change things a lot.
Now, here's the thing. It's so important to get to know the Spirit because as God's children, we are led by the Spirit. In the first place, we are led to worship God and to turn away from the sins and idols of this world. And then we are led by the Spirit. Romans 8 14, as many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God. We are led by the Spirit to say no to sin and yes to God. So the Holy Spirit is drawing us to Jesus. The Holy Spirit is drawing us away from the flesh and the world. The Holy Spirit is also drawing us out to obey God, and it's a life of faith.
Think of this. God speaks to Abram in Genesis 12, the famous words in Hebrew, lech lecha, which means go with respect to yourself, get going. To a land, I'll show you.
I don't really like that. I would prefer to know which land. How long is the journey? What do I do when I get there?
Now, some of us are more carefree cavalier that just step out, but some of you are real planters. And I'll say, okay, I need you to get ready for a trip in a couple of weeks. Well, where? Well, it'll be somewhere overseas. Well, where overseas?
Well, in what city? Where will we be staying? And what food we'll be eating?
And what airline we'll be taking? And it's just your nature to have a million questions you need answered before you take a step. But God often doesn't give us all the information. Sometimes we just know it's time to make a change. You have this stirring. You've been feeling it for weeks at work. Boy, I feel like it's time to make everything seems fine here. But I just feel in the Lord, it's time to make a change. And I know many times with the men, you come home and tell your wife, she's like, I knew that three months ago.
I've just been waiting for you to sense as well. God showed me that. But it's a faith walk. So God told Abraham, go. And then only later told them where he was going. And God leads us step by step.
Psalm 119 105 says that the word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. I remember when I was starting college at the age of 18. And I was only going to college to honor my parents because they wanted me to go. I just wanted to preach and be reading the Bible. So they wanted me to go.
So God convicted me, honor your father and mother. That's pretty basic. I was going to college. I just signed up as a music major because I was good with that. And obviously it was not a fit for me long-term, but I said to the pastor, I said, what do I do four years from now? That seems like a valid question, right?
What am I going to do four years from now? And he smiled and said, God's word is the lamp to our feet, light to our path. He didn't even quote the verse. He just said Psalm 119 105. He knew I memorized a lot of scripture as well.
And he said those days, a lamp was just like a candle, just illuminated one step at a time. But it's a faith walk. God doesn't give us all the information in advance. If he did, we wouldn't need to walk by faith. And many times God will show us what's coming so that we count the costs more adequately, but many other times it's step out, walk by faith because here's the most important thing to God in terms of our own lives. He wants us to trust him. He wants us to trust him for who he is. That's why just the righteous live by faith. We are justified by faith.
It's not abstract information. It's trusting God. God, I know who you are. I know you were good. I know you were faithful. I know you were kind. I know you were gracious and I put my trust in you. I was at a prayer retreat a few months ago.
I do these monthly just to get away and spend a weekend with the Lord, cut back on some of my ministry travel schedule in order to do that. And I was asking the Lord, what would really please you? What would really bring you joy? What would bring pleasure to you, Lord? And I just felt that inner voice say, trust me.
I want you to trust me. As we get to know the Holy Spirit better, it'll help us trust God more. So, Ephesians chapter four, verse 30. Ephesians chapter four, verse 30. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Can I read that again? Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Now, there can be many images associated with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can be liking to rain. The Holy Spirit can be liking to win. The Holy Spirit is poured out. That's why many think of the Spirit as an it rather than a personal entity. And the Holy Spirit can be likened to a seal or a deposit. So, these are all different images of the Holy Spirit. But hey, Jesus is likened to a lion. He's likened to a lamb.
There can be different images associated with a person. But notice this. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. You can't grieve a rock. You can't grieve the wind. You can't grieve the water. You can't grieve the the desk where I'm sitting. You can't grieve a car.
You get the point. You can only grieve a person. You can only grieve someone with personality. And we are told don't grieve the Holy Spirit, which is indicating to us that the Holy Spirit is a personal being that God wants us to have fellowship with. Now what about it says you were sealed for the day of redemption? Sealed can mean on the one hand potentially sealed like the bottle is sealed and it can't be opened.
That's one way of reading it. The way it's normally understood here or commonly understood is sealed and meaning God's stamp. God's seal is on us. The Holy Spirit is God's stamp on us. Ephesians 1 says the Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. Now here's a question for you.
How real is the Holy Spirit in your life? If I say okay I'm going to make a deposit on this property. This piece of land costs a hundred thousand dollars. I'm going to put down a ten thousand dollar deposit because we're going to build a house on this land.
Okay that is a a tangible something. I'm giving ten thousand dollars to the realtor, to the bank. That's an actual deposit. Someone in the ancient world they're bartering. Okay take my goat here and two calves and and that's my deposit.
When I come back I'll make the full payment. The Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. So our relationship with the Holy Spirit should be so deep, so real that that gives us a sure and clear is this assurance for what's coming.
Can you say that in your own life? Yes I know I've received the Holy Spirit. I didn't ask if you speak in tongues or prophesy. That wasn't my question. Do you know that you receive the Holy Spirit? Well I take it by faith that when I was born again the Holy Spirit came and lived inside of me. Amen.
He did. But here's my question. Is it something that you're consciously aware of? Does it have realism to you? Is it something you can sink your teeth into? If the Holy Spirit is given as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance there should be something where we we sink our teeth into this. We know that we know. We have a sense of assurance, of confidence.
Why? Because the Holy Spirit is the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. The Holy Spirit real. Someone that we can commune with.
Someone that we can grieve. Unless we understand the Holy Spirit is a person with a personality we will not relate to him properly and we'll have a deficient understanding of what it means to be led by him. So let's look at some verses that speak about the Holy Spirit leading us, guiding us, teaching us, instructing us to reinforce the personhood of the Holy Spirit.
Then we'll come back to the idea of grieving the Spirit. Acts chapter 5 verse 3. Acts chapter 5 verse 3. Then Peter said to Ananias, Peter said, Ananias, how is it that Satan has filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?
Oh, Ananias and Sapphira, Jewish couple professing faith in Yeshua. People are selling their properties and giving to the poor so everyone has things in common. Hey, I've got extra here. Let me sell and give this away. Wonderful. Good. They're doing all of that. Everybody's living together and sharing as needed. Ananias and Sapphira say, hey listen, this looks like a good thing to do. We want to be spiritual like everybody else. So we'll sell our property but we'll keep some from ourselves and we'll lie. We'll say, yeah, this is it. So Peter says, is this full price?
Just knew in his heart something was wrong. Yeah, it's full price. They could have said, no, we felt that we would give 75%. Oh, bless you for giving 75%. Nobody was requiring everyone to do it.
It was not being required. But Ananias and Sapphira came up with this idea, okay, we're going to keep some for ourselves and lie about the purchase price. And Peter says, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit? You don't lie to a rock. You don't lie to a river. You don't lie to the wind.
You lie to a person. You lied to the Holy Spirit. And then with Sapphira, shortly after, Peter said to her, how could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? So you can lie to the Spirit. You can test the Spirit because the Spirit has personality. The Spirit is part of God himself and not just God's active power.
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We are listener supported. Thank you so much for standing with us and helping us reach more, folks. If we've been a blessing to you, help us reach more.
You can go to thelineoffire.org and click donate. All right, Revelation chapter 3 verse 22. Revelation chapter 3 verse 22. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. In the book of Revelation chapters 2 and 3, Jesus speaks words to each of the congregations in Asia Minor.
Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, the seven congregations, the churches, meaning the believers in each of these cities. And each one the Spirit is speaking and then whoever has an ear, whoever has an ear culminates in 3.22. Whoever has an ear, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. So the Spirit is speaking the words of Jesus to the church. The Spirit is speaking the words of Jesus to the church.
When Jesus is speaking to the church, he speaks by the Spirit. Romans chapter 8 verse 26. Talking about how we don't always know how to pray and we're in a fallen world and the whole world groaning under pain and death and suffering and upheaval.
That's the state of the world, even the animal world groaning for redemption for the world to come. In the same way, Romans 8 26, the Holy Spirit helps us. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. The Holy Spirit intercedes.
The Scripture also goes on to say that the Spirit knows the mind of God. The Spirit understands the mind of the Father and therefore can lead us in prayer. So I don't know if you've ever been so burdened that you can't speak words and it's not just a groan of you're upset, but a groan from the innermost part of your being which is, oh, it's an old God, but sometimes you can't even get the words out. You know, how do you pray?
Hurricane disaster, so many people dying, war in the Middle East, war in Ukraine, fentanyl overdoses decimating Americans, all kinds of upheaval around the world, so much suffering, but sometimes situations you find yourself in with your own family. I don't even know how to pray. I don't even know how to pray. The Holy Spirit intercedes through us with groans that words cannot articulate.
It's the same word used in Greek for the children of Israel in Egypt. Their sighs, their groans went up to God. God heard that. This is the person of the Spirit praying through us. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, the manifestations of the Spirit. So we can think of the Spirit as power, raw power, the power of God. And the Holy Spirit does represent and carry God's power.
Again, Acts 1-8, you will receive power, dunamis, when the Holy Spirit comes in. Let me just pause here for a moment and say, never try to understand what an ancient word means, in this case an ancient Greek word, or in the Old Testament an ancient Hebrew word. Never try to understand what that word means based on how it's used today. You have certain words like cinnamon that go all the way back in the Old Testament, kinamon, or kumen goes all the way back to Sumerian and ancient languages, and some of the words maintain a similar or same meaning to this day. But I've often heard that we get the word dynamite from the Greek word dunamis, which is true. We get the English word dynamite from the Greek word dunamis, yes. But it doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is the dynamite power of God.
Have you ever heard preachers say that, especially a Pentecostal preacher? It's the dynamite power of God! Well, dynamite blows people up. Dynamite destroys, demolishes, when the woman with the issue of blood has been bleeding all those years and is no better, and she touches the fringe of Jesus' garment, and instantly she's healed.
And what does Jesus say? Dunamis has come out of me. Dunamis has gone out of me.
What's going on? She didn't blow up. He didn't say dynamite when she blew her up. You'll receive power, you'll receive dunamis when the Holy Spirit comes to you. It doesn't mean you're all going to blow up. So please don't determine the meaning of an ancient biblical word based on how it's been used in another language, century, millennia, cultures later, alright?
Just wanted to point that out. But we can think of the power of the Spirit and forget the personality of the Spirit. So the manifestations of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12, the manifestations of the Spirit that were given for the common good, they include word of knowledge, word of wisdom, prophecy, discernment. In other words, there's intelligence here. There's intelligence that the Holy Spirit is speaking, the Holy Spirit is leading, the Holy Spirit is discerning, the Holy Spirit is giving revelation, right?
Forget the debate whether gifts are for today or not, that's not even the subject. We're talking about the person of the Holy Spirit. So read 1 Corinthians 12, the manifestations of the Spirit are given for the common good, not just power, not just healings and miracles, but also prophecy and tongues. These are things being spoken and words of knowledge and wisdom, which is in many cases information and special teaching that's being given. That's the Holy Spirit speaking and acting. The Holy Spirit ultimately, as God, knows everything.
And the Holy Spirit in you can lead you. Can I tell you a story? It happened in my own life.
You can take it or leave it, but I'm just going to tell you what happened. It was in the late 80s, early 90s, when we lived in Maryland. I was speaking at a little congregation. They were too small to be using a building of their own, too big to just meet the house, 20, 30 people would gather. And they invited me to speak, they were having a Saturday night meeting, and they were using on Saturday night a tiny little church building.
Tiny. So their little crowd kind of packed the place. And as I was speaking that night, I learned that they had been fasting that day. The church had been called on a fast that God would speak to them that night.
And it was one of those nights as I finished teaching the Word, I had a sense of a word for this one and a word for this one. I remember this woman here, you can't have children, and all of a sudden a woman screams. It was not like there were a lot of people there. You know, if you have 10,000 people, you can say someone here can't have kids.
Well, obviously it's going to be somebody. But it was an amazing night where it felt like the Holy Spirit was just speaking through me to this one and this one and this one and this one. But there was a guy sitting in the front with a kind of a smirk on his face, big smile, but a mocking smirk. Yeah, right, this isn't real. And God was visibly touching people that were weeping and being impacted by the Lord. And I thought to myself, Lord, it's not right that he's sitting here mocking. It's not right that he's in your holy presence. And it's just mocking it and mocking those who are being touched.
And I've never done this before or since. But as I was praying this prayer, as the service was going on at the end, I just felt in myself the Holy Spirit lives in me and the Holy Spirit knows everything. The Holy Spirit knows this man. And just then, I didn't look at him directly because I didn't want to single him out, publicly embarrass him.
I said, there's someone here. You're a pickpocket. And God knows you. In fact, right before the service, you were boasting, you were boasting about how on the way to the church service with your friend, you pick somebody's pocket. That's how good you are.
You were boasting about it right before the service. Well, God wants you to know he knows who you are. It's the only time I've ever had that sense. Well, the Holy Spirit is here. The Holy Spirit knows everything. Draw on the mind of the Spirit. And again, a rock or river or cloud does not have a mind. The Spirit has a mind. So I said those words. And as I said them, the smile disappears from this guy's face.
Disappears. Next day, the pastor calls me. He said, hey, Mike, tell me about that word. Who was that for? What was that about?
I told them. He said, well, needless to say, he came in very skeptical. He left with a very, very different attitude. Obviously, the fear of the Lord was put on him. The Spirit has a mind. The Spirit speaks. The Spirit can be grieved. And we're going to go through John 14 and 15 and 16 and look at how important the Spirit's coming is from Jesus himself saying, better than I go.
I'm only in one place at one time. Better than I go. So I can say to the Spirit, and then he says this, but I won't leave you orphans. I won't leave you orphans. I'll come to you. How?
By the Spirit. That's where we pick up on the next broadcast. This is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for tuning in. Just a reminder that we are listener supported. If we have been a blessing to you, if you're being enriched in the word and prayer and your own walk with God through this broadcast, then stand with us so that we can reach many, many more and bless many, many more. Together, friends, we're making a difference. So go to thelineoffire.org, thelineoffire.org, and click donate.
