Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, May 29th. If you feel isolated and forgotten, today's podcast will remind you that as a believer in Jesus, you will never walk alone. Stay with us to get to know our constant companion. Well, you know, all of us need companions. Loneliness isn't something we like. Nobody likes to be alone. And all of us like good friends, real companions, people you can trust, people you can rely upon. People that'll help you when you're in need.
People who can laugh with you, cry with you, work with you, whatever it might be. And Jesus certainly understood that. And the Heavenly Father understands it. And when Jesus was coming to the end of His ministry, this idea of companionship was very important. Because He had been relating to these men for three years.
He called them. They laid down everything they had. And they began to follow Him as they had been fishing. And as a result, they had seen some of the most awesome experiences in life. They had watched people rise from the dead. They had seen people healed of everything imaginable.
They'd been fishing when you couldn't believe that that many fish were even in the lake. In other words, everywhere they turned, they had this wonderful, awesome relationship with Jesus. They didn't always understand Him. When Jesus began to talk about something happening to Him, and the scribes and the Pharisees going to persecute Him, Peter said it's not going to happen. So, when we look at Peter, we think, well, he shouldn't have said that.
But what does that say? It says that Peter had such a relationship with Jesus in his own mind and heart, he couldn't even begin to imagine living apart from Him now. And so, these things happened as they went along in those three years. And then they come to the Feast of the Passover and the Last Supper. And Jesus is trying to teach them to serve one another. And so, He washes their feet. And again, Peter says, no, I'm not worthy of you washing my feet.
So, we get past that. And so, He takes these last hours of their life with Him to tell them some of the most precious things in the whole Word of God. I want you to turn to the fourteenth chapter of John.
The two passages of Scripture I want us to look at here. And this thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen chapters are all about His last hours with them. And He knew what they were beginning to feel because He started talking about leaving them.
Well, wait a minute now, leaving us. Because they left everything to follow Him to begin with. And they'd been faithful, loyal, devoted to Him for three years.
And now, He starts talking about something happening to Him and leaving. So, I want you to look beginning in the sixteenth verse, the fourteenth chapter. He says, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper that He may be with you forever.
That is, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. He knew how very, very important it was that they not feel He abandoned them.
He had been their absolute most intimate companion up until this time. Now, look at you in the sixteenth chapter and look in the fifth verse, if you will. He says, But now I'm going to Him who sent Me, that is, the Father. And none of you ask Me, Where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you. So, it's very important to them that He remain with them or do something so that they do not feel like that He's abandoned them. For three years, they devoted everything they had to Him. And they talked about the kingdom of God and all the things, heaven and all the wonderful promises He'd made. And all of a sudden, He starts talking about, of course, He'd sort of mentioned it before, but they didn't get the point. He starts talking about leaving them and being crucified and scribes and Pharisees killing them. How could that be when you said the kingdom of God's in your hands and all the promises He'd made to them?
But it was a very, very difficult time for them. And so, when I look at that and look at that passage and ask the question, what about this idea of a companion? You see, none of us have a companion that can promise us that they'll never leave us nor forsake us.
There's nobody can promise that. And if you have a companion or friends, more than one, who are people who are loyal, devoted, and who are looking after your best interest, who wants you to be happy and peaceful and successful in what you do in life, then you're blessed. Because there are people who have no real companions. There are people who do not have a single person that they can say, I know He loves me, I know She loves me.
I know that if I got in trouble, I could call on Him. Or I know if I went through a hard time, She could pray for me. They don't have that. They don't know Christ as their Savior. They don't know godly people. They're living in a world sort of feeling abandoned. And that's why many people say, well, don't tell me about this God who's up yonder somewhere.
When I'm going through all this trouble. They don't understand what true companionship is. Jesus understood it. And that's why He assured them, I will not leave you as orphans. Because all of a sudden they were beginning to think, well, when you leave us, we don't have anything.
Because we laid it all down to follow you. So, first of all, I want to answer the question, who is this constant companion Jesus identified as the Holy Spirit? Now, go back, if you will, and look at this passage in the fourteenth chapter.
He says, I will ask the Father, and He will give you, watch this, another helper that He may be with you forever. Now, there are two Greek words in the New Testament for another. One of them is alos, which means another just like this one.
The other one is etaros, which means another different kind. For example, in Galatians when Paul uses the word, he said, I'm amazed that you are now beginning to listen to another gospel. That's a different kind of gospel. What Jesus is saying here is, I'm going to send you another helper and He's going to be just like me. Watch that now. Another helper that He may be with you forever.
Now, how could that be? That is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it doesn't know Him. But you know Him because He abides with you, will be in you.
And then back to that sixteenth chapter again, notice what He said. He said in the seventh verse, but I'll tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don't go away, the helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you. Now, the word helper is parakletos, which means one who walks alongside, one who assists us, one who is our constant companion. So, the Scripture says that every single believer has a constant unending companion. And that is a person of the Trinity, the person of the Holy Spirit. So, I want us to look at this for a moment because people will say, well, now wait a minute, I thought Jesus was my companion.
Well, He is. So, I want to talk about the Trinity for just a moment. And in Hebrews when He says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. That's what He meant.
That's what He said. And that's exactly the truth. The Scripture says, following the atoning death of Jesus Christ, where did Jesus go? So, I want you to turn, if you will, to Hebrews chapter ten for a moment because sometimes people get a little upset and say, well, look, here's what the Bible says and it says this and it doesn't say that.
Yes, it does, means what it says. Look in the tenth chapter of Hebrews for a moment and look, if you will, in the twelfth verse, but He, having offered one sacrifice, that's Jesus, sought from His sacrifice for our sins, for all time sat down at the right hand of God. So, let's think about it for a moment. According to that Scripture, where is Jesus? Well, most of the time we'll say, well, He's in our heart. Well, we know that's true.
But I want you to see something. Look in the sixteenth chapter of Mark because it's interesting that even Mark in this last chapter, he says in the nineteenth verse, so then when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. Well, how did He know that? Jesus told them that when He left them, He would be seated at the right hand of the Father. So, here's what I want you to notice. We have God the Father. We have God the Son. We have God the Holy Spirit. And so, here is the Trinity. Once in a while somebody says, well, I don't believe in the Trinity.
Well, then if you don't, then you have to ask yourself the question of John chapter fourteen, verse sixteen, how do you not believe in the Trinity when here's what it says. I, Jesus speaking, will ask the Father, we know who He is, and He will give you another Helper, capital, that is the Holy Spirit, that He may be with you forever. Who can only be with us forever but only God? God the Father's in heaven.
God the Son seated at His right hand. And so, you have God the Father who is the Creator of all things and the Sovereign. You have Jesus who is the Savior and the Lord and the Holy Spirit who is our Helper, our Comforter and our Guide. So, when somebody says, well, I don't understand that Trinity.
Well, think about it in its light. There are three persons in the Trinity, but all three of them together make up the God head, which is one. There are three persons that make up the God head. So, we have the Father in heaven, Jesus seated at the Father's right hand, and the Holy Spirit living within you and within me, because here's what He says. He says in this passage, He abides with you and He will be in you. And what He was referring to is that when the Holy Spirit descended upon the church at Pentecost, from that moment on, every single believer would be, listen, would be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And when I think about how many people who live their whole life and never even give any serious thought to the Holy Spirit. And I think oftentimes when I think about the ministry and think about preaching the gospel, thank God. I grew up in a Pentecostal church that emphasized the Holy Spirit. I knew something about the Holy Spirit that there had to be more, because here I was getting to preach the gospel and going to college and going to seminary, and I knew very little. And I thought, now how am I going to do that?
I was tall and thin and lanky and introverted and had a lot of negatives I could think about why I couldn't do it. And then my grandfather spent a little time with me on his back porch one day and he began to talk about the Holy Spirit. He didn't say much, but he said enough that when I went to seminary, I thought, I'm going to find out who this Holy Spirit is, because I grew up in a Pentecostal church and then a Baptist church.
And so, I didn't really know. So, I went to the bookstore and the seminary and I found this book by R.A. Torrey about the Holy Spirit. And I didn't have enough money to buy the book, so I'd read a few pages and then I'd come back the next day and read a few pages more. Well, let me tell you, I told the bookstore operator, I said, look, I don't have enough money to buy this book. I need this book. I will buy the book when I get a little bit more money.
If you don't mind me reading a little bit every day, if that's okay, he said, that's fine. I bought the book. I absorbed the book.
I couldn't put it down. I knew that if I was going to preach the gospel, there had to be more to me and more to the preaching of the gospel than just knowledge and wisdom and understanding and experience. There had to be the power of God.
There had to be an anointing of the Spirit of God or it wasn't going to work. And so, the Holy Spirit became a very, very vital part of my life. The first time I ever preached a sermon among the Baptists in the Baptist Association of Eden, I preached on the power of the Holy Spirit. This pastor walked up to me.
He was probably forty years older than I was. He said, young man, if I'd have preached that sermon here a few years ago, they'd have thrown me out of the association. And so, many times, people who lived their entire Christian life and never gave in this serious thought to the Holy Spirit, when Jesus said to those disciples, it's expedient.
It's important. I'm going away because if I don't go away, He won't come. But if I go, the Father will send Him. And when He does, He'll be in you, with you, and upon you forever. That is, He'll be the one who helps you and enables you to do what God has called you to do. And so, if you read, for example, in Romans and many other passages of Scripture, you understand that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer. And I think about people who go to church week after week after week and listen to sermons. Nobody ever mentions the Holy Spirit. And so, how am I to understand what the Bible says?
How am I to understand what it means? How am I to serve God if I'm trying to serve Him without the very essence and the very power and the very energy and the very mind of Almighty God Himself that delivers that through the Holy Spirit? And so, somebody says, Well, when did He come into my life? Well, you remember that Jesus said to Nicodemus, He said, Yeah, you've got all this Jewish background, but you've got to be born of the Spirit. That is, there's got to be a transformation in you that is a transformation by the Holy Spirit that takes place in your life.
And what does He do? It is the Holy Spirit, for example, who convicts us of sin. It's the Holy Spirit who reveals the truth of Scripture. It's the Holy Spirit who gives us understanding of the Word of God. It's the Holy Spirit who gives us faith. It's the Holy Spirit who equips us to do the things that God would have us to do. And so, it is very important that believers understand that He, listen, He is a vital part of our life. He is a constant companion in the life of every single believer. Nobody else can promise that.
Nobody else can produce that. But that's who He is. And Jesus knew it would never work. If He sent out those eleven, remember what happened to Judas, if He sent out those eleven with all of their experience and all their testimonies, all of their witness and all the miracles and everything else in order to do what He called them to do, they'd be an absolute failure. That's why He said to them, Sit down in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued, until you are anointed, until you are filled with the Holy Spirit because you are encased and you are incapable and inadequate to do what I've called you to do.
What do you call them to do? He said, I want you to go out into the world. And this is a Roman world. This is a wicked, vile world, a hateful kind of world, a brutal kind of world. And you're going to go out there and tell them about Me and you've got to tell them that I've died. Then you've got to tell them that I've risen from the dead. Who's going to believe that? There must be more in your message than what you come up with.
There's got to be more in your message and more in the power by which you say it in order to convince them and persuade them. So He said, You must sit down, tear ye in the city of Jerusalem until you be filled with the Holy Spirit, anointed with the power of God, then you'll be equipped. And you'll remember on that day that they were praying and that Peter preached the truth of the gospel and the Spirit of God came upon them and the Holy Spirit filled them.
And what happened? Not only that, Peter got the greatest blessing of his life. Three thousand people were saved. And that was the beginning of the march of the Spirit-filled church in this world. And they were not prepared until they were filled with the Spirit. Well, I can remember reading that and thinking, Well, Lord, if they weren't prepared to preach the gospel without the Spirit, I'm certainly not.
And so it drove me to read and to study. And I remember in theology class, my professor, I didn't think he was given the Holy Spirit ample recognition, so I asked him a question about the Holy Spirit. And so he went and told one of my professor friends. He said, Stanley is a rabble-rouser. That's what he called me. So he said, No, he's not a rabble-rouser. He's looking for the truth.
So I never was a best friend of that professor. He thought I was just questioning him. I was honestly looking for the truth. What is the truth about the Holy Spirit?
And the more I found out, the more excited I got. Because the more I found out and the more I discovered and the more I began to experience, the more confident and assured I was that if God called me to preach the gospel, He would enable me, He would teach me, He would train me, He would show me, and I would be able to do whatever He called me to do. And so the very fact that a person could live their whole life and never understand this constant companion whom Jesus said He must come, I'm going away, the Father will send Him.
And when He comes, He'll be, listen to this, He says He'll be in you, with you, and upon you forever. Which means that when you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, the only way you got saved is the Holy Spirit convicted you of sin, gave you the gift of faith, showed you the truth, you accepted the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, God transformed your life. When He did that, the Bible says He also sealed you. It's the Holy Spirit who sealed you under the day of redemption, which means that when you trusted Christ as your Savior, the Spirit of God sealed you as a child of God.
You can't ever be lost because, listen, you were sealed by the Spirit of God, not by yourself. And you weren't sealed by some preacher, by some doctrine, some theology. You were sealed by the person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit sealed you as a child of God. You have to decide whether you're going to believe the Word of God or not. If the Bible says the Holy Spirit sealed me, I don't have any reason to doubt that.
If I doubt that, I could doubt my salvation, I could doubt heaven, I could doubt a lot of other things. Sealed by the Spirit of God under the day of redemption that He calls you home. And so, the very work of the Holy Spirit is a vital, important part of your life and mine. The Father's in heaven, Jesus at His right hand, Holy Spirit is down here. Listen, you say, well, how are they different?
Well, they are different. Listen, there are three distinct persons, but I'll make up one, which is the Godhead. As we said, the Father is Creator and Sovereign. Jesus is Saviour and Lord. And the Holy Spirit is our Helper, our Inaunter, our Encourager, our Comforter.
And He's the one living within you to enable you to be what God wants you to be. Thank you for listening to our Constant Companion. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
