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I can see by the clock that John is leaving me a lot of time tonight, but, uh, since you do have choir practice, I'll be merciful to you tonight. Maybe end up a little early, who knows? But, uh, we were talking, uh, this morning about the Spirit of God, and, you know, I know some of you take notes and, uh, um, of the various messages and sermons given here, and I was thinking that, um, uh, I, I know you write, some of you write things down, and that's a good thing. And um, you know, I was talking to Gail Amshae before the meeting, and we're talking about, uh, she's ministering in Iwana on Tuesday night and teaching children, and um, I told her I'd sell her my notes for a small fee.
But I was thinking about that, um, the other day, I, you know, um, i- if, if any of you want to my notes, you're welcome to them. Let me know. I'll make you a copy of them, and, uh, you can have them for yourself if you want that. You know, I don't, I'm not one of these preachers who's like, try to keep things locked up in a vault, you know, and nobody can get to it except me, and you're not allowed to touch my, what I've learned, you know. I don't believe in that. You know, if you share something from the word of God, you ought to be able to let other people know about it. And, uh, some of you may be saying, well, Earl, aren't you afraid that somebody might take your notes and preach your message? I said, that's fine with me. Somebody asked J. Vernon McGee, somebody called a preacher called him up one time and asked him to that, uh, give him per- get permission to preach one of his sermons.
And uh, Vernon McGee said, that's fine, as long as you preach it better than I did. You know, that's what he said. So, uh, but if any of you, I know many times, um, we go through things and it's hard to remember things sometimes after we, um, hear it, hear a me- message, and we may think, well, you know, Earl was talking about four or five different things. I f- I got the first couple, two or three, but I forgot the other two or three. But, uh, you know, if you- my notes are available, they're public property, and, uh, if you want a copy of them, I'll be more than happy to make that available to you. Just let me know. But, um, anyway, we're talking about, um, tonight about the deity of the Spirit of God.
This morning we were talking about the personality of the Holy Spirit, that he is a person, and I think, uh, I was talking to somebody after the meeting today about that, and he was concerned about some Christian, some Christians may think, uh, that the Spirit of God is really not a person, that he is an impersonal force, you know, uh, and uh, he, that he is something, uh, less than a person. And, um, you know, like, uh, in Star Wars, the force be with you and all that junk. Of course, that's fiction, okay? We have to understand that. And we're talking about spiritual reality here. And, um, you know, the Spirit of God is not a force.
He is a person. If we study the scriptures, uh, and look at the Spirit of God, uh, from the Word of God, we, uh, we, uh, readily, uh, can see and understand that the Holy Spirit is a person. Tonight we're going to talk about a different facet of the Spirit of God that, uh, about the deity of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God possesses all the attributes of God, as we're going to see tonight. Uh, he is no less fully God than the Father and the Son. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, as we'll find out. Um, he's, uh, not only the third person of the Trinity, but, uh, he is God.
And, um, a- as I mentioned this morning, it as it's rather difficult to understand, for us to understand this truth of the Holy Spirit being God, because, you know, we're trained by our senses to see and feel and hear and taste and touch, and the Holy Spirit's invisible, we can't see him. And, um, but we as Christians know that he exists, and we know that he is God. We've seen, or there, there have been people who have seen the Lord Jesus Christ. He took upon himself a human body, a human form. People, as I mentioned this morning, people talked to him, heard his words, had a relationship with him, so they can understand that Jesus Christ is a person.
It's rather difficult to understand, uh, that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is a person, uh, but he is, and he is God, as we'll see tonight. And I've written down six things that we can see, uh, in the deity of the Holy Spirit. Number one, I'll read these quickly and go over them just like I did this morning, go over them one by one. First of all, he is omnipresent. Secondly, he is omniscient. Third, he is omnipotent. Fourth, he is eternal. Fifth, he is called God in the scriptures. And sixth, he is equal with the Father and the Son.
And we s- we'll spend a little bit more time on this one, the e- uh, being uh, equal with the Father and Son tonight, as opposed to the other ones. But number one, first of all, he is omnipresent. Let's turn in your Bibles to Psalm one thirty nine. Psalm 139, verse 7. We'll start reading at verse seven, Psalm one thirty nine. And if you know about Psalm one thirty nine, you'll understand the verses that are, that are coming up here. Psalm 139, verse 7. Whither shall I go from my spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there.
If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art 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. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day, and darkness and the light are both alike to thee. We see in verse seven, uh, David asked the s- the question, whither or where shall I go from thy spirit? He's, uh, David couldn't escape the Spirit of God. Re- regardless of where he was, regardless of where he went, the Holy Spirit was there with him.
Uh, i- if we were to able, if we were to go to the, to the highest mountain, if we were to descend in the lowest parts of the sea, the Spirit of God would be with us. If we were to travel to a, a, a far off and distant land, or maybe even take a spaceship and go to the outer reaches of the universe, the Spirit of God would be, would be there with us. And, uh, David is saying in verse thirty nine that, uh, the Spirit of God is present everywhere at the same time. He is omnipresent. That's one of the attributes of deity, that this w- is one of the evidences and proofs of the, of the Spirit of God, of being God.
So we see that he is omnipresent. He is present everywhere at the same time. And it's interesting to know, you know, sometimes I think we as believers lose, um, lose track of this sometimes, or we just forget about it, is the Spirit of God indwells each one of us as believers. He is in us. He is, the Spirit of God is in you right now. He is in me. The Holy Spirit is bringing this message to you and to me tonight. He, he is working through you and through me, uh, to accomplish his goals in the world, in, in the world today. And I think sometimes we lose fact that, uh, wherever we're at, whatever we're doing, whatever we're thinking, that the Holy Spirit is there with us.
He is, he is in us, he is dwelling with us. He is always with us. He is omnipresent. The second, uh, evidence of deity of the Spirit of God is that he is omniscient. He is omniscient. Uh, let's turn to First Corinthians chapter two. 1 Corinthians 2. The word omniscient means that, um, he has all knowledge. He has all knowledge. He knows all. You know, the Spirit of God knows everything. He knows all. In First Corinthians chapter two verse ten, and we read this this morning.
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man, which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. The Spirit has total and complete knowledge of everything and everybody. Uh, i- if the Holy Spirit knows the deep things of God, then he possesses all knowledge. If the Spirit of God possesses all knowledge, then he must be God. That's a logical pro- progression of that thought. And we see here in First Corinthians two ten and eleven uh, that the Holy Spirit does have complete knowledge.
The Father has complete knowledge. The, the Son has total and complete knowledge. The Holy Spirit has total and complete knowledge. In other words, the Triune God, our God, the Godhead, as we know it, has total and complete knowledge of everything and everybody in the world, in this universe. And, um, that's one of the things that I, I think that's comforting to us because, you know, you and I are finite. We are limited, aren't we? The Holy Spirit is infinite. He is unlimited. We can't see, uh, fr- see ahead from day to day. I- I imagine that the Spirit of God is, I use the illustration of a helicopter pilot.
You know, we're- we're driving down the road, and we can see directly in front of us, maybe a few hundred yards, perhaps, but a helicopter pilot right who is flying right above us, he can see way down the road, can't he? And the, and the helicopter pilot can see down the road to the, to extent of, of the obstacles that are coming up. We can't see those obstacles, but the helicopter pilot can up in the air, you see. It's just, it's the same thing with God, the Holy Spirit. We, we may not see the obstacles that we're in, in the problems we're going to have to deal with tomorrow, but the Spirit of God does. He sees those things, you see. He sees the events and the circumstances that are going to happen in our life, in our lives.
He knows all about it. And if the Holy Spirit knows what's going to happen to us tomorrow, that should be a comfort for us, because sometimes we don't know, we have no idea what's going to happen to us tomorrow, tomorrow or next week or next month, no idea at all, but the Holy Spirit does. He possesses all knowledge, he knows all. And even in those times of obstacles, in those times of burdens and trials and, and problems, the Holy Spirit not only knows these things that are going to happen to us, he can help us, he can strengthen us, he can guide us, he can give us wisdom during that time. So we see that the, the Holy Spirit is omniscient, and that's a wonderful thing.
That's a wonderful thing that he knows what's going to happen to me and to you tomorrow. And, uh, he is omniscient. The third, uh, evidence of deity of the Spirit of God is that he is omnipotent, that is, he's all powerful. Let's turn to Genesis chapter one for that. Genesis chapter one. Verse two, Genesis chapter one verse two, And the earth was w- without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
That wor- word moved can be rendered hoovered over. He hovered, hoovered, hovered. I guess that's hovered over the wa- Did I mispronounce that? I think I did, didn't I? You mean I made a mistake? Good night. Wow. I'm just kidding. But the Spirit of God hovered over the waters in verse two. And, uh, we see here it's, it's, it's interesting that if you read the creation account, we, we see that the, the Holy Spirit was present during creation, but we also see that the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they were all present at creation, the Godhead. And, uh, the Spirit of God, uh, was creating this world.
The Godhead together created this world. Uh, maybe I shouldn't say it that way, the Godhead toget- together. Maybe we should say God created this world, this universe, everything in it, us, you and I. It was the triune God. The Holy Spirit was, i- is part of the triune God. He is the third person in that Trinity. But the Spirit of God is all powerful. The Father is all powerful. The Son is all powerful and omnipotent. Usually, when we think of the omnipotence and the all powerful God, we think of God the Father, or perhaps the Lord Jesus Christ. But sometimes the Spirit of God doesn't enter our thinking in that way.
I'm not, I'm not saying that's a, a, a bad thing necessarily, but we just don't think about the Spirit of God as being all powerful, and he is. He is omnipotent. There's nothing, uh, uh, outside the power, the Spirit of God, outside his power. The Spirit of God is never, uh, caught off guard or surprised by events in the world today. Because he is in control of all these things. The Godhead, the Trinity, is in control of all the events and circumstances in our world, in your world, in my world, in the universe. Nothing escapes, uh, the Spirit of God because he is all powerful.
He is omnipotent. And, uh, fourthly, the fourth thing that we can see about the evidence of the deity of the Spirit of God is that he is eternal. He is eternal. Let's turn back again to Hebrews chapter nine. I know we're going back and forth, but, uh, it's a good chance for you to stay awake. I'm kidding. Hebrews chapter nine verse fourteen. I know Hebrews, here we go. Hebrews chapter nine and verse fourteen.
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, the eternal Spirit, the Spirit of God is eternal. In other words, he had no beginning. He has no end. People may say, well, uh, unsaved people may, uh, non-Christians may say, well, uh, now wait a minute, you Christians believe, believe, uh, in God. Well, how do you know that, uh, God exists, and who created God anyway?
And we won't have to say, well, uh, nobody created God. He has always been here, and he always will be here. Uh, he, God had no, had no beginning. He has no end. He cannot be destroyed. And of course, people would scoff at that. They say, ah, you know, you, that's crazy. That cannot be scientifically proven, that, uh, God was never created and all this kind of stuff. Well, uh, we've got something, I think, a little bit better than scien- scientific, uh, proof. We got the word of God, don't we? We've, we've got God's word. We've got his revelation that the Spirit of God is eternal. And that's hard, that's a hard concept for us to wrap our brains around.
The fact that this Holy Spirit, he, he had no beginning. There was no beginning to the Spirit of God. If you think about that, if you meditate on that, you, it, it, you just can't grasp it. Your your mind slips off of that. You just can't grab it. The Spirit of God had no no beg- no beginning at all, and he has no end. The Holy Spirit can never be destroyed. Um, he is eternal, and the we see in the scriptures that the Lord Jesus Christ is eternal. He is the eternal Son of God. We see that, we understand that. And, uh, many skeptics say, well, Jesus was came into the world as a baby, and he died, and that's the end of him.
That's it for, for Jesus. And we see, no, that's not what the scriptures teach. He is the eternal Son of God. He had no beginning, he had no end. The same thing with the Father. The same thing with the Spirit of God. He is eternal. And, uh, we see in, in, uh, Hebrews nine fourteen that Jesus Christ, our Lord, made, uh, that sacrifice for sin through the eternal Spirit. He made it in the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, it's one thing that puzzles me, I think, um, puzzles me about the Gospels, as we read about the Lord Jesus in his earthly ministry, we see that the Spirit of God came and indwelt him, i- if we read the gospel account.
And, you know, that's, that's been, I don't know, I haven't been able to grasp that either. You know, the question that comes into my mind, well, the, did the Lord Jesus Christ, did, did, was it required that he have to have the Spirit of God indwelling him? Well, no, of course not. Uh, we, we understand that, uh, the, the, the Godhead is, are three persons, but one God. Each person is God in the Godhead, although they're, they're a unity. It's they're a tri-unity. That's why we call the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit the triune God. And we read, and and yet we read in the scriptures, well, the Holy Spirit came and indwelt the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I'm going, wow. Hmm. Wonder why, you wonder why and h- I understand how, but I don't, I don't understand why that happened. I think it's probably because of the, the earthly ministry, possibly, of the Lord, that he was, uh, made himself, uh, human flesh, and he did lay aside some of his prerogatives, some of his divine privileges when he became a human being. But the, uh, but the Spirit of God indwelt him, and it's interesting to note that, that the Spirit of God not only indwells, uh, the Lord Jesus, but he indwells us as well. He is the eternal Spirit of God. He has no beginning.
He has no end. He cannot be destroyed. He is eternal. And we see, I think, in scriptures the fact that, uh, the Spirit of God is, is eternal in the fact that he is in the universe, he is, uh, in the world, he is indwelling us, and that means he is in the world, but he is also, uh, in other places of the universe, and we saw that he was, uh, omnipresent. And part of the, I think part of the eternality of the Spirit of God is the fact that he is not only here, but he is also, uh, in the universe, in our solar system. He is present everywhere. He is the eternal Spirit of God. And we see the fifth thing, uh, of the, uh, uh, evidence of the deity of the Spirit of God is that he is called God in scriptures.
Let's turn to Acts chapter five. Acts chapter five. And this is the, uh, passage that deals with Ananias and Sapphira. Acts chapter five verse three. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in- not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart, and thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
Unto God. You know, there are a number of cults out there, especially the Jehovah's Witnesses, who would tell you that the Holy Spirit is certainly not God. They will tell you in no uncertain terms that there's no such thing as the Spirit of God being God. That's just not possible. He is maybe an impersonal force. He's a thing. He's an it, but he's not a person, and he's certainly not God. That's what they would tell you. If anybody comes up to you and tells you that the Spirit, Holy Spirit is not God, turn to Acts chapter five, verses three and four, and show them from the scriptures that the Spirit of God is God. We see in, uh, Acts chapter five that, um, Ananias lied to God, but he lied also, he lied to the Holy, I shouldn't say also.
He lied to God, the Holy Spirit, you see. So we see here that, uh, in in chapter five verses three and four, Peter said in verse three that Satan fill thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost. Then in verse four, what, thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. So we see that the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit here, is in fact God. He is referred to as God by the Apostle Peter. The Holy Spirit is God. And uh, Ananias and Sapphira both found out that you cannot deceive the Holy Spirit. You cannot deceive the Spirit of God. And uh, Peter clearly proclaims that the Holy Spirit is God here in these two verses.
And I think there's an application here for us. You know, um, the human heart is deceitful, is it not? And that's what the, the prophet Jeremiah said. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jeremiah seventeen nine. That's one of the verses that kids at Awana had to pass off. And I, I, I've memorized, I remember it too, so I pass it off, and I remember it. But, you know, the heart is, is deceitful and desperately wicked. And, you know, we have to understand that the Spirit of God knows our hearts. You know, as God, uh, as, as Spirit of God is God, he understands our hearts. He knows our hearts.
We cannot deceive him. We cannot trick him. We cannot be clever and play mind games with the Holy Spirit because he knows us, brother, sister, and client. He knows my heart just as well as yours. And, and Ananias and Sapphira found that out that, uh, and it cost them their lives here in Acts chapter five, that they lied to God. They lied to the Holy Spirit, which is a very serious thing. And the early church took note of this event. And we see that in, in our own lives, that you and I can play word games, we can play mind games, we can deceive other people, we can even deceive ourselves, but we can never deceive the Holy Spirit of God.
Never. Because he knows us. He knows me. He knows you. And listen, my heart is just like yours. There's no difference. There's not much difference. And the Spirit of God knows our, knows us through and through because he is God. He is God. The, uh, sixth thing, and we'll spend a little bit more time on this, is that, uh, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is equal with the Father and the Son. He is equal with the Father and the Son. Let's turn to Matthew chapter three as a biblical illustration of this. Matthew three.
m Verse sixteen. This is a beautiful illustration. I love these two verses right here. Matthew three verses sixteen and seventeen. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Here we see the Father, we see the Son, we see, we see the Holy Spirit. We see the Godhead here, the triune God mentioned in, uh, Matthew three verses sixteen and seventeen.
Uh, when the Lord Jesus was baptized, that he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove. We hear the voice of the Father coming out of heaven saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. We see the Son himself being baptized right there. We see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is is spoken of as being co-equal with the Father and the Son in these two verses. People say, well, you know, there's no such thing as a Trinity, and you can't prove to me that the Trinity exists. I mean, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, what, what is that all about? I mean, that, that's really not true. Well, you just turn to Matthew chapter three, verses sixteen and 17, read these two verses and say, well, what is it talking about?
Who are the three people here? You know. And we see that the, the Spirit of God is presented here in Matthew three as being co-equal with the Father and co-equal with the Son. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is, is God. He is co-equal with God. Or I should say he is co-equal with God and is God. Maybe that makes more sense. But let's look at, uh, another evidence of the co-equality of the Spirit of God. John chapter fourteen. John fourteen. Verse sixteen.
These are the words of the Lord Jesus. John fourteen verse sixteen, And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he am- may abide with you. Here in, uh, verse sixteen, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the comforter. Another word for comforter is helper. Uh, uh, it comes from the Greek word, which means advocate. That, uh, the- an advocate is one called alongside to help. One called alongside to help. We read in the First John, of course, that the, that the Lord Jesus Christ is our advocate. He is our advocate with the Father. Here we see, uh, in, in First John fourteen sixteen, the Spirit of God is referred to as the comforter and the helper and the advocate.
An advocate is a person who, uh, speaks on behalf of another, much like a lawyer does, an attorney does in a court of, court of law. If you're charged with a crime, and, uh, hopefully that won't happen in your lifetime. But if you're charged with, or somebody, let's, if somebody's charged with a crime, uh, they will get a lawyer to, to defend them. That lawyer becomes their advocate in the, in a courtroom, in a court of law. It's the same thing with the Spirit of God. He is our advocate as the people of God. He is called, called alongside to help, much as a lawyer in a courtroom is called alongside to help his client.
The Spirit of God is our advocate. He is called alongside to help us. He is called the comforter or the helper, you see. And, um, the, the Spirit of God, one of the functions of the Holy Spirit is, as we know and we will find out, is that he gives advice and to, and counsel as our advocate, uh, but he also comforts us, he helps us, he strengthens us. And you may be wondering, well, wait a minute, how does the Spirit of God give us advice and counsel, you know? Do we just go to him and ask him? Well, cert- we could certainly do that. But the Spirit of God, uh, speaks through the Word of God to us. He also speaks to us through other Christians.
That people who advise us and counsel us, uh, the Spirit of God may be working through them to give us advice and counsel. Of course, we have to be careful that that advice and counsel that we're receiving is within the parameters of the Word of God, as I've talked about this morning. But the Spirit of God will advise us. He is our comforter, he is our helper, he is our advocate. And what a wonderful ministry that is, to know that there's someone on our side. Isn't that great? There's someone on your side to help you, to defend you, to strengthen you and comfort you. You know, sometimes we get the, uh, you know, we get a feeling of loneliness.
I know, you know, we, I- I- I've been that way, so have you. You know, we- we feel lonely, and sometimes we may feel cut off from other people, but brother, sister in Christ, we can never be cut off from our divine advocate, the Holy Spirit of God. He, we will never be cut off from him. He is our advocate, our comforter, our helper. What a wonderful thing to know about the Spirit of God. And I, this does make him co-equal with the Father and the Son. Well, let's also turn to John in the same chapter, John fourteen, uh, verse twenty six. Let's look at verse twenty six. But the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said unto you.
Uh, part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is teaching spiritual truth. It's speeching, speaking or teaching spiritual truth. The Spirit of God helps us to remember and recall, um, the spiritual truth we read in the scriptures. When we memorize Bible verses and passages, the Holy Spirit will bring that back, uh, and recall that to our minds from time to time. And I've heard of one kids in Iwana who've passed off, they've passed off hundreds of verses during their, maybe even, well, maybe even thousands, possibly, of verses, uh, during their time in Iwana, and years later, when they're grown up, they'll come back and say, well, you know, I remember that verse from Awana, that I've memorized that, and I, I, I, I memorized that years ago in Awana.
How do they know? How do they remember such a thing? How is it possible for them to remember over? It's the Spirit of God. It's the ministry of the Spirit of God that he instructs us and teaches us all things as regard to spiritual truth. And we see that, uh, the Spirit of God gives us insight into the Word of God. He gives us insight. Have you ever opened the scriptures up and asked the Lord, Lord, help me to understand this passage or this verse? Have you ever done that? Give me insights into this passage, into in- into this verse. And I can tell you truthfully that, uh, in preparation for messages, that I do that.
You know, I- I make, uh, you know, that's the one of the first things that I do is ask the Lord, Lord, help me to interpret this passage and to make the proper application to rightly divide the word of truth. Help, give me your insights and help me to teach this and preach this message. And you know something, brother, sister in Christ, he does. He does. And he, he not only does it for me, he will do that for you, if you ask him. And, uh, another thing, and and this is a kind of an aside, is that the the Spirit of God helps us worship the Savior. If you were here this morning at the Lord's Supper, we we, um, we worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
We remembered him in the breaking of the bread, the drinking of the cup, but the Spirit of God drew out worship and praise, audible worship from the men, silent worship from the women. He drew from our hearts, uh, the Spirit of God drew from our hearts worship and praise to the person of Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus, in verse twenty six says, um, the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your member, to remembrance, for who- whosoever or whatsoever I have said unto you. The spirit of one of the part of the ministry of the Spirit of God, and he makes the person of Jesus Christ understandable and real to you and to me.
He will do that at the Lord's Supper. Interesting, isn't it? That part of that ministry is of the Spirit of God, is making Jesus Christ, uh, uh, real to us. That he helps us worship the Lord Jesus at the Lord's Supper. And, uh, we see that in, in John fourteen that the triune God, uh, i- is mentioned, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. And again, we see that the Holy Spirit is co-equal with the Father and co-equal with the Son in the Godhead. In John fourteen twenty six. Let's turn over to John fifteen, the very next chapter.
John 15 and verse twenty six. John fifteen verse twenty six, the promise of the Spirit, the, of the coming of the Spirit. John fifteen twenty six, but when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. All the things that the Lord Jesus Christ wants us to know about himself, the Holy Spirit will teach us. Let me read that again. All the things that the Lord Jesus wants us to know about himself, the Holy Spirit will teach us, and that's what I've been talking about just a minute ago.
And we see that, uh, that's part of the ministry of the Spirit of God, and that does make him co-equal with the Father and the Son. And that's a, you know, that's a wonderful thing because, you know, you and I need help, don't we? We need to be taught. We need to have instruction. We need somebody to help us to understand the spiritual truth found in the Word of God. You know, when I was a Christian, I was, uh, I went to a military school. Maybe some of you knew that, maybe some of you didn't, for one year, and they taught Bible there. They were affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. And part of our, um, homework was to read the Bible, you know?
And of course, I was unsaved. I read the Bible. It didn't mean a thing to me. I read in the old Testament about Abraham and Moses and Isaac and all that. I said, you know, this is interesting history. I like reading that because I like history. But, but I didn't know anything about the, the scriptures. I went to a, a college later on, uh, in which, uh, the Old Testament and New Testament was taught. And we had a Bible. We had to read the Bible. The professor never really referred to it in classroom. He thought the Bible was a, a book of literature, you see. Now, the fellow who taught that, um, course in the, um, at military school when I, where I went, he was a Southern Baptist preacher. And I can't remember that if I heard the gospel.
I'm thi- I think, I'm thinking I did in the classroom because he taught it right straight from the scriptures. But at that college I went to, and of course it didn't have a whole lot of effect on me then, but the college I went to, uh, the, the Bible was taught as a book of literature, not the word of God. And I read it, you know, I did like professor, he gave certain sections and chapters to read, and, you know, I read it like a good student that I w- that I thought I was. And, uh, it didn't mean anything to me because I didn't understand it. I had no, uh, spiritual knowledge. I, I, I was devoid. The spirit of God, uh, was indwelling me. He wasn't, he wasn't helping me at that time. I did, you know, for an unsaved person to read the w- the s- the Bible, sometimes it's- it's like, well, what is this book all about?
I don't understand it, you see. But at some point in time, if you read the Word of God, if you're unsaved and read the Word of God, uh, enough, and some of you can attest to this, the Spirit of God will make the gospel real to your hearts, and you'll place your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Many Christians have done that. That's part of the ministry and the work of the Spirit of God. He will teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ. He will, he will, uh, help us to understand the person and the work of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Another proof of the ministry of, or, or another proof of the evidence of the co-equality, the Holy Spirit being co-equal, uh, with the Father and Son is found in, um, Ephesians chapter two.
Ephesians chapter two, verse eighteen. Ephesians chapter two, verse eighteen. For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. We have access to the Father through the Son and through the Holy Spirit. So that means if, if we have access to, to God the Father through the Holy Spirit a- and the Son, that the Spirit of God and the Son must be God, should, should they not?
In Ephesians chapter two and verse eighteen? And that's a wonderful access that we have. And you recall that verse in, in Hebrews chapter four verse sixteen, which says, let us come boldly, or let us come with confidence to the throne of grace. We remember that on Wednesday nights at our corporate prayer meeting. That we can, we can come and, and have, uh, uh, we could come with confidence to the throne of g- grace, that we have access to the Father through the Spirit of God and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that a wonderful thing? How many people in the world can say, well, I can go straight to God and I can pray to God. I don't need a priest, I don't need somebody else, a human intercessor.
I can go straight to God through the Spirit of God, through the person of Jesus Christ. What a wonderful thing. Another evidence of the equality of the Spirit of God with the Father and the Son. And lastly, and we'll close with this one, uh, it's Matthew twenty eight, which is that classic passage that we all know. Matthew twenty eight, verses nineteen and twenty. Yeah, you've probably memorized these also. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Amen. We see here that, uh, we teach other people and we baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit of God is co-equal with the Father and the Son in the Godhead. And, uh, we see that, uh, um, in verse twenty, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. The Spirit of God will help us. He will teach us the things of Jesus Christ. He will empower us and help us to obey the things of Christ. Just think about that. That's another ministry of, of the person of the Spirit of God, that he teaches us, instructs us, and empowers us.
You know, i- if, if God wants us to do something, if he teaches us to do something in the, in the scriptures, is he going to leave us all alone and let us figure it out by ourselves and, and obey him in our s- our own strength and be, be left alone without any help at all? Of course not. The Spirit of God teaches us what's in the Word of God, but he empowers us. He gives us his power to obey the Word of God. He gives us the, the desire, and he gives us the power to do- to obey the Word of God. And that's a wonderful thing. You know, the Lord had all this thing figured out, didn't he? When we were saved, God had, he had us figured out, he had our lives figured out, and the Spirit of God working in conjunction with the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father, God the Father, he's working in our lives even right now, in your life.
He is using your spiritual gift that you have, the Spirit of God is using that gift, um, to edify and build up the church of Jesus Christ and to glorify the Lord Jesus. And we all have a spiritual gift, as we touched on it a little bit this morning. The Spirit of God gives us those gifts, and he not only does that, he will empower us to use those gifts for the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we see here in Matthew 28, uh, verses nineteen and twenty that the Holy Spirit is indeed co-equal with the Father and the Son in the Trinity, in the Godhead. And I'll, I'll go over these, um, six things again quickly, in closing.
The deity of the Holy Spirit, first, he is omnipresent. Second, he is omniscient. Third, he is omnipotent. Fourth, he is eternal. Fifth, he is called God. Sixth, he is equal with the Father and the Son. I hope these, these messages have been beneficial to you. Uh, they've certainly been beneficial to me. They've helped me to understand the Holy Spirit a little bit better. And I hope that the Spirit of God will become more real to you, to your heart, and to your mind as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the instruction that you gave us tonight about the Holy Spirit of God.
How wonderful, how lovely is that divine person, that he indwells each one of us, that he instructs us, teaches us. And Father, we know that the Spirit of God instructs us about the things of our wonderful and blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That what we know about him comes through the person of Jesus Christ. He is in our, he is our, the Lord, or the Spirit of God is our teacher and our instructor. How wonderful that is, Father. We thank you for these things, that you've granted us these wonderful things in our lives as believers, that we can understand spiritual truth, that we can come to you, we can ask you to teach us, and you will, Father. You will teach us and instruct us in, in your word, the word of the living God.
And we give you praise and thanksgiving for all these things as we pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. John has a hymn. Actually, a chorus, but, uh, if you take your chorus books and turn to number one fourteen. Sometimes when Earl gets up here to speak, I, uh, think back, and one of the hardest things to try and teach is the Trinity. Uh, I once heard a very learned Bible scholar say that normally we don't think of semantics being important, but when we deal with the Trinity, it's very easy to make it three different gods, not one god with three persons, but three different gods.
And that is one of the attacks that a lot of non-Christians put to Christians, because we aren't real careful as to how we explain it. Um, and it's not something we can understand very easily either. So I really respect Earl when he takes on these subjects and presents the truths, and I'm not sure I can explain exactly what the Trinity is. Um, I know that it's three individual persons with one essence. So in, in, in, in a way, when I was at Emmaus, I said, so that means that not only does the Spirit indwell me, but Jesus indwells me, God indwells me, because you can't separate the three, even though they have their separate persons that are defined in the Bible.
And, uh, the instructor looked at me and says, yeah, that's probably a good way of putting it, because Jesus often says, I and the Father are one, the Spirit is obviously one with them, and they all work together, and yet they're three separate persons as far as you can define them and their work and that kind of thing. But I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God. I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by his blood, joined heirs with Jesus as we travel this side, for I'm part of the family, the family of God. Don't forget the choir practice immediately following this. Number one fourteen.