The Holy Spirit's primary work is to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, with the central sin being the rejection of Jesus Christ. The sermon emphasizes that while worldly crimes are serious, the ultimate offense against God is disbelief in His Son, leading to eternal judgment. True righteousness, necessary for salvation, is not found in human effort or religious observance but is a gift received through faith in Jesus Christ, who is God's righteousness. The Holy Spirit's role is to reveal these truths, guiding individuals to recognize their sin, their need for Christ's righteousness, and the certainty of judgment for those who reject Him.
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Let me read in our Bible in Psalm chapter sixteen. And verse seven. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. You couldn't do anything else. It is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. But in my depart, I will send him unto you. And when he, now I want you to notice the word him at the close of verse seven, I will send him unto you. And now notice the masculine pronouns as we go down.
And when he is come, he will recruit the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they believe not on me, of righteousness because I go to the Father. and ye see me no more. Our judgment, because the prince of this world is done. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. How be it, when he, the spirit of truth that comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself. But whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.
and he will show you things to come. He shall not glorify me. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father has of mine, therefore said I, that he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. Thirteen times you have the masculine pronoun there. That's very important. Now, last week we were stricken on the opening verses of this chapter. We were pointing out how Christ had his enemies.
Now, there were those who hated him. And in most cases, those who hated the Lord Jesus and even sought to kill him and his followers were from two classes, and that is the religious or the atheistic. Now we can understand the atheistic nations like China and Russia and others, don't believe in God, they're God of the state. They don't have any time for the gospel or Jesus Christ. They know the power of that person and message. It would crumble their ideology. But on the other hand and the other extreme, from the atheists are the religious groups.
Those who claim to be religious, and they're the ones that gave the Lord all the trouble. One would almost have a better chance in a communist country to survive than he would in some religious country. Quran, for instance, that's a very religious country. But the Islam line of things is far, far from the word of God. And so you have these two realms. atheistic realm and camp and the religion. And this could come right down to religion, right as it is in Albany in many cases. Well, the Lord says it is expedient for you that I go away.
In other words, it's to your advantage, your benefit, your profit, and it is advisable that I go away. But if I go not away, he says, the Comforter will not come unto you. In other words, the Comforter will be all Christ himself would be and more. Christ had taught them. So now the Spirit is going to be. Christ guided them. Now the Spirit is going to guide them. Christ was their friend, and so was the Spirit. And Christ was a comforter. He proved that in great analysis.
And now the Spirit is to be the comforter. And Christ says, now it's expedient that I go away if I stay with an ardent past to be in the company of the few. But he said, I want all my people to be sure of my presence. And they'll only have it if I go away and send the Spirit. But I can say I miss some of you right here now, but when the Spirit comes, he shall be in you. He'll be in all his own abiding in them as the divine counsel. In other words, he said, if I could be with you always, it just means this.
If I were in Jerusalem, I couldn't be indefinite. And if you in Jerusalem could employ my company, but not the ones indefinite. and those in Judea, if I were in Judea, then the ones in Galilee couldn't enjoy my service. So he says, it is expedient that I go away that all may enjoy my comfort. And that is true. When he said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He has the whole world before him. And he was here on earth. He went to little villages and towns and disciples following them. but he couldn't go into all the world.
In fact, he never did leave palaces. But he said, I want my message to go into all the world, and the only way that could be, is for all his people, who are in all parts of the world, possessing the Holy Spirit, God's message, single out in the energy and power of the Holy Spirit. So he said, I could bet for you. By carrying out this mission to go into all the world, I could best serve you by being in the face of authority at God's right hand. And he did add that when he said, go into all the world amidst the gospel and lo, I wish you always even unto the end of the age.
How could he be with them all in every age, in every place, only by the Holy Spirit of God? The Spirit of God coming into the world and abiding in the world. in every born again believer. How wonderful that is. Now he thinks he's been following me. Now you follow the Holy Spirit. In other words, I have taught you, now he is you. I have comforted you, now he is. The Spirit of God will be my other son. He'll carry on the very same work that I did carry. The one is visible, his presence.
The other is invisible. Well, it is invisible, the Holy Spirit. The one is local when he was here. The other is universal. The Spirit is everywhere. So he said, it is expedient that I go away. The personal literal Christ going to heaven, that's the Spirit of my condolence. And just carry on with me a minute. and be in the hearts of all who believe. The reason I drew your attention to those thirteen masculine soul mouth, he, him, himself, is to prove that he is in the Trinity, being. Christ is being.
There's no question about that. The Spirit is a personality. He's not an influence. You can't injure or harm an influence, but you can't a person, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not just an influence. He is a personality. How remarkable that is. In these first key references I pointed out, prove that here is a masculine personality, the Holy Spirit of God. Now in our text, the work he's carrying on is in verses eight to eleven.
They're very, very important, these verses, eight to eleven. He says in this verse, in Egypt with a mockable verse, in verse nine to begin with, or verse eight, and when he has come, he will reprove or convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. A remarkable paragraph, three categories. You have sin, the Satan, and Satan. He said of sin. And what sin? He tells you what the sin is in verse nine. A sin because they believe not on me.
So the Spirit has come to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. You would listen to your TV and all you see on it and the radio. You could get it all there and staying over the radio. And not only that, but read the newspapers and one whole day and drive your train. About all you'd hear during all that time over these three news medias would be crime of every crime and sin of every nature. What about all this, sin and trust?
There's one sin and at one time, none of the TV stations, or the radios, or the newspapers, we'd like to mention. And that's the sin of rejecting Jesus' fault. Grave, it won't be a Christian by any means, but he writes a good article. About a week ago, he wrote this article, Make Punishment Fit the Crime. That's very significant. And I thought of it as I meditated upon. He's right. Let punishment fit the crime. And I'll read the sum of the rest of it.
He says, Some surprising and we must say welcome turnabouts have occurred in instruction studies released on the issue of crime and punishment in the United States. The second report was authored by a group of liberal scholars and politicians working within the Harvard Law School, their findings reach the number of judgments that have come full cycle to embrace a new orthodoxy about law and order, that rehabilitation cannot be achieved through imprisonment. But offenders should be punished on the data of what they do rather than what they are.
and that punishment or perspective criminality is unjust, the rehabilitation has not worked and shows those kinds of working that only punishment could fit the crime committed. And this is unusual. And the report states rather ruefully, it seems that we have rediscovered since. I don't believe that's what we really discovered since. All kinds of liberals and men, they are trying to trace the condition in the world to, well, man has a weakness. He's got a sick mind, or he has a bad background.
Lord, it's the environment. And they're tracing all this. The crime and the sin that's in the world, they're tracing it to these anxieties. It would be a good thing. after a day's TV, broadcasting, and radio, and newspaper, of all the very crimes on their heels and their heels, for someone to come on at the end and say, folks, you've been looking at and hearing about some of the most sordid, sickly, sad crimes in the world. And sins are venerable, but the greatest sin of the world is rejecting Jesus Christ.
because rejecting Jesus Christ is a cause of evil. The sad, sad situation we have got to think of the world in which we live today. Is the crime getting the punishment that we deserve? I don't think so. Verse nine tells you distinctly what the Lord said, but sin because they believe not on me. The sin among beliefs is what the Spirit of God is in this world and can take men and women off. The sin among beliefs. Are that right in your Bible?
And the punishment is going to fit the triumph. Listen to these verses in your Bible. It says, if ye believe not that I am thee, ye shall die in your sins. And where I am, he said, Luckman. He doesn't say if you commit murder, if you rob a bank, if you rape some of the others, if you steal a lion's prayer, you're going to die in your sins. He doesn't say that. He says if you believe, Luck, that I am he, you're going to die in your sins.
And he also says, He that believeth not, the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon you. He doesn't say if you commit these horrible, horrible crimes, if you commit all kinds of ugly sins, you're going to die and you're sinned and the wrath of God abides upon you. He said that you don't believe on the Son of God, the wrath of God abides upon you. And also, he said, He that believeth not, God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave him a lie. You can commit all these ugly crimes and sins, and you haven't made God a liar.
But if you don't believe his son, you make a liar. If you don't believe the record God has given of his son, And think of this verse in Revelation twenty-one eight. And the fearful, the unbelieving, and the liars shall have their part in the lake with furnace, with fire, and room for. Who? The fearful. Those who are afraid to receive Christ, he thought of what others said. The unbelieving. Those who won't accept Jesus Christ and the liars. They're going into the lake, this furnace, this fire, and this...
Not because, oh, all these other wicked sins and crimes are evil. That's not the greatest sin in the universe. Rejecting Jesus Christ is the greatest sin in the universe. Man won't carry out justice. with a punishment later time and we'll do that there's been a lot of soft judges crimson lawyers legal loophole and also technicalities the liberal men of the world, they say, wow, they call them all this because of man, decent, deep sick, divine, and sad.
And there they go. Let me tell you one thing. The man doesn't realize that the sin, the major crime in this world, of which the human race is guilty, the greatest sin of firstness and the gift, is to reject the Lord Jesus Christ. That's true. And that includes a person who's religious, even a preacher. If a man is preaching and he knows not quite, he's one worst criminal in the world. God can put away all these other sins, but he can't put away the sins of unbelief.
Now that's what the Bible says, that's not what I do. And in the final analysis, when people don't get saved, you wonder why the final analysis is there is a sin in their life. And they know what that sin is. And so does what. In the final analysis, it's sin. How sad that is. So God's going to have a punishment that fits the crime. And that punishment is eternity in the lake that turns with fire and drink.
Now that's in your life. You don't want to believe it. That's your responsibility. It's not mine. That's what the revival says. You've got to take control of the sins and the crimes in the world. the enormity of some of these things, how monstrous and outrageous they are, these sins and these crimes judged by, you do judge the situation by the characters who have been guilty of these things, they got the business of the underworld.
We read about man in the underworld, and he killed another man in the underworld. He didn't know this. It's up to now. These are similar. Also, when you think of other things that have been committed, no value to society, these men, they're peaceless, they're characters, they're rotten. All you can say about these men, whatever happens to them, men like Hitler, Amin of Africa, and men like Stalin, they get what they deserve. They're getting a judgment and a punishment that fits their trap.
They're incorporated their right to society, and the Bible says the murderers will die in an isolated city. Even the world don't go along with that. They're trying everything to get the murder off. They break down in the administration of law, but not God. Man will not punish according to the crime. God will. And you reject His Son, and you get just what God says. Your punishment will fit the crime. The worst sin in the universe, the worst crime committed in the world, rejected Jesus.
Now that's what the Bible says and that's what I believe. They thought it's true. It is not the name for what the Lord Jesus said and how accurate he was in Scripture. He uses this language about how accurate the Word of God is and how it'll be fulfilled. He says this in Luke seventeen, Luke sixteen seventy, And it is easy for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law or the word of God that is. And again, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle shall in any wise pass from the law that all be fulfilled.
And in Revelation, for I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the things that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this property, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city from the things that are written in this book. God says not one job or city can save from what I tell you. and was sinned. And when God says that he's going to accept Jesus Christ, you're going to go to the lake and turn it with fire and vengeance on him, and that forever you'll get it.
God will not change. And that word tittle is very significant. It means a little difference between two letters of the Hebrew language. Now, tittle. In other words, if you take two seas, about a sixteenth of an inch in height on sin, and after the second sea, there's a little dot there that you can hardly see unless you get a good glance. That's a stick. God says, I'll fulfill my word. Not one dot or sitting patch that I see.
Man can play around with sin and crime, get by with almost any. But not so with God's word. He's going to carry out everything that he says in his book. Now get the sin himself. The Lord Jesus was very careful and accurate when he handled God's word and so should we do. It was a time when in Luke chapter four, he went to his own town and as he went to the synagogue at the age of thirty, he was given a book to Father Jeremiah there.
And he opened it at chapter sixty-three. And verse one, this is what is being, verse eighteen. the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to speak the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to deal with broken prophets, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering on sight of the blind, the Spirit liveth he hath endured, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and he closed the book, and he sat, gave it again to the minister, and sat down. on the eyes of all them that were in the sling of jog was fastened on him and he began to say unto them this day is this scripture that filled in your youth do you know the lord jesus when he was quoted from isaiah he stopped at a calmer I'm going to show you what Isaiah had done to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and there's a comma.
And that's where the Lord stopped in Luke, goes to Luke, David, and Luke. He couldn't have finished the rest of that book. This is it. And Isaiah didn't. Christ says, I've come with a good message of the gospel for the people. And he says, I'm going to fulfill all that up to this point of that time. But he says, at the end of the church age where the church is complete, when the last soul to complement the church, he says, I'll come for my church and then I'll pick up that group and leave the last.
K of Benjamin's development. Christ took note of a karma. How accurately he read the Word of God. And today's world is hanging on a karma. And when Christ comes, he will reopen that prophecy and he will declare that they of Benjamin. And that will be the beginning of judgment that's given us, the revelations, the captains, and the dark and awful days that are of some small and are coming upon the rest. I just want you to notice how accurate this book is.
And when the Lord Jesus was on the cross, he reflected over all the Old Testament scriptures, all over his mind, healing actually the sufferings of his body. He says this, he knowing that all things were now accomplished that were written of him, he said to his own, I was done up to the years. He fulfilled all the Old Testament. Everything concerning him was fulfilled. All that he has written concerning a preacher hasn't been fulfilled, but a religious doctrine has literally fulfilled as before the past.
And you better read this book with thought and with care. And don't guide over it. There are some things that I really need to stop and look at. And this is one. Of sin, he says, because they believe not of me. That's the worst crime in the world today. You would shudder at some of the people who would be concerned at some of the crimes I've mentioned. You would rub shoulders of beasts, wicked, ungodly, in the gutter. Let me tell you one thing, if you're not born against your words for men in spite of God, they may reject Christ also on all those other sins.
You've rejected Christ and haven't done these things, but you're going to share the same hell. Because rejection of Jesus Christ is the sin and the only thing that can send us so to hell and keep us so out of heaven. He says, I'll sin because he believes not on me. Man got away from God by disbelief, disobey, God had an illusion. You get back to God by belief, no reason. In vain of God, that's how simple it is. I'm glad my message doesn't have to end there.
Notice what he says. Verse ten, he talked about the sin of unbelief, for the need not on me. Now the Spirit is here to convict with something else. A righteous man is a rightful to my father. He said, well, what can I do? I know I've sinned. I realize that. And I know it's Christ's objective. What can I do? Well, at one thing, you need righteousness. You'll never get into God's heaven unless you have righteousness. But where do you get righteous? Well, we find it in our passage. Consider it here to convict.
And there'll be no conversion unless you're convicted that you're a sinner. And only by conviction can you hope to get any kind of instruction. When a person is convicted of his sin, He knows you, then he says, what must I do to be saved? Now our text of writing, you have heard enough this morning to convict you of your sins and make you desire to be saved. To know your sins are awful, horrible, skin and pride. But God hates and will judge according to his character.
how can I escape that hunger of which that faith is deserving? You need righteousness. Where do you get from that righteousness? Then they say this, say this, this righteousness is not a man. Because the Bible says there's none righteous, no not one. Our righteousness, even our good works, are filthy rags of life. All our righteousness is our filthy rags. And Christ makes an amazing statement. Except your righteousness, if you see the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, he in no eyes, he in no eye, he in no eye, then he is in your head.
Can you conceive of your righteousness comparing with the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, the doctrines of the law? Like the Apostle Paul, he carried out the law, and eventually agreed. Yes, those men were religious, students of the Old Testament Scripture. They observed their ordinances. Very strict man. Christ says, you need something more than that. You may have religion, you may have history. You may live a clean life. You need something more than that. You need a righteousness that is the nature of that person.
Righteousness is a person. That person is the Lord Jesus. And I want to say this. The righteousness you have to get to heaven must be a righteousness that brought it back. And that doesn't mean your life or your character. You're not righteous. And your life's not righteous, so God won't accept you. The only place that righteousness is found has been our test. He says, I hear righteousness is called by both and heart. You're looking for righteousness? It's the Lord's right hand. The righteousness you need is in heaven this morning.
That's God's right hand. It's a person and you've got to have him. God won't take the enemy. No man cometh unto the Father but by name. Here is God's wonderful writing. And God will accept this. He will accept any other. We accept this righteousness, the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Righteousness is the first. Look at these scriptures. I'll just go over them quickly. Here is one in Romans three, twenty-two. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith that Jesus Christ unto all and upon all, I believe.
Romans five, seventeen, the gift of righteousness, give God, righteousness, and gift. The gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Philippians three nine Paul said, and be found in him, Christ, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God through Christ. That's Paul's righteousness. Not his own. He was thinking of the righteousness in Christ. That's the righteousness that Paul had after he accepted the case. Not even right. the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And again in Corinthians one thirty, Christ is made unto us his complete righteousness.
And also in section three and five of them, for God has made him to be sinned, for us he who do no sin, that he might be made the righteousness of God in him. The righteousness that you need to get to heaven is a person. How sickly this makes you be a member of the church, you take to the heaven of your good life. The only righteousness that you can get into heaven by is a person, Jesus Christ. And there's a lovely text over in Jeremiah, chapter three, six, that it's in capital letters, the Lord our righteousness. And you never get into heaven unless you have that righteousness.
Now that righteousness is not an act. It's not a work that you do. That righteousness is a nature. It's a divine nature. We're partakers of a divine nature. And only when you come as a lost sinner and acknowledge your loss you've rejected Christ as your Savior. Lord, I want righteousness. I want something that you will accept. I want something that will please you and satisfy you. God said it right here at my right hand, Lord Jesus Christ. He is righteousness.
He is the righteous one. He's the only one that did a work for sin that I could accept. and to prove to you that I am pleased with what he did, on your behalf, I raised him from the dead. He's at my right hand. That's what our text says, of righteousness, because I was on my mind. If you've got bad righteousness this morning, if you haven't, if you haven't seen, you may have a good life, you may live with it. But if you haven't got faith, you haven't got faith. And that's what the Spirit is in this world, is convict the world of.
Of sin, because they believe in all I need, says Jesus. Of righteousness, he should convince the sinner, he needs righteousness, and the prince to find that righteousness. He says, I don't follow. And that's what he finds. He's in a church. He needs justice. And then he says of justice, the third thing, because the prince of his realm is justice. Here you have the past, the present, and the future. Of sin, because they believe not on thee, what he did is carry. Where he bore your sins, and go not, and not to heaven.
Then there are those present of righteousness. In the present, ever since Christ went to heaven, righteousness has been a God's right hand in a person, that's the word. and the future judgment. That's what he tells you, does he not? In verse eleven of judgment because the sin of the world is God. What do you have here? He's a free spirit in these verses. Past, present, future, sin. What's that? That's sinners in this. Then you have the righteousness of the Savior.
The sinner, the Savior. And the third one, judgment, Satan. Sin, or the sinner, and righteousness, that's the Savior, and judgment, that's the Savior. This simply boils down to this. You're the sinner. And if you hadn't been born again, it has never accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. You are a sinner. And all these other horrible crimes and sins be permitted. It's absolutely out of the picture compared to rejecting Jesus Christ. He talked about these other men and how they got what they deserved.
Why do they accept Jesus, reject Jesus Christ? Did you answer them? Answer them. Why does the world reject Jesus Christ? What's he done? He never fall alive. He never stole anything. He was honest. Never, instead of a good word, he had to take back. Never put the steps. He had to be praised. Never performed an act. He was born. Not only did he live a sinless life, for he was sinless. Yes. He lived a sinless life, because he was a sinless man.
The current further, to make this trial of rejecting Christ a little more than normal, he's the son of God. The only man in this world who ever walked this world had a right to live with Jesus Christ against he died. Those who have the right to die and justify it. It is. There's the story. See, Esther. You're not born again, you're a sinner. If you've set Jesus Christ as your righteousness, here's the Savior, and all who are associated with that Savior are now a sinner.
No longer sinners. But if you remain away from such, then you're still going to be associated with the Savior by using the dust. and the three ends and that's where this little paragraph from them of sin because they believe none on me the sinner and his sin is just in Christ of righteousness because I go to the Father there's a savior and salvation and for the sins and of judgment faith of all who are associated with him. These are the three points the Spirit of God is in the world to convict men of the world and has been since decayed nineteen hundred years ago.
And if you miss that, you miss the message and limit that a mission of the Holy Spirit. A lot of people today are often trying to get the filling of the Spirit. They don't know what is, but they're born of the Spirit again. Do you know what it is? If you mourn again, you have it over John, Peter, John, Peter, verse seven. The wind blows where it lifts us. Our ears are tiled off. The pats are our wind. We come with a good word for it. So is every one that is born on the earth. And when you take Jesus Christ, you now are associated with the Lord Jesus and God's right hand.
God accepts him and God will accept you in him. And you never made heaven any other way. Are you ready to admit, give a sinner, and you'll get the punishment that that sin deserves? You've rejected the only man in the world you ever deserve to live. Jesus Christ, the fairest and the dearest. And here you are, he says, for no reason whatsoever. You want to be saved, within him, and want the world to be rejected, and you'll only accept him. The tables will be reversed, and you'll be saved.
Continue on. and judgment because the prince came and the square of his guts and all who associated with him will get his judgment cast into the bottomless pit of the devil and his envy his associates whether you like it or not it's in this book that you can't tell me you can relate it every gossip and question brought their eyes of faith The choice is all. Do you want the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want a mouse? Or do you not? Strong sees your heart, and you know what your attitude is, and you know what the prisoner is going to make.
Before you meet his captain, you know, how did love to write down your name in the last book of life? Are you finding out what a sinner, what a rebel, what a criminal you are? by committing the greatest crime on the universe, rejecting Jesus' fight, instructing him to save him as one might, and be the case for the judgment of the Holy One. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Our Father in heaven, in the name of the Lord Jesus, we come into thy presence. Be thy blessing upon thy firsting words, This is the word that thou hast ridden for the world.
How loosely it is being handed, that thou hast promised that not one's drop so sick, that ever it remain unworthy, whether this pride in the system and the glory to come with a sinner in a lawful country, for ever to make the tongue of his hide, and lift his thy will, he share not unto you. To be conscious from the subconscious morning and from the joy of being written, after the ensured imprecision.