Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Mark Daniels: Welcome to Hear the Word of God, the online and broadcast teaching ministry of the Reverend Eric Alexander.

Eric Alexander: We seek the gracious ministry of your Holy Spirit amongst us, our Heavenly Father, that our hearts being opened to you now and our wills laid in obedience before you and our minds ready to be stimulated to think with the mind of God, we pray that you will come and be our instructor and open the truth to our understanding. Grant us the grace and power of your Spirit that we may readily obey you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You'll find it helpful, I'm sure, to have your Bible open at the passages in John's Gospel which we read this evening, chapters 14 and 16. I invite you to turn there with me now. Those of you who were with us at the morning service today will recognize that our thinking this morning was about the significance of the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, this being the Sunday before Ascension Day, which is on Thursday.

You will know that Jesus ascended to the presence of his father was, in the words of the book of Acts, taken up into heaven. He was taken up into heaven 40 days after his resurrection. Acts 1:3 tells us that he was seen and ministered in his risen body for 40 days after the resurrection.

One of the principal reasons that Jesus ascended to his Father and went up into heaven was fulfilled 10 days after the ascension, that is, 50 days after the weekend of Easter on what we know as the Day of Pentecost, but which the Jews would have regarded and still do as the feast of Pentecost, which of course is the 50th, as the name suggests, the 50th day after the Passover.

50 days, therefore, after the death of Jesus was the event which was the primary reason, one might say, in so much of our Lord's teaching for Jesus ascending to his Father. On that day, he sent the Holy Spirit as he had promised in John 16:7. "It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the counselor, the Holy Spirit, will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you."

When that promise was fulfilled, the Holy Spirit came to inaugurate a new ministry, a quite epoch-making, significantly new ministry. It is about that ministry of the Holy Spirit which I want to think with you during these next three Sunday evenings, or at least for three Sunday evenings to come, beginning this evening.

I think it is an enormously important theme for us to think about, and I was stimulated particularly to begin to think about this afresh by the Glasgow University Christian Union, and I pay tribute to their provoking me to think about the theme on one occasion when I spoke to them recently. I want to take three Sunday evenings on which to think with you about what will probably be these three themes at the moment.

It seems to me this is how we will divide our thinking. First, this evening, I want to say a little about the person of the Holy Spirit and then more about the work of the Holy Spirit. Then next Sunday evening, I want to speak about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then the Sunday after that in the evening, we are to have the privilege of having Dr. Mario Di Gangi from the United States here to minister to us, but the Sunday after that, our theme will be the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

So we will be thinking broadly about the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit for these three Sunday evenings. I want to begin this evening by saying an introductory word or two about the personality, the person of the Holy Spirit. That is to say that the Holy Spirit in scripture is not, despite what we have just been singing in our hymn about the sweet influence of the Holy Spirit, he is not merely an influence.

The Holy Spirit is not merely a power to be experienced. The Holy Spirit revealed in scripture is a personality, a distinct person within the triunity of the Godhead. So when we turn to think about the Holy Spirit, we are going to be thinking specifically about one who is a distinct person within the Trinity of the Godhead.

Although the Holy Spirit is active in the Old Testament in his distinct personality, it is in the New Testament that the explicit doctrine of that personality begins to appear. Now, how do we know that the Holy Spirit is in a distinct sense a person? Therefore, we refer to him not as it, but as he? Not as an influence or power, but as a person.

The essential characteristics of personhood are the exercise of mind and heart and will. In the New Testament, you discover that the Holy Spirit has all three of these attributes assigned to him. He operates displaying an exercise of mind and heart and will. For example, the first of these in Romans 8:27, we actually have the phrase "the mind of the spirit."

Jesus presupposes this when he speaks in his teaching of the reminding ministry of the Holy Spirit in chapter 14 of John, verse 26, for example. "He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." That is, the Holy Spirit will operate in this form of exercising his mind to remind others of what Jesus has been saying.

Similarly, in John 16:13, the Spirit will speak what he has heard from Jesus and will repeat it. Now, that's exercising clearly the faculty of mind in distinctive thinking. It is an exercise of the faculty of a person. Again, in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 10 and 11, Paul says the spirit searches all things. That is, he thinks them out. He examines and discovers them, the deep things of God.

You also find the whole realm of the heart, the exercise of emotion, attributed to the Holy Spirit. You need go no further than the phrase in Ephesians 4, which tells us that the Holy Spirit can be grieved. Now, someone who is not a person can be hurt in a different sense, but only a person can be grieved. The exercise of that form of heart or emotion is the characteristic of a person.

The same is true of a will or spirit. It's evident, for instance, in Acts 16, verse 7, when Paul and his companions wanted to go into Bithynia. Do you remember how the Holy Spirit exercises this distinctive feature of personhood? They wanted to go into Bithynia, but the spirit would not let them. That is, the Holy Spirit forbade them. He exercised this faculty of will.

But perhaps the main evidence for the distinctive personality of the Holy Spirit is in Jesus' description of him as another paraclete or counselor or advocate or comforter, depending which version of the scripture you have. In John 14:16, for example, he says, "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another counselor."

Now, that's a clear reference to the Holy Spirit, which everyone is agreed. But the Holy Spirit is described here, do you notice this carefully, as another counselor. Now, the significance is that Jesus has already been a counselor to them. He has been the paraclete, the one called alongside to help them, coming down from the presence of the Father.

Jesus is their paraclete, advocate, counselor, comforter. These are all words that are used to translate this word "parakletos." Jesus is still described as a parakletos at the right hand of God in 1 John 2, when John says, "We have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous." Jesus is an advocate. But do you see what he says about the Holy Spirit? He is another advocate.

The word that John chooses to use is the word for another of exactly the same kind. Do you see what he is saying then, what the New Testament teaching is? That the Holy Spirit is an advocate, a counselor just like Jesus. He is indeed another of the same. Now, do you see the conclusion we need to draw from this? It is this.

If we assert the personality of Jesus, we also need to assert the personality of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is another counselor of the same kind as Jesus. If Jesus is a distinct person, the Holy Spirit is a distinct person within the Godhead too, because he is another of the same kind.

So we are really saying that the Holy Spirit is not only a distinct person, he is a divine person. If he is another counselor of identically the same kind as Jesus, he is not only distinct, he is divine. But again, you need go no further than the book of Acts to discover the divinity of the Holy Spirit being asserted.

Where in Acts 5:3-5, in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, lying to the Holy Spirit is defined as lying to God. Do you remember that? Where he says, "Why have you lied to the Holy Ghost?" he says to Ananias and Sapphira. He says, "You have not lied to men. You have lied to God." Now, what is he saying? To lie to the Holy Ghost is the same thing as lying to God.

So the personality of the Holy Spirit is a distinct personality and quite clearly in scripture at least, a divine personality. For the same reason, whatever we may think about this extraordinarily difficult matter of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, you blaspheme not against men, but against God. So blaspheming against the Holy Spirit implies that the Holy Spirit is not just a distinct person, but a divine person.

Now, I want to move on at this point to what is really our proper subject for this evening and in which we will spend the rest of our time. That is not so much the question of who the Holy Spirit is, because it is a thing that perhaps we are all clear about that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person and a divine person.

But I want to move on to what the Holy Spirit does, that is to his distinctive ministry. What is the work of the Holy Spirit as scripture reveals it to us? Why did the Lord Jesus send him into the world? In his ascension, he says that it was important for them, advantageous, that I should go away because if I do not go away, the spirit will not come.

Now, why was he sending the Holy Spirit? Well, there are five particular areas of the Holy Spirit's work on which I want us to focus this evening. I'd better tell you just precisely what they are so that you can perhaps check that I am keeping to my own plan, and I hope I do too. First, I want to say something about the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiration and instruction.

That is, the area in which he is active in the writing and understanding of Holy Scripture. That's the first area where the Holy Spirit's ministry is to be focused. Secondly, I want to say something about the Holy Spirit's ministry in regeneration and the bringing of new life to sinners. That is, the Holy Spirit's activity in bringing sinners to the birth in Christ and raising them into life.

Thirdly, I want to say something about the Holy Spirit's work in initiation and union, that is as he baptizes us into Christ and unites us to him and brings us into his body. He has a distinctive ministry of initiation and union. Fourthly, I want to say something about the spirit's work in sanctification or transformation of our character.

That is, the Holy Spirit is active in changing us into the likeness of Christ. Fifthly and finally, I want to say something about the spirit's work in commissioning and enabling us. That is, he is active in equipping us in the service of God. Now, you may think that you're going to be here till midnight with such a vast list of things that we're going to be speaking about.

I promise you that will not be so. Not nearly. But I want us to at least have the bones of this truth set before us this evening. It seems to me an enormously important thing, and we live in a generation where there is a great need for us to understand the ministry and function of the Holy Spirit today. It is of vital importance that we should not be confused in this important area.

First of all, then, the spirit's work in inspiration and instruction. You turn with me to John 14 and to verse 25 or so following, the verses around that passage which we read this evening. Here, the spirit's teaching and reminding ministry is specifically promised to the apostles. Let me read to you from verse 26.

Jesus says, "He has spoken these things," verse 25, "to you while I am still with you. But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." Now, what is Jesus speaking about here and what is he promising?

Let me say to you as we begin to look at this, my Christian friends, that I think we come here to something of cardinal importance in our understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. There is no doubt that here there is in a secondary sense a reference to the Holy Spirit's ministry promised to all believers.

But there is also no doubt, if you look carefully at this passage, that the primary reference of these words is to the apostles to whom they were originally spoken. Jesus is here promising something quite specific to the apostles who were in the upper room to whom he was first speaking. Let me show you how this is clear and evident.

There is no question from the context that the use of the word "you" in verses 25 and 26 must be the same in both verses. Now, that would be a cardinal principle of biblical interpretation, that where two verses are beside each other, the use of the word "you" in both these verses must refer to the same people.

Now, you will notice in verse 25 that Jesus is referring quite specifically to the apostles. "These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you." That is a clear reference to the apostles. "I am still with you. I've spoken these things to you who are with me now while I have been with you." That is not a reference then to us in general, because we were not with him at that time.

He says, "I've spoken these things to you." Now, in verse 26, the "you" must refer to the same people. "The counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." Now, that promise is basically fulfilled in the inspiring work of the Holy Spirit which produced the Gospels.

Where did we get the Gospels from? We got them from this inspiring ministry of the Holy Spirit, who, fulfilling the promise of Jesus, brought to the remembrance of the apostles the things he had said to them. They wrote them as he taught them. Let me quote some words of John Stott to you. "We owe the Gospels," he says, "ultimately to the work of the Holy Spirit in recalling Christ's teaching to the mind and memory of the apostles."

Now, that is the quite specific reference of that promise to the apostles. There is no question that the Holy Spirit does bring things to our remembrance, brings truth back to our minds, teaches us from Holy Scripture. But the primary reference of this is to the apostles. Let me carry you a little stage further along with me, if I may.

You will notice in John 16 and verse 12, Jesus says the spirit will not only have this reminding ministry to recall to their minds what Jesus has taught them, but a supplementing ministry. John 16:12. "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you," again the "you" is the same, "into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come."

So the two things are these. The Holy Spirit is to remind them of what Jesus had said and supplement it with what Jesus had not been able to say, which he was going to teach them. Let me again quote to you some words of John Stott. "Both promises," he says, "of John 14:26 and John 16:12 following, both promises are fulfilled in the writing of the New Testament.

The Gospels being the product of the spirit's reminding ministry and the epistles the product of the spirit's supplementing ministry." Now, if we are to grasp where the truth really lies and what the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relation to truth really is, we do need to grasp this.

Because you see, many people take hold of that promise of the Holy Spirit and say, "I don't need anything else except this promise of the Holy Spirit. He's going to bring me into the truth. He's going to lead me to the truth. He will recall the truth to my mind." But the question is how does the Holy Spirit do that? I tell you, the Holy Spirit does that by taking us to the Scriptures.

The difference between the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us is that the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to write scripture. The Holy Spirit inspires us to understand and obey scripture. That's the difference. The Holy Spirit never inspires any believer today to supplement scripture, or to subtract from scripture, or to deny scripture, or to supersede scripture.

He only inspires us to understand it and to obey it. In the one case to the apostles, the ministry is one of revelation. In the other case to ourselves, the ministry is one of illumination. It is of cardinal importance, I repeat, that we see that distinction and grasp that truth. That is the Holy Spirit's ministry, therefore, in relation to the inspiration and instruction concerning the truth.

Let me say to you again, we never honor the Holy Spirit by failing to honor the Holy Scriptures. The way we honor the Holy Spirit in relation to truth today is by honoring the Holy Scripture. This is Jesus' purpose in this promise to the apostles.

Now, secondly, I want to say something about the Holy Spirit's work in relation to regeneration, the resurrection of the sinner from spiritual death. For this is the biblical word for the new birth of which Jesus speaks to Nicodemus in John 3 as a specific ministry of the Holy Spirit. "Truly, truly I say to you," John 3 and verse 5, "unless one is born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit," that is the Holy Spirit, "is spirit."

Now, that is the activity of the Holy Spirit, which in a sense is primary in our experience. The very first place where you encounter the Holy Spirit in your life is in a work of regeneration. The primary place where the Holy Spirit operates in your life is in a ministry of regeneration. That is of bringing us into newness of life in Christ.

Because we are by nature spiritually dead in trespasses and sins and unresponsive to God. We are incapable of seeing the kingdom, Jesus says in John 3:3. We are incapable of entering the kingdom, John 3:5. It is only by this work of the Holy Spirit who awakens us from spiritual sleep and torpor, who resurrects us from spiritual death and hopelessness and raises us into life.

That's what the Holy Spirit does. When the Holy Spirit begins to operate in the life of a sinner, this is his first experience of the Holy Spirit. He regenerates, brings newness of life to him. Now, that in a sense, you see, is the primary blessing of the Gospel. It is the primary way in which God comes to deal with us.

He awakens us from our spiritual sleep. He raises us from our spiritual death and brings us into spiritual life. Every true child of God has experienced that regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. There are no spiritual evidences of life apart from that. There are no spiritual activities apart from regeneration, and there is no regeneration apart from spiritual activities.

The primary blessing of the Gospel, therefore, is that regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. May I pause, therefore, for a moment and say to you that here is a primary lesson that we need to learn in all our thinking about evangelism. Spiritual life, my Christian friends, begins here. Jesus says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh."

That is, by nature, there is no spiritual life in any of us, nor can be. But that which is born of the spirit is spirit. It is when the Holy Spirit operates upon us that we begin to see the evidences and signs of spiritual life. That means that we need to recognize that the place where spiritual life begins is with God, of course.

There are many things that we may do in the lives of people left to ourselves, unaided and by our own gifts and devices. We may intellectually convince people, and it is possible to do that. We may emotionally arouse and inspire them, and it is entirely possible to do that. But only the Holy Spirit can eternally regenerate them.

My dear friends, we need to recognize that the distinctive thing about Christian evangelism is that the great concern that needs to lie at the center of all our thinking is that work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. That is what we are looking for. Nothing less than this. We are not merely looking for people who have been persuaded to a point of decision, and I do not denigrate the need for decision.

We are not merely trying to see people convinced in their minds and intellectually persuaded. We long to see the evidences of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit bringing newness of life where there has been spiritual death. Paul likens it indeed to a resurrection. He says he found you dead in Ephesians 2 in trespasses and sins wherein you once walked. And you he made alive.

Now, that is the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Packer describes it in this way. Regeneration is, I quote to you from that little book that I have frequently commended to you, I hope not unfruitfully, entitled "God's Words," and I think you would find the chapter on regeneration of great benefit there.

"Regeneration is a drastic change wrought upon fallen human nature which brings a man under the effective dominion of the Holy Spirit and makes him responsive to God." Now, that's the evidence of somebody who is showing signs of being responsive to God. The Holy Spirit has regenerated them. I will never forget some years ago, just soon after I came to Glasgow, some of the students from across the way in the music college came to me to say to me that there was a young man who wanted to see me.

They said he's interested in Christianity. So they said, we have arranged for him to come and see you tomorrow at two o'clock. No problem about one's diary being free, but I was there at two o'clock the next day. He came to the door, and we went into the vestry and sat down. I got to know him a little, and I said to him, "Now, I hear that you're interested in Christianity. Perhaps there's something specially you wanted us to talk about."

"Well," he said, "the only thing I really want to know is if you can tell me what it is that's happened to me." He said, "My life has begun to show the most astonishing signs of change and I don't understand myself." He said, "I have begun to read my Bible, a thing I'd never have done before. I find that I have a deepening desire to know God. I want to come to know Christ in a new way altogether and to live my life for him." He said, "I find I have a hunger for these things, and the hunger for the kind of things that interested me before has begun to go away." He began to describe to me the things that had been happening to me. He said, "Can you tell me what has happened to me?"

"Oh," I said to him, "what's happened to you is you've been born again. That's what's happened to you." And he said, "I suspected it might have been that." And it was.

My dear friends, let me apply this. If that is the essence of the work of grace and if only the Holy Spirit can accomplish it, you will recognize that a man can no more achieve his new birth than he can achieve his first birth. That it is all a work of God and all a work of grace. Therefore, what is the corollary to that?

To whom do we apply for this work of regeneration? Whose face do we seek for it? Whose power do we cry to for this work of regeneration? I tell you to God, by his Holy Spirit whose prerogative alone it is. Where does evangelism then begin? Where is the real evangelism done? The answer is without any difficulty, is it not? In the prayer meeting. But we are not so good at following the logic through, are we? We long for that kind of regeneration, if we are God's people at all. But we do not follow through the logic of how it is to be sought and from whom.

That's the second great area of the Holy Spirit's ministry then in regeneration. Here is the third. The Holy Spirit's work in initiation and union with Christ. Now, the seeds of that doctrine are also in John's Gospel in chapter 15, where John records for us how Jesus likens the relationship into which believers are brought with him as branches united to a vine.

But the development of the teaching is really in Paul's letters and in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 13, he tells us how we are united to Christ and initiated into his body. Now, the principle of this is of course very basic. It is that every blessing in Christian salvation comes to us from Christ. He is our wisdom. He is our righteousness. He is our sanctification and redemption. Every blessing in the Christian Gospel comes to us from Christ.

Therefore, it is by being in him, united to him, that we receive the benefits and blessings of his grace. How then, the crucial question is, how do we come to be in Christ? How are we joined to the Lord Jesus? Well, here is the answer. 1 Corinthians 12:13. "By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and were all made to drink of the one Spirit."

Now, what Paul is simply clearly saying is that the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ. This is how we become part of Christ's body, how we are united initially to him. Now, do you follow with me what conclusion we can draw from this, and it is the only conclusion to draw from it? This baptism by which the Holy Spirit baptizes us into Christ is an initial experience of all Christians at conversion.

It is not a subsequent experience of some Christians after conversion and cannot be by definition. Because the way we are united to the Lord Jesus Christ is by this baptism. If you have not by this baptism been united to Christ, you are not in Christ. If you are not in Christ, you are not a child of God at all. So the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an initial experience of all Christians at conversion by which we are joined to Christ.

It's a very important thing for us to grasp this. That baptism is therefore the source of every spiritual blessing with which God blesses us in Christ. That is why believers are never anywhere in the New Testament exhorted to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Never. There is no command to be baptized in the spirit.

There are many commands to be filled with the spirit, but never to be baptized with the spirit. It's vital for us to have this vocabulary clear, because the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that baptism by which we are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ, an initial experience of God's grace at conversion. There are subsequent experiences, of course, and Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to plead with his congregations again and again that they would never imagine that they had all of the Holy Spirit at their conversion. Truly, that is so.

But my dear friends, we do need to be accurate and biblical in our vocabulary. Because whatever subsequent experience any Christian may have of the power of the Holy Spirit in his life, he may not be biblical and call it a baptism. Because the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an initial experience, not a subsequent one.

And that seems to me a very important doctrine for us to grasp. So it is not a matter of tradition or opinion or of different way of talking about things. It's simply a matter of being biblical or unbiblical. Now, I am not saying at this point that many believing men and women will not have many subsequent experiences of the grace and power of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

What I would want to plead is that we greatly need that work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to glorify the Lord Jesus and make the reality of his presence more precious to us. But we must not call it baptism or else we are not being biblical. And that is the simple evidence of the New Testament.

Here's the fourth thing the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit's work in transforming our character into the likeness of Christ. Spoken about the Holy Spirit's work of initiation, of inspiration rather and instruction, the Holy Spirit's work in regeneration and resurrection, raising us into new life, the Holy Spirit's work in initiating us into Christ and bringing us into union with him.

And fourthly, the Holy Spirit's work in the transformation of our character into the likeness of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 3:18 where Paul says, "We are all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord and are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit."

Now, what is the work of the Holy Spirit here that Paul is referring to? It is that work of transforming our character as he labors within us. As we gaze into the law of God, the Holy Spirit works within us to change us from one degree of glory into another. And that work is the work of his sanctifying grace and power.

Now to this end, the Holy Spirit dwells in and works in every believer. This is his great ministry in us. This is what the Holy Spirit is chiefly about in you this evening, my dear friend, if you're a Christian. The Holy Spirit's great business and interest in you is not in making you the recipient of some exciting gift. He may do that.

But his main business and concern in you is in transforming you into the likeness of Christ. Let me say this to you, you resist that ministry of the Holy Spirit and you will grieve him out of your life in terms of his working. You resist that ministry of the Holy Spirit and he will not perform any other ministry within you. Because the great ministry of the Holy Spirit is the ministry of changing your character from one degree of glory into another until the day when we are presented before the Lord Jesus, changed utterly into his likeness. And that's his great concern. And this is a fundamental concept of all the biblical teaching on the Holy Spirit in scripture.

Now, let me finally say a word about the Holy Spirit's work in commissioning and equipping us for service. In the book of Acts from which we were reading this morning in Acts 1:8, Jesus urges upon the disciples that they wait until they are endued with the power of the Holy Spirit whom he will send.

He says, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and to the ends of the earth." And this ministry of the Holy Spirit is part of his ministry to glorify the Lord Jesus. That is the great thing you will remember Jesus again and again says about the Holy Spirit. He is given to glorify me. He will not speak of himself. He will glorify me.

So what the Holy Spirit does is to exalt and glorify the Lord Jesus. Now, do you see how this brings us into the very heart of the missionary task? Of the sending of men and women out with the power of the Holy Spirit upon them to exalt and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. No more can we exalt and glorify him than we can bring ourselves to spiritual birth.

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we do this. Let me just say a word as our time goes to an end. When we speak about the power of the Holy Spirit, this is what the power of the Holy Spirit is given for. There is a great deal of loose thinking about the Holy Spirit in our generation and that's one of the reasons that I think it's important for us to come to this series of studies.

But there is a great deal of loose thinking about the Holy Spirit in relation to his power. I find many people crying for the power of the Holy Spirit in these days. I find many people who are greatly interested in the power of the Holy Spirit. I was speaking to some people at the General Assembly last week, not in the least interested in evangelical doctrine, but they were saying to me what we really need today is power.

The power of the Holy Spirit to change lives. We see that some people like yourself who hold this peculiar theology, you seem to see people here and there who are being changed and that's what we're not seeing and we want to see it. We're interested in power. I see many evangelical Christian people today who are interested in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I have heard people cry, "Oh God, send us power." And it's not surprising when we're living in a day when the church is so desperately moribund and pathetically weak. But my dear friends, I tell you the Holy Spirit will only send his power for one reason, and that is to bring glory to the lovely name of the Lord Jesus.

He will never employ his power for your glory. He will only employ his power for Jesus' glory. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God and I will not give my glory to another." And the power and the glory are married together in the economy of God. And one of the things we desperately need to learn when we're seeking God for power in our generation is that he has married it to glory.

That is, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So be sure that you seek the power of the Holy Spirit for the same reason that the Holy Spirit came, namely to give glory to the Lord Jesus. But where God finds a people who have his own consuming longing for the glory of his well-beloved son, I tell you he will send the power that the glory may be manifested.

Our God and Father, we thank you for that amazing wisdom which has devised this purpose to send forth your Holy Spirit upon your people in your church. And we desire that we may be made conformable to your mind and purpose in this, that the Spirit of the living God may so come upon us that we may have a zeal for the glory of the Lamb. Lord, hear our prayer.

Mark Daniels: You're listening to Hear the Word of God, with the Reverend Eric Alexander, a minister in the Church of Scotland for over 50 years. To access more Bible teaching from Reverend Alexander, visit hearthewordofgod.org, where your generous contribution will help us sustain and grow this ministry. That's hearthewordofgod.org. You could choose instead to mail a check to this address: 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Or call 1-800-488-1888. This program is a presentation of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I'm Mark Daniels. Thanks for listening. Please join us again next time for Eric Alexander and Hear the Word of God.