Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: We're going to be doing a study about the Holy Spirit. It's one of those studies that I have a feeling the devil won't like because as we get thoroughly informed of his work and his person, God can really do the things that he wants to do in this life.

God the Father made the earth and rested on the seventh day. God the Son came to earth, accomplished our redemption, ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of God the Father. "Finished," he said. Now it is the Holy Spirit's turn. Here it is with whom we have to do. But what do we have to do with him? That's what this study is all about.

I'm going to tackle it in a little different way than just talking generally on all the passages of scripture that deal with the Holy Spirit. I'm going to take the symbols and the emblems of the Spirit, look at the passages that show us what this is all about, and just come at it from a little different way so that perhaps we can get it in focus a little bit more. Sometimes I think truth is like a photograph that's out of focus. It's the Holy Spirit that brings it into focus. When you look at a photograph and say, "Ah, it's just out of focus. I wish it was clearer," that's what I pray that God is going to do through the Holy Spirit our teacher, through this series of messages.

Now, headlines underline events and focus our attention. They capture the news for us. Tabloids and newspapers know that. That's why a glance through Time magazine gives us a feel for a prevailing sentiment, a political trend, the pulse of our world. Last time I glanced that way in this particular magazine, I gathered we were in big trouble, all of us. Those who share this planet of problems, this world of woes, were telling us it's tough being a human being these days. Whatever happened to Eden?

Across the page here and there, a voice is heard using its bow of belief to play a tune of truth on an instrument playing sad songs. And the voice says, "Christ and his cross are the answer. There is grace to go on." The spirit of grace grows faith in the faithless, hope in the hopeless, love in the loveless, depth in the shallow one, care in the cruel one, even a big man inside a little man. There's grace to go on and grow on both, for the spirit of grace has come.

There is this huge problem in the church today. It's a problem of misconceptions. When I first came here, I've often told you about the misconceptions I had. I thought that sidewalks were pavements, cookies were biscuits, and hoods and trunks were boots and bonnets. To "get it together," that's what you said it was, I knew it was really "pull your socks up" and all of that. But I soon got put right by all you good people and you kept coming up saying, "No, Jill, it's not this, it's that or it's not that, it's this." I do remember the day that somebody arrived at my door with a mixing bowl and a recipe and some flour and sugars and said, "I've come to teach you how to make chocolate chip cookies."

And I said, "Chocolate chip what?" I couldn't imagine putting chocolate in cookies. I didn't even know what a cookie was. But she said, "You cannot live in America unless you know this." Now I had been under a misconception. I really thought you could just live here and just do everything everybody else does. But no, I had to be told the truth. I was set right.

Well, before I came to know Christ, I had misconceptions like that about God the Father, about Jesus Christ the Son, and certainly about the Holy Spirit. I've often said I thought he was a sheet-shrouded spook haunting old English graveyards. I didn't understand what the "Holy Ghost" was all about. Then of course I became a Christian and even then, I still hadn't a clue. I thought he was a subject for conferences or a good feeling or a reason for argument. Whatever, I didn't understand who and what the Holy Spirit was.

Well, just as you good folks set me right, God set me right. And he set me right using the scriptures, which is the revelation of God about everything. Did you hear about the young man taking a test? He was to write a definition of ignorance and apathy and he wrote, "I don't know and I don't care." Well, one of the problems we have is ignorance.

A.W. Tozer said, "In most churches, the spirit is entirely overlooked. Whether he's present or absent makes no real difference to anyone. Brief reference is made to him in the doxology and the benediction. Further to that, he may not as well exist. So completely do we ignore him, it is only by courtesy we can be called Trinitarian. The idea of the spirit held by the average church member is so vague as to be nearly non-existent." And of course the challenge he goes on to say is to remedy this grave deficiency, which is paralyzing the effectiveness of our churches.

I wonder if that is true about us. I hope not. David Watson, an Englishman who is not now with us but is in heaven, said, "Most evangelicals say, I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Scriptures." And the Holy Scriptures, he says, has replaced the Holy Spirit and there is a deifying of scripture in the evangelical world, or we are in danger of doing so if we're not careful. The Bible, the Bible, the Bible becomes everything. And we need to get back to realizing that if we do call ourselves Trinitarian, that we believe in a Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Then that is what we must believe in.

But then, what do we believe? Are we ignorant? And if we are not ignorant, are we apathetic about even learning about him? Well, it's rather a silly point when you're all listening to me and you've come to learn about him, but I'm talking generally here. There is an apathy. Sins of ignorance in the scripture are talked about as willful blindness. There are sins of ignorance. We think, "Well, if you're ignorant, you're ignorant and you can't be charged with sin." God is not going to lean out of heaven and clobber us and say, "You naughty person, you are ignorant." Apparently, the Bible says there is such a thing as willful ignorance.

Willful ignorance is the opposite of knowledge. Knowledge is gained by observation and experience, and all of us have that opportunity. And we will be held accountable if we have not observed from the Word of God facts about the Holy Spirit and then experienced the truth of those facts in our life. We will be held accountable. So it isn't any good to face God at the end of your life and say, "The Holy Spirit really didn't use me in a mighty way in your world." He's going to say, "You had every opportunity of observing and of experiencing these things. Why didn't you do it?" And we might well be guilty of a sin of willful blindness, as the scriptures speak.

So we mustn't be ignorant and we certainly mustn't be apathetic about our ignorance concerning the Holy Spirit. If we will commit ourselves to study and to prioritize that and not let lesser important things take its place, then the promise I believe for all of us as we study this together, teacher and taught alike, is a promise that the teacher, the Holy Spirit, will help us to understand the things we need to understand to make a huge difference in our lives, in our Christian lives. Powerless lives can become powerful. Weak lives can become strong. Character can be developed. Discovery can be made of your gifts. Prayer life can be transformed. That is all the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now, will you turn to John's gospel chapter 14, verse 15. "If you love me," said Jesus, "you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. Now, the world can't accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you."

Jesus is promising the disciples the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. He calls him the Spirit of Truth. And the disciples begin to get an understanding of many things in a few sharp sentences. One thing above all overwhelmed them to the exclusion of all else. They really weren't interested in the Holy Spirit. All they were interested in was this incredible news that Jesus Christ was going away from them, that he was going to leave them as orphans in this world. And I'm sure at that moment of time, they really weren't interested in a Bible study on the Holy Spirit. All they could think about is, "What do you mean you're going away now? Come on, you can't mean this. Where are you going and why are you going? And you've just come and you've come to do all these things because we believe you are God. And what do you mean you're going? You're 33, you've only just begun."

This, however, is the key passage of an introduction of teaching from the Lord Jesus himself about the Holy Spirit. So, who is he? From this passage, we gather he is another one just like Jesus. "I will send you another comforter," and the word "another" means another of exactly the same sort as me, another of exactly the same sort. He could have used another word that would have said, "I'm going to send you a different person, different from me." But he didn't. He carefully used the word "another one just like me." So the first thing we glean is, if he's another one just like Jesus, he's divine. He is God. The Holy Spirit is not a lesser God than the Father and the Son, but is God, very God indeed.

"He lives with you," said Jesus. "Look at me, look at me. He's living with you. But he shall be in you." What a weird thing to say. Here's a human man saying, "I'm living with you, but I will be in you." Well, of course, apart from the fact that he's God, the whole thing is stupid, doesn't make sense. And even to the disciples at that moment, it didn't make much sense. Both the Father and the Son, you notice, will be involved in the sending of the Holy Spirit. The Father is going to send the Spirit and I will be involved in it too because I'm going away to the Father and I will come to you. So somehow, the Trinity is involved in this divine agenda and this divine action.

So does he have a name? Who will he be? Well, he will be God and therefore omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. But does he have a name? There are quite a few little names here we can pick out and get started in our mind process so that they become part of us. The first name is Paraclete: counselor, comforter, helper, advocate. And actually, the best of all those words, and they all mean the same, is advocate. Advocate. It's a legal term. And it refers to anyone in trouble with the law. And Jesus is saying, "I will send you another one just like me who will be called alongside to help as your advocate." Now he's more than a counsel for the defense, he's not a heavenly Perry Mason. God himself will be this person, this advocate that will come.

The word "comforter" is the weakest of all those words I threw out to you. It was John Wycliffe in the 14th century that translated this word "comforter." And it has lost some of its meaning, like many of the words in our Bible today. The root significance of advocate is strengthener, empowerer. For example, John Wycliffe translated "I can do all things through Christ instead of which strengtheneth me" as "which comforteth me." It's weaker. It doesn't mean the Holy Spirit will not comfort when he comes, but that is definitely the secondary reason for which he comes, as we shall see as we go on in this study.

The secondary reason for sending the Holy Spirit is to comfort the disciples. Important, but not all important. Slightly dilutes the meaning. So when we think of the Holy Spirit as our advocate, we think of one called alongside to help us in a legal sense: strengthener, empowerer. He is there for us. Now included in it is this sense, "I will not leave you as orphans, fatherless, desolate. I will comfort you concerning that." But it is the lesser meaning. This is because Jesus is going. Because Jesus is going, the Spirit is coming. And Jesus keeps coming back to this theme. "It's necessary I go away for you," he says further in this passage. "It's important that I go away because if I don't go away, he won't come. Now I am with you, then he will be in you. And that's going to be so much better."

The Holy Spirit has been called the divine barrister, not merely the counsel for the defense. And a barrister looks after his client, pleads his cause, defends his name, and guards and administers his property. Oswald Sanders says in his book, *The Holy Spirit and His Gifts*, "The Holy Spirit, however, is not primarily our advocate. He is Christ's." Now this is a very important point. If you don't get anything else today, let's get this straight. The Son is our advocate with the Father. 1 John 2:1 says that. "If any man sins, if any Christian sins, we have an advocate with the Father." We have a legal representative in heaven with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. He prays for us. He pleads our cause. He says, "Let me speak for so and so, for this person, for that person." Jesus Christ the Son and his work in heaven is what our advocacy is all about in heaven.

The Spirit is the advocate of the Son on earth. Catherine Marshall has a lovely picture of this in her book, *The Helper*, concerning the Holy Spirit. She says, "Christ is in the spotlight and the Holy Spirit is holding it." And I love that. Christ is in a spotlight and when you follow the beam of light along, you see the Holy Spirit standing in the shadows, for he does not speak of himself. He is the advocate of Christ. He pleads his cause. He is his client's representative. He defends his name. He guards and administers his property.

So the Holy Spirit wants to involve us in his work. And you see this immediately takes this bit of "the Holy Spirit's here to comfort me" and "that's what Christianity's all about, meet my needs and pat me and say there, there." No, no. The Holy Spirit primarily—he'll do all that—but the Holy Spirit primarily is here to involve us in his work, which is to be the advocate of Jesus Christ so that he will empower and strengthen us to be Jesus' representative, to plead Jesus' cause, to defend Jesus' name, to guard and administer the kingdom of Jesus here on earth. And I think we need to turn our eyes to that sort of work and get them off ourselves. And I think lately, the church has been turning inward, inward, inward far too much. And what we need to do is to lend ourselves to the Spirit that, with him, cooperating with him, we might turn the spotlight on Jesus because that's his work. That's his work.

Who is he? He is Christ's advocate. Who is he? Secondly, he is our teacher. Remember, he is God. He is omniscient God. Would you turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit." Remember Jesus said he was the teacher. He is the teacher of all truth. Now listen to this: "The Spirit searches all things." And do you know what that word means? I love it. It "rummages."

Now you're a woman, I'm a woman. We know what that means, don't we? Those marvelous rummage sales that we have? Aren't they marvelous? You get in there and there's something in a woman that just loves to rummage. I don't need to go to a sale, I just do it at home. We all know what the word "to rummage" means, and that's the essence of this word. The Spirit rummages, searches out, makes sure it knows, he knows what is there in this million things there are to know. He searches and he rummages until he thoroughly understands what's in the sale, if you like. Even the deep things of God.

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except a man's spirit within him? Nobody really knows you. Nobody really knows me but me. Nobody really knows you but you. In the end, whoever you're married to, whatever children are close to you, in the end, only your own spirit knows you, right? Well, in the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God because the Spirit of God is in God and he thoroughly knows God. And we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

The man without the Spirit doesn't accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. He can't understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment. Who's known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. If he who rummages among the things of the Spirit, the things of God, and the things of Christ, dwells in us, and he has come within us to be his teacher, then that should drive us into the Bible in a way that we have never been driven before.

He is indeed God omniscient, knowing all things, and I within me have him, the Spirit of Truth, the one who knows the thoughts of God, the one who knows the mind of Christ and wants to share this knowledge with us. This has been a great help to me just this last week. The older you get, the harder it is to remember things. One of the promises of the Holy Spirit is that he will bring all things to our remembrance. And then there's a little P.S.: "whatsoever he has said to you." He will not bring things to your remembrance that you have not bothered remembering. He will not bring things up into your mind that have never been put there. He might occasionally do that once in a lifetime if it's necessary to do the work he needs to do. But he expects us to put the truth in, and then he will bring it to our remembrance.

Well, the problem is the older you get, my mother used to say the pockets are full. You know all the little pockets in your mind? She'd say, "Oh, what is it? The pockets are full." And I have been experiencing that on this speaking circuit in the most awful way. Please pray for me. I'm really serious even though that's quite funny. But I will be in the middle of something and it'll just go. Happened to me this week in front of this church full of Presbyterians down in Florida. And they all sat there and I stood there and I thought, "What?" and I knew it was in a pocket. And I began looking for it. It had obviously fallen out somewhere and it was very disturbing. And I thought, "Well, all the pockets are full. That's terrible. It's lost in one of those pockets or it's fallen out."

But I just stood there and I prayed, "Lord, it's gone. Where was I?" In fact, I even said to the women, "I have no idea why I started this illustration. It's just gone." And then they began to help me. "Well, you were talking about so and so," says one of them. And another one said, "And so and so," and they were willing me to remember. We were all looking in the pockets. It's terrible when the pockets are full. I'm really disturbed about this. But it was absolutely amazing. It was just as if the Holy Spirit, God himself, found it, rummaged among the pockets. Isn't that wonderful? And he came up with it and he popped it back in. Oh, and there it was. And I said, "Oh, I remember!"

Now I really do believe in a very real way he brings things to your remembrance. I had done my homework. I was prepared. I had remembered what I needed to tell these ladies, but I had forgotten. How neat that the Holy Spirit is my teacher and he is the Spirit of Truth and he will bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever he has said unto you. And then he is presence. He is advocate, he is teacher, and he is presence. Christ was limited on earth. His body was in one place, he couldn't be in another. He limited himself. "A body has thou prepared for me," the Psalmist said, speaking prophetically of Jesus Christ. God prepared a Galilean body. Jesus, second person of the Trinity, dressed himself in it for 33 years.

And when Mary and Martha and Lazarus were in need of him, he stayed where he was. He could not be with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and where he was at the same time. And because he stayed where he was, anchored in that body by choice, Lazarus died and the sisters were distressed because his presence wasn't there. Now then Jesus said it's going to be an awful lot better if I go away because then I will come to you, all of you, wherever you are. Now at the moment you're all sitting here looking at me, you 12 men, but this will not always be. This is only for now.

Thomas, you're going to go heading out for India. You two disciples are going to head out for Asia. And these two are going to go towards Europe. And you are going to go to the far corners of the world, some of you. And you will not be together and I will not have to choose to be with Thomas in India and not with you in Africa or take a journey and perhaps catch up with someone in Europe. It is necessary that I go so that my presence may abide in you, every single one of you, wherever you are. And of course, this is the presence truth about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of presence. "I am with you, but I will be in you, every single one of you, wherever you are." He is presence. And as presence is comforter and strength.

I think of the little girl that was drowning, Christian girl, literally drowning off that boat that went down off the Philippines. My husband met her. I didn't go to that particular meeting, but he met her. And as she was in the water swimming around, she realized she couldn't hang on. She'd been 36 hours in the water. A little teammate—they were Christians—a little teammate working in the mission in Manila drowned. Literally, she saw her go under for the last time. And now she was trying to hang onto another girl and she couldn't hang onto her anymore. She let this girl go and this girl disappeared after hours and hours and hours of hanging onto her. And she decided that she would not go to heaven on her own. So she started swimming around saying to people, "Why don't you turn to Jesus?" And she led two girls to the Lord right there in the water. One drowned and she saved the other one, or they were saved, and she was saved. And she lived to tell the story.

And she said to my husband, "It was amazing. As soon as I began to do God's work, I had the strength. I had the strength to do it. He was present help in her time of trouble." Meanwhile, at the same time back here in Milwaukee, a dear friend was suffering and dying of cancer. And she was able to say, "The Holy Spirit is my strength and comforter." And she was able to do the Holy Spirit's work and to turn the spotlight on Christ who was her savior there in her hospital bed. He was as much present in her body as he was in a little girl swimming in the water in the Philippines. He is presence. That's what he is.

So, who will he be? Advocate, teacher, comforter, presence. What will he do? He will comfort and strengthen first, but he will challenge and stretch us second. In 16 of John's gospel, we read that when the Holy Spirit is come, he will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So, what is he going to do? All of that. So what are you and I going to do? Cooperating with him, we are going to allow him to use us as an instrument to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He does not work in a vacuum. He works with your lips. He works in your life. He works in your hands. He works in your heart. He doesn't work in a vacuum. He has chosen to indwell us and we are simply the vehicle of his divine action here on earth.

And what is he doing? Convicting the world of sin, and that really means of their unbelief. Have you ever realized somebody's not going to come to the Lord unless they're convicted, unless they're convinced that Christ is their savior, unless they're converted? And have you ever realized that you can't do that? Have you ever been helpless in the face of realizing that there is somebody sitting opposite you and unless the Holy Spirit does something, you might as well go home, go to bed? Well, I'm sure you like me have often been in that situation. You feel so helpless. Apart from the Holy Spirit's work, people do not see themselves as sinners. Apart from the Holy Spirit's work, you can talk your head off. You can give them every book to read that you can find. But apart from the Holy Spirit's work, people do not see themselves as sinners.

I have prayed and prayed as I am counseling people, constantly I counsel. Every time I speak, I end up counseling five or six, ten people. And those sort of people you can very seldom help. They've been through every psychiatrist in town and all the rest of it. And I usually say, "Look, this is too complicated, you need to see so and so." But I do come to one or two here and there, praise the Lord, where it's simply a question of leading them to Christ. And I am so helpless, just as helpless before that as I am helpless before these complicated people, complicated cases that need specialist help. And I often sit and look at them and as I'm explaining the gospel to them, I am praying internally all the time, "Lord, Spirit, do your work. Convict them of their sin." They do not believe they are a sinner. I cannot—I've told them, but they've got to believe it.

I remember my daughter standing in front of the mirror one day. She said, "I'm not going to school, Mommy." And I said, "Why not?" She said, "I'm so ugly." She was 13, beautiful, but that's what she felt about herself. And I did everything in my power to convince her, to convict her, to convert her round from that point of view. And nothing I said worked until she believed that for herself. She didn't go to school. Or she didn't believe it when she did, she stayed off school two days. I couldn't get her to go because she honestly believed she was so ugly. She didn't want to show her ugly little face, as she put it, in the school. And you know, some people look in the mirror and they believe one thing and you are powerless to change their mind until they believe it for themselves. And you can't make them believe, but the Spirit can.

And if you start and pray for the power of the Spirit to convict, to convince, and to convert, which is his work, and then remember he's in you to do that work, then the very things you're saying, just lean yourself on the Spirit, as it were. I sort of have this little mental picture in my mind, just lean on the Spirit. Spirit, do this. I can't do it, I'm not getting through, there's nothing I can think of, there's nothing I can say. Do it, Lord. And over and over again, it is incredible how a light will come into their eyes. They'll begin to say things like, "You know, I really feel guilty about such and such a thing." And I'll say, "Lord, you're doing it," because it's his work. It's his work and we depend upon him for that. To convince the world that Christ is the answer, we're powerless.

God has given an authoritative exam to the world and we have failed it. There's a great big F over every one of our lives. Unquestioning proof goes on as we live our daily lives. Decisive judgment has been made: sin, sinners, judgment, hell. Punitive power is in his hand. Judgment to come. The Holy Spirit will deliver those goods. You know something? I have been among some of the most wealthy, classy women that America has in this last two weeks. I was staying in a home I thought I'd died and gone to heaven last night. In fact, now I've grown enough in God to know I'm not even going to get a nice one like that. My mansion's probably going to be a hut. I used to think it'd be a mansion, so maybe I've grown a little bit. However, and I sat down last night, or on the plane actually, just going over these notes, and I began to think of all the things I've said to these ladies. And I began to go cold all over. And I thought, "I have called these ladies in the last two weeks decorated dust, dry bones, crippled beggars, living in a pigsty, poor men in rich men's clothing."

And they listened and they smiled at me. And at one meeting, 22 ladies came to the Lord. Now I want to assure you those sort of ladies do not take kindly to be called decorated dust, dry bones, crippled beggars, and living in a pigsty and poor men in rich men's clothing. This has to be the work of the Holy Spirit. It's ridiculous. And in fact, that's what the Bible says: the foolishness of preaching. I mean, I really was sitting on the plane going, "Oh, did I say that?" And the Holy Spirit said, "Yes, but I made it work. I convinced them you were right." That's his work. That's his work. Incredible! Wonderful! He's the one that will convict, convince, and convert the world.

When will he do it? Well, Jesus said, "I've got to go away, I've got to die so I can be resurrected, so I can go to heaven, so I can send the Holy Spirit at Pentecost." We know when the Holy Spirit came. And here's our emblem for the week: fire. You know the passage in Acts chapter 2, how the little tongue of fire hovered over each head, right? Little tongue of fire. Actually, it wasn't fire. The Bible carefully says something *like* fire, struggling to describe what happened. A symbol or a picture which helps us convey more than a thousand words could convey was given to us. Fire glows, fire shows. It shows the presence of the Triune God. Think of the burning bush. Think of the pillar of fire leading the people through after Egypt. Think of the fire that absorbed the sacrifice on the top of Mount Carmel.

That was real fire, but it wasn't real fire. It was fire that could lick up stones. It was fire. It was the Holy Spirit's fire, for he is called the Spirit of Burning in Isaiah 4:4. Something more than physical fire, something more, supernatural, spiritual power. Fire glows, fire powers. When I lived in England, I used to talk to my children about the "puff-puffs" when they were little. A "puff-puff" was a train, which really dates me. It was a fire-powered train. It was a steam engine. Maybe none of you can remember them. I can. And they went "puff-puff-puff-puff-puff," so we called them puff-puffs. And my kids would look in the book and say, "There's a puff-puff." And whenever they did that in the picture book would be this little man stoking the fire and stirring the fire up and the fire would combust, or whatever they do in these combustion engines, and steam would result and empower the train.

And whenever I know I need power to do something that is beyond me to do, to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to preach the good news, to cooperate with him in convincing the world of their sin and their guilt and their unbelief because they don't believe in Jesus and in judgment to come and that Christ is the answer, then I think inside me the Holy Spirit is like that little engine driver and he's stoking the fire and he's stirring it up. And then I go "puff-puff-puff-puff-puff" and the power is there. The power is there. Next time you don't have any power, think of the Holy Spirit as that engine driver. And think of yourself as a combustion engine. For fire is power. Fire burns, producing power to go. And of course fire is purity. Over and over again, the scriptures use the picture of metals in the fire, purifying the gold. James uses it. Other people use it.

Your faith, which is much more precious than of gold that perishes, using the idea of faith going through the fire, people going through the fire of circumstances, the fire of life, and you come out as gold. Fire purifies. And we'll be talking a lot more before we're through in this series about the work of the Holy Spirit as he purifies and makes holy our life. For he is God and he is holy. He is the Holy, Holy, Holy Spirit. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word and thank you for your Son and thank you for your Holy Spirit. He who has come to hold the spotlight upon Christ who is the answer to a hurting world. That they and we may have the grace to go on, for you are the Spirit of Grace. Teach us to understand that you are Christ's advocate and that you want to involve us in turning the spotlight on him as the answer to a hurting world. And that your work is to convict and to convince a world who holds its head high in unbelief about these things.

God, through us, bring the conviction of sin, the belief in the judgment to come, and the conversion of people to Christ. We cannot do it, but it is your work, the reason you came into our lives. Thank you for the thrill of being part of that. Lord, may that little fire hover over our heads. May there be the evidence within and through us of the power and the presence and the purity of the Holy Spirit. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.