Turning Point

Guest (Male): When you read the Bible, do you treat it like any other work of literature? Just words on a page? Or do you pray for the Holy Spirit to bring it to life? Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers the Spirit's role in helping believers see and understand the truths of Scripture in vivid detail. Here is David to introduce the conclusion of his message, "The Illumination of the Spirit."

Dr. David Jeremiah: I remember when I first began to learn about inspiration, the inspiration of the Bible. I heard a statement that went something like this: these men of God, filled with the Spirit, through their own personality, shared God's absolute truth so that what we have in the scriptures written in the Bible is the absolute Word of God right from God, poured through the personality of these individual writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and illuminated by the Holy Spirit.

We are talking about all of this today as we continue our discussion of 1 Corinthians 2:6-14 and the illumination of the Spirit. Your prayerful support of Turning Point means a great deal to me. If this program has been a blessing to you, this is a perfect time to make an extra special gift of support. Your donation today will be matched dollar-for-dollar thanks to generous friends of the ministry. When you give, your gift will be worth twice what you give.

Thank you for standing with us during this critical time of year. Together, we continue to deliver the unchanging Word of God to an ever-changing world. We could not do it without you, so thank you for your partnership. When you send your gift this month, please be sure to ask for your copy of the book, *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know*. We will send it to you right away so that you can begin to read it and follow up on these lessons as we teach them each day on the radio.

We are blessed to have the privilege of teaching God's Word to many people every day. This huge family of Bible-believing Bible students is everywhere in the world, and we are so grateful for the opportunity to make God's Bible, God's Word, the subject for every day. We do not teach anything else; we teach the Bible. Because of that, we know God is going to bless it because He has promised to do so. Here is part two of "The Illumination of the Spirit."

The great desire of the Spirit's heart is to flood the light of Scripture into your mind and help you to know more and more about your Heavenly Father and your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is like a lighthouse keeper who just loves to send that powerful beam out and help you get through the fog and the darkness of where you live. How many of you know we are living in some fog and darkness right now? It is hard to see our way through it. Sometimes we get up and say, "What in the world is going to happen today?"

How many of you know sometimes you just get a verse and you hang on to that verse? You live off of that verse for two or three days because God has given you a verse of Scripture to give you direction and hone in on what is happening in your life. In general, the content of the Spirit's ministry is all the truth. The truth is the Bible, the written Word of God. Sometimes people come to me and maybe they are living with each other out of marriage. I have had that happen several times.

When they want to talk to me about this, I say, "You know, what you're doing is not right. You should not be doing that. The Bible does not allow that. The Word of God does not allow that." I have had them say to me, "I know that is what the Bible says, but we prayed about it and we have got real peace from God that this is okay." I am not going to tell you all the things I say when that happens, but what I want to tell them is whatever you got is not peace from God.

I know that to be true because the Holy Spirit will never contradict what the Word of God says. Not ever, ever, ever. You can count on it. You will not read something in the Bible and the next day get some vision from God that contradicts what the Bible says. It is not going to happen. Your standard for what is truth and what is right and wrong is the Scripture. You do not have to doubt about it because God wrote it down for you. It is called the Bible.

When somebody tells me the Spirit of God told them to do something that is not from the Word of God, it may be a spirit all right, but it is not the Spirit of God. When we talk about spiritual illumination, we are not talking about dreams or private messages. We are talking about God's Word coming alive as He uses His Spirit to open the understanding and apply the Word of God to our hearts. The parameters of spiritual discernment are found between the covers of this book.

Do you want to know where the wisdom of God is? It is right here. You do not have to go to grad school to get it; you just get a Bible and start reading it. Little by little, God's Word will start to penetrate your life. How does the process work? There is a wonderful passage of Scripture in the little book of 1 John. Here is what it says: "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. The anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you."

Sometimes after a service here at Shadow Mountain, someone will come up to me and say, "Pastor, that was really an anointed message." I take that as a compliment. But what I want to say to you is that John says we all have an anointing, an anointing from God. You have this anointing from the Holy One. I take that to mean that each of us has a special gift from God. It says here you do not need that anyone teach you. I know some students have made that their life verse, but that is not where it goes.

It does not mean we do not need teachers because John himself was a teacher. It means we do not need worldly teachers to teach us the things we need to know about God. He means you do not need teachers who speak from a non-Christian perspective. You do not need horoscopes, you do not need psychic hotlines, and you do not need advice columns to figure out life. You have the Spirit of the living God within you. He is your anointing. When you allow that to happen, you can ask Him to help you and He will. Often He will do it through the Word of God.

This isn't about feelings or whims. It is about the Spirit taking the Word of God and applying it to your mind and heart, guiding you in truth and keeping you alert. The Bible says in John 14:26, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." If you were a Christian in high school or college and you were getting ready for a big test, you may have prayed, "Oh Lord, help me remember the things I've studied."

My prayer was always, "Help me to remember the things I haven't studied." I wanted revelation rather than inspiration. Sometimes you will hear the Word of God preached, and you walk away saying, "That didn't touch me. I'm not sure what he was talking about." You may not think about it again for weeks. But if you keep coming back, nurturing your spiritual life, little by little, you will store truth in your spirit. At the right moment, the Bible says God's Spirit will bring it to your remembrance.

He will bring it to your mind. Most crises may come to us, but all of them have one thing in common: you do not get time to do homework on them. If there is a crisis and you are facing it, you do not get to say, "I'll come back in two weeks after I have had a chance to study this a little bit more." How are you going to remember something you do not have? You have got to give the Spirit of God something to work with. You have got to put some Word in your heart.

You may ask how to do that. Well, there are a lot of ways. You can memorize the Scripture; I know that is a foreign term to some of you. You can read the Scripture or you can listen to the Scripture. There are so many ways to listen to the Scripture today. Many worship songs are built around Scripture; you can play them in your heart. If you do not fill your mind and your spirit with godly things, then when the Spirit of God wants to bring something to your remembrance, He goes to your hard drive and there is nothing there.

You have to give Him something to work with. That is the part we play in the disciplines of our life. We study and we listen and we take notes. I am so honored when I see some of you taking notes. Every piece of spiritual information that you make as an input into your life becomes fodder for the Holy Spirit to use when the time comes. I will give you an illustration. I was speaking at a conference some years ago and I had an assignment to speak on marriage.

A woman told me at the end of my message that day in tears that she and her husband were having terrible problems on the verge of divorce. He had told her several weeks before that he would come to this session and hear what I had to say, but that was it; if it did not work, he was finished. She said, "Pastor, we had this major fight this week and he said he's not going." Then she told me she had tried to take her own life because she was so discouraged.

I do not know where this came from, but I looked at her and I said, "Young lady, don't you ever do that again. God did not die for your marriage. He died for you. He cares about you as a person. So don't ever do that again." It came from what was in me. The Holy Spirit will use what is in you and bring it out at the right time when you need the answer. But if you do not put anything in your spirit for the Holy Spirit to work with, He will not have anything for you to say.

The point is, you do not have to go around begging the Holy Spirit to help you. Just keep filling up the tank with godly things and when the moment comes, the Holy Spirit will be there to give you the wisdom that you need. Then there is spiritual dependence. Did you know that the ministry of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for you to face life in a different way than the average person? We can face crises and testing and not get blown off course.

We face these crises with the knowledge of God. I think that sort of discernment comes as the Spirit of God helps you and me to see the whole picture. The Spirit of God wants to give us perspective. He is not just interested in the moment; He is interested in that moment in the big picture. Let me give you an illustration of this from the New Testament. Here is this young man who loved the Lord, and he died an unjust and violent death.

He was stoned to death for boldly proclaiming Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. He told people what they did not want to hear, and because they had no answer for his arguments, they killed him. I am talking about Stephen. If you knew you were going to be martyred for your faith, if you knew you were going to be stoned or shot because of what you believe and what you say, what would you be thinking? You would probably be afraid.

If you were not, there would be something wrong. You would probably be wondering about your friends and your family. I am sure all those thoughts went through Stephen's mind as well. But Stephen had a perspective on that moment that came because he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He saw that moment not in just time; he saw it in light of eternity. Listen to his words: "But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, 'Look! I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!'"

How did he see that? With death rushing on him, with murderous hatred all around him, and with sharp heavy stones crashing into his body. He saw it through spiritual illumination. He saw it through his spirit. The spiritual illumination of the moment gave him confidence and strength and the ability to see beyond that tragedy and the loss of his life. He was enabled to see into that place where he would spend eternity. He saw God. He saw Christ. He saw heaven.

He died with a blessing on his lips rather than a curse for those who were taking his life. That is what the Holy Spirit does. He takes those moments which could easily be interpreted like the world interprets them and helps us to see them through the eyes of God Himself. He gives us spiritual direction. He gives us discernment, dependence, and direction. When the Spirit of God comes to live within you, He is your guide and leader.

Paul wrote it this way in Romans 8:14: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." If you are a child of God, the Holy Spirit is your leader. Many of you who know me know that I am directionally challenged. I do not have a very good sense of direction. Sometimes it is so bad that when I think I should turn right, I always turn left because I know I am going to be wrong. Good thing my wife has a good sense of direction.

Even with the best compass or GPS, life can still leave us not knowing where to turn. In those moments, the Holy Spirit is to be trusted. He is the one who helps us know where to go, where to turn, and what to do. He knows everything that is involved in where you are headed and He gives you guidance to make the right decision if you will trust Him. Romans 9:1 says, "I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit."

I believe there is an inward witness within us who are Christians that helps us to know what to do. Sometimes I have been at a crisis where I have had to make a decision. The logical decision to make is so logical, but I knew that God was telling me to do the other thing. I do the other thing as I listen to the Lord and later find out that it was a good thing I did not do what was logical. I did what was spiritual.

When you do what is spiritual, you have a much better chance of the outcome being what you hoped it would be. Life is so complicated that I do not even want to try to live it on my own in my own wisdom. I do not want to be my own travel agent through life, writing my own itinerary and arranging my own accommodations. I only mess everything up. There are too many options and too many serious consequences if I make the wrong decision.

As the old bumper sticker said, "Life is fragile; handle with prayer." I need the guiding hand of God's Spirit. He leads us through God's Word, through prayer, through circumstance, and through godly counsel. Through all these means, He helps us and He guides us. Three thousand years ago when David was hiding from his enemies in the depths of a limestone cave, he wrote these words: "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then You knew my path," speaking of God.

It is the same for you and for me. Not long ago, I was flying in a private jet and I got the opportunity to go up and sit in the jump seat, which is right behind the pilots. I had never done that before. Before long, we ran into stormy weather. Huge clouds surrounded us and you could not see a thing out of the front window. I remember thinking that we needed to see where we were going. The pilot did not seem all that worried.

He did not even try to look outside. He kept his eyes glued to the gauges and the instruments in front of him. That is what guided them and those instruments carried us safely home. Sometimes as Christians, you find yourself wanting to watch your circumstances. You want to live your life based upon what you can see around you, but that will always be inadequate. We focus our eyes on the storm, and we get worried about the clouds and the rain and the darkness.

When that happens, what we have to do is to hone in on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and ask Him to help us see through the fog and the storm to the reality of His presence. Sometimes you just have to put blinders on and pray, "Lord, help me not to look at the circumstances. Help me to hear and listen to what You are saying to me." I think sometimes we listen to too much news and look at too much of what is going on.

We live in this day when we do not just get the bad news that is here; we get the bad news from all over the country. The bottom line is we do not just live in the present with all of the world's information around us. We are Christians and we live in a spiritual realm as well. We need to see through the fog and through the storm, and the way we do that is through the eternal Word of God that gives us the encouragement we need to keep stepping forward.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not keep looking out the window. In all your ways, keep your eyes where they belong and He will direct your path. When you open the Scripture, the Spirit illumines your mind with truth and your path with direction. If you do not have the Bible to help you, you are out there lost.

If you do not have any other voice in your life, you are going to be impacted greatly by everything that happens. You need a stabilizing force. That force is the Spirit of God who lives within you. He has promised you that if you will faithfully read this book, He will help you understand it. He will help you understand what it means to you. August Hermann Franke was a brilliant young scholar in Germany more than three centuries ago.

By the time he reached his mid-20s, he was already lecturing on theology, explaining the Bible to his students. But there was a problem: he did not believe the Bible was God's Word. He was just teaching the Bible as a book of literature to college students, which happens a lot. One night he was in his study preparing for another lecture and his eyes landed on a verse in John chapter 20.

The verse said, "These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name." These things he had been preparing to teach as if they were literature. Now he reads in that very book that these things were given to him so that he might have life in the Son of God. That verse hit him like a lightning bolt and suddenly the words felt alive as if God was speaking straight to him.

In that moment, he realized he was not in charge of the Bible; the Bible was in charge of him. He believed and he described himself as being born again. The same Spirit who opened his eyes can open our eyes. As Christians, when you open the Bible, do not just expect words on a page. Expect God to speak to you, to guide you, and to change you. Ask yourself if there is something He needs to show you that you need to do or quit doing.

I open my heart to you. Here is the thing that is so hard for all of us when it comes to direction: you have to sign at the bottom of the page and let God fill in the top. You do not get to say, "Okay, Lord, that is a good idea. Let me think about that for a week and we'll discuss it next time we're together." When He tells you what to do, you have to be willing to do it. That is the way He works. He is God and there is no second opinion.

If God says this is it, you already have to sign at the bottom. The answer to Your question, no matter what it is, is yes. I will do that. I will go there. I will follow Your direction. You come with that heart of obedience and God will meet you at that place, I promise you. He will show you what to do. Whatever God tells you to do, He is obligated to help you do it. But you have to listen. Get some truth going in your life and God will honor you for it.

I have often thought that the illumination of the Bible through the writers of the Scripture is a practice that happens also in our lives. When we read the Scripture and we understand it, sometimes the understanding is overwhelming to us and we realize something has been going on besides just our mental acuity. This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit making God's Word come alive to us. The illumination of the Spirit is at work today in your life if you are a Christian.

Tomorrow we are going to talk about walking in the Spirit. What does that mean? We hear that discussed a lot. People say you just need to walk in the Spirit. Well, what does it mean? How does one walk in the Spirit? Tomorrow here on Turning Point. Do not forget to get your copy of the book, *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know*. It is our resource for the month of June and you can have your copy for a gift of any size. Thanks for listening.

Guest (Male): Today's message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah. Drop us a note to let us know how God is using this ministry in your life. Write to Turning Point, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. Visit our website at DavidJeremiah.org/radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know*, a valuable resource that's yours for a gift of any amount.

You can also stream more than 1,200 of Dr. Jeremiah's messages on demand on any screen on our streaming service, Turning Point Plus. For a monthly gift of any amount, visit TurningPointPlus.org for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue *The Holy Spirit You May Not Know* on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.