Romans 8, 12-16. Paul writes, So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and I pray your mercies upon me as I seek to proclaim your word and I pray that this time would be a time of growth and edification and a joyful acknowledgement of your truths and ways as we continue our worship together. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. I am continuing with Zachariah, although we've taken a slight detour here. And I'll be doing Zachariah for just a few more short weeks with Chris being ordained here in two weeks. He'll very soon start preaching in the evenings. And what Chris is going to be preaching on starting off is through the Minor Prophets, I understand, excluding Zachariah, I believe. He'll be giving, through much of the rest of this year anyway, an overview of the Minor Prophets, and we look forward to that. And I look forward to that too. As much as I love preaching, much of my mental energy is taken up during the week on these two messages, and I look forward to having some time to work on some other things and pursue some other things as well. We've ended up here talking about the Spirit and the role of the Spirit, particularly what it means to be led by the Spirit because of a passage in Zechariah where we saw that God's people were pursuing diviners and they were Attempting to look into the secret things of God, and that led us two weeks ago to talk about what are commonly assumed to be standard biblical practices of how we explain or talk about the role of the spirit in our lives. things along those lines. We talked about that two weeks ago. And my sense is, even after I finished that sermon, that I left a lot of questions unanswered. And I can guarantee you that even tonight, after this sermon, we'll leave some questions unanswered as well. But I sense a need to continue to speak on some of these things. I want to acknowledge as well that I know there will be disagreements with what I'm going to say, as there will be with any sermon I give, essentially. I don't expect everyone to believe or hold to the exact same views that I hold, even as I seek to faithfully proclaim the word of God. And as passionately and fervently as I proclaim things even tonight in this message, much of what I'm going to say are not absolute essentials. It's okay to differ on some of these things. I tell Lacy sometimes, she'll ask me, is it okay if I believe this, which might be a different view or belief than I have. And I say, yeah, you can believe it as long as you can You can back it up biblically and justify it, whatever that belief may be. And certainly as long as it doesn't strike at the vitals of faith or go against an orthodox or orthodox or reform beliefs as as Christians. And so this is an area of that that I appreciate graciousness that I've seen even having preached on this a couple of weeks ago. There was a third thing I wanted to say that I hadn't written down. It's going to slip my mind, so I'll just move ahead. I preached on really the role and workings of the Spirit in our lives and thinking of this fact that people in Zechariah's day, Israel was chasing after diviners. I mentioned that they were doing this probably to determine the future or to attempt to look into the secret will of God or perhaps even to seek help in making decisions. So they would go to these diviners for that sort of guidance. And I suggested that today in Christianity, evangelical Christianity, many widely accepted practices in evangelical Christianity are more attuned to this ancient practice of divination than anything that's biblically warranted. There's much talk today about things like listening prayer. Some people talk about laying out a fleece like Gideon did or looking for a sign. Others speak of nudgings or urgings or promptings from the Holy Spirit and very easily say things like, God told me to do this. At this point, I'm reminded of the third thing that I wanted to say. I want to be very clear as well that by no means will I ever say that God will not do this or that God cannot act in a certain way. But as I go through tonight, I certainly will say biblically speaking, there are many things that we've embraced as evangelical Christians that are simply not the biblical norm. So I want to make that distinction. Please don't hear me as saying God will never act in this way or never directly by His Spirit do something or act. But I certainly believe I can say that many of the things we think about, such as listening prayer, that's not a biblical norm or standard by any means. And so thinking about these things a couple of weeks ago led me to ask the question, well, what does the Bible say about how we are to determine the will of the Lord? That seems to be what Israel was doing as they were going to diviners, trying to look into the will of the Lord and the secret things of God. And I mentioned two weeks ago that I was going to take the marine approach to this. And the marine approach, when you come in as a recruit, is they tear you down And then they build you back up again as they see fit. And two weeks ago, I did a little bit of work to try to tear down some of these ideas that don't match up with scripture. I spent a good deal of time tearing down what I what I believe are not biblical ideas about determining God's will or being led by the spirit. And I acknowledge I probably didn't spend enough time building back up biblical ideas about these very things as well. So I do have that sense that I want to try to do a little more building than tearing down this evening. But nonetheless, we'll review some of the things I said last time. This evening, what I really want to focus on is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. This is an enormous, enormous topic, but I'll cover some things very succinctly tonight. This is, after all, when we think about the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, it's where the rubber meets the road when it comes to God's real, tangible interaction with us as His people. So essentially what I have tonight for us is a topical sermon. In the truest sense of the word, it's a topical sermon. We'll be looking at various passages summarizing the New Testament's teaching on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. That's my goal tonight. Just to give a broad overview, a very broad overview of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. This is, you know, the more I go down this road, the farther we get away from Zachariah, but we'll be back next week to Zachariah, I guess. Let me let me give some quick summary of what we talked about last time, some of the things that I discussed last time, and I made a few statements. that were really part of this marine process of tearing down some things that we typically believe that I don't think match up biblically with what we're taught in Scripture. One of the things I said was any attempt to determine the future or the secret will of God is expressly forbidden in the Bible. We saw this primarily in Deuteronomy 18, where God forbids such practices as divination or fortune-telling and interpreting omens. In this passage, the great Reformed theologian O. Palmer Robertson says, speaking of this passage in Deuteronomy 18, he says, every possible word describing a method by which men might attempt to determine, control, or predict the future is designated as an abomination to the Lord. That is, of course, what Israel was apparently doing in some ways in Zechariah. Another thing I mentioned a couple of weeks ago was this. In the New Testament, God never commands his people to seek the secret will of God. Or I would even suggest God never commands His people to seek out direct guidance or revelation from God apart from His Word. The key word here is direct. And by that, I mean that God simply does not ask His people ever to do anything to seek a direct or immediate word or prompting or nudging or leading from God or by His Spirit. Indeed, God does directly and immediately communicate to His people at times. We saw this in the book of Acts. Perhaps the period of the greatest direct and immediate activity of God among His people. God speaks directly to people in the book of Acts. But he only does it 13 times. And as I mentioned two weeks ago, of those 13 times, eight of those were to two individuals, Paul and Peter. And what this means is that direct communication from God is really very rare. It's by no means the ordinary everyday experience for the multitude of believers. And certainly God doesn't command us to seek out that direct communication in every instance, at least in the book of Acts, I believe throughout scripture. God is the one who initiates that direct communication, not we as his people. Now, someone might ask, well, what about Gideon? Gideon sought direct guidance from God through a sign, that fleece and the dew on or off the fleece. But Gideon knew that he shouldn't be doing that. Gideon said very clearly in Judges 6-39, he speaks to the Lord. He's coming up with this plan to somehow verify what God is saying. And he pleads with God in doing this. He says, do not let your anger burn against me that I might speak once more. Please let me make a test once more with the fleece. Gideon knew he shouldn't be doing that. He pleaded with God not to consume him in his anger. And what we see is God graciously allows Gideon to undergo this test that Gideon was requesting, and God graciously gave him that sign. Another thing that I would suggest is this. God never leads his people by fallible nudgings, feelings, signs, senses, etc. I really started to think about this in college. about how God leads his people and trying to understand some of these things when people say something like, I'll pray about this and come back with a decision. I've certainly said that many times, but I've not really known what I've meant by that. And one of the ways this plays out, I went to Christian college. And there were many couples at this, you know, being a Christian college, people date. And it's, I think, much more serious at a Christian college or dating among Christians is generally much more serious as that question of marriage always is looming on the horizon. And among my friends, oftentimes, as they spoke of these relationships or as I talked to others, oftentimes the Lord would tell or direct one of these people in a relationship to end the relationship. You know, they'd say they prayed about it and sought God's will in the matter, and that's what the Lord told them to do. And that's fine, but as you know, the amazing thing would be that God would also apparently sometimes tell the other partner the exact opposite. and that they ought to be married. Both had prayed sincerely about it, both had sought the leading and guidance of the Lord, and both ended with completely different results. So just on a practical level, this meant that one of a few things, this meant that perhaps one of the partners simply misunderstood the true leading of God. Indeed, that's certainly a possibility. It may mean that God actually did lead the two in different directions, but that's impossible. We know God would never do that. Or it may have meant. that God never directly, and again, the key word there is directly, and we'll get to that a little bit later on, that God never directly led them one way or the other. And ultimately, these decisions were decisions they were making on their own. And of course, that is what seems to me to be the case. God doesn't lead by fallible ways his people. Indeed, we're fallible. But God never leads us in fallible ways. In Scripture, we're never given instruction for sensing or interpreting God's leading as it might manifest itself by internal feelings. In Scripture, we're never given instruction for some common practices that we have today, such as listening prayer. Instead, what we're given is biblical principles to guide us in holy living. And within that framework, then we have tremendous freedom to make our own choices. So instead of, as I mentioned two weeks ago, instead of telling widows how to determine precisely who the right person to marry should be, that process, instead of speaking of that process, Paul simply tells them in 1 Corinthians 7 39, marry whomever you wish, as long as it's in the Lord. There's much talk these days about listening to the voice of God and following the direct and immediate leadings and promptings of the Holy Spirit that I believe are simply without precedence in God's Word. Well, that's a real quick summary of two weeks ago. And as you can can probably clearly see from that, it would lead to all kinds of questions. And I won't be able to answer every question and I am not even really going to attempt to answer necessarily any questions that arose from that. But but I think it will be helpful to spend a bit more time then. on what the Bible teaches about how God does lead and direct His children, particularly through the Holy Spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit and His interaction with us as believers, that's really where the rubber meets the road in terms of how God interacts with us as His people. One of the tragic things about evangelical Christianity today is that the role of the Holy Spirit is frequently thought of almost exclusively in terms of this direct and immediate guidance that God gives to the believer that I'm suggesting is really not biblically warranted. And so if you take that away, if you say, well, the Holy Spirit doesn't At least in common, ordinary ways, according to the Bible, lead us directly and immediately by by giving us a word from the Lord or by by prompting or nudging us to door number two instead of door number one. If you take that away, as I believe we should take that idea away. then many people are left with no clue then as to what the Holy Spirit actually does do in our lives. As I said, Paul essentially tells us, marry whomever we want as long as it's in the Lord. For some then, Paul's instructions can be a crushing blow to those who are looking for some sort of leading or sign or indication from the Holy Spirit that they've got the right guy or gal. Doesn't the Holy Spirit play any role in how we make decisions or in our discernment as Christians? Well, as we'll see, it does. Yes, indeed, it does. Just not in the way that we're so often led to believe or even taught. So what does the Holy Spirit do this week? I just did a quick survey in the time I had this week of as many passages as I could find in the New Testament that dealt with the Holy Spirit and its role and working in our lives. And in looking at these passages, it was not too hard to identify the primary ways the Holy Spirit works. in the life of the believer. And I would certainly encourage you to do this on your own. We as reformed believers, ironically I think, are often criticized for not having a good, solid, and lively doctrine of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But I think it's the other way around. I think many even charismatic Christians are the ones that don't have the lively, full picture of what the Holy Spirit does in our lives. And I encourage you to look in Scripture as many passages as you can about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And it goes far, far, far beyond simply nudging us or prompting us in certain ways. So what I've done just in looking at this this week is I've identified a handful of broad categories that could be broken down or talked about in different ways. But for the most part, I think the various rules of the Holy Spirit can fit into these categories that I'll mention here. Again, I'm not trying to limit the Holy Spirit or God's work through the Holy Spirit in these things, but I think generally, broadly speaking, when we speak of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, the New Testament speaks of it in these ways. First, the Holy Spirit regenerates us. Second, the Holy Spirit seals us. for the day of redemption and testifies within us to the promises of God in our lives. So it regenerates, it seals us and testifies to us concerning the promises of God. Third, the Holy Spirit gives us gifts for the edification of the church. And again, that's a very important distinction. The Holy Spirit gives us gifts for the edification of the church as a whole. We'll talk about that. And the predominant way by far that the Holy Spirit is discussed in the New Testament is in the process of sanctification, as we'll see. And I just want to talk then briefly about these areas of what the Holy Spirit does. A couple of weeks ago or last week, I guess, well, maybe two weeks ago when Craig was here, I was I went on a bike ride with Craig Jones and Matt Kerber in Pittsburgh. And we were talking about some of these very things. And as we talked, I literally became excited seeing how profoundly the Holy Spirit has worked in my life to this date. One of those ways the Holy Spirit has worked in my life and in all of our lives who trust in Christ in a profound way is in this work of regeneration. By regeneration, I mean that process by which God brings us from darkness to light, the process by which He opens our cold, dead hearts to the truths of the Gospel, the process by which He transforms us from rebels running away from God into repentant sinners calling on God. Paul says very clearly that it's the Holy Spirit that does that work of regeneration within us. Titus 3.5. And here's where we'll start to just give a broad survey of passages. I'll move quickly. You don't have to look them up. You can if you want to. Titus 3.5. We read, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we've done in righteousness, but according to His mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. Paul also speaks of that inward circumcision of the hearts. That decisive moment that indicates a clear change in a believer's life that brings them out of the ways of the world into the ways of the Lord. That inward circumcision that Paul speaks of is done by means of the Holy Spirit. Romans 2.29 Paul says, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is that which is of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter. And then throughout Romans 8, Paul speaks of how God's Spirit has brought new life to the old dead life of the believer. Romans 8, 1 and 2, Paul writes, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. The Holy Spirit does the work of regeneration within ourselves, and this is an amazing, amazing work. Each of us here, I'm sure, could give a profound testimony to how the Spirit has done this work in our lives by literally opening our hearts and minds to the absolute truth and veracity of God's Word and the glory and goodness of Christ. The Holy Spirit does that within us. It's done that within us. And I'm so anxious that we're able to see that and talk about that to broaden our own understanding of how the Spirit works in our lives. But the work of the Spirit doesn't stop there. The Holy Spirit also seals us for the day of redemption and testifies to the promises of God in the life of the believer. It's a broad category, but it's an important one as it speaks to really the assurance that we have in faith, that we can have in faith. The Holy Spirit seals us for the day of redemption. In Ephesians 4.30, Paul writes, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. So when God gives us his spirit, one of its primary fundamental roles is that it acts as a seal. It testifies to the reality that we belong to God. Just as a seal and a letter testifies to whom the letter is from, the reality from whom the letter is from, the Holy Spirit testifies to this reality that we belong to God, we're his. The Holy Spirit also testifies to the promises of God given to the believer in this way, the Holy Spirit serves as kind of a pledge or a down payment for a second Corinthians one versus twenty one and twenty two. Paul writes, Now he who established us with you in Christ and anointed us is God. who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge. And there Paul speaks of this dual role the Spirit has, sealing us, testifying to the reality that we are gods and also serving as a pledge of the promises of God. He speaks of this again in 2 Corinthians 5.5, which I won't read. If the Spirit of God is in you then, you know that the promises of God are indeed yours for the taking. Paul writes in Ephesians 1, 13 and 14, in him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed You were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise who was given as a pledge of our inheritance. With a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory, do you see that the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives is is to testify to us, to seal us, to serve as a pledge to the truth and reality that all of the promises of God are ours for the taking. I think a very practical outworking of this is given in Romans 8-15. There Paul writes, he says, for you've not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you've received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry, Abba, Father. It is only through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we're able to cry out, Abba, Father, to God. It's only through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that we can know for sure that God is indeed our Father. He is indeed for us. And it's only through the work of the Holy Spirit that we know that He will indeed bless us with a very great inheritance in Christ Jesus. If there were no Spirit working these things in our lives, if we didn't have the Spirit as a pledge and testimony to the promises of God, then we could only speak in tenuous ways about God's promises to us. We would inevitably have to be plagued constantly with doubts. We would not be able to cry out, Abba, Father. But we have the Spirit and thanks be to God for this glorious work he does, serving as a seal and pledge of the promises of God. Another significant way that the New Testament speaks of the Holy Spirit is that it gives us gifts or it gifts us. It gives gifts for the edification of the church. I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but this is a place where many people are inevitably struggle over or perhaps even misled in understanding how the Spirit works in the lives of believers. The place where the gifts of the Holy Spirit are discussed is primarily in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. Again, this is when you look at the big picture of how the Holy Spirit works in the New Testament. This truth and reality that the Holy Spirit gives believers is pretty much limited to this passage in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. There are other ways that it's discussed, but it's not necessarily the major way that the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives is discussed. But it's important nonetheless. And in 1 Corinthians 12-14, Paul mentions these numerous gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us. One of these gifts is the gift of prophecy. We could debate and discuss whether or not this gift of prophecy continues today. I'm not going to do that right now. I'm going to leave that to Chris, who has written the book on that, or at least the paper on that. And actually, I certainly encourage you to talk to Chris, who comes out of a charismatic background where prophecy and and continuing revelation was a significant thing. And Chris has great biblical and practical insight on some of those issues as he's seen the challenge and difficulty and problems with some of those things. So I'm not going to talk about those things, but what I do want to say here is that when Paul talks about the gifts of the Spirit that God gives us, In every instance, they are gifts given to individuals for the common good of the church. God never gives spiritual gifts for the good of an individual alone. He always gives them for the common good of the church. So the gift of tongues is thought by many today to be a kind of of personal privilege and thought to be alone a kind of personal privilege, a secret and intimate way to communicate with the Lord. But that was never God's intention for the gift of tongues. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12, 4-7, speaking of all of these gifts that we receive, he says there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are a variety of ministries in the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons, but to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit. for the common good. In other words, if you have a gift of the Spirit, then it is for the good of the church as a whole. Any gift of the Holy Spirit that God gives His people is always and in every case given for the common good of the church, not for the benefit of a single individual. This is true with tongues. That's why Paul says they ought to be interpreted And Paul especially highlights this truth in the matter of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14, 3, Paul says, but one who prophesies and we can debate whether that gift continues today or not. But Paul says, nonetheless, in 1 Corinthians 14, 3, one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation. In other words, even the gift of prophecy is given not just for individual. Not to say, well, you as an individual choose door number one or door number two, it is given for the edification and exhortation and consolation for the church as a whole. Well, there's more to talk about there, and, you know, I've just raised a thousand more questions, I think. But for now, it will suffice to say that one of the glorious things the Holy Spirit does is it gives us gifts for the good and edification of the church as a whole. And we see this, brothers and sisters, we see this in our own lives, in our own church in profound and significant ways. I see it in every one of your lives who are here this evening as the Holy Spirit has gifted you in various ways. Finally, the Holy Spirit leads us in the work of sanctification. This is hands down the most widely covered and talked about role or work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. And by sanctification, we mean that process by which we're conformed more and more into the image of Christ, by which we're led more and more into holiness and righteousness. There are many, many passages that speak of the Holy Spirit and sanctification. 2 Thessalonians 2.13, God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit. 1 Peter 1.1-2, those who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6.11, such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirits of our God. And these are passages that speak directly of the sanctifying role of the Spirit. But there are many others that speak of how the Holy Spirit leads us in broad general ways towards lives of holiness and sanctification and even gifts us. I would put I would put that that great fruit of the Spirit passage of Galatians 5 in this category of how the Spirit leads us in sanctification. Paul writes in Galatians 5, but if you are led by the Spirit, You're not under the law. And then he continues down in verse 22. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things. There is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, Let us also walk by the Spirit. In Galatians 5, Paul is talking about what it means to be led by the Spirit. And what is conspicuously absent in this passage and in fact throughout the New Testament in all of this discussion on the Spirit are these ways that we commonly think the Spirit leads us by listening prayer or by some sort of urging that we can't explain that tells us to Go after door number one instead of door number two. Paul speaks in Romans 8, 12-14 about being led by the Spirit as well. And he says this, So then, brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body. Do you hear the sanctifying work of the Spirit there? If by the Spirit you're putting to death The deeds of the body you will live for all who are being led by the Spirit of God. These are sons of God. There again, Paul talks about being led by the Spirit of God, and he's talking about sanctification in light of these last two passages that speak of being led by the Spirit, Galatians 5 and Romans 8. I would say that only within the framework of sanctification can we properly speak of being led by the Holy Spirit. Because the Bible only speaks of being led by the Holy Spirit within the framework of sanctification. Does this mean we never say that we're led by the Spirit to do something? Does this mean that we ought not to seek the leading of the Holy Spirit? No, of course not. Paul says very clearly, we're led by the Spirit. Certainly, we ought to seek the leading of the Spirit. I think we've just got to understand what we mean then when we talk about how the Holy Spirit leads us. The Holy Spirit doesn't lead us directly or immediately through some sort of inner urges or promptings to do this instead of that, all things being equal. Instead, the Holy Spirit leads us by bringing us growth in love and good works and greater faithfulness. The Holy Spirit leads us to exhibit fruits such as joy, peace, patience, gentleness, etc. The Holy Spirit leads us by opening our minds to the truths of God's Word. The Holy Spirit enables us to embrace and receive those truths as we regenerate and as we grow in the faith. Without the Holy Spirit, I would be utterly lost, not because I don't know whether to take door number one or door number two, but because without it. Our hearts can't be regenerated, we can't have our eyes open to the truths of Scripture, we can't grow in sanctification. The Holy Spirit doesn't whisper in our ear and tell us to marry Rosie instead of Susie. The Holy Spirit doesn't give us some sort of direct sign that tells us to take that job instead of the other one. Sometimes the door closes and people say, well, the spirit in light of that led me to this. And I guess you could say that I would I would put that in the category of God's providence. If a door closes, then that's God's providence, not necessarily a leading or prompting from the Holy Spirit. But we can say this, as the Holy Spirit leads us in sanctification and holiness, as the Holy Spirit continues to open our hearts and minds to God's Word, it does help us to discern between choices, between Rosie and Susie, not directly, but indirectly as it leads us in the truths of God's ways. I guess I have a twofold concern as we talk about these things. And one is, I think that if this is understanding of the Holy Spirit that's so predominant, it's work in our lives, it's so predominant there. in much of evangelical Christianity. I'm concerned that that's the predominant understanding when that's not by any means a predominant understanding of the New Testament. And what this does for us is it brings us to a place where we're missing seeing these incredible, incredible blessings of what God does for us, what He actually does for us through the Holy Spirit. And the other concern is this, and I mentioned it two weeks ago when I talked about things, you know, I talked about this man who called up a pastor and said, hey, I just want you to know you're going to do great. Don't worry about your message this evening. And the pastor, I heard him talking about this, he said, well, thank you. The guy said, God told me to tell you that you're going to do great this evening. And the pastor said, well, thank you. I appreciate that encouragement, but I'm not preaching tonight, is what the pastor said. And I'm concerned because as soon as we start to say God told me or even led me to do something directly and immediately, We come under the instruction of what the Bible talks about for prophets, such as in Deuteronomy 18. And there it's very clear, as we saw two weeks ago, if anyone presumes to speak for the Lord who doesn't, he is condemned. By God. And that is serious business, brothers and sisters, and there are some practical ways as well that this can be a detriment. I want to read to you a little bit of something that Robert Rayburn, a PCA pastor, speaks about an experience of himself in speaking of this leading or promptings of the Spirit. He's talking about a friend of his that that was diagnosed with a terminal illness. And he says this, he says, the person shared with me and others that the Lord had revealed by means of a strong impression. In other words, in a direct way, the Lord revealed to this man through a strong impression that healing would take place. And this was given not just to him, but to other people as well. Not just to the sick man, but to other people as well. Healing would take place, the Lord told them. And even a severe physical deterioration gave us every indication that the doctor's prognosis were correct. My friend continued to act and speak as though healing would occur, even though every indication was that it wasn't going to happen. And Rayburn writes, the death of this individual came about contrary to what the so-called guidance he had indicated. And he says this, as I look back on this event, I see how this view of guidance prevented my friend from a significant work in the Christian life, namely to die well, giving glory to God who gives and takes away and to leave this world confessing before all that the judge of all the earth does right and that in Christ to die is gain. if he had been open to the real work that the Holy Spirit does in our lives, leading us in sanctification and holiness, and in particular, to the fact that the Holy Spirit serves as a pledge and seal to the promises of God, this man wouldn't have been distracted by these inner promptings or senses that he or others had if only he would have been open to how the Bible tells us that God leads by his Spirit. then he would have died well to the glory of God. And brothers and sisters, that really signifies perhaps my chief concern as we talk about how the Spirit leads us today. And I pray and hope that as brothers and sisters in Christ, we will grow in our knowledge and understanding of how the Spirit works in our lives. And that by no means do we end up like Israel in Zechariah. See, I told you it'll tie in somehow. Looking for things that are more akin to divination than the actual leading of God's Spirit. Let's pray. Let's pray together. It is with incredible gratitude and thankfulness, God, that we come to You and acknowledge how the Spirit has worked in our lives. We praise You that the Spirit has done this work of regeneration. We praise You that You have opened our eyes which were formerly shut to the truths of Your Gospel. You've opened them and revealed the glory of Your truths to us. We're thankful that Your Spirit testifies within us of the reality of Your promises given to us. And we're thankful that we're not left guessing or wondering whether or not these promises are true or whether or not we are indeed Your children. We're thankful for the gifts that Your Spirit gives us, for these gifts that are to be used for the good of the church. I am thankful for the gifts that have been used by others in so many ways for my own edification and growth. Lord, we're thankful that Your Spirit, having led us to Christ, does not abandon us, but leads us in sanctification. And I pray, Lord, that that process would hasten quickly along in our lives. That indeed, we would reflect Your holiness and righteousness more and more. that indeed we would hate sin, that we would hate our rebellion and learn more and more to walk in your ways, to in fact be led by your spirit. Lord, do these works among us. We thank you that you're doing and have done these works among us. I pray your blessing on us and your leading as we go from here this evening. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.