Welcome to the Plenteous Redemption podcast, where the cross and the culture are on a collision course for discussion. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God. By the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. For the Jews require signs, the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Unto the Jews a stumbling block, unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, here's your host, Thomas Ervin. All right. Well, we have been talking on Sunday evenings about the Holy Spirit. We're going through just basic Bible doctrine and try to make sure we're all on the same page and as far as that goes and we have talk quite a bit about several different ideas. We started with God the Father. We might have started with something else. I don't know. It was a long time ago. Actually, I got the list here. Let's see. This is our 21st sermon on this idea. And we started with the Word of God and then had three sermons on that. And then we did a Go Forth yearly update. And then talked about God the Father. We started with the Trinity, and then began with the Father, then the Word, and talked quite a bit about Jesus Christ, and then several sermons on the church and what that is. And then we got more into Jesus Christ, and now we're on the Holy Spirit and talking about those things. Hope it's been helpful. I know some of it is basic and you might be familiar with some of these things already, but it's never good to just assume people know. People come from all sorts of backgrounds and have different ideas about things. And, you know, sometimes people sit in church for years and you'd be surprised what they believe or don't know. I told you before we had a lady that sat in our church for years down in Florida and it turns out she was an atheist and nobody even knew it. And so how in the world could you sit here and listen to this? And yeah, it's interesting. So, all right, we'll start in Genesis 41 when we get there. So, if you want to turn there, just a real quick introduction, just a short study tonight, not a whole lot to it, but important nonetheless. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would occasionally involve himself in the lives of men. He would sometimes be on men. He is occasionally said to be in men, but he had not sealed men. And that is a drastic difference. You read of David begging God, please don't take your Holy Spirit away from me. And David had obviously done something horrendous, something terrible. His request to God was, could I please keep your Holy Spirit? That's an interesting request. And in the passage where he makes that request, he is unbelievably penitent. But it just almost makes you want to say, it hadn't done you any good. Why let you have the Holy Spirit? You still took Bathsheba, and you still killed her husband. So how exactly is having the Holy Spirit helping you? And if you don't listen to the Holy Spirit that is within you, then it's not going to help you. It's not going to do anything for you. In the Old Testament, sometimes the Holy Spirit would come upon men. A few times He is said to have been in men, but they were not sealed with the Holy Spirit to the extent that He stayed with them. He would come and go at times. It was a very different you know idea in the in the Old Testament and Jesus said is it is expedient for me to go away because when I go away then you are going to get the Holy Spirit and that's important because I mean God the father is a is a person. And he has a body right now. It is a spirit body, but it is still a body. The Bible describes God. God, the father is having nostrils that air flows through. He wrote the Ten Commandments with his finger. He's got a body and it looks like our body, but it's it's not a physical body of flesh. It's a spirit body. The Bible says if you know, angels are ministering spirits. And then the Bible says if you saw an angel, you basically saw a man. Mary ran to the tomb, and one Gospel says she saw two angels. The other Gospel said she saw two men. Well, which one was it? Both. They look like men. The Bible says you will entertain angels unawares. You just didn't know that your pastor was a pastor. What? What did you think I was going to say? You thought I was going to say I was an angel? I would never suggest such a thing. And if I did, what's with all the objection? But the reason the Bible can say that is if you saw an angel, you basically saw another man. It's what they look like. But though their body is celestial, it is spiritual. They have a spirit body. It doesn't mean that it lacks form and it looks like us. When the Bible says we're made in the image of God, you are physically made in the image of God and you are spiritually made in the image of God. God has a body like this. He sits on a throne. He's not like a glowing orb that sits on a throne up in heaven. He's got a body, the body that looks like the body of a man sitting on the throne. Our bodies are shaped like His. They look like His. Of course, we all have our differences in how we look as well, but for the most part, our bodies are made like His. And so, if that's the case, That limits God's ability to be everywhere all at once, to some extent. Don't take that the wrong way, because that just broke some of your brains. You'll see what I mean in just a moment. And then Jesus Christ, who was the word, took on a body of flesh. Well, that limits him even more. What if you needed to cry out to Jesus Christ right now, and the only thing you could do was go find him physically? Where is he? Right now, the way God can fix that is the Holy Spirit, who is in a spirit form, a different form than the physical form of God the Father and the physical form of God the Son, can be sealed inside of you, inside of everybody. He doesn't have that similar limitation. And so at times in the Old Testament, the Spirit could come upon man and be in different multiple places all at one time. Well, I mean, Jesus was in one place. Could he have been in multiple places at one time? Maybe. It doesn't seem that way because He had the limitations of a man. He was fully man, but he was also fully God. That same man, Christ Jesus, walked through a wall and showed up in the middle of the disciples and said, peace be upon you. Peace? You just walked through a wall. There's no peace. It's gone. Like, I don't know what's going on anymore. And so, he could do things that the average man couldn't do, but there were still some limitations because he was a man. And so, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is given to everybody that believes and lives in everybody that believes. So now, when you need to talk to God, you need to talk to Jesus Christ, you don't have to go the East. You don't have to go to a temple. You don't have to go find Jesus Christ walking around in Jerusalem and hope you can get to him. I mean, we read this morning, he's walking around and multitudes are following him. Well, how are you going to get through the multitudes and get to him? They want to get to him. Could you imagine if millions of people around the world found out Jesus was in Jerusalem, what it would look like? Man, people would be buying tickets and flying to Jerusalem, not because they trust in Jesus. They just want to go talk to him. or see him, watch him do some tricks. And so those are difficult, complex limitations, but if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, that's a whole different matter. Now you have direct access to God. He is in your heart, in your body, in your soul, in your mind. Now in the New Testament, men are sealed with the Spirit, and that is a special reality only given to the church. Nobody else got that. Nobody else gets that. Simply because we're born in this time, after the death of Jesus Christ, and we've trusted in the death, the burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we get the Holy Spirit sealed inside of us. And He stays there until God physically redeems this body. And then when this body is redeemed, there'll be no need, no more need for Him to be sealed inside of us. That's a special reality for us. After Christ ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit came to dwell permanently in believers until the Lord redeems these physical bodies. When Christ ascended, in exchange for his ascension, the Holy Spirit came down and fell upon all believers and has sealed all those believers. But we're going to look at a few places in the Old Testament. where the Holy Spirit shows up, just a few, and then we'll look at some things that the Holy Spirit does while He's here on earth. We talked about a few of these last week. I was here last week, right? It was, you know, I go street preaching in New Orleans on Saturday and it's so out of my normal schedule that it's just through. I feel like I've been gone for weeks and I haven't. And then, you know, of course, Wednesday we'll be going out of town again. And so it's just going to throw me all off. So, all right, let's read these verses together. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Look at Genesis 41. And we'll read verses 37 and 38. Verse 37. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such an one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art. Now that's two times in your Bible, two times I can think of, there may be more, I don't recall of any others, but twice a Gentile king recognized God in another man, in the life of another man, which is really interesting. In fact, when you read there what Pharaoh said, that makes me think Pharaoh knew a lot more about God than we probably give him credit for. Now that's both good and bad. It's good because he needs that knowledge in order to believe properly, but it's bad because most of the Pharaohs didn't turn out very well when it comes Godly sort when it comes to that idea. They were devils and they went after God's people, but Pharaoh said look we I've got this dream. We got this problem. I need it resolved and here's Joseph and It's not it's it's it's so interesting because he didn't say Joseph has a close connection to the gods. He He said the Spirit of God is in that man. And because the Spirit of God was in him, Joseph was capable of handling this problem that Pharaoh had. How did Pharaoh know there was a Spirit of God? Where did he get that idea? He knew a lot more than we would think. Because he's a pagan king, we have this assumption that he knows nothing about God. You'd be surprised how many lost people in this world that you would think know nothing about God know far more about God than you think they do. We talked recently about how Richard Dawkins you know, a world-famous atheist who hates God, recently had an interview in which he went on and on about how great it is to live in a Christian society, and that he prefers, if he had a choice, to live in a Christian society than any other. And yet he said, after saying all that and explaining how grateful he is to live in a Christian society, he said, but I don't believe Christianity is for, I wish people didn't believe in Christianity. How do you think you got the society you like to live in? It's amazing. It makes no sense. It's wild. It makes no sense. Exodus 31, but Pharaoh understood Joseph had the Spirit of God in him. And he said it with confidence, like he knew what he was talking about. You know, people like to talk about how that there's no Trinity in the Old Testament. It's absolutely in the Old Testament. It's all through the Old Testament. And here you have a lost man, you have Pharaoh saying, you know, there's a third member of the Trinity in that man. He's wise. Look at what he's able to do because of his connection to the Spirit of God. Look at Exodus 31, verses 1 through 5. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uriah, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and in brass and in cutting of stones to set them and in carving of timber to work in all manner of workmanship. So they're going to start this work on the tabernacle and they didn't just go hire any carpenter and say, you know, we need you to You've got to be able to carve stone, deal with precious metals. We've got a whole host of things that we need you to be able to do. Instead, they found a man that God had given the Holy Spirit to, and the Holy Spirit enabled that man to be able to be a great craftsman and take care of all the things that were needed for the tabernacle. That's a blessing. I would much rather have somebody like that working on the house of God and the things of God, somebody that was in touch with the Holy Spirit and in tune with the Word of God and was capable of serving God after a godly sort because the Holy Spirit had enabled that man, had prepared that man. That's far better than just hiring some random reprobate off the streets who may or may not be good at what he's doing. You don't know what his intentions are or what he's going to do. I remember, you know, we talked about those shirts that we used to wear, those red shirts that say Jesus saves on them and all that down in Florida. And our church was trying to get some printed one time and they tried to use a local printer, a guy who prints t-shirts there locally in the land. Well, I told you that the land is a, you know, they really want it to be sort of a liberal utopia and our church is ruining that for them. When they were having the shirts printed they used to say Jesus saves. Well this time they were putting Jesus saves sinners. So the guy printing them deliberately messed up all the shirts on purpose openly because he just didn't think it was he thought it was mean to add the word sinners to the church or to the to the shirts. And so what. I mean, this is hurting your business. We would have come back to you for years and years and years just print on, it's none of your business what we print on the shirt. It makes no difference to you what we print on that shirt. And I want to know that when somebody came along with curse words or alcohol or, you know, vile images that you refused to print that. Somehow I doubt it. Somebody comes along and wants to put the word sinner on the shirt, and you lose your mind and act a fool. And so we found somebody else to do it and gave them our money. And they were a good craftsman and took the job serious. And you don't have to worry about whining and crying over mean words like sinner on the shirt. You know, we want things done around here. It's a blessing. Brother Brandt, you know, he's having all this trouble where he's at. He's a plumber, but he came and installed these toilets for free. We were supposed to buy the toilets and refuse to take money for them and did all that on our behalf for free and then went out of his way. This is the difference. All right, if we just paid somebody to do that, anybody, they'd come in and saw the broken flange and that the pipes are in the wrong spot compared to where the toilets are and all that. And they just would have complained to no end and wanted tons of extra money to fix it. He came in, saw that. I didn't even know that until he had already gone to the hardware store, bought the parts and pieces needed himself, came back, fixed everything, made it like new, and then told me days later what happened. I had no idea. But he just took care of it. That's the kind of thing, that's who we want to do business with. That's who we want to be around. That's what God's talking about here. And this is a man in the Old Testament who has the Spirit of God. And when it came to taking care of the things of God, God's tabernacle and God's people, they went out of their way to do it right. and that's how things should be. We don't just doctor things up and patch things up. Fix it. Make it right. And praise the Lord for people like that. Look at Job 33. Job chapter 33. Look at one more in the Old Testament and then we'll shift gears. Job. Now Job is considered one of the oldest books in existence. And here it is talking about the Holy Spirit. Job 33, we'll read verses 1 through 4. This is Elihu running his mouth. Verse 1, Wherefore, Job, I pray thee, hear my speeches. That's how you know you're in the wrong place. Just listen to me. I don't know. I think I'm in the wrong spot. And hearken to all my words. Behold now, that's not what, you know, if I ever come to you and say, listen, listen to me and hearken to my words, you understand, you need to understand that you're probably about to get yourself in trouble. Now if I come to you and say, let me show you what the Bible says about what's going on in your life. Now you're on solid ground. Job's friends were not I mean, they were rough. So, hearken unto all my words. Behold, now I have opened my mouth. My tongue has spoken in my mouth. Yeah, that's the problem. Verse three, my words shall be of the uprightness of my heart, and my lips shall utter knowledge clearly. Why don't you come get some of my knowledge? Listen to me. This is going great. Verse 4, the Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. It took four verses before he finally said something that was true. That's not the kind of friend you want to have around. All right, now, a lot of what these guys said to Job, a lot of it was correct. A lot of it was right. Almost all of it's misapplied. They're trying to make Job guilty of something. They're trying to prove that Job did something wrong to cause God to do these things to him. It wasn't God that was doing it to him at all. It was the devil that was doing it. And in fact, it was because of Job's faithfulness and uprightness that had him catch the devil's attention and want to try this little experiment out. And God understood that Job was faithful enough to be able to handle such a test. And so there they are. And Elihu just, at least he understood that the Spirit of God made him and gave him his breath. And that's absolutely true. And that's one thing that he got right. All right, now, when Christ was on Earth, the Lord said the Spirit would be a good gift given to men from the Father. Look at Luke 11. Lord talked quite a bit about the Holy Spirit and His coming. And we're not going to look at all of those. We'll just look at a few of these. in reference to what the Lord is saying. We looked at several last week, but the Lord told us the Holy Spirit was coming. It's interesting when you talk to, when you read in John, when the Lord said the comforter will come, I think we'll read that in just a moment. Yeah, John 14. And when you start witnessing the Muslims, they'll tell you that that comforter is Muhammad, that when the comforter will come, that's the coming of the prophet Muhammad. And I always say it's interesting because Muslims, especially from the Middle East, they are very superstitious. They are terrified of ghosts. And so, they'll cut the, you know, and trying to witness to him, they'll say, did you know the Bible said Muhammad was going to come? I said, oh, really? Where is that? And I already know where they're going to take me to. I just want to give them a little rope so they can hang themselves. And so, they'll say, oh, John 14. They look it up on their phone. I said, John 14. So, I'll go there and I'll read it to them. I say, wow, Muhammad is a ghost? And they're like, no. I said, well, this says the Holy Spirit. The word spirit and ghost are essentially the same word in Arabic. Also in Luganda, in Africa, it's essentially the same word. Even in English, they have a very close relationship. There's very little difference between a ghost and a spirit, even in the English language. But he's called both the Holy Spirit at times and the Holy Ghost at times. And I'll say, that's interesting. Muhammad is a ghost? I thought he was a real man. And they're like, no, he's not a ghost. I was like, well, this says the Holy Ghost was coming. The Holy Ghost would be the comforter. You said Muhammad is the comforter. So that means Muhammad is a ghost. And they're like, no, just forget it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I was like, well, that's what you said. You said he was a ghost. So he wasn't even a real person. You people are following a made up person. And they don't know how to answer that. So they just want to stop talking about it. All right, Luke 11, verses 11 through 13. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? That'd be interesting. Can I have a fish? Here's a snake. No thanks. Verse 12, or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If he then being evil, well, thank you, Lord. That's a blessing. You bunch of evil fools. If you know not to give your son a scorpion when you're supposed to be giving him an egg, don't you think God knows what you need and what to give to you? All right, but he continues with it. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? So the coming of the Holy Spirit, the giving of the Holy Spirit, it comes from God. It comes from the Father in Heaven. There's no other way to get it. That's why it's so important to make this connection between the coming of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Spirit, salvation, and the Kingdom of God. Because you have no salvation. You are not saved. You are not born again. You do not get into the body of Christ. You do not get into the church if it wasn't for the Spirit putting you into those things. And the only way to get from there, you know, for the Spirit to get you into those things is for you to trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you fail to do that, you don't gain access to those things. There's no way. Now, as we talked about, you can find yourself in the kingdom of heaven. But if you are a part of that which offends and Jesus Christ returns, you will be removed and cast into the fire. So you don't want to be part of that which offends. You want to get into the kingdom of God, which then by default gets you into the kingdom of heaven at a later date when that time comes around. Look at John 14. The Lord prayed that the Father would send that very gift John 14 verses 15 through 17 verse 15. If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Praise the Lord. Alright, now the Holy Spirit does many wonderful things in our lives. Comforting us is probably among the top of them. because you're going to go through some things in this life. Life's going to be hard. You're going to lose people. Your body's going to give you problems. People are going to give you problems. You're going to wish you could lose people. There's going to be all sorts of things that are going to happen in this life, and you're going to need the comfort of the Holy Spirit to get through those things. And you don't want to go at life in that way alone. But Jesus Christ prayed that God would send, the Father would send you the Holy Spirit so that you could have Him as you go through this life. And that's one thing you should thank God for on a regular basis and make good use of. The Lord Himself gave the Spirit to His disciples in John 20, if you come to John chapter 20, verses 21 through 23. Then said Jesus to them again, peace be unto you, as my father has sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and saith unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose so ever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose so ever sins you retain, they are retained. But Thomas, we won't read that, that's not part of our notes. Thomas probably did that, which was right. But the Lord promised you would get the Holy Ghost. Then he gave the Holy Ghost to the disciples. Now, you could make the argument that in some form, the body of Christ began here. because one of the requirements or what part of the in order for the for this to happen. You have a chicken and egg type of situation. How are you going to get people into the body? That body has to exist and getting them into the body happens through the the second birth by trusting in Jesus Christ. And here you have the risen Lord Jesus Christ giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples. And so there's Something happened here in terms of the start of the church and then that carries over into Acts chapter 2 and in Acts chapter 2 the Lord said you would receive power and that is also connected to the coming of the Holy Spirit. So here the disciples got the Holy Spirit and then in Acts chapter 2 they received some power that was promised so that they could be a witness under the Lord but that was more broad where this is more this is the smaller group of disciples, whereas in Acts chapter 2, it's everybody that was in that upper room. And so the two of them together are significant when it comes to the start of the church and how you get put into or when you get put into the body of Christ. And you can make an argument for either one. Both are significant. Both are extremely important. You can't leave one of them out. And so That's a whole different topic that we'll get into some other time. We've already talked about it once or twice already, but we'll get into it more later before I die and not around anymore in about five years, six years, something like that. No? That's right. I'm an angel. We last a long time. Luke 24. Luke 24. They were instructed to remain the disciples. The apostles disciples were instructed to remain in Jerusalem until they receive that power. All right now the Lord. The Lord said that the father would send the Holy Spirit then in John 20 the Lord Jesus Christ gave the disciples the Holy Spirit the Apostles the Holy Spirit and then he told them I want you to stay in Jerusalem until you're in dude with power from on high and that again is connected with receiving the Holy Spirit. All right. So Luke 24 verse 49 and behold I send the promise of my father. No, we just read that. you know back in John 14 that the father would give the Holy Spirit also in Luke 11 the father promised to give the Holy Spirit and then in John 20 the Lord gave the Holy Spirit and now here we are with him saying the fulfillment of this promise will be And behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but Terry in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high and then that takes us, you know, Luke wrote the book of Luke and he wrote the book of Acts come to Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 1. Verses 1 through 5. Verse 1, The former treaties have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up, after that he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, Ye have heard of me." Verse five, for John truly baptized with water. All right now, Here's where he's going to make that distinction. He said that the father promised you're going to get the Holy Spirit right now. I want you to wait into Jerusalem till that comes but what what what don't what do we call this coming of the Holy Spirit? You know, what what is this? All right. Look he's going to make the distinction here verse 5 for John truly baptized with water. Okay. Well that's a physical baptism in water. It does nothing for you other than it's just a good thing for you to do. It's obedience. All right, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. So this coming of the Holy Spirit is the baptism of the Spirit. That is what puts you physically into the body of Christ. All right, so you could make the argument in John 20, the body was made alive, and we looked at it before. In Genesis chapter 1, God made man, and then how did he give him life? What did he do? He breathed the Spirit of God into him. That's what gave him life. In Ezekiel 37, he takes Ezekiel out, and he says, look at this valley of dead bones. This is the whole house of Israel. How did he bring that body alive? He breathed on them with the Holy Spirit. In John 20, he has the Apostle standing in front of him. He has promised them there is a coming body, there's a coming church. Well, how did he bring that body to life? He breathed in them the Holy Spirit. All three times, God used His breath to give the Holy Spirit, and then the giving of that Spirit is what gives you life. So when somebody says, well, he's dead spiritually, well, what do you mean by that? Or they'll say, in Genesis 3, when they sinned, their spirit died. I understand what you mean, but from a technical perspective in the Bible, if your spirit is dead, your body is physically dead. I don't mean figuratively. I mean, if your spirit is gone, your body dies. Okay, so it's not technically correct. I get the idea, the picture you're trying to paint, but it's incorrect from a technical perspective in the Bible. If your spirit is dead, your body is dead. And so when you say, well, their spirit died, well, he's still walking around. So I don't if you say he died spiritually. Okay, that's a little more clear because you're saying that they made a spiritual mistake and they're in trouble with God and they're going to die and go to hell. All right, that makes sense. But if you say his spirit died, that's incorrect. That means his physical body died. So to give Adam life God breathed into him the Spirit to give Israel life God breathed on them the Spirit to give the body of Christ life God breathed into those man the Spirit of God, but there was still the promise of another coming of the Holy Spirit and that is the baptism that begins to put people into that body. And that's what you have in Acts chapter 2 look at Acts chapter 2. And this all makes sense when we read Acts 2 and Acts 11. Acts 2 verses 1 through 5. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place and suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting and there appeared under them cloven tongues like as a fire and it sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave utterance. All right. Now this is a Pretty wild event, right? A pretty noticeable event, but they're going to equate this event with the promise Jesus made in Acts chapter 1 and also in Luke 11 and in John 14. The father promised the spirit is coming and Acts chapter 1 Jesus said when that spirit comes that will be a baptism of the Holy Ghost. Right here we read of the Spirit coming. The room is full of Jews from you know, then they spill out into the street and began preaching the gospel to devout men from every nation under the under the earth and now go to Acts 11. Acts 11 verses 12 through 18. And the Spirit made me go with them. That's Peter. Peter is explaining how the Spirit told me to go with them, and I just, I obeyed the Spirit and did exactly what he said. Well, not quite. Sort of. You eventually did what he said, but not initially. And the Spirit made me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house. This is going to Cornelius' house. All this took place in Acts chapter 10. Now in Acts chapter 11, If you look back at the beginning of Acts 11, look at verse 2, And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised. Why were you in that Gentile's house? And so Peter has rehearsed Everything that happened in Acts chapter 10, Peter's ready to explain to these men in Acts chapter 11, and so he's given his explanation. So come back down to verse 12. And the Spirit made me go with them, nothing doubting. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house. And he showed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon whose surname is Peter who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved and as I began to speak the Holy Ghost fell on them now listen as on us at the beginning now what's he what's he referring back to Acts chapter 2 He said that the same way the Holy Spirit fell on us and we saw cloven tongues like as a fire and we went out in the streets and began to speak in other tongues, the same thing happened to them. Now, what does he call that? Look at verse 16. So Peter is saying, God, the Holy Spirit told me to go to this man's house, this Gentile's house, because the other Jews back in Jerusalem were like, what were you doing in that man's house? You don't go to a Gentile's house. What are you doing in a Gentile's house? Peter said, God told me to go. God sent down this blanket full of, you know, meat and creeping things and all sorts of stuff. And he said, arise, Peter, kill and eat, which means that God expects you to eat meat and creeping things. And Peter said, not so, Lord. Not me. And he told him three times, Peter, get up, kill something, and eat it. And he's like, no, no, no, not me. And what the Lord is trying to show Peter is that he is no respecter of persons and that somebody is coming is going to be knocking on your door in a few minutes. And before they get here, I need you to understand that I preach. I need you to preach the gospel to the Jews and to the Gentiles. All of that is essential. And so then Peter finally gets the message and says, oh, it's it's it's not so much about the variety of meat set before me. It's that God is no respecter of persons and he wants me to preach both to Jews and to Gentiles. So Peter gets up and he goes downstairs and those men come from Cornelius house and are knocking on the door. He opens the door and he says, we were sent to get you and that you were going to come and tell us words. And those words would lead us to salvation. So Peter goes with them back to Cornelius house. He gets there. He preaches the gospel to him and he's telling these other Jews. He said the same way we got baptized with the spirit in Acts chapter 2. They got baptized with the spirit when I preached to them. It was the exact same thing, and it is the baptism of the Spirit, and it's not the speaking in tongues and all of that that is essential. The speaking in tongues, it is a sign to the Jews present that they got the Holy Spirit, that it happened. When you got saved and you got the Holy Spirit, who saw the Holy Spirit go inside you? Nobody you didn't see the Holy Spirit go inside you. All right, but as a testimony to the Jews that salvation is also given to the Gentiles the Lord had Cornelius and his family speak in tongues when they received the Holy Spirit that way Peter and the six men with them. He said six men came with me as witnesses. They're all sitting there watching this or like did they just get saved and then they start speaking. in Hebrew, though they're Italian. And now the men sitting there know they got the Holy Spirit. It just happened. And now we can go back and tell people in Jerusalem the Gentiles got the Holy Spirit. They were baptized with the Spirit the same way we were. And so God is going to save everybody and put everybody in the church who will trust in Jesus Christ. And that is significant in terms of the coming of the Spirit. So the Holy Spirit, He does many things on earth for the believer. He regenerates the believer, which is very important. He indwells the believer, which is very important. He seals the believer until the day of redemption. He fills the believer. He baptizes the believer into the body of Christ. He prays and intercedes for the believer. He comforts the believer. He empowers the believer. That's just a few things that the Holy Spirit does on our behalf. Man, the ministry of the Holy Spirit on our behalf is essential. It is unbelievably important. And so we want to make sure we thank the Lord for the Holy Spirit and the work He does in our lives. We talked about last time that interceding on our behalf. Praise the Lord for that, because you don't even know what to pray for for yourself. But He does. And you should take every care before God. God said, you have not because you ask not. So whatever it is you want, just ask God. Doesn't mean he's going to give it to you. But he likes you going through the exercise of praying and talking to him. But I just have to imagine sometimes he's looking at what we're saying and looking what the Holy Spirit inside of us is saying on our behalf. And he's like, man. Are you two coming from the same place? What is going on here? So, praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit. All right. Brother, would you pray for us? We hope you enjoyed this podcast. You can learn more about our ministry by visiting www.plenteusredemption.com. You can hear more Plenteous Redemption podcast audio at www.plenteusredemption.media. Please comment below if this podcast has been a help to you. Also, inform us of future topics that would interest you. Thank you again for listening to the Plenteous Redemption podcast.