natural men cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. Is that true in the Old Testament or not? And if those things are true in the Old Testament, and I would argue that they are, then to some extent the ministry of the Holy Spirit has to be the same kind of ministry. Flesh is flesh, and if all Old Testament people are is flesh, then they have no capacity to understand or respond to God, because those are things that are the product of the ministry of the Spirit. So we have to be very careful about how sharp of a line we draw between what an Old Testament saint was and a New Testament saint was, and again, we will get to that. He certainly is individually gifting these people for the ministry that he has for them to do. That's kind of a unique thing, right? It doesn't necessarily extend to the whole nation, but here is, right, this man and his workers are able to perform this task, not because of their superior craftsmanship, but because of the indwelling of God's spirit and what it has accomplished in them. Look at Numbers chapter 11, because this is another really prominent ministry in the Old Testament that I think, and again, without tipping my hand, is one of the major distinctions between his ministry in the Old Testament and his ministry in the New Testament. Numbers chapter 11, beginning in verse number 16. And the Lord said unto Moses, gather unto me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them, and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there, and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. And say thou unto the people, sanctify yourselves against tomorrow, and ye shall eat flesh. For ye have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, who shall give us flesh to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt, therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither 10 days, nor 20 days, even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it shall be loathsome unto you. because that you have despised the Lord which is among you and have wept before him saying, why came we forth out of Egypt? And Moses said, the people among whom I am are 600,000 footmen. And thou has said, I will give them flesh that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them or shall all fish of the sea be gathered together for them to suffice them? And the Lord said unto Moses, is the Lord's hand wax short? Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not. Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord and gathered the 70 men of the elders of the people and set them round about the tabernacle. And the Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto him and took of the spirit that was upon him and gave it unto the 70 elders. And it came to pass that when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not cease. But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad, and the spirit rested upon them. And they were of them that were written, but went not out of the tabernacle, and they prophesied in the camp. And there ran a young man who told Moses and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp, and Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses. One of his young men answered and said, my Lord Moses forbid them, and Moses said unto him, Envious thou for my sake would God that all the Lord's people were prophets and the Lord would put his spirit upon them and Moses get him into the camp, he and the elders of Israel. One of the ministries that the spirit has is anointing people for the service that he has for them. And it is alluded to here in Numbers 11 in this passage that is, right, you can see it's kind of going back and forth. We're gonna take the 70 elders, they're gonna bear the burdens with you, they're gonna share in it, and I'm gonna feed everybody. This is gonna end up being a judgment because of their criticism, not a banquet because of their blessing. And then he returns to the 70 elders, and then were we to keep reading, he returns yet again to the quail in judgment. God is going to take of His Spirit and He is going to place His Spirit upon other people so that they have calling. This is not the only place. Look at Joshua chapter... Well, that can't possibly be right. I missed and I have a typo here. So let me just see. Is it Joshua 3? I apologize. Oh, I'm sorry. I got Joshua here. Let's go to Judges 3. I'm not going to try and find my error. Four different judges are referred to as having an anointing. Judges chapter three and verse number nine, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel who delivered them, even Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. And the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he judged Israel and went out to war and the Lord delivered Cushan Rishathayim, king of Mesopotamia, and his hand prevailed against Cushan Rishathayim. And then Judges chapter six, And verse number 34, but the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet and Abbie Ezer was gathered after him. Judges chapter 11. And verse number 29. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpah of Gilead. And from Mizpah of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. And then even Samson in Judges chapter 15 and verse number 14. Right, we see a very formal anointing in the anointing of Aaron to the priesthood and the anointing oil. We will see it again with reference to David or the Bible talks about it with reference to David. And we have various men who are of whom it is said that the Spirit specifically came upon them for the discharge of their duties. Right, the Spirit came upon Joshua for this ministry. It came upon Moses for this particular ministry. It came upon Samson, Judges 15, 14. And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. It is true of Saul, 1 Samuel chapter 10, and Saul of course is a little bit of a perplexing figure because there is so much discussion about whether or not Saul is genuinely saved. I do not think that he was. And of course, to some extent, then, you're going, I'm, a guy like me is going to have to account for a passage like this, 1 Samuel chapter 10 and verse number 1. Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon his head and kissed him and said, is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? And so there you have not only the anointing, but kind of the formal process of anointing in the Old Testament, the use of oil to demonstrate and signify one's anointing. Now, again, I would argue, and although you have a passage where the Spirit of God did come upon Saul and he became another man and people treat that as his conversion experience and Saul is not really the subject matter here, I think that the biblical evidence is that Saul is not a believer. He really manifested nothing in the way of genuine, sincere devotion to the Lord ever. And fascinatingly enough, He didn't even know who Samuel was, which would be like meeting somebody in 1957 who says to you, I'm a Christian, and you go, well, really, tell me about Billy Graham. And they go, I don't even know who Billy Graham is. And Billy Graham was at the pinnacle of his ministry in 1957. That was his great New York City camp crusade. It was somewhat controversial. But there were hundreds of thousands of people that were coming to hear Billy Graham preach over the course of that campaign. But Saul didn't even know who Samuel was. And David later said, can we look at the Bible? Because we never looked at the Bible when Saul was the king. Saul does not seem to have any genuine spiritual heart. Anyway, so I digress a little bit there. 1 Samuel chapter 16. 1 Samuel chapter 16 and verse number 14. And I'm going to read this verse first. I'm going to read them in kind of reverse order. But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. Now, again, folks, if you read that through New Testament lenses. And you read the ministry of the spirit as being the same exact ministry, New Testament, Old Testament, then what you're contending with here is a man who's had the spirit withdrawn from him. And in light of the fact that the New Testament is adamant that people who do not have God's spirit are not saved, then what you have is the possibility of a man who was saved who lost that salvation, which causes us to reinvestigate many of our doctrines, the ones that we have about eternal security. But I would just suggest that what we have here is not a New Testament equivalent. I mean, there is a New Testament equivalent for this. But what we have is an anointing for a specific ministry task, which in Saul's case was to be the king. And if you look at verse number 13, then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him, the him being David, in the midst of his brethren. And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. but the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, Saul was no longer the king. And he was now disqualified from that task, and so he had lost the significance of that anointing, and that anointing then came to David. And I would argue that it is this anointing, right here in 1 Samuel 16, 13, and 14, that David is preoccupied with in his penitential Psalm 51, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. I don't think that David is thinking in terms of losing his salvation as much as David is in thinking in terms, and I don't even think this is selfish, but in terms of losing his station, so to speak. That his sin has, right, Saul-like that his sin has disqualified him from this service. I'm going to ask you, if you would, to jump ahead just a little bit to Matthew chapter 3. To be anointed, and we could We could just devote an entire Sunday School lesson to the subject of anointing in the Old Testament and the New Testament. But to be anointed is the word Messiah. The Messiah is someone who is anointed. And while it is absolutely positively true of Christ, It is also biblically true that Christ is not the only one to receive an anointing. He is not the only type of Messiah because God has tasks for people. He actually uses it of Cyrus the Great in Isaiah 45 to describe Cyrus the Great who has been called out by God for a specific purpose. So, right, whether that would be to be the leader of Israel, like Moses and the elders, or to have a position like Joshua's, or to have a position like the judges, or to have a position like the king, one was anointed. And the recognition was that this was not, right, the whole point is that this is not just some human being clamoring and fighting their way to the top and clawing for power, but that they had God's approval for their ministry. So this is spectacularly true for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is anointed for the purpose of being our Savior, to bring the Old Testament language in. He is anointed to be the one who will be our Savior. And we read about that anointing in Matthew chapter 3 verse number 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffer to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. and lo a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. So this is the official anointing of Jesus Christ for the ministry that God has for him. Happens when he's about the age of 30 and it is from here that he will undertake his public ministry and over the course of time reveal his true identity to his true followers. So all of that folks to point out the anointing And then we'll get into this in the New Testament. I'm just going to mention it this morning. We're not going to talk at length about it. But John points out that we have an anointing because New Testament saints have the Holy Spirit and we have our own anointing. And so we are part of the anointment of God's people. Back to the ministry of the Old Testament. He is present at and active in the creation. He is involved in the identification and the restraint of sin. He anoints people for the ministry that God has for them. He equips them to do the ministry that God has. The people who do these things are people who are operating in the power of God's Spirit, not in the power of their own human flesh. and ability. I'll go back to the Old Testament, to the book of Micah. In the minor prophets, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Onediah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum. Many passages address this, but none more clearly than Micah 3.8. He is, if I can put it this way, the Holy Spirit is the voice of God. Micah 3.8, but truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord. By the Spirit of the Lord and of judgment and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. In 2 Samuel 23.2, David recognized that his poetry was at times inspired The Spirit of the Lord spake by me. And so, David had, this touches upon the whole doctrine, by the way, of inspiration and versions. There are at least two and probably more instances where New Testament writers point out the fact that they know they are being inspired. It wasn't just something that people looked at many years down the road and went, yeah, this was probably inspired. David said, God spoke by me when I did this. Paul said, God is speaking through me. I have the mind of the Lord here in this. These are not just my words. So he is, I said the voice of God, he is certainly the power behind the words of the Lord as spoke by human beings. And again, we see that in the book of Acts. We will talk about this and devote some attention to it. You, although you are not pastors, although you are not prophets, although you are not preachers, in the formal vocational sense of the word, you are nevertheless commanded. It is a command to be filled with the Spirit of God. To be filled with the Spirit of God. This is not something that God has for a small band of full-time ministers, but something that God has for all of his people. And again, we will talk about what that is, what that means, and how that looks when we talk about the New Testament ministry. Back to the Old Testament, back to the book of Haggai. Haggai chapter number two and verses number four and five. And just to refresh, right, this is a post-captivity book. Israel is hauled into captivity by the Babylonians, lost their land, lost their capital, lost their independence. Seventy years of captivity. Now they're allowed to go back, rebuild the temple. It is an uphill battle, the temple is very small, the people are very despondent, they're very discouraged. And then God says to them this, Haggai 2, 4 and 5, Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord, and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedek the high priest. Be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work, for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts. According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you, fear ye not. So even in the Old Testament, folks, there is an abiding presence of the Spirit of God. Again, the context of this statement really matters. God is trying to get these people to get the temple. to rebuild the temple, and to restore Jewish worship. This is one of the reasons that we're devoting our Sunday nights to the book of Chronicles, the books that are, Zech Verses at Chronicles, that are devoted to this time frame, to a people who know what spiritual defeat is. Not just people who have lived on the upside of all of God's blessings, but people who have lived under the rod, And God takes them all the way back to Egypt and says, I promised that I would be with you. I am with you now. Now again, one of the, right, interjected into that, folks, is that somehow Ezekiel 10 and 11, God's glory departs, but the presence of his spirit does not. And so the Lord is with these people. He is with and has an abiding presence with Old Testament saints. They are the people of God. They are the people of God. Turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 4. I want to devote a little attention to this because one of the... Some of the questions that we raise about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament is not just the role of the Spirit in the Old Testament, but how Old Testament saints actually got saved. And I realized that many of you don't have, and that's not a bad thing. I was raised in a version of Christianity that placed a lot of reliance in the Schofield Bible. And so many of us were Schofield Bible devotees. And Schofield was pretty adamant that Old Testament saints were saved by works. which is completely untrue and unfortunately then colors something that is true, his belief in what we call dispensational theology. A more careful study of something like Romans chapter 4 should have helped Mr. Schofield to understand the error of his ways. All of that to say, the Holy Spirit folks is instrumental in saving people whether they're in the New Testament or the Old Testament. Salvation is a work of faith, and faith is a supernatural thing. It's not a human thing. It's not a man-made thing. And God has had only one Savior ever, and God has had only one plan of salvation ever. And that is faith. So that however we look at the law and understand the law and think about the practice of the law, folks, you have to understand that the law of Moses was never an instrument of salvation. Never, ever, ever was it intended to be an instrument of salvation. Because there's only been one instrument of salvation. Romans chapter four, we're gonna jump into the middle of Paul's argument here. What shall we say then, verse number one, that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found in his humanity. What did Abraham find? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. He could boast, but he would have no boast before God. For what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness, even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. So let's just put the question this way. What about Abraham who lived outside the law? And what about David who lived under the law? Were they saved by works? These are Old Testament people. No. No, they were saved by faith. The scripture says they believed God. They believed God. That's the critical juncture. They believed God. Well, what then, verses 9 through 12, what about the Jews? What about those who have been circumcised? Were they saved by their works? Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness How was it then reckoned or accounted or added to his balance when he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised. that the righteousness might be imputed unto them also, and the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. And Paul will eventually get to this, folks, in Romans chapter nine. All right, well then, who are the real Jews? Are the real Jews those who are physically circumcised? No. Those are people of the flesh, but God is after something in the heart and just a ritual performed to the body is not it. So anyway, how was Abraham saved? Not by works. All right, now again, folks, remember, we gotta import all this information back over. Is there something in Abraham's flesh that is different than the flesh that Paul is describing in the book of Corinthians? The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of the God, they are foolishness unto him. Is it biblically possible that somehow Abraham just was persuaded because he had a superior intellect? And the answer to that has to be no. And who is the member of the Godhead who is active in that ministry? God's Holy Spirit. So Abraham was not saved by his works. David was not saved by his works. Just the Jews are not saved by their works because of circumcision. Because again, and here's where I say, whenever we come to this passage, sequence matters so much. For Abraham, it was salvation, then circumcision. Just like folks, it is salvation, then baptism. Baptism doesn't bring about salvation. but salvation generates baptism, a sign, the visible demonstration of the sign. Back to Romans chapter four, verses 13 through 16. Well, what about then the keeping of the law? Because of course, technically circumcision is something that is done to infant males. prior to their ability to act, think, certainly to take any kind of note. Nobody in the history of the world has ever held an eight-day-old responsible for their conduct, I hope. Verse 13, for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith, for if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect, because the law worketh wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. So again we come and we ask, how were Old Testament saints saved? Not because they were circumcised, not because they are law keepers, but because they are believers. And Abraham is the paradigm, he is the originator, he is the man. He's not the first man to believe, he is the man who becomes the representative of how this works. I mean, it is in Abraham that it is most clearly and visibly demonstrated, the whole process, the whole sequence of events. And how then, verses 17 through 25, how is it that that faith becomes virtues, circumcision and works? How is it that faith becomes the instrument of salvation? As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed. Even God who quickeneth gives life to the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were, who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken. So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about 100 years old. neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness." I'm just gonna stop right there. All right, do you see what happened? God comes to this 100-year-old man and says, I'm gonna make you a father of the world, of many nations, and in you will all the families of the earth be blessed. And Abraham doesn't go, but I'm 100. And he doesn't go, but we've never had kids. And he doesn't go, this is nuts, this would never happen. He goes, okay. And I would just remind you folks, again, on the basis of Ephesians 2.8, that that kind of faith is God's gift. It is not humanly generated. For by grace are you saved through faith, not of works, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. Our faith is God's gift to us. And Abraham had faith. He becomes, again, the role model. In him, it is how God has chosen to do, which brings me then to verse number 23. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. So it wasn't just, right? These things didn't just happen to Abram and they weren't just recorded about Abraham so that we would know about Abraham, they're recorded so that we would know about Jesus. And folks, I think we have to recognize in a very real sense that Abraham didn't really know anything about Jesus. Abraham knew what God told him and he believed what God told him. That was the nature of his faith. Christ is the one who is sacrificed and die. All salvation is tied to the cross of Christ. Paul deals with that Romans at the end of Romans chapter three. So somehow the spirit of God, and I'm gonna have to stop here, I'm just gonna throw some verses at you and I will take up with them in the introduction next week. In John chapter three verses one through 15, Jesus fully expected that the leading Old Testament scholar, Old Testament scholar in the world, Nicodemus, should have understood the necessity of the new birth. In other words, what we tend to think of in distinctively New Testament terms, Jesus is pointing out to Nicodemus, he should have figured out on the basis of Old Testament Bible. And so the Spirit does, in the Old Testament, the same kinds of things that He does in the New Testament. But there are some key differences, and the Old Testament does anticipate them. It anticipates them in its comments about the new covenant that is coming, and the work of God's Spirit in that new covenant. It anticipates those differences in the book of Joel, when it makes predictions about the future and the pouring out of God's Spirit on everybody. And the New Testament recognizes them. One of the challenging texts is John 7, verses 7 through 39. But again, it's already 10 to 11. I don't have time to tackle that this morning. We'll just have to deal with it at a future time. All right, we will be back at 11 o'clock, and we will see you then.